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Achmed Jones posted:what are you talking about? you practice good things to get better at doing them, until behaving that way is automatic and thoughtless. That's my point: that should just be normal behavior! It shouldn't require practice, much less full liberation. That should be normal. Compassion, empathy, mercy; these should all be normal human qualities. This is how people should interact with each other, not a thing to aspire to. If that's work, than there's more to look at than your daily practice.
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Mar 11, 2024 16:23
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Mushika posted:That's my point: that should just be normal behavior! It shouldn't require practice, much less full liberation. That should be normal. Compassion, empathy, mercy; these should all be normal human qualities. This is how people should interact with each other, not a thing to aspire to. If that's work, than there's more to look at than your daily practice.
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Mar 11, 2024 16:28
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Achmed Jones posted:that's not _false_ but the takeaway shouldn't be "don't practice mercy." the takeaway is "reveal the mercy that's already there."
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Mar 11, 2024 16:31
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Mushika posted:That's my point: that should just be normal behavior! It shouldn't require practice, much less full liberation. That should be normal. Compassion, empathy, mercy; these should all be normal human qualities. This is how people should interact with each other, not a thing to aspire to. If that's work, than there's more to look at than your daily practice. there's no tension between "how things should be" and "what we should aspire to." we _should_ all be enlightened beings that don't need any help doing the right thing automatically and without hesitation at all times. but it's not the case for any of us, what with all the obstacles and such. what you're saying is...not especially useful
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Mar 11, 2024 16:37
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I apologize to the thread, as I've had a really rough and long night at work. However, I will still maintain that empathy is an intrinsic human trait and enlightenment is not required for it. It is beaten out of us.
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Mar 11, 2024 16:39
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Mushika posted:I apologize to the thread, as I've had a really rough and long night at work.
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Mar 11, 2024 16:44
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Nessus posted:I think that’s an example of the occlusions Jones referred to. It may also be valuable for someone with less occlusion of their empathic qualities to do deliberate practice, just like a big strong person may end up even stronger with purposeful effort Maybe I've just surrounded myself with people that share my sense of empathy? Perhaps I avoid people who don't share that, and that's definitely a shortcoming of myself? I don't know. I really don't know.
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Mar 11, 2024 16:51
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Mushika posted:That's my point: that should just be normal behavior! It shouldn't require practice, much less full liberation. That should be normal. Compassion, empathy, mercy; these should all be normal human qualities. This is how people should interact with each other, not a thing to aspire to. If that's work, than there's more to look at than your daily practice. I think those are things to look at more broadly than a seated practice, and recognizing any problem behavior is too. A lot of people do crappy things because that's the way that they were treated, and it's painful to examine that. I think that this is a good conversation, and as said before, I think that you are right to point out that the dichotomy between practicing and it happening effortlessly is ultimately a symptom of a problem.
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Mar 11, 2024 17:41
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Have you seriously never been in the situation where you’re feeling just awful and someone upsets you and you catch your anger response, take a deep breath so as not to act on it, then let it go and do whatever else is warranted? ‘Cause I would definitely call that practicing rooted in empathy.
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Mar 11, 2024 18:27
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Thirteen Orphans posted:Have you seriously never been in the situation where you’re feeling just awful and someone upsets you and you catch your anger response, take a deep breath so as not to act on it, then let it go and do whatever else is warranted? ‘Cause I would definitely call that practicing rooted in empathy. I don’t disagree that people ought to be more empathetic at all, either, it’s just a case where clearly there are deficiencies and practices of compassion work towards bridging the gap
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Mar 11, 2024 18:31
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I can appreciate wanting to represent people as innately empathetic and kind especially when there are many people nowadays that try to espouse selfishness or individuality as "human nature" in order to justify inequality or other pervasive issues. I would agree that people want to do good, but our skill in doing so Is something we can always work on. I'm sure most of us have been in a situation where someone is venting to us or complaining about a problem, and you offer "good advice", but they get frustrated because they just wanted somebody to listen to them. The advice is offered in an attempt to help, but it's not what the person needs at that moment. This is what I think cultivating compassion is about, being alive and awake to what people actually need from us. Whether or not it takes a enlightened mindset, I have no idea. What my teacher tells me is "If you see a hungry person, feed them." It doesn't matter what feelings or mind state you have when you feed them, what matters is they get fed. Of course you might not see the hungry person if you are distracted by thinking, or maybe some sort of nervousness about appropriateness will stop you if you don't have much practice with charity. Then there's also the fact that it won't always be as straightforward as them being hungry, it can be infinitely subtle and require you to be quite sensitive and awake to the world to understand the skillful thing you can do to help. All of this is to say that I agree, I do think fundamentally people want to help each other and be good, what we need practice at is becoming skillful at it
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Mar 11, 2024 19:38
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Mushika posted:That's my point: that should just be normal behavior! It shouldn't require practice, much less full liberation. That should be normal. Compassion, empathy, mercy; these should all be normal human qualities. This is how people should interact with each other, not a thing to aspire to. If that's work, than there's more to look at than your daily practice. This is a lot of "should". Normative statements risk losing sight of the nature of the world as it is in favor of some ideal. It is tanha when we cling to this ideal, and we bring suffering through judging the world/ourselves/others/etc. for failing to live up to our ideal.
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Mar 11, 2024 21:38
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A lot to respond to here. I'm genuinely sorry that I can't address it all.Visions of Valerie posted:This is a lot of "should". Normative statements risk losing sight of the nature of the world as it is in favor of some ideal. It is tanha when we cling to this ideal, and we bring suffering through judging the world/ourselves/others/etc. for failing to live up to our ideal. This is perhaps the best response I could hope for. It's ultimately my failing for my own expectations. It is truly tanha, you are correct.
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Mar 12, 2024 00:12
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yeah i don't think anyone disagrees with you that it should be that way, that empathy and compassionate action should be the default and indeed that's the core premise of buddhist practice. practically, though, people struggle, the world can be loving savage to people, and it often does take some sort of external push or internal conscious effort (or even practice) to react to the world in a way other than just closing off or getting combative or just getting hosed upnice obelisk idiot posted:Well, like take a person in an abusive relationship. The abuser often exploits the abused person's capacity for compassion, empathy, and mercy to excuse intolerable behavior. Years of this can erode that capacity, and they may need a lot of difficult therapy, meditation, and positive social experiences before it can start to recover. actually living ethically (and this means wrt how you treat yourself just as much as it does towards others) is a lot more important than a good sitting practice. ideally, of course, someone does both, but if someone only does one, the former is a lot more important. doing only the latter, while not useless, would really be missing the point. obviously there's nothing someone can do for 30 minute a day that will negate what they do for the other 23:30 really though idk why someone would go through the discomfort of sitting that much without some interest in actually making an effort to be compassionate and live ethically Achmed Jones posted:that's not _false_ but the takeaway shouldn't be "don't practice mercy." the takeaway is "reveal the mercy that's already there." Also seconding this, that read to me as a very specific statement intended for people in a specific situation more than something universally applicable. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Mar 12, 2024 |
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Mar 12, 2024 00:48
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Herstory Begins Now posted:actually living ethically is a lot more important than a good sitting practice. RaisinPower posted:Sorry to reply to a question from like two years ago. I'm new to SA, catching up on the Buddhism thread, saw this on page 34 and wanted to mention dhammatalks.org. There is a pretty big collection of talks there that don't require youtube and can be played directly or downloaded as mp3 if you like. I haven't listened to more than a few minutes, but it seems legit so far.
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Mar 12, 2024 01:45
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With the dust settling I think I should also note that "practice" doesn't always mean "do a thing to get better at it," but also can mean more "put into practice," that is, "make actual our knowledge of something." We say we practice medicine and while that's often used cheekily to remind us that nobody is perfect at medicine and we're always learning, your surgeon shouldn't be trying to do a surgery right, but rather they are putting into action the things they know. Likewise, this practice of mercy, practice of compassion, isn't necessarily always in the sense of "doing this thing that is hard and unnatural," but rather, "put into action this thing that has been learned or cultivated." Months before I ever took Refuge, when I was just a guy learning the dharma, I remember distinctly looking at a big spider in my house, and rather than squishing it as I'd maybe done in the past, I was profoundly moved, and I remember thinking, this guy is just trying to live here same as me. That wasn't some kind of moment of me practicing mercy in the sense that I wanted to kill it but decided no, I need to practice sparing it. Instead I was revolted that I'd ever think to kill it, and I had no choice but to spare it. This was practicing mercy, but it was practice in the sense of operationalizing something learned, not in the sense of "well maybe if I spare this life I'll be better at sparing future lives." That last bit is also true, because we develop these things as habits and so if you do mercy now doing mercy later will happen automatically, but it's not necessarily what's going on. A lot of words to remind that we play games with language but they're often just that.
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Mar 12, 2024 11:12
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Tea Party Crasher posted:So that's what I think compassion is. Recognizing who people are and that they are complete, and taking action from there. I've been reading through Old Path White Clouds recently. It's an easy read, like a modern story about the Buddha. Your comment reminded me of a passage where the Buddha, having just realized the Way, was explaining it to the village children who visited him. "Understanding leads to tolerance and love. When all beings understand one another, they will accept and love one another. Then there will not be much suffering in the world. What do you think, Svasti? Can people love if they are unable to understand?” “Respected Teacher, without understanding love is most difficult. It reminds me of something that happened to my sister Bhima. One night she cried all night long until my sister Bala lost her patience and spanked Bhima. That only made Bhima cry more. I picked Bhima up and sensed that she was feverish. I was sure her head ached from the fever. I called Bala and told her to place her hand on Bhima’s forehead. When she did that she understood at once why Bhima was crying. Her eyes softened and she took Bhima into her arms and sang to her with love. Bhima stopped crying even though she still had a fever. Respected Teacher, I think that was because Bala understood why Bhima was upset. And so I think that without understanding, love is not possible.” “Just so, Svasti! Love is possible only when there is understanding. And only with love can there be acceptance. Practice living in awareness, children, and you will deepen your understanding. You will be able to understand yourselves, other people, and all things. And you will have hearts of love. That is the wonderful path I have discovered.”
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Mar 13, 2024 23:19
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I'm slowly making my way through expanding my knowledge of Buddhism. As I do so, I often find myself going back to The Little Zen Companion, a collection of quotes, puzzles, stories, and koans, many of which aren't even from Buddhists, but whose wisdom has been guiding me since grade school. In case anyone else finds it interesting, I wanted to share a couple here. quote:Before a person studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are not waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters. Casey Stengel posted:Good pitching will always stop good hitting, and vice versa. Peter Matthiessen posted:Soon the child's clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, proconceptions and abstractions. Simple free being becomes encrusted with the burdensome armor of the ego. Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn. The sun glints through the pines, and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise. After that day... we become seekers. Zen in the Art of Archery posted:Fundamentally the marksman aims at himself. Yasutani Roshi posted:The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there. Dogen posted:If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it? quote:The raindrops patter on the basho leaf, but these are not tears of grief; this is only the anguish of him who is listening to them. Ojibwa saying posted:Sometimes I go about in pity for myself,
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Mar 27, 2024 11:37
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Reading a Dhammapada commentary story about warring kings and this story of a "trojan horse":quote:So the king had a mechanical elephant made of wood, wrapped about with strips of cloth and deftly painted, and turned it loose on the bank of a lake near the country of his enemy. Within the belly of the elephant sixty men walked back and forth; every now and then they loaded their shovels with elephant dung and dumped it out. "Hmm how can we make our giant fake elephant more real?" "I know!... make it poop!" Imagine the smell Apparently it could travel quite swiftly as well.
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Mar 31, 2024 22:05
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I thought this thread would find this video interesting, or at the very least, worth talking about. It's about attention issues and how spoiler: meditation may help. It definitely comes across as dismissive of Buddhism, which is irritating, but it's an interesting perspective. https://youtu.be/vYaNiC4kchg?si=x_zrkr8HJAE5_gYa I'll also say, it's caused me to reflect on my own passive media consumption. As an ADHD person working 10 hours shifts at home, I find I have YouTube, a podcast, or an audio book running constantly in the background. Maybe it does more harm than good? At the same time, I feel like the drastic changes she makes would fall apart nearly instantly for me.
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Apr 1, 2024 13:58
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I'm a believer in the idea of "habit energy." The actions you attend to and reinforce will become more and more natural habits for you. The tricky thing about being alive in this era is that everything is vying to become one of our habits. (Posting right now, after work, at 10:30 PM is one of my unexamined habits). I've found that I feel a bit more fulfilled and psychologically peaceful when I intentionally choose what habits I want to nourish, and then nourish them. For example, going for a walk while listening to an audiobook, or setting time aside to draw, or deciding to bake bread this week, or replacing Youtube time with book time. I've also been making a habit of catching up on Adventure Time lately and it has been nice. Walking with an audiobook playing isn't inherently worse than walking with no audio device playing. But if it's being used as a distraction, that's maybe not so good--then it would be better to walk while listening to the world around you. If there is a specific Youtube video you are interested in, then watching it is not necessarily worse than reading a book for the same amount of time. But if your instinct is to come home and click the first interesting Youtube video you can find, without consciously deciding that there is a particular reason to watch that video, then maybe that's not so good. Maybe it'd be better to take a couple minutes and quietly decide on your intention for your evening after work, for example. And whatever action you decide to engage in, at least you have chosen to do it, and can set your attention upon it more mindfully. I personally find that Instagram is incredibly, horribly, bad for my mental health. I have been consciously trying to eliminate from my life anything that puts my mind in a state similar to how I feel when scrolling through Instagram. It truly feels like a blowtorch, melting my brain every second I use it. It's almost instructive in how overtly deleterious it is to attention.
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Apr 2, 2024 03:38
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Hiro Protagonist posted:I thought this thread would find this video interesting, or at the very least, worth talking about. It's about attention issues and how spoiler: meditation may help. It definitely comes across as dismissive of Buddhism, which is irritating, but it's an interesting perspective. I wouldn't phrase multitasking media as 'harm' necessarily either, more that it may not be serving me and my path as well as more intentional, focused engagement would. That's a good point.
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Apr 2, 2024 04:35
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Only one type of consciousness (eye, ear, taste, touch, smell, mind object) can arise at an instant. Buddhism has known all along that multitasking is a myth. So if you listen to music while you cook dinner your "awareness" is constantly switching, extremely rapidly, between sound, smell, touch, mind object, and the seen. Obv a human is capable of preparing a meal and enjoying tunes at the "same time" but each task added dilutes that attention pool. I remember driving while also talking on a cellphone (many years ago: b4 bluetooth, DONT DO THIS!) and I got to an intersection where I didn't quite remember how I got there. I know I stopped at lights, I know I looked both ways, I know I followed speed limits, I know I followed the correct route, but I couldn't recall it in detail like I normally would when not "multitasking"; it was a frightening wake-up lesson and never did it again. If you have a piece of music you enjoy; you'll extract far more pleasure out of it if you were to sit and focus, getting absorbed into the sounds, than if you play it while driving (and if you try to enjoy it too much while driving you'll repeat my above bad example!). Society has gotten really good at hooking and changing our attention and it keeps getting worse and getting faster [prolly to sell us things, if u want to fight capitalism practice satipatthana]. Like the video posted: so much information, so many quick edits & cuts, b/c virtually no one would watch it if she just talked to you for 20 minutes from a table. Get rid of the distractions, they make it difficult to practice mindfulness. See if you can complete tasks without the extra "comfort" things: I had a coworker who couldn't grade homework unless they had pajamas, wine, music, couch, ect. It took them a long time to grade, they couldn't enjoy the music or drink and they weren't relaxed. I graded at my desk in the classroom at the end of the day: yes it sucked but I was done far quicker, made fewer mistakes, then I could go home and actually enjoy listening to music (or whatever). If that attention pool tries to cover a lot of area then it will never be very deep. I liked this section of "The Myth of Multitasking" by Sharon Salzberg: quote:In this meditation, we try to be more fully present with every component of a single activity. At a time when you’re not likely to be distracted or disturbed by obligations, make yourself some tea. Fill the teakettle slowly, listening to the changing tone of the water as the level rises, the bubbling as it boils, the hissing of steam, the whistle of the pot. Slowly measure loose tea into a strainer, place it in the pot, and inhale the fragrant vapor as it steeps. Feel the heft of the pot and the smooth receptivity of the cup. Continue the meditation as you reach for a cup: Observe its color and shape and the way it changes with the color of the tea. Put your hands around it and feel its warmth. As you lift it, feel the gentle exertion in your hand and forearm. Hear the tea faintly slosh as you lift the cup. Inhale the scented steam and experience the smoothness of the cup on your lips, the light mist on your face, the warmth or slight scald of the first sip on your tongue. Taste the tea; what flavor do you detect? Notice any leaf bits on your tongue, the sensation of swallowing, the warmth traveling the length of your throat. Feel your breath against the cup creating a tiny cloud of steam. Feel yourself put the cup down. Focus on each separate step in the drinking of tea. Life is crazy: a lot to do with little time so it's likely impossible to devote this level of attention on each task but when you can, try to do without the distractions; maybe something that can be culled in a morning or afternoon routine, make the coffee without a podcast this time, eat breakfast without reading once a week, watch the baseball game without checking your phone for a few innings, poop without your phone challenge [impossible] Imagine how exhausted or lax the sentry at the sense doors will become if everything is let thru, esp without noting it. You gotta train that guy, keep him on his toes, keep him sharp and he will help fight unwholesome intrusions to the mind. I still might listen to a dhamma talk while working, watch a utube while eating, or reach for the phone when bored but consciously working to minimize the multitasking has done nothing but good things to my practice. It makes meditation easier as the mind is trained to settle on one thing, it modulates my reaction to the world: you can identify and deal with a feeling before it comes up and dominates your mood, it improves self control (another tostito? nah i've had enough b/c I was paying attention), and it insures each task is done to the best of ability. It will be beneficial or you'll at least be a better driver!
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Apr 3, 2024 04:46
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Paramemetic posted:they get very distracted by the self-loathing and can't quite get to the root of the thought, or hell, some will even get worse ("I can't believe I can't see the nature of my mind! I'm so loving stupid and useless). my partner had this experience for a long time while trying to meditate and it probably caused further psychic damage over like 2 years and it was validating to see this post for her, so thanks unrelatedly, anyone got like a good list of good meditation resources (for myself)? i've started meditating lately and it's instantly pretty effective but i'm very much just sorta doing it myself without any method or whatever and wouldn't mind like, having some actual guidelines/guidance shwinnebego fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Apr 4, 2024 |
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Apr 4, 2024 04:34
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shwinnebego posted:my partner had this experience for a long time while trying to meditate and it probably caused further psychic damage over like 2 years and it was validating to see this post for her, so thanks I personally got started on meditation from the instructions in the opening of Zen Mind Beginner's Mind (there's a link to the PDF on this page). The instructions mostly pertain to posture and position but I found it to be a good starting point. The rest is lectures which I found useful in putting me in a mindset compatible with meditation if I read them beforehand with a little tea. I also understand that plum village has an app with resources that can guide you through it, but I don't have any personal experience with that so somebody else would have to sound off as to their effectiveness. As far as what I've found useful in practicing meditation, the first thing that really cracked it open for me as somebody with ADHD who always hated it when my hippie family wanted me to meditate, is viewing meditation as a practice and not something you can do right or wrong, you just do it. I bounced off of it for years because I would sit and tell myself I wasn't doing it right, so I'd get pissed off and not practice. Nowadays when I sit and my mind is distracted as hell I just sit with that because that's my state at the time and that's just as pure as any sort of good mind state that I desire so badly lol. All of this is to say that nowadays I just call meditation "being myself time", because if I view it as "fixing myself time" I start evaluating it on results rather than focusing on just practicing. Secondly I have found it incredibly helpful to practice with others. I regularly meditate with my mother, and I attend sangha at my local Zen center on Sundays, and I do think there's something about practicing as a group and wanting to support one another that makes us individually stronger. This will be a kind of goofy story but two weeks ago My nose started running during our 35 minute meditation and I was going absolutely loving crazy over the sensation of it. It was torture just feeling it hang there and not knowing what to do, because what I wanted was to get up and blow my nose, but I would have to walk across the room and make all kinds of noise which could disturb other people. I just sat with it and felt miserable until My mind relaxed and it kind of just... Dried up and everything was fine. I was hit with a bizarre peace that I never knew snot could give me lol. If I was doing it alone I definitely would have just gone for the tissue and immediately try and make myself comfortable and align with my self-image of being never icky or gross. Also hi Shwinn, You probably thought you were safe from my posting outside of the traditional games territories.
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Apr 4, 2024 17:04
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Having used the Plum Village app, I would certainly read a primer or go to a simple class for the real fundamentals on how to sit and meditate at all but if you can meditate for like 90 seconds you can probably get working with their stuff. I have found the guided meditation stuff to be very useful and fun. Which I think is the thing, to me, when you know you're kind of breaking the ice and reaching the clear waters. It honestly is pretty fun.
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Apr 4, 2024 17:17
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the best meditation instructions (for me) i've seen are yongey mingyur rinpoche's joy of living series. he has several books, but i don't remember the level of detail with respect to explicit meditation instructions. his video instructions at tergar.org are good, though. thanissaro bhikkhu's book on meditation (_with each and every breath_) is pretty good i note both of these because they are very different approaches to meditation. ymr does vajrayana style and you rapidly end up basically with dzogchen; thanissaro bhikkhu is theravadan, more specifically recreated-early-buddhist. give em both a shot. zen style is good too. better yet, instead of thanissaro bhikkhu's book, do ajahn brahm's meditation book and tell me how it goes. i haven't read it/tried it, but i'm interested to see what he has to say. i just haven't yet prioritized it over other things i want to read. i did not particularly enjoy my experiences with meditation instructions in the plum village app.
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Apr 4, 2024 21:23
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Achmed Jones posted:
 free here on his websightwhatever method you choose stick with it for a time, don't necessarily switch it up when it's not immediately working
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Apr 5, 2024 09:51
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I had an interesting thought while meditating this morning: What if you, while meditating, are able to dissolve evey category and notion of your mind to the point where you lock yourself into a meditative state. Like, you cannot leave because everything that is has been dissolved. Do buddhist writings maybe talk about this kind of state, and have a name for it?
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Apr 5, 2024 13:45
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mind, barring some kind of like physical destruction or other damage will spontaneously reassemble itself if you find a way to temporarily disassemble it temporarily. it's honestly incredible how good it is at returning to some sort of homeostasis. Closest thing I can think of to what you're asking about sounds more like people going way overboard with psychedelics and basically blasting their psyche apart so badly past the point of temporary ego death that they end up having to basically put their personality and sense of self back together piece by piece over sometimes quite lengthy periods of time. meditative states of absorbtion, eg jhanas, are [generalizing this a bit] quite fragile and rather prone to being disrupted out of by distractions
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Apr 5, 2024 14:12
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In my limited understanding that resembles coma rather than any meditation. Mental processes are calmed and suppressed by concentration, and once concentration is let go, stuff will just resume. It would be like falling asleep so deeply that you die, which would be more like something went wrong with say the brain stem, rather than just getting normal sleep deeply. Now is it possible to get a profound dissociative problem by practicing very incorrectly, and you might not put stuff back together, kind of like Herstory was saying re:drugs? I would say yes.
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Apr 5, 2024 14:25
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also busa's post arguably could be a description of dying while in a meditative state, which is a quite described and recognized thing some quite serious buddhists practice for, though that comes back to 'that's not happening without physical damage to the brain'
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Apr 5, 2024 14:38
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As long as we are talking about different introductions to meditation, what's the consensus on Pema Chödrön's How to Meditate? I've been slowly working through it for the past few months, mostly just shorter sessions of breath. So far it's been good for avoiding the anxiety/depression traps ive fallen into before with other practices, but I still find myself being a bit too eager or aggressive about noticing thoughts. I end up cutting the thought off instead of just allowing them to arise and fall.
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Apr 5, 2024 15:35
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I’ve never meditated a single time that has felt like people describe it, but maybe there is an analogy here to yoga. I used to think yoga was a thing you set aside intentional time for and it was suboptimal (at best) without a mat, loose clothes, and an instructor. Now I feel it is a relationship to my body: what muscles do I need to use right now, and how little effort is actually needed? I either practice yoga for a few hours a week or every waking hour, accordingly. Except I can feel how tight my muscles are, think back to the last time I injured myself doing everyday activities, etc. And now that I don’t ‘practice yoga’ and instead practice relaxing muscles that are tensed for no reason, all of those metrics are better than they have ever been. To circle back to meditation, I guess I’m just hoping that I can allow thoughts that are getting in the way of my purpose to drift away like they are supposed to during meditation, except all the time. It seems limiting to hope that someday I could allow unhelpful thoughts to drift away when I’m cross-legged in my darkened living room.. wouldn’t it be cool if I could do that in a boring meeting at work? Stuck in traffic? Because those are the situations where it would be the most useful to be able to stop my monkey brain from telling me how horrible the situation I’m in is.
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Apr 5, 2024 20:35
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busalover posted:I had an interesting thought while meditating this morning: What if you, while meditating, are able to dissolve evey category and notion of your mind to the point where you lock yourself into a meditative state. Like, you cannot leave because everything that is has been dissolved. Do buddhist writings maybe talk about this kind of state, and have a name for it? Yes. This is getting into the territory of arupa jahnas or formless realms. There are reports of people sitting in these sorts of states for days, but it is always temporary. Even if you are mentally detached from your body, your body and brain are still in the world and can be jostled enough to bring you back. There are also warnings against getting hooked on these types of meditations, going as far as to say too much enjoyment in them leads to being reborn into a formless realm, where you would live for countless eons and be too disconnected to practice the dhamma. From my own limited experience, these states are pleasant in a way. The ultimate zoning out. But they aren't super productive. You can gain a bit of insight into the formation of perceptions, as something eventually forms up to distract you out. But by the time you are digging around in those rarified spaces looking for insight, you have probably learned a lot of other more useful stuff.
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Apr 6, 2024 07:41
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MMania posted:I’ve never meditated a single time that has felt like people describe it, but maybe there is an analogy here to yoga. I used to think yoga was a thing you set aside intentional time for and it was suboptimal (at best) without a mat, loose clothes, and an instructor. Now I feel it is a relationship to my body: what muscles do I need to use right now, and how little effort is actually needed? I either practice yoga for a few hours a week or every waking hour, accordingly. Well it's interesting you say this because really the best meditation is non-meditation, it's just that meditation is the practice to get there. You use the example of yoga, so let's stay with that. When you are practicing yoga like this, there are lots of poses, postures, and so on. There are things that help, like having a mat and the right clothes. But as you mentioned, those are all tools. You don't need a mat, you can do it on the floor. The mat is helpful but not necessary. You don't need the right clothes, but they help. And you don't really need the poses, postures, movements, they are things that activate certain muscle groups, energy channels, etc etc. You use them as tools. Similarly, in the West we usually think of meditation as shamatha, calm-abiding meditation. Sometimes we think of it as zazen or just sitting meditation. In Tibetan Buddhism we start by focusing on an object, and then focusing on no object, like the breathing, and then on just letting the mind rest naturally. We practice things like vigilance, watching for thoughts like a night watch looks for thieves, and cutting them off immediately. We usually think of sitting in certain postures like the seven points of Vairocana or something. We want a very calm and non-distracting environment. But all of this is training. These are tools. Actually you don't need to sit in the lotus posture. You can meditate while walking. You can meditate while running. You can meditate while talking. But it's much easier to practice this while you're sitting in a supportive stable posture because if your body isn't in a stable position it's harder for your mind to be stable. At the very beginning of yoga it is hard or impossible to do certain postures correctly. Similarly when you start doing meditation practice you maybe can't quiet all the thoughts while you're walking or while people are running around you or so on. But the best meditation is non-meditation. If you're "doing meditation" then you're doing an active process and not watching the mind, observing. That's not meditation, that's practicing non-distraction. So the goal is to get to a point where your mind is resting. In Tibetan the word for meditation is "gom gyap." Gom is "habit." Gyap is a verbalizer that indicates doing something kind of forcefully, to press. So you're pressing a habit. When you meditate, you're habitualizing a way of mentally being. It's really not important if you can sit in perfect equipoise for 20 minutes or an hour or a week. What's important is that you can have the mental habit of observing your mind, being aware of it and recognizing what it is doing in the present moment, not thinking about the past or the future, and not being led by your thoughts. The goal is to see the actual nature of your mind. If you can glimpse it for even a half second, that's more beneficial than an hour of sitting motionless on the cushion watching your breath. But it's sitting on the cushion, watching our breath that we see how thoughts arise and fall. It's by observing the thoughts and dismissing them, rather than following them, that we create the habit of being watchful of the mind, which slows the generation of discursive thoughts as we stop chasing them. It's with that slowing of discursive thought that we get a better chance to catch a glimpse of the mind's nature. And with that glimpse, we can start the work of stabilizing our mind in that state, without distraction, or where the distractions become less and less until we are able to do all of our daily activities and live our lives in radiant awareness of our mind, unperturbed and undistracted, free from discursive thoughts that cause suffering, and so on. The yoga practice is a tool to help achieve body awareness. The meditation is a tool to help achieve mind awareness.
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Apr 6, 2024 08:14
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Imo letting discursive thinking do its thing, and respecting that it can have significant connections to the rest of our minds and bodies can be very productive. We can sometimes quickly find a thorn that needs to be pulled out, or a way to let go of something. But it obviously requires practice to do not just be pulled about by the nose, like you said. For an example of this relevance, koan practice can deliberately exploit pathways used in discursive thinking to make connections and identify problems in habit energies. The "mu" koan can evoke very primal physiological things, and illusory cognitive and emotional dichotomies. Kind of like aspects of yab-yum and chod in Tibetan Buddhism, but more overtly verbal than visual/sensual.
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Apr 6, 2024 09:47
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Thanks for the useful reply, I love "habit pressing" way more than "meditation," the former is delightfully generic. I will continue honing my tools!
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Apr 11, 2024 15:23
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Do you guys pray? Also, what forms of prayer are there in eastern religions? I'm only familiar with catholic prayers, but I'm curious about different types of rituals that involve some level of verbalizing your faith.
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Apr 13, 2024 00:05
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busalover posted:Do you guys pray? Also, what forms of prayer are there in eastern religions? I'm only familiar with catholic prayers, but I'm curious about different types of rituals that involve some level of verbalizing your faith. It's really going to hinge on what you consider prayer. Buddhists will do prayers in the sense of recitations that are meant to call to mind Buddhas, qualities, etc. So, for example, it's typical to recite refuge ("Until I achieve enlightenment, I go for refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. By the merit of generosity and other virtues, may I attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings" or some variation thereof) daily among other prayers. So certainly this would be a kind of prayer. It's less common but not unheard of to have prayers for intercession, though typically these are not directed at the Buddha, but rather at bodhisattvas, protector spirits, or the Guru who is the incarnate Buddha. It wouldn't be typical to do the sort of stereotypical nighttime prayers with like diary-like reporting to a god or requests for personal intercession or so on. Ritual recitations and chanting at large scale in for example monasteries would probably also be considered prayer, these are much the same as the daily prayers above but may be a few hours long and sometimes involve a lot of production (musical instruments, etc). So yeah, there are absolutely prayers in the sense of recitations like Hail Marys or the Lord's Prayer etc. There is less prayer in the sense of "hello God, are you listening?" though if I were idk felling a dangerous tree or climbing a dangerous cliff I might recite the mantras of my protectors and then make offerings to them upon my successful completion of the dangerous task.
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Apr 13, 2024 16:26
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