Buddhist meditations for fear and pain.

[Maddie]

16 hours ago, Lairg said:

 

I am active on the inner planes.  Most of what I post is from direct observation

 

 

 

Ok, interesting. How do you determine if your observations reflect objective reality verses a subjective mental interpretation?

[Lairg]

4 hours ago, Maddie said:

How do you determine if your observations reflect objective reality verses a subjective mental interpretation?

 

I do series of experiments to test theories - and where possible have real time peer review

 

For example, a friend visited my place.  I pointed out a tree just over the fence and asked:  To which star is that tree connected.  She immediately replied Sirius.

 

So I pointed at another tree and asked: To which planet is that tree connected.   She immediately replied Venus.

 

Both those identifications were as I had determined a week previously by following the energy flows coming down into those trees.

 

 

Edited February 22, 2023 by Lairg

[Maddie]

20 minutes ago, Lairg said:

 

I do series of experiments to test theories - and where possible have real time peer review

 

For example, a friend visited my place.  I pointed out a tree just over the fence and asked:  To which star is that tree connected.  She immediately replied Sirius.

 

So I pointed at another tree and asked: To which planet is that tree connected.   She immediately replied Venus.

 

Both those identifications were as I had determined a week previously by following the energy flows coming down into those trees.

 

 

 

That's definitely interesting but since you use the word experiment and experiment connotates the scientific method I would not say that holds up under the scrutiny of scientific method.

[Lairg]

1 hour ago, Maddie said:

since you use the word experiment and experiment connotates the scientific method I would not say that holds up under the scrutiny of scientific method.

 

Observation (of flows), hypothesis (external origins), various tests/experiments with hypothesised origins, confirmation by a peer.

 

"More than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments. "

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/533452a

 

[Maddie]

47 minutes ago, Lairg said:

"More than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments. "

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/533452a

 

 

 

Yes but all this would do is disprove the scientist hypothesis because one of the characteristics of the scientific method is that it has to be repeatable.

[Lairg]

 

 

23 minutes ago, Maddie said:

all this would do is disprove the scientist hypothesis because one of the characteristics of the scientific method is that it has to be repeatable.

 

As you will know there are observer requirements in quantum mechanics - otherwise the Reality does not condense into the physical world.

 

This means that ultimately no physical world experiment is an absolute test of anything

 

Perhaps you could do your own inner plane experiments - and apply scientific methods first hand

[silent thunder]

Hmm not scientific lairg.

 

and... even among friends having a lark while hanging out casually...  Venus is now a star?

[Maddie]

3 hours ago, Lairg said:

Perhaps you could do your own inner plane experiments - and apply scientific methods first hand

 

I would know of no objective way to quantify that.

[Lairg]

10 hours ago, Lairg said:

So I pointed at another tree and asked: To which planet is that tree connected.   She immediately replied Venus

 

5 hours ago, silent thunder said:

.  Venus is now a star?

 

Each to their own

 

 

[Mark Foote]

On 2/20/2023 at 5:05 PM, stirling said:

 

In Buddhism there is only ONE plane of existence in absolute terms. The realms of beings etc. are relative teachings. Ultimately, shamatha meditation (where the mind is quiet and empty ) is merely resting in the nature, or reality, of that plane and seeing that all other imagined or contrived states of mind, practices,  or other impermanent manifestations are only the play of that relative construct, NOT the base of it. "Wholeness" (or unity) isn't accomplished by actioning a list of practices or actions, it is merely complete presence in this moment  with nothing else needed, no "self" present, no future or past, or other place to imagine being or acting in. 

 

https://tricycle.org/beginners/buddhism/two-truths/
 

From the article linked:
 

The conventional truth about something is its dependence on conditions. The ultimate truth is its emptiness. This doctrine has its roots in the words of the historical Buddha, who acknowledged that some experiences, in particular nirvana, lie beyond the ability of language to describe.
 

 

I prefer to think of Gautama's reticence to expand on some topics as a prescient awareness on his part of the truth demonstrated by Godel's incompleteness theorems.  In other words, some truths are beyond the ability of language to describe, without the generation of paradoxes and contradictions.

Paradoxes, of which the two truths is an example, IMHO. 

Generating headaches through meditation, not something I've experienced.  If I am unable to allow the ch'i to sink, I do sometimes get odd pressures around the surface of my skull.  

 

 

The one word, ‘relax’, is the most difficult to achieve. All the rest follows naturally. When we are able to relax completely, this is sinking.

(“Master Cheng’s Thirteen Chapters on T’ai-Chi Ch’uan”, Cheng Man-Ching trans. Douglas Wile, p 66)

[stirling]

On 2/21/2023 at 7:42 PM, Mark Foote said:

After you start, too.  

 

In fact, I would suggest an attitude of general relaxation ALL of the time. Even when you are running there is surrender in finding the least amount of required activity to continue forward.

 

From a Zen or Dzogchen standpoint I would say while it is easy to try to create a discrete set of steps required to finally arrive at resting in the nature of mind, what is really being accomplished is quite simple. We aren't attempting to contrive reality into something, but rather remove obstacles that stop us from just being with things as they already are. The quiet, luminous mind of "just this" isn't the result of any mental acrobatics, it is the natural consequence of allowing the illusory "selfing" process to come to a stop.

[stirling]

48 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

...some truths are beyond the ability of language to describe, without the generation of paradoxes and contradictions.

Paradoxes, of which the two truths is an example, IMHO. 

 

This is true. Of course, the Buddha had a spectacular go at it in one his fan favorites:

 

Quote

Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form. Form itself is emptiness, emptiness itself form. Sensations, perceptions, formations, and consciousness are also like this. Shariputra, all dharmas are marked by emptiness; they neither arise nor cease, are neither defiled nor pure, neither increase nor decrease. Therefore, given emptiness, there is no form, no sensation, no perception, no formation, no consciousness; no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no sight, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind; no realm of sight ... no realm of mind consciousness. There is neither ignorance nor extinction of ignorance... neither old age and death, nor extinction of old age and death; no suffering, no cause, no cessation, no path; no knowledge and no attainment. With nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on prajña paramita, and thus the mind is without hindrance. - Buddha, Heart Sutra

 

The perceived paradoxes or contradictions are the most pithy pointers! The Heart Sutra is actually quite a plain and literal statement of the facts as they are.

 

Form, sensation, perception, formation, consciousness, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind, sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, objects of mind, realms (any and all kinds), mind consciousness, ignorance or lack thereof, old age, death or lack thereof, suffering, cause, cessation, path, knowledge, attainment an anything else that is a construct of the mind are ALL delusions. Absolute reality LACKS any qualities, including these. However, Absolute reality supersedes, but INCLUDES the relative, so ALL of these things have their provisional existence in our experience. 

 

Introduction to the nature of mind, a common Dzogchen/Tibetan can clearly illustrate how this could be possible. I consider this introduction to be one of the pivotal teachings in any students understanding as it lays the groundwork for Kensho AND later Satori.

[Lairg]

4 hours ago, stirling said:

Form, sensation, perception, formation, consciousness,.. knowledge, attainment an anything else that is a construct of the mind are ALL delusions.

 

But are they purposeless?

 

Does the Source of All have purposes in manifesting universes?

 

Do humans have functions that assist in fulfilling those purposes?  Is human suffering purposeless?

 

I am not sure we are allowed to return to the Source of All until we have made our contributions to Its purposes.

 

I used to work as a laborer on the wharves.  It was "job and finish".  The faster we worked the sooner we went home.

 

 Perhaps human existence is the same.

 

 

Edited February 24, 2023 by Lairg

[stirling]

14 hours ago, Lairg said:

But are they purposeless?

 

Does the Source of All have purposes in manifesting universes?

 

Do humans have functions that assist in fulfilling those purposes?  Is human suffering purposeless?

 

I am not sure we are allowed to return to the Source of All until we have made our contributions to Its purposes.

 

I used to work as a laborer on the wharves.  It was "job and finish".  The faster we worked the sooner we went home.

 

 Perhaps human existence is the same.

 

The beauty of open awareness meditation is that we can explore these questions for ourselves. If you can sit with your mind quiet and empty it is possible to see how, without the thinking mind, there are just sensations, arising and passing away with no labels, or stories. This is the baseline of experiencing available to anyone who invests the time to see it. Honestly, it doesn't take that long. It's not hard, if you have someone who can point it out.

 

When it is seen that sensations arise and pass in this moment we can see that the things we would normally label as "itch" or "joy" or "fear" are actually complexes of sensations that we compile into complex multilayered concepts with our thinking minds. Seeing that there is a layer of "us" that can watch this process of thought construction helps us realize that those multilayered concepts are not what "we" are. The thinking mind is merely something that conceptualizes raw perception. What we are is what watches thinking mind generate the relative "world".

 

So:

 

Purpose is a mental construct that requires a subject, an object, the space for them to act in, and a timeline to operate within. Complete realization is the understanding that those elements are illusory, generated by the thinking mind. In reality there is just this moment, and the discrete events in the sense field that arise and pass. This doesn't mean we can't also assemble ourselves with the thinking mind into people, events etc., but it DOES mean (once the underlying reality is experienced as true insight) that we will never buy into delusion wholly ever again. 

 

The unity/emptiness (or All) has purpose, but it isn't a cosmology or timeline, it is the clear, loving, beautiful arising of this moment. Everything arising is intimately interconnected and inseparable.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indra's_net

 

The meaning is all generated in AND referencing this moment, including your memories of the past and thoughts about the future, because subject/object/space/time/self are all non-dual. The have no reality or existence of their own. 

 

Cosmologies in most non-dual teaching are eventually understood to be Relative - teaching tools nested within the Absolute. Gods, demons, buddhas, etc. can all appear to you, but they AREN'T the underlying reality, they are relative constructs. The dharmakaya/brahma/satchitananda/trinity - the "ALL" is the underlying reality. Just like what you think of as "you", the seemingly separate entities (including the gods) are illusory, symbolizing illusory aspects of the underlying wholeness. 

 

Human suffering is entirely caused by the delusion of having intrinsic reality. The delusion of intrinsic reality (belief in an "I" as a separate "self") is constantly being pointed to by relative reality. This is why many tantric paths use daily experience as they path - the Tibetan Buddhist and Bon traditions, for example. 

 

There is ultimately no "returning to the source". The delusion is that what we are has EVER BEEN separated from the source. 

 

Quote

When Dongshan was ready to leave his teacher, Yunyan, Dongshan asked, “Later on, if someone asks me if I can depict your reality, or your teaching, how shall I reply?” This is a funny question because it might also be read as, “What if someone asks me if I have your picture?” Back then they passed on pictures of the teachers as a sign of transmission. But also, the question really means: If someone asks, how shall I describe your reality, your dharma, your teaching? Yunyan paused, and then said, “Just this is it.” - From the Record of Dongshan

 

Where is the source? Where almost all religions say it is. Everywhere. Right here. Just this is it. The only thing lacking is the realization that what you are presently experiencing has always been what you seek.

 

In my experience it isn't about how fast or how hard you work. It is about making yourself accident prone. Getting lost in our stories about how the universe is, the structure, our clinging to our beliefs, all works to simply become more entrenched. Dropping to the basic level of experiencing gives us the opportunity to take apart all of that. Being present as often as possible is actualizing enlightenment in this moment.

 

Quote

“Gaining enlightenment is an accident. Spiritual practice simply makes us accident-prone.” – Suzuki Roshi

 

This is my experience and understanding of how things are.

 

[Mark Foote]

On 2/24/2023 at 10:13 AM, stirling said:

 

The beauty of open awareness meditation is that we can explore these questions for ourselves. If you can sit with your mind quiet and empty it is possible to see how, without the thinking mind, there are just sensations, arising and passing away with no labels, or stories....

 

From a comment I made earlier on this thread:

 

Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler experience, studying in Japan:

 

I have labored for years to open out my meditation—which is, after all “just sitting”—away from reliance on heavy-handed internal or external concentration objects, and toward a more subtle, broad, open awareness. Roshi-sama is said to be a master of this wide practice of shikantaza, the objectless meditation characteristic of the Soto school. But he insists, again and again, weeping at my deafness, shouting at my stubbornness, that hara focus is precisely shikantaza.

 

… “Shikantaza not here,” he insisted in elementary English, pointing to his head. “Not here,” he continued, pointing to his heart. “Only point here!” He drove his fist into his lower belly, the energy center that the Japanese call hara.

 

(“Two Shores of Zen:  An American Monk’s Japan”, Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler, pg 4-5)

 

I would say that it happens that sometimes the breath necessitates the placement of attention at the hara, shifts the placement of attention around in the hara.  And sometimes particular senses enter into the placement of attention, so that even "people who are moving around outside all sit with you".  

I sit, and I relax, calm down, let go of my thoughts, and find some presence of mind.  I'm looking to relinquish habitual or volitive activity in the movement of breath.  It's not shikantaza until the activity of the body in the movement of breath follows from the placement of attention, purely from the location of attention at the moment, even as that location shifts:
 

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

(Dogen, "Genjo Koan", tr Tanahashi and Aitken)

Edited February 26, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Lairg]

1 hour ago, Mark Foote said:

Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler experience, studying in Japan:

 

...Roshi-sama is said to be a master of this wide practice of shikantaza, the objectless meditation characteristic of the Soto school. ......

 

… “Shikantaza not here,” he insisted in elementary English, pointing to his head. “Not here,” he continued, pointing to his heart. “Only point here!” He drove his fist into his lower belly, the energy center that the Japanese call hara.

 

I find it odd that the most important chakra for spiritual development is the second to lowest - as if the Creator had some left over parts for the human and just stuck them on the top.

 

I wonder if women have a different view about the most important chakra.  

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Lairg

[Cobie]

8 hours ago, Lairg said:

I find it odd that the most important chakra for spiritual development is the second to lowest - …

 

Exactly. Ime we have them all, because we need them all (equally).

 

Quote

I wonder if women have a different view about the most important chakra.  

Ime the heart is the centre .   
 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Cobie

[stirling]

15 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

From a comment I made earlier on this thread:

 

Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler experience, studying in Japan:

 

I have labored for years to open out my meditation—which is, after all “just sitting”—away from reliance on heavy-handed internal or external concentration objects, and toward a more subtle, broad, open awareness. Roshi-sama is said to be a master of this wide practice of shikantaza, the objectless meditation characteristic of the Soto school. But he insists, again and again, weeping at my deafness, shouting at my stubbornness, that hara focus is precisely shikantaza.

 

… “Shikantaza not here,” he insisted in elementary English, pointing to his head. “Not here,” he continued, pointing to his heart. “Only point here!” He drove his fist into his lower belly, the energy center that the Japanese call hara.

 

(“Two Shores of Zen:  An American Monk’s Japan”, Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler, pg 4-5)

 

I would say that it happens that sometimes the breath necessitates the placement of attention at the hara, shifts the placement of attention around in the hara.  And sometimes particular senses enter into the placement of attention, so that even "people who are moving around outside all sit with you".  

I sit, and I relax, calm down, let go of my thoughts, and find some presence of mind.  I'm looking to relinquish habitual or volitive activity in the movement of breath.  It's not shikantaza until the activity of the body in the movement of breath follows from the placement of attention, purely from the location of attention at the moment, even as that location shifts:
 

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

(Dogen, "Genjo Koan", tr Tanahashi and Aitken)

 

At Rohatsu Sesshin a few years ago, the topic of the Hara came up in discussion after a dharma talk. There were two Rinzai students (now realized teachers) of Harada's,  and one of the original SF Zen Center Soto teachers present. (Yes, I am lucky!) Amongst us, only one of the Rinzai teachers had been given any instruction on the Hara early on in his training.

 

The Hara is an interesting idea, but I think it must be considered a Relative teaching, like all other meridian or energy system teachings. I don't think there is anything wrong with the practice. If a teacher assigns it, I'd consider it "skillful means". A realized teacher will understand that the Hara itself has no intrinsic nature. 

 

I myself found that there was a hot "knot" in the frontal lobe area of my head while sitting, late in the process of trying to completely dissolve my "self". Like all persistent phenomena (pain or discomfort, for example) I put my attention on it and it felt as though it "untied". It was definitely in my way, as the process completed itself a day later, BUT working with it doesn't change its Absolute nature. There is no practice that precipitates enlightenment.

 

Quote

Due to having faith one relies on the practices, Due to having wisdom one truly knows. Of these two wisdom is the chief, Faith is its prerequisite. - Nagarjuna, The Precious Garland

 

[Mark Foote]

4 hours ago, stirling said:

 

The Hara is an interesting idea, but I think it must be considered a Relative teaching, like all other meridian or energy system teachings. I don't think there is anything wrong with the practice. If a teacher assigns it, I'd consider it "skillful means". A realized teacher will understand that the Hara itself has no intrinsic nature. 

 

 

Here's Rinzai teacher and sword master Omori Sogen on the topic:

 

In the Yagyu-ryu (a school of swordsmanship), there is a secret teaching called “Seikosui”. Yagyu Toshinaga, a master of the Yagyu-ryu, taught that it was especially important to concentrate vital energy and power in the front of the body around the navel and at the back of the body in the koshi (pelvic) area when taking a stance. In other words, he means to fill the whole body with spiritual energy. In his “Nikon no Shimei” (“Mission of Japan”), Hida Haramitsu writes:

 

“The strength of the hara alone is insufficient, the strength of the koshi alone is not sufficient, either. We should balance the power of the hara and the koshi and maintain equilibrium of the seated body by bringing the center of the body’s weight in line with the center of the triangular base of the seated body.”

 

… we should expand the area ranging from the coccyx to the area right behind the navel in such a way as to push out the lower abdomen, while at the same time contracting the muscles of the anus.

 

… It may be the least trouble to say as a general precaution that strength should be allowed to come to fullness naturally as one becomes proficient in sitting. We should sit so that our energy increases of itself and brims over instead of putting physical pressure on the lower abdomen by force. 

 

(“An Introduction to Zen Training: A Translation of Sanzen Nyumon”, Omori Sogen, tr.
Dogen Hosokawa and Roy Yoshimoto, Tuttle Publishing, p 59, parentheticals added)

 

My comment:

 

For me, I cannot experience anything of what Sogen described without combining the relaxation of particular muscles with the exercise of calm in the stretch of particular ligaments.  The idea for me is not to exercise strength, but to let the stretch of ligaments generate the activity of muscles that contract in alternation to maintain the balance.  It may be that the muscles I’m engaged to relax are on either side of the centerline in the lower abdomen, and it may be that stretch in the ligaments of the lower spine, sacrum and tail bone necessitates continued calm.

 

(Common Ground)
 

It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that emptiness swing.