Anchoring the breath - regarding attention

[Creation]

14 minutes ago, freeform said:

One of the biggest benefits of silent retreats, in my opinion  

Got one coming up! Going to make the most of it.

[freeform]

Just now, Creation said:

Got one coming up! Going to make the most of it.

That’s great!
 

You’ll get a lot out of it I’m sure.

 

With your prior training you’ll find that you will build a ton of qi in the short time available (even without doing the Neigong practices).

 

There’s a sensitive period at the end of that sort of retreat… most people get very excited and immediately lose all the qualities they’ve achieved as soon as they start speaking and interacting with others.

Don’t get drawn into it if you can…

 

Keep your qi sunk and carry the qualities through to your daily life is my advice. 

[Piyadasi]

1 hour ago, freeform said:

There’s a sensitive period at the end of that sort of retreat… most people get very excited and immediately lose all the qualities they’ve achieved as soon as they start speaking and interacting with others.

Don’t get drawn into it if you can…

 

Keep your qi sunk and carry the qualities through to your daily life is my advice. 

I think this is great advice, I've been noticing a smaller version of this in daily training. If it's gone really well and I feel great, sometimes that energy will shoot straight into that sort of stimulation seeking, excitement mindset... and then all that great progress gets lost or diminished... Have to be careful to stay solid, sunk and stable.

🙏

[dwai]

3 hours ago, Creation said:

When Buddhist texts were translated into Chinese, they chose word that would typically translate to law to translate the Sanskrit word dharma. In a Chinese religious context, then, it came to take on the full implications of the original Sanskrit word, as would be expected.

It makes sense in that context. Perhaps the Chinese word doesn’t directly translate to “law” in English either?

3 hours ago, Creation said:

 

Feel free to take it up with Kumarajiva or Xuanzang if you think they were wrong.

I’ll do that next time I hang out with the boys  

[Cleansox]

38 minutes ago, dwai said:

Perhaps the Chinese word doesn’t directly translate to “law” in English either?

Most likely, the character used would have carried more meaning than that. 

[awaken]

中文的『法』，不是單指『law』，這個上次就說過了，怎麼還是在糾纏這點呢？

 

法性，法門，法力，方法，萬法....

 

 

[awaken]

23 hours ago, dwai said:

आप बहुत मजाकिया हैं, और निष्क्रिय-आक्रामकता को एक नई ऊंचाई पर ले गए हैं। ऐसा लगता है कि आप दूसरों की प्रथाओं और पदों के बारे में अपनी कृपालु टिप्पणियों को छिपाने के लिए चीनी में पोस्ट कर रहे हैं, जबकि ऐसा करने का साहस नहीं कर पा रहे हैं जिसका सीधे जवाब दिया जा सकता है। मुझे आपको यह बताते हुए खेद हो रहा है कि यह आप पर एक व्यक्ति के रूप में, निश्चित रूप से एक "स्व-घोषित" शिक्षक के रूप में बल्कि खराब रूप से दर्शाता है!

 

很好啊，你有種你就全部都寫這個，都不要用英文

[awaken]

20 hours ago, Piyadasi said:

I think this is great advice, I've been noticing a smaller version of this in daily training. If it's gone really well and I feel great, sometimes that energy will shoot straight into that sort of stimulation seeking, excitement mindset... and then all that great progress gets lost or diminished... Have to be careful to stay solid, sunk and stable.

🙏

 

 

偉大的進步不會因為你跟人爭論就消失，相反的，偉大的進步，只會因為你的懈怠而消失

 

懈怠才是最大的敵人，這一點從佛經當中，特別是阿含經，都可以很明顯地看得出來

 

 

[centertime]

Where are Mitchell's videos that about this topic?

[-_sometimes]

11 hours ago, centertime said:

Where are Mitchell's videos that about this topic?

 

[salaam123]

------

Edited April 6, 2022 by salaam123
I will make a new post about my message

[-_sometimes]

To those beginners considering this exercise, or perhaps feeling disheartened by the lack of progress, do continue forward

I stopped for about a month after this post trying other things, and eventually returned back to it. I do one session a day, and only now am I beginning to notice changes. I've probably done the anchoring the breath about 70-100 times so far, give or take (I don't quite remember when I began). 

I'm starting to notice little things about my attention; my ability to direct my attention regardless of the times my mind goes to another part of the body, has improved - I feel mentally stronger during my meditation now, less in servitude to the whims of my mind. I'm able to focus a little better on the actual body parts not the place I imagine them to be. I can see I have been carrying tension in my attention, even carrying a pessimist attitude of "there's no way I can do this" within my attention, which was really strange to notice! 

 

I have a tremendous way to go, just to be able to place attention on the physical body as opposed to a distorted mental representation of it, but after what feels like countless sessions of getting absolutely nowhere, being utterly disheartened, and giving up for a bit, I can say that it is worth sticking with this practice. If I, monsieur neurotic, can make progress, I'm certain anyone else can too! Stick with it!

Edited May 13, 2022 by -_sometimes

[Trunk]

On 2/13/2022 at 7:12 AM, -_sometimes said:

I guess what I'm trying to say is, is it possible to place attention into different parts of the body from a localised approach? My attention direction is top-down based right now; the head seems to act as the centre point, and then moves down to place awareness wherever, but the body should be like this everywhere? Aka attention on the eyes should come from the eyes, attention on the abdominal cavity should come from the abdominal cavity, ... ?

 

(Apologies if I'm repeating what others have already written; I haven't read all previous posts.)

 

First of all, just to recognize that there are a number different modes, phases, of experiencing awareness~identity.  And it's not a matter of rigidly always shooting for one as 'the right/best', but becoming more aware of the variety and their relation.  ... and that the overall general direction is towards more complete and more fluent integration.

 

One term that I find useful is "yi" meaning, "focus of awareness".  Several varieties, not a complete list.

- Generally we start with somewhat diffuse yi and top-down (up in our heads).

 

- "Following the breath" (and variations) meditations train our attention to travel vertically up & down within the torso, and the breath acts as a go-between to help integrate awareness with the body.  Also, adding awareness to breath sparks the qi of the lungs throughout the body... just this simple practice does a lot to activate and blend.  This progresses in myriad schools ways/methods (hatha yoga, breathing into stretching areas, etc), moving & refining energies, layers of the body, and perhaps a culmination is some kind of whole body breathing.  (Just to broadly refer to a huge amount of material in one sentence.)

 

- There are very focused methods of working with yi.  Placing your attention in specific focused location/s.  I would suggest that the simplest and most useful approach to this is to have a small sphere-like focus that refines energy (aka "pearl"), at still places along the center-line.  (There are also several potent other places such as kidney 1, center of palm.)  But the potent still places along the vertical center line tap into the nerve plexuses and hormonal ladder, as well as the deeper spiritual potent points that help to keep the body together in advanced practices.  Reference free artsy essay here.

 

- Often yi is moved slowly and repeatedly between two potent points to help activate and integrate their natural polarities.  Much of energetic layout is summed up as a series of resonant polarites separated by semi-permeable membranes.  Things degrade as those connections degrade.  Integration keeps 'em alive.  Some substantial portion of qigong is activating these sort of magnetic polarities.  (And, more deeply, going into the non-dual.)

 

 

That was kind of an all-over-the-place overview.

Hopefully is was more helpful than confusing.

 

Best of luck,

Keith