1. From La Open Hause
Thanks, Patricia. I am not familiar with Libet, although a quick google turned up his status as a neuroscientist.
Yes, he was involved in research into neural activity and sensation thresholds.
>I was simply conveying what was once explained to me, and later experienced in the briefest of moments, and that is that the "ordinary" senses, to avoid any issues of semantics, lag slighty behind any physical event. An analogy might be live television. We think it's live, in real time, but really it has the slightest time lag due to the transmission of the signal, yet it is certainly closer to real time than if we read about what we were watching later. So it is when we "sense" via the physical body. Ordinarily, there is the very slightest of time lags to sensing via the physical body. A higher body, which we all have a possibility of having, would have a more direct perception, one not dependent on the body. Nyland indicated there was this element of time to Work, and our experience of time changes as such. And, from our level, the level of ordinary existence, it is "iffy", even my description. Perhaps it might be wiser to ask, what is
our experience of time? And to explore it that way.
I had been thinking about this in context of the unconscious being real consciousness. Libet's work implies that unconscious neuronal processes precede and may cause "conscious" acts, which are then retrospectively *experienced* as having been *decided*.
James:
It very well may be that we also calibrate time by the perceived speed of events that are happening now. What happens at (what we perceive as) the same time gives us a lot of information about the world.
A very good area of inquirer and this is an area of study that is ripe for self observation in my opinion. Thanks, Patricia.
"... a flash presented during a slow-motion sequence of a movie is erroneously perceived as having a shorter duration than an identical flash presented during the same sequence at normal speed. The time-distortion illusion is only found when the future positions of objects in the movie are predictable by Newtonian dynamics. The illusion suggests that the speed of subjective time can be modulated by sensory feedback. That is, predictions about future positions of a moving object are compared against sensory feedback, and the difference can modulate the nervous system to speed or slow perceived time to match the physics of the sensory feedback. Thus, the brain may ease its task of consistent timekeeping by constantly calibrating its time estimation against physical laws in the outside world"
"The order of action and sensation is essential for determining causality. Accordingly, the nervous system must be able to recalibrate its expectations about the normal temporal relationship between action and sensation to overcome changing neural latencies. A novel illusion in this domain shows not only that the perceived time of a sensation can change but also that temporal order judgments of action and sensation can become reversed as a result of a normally adaptive recalibration process.
When a fixed delay is consistently injected between the participant's key press and a subsequent flash, adaptation to this delay induced a reversal of action and sensation: flashes appearing at delays shorter than the injected delay were perceived as occurring before the key press (Stetson et al., 2005Go). This illusion appears to reflect a recalibration of motor-sensory timing that results from a neural previous expectation that sensory consequences should follow motor acts with little delay."
http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/25/45/10369
Friday, February 19, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Joseph Naft Notes
COGNITIVE PRESENCE
Cognitive Presence
(Aspect 9 of 12 of the Path to Presence)
Cognitive presence means presence in our mind, in that part of us that cognizes or mentally registers perceptions and especially thoughts. We practice cognitive presence by putting our attention into our head and being there in our mind. Doing so attracts the sensitive energy of thought, the sensitive energy of cognition, into our mind. Just as the sensitive energy in our body enables us to be in contact with our body and its sensations, and the sensitive energy of emotion enables us to be in contact with our center of emotion and our emotions, so the sensitive energy of cognition enables us to be in contact with our mind and its contents.
But presence of mind means more than contact, because contact implies a division: something or someone who is in contact with something else, an observer and an observed. Body presence means inhabiting our body, being in our body, at one with it. Emotional presence means inhabiting our center of emotion, being in our chest and solar plexus region. And cognitive presence means inhabiting our mind, being in our mind, owning our mind. We are not standing back as an observer of our thoughts. We are right there in our mind — no division and no separation. But we are there intentionally and in sensitive awareness of our mind. Here I am in my head, in the place from which I cognize, know, think, and see.
This is a far cry from our typical mental state of being lost in thought, which operates on the automatic energy. In cognitive presence, such automatic associative thoughts may continue, but now you are present in them. The thought stream, whether associative or intentional, occurs within the mind you are occupying. Cognitive presence means being the one who is aware of and standing in the thought stream and, more generally, the one who is cognizing, knowing, and seeing.
The sensitive energy of cognition tends to raise the level our thoughts. Rather than arising by their typical automatic associations, our thoughts become more relevant to what we are doing, to our situation of the moment. We have less mental clamor and chaos. With cognitive presence we are more able to focus on a topic, more able to think clearly and logically, more able to see into the heart of matters. When automatic thoughts do arise, we are aware of them as thoughts and less likely to be swept away by them.
Cognitive presence is not about intentional thinking, but rather about intentional awareness in the context and contents of our mind. While this may include intentional thinking on a particular subject, it is not limited to that because you can be cognitively present in the absence of thoughts. You can be there, in your mind, knowing and cognizing without necessarily thinking.
The practice of cognitive presence works best when coupled with body or emotional presence. On its own, cognitive presence all-too-readily gets carried away in the stream of associative thoughts, opinions, daydreams, commentary, self-talk, attractions and repulsions. The sensitive energy of cognition thins out and scatters, leaving us adrift in our usual automatic mind. But when, along with cognitive presence, we simultaneously practice presence in our body or our center of emotion, we have a better chance at sustaining cognitive presence. Our body or emotional presence helps keep us from falling prey to the thought stream. Thoughts may come and go, but we stand anchored in body or heart and see our thoughts arising and passing. Here in mind and here in body, or here in mind and here in emotion, we are.
For this week, practice bringing your attention into your mind. Enter your mind. Inhabit it. Emerge from floating down your thought stream to anchor yourself in the present. Let the stream pass through you without passing with it. Become the context of your mind and aware of its contents. Be the one who cognizes, knows, thinks, and sees through your mind. Be the knowing, the cognizing, the seeing. Be your mind.
EMOTIONS
Emotions drive us, for better or for worse. Emotions can drive us to distraction or to contact, to violence or to friendship, to self-centeredness or to service. The remarkable range of emotions, from the petty to the sublime, imparts richness to our life. All emotions share the common feature that they can and often do affect our behavior, inner and outer, as well as the quality of our experience. Emotions define our motivations and impose them on us. As such, every spiritual path addresses how to work with emotions.
In the way of presence, we begin with practicing awareness of emotions as emotions. Lack of such awareness relegates us more firmly into the grip of destructive emotions. We react emotionally to some event and we are just lost in the emotion, carried away by it. Our emotion controls us, at least inwardly, even if we do not react outwardly. Maybe someone angers us in a conversation and perhaps we choose to suppress it and not say anything. Nevertheless, the anger may seethe within. We feel angry. We may even know that we are angry. Yet the key fact is that the anger is the center of our world at that moment. We have no inner context within which to see the anger as anger, as an emotional state that arose and will pass. We collapse into the anger and have no presence, as the soul blood of our inner energies burns up. And so it goes with much of our emotional life.
One help in recognizing our emotions as emotions consists of noticing how they affect our physical body. We may experience a change in our heart rate or breathing, tightness in our chest, certain facial expressions, tones of voice, gestures, or postures. Each kind of emotion may have its own characteristic signature of physical effects. Stressful emotions also have more subtle effects on our physical health, effects not immediately noticeable. For now though, our practice is simply to see what we can see, to see our emotions in action, for example in our body.
Another help in recognizing emotions as emotions consists of noticing how they affect our thoughts. Repetitious and insistent patterns of thought can key us to their emotional driver. Thoughts can exhibit a tone that reflects the underlying emotion, just as our tone of voice often does. The tone of our inner thought-voice can manifest stressful or destructive emotions. So being aware of the qualities of our thoughts helps us recognize their emotional underpinnings.
Thankfully, the broad palette of our emotions is not all destructive. Far from it! Many emotions lift us up, both in the ordinary course of life and in our deepening spiritual practice. Awareness of emotions as emotions enables us to know which to nurture and which to let go. We allow and nurture the emotions that bring us closer to each other, to ourselves, to life, and to God. Much of our spiritual practice, such as meditation and prayer, nurtures those higher emotions.
We also allow the destructive emotions that create barriers, but we do not nurture them nor do we necessarily act from them. We allow, so as not to fight our emotions directly, which only energizes them. Any effort to suppress emotions backfires. Emotions are not illusory; they have a relative reality arising from causes within us. Suppressing emotions can, at best, only treat the symptoms, leaving their underlying causes untouched and ready to surface again and again. While we do not fight our destructive emotions, we also do not nurture them. We see and accept ourselves as we are, and our emotions they are, without layering on another level of emotional judgment and self-rejection. We see and accept and allow them to wane and disappear on their own. By opening our accepting and compassionate heart toward ourselves, including our destructive emotions, we heal their underlying causes.
Whether those causes lie in our personal history or elsewhere, they now take the shape of our identifications, our attachments, and our desires to have things be different than they are. We will address that in a later aspect of the path to presence.
For this week, please set yourself to notice your emotions as emotions, to realize in the midst of an emotion that it is an emotion that has you. If you watch television or movies you can see how the shows and commercials manipulate your emotions. If you drive, you can see how problems such as traffic and rude drivers activate your emotions. If you live with your family, you can see how the give-and-take of family life activates your emotions. In your favorite activities, in hearing a good joke, and in deep meditation, you can see and feel your joy.
Notice that this is not suggesting that we distance ourselves from our emotions. We feel and be in them, fully. We want to live fully, not impoverish our life by eliminating or stigmatizing our emotions. But we do want to heal the destructive and nurture the uplifting, without rejecting or even criticizing ourselves along the way. We open our heart and learn to love ourselves, emotions and all.
THOUGHTS
Thoughts carry power: the power to create and the power to destroy, the power to understand and control much of our world, the power to guide us toward inner freedom and the power to keep us inwardly enslaved. For these and other reasons, our civilization worships the power of thought. Consequently our education revolves around enriching the content and developing the process of thought.
But in all of that, we miss the fact that the power and quality of thought depends on the quality or level of energy fueling the thoughts. The energy most commonly giving substance to our thoughts is the automatic energy. Our endless stream of self-generating, associative thoughts runs on automatic, without any intentional direction. One thought triggers another related thought, which triggers a third related to the second. Soon our thoughts have no apparent relationship with the first thought. And then some sensory perception pops into our awareness, the sound of a word, a sight, a pain, and our thoughts abruptly fly off in another direction altogether. This semi-chaotic mind goes on all day, every day.
In itself, our automatic stream of associative thoughts does no harm and even brings value. For example, that ongoing commentary on our life provides some comfort, something familiar, a touchstone amid the constant changes of our external world. But this is where our relationship with our associative thoughts passes into trouble, where power of thought exceeds its proper place.
The first problem is the extent to which we live in our thoughts. We listen to and occasionally participate in this ongoing mental commentary. And rather than just being about our life, our thoughts become our life. We allow our attention to be swept away in the stream of associative thoughts, veiling us from the simple and ordinary perceptions of living. For example, we often do not fully see the people around us because we are too busily engaged in our thoughts. We get lost in conversations because our thoughts distract us from listening. We sometimes walk with little awareness of our surroundings or our body, because we are in our thoughts. The thought stream substitutes for a more complete life.
The second problem is the extent to which we live as our thoughts. Their very familiarity lulls us into assuming that, in some fundamental sense, we are our thoughts, that what our thoughts think is what we believe, and that we are, or rather I am, the thinker of these thoughts. But even a little observation of our mind shows that these ever-present associative thoughts are thinking themselves, constructing themselves out of the material of our memory of experiences, information, and habitual patterns, coupled with those current sensory stimuli that are strong enough to break through our perceptual filters.
Out of this emerges our personality, a complex but fairly static pattern of thoughts, attitudes, memories, and responses. And that’s who we believe we are. When a thought comes into our mind, though unbidden and by association, we nevertheless believe that is what we think and even that we are that thought. But we did not think that thought. It thought itself. Thoughts masquerade as us. The thought stream substitutes for us, allowing us to live primarily on autopilot with minimal participation in our life. The thought “I,” is not the I who we truly are. Live, in the moment, the challenge is to see our thoughts as just thoughts, and nothing more.
But if we are not our thoughts, not our emotions, not our personality, then who are we? The truest answer is that we are our will. And we shall explore that understanding in a later aspect of the path to presence.
For this week, notice your automatic, associative thoughts passing through your mind. The You who sees your thoughts is not just another thought, is not a function of your thoughts. Notice that your thoughts are not you, though they seduce you into believing that you are these self-generating thoughts chaining on in their own way. This is the ephemeral, insubstantial core on which our personality is based, the personality that we think we are, that substitutes for us. See your thoughts as just thoughTS.
HARMONIOUS
A stool, to be stable, requires at least three legs. So it is with presence. The act of simultaneously engaging all three presences of body, heart, and mind greatly multiplies our chances of maintaining our presence. The three interact and mutually support each other. When one of these presences weakens, the other two can reinvigorate it. With all three, we feel more solid; we stand firmly in the world of presence, of being here fully. So the first benefit of triune presence is the enhanced duration it enables.
Another major benefit lies in the breadth of triune presence. We become more fully human, anchored in our body with an alert, open, and adaptable mind and an appropriately sensitive heart. Our experience becomes more rounded, more balanced, and enriched. Clarity of mind is warmed by sensitivity of feeling, and both are grounded in the present moment of our body.
A third significant benefit is the intensity of triune presence, the vividness it brings to our experience. The three presences of body, heart, and mind combine to form a stronger presence than one or two could. One reason lies in the degree and quality of attention needed to enter and maintain such presence. In meeting the challenge of being in all three, we raise the level of our inner work for those moments. But there is also a feedback from our awakened body, heart, and mind that supports the intensity of triune presence.
So how do we actually practice triune presence? In recent weeks we have worked at body presence, emotional presence, and cognitive presence. Now we can work on putting it all together.
We begin the practice of triune presence during formal, sitting meditation. After thoroughly relaxing our body, mind, and heart, we turn to sensing our body. First we sense parts of it: arms, legs, torso, and head. Then we move into sensing the whole of our body and staying with that wholeness. Once we feel grounded in whole body sensation, in body presence, we add to it.
We put some extra attention into our center of emotion, into the general region of our chest and solar plexus. We are there in our center of emotion, even if there are no particular emotions at the time. We are there in readiness to feel, in readiness to be our emotion, in readiness to respond with feeling. We stay with both, with whole body sensing and with attention to our emotional center. After having settled ourselves in both emotional and body presence, we add to that.
We place some extra attention into our head, into our mind, to establish ourselves in cognitive presence. We are in our whole mind, not just in our thoughts. We are there in our knowing, seeing, thinking, cognizing part. And then we stay with all three: sensing our whole body, emotional presence, and cognitive presence. Toward the end of the meditation period, we let all that go and allow the effort and energy to soak into our being.
We also wish to live our ordinary daily life in full presence. So we can practice entering triune presence at any time during our day when we have enough spare attention for it. As with the sitting meditation version of this practice, we begin with sensing our body, the whole of it. Then we add emotional or cognitive presence. And finally we add the third. With practice, you may be able to come into all three at once. So when you find moments during your day that do not require your full attention to whatever you are doing, you can try entering triune presence and staying with it. Ultimately you may find that triune presence does not detract from your engagement in your life activity. On the contrary, triune presence may add to your attention, so that you can do whatever you are doing more fully. But, of course we maintain the caveat that critical situations (e.g., driving, chopping vegetables) deserve our full attention without inner efforts of presence.
For this week, practice triune presence. Even if you are only able to enter such presence for brief moments, those moments repeated offer a taste of new possibilities, a new way of living.
OCCUPYING THE PRESENCE
The stool of presence may be stable with its three legs of presence in body, presence in heart, and presence of mind, but that situation is not complete. The purpose of a stool is for someone to sit on it. That someone is You, your I, your I Am, the agent of your life, the one who is present in your body, heart, and mind. It would be more accurate to say that the stool is not one of presence, but rather a stool of awareness — unless there is someone sitting on it. There can be awareness of body, of heart, and of mind. But without You there as the one who is aware, the one who is present, it is simply like a robot with sensors.
The core of presence is the one who is present, the one who inhabits your body from within, the one who feels your emotions, the one who cognizes through your mind, the one who lives your life and does what you do. Ordinarily we take this one for granted. We assume that we are always here as the one who experiences and lives our life. But even a cursory investigation reveals that sensory awareness, thoughts, and actions typically go on by themselves without “You.” This is particularly obvious in our automatic thoughts, which think themselves by association, without us thinking them or directing them or even necessarily being aware of them. Such awareness often comes after the fact, when we notice that a whole train of thoughts has arisen on its own and passed through our mind.
So this final aspect of the Path to Presence involves the practice of being the one who experiences and lives our life, the practice of being here at home in our center. Be the one who sees through your eyes, the one who is aware of your thoughts, aware of your mind, aware of your center of emotion. Inhabit your body. Inhabit your feeling. In habit your mind. Claim it all as your own. Instead of letting so many of your words and actions happen on their own in a stimulus-response cycle and without your participation, say what you say and do what you do. Engage and be who you are.
The subtlety is that who we are, our I, is will. And will does not exist in the same way that material objects or even energies exist. Will cannot be touched or seen or weighed or experienced. Indeed, it is will that does the touching, the seeing, the weighing, and the experiencing. Just as our physical eye cannot see itself, will looks, but not back at itself. Will acts but is not acted upon. But we can enter our will, our I, by being it, by being the actor, the agent, the seer, the decider, the director of our attention.
There are two levels in this. At the level of the conscious energy, we can be our I directly. We have a sense of wholeness and agency, a sense that I am the agent of my life, that I am the decider, the chooser, the experiencer — here in this moment. We feel ourselves to be the one who is here. We will our self to be and we are. But … this is not our actual I. We could call this our True Self [1]. And we would do very well to live in our True Self, more and more.
To get a taste of this, just ask yourself “Am I here?” And then you answer with full intention and with the whole of yourself: “Yes, I am here.” As you do so, be here, be the one who is saying this, thinking this. This is you, your True Self, sitting in the seat of presence.
There is, however, a deeper level of I, one which we do not enter directly, but rather one to which we can open, one which we can allow to enter us. The difference between True Self and I is where it begins. With True Self, we may feel ourselves to be our own source, to be our own individual self, separate from other people, from other selves. The transition to I occurs when we, as our True Self, open inwardly to the source just behind our True Self. We open our very core to let our own higher will flow into and through us, as us. That is our I, but is not so separate from other I’s. We recognize our I as fully our own, as who we really are, yet also as not just our own, but as connected at its root, at our root, with something vastly greater than us.
For this week, practice being your True Self, and even opening to your I. Be the one who lives your life, who makes your choices, who does what you do, and who experiences your experience. Rather than leave the seat of presence empty, inhabit your own center and complete your presence
Cognitive Presence
(Aspect 9 of 12 of the Path to Presence)
Cognitive presence means presence in our mind, in that part of us that cognizes or mentally registers perceptions and especially thoughts. We practice cognitive presence by putting our attention into our head and being there in our mind. Doing so attracts the sensitive energy of thought, the sensitive energy of cognition, into our mind. Just as the sensitive energy in our body enables us to be in contact with our body and its sensations, and the sensitive energy of emotion enables us to be in contact with our center of emotion and our emotions, so the sensitive energy of cognition enables us to be in contact with our mind and its contents.
But presence of mind means more than contact, because contact implies a division: something or someone who is in contact with something else, an observer and an observed. Body presence means inhabiting our body, being in our body, at one with it. Emotional presence means inhabiting our center of emotion, being in our chest and solar plexus region. And cognitive presence means inhabiting our mind, being in our mind, owning our mind. We are not standing back as an observer of our thoughts. We are right there in our mind — no division and no separation. But we are there intentionally and in sensitive awareness of our mind. Here I am in my head, in the place from which I cognize, know, think, and see.
This is a far cry from our typical mental state of being lost in thought, which operates on the automatic energy. In cognitive presence, such automatic associative thoughts may continue, but now you are present in them. The thought stream, whether associative or intentional, occurs within the mind you are occupying. Cognitive presence means being the one who is aware of and standing in the thought stream and, more generally, the one who is cognizing, knowing, and seeing.
The sensitive energy of cognition tends to raise the level our thoughts. Rather than arising by their typical automatic associations, our thoughts become more relevant to what we are doing, to our situation of the moment. We have less mental clamor and chaos. With cognitive presence we are more able to focus on a topic, more able to think clearly and logically, more able to see into the heart of matters. When automatic thoughts do arise, we are aware of them as thoughts and less likely to be swept away by them.
Cognitive presence is not about intentional thinking, but rather about intentional awareness in the context and contents of our mind. While this may include intentional thinking on a particular subject, it is not limited to that because you can be cognitively present in the absence of thoughts. You can be there, in your mind, knowing and cognizing without necessarily thinking.
The practice of cognitive presence works best when coupled with body or emotional presence. On its own, cognitive presence all-too-readily gets carried away in the stream of associative thoughts, opinions, daydreams, commentary, self-talk, attractions and repulsions. The sensitive energy of cognition thins out and scatters, leaving us adrift in our usual automatic mind. But when, along with cognitive presence, we simultaneously practice presence in our body or our center of emotion, we have a better chance at sustaining cognitive presence. Our body or emotional presence helps keep us from falling prey to the thought stream. Thoughts may come and go, but we stand anchored in body or heart and see our thoughts arising and passing. Here in mind and here in body, or here in mind and here in emotion, we are.
For this week, practice bringing your attention into your mind. Enter your mind. Inhabit it. Emerge from floating down your thought stream to anchor yourself in the present. Let the stream pass through you without passing with it. Become the context of your mind and aware of its contents. Be the one who cognizes, knows, thinks, and sees through your mind. Be the knowing, the cognizing, the seeing. Be your mind.
EMOTIONS
Emotions drive us, for better or for worse. Emotions can drive us to distraction or to contact, to violence or to friendship, to self-centeredness or to service. The remarkable range of emotions, from the petty to the sublime, imparts richness to our life. All emotions share the common feature that they can and often do affect our behavior, inner and outer, as well as the quality of our experience. Emotions define our motivations and impose them on us. As such, every spiritual path addresses how to work with emotions.
In the way of presence, we begin with practicing awareness of emotions as emotions. Lack of such awareness relegates us more firmly into the grip of destructive emotions. We react emotionally to some event and we are just lost in the emotion, carried away by it. Our emotion controls us, at least inwardly, even if we do not react outwardly. Maybe someone angers us in a conversation and perhaps we choose to suppress it and not say anything. Nevertheless, the anger may seethe within. We feel angry. We may even know that we are angry. Yet the key fact is that the anger is the center of our world at that moment. We have no inner context within which to see the anger as anger, as an emotional state that arose and will pass. We collapse into the anger and have no presence, as the soul blood of our inner energies burns up. And so it goes with much of our emotional life.
One help in recognizing our emotions as emotions consists of noticing how they affect our physical body. We may experience a change in our heart rate or breathing, tightness in our chest, certain facial expressions, tones of voice, gestures, or postures. Each kind of emotion may have its own characteristic signature of physical effects. Stressful emotions also have more subtle effects on our physical health, effects not immediately noticeable. For now though, our practice is simply to see what we can see, to see our emotions in action, for example in our body.
Another help in recognizing emotions as emotions consists of noticing how they affect our thoughts. Repetitious and insistent patterns of thought can key us to their emotional driver. Thoughts can exhibit a tone that reflects the underlying emotion, just as our tone of voice often does. The tone of our inner thought-voice can manifest stressful or destructive emotions. So being aware of the qualities of our thoughts helps us recognize their emotional underpinnings.
Thankfully, the broad palette of our emotions is not all destructive. Far from it! Many emotions lift us up, both in the ordinary course of life and in our deepening spiritual practice. Awareness of emotions as emotions enables us to know which to nurture and which to let go. We allow and nurture the emotions that bring us closer to each other, to ourselves, to life, and to God. Much of our spiritual practice, such as meditation and prayer, nurtures those higher emotions.
We also allow the destructive emotions that create barriers, but we do not nurture them nor do we necessarily act from them. We allow, so as not to fight our emotions directly, which only energizes them. Any effort to suppress emotions backfires. Emotions are not illusory; they have a relative reality arising from causes within us. Suppressing emotions can, at best, only treat the symptoms, leaving their underlying causes untouched and ready to surface again and again. While we do not fight our destructive emotions, we also do not nurture them. We see and accept ourselves as we are, and our emotions they are, without layering on another level of emotional judgment and self-rejection. We see and accept and allow them to wane and disappear on their own. By opening our accepting and compassionate heart toward ourselves, including our destructive emotions, we heal their underlying causes.
Whether those causes lie in our personal history or elsewhere, they now take the shape of our identifications, our attachments, and our desires to have things be different than they are. We will address that in a later aspect of the path to presence.
For this week, please set yourself to notice your emotions as emotions, to realize in the midst of an emotion that it is an emotion that has you. If you watch television or movies you can see how the shows and commercials manipulate your emotions. If you drive, you can see how problems such as traffic and rude drivers activate your emotions. If you live with your family, you can see how the give-and-take of family life activates your emotions. In your favorite activities, in hearing a good joke, and in deep meditation, you can see and feel your joy.
Notice that this is not suggesting that we distance ourselves from our emotions. We feel and be in them, fully. We want to live fully, not impoverish our life by eliminating or stigmatizing our emotions. But we do want to heal the destructive and nurture the uplifting, without rejecting or even criticizing ourselves along the way. We open our heart and learn to love ourselves, emotions and all.
THOUGHTS
Thoughts carry power: the power to create and the power to destroy, the power to understand and control much of our world, the power to guide us toward inner freedom and the power to keep us inwardly enslaved. For these and other reasons, our civilization worships the power of thought. Consequently our education revolves around enriching the content and developing the process of thought.
But in all of that, we miss the fact that the power and quality of thought depends on the quality or level of energy fueling the thoughts. The energy most commonly giving substance to our thoughts is the automatic energy. Our endless stream of self-generating, associative thoughts runs on automatic, without any intentional direction. One thought triggers another related thought, which triggers a third related to the second. Soon our thoughts have no apparent relationship with the first thought. And then some sensory perception pops into our awareness, the sound of a word, a sight, a pain, and our thoughts abruptly fly off in another direction altogether. This semi-chaotic mind goes on all day, every day.
In itself, our automatic stream of associative thoughts does no harm and even brings value. For example, that ongoing commentary on our life provides some comfort, something familiar, a touchstone amid the constant changes of our external world. But this is where our relationship with our associative thoughts passes into trouble, where power of thought exceeds its proper place.
The first problem is the extent to which we live in our thoughts. We listen to and occasionally participate in this ongoing mental commentary. And rather than just being about our life, our thoughts become our life. We allow our attention to be swept away in the stream of associative thoughts, veiling us from the simple and ordinary perceptions of living. For example, we often do not fully see the people around us because we are too busily engaged in our thoughts. We get lost in conversations because our thoughts distract us from listening. We sometimes walk with little awareness of our surroundings or our body, because we are in our thoughts. The thought stream substitutes for a more complete life.
The second problem is the extent to which we live as our thoughts. Their very familiarity lulls us into assuming that, in some fundamental sense, we are our thoughts, that what our thoughts think is what we believe, and that we are, or rather I am, the thinker of these thoughts. But even a little observation of our mind shows that these ever-present associative thoughts are thinking themselves, constructing themselves out of the material of our memory of experiences, information, and habitual patterns, coupled with those current sensory stimuli that are strong enough to break through our perceptual filters.
Out of this emerges our personality, a complex but fairly static pattern of thoughts, attitudes, memories, and responses. And that’s who we believe we are. When a thought comes into our mind, though unbidden and by association, we nevertheless believe that is what we think and even that we are that thought. But we did not think that thought. It thought itself. Thoughts masquerade as us. The thought stream substitutes for us, allowing us to live primarily on autopilot with minimal participation in our life. The thought “I,” is not the I who we truly are. Live, in the moment, the challenge is to see our thoughts as just thoughts, and nothing more.
But if we are not our thoughts, not our emotions, not our personality, then who are we? The truest answer is that we are our will. And we shall explore that understanding in a later aspect of the path to presence.
For this week, notice your automatic, associative thoughts passing through your mind. The You who sees your thoughts is not just another thought, is not a function of your thoughts. Notice that your thoughts are not you, though they seduce you into believing that you are these self-generating thoughts chaining on in their own way. This is the ephemeral, insubstantial core on which our personality is based, the personality that we think we are, that substitutes for us. See your thoughts as just thoughTS.
HARMONIOUS
A stool, to be stable, requires at least three legs. So it is with presence. The act of simultaneously engaging all three presences of body, heart, and mind greatly multiplies our chances of maintaining our presence. The three interact and mutually support each other. When one of these presences weakens, the other two can reinvigorate it. With all three, we feel more solid; we stand firmly in the world of presence, of being here fully. So the first benefit of triune presence is the enhanced duration it enables.
Another major benefit lies in the breadth of triune presence. We become more fully human, anchored in our body with an alert, open, and adaptable mind and an appropriately sensitive heart. Our experience becomes more rounded, more balanced, and enriched. Clarity of mind is warmed by sensitivity of feeling, and both are grounded in the present moment of our body.
A third significant benefit is the intensity of triune presence, the vividness it brings to our experience. The three presences of body, heart, and mind combine to form a stronger presence than one or two could. One reason lies in the degree and quality of attention needed to enter and maintain such presence. In meeting the challenge of being in all three, we raise the level of our inner work for those moments. But there is also a feedback from our awakened body, heart, and mind that supports the intensity of triune presence.
So how do we actually practice triune presence? In recent weeks we have worked at body presence, emotional presence, and cognitive presence. Now we can work on putting it all together.
We begin the practice of triune presence during formal, sitting meditation. After thoroughly relaxing our body, mind, and heart, we turn to sensing our body. First we sense parts of it: arms, legs, torso, and head. Then we move into sensing the whole of our body and staying with that wholeness. Once we feel grounded in whole body sensation, in body presence, we add to it.
We put some extra attention into our center of emotion, into the general region of our chest and solar plexus. We are there in our center of emotion, even if there are no particular emotions at the time. We are there in readiness to feel, in readiness to be our emotion, in readiness to respond with feeling. We stay with both, with whole body sensing and with attention to our emotional center. After having settled ourselves in both emotional and body presence, we add to that.
We place some extra attention into our head, into our mind, to establish ourselves in cognitive presence. We are in our whole mind, not just in our thoughts. We are there in our knowing, seeing, thinking, cognizing part. And then we stay with all three: sensing our whole body, emotional presence, and cognitive presence. Toward the end of the meditation period, we let all that go and allow the effort and energy to soak into our being.
We also wish to live our ordinary daily life in full presence. So we can practice entering triune presence at any time during our day when we have enough spare attention for it. As with the sitting meditation version of this practice, we begin with sensing our body, the whole of it. Then we add emotional or cognitive presence. And finally we add the third. With practice, you may be able to come into all three at once. So when you find moments during your day that do not require your full attention to whatever you are doing, you can try entering triune presence and staying with it. Ultimately you may find that triune presence does not detract from your engagement in your life activity. On the contrary, triune presence may add to your attention, so that you can do whatever you are doing more fully. But, of course we maintain the caveat that critical situations (e.g., driving, chopping vegetables) deserve our full attention without inner efforts of presence.
For this week, practice triune presence. Even if you are only able to enter such presence for brief moments, those moments repeated offer a taste of new possibilities, a new way of living.
OCCUPYING THE PRESENCE
The stool of presence may be stable with its three legs of presence in body, presence in heart, and presence of mind, but that situation is not complete. The purpose of a stool is for someone to sit on it. That someone is You, your I, your I Am, the agent of your life, the one who is present in your body, heart, and mind. It would be more accurate to say that the stool is not one of presence, but rather a stool of awareness — unless there is someone sitting on it. There can be awareness of body, of heart, and of mind. But without You there as the one who is aware, the one who is present, it is simply like a robot with sensors.
The core of presence is the one who is present, the one who inhabits your body from within, the one who feels your emotions, the one who cognizes through your mind, the one who lives your life and does what you do. Ordinarily we take this one for granted. We assume that we are always here as the one who experiences and lives our life. But even a cursory investigation reveals that sensory awareness, thoughts, and actions typically go on by themselves without “You.” This is particularly obvious in our automatic thoughts, which think themselves by association, without us thinking them or directing them or even necessarily being aware of them. Such awareness often comes after the fact, when we notice that a whole train of thoughts has arisen on its own and passed through our mind.
So this final aspect of the Path to Presence involves the practice of being the one who experiences and lives our life, the practice of being here at home in our center. Be the one who sees through your eyes, the one who is aware of your thoughts, aware of your mind, aware of your center of emotion. Inhabit your body. Inhabit your feeling. In habit your mind. Claim it all as your own. Instead of letting so many of your words and actions happen on their own in a stimulus-response cycle and without your participation, say what you say and do what you do. Engage and be who you are.
The subtlety is that who we are, our I, is will. And will does not exist in the same way that material objects or even energies exist. Will cannot be touched or seen or weighed or experienced. Indeed, it is will that does the touching, the seeing, the weighing, and the experiencing. Just as our physical eye cannot see itself, will looks, but not back at itself. Will acts but is not acted upon. But we can enter our will, our I, by being it, by being the actor, the agent, the seer, the decider, the director of our attention.
There are two levels in this. At the level of the conscious energy, we can be our I directly. We have a sense of wholeness and agency, a sense that I am the agent of my life, that I am the decider, the chooser, the experiencer — here in this moment. We feel ourselves to be the one who is here. We will our self to be and we are. But … this is not our actual I. We could call this our True Self [1]. And we would do very well to live in our True Self, more and more.
To get a taste of this, just ask yourself “Am I here?” And then you answer with full intention and with the whole of yourself: “Yes, I am here.” As you do so, be here, be the one who is saying this, thinking this. This is you, your True Self, sitting in the seat of presence.
There is, however, a deeper level of I, one which we do not enter directly, but rather one to which we can open, one which we can allow to enter us. The difference between True Self and I is where it begins. With True Self, we may feel ourselves to be our own source, to be our own individual self, separate from other people, from other selves. The transition to I occurs when we, as our True Self, open inwardly to the source just behind our True Self. We open our very core to let our own higher will flow into and through us, as us. That is our I, but is not so separate from other I’s. We recognize our I as fully our own, as who we really are, yet also as not just our own, but as connected at its root, at our root, with something vastly greater than us.
For this week, practice being your True Self, and even opening to your I. Be the one who lives your life, who makes your choices, who does what you do, and who experiences your experience. Rather than leave the seat of presence empty, inhabit your own center and complete your presence
Friday, January 29, 2010
Root of Awareness?
"The root of the mystery of being lies at the root of the awareness which perceives the universe. Every human being is or can be aware that he is aware. When that self-awareness is traced to its inner source, then only can the identity of the individual with the universal be found, then only can the mystery of being be solved"
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Monday, October 05, 2009
Movements - Quotes by Mme S
Behind the visible movement there is another movement, one which cannot be seen, which is very strong, on which the outer movement depends. If this inner movement were not so strong, the outer one would not have any action.
~ • ~
You must constantly divide your attention between something which is higher than yourself and your movement. You always lose yourself in one or the other. As soon as you stop making this effort, you become identified with the movement.
You must consider these Movements as a condition, an exceptional one given to you to work on your attention.
In so dividing your attention, you are filling the place that you can fill. One day you may be capable of more, but today, this is your place.
You do not realize enough that your attention is your only chance. Without it you can do nothing.
Usually you think about your movement, but you do not do it. You maintain your thought on the movement, and then when it is the time to do it you give up, and the movement is done, no matter how, without you.
~ • ~
The thought must have its own center of gravity; it cannot just be either here or there. We must find this center of gravity. It is the same for the body; if it is not centered, no movement will be possible. It is the same for the feeling.
These Movements are designed to enable us to pass from one center of gravity to another; it is the shift that creates the state. The gesture, the movement, is what is important, not the attitudes.
~ • ~
You must constantly divide your attention between something which is higher than yourself and your movement. You always lose yourself in one or the other. As soon as you stop making this effort, you become identified with the movement.
You must consider these Movements as a condition, an exceptional one given to you to work on your attention.
In so dividing your attention, you are filling the place that you can fill. One day you may be capable of more, but today, this is your place.
You do not realize enough that your attention is your only chance. Without it you can do nothing.
Usually you think about your movement, but you do not do it. You maintain your thought on the movement, and then when it is the time to do it you give up, and the movement is done, no matter how, without you.
~ • ~
The thought must have its own center of gravity; it cannot just be either here or there. We must find this center of gravity. It is the same for the body; if it is not centered, no movement will be possible. It is the same for the feeling.
These Movements are designed to enable us to pass from one center of gravity to another; it is the shift that creates the state. The gesture, the movement, is what is important, not the attitudes.
Bangalore work weekend
The work period in Bangalore was surpirsingly event ful. Except that I tried a combination of the arms stretching exercise with creation of sexual energy and using the ashwini mudra drew up the energy up the spine. Its crazy. I dont know if im doing the right thing. But holding the hands on the side and its pain and the counter act by the pleasure of the excitement seemed a good idea.
Its increasingly as a practice key to keep the I AM sensation as much as possible. By breathing in as I and breathing out in the whole body or solar plexus as AM.
The BIGGEST interesting new mystery for me is finding the impulse of movement. So when I walk, I just have a thought and my legs response. Can I find that impulse inside that makes the transfer from thought to action? Where does it happen? I need to find it. In the body. I need to at any cost.
""In the Movements the important thing is not the positions, but the impulse, the energy from one position to another. And nobody can teach you that. You have to watch yourself"
- Jeanne de Salzmann
Its increasingly as a practice key to keep the I AM sensation as much as possible. By breathing in as I and breathing out in the whole body or solar plexus as AM.
The BIGGEST interesting new mystery for me is finding the impulse of movement. So when I walk, I just have a thought and my legs response. Can I find that impulse inside that makes the transfer from thought to action? Where does it happen? I need to find it. In the body. I need to at any cost.
""In the Movements the important thing is not the positions, but the impulse, the energy from one position to another. And nobody can teach you that. You have to watch yourself"
- Jeanne de Salzmann
Saturday, August 22, 2009
From Gospel of Thomas
He said to his disciples, "(Why does) that man (carry) the lamb
around?"
They said to him, "So that he may kill it and eat it."
He said to them, "While it is alive, he will not eat it, but
only when he has killed it and it has become a corpse."
They said to him, "He cannot do so otherwise."
He said to them, "You too, look for a place for yourself
within the Repose, lest you become a corpse and be eaten."
Now the above passage seem linked to this one from Gospel of Philips
God is a man-eater. For this reason, men are sacrificed to him. Before men were sacrificed, animals were being sacrificed, since those to whom they were sacrificed were not gods.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Let Manifest
How does one get freedom from likes and dislikes?
Right now as my brain is wired, i like all happy events and I like avoiding unpleasant events.
Answer from Eternal Now.(http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/)
You may also want to try the natural way of ‘letting whatever arises to manifest openly and unreservedly ’. For one that has experienced the non-duality of observer and observed and taste the sensate reality free from the sense of self, the way of ‘let manifest’ is a natural progression.
In order to do that, deeply understand that there are more problems when attempting to suppress your preferences, likes and dislikes. Therefore the first step is to experience and realize that ‘suppression’ is not the way. If we think that ‘suppression’ is way or when the arising upsets us, then unknowingly we will attempt to prevent their arising.
Second, understand clearly that letting “likes and dislikes” manifest is the first step towards liberation. We cannot prevent what that is hardwired from arising. As long as the seed is there, there will be manifestation. We may not be aware of these tendencies when they are latent but “let manifest” is the first step towards freedom.
Third, non-dual with whatever sensations that arise. When the sense of observer is gone and uninterrupted, that is the sense of freedom. It will also dissolve those tendencies eventually as all share the same taste.
Right now as my brain is wired, i like all happy events and I like avoiding unpleasant events.
Answer from Eternal Now.(http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/)
You may also want to try the natural way of ‘letting whatever arises to manifest openly and unreservedly ’. For one that has experienced the non-duality of observer and observed and taste the sensate reality free from the sense of self, the way of ‘let manifest’ is a natural progression.
In order to do that, deeply understand that there are more problems when attempting to suppress your preferences, likes and dislikes. Therefore the first step is to experience and realize that ‘suppression’ is not the way. If we think that ‘suppression’ is way or when the arising upsets us, then unknowingly we will attempt to prevent their arising.
Second, understand clearly that letting “likes and dislikes” manifest is the first step towards liberation. We cannot prevent what that is hardwired from arising. As long as the seed is there, there will be manifestation. We may not be aware of these tendencies when they are latent but “let manifest” is the first step towards freedom.
Third, non-dual with whatever sensations that arise. When the sense of observer is gone and uninterrupted, that is the sense of freedom. It will also dissolve those tendencies eventually as all share the same taste.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Buddha on sensations
That which feels the object is vedana, its characteristic is to experience, its function is to realize the object...
It follows that in order to realize anything at the experiential level; one has to work with vedana.
Without mind, matter alone cannot feel anything. It is the mind that feels, but what it feels has an inextricable physical element-the sukha-vedana (pleasant sensations), dukkha-vedana (unpleasant sensations) and adukkhamasukhavedana (neutral sensations).
For the actual practice taught by the Buddha, it is this physical aspect of vedana which is of particular importance, since it is the most direct and tangible way to experience the anicca (impermanence) of ourselves, and so to develop wisdom. Anicca is a fact to be realized not by merely relating it intellectually to the outside world. Rather, it must be experienced internally. We must experience ourselvesexperience ourselves as we really are-each a transitory phenomenon, changing every moment. This experience of aniccaexperience of anicca at the level of sensations results in the gradual dissolution of attachment and egotism. Describing the importance of the physical aspect of vedana for the realisation of nibbana (liberation), the Buddha said-
Just as in the sky different windsas different winds in the sky blow from east and west, from north and south, dust-laden or dustless, cold or hot, fierce gales or gentle breezes- many winds blow. So also within the body arise sensations, pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. When a meditator, striving ardently, does not lose his constant thorough understanding of impermanence even for a moment, such a wise person fully comprehends all sensations. Having thus comprehended sensations, within this life he becomes freed of all defilements (and becomes an arahant or vedagu). Such a person, who is vedagu (one who completely understands the sphere of sensations), being established in Dhamma, after death attains the indescribable state beyond the conditioned world because he knows sensations thoroughly (their arising and passing away and also the state beyond sensation).
Again emphasizing the fact that the sensation manifests in the body, he said-
Suppose, meditators, there is a public guest housepublic guest house. People come there from the east, west, north and south. People who are Ksatriyas, Brahmins, Vaishyas and Shudras. Similarly, meditators, various sensations arise in this body-pleasant sensations, unpleasant sensations and neutral sensations arise; pleasant sensations with attachment, unpleasant... neutral... arise; pleasant... unpleasant... neutral sensations without attachment arise.
The above passage clearly describes the process of Vipassana, whereby through observation of sensations in the body (kayasmim), a person can be fully liberated from suffering. First, it describes different types of sensations (pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral) which a meditator easily understands and experiences by practising Vipassana. By constantly observing the sensations in the body, one experiences the characteristic of arising and passing away. This objective unremitting observation is sampajanna (constant thorough understanding of impermanence). According to the Buddha, one who practises sampajanna is a wise personwise person, knowing experientially how sensations arise and pass away within the body as a result of the repeated contact of sense objects. This person knows that when one begins to relish the pleasant sensations and abhorr the unpleasant sensations, misery is generated and multiplies. Without sampajanna, one remains unaware of the deeper unconscious level of the mind. It is in the darkness of ignorancedarkness of ignorance that an unconscious reaction begins towards the sensations. This momentary liking or disliking soon develops into craving or aversion, the reaction repeating and intensifying innumerable times before it bursts forth into the conscious mind. If importance is given only to what happens in the conscious mind, then because of one's ignorance of the underlying reality, one becomes aware of it only after the reaction has occurred repeatedly. One allows the spark of sensationspark of sensation to ignite into a raging fire before trying to extinguish it, resulting in unskilful physical and vocal actions. By practising sampajanna, one learns to observe the sensations within the body objectively, permitting each spark to burn itself out without starting a conflagration. By observing the physical aspect of vedana, one becomes aware of the reality that the vedana that has arisen is impermanent. With this understanding, one remains equanimous and prevents any reaction from occurring. Constant observation of vedana in this manner by anicca-bodha gives rise to detachment. With this attitude, one can prevent not only fresh reactions of craving and aversion, but also eliminate the very habit of reactinghabit of reacting, and thereby gradually come out of suffering by transcending all the sensations and becoming what the Buddha calls a vedagu-
One who is completely detached from vedana, and has gone beyond the entire (field of) vedana (to reach vedana-nirodha) is called vedagu.
Emphasising the arising of sensation in the body which results in the attainment of nibbana, the Buddha said in the Patthana-
Pleasant bodily sensation is the cause for the arising of pleasant sensation of the body, unpleasant sensation of the body, and attainment of fruition (nibbana) in relation to the strong dependent condition. Unpleasant bodily sensation is the cause for the arising of pleasant sensation of the body, unpleasant sensation of the body, and attainment of fruition (nibbana) in relation to the strong dependent condition.
This shows that the Buddha gave foremost importance to sensation for the realisation of the ultimate truth.
By moving with full awareness, remaining detached from the sensations within and without and observing them objectively, one reaches the cessation of consciousness.
Feeling the same pleasant or unpleasant sensations in the body, an ignorant personignorant person reacts to them and multiplies his or her sankhara. In contrast, a Vipassana meditator with the wisdom of sampajanna emerges from the old habit pattern and becomes fully liberated. Thus our bodies bear witness to the truthwitness to the truth. By observing sensations, we can advance from merely hearing about that truth to experiencing it directly for ourselves. When we meet it face to facemeet it face to face, we become transformed by the truth and faith arises in us, based not on blind belief but on experience.
It follows that in order to realize anything at the experiential level; one has to work with vedana.
Without mind, matter alone cannot feel anything. It is the mind that feels, but what it feels has an inextricable physical element-the sukha-vedana (pleasant sensations), dukkha-vedana (unpleasant sensations) and adukkhamasukhavedana (neutral sensations).
For the actual practice taught by the Buddha, it is this physical aspect of vedana which is of particular importance, since it is the most direct and tangible way to experience the anicca (impermanence) of ourselves, and so to develop wisdom. Anicca is a fact to be realized not by merely relating it intellectually to the outside world. Rather, it must be experienced internally. We must experience ourselvesexperience ourselves as we really are-each a transitory phenomenon, changing every moment. This experience of aniccaexperience of anicca at the level of sensations results in the gradual dissolution of attachment and egotism. Describing the importance of the physical aspect of vedana for the realisation of nibbana (liberation), the Buddha said-
Just as in the sky different windsas different winds in the sky blow from east and west, from north and south, dust-laden or dustless, cold or hot, fierce gales or gentle breezes- many winds blow. So also within the body arise sensations, pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. When a meditator, striving ardently, does not lose his constant thorough understanding of impermanence even for a moment, such a wise person fully comprehends all sensations. Having thus comprehended sensations, within this life he becomes freed of all defilements (and becomes an arahant or vedagu). Such a person, who is vedagu (one who completely understands the sphere of sensations), being established in Dhamma, after death attains the indescribable state beyond the conditioned world because he knows sensations thoroughly (their arising and passing away and also the state beyond sensation).
Again emphasizing the fact that the sensation manifests in the body, he said-
Suppose, meditators, there is a public guest housepublic guest house. People come there from the east, west, north and south. People who are Ksatriyas, Brahmins, Vaishyas and Shudras. Similarly, meditators, various sensations arise in this body-pleasant sensations, unpleasant sensations and neutral sensations arise; pleasant sensations with attachment, unpleasant... neutral... arise; pleasant... unpleasant... neutral sensations without attachment arise.
The above passage clearly describes the process of Vipassana, whereby through observation of sensations in the body (kayasmim), a person can be fully liberated from suffering. First, it describes different types of sensations (pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral) which a meditator easily understands and experiences by practising Vipassana. By constantly observing the sensations in the body, one experiences the characteristic of arising and passing away. This objective unremitting observation is sampajanna (constant thorough understanding of impermanence). According to the Buddha, one who practises sampajanna is a wise personwise person, knowing experientially how sensations arise and pass away within the body as a result of the repeated contact of sense objects. This person knows that when one begins to relish the pleasant sensations and abhorr the unpleasant sensations, misery is generated and multiplies. Without sampajanna, one remains unaware of the deeper unconscious level of the mind. It is in the darkness of ignorancedarkness of ignorance that an unconscious reaction begins towards the sensations. This momentary liking or disliking soon develops into craving or aversion, the reaction repeating and intensifying innumerable times before it bursts forth into the conscious mind. If importance is given only to what happens in the conscious mind, then because of one's ignorance of the underlying reality, one becomes aware of it only after the reaction has occurred repeatedly. One allows the spark of sensationspark of sensation to ignite into a raging fire before trying to extinguish it, resulting in unskilful physical and vocal actions. By practising sampajanna, one learns to observe the sensations within the body objectively, permitting each spark to burn itself out without starting a conflagration. By observing the physical aspect of vedana, one becomes aware of the reality that the vedana that has arisen is impermanent. With this understanding, one remains equanimous and prevents any reaction from occurring. Constant observation of vedana in this manner by anicca-bodha gives rise to detachment. With this attitude, one can prevent not only fresh reactions of craving and aversion, but also eliminate the very habit of reactinghabit of reacting, and thereby gradually come out of suffering by transcending all the sensations and becoming what the Buddha calls a vedagu-
One who is completely detached from vedana, and has gone beyond the entire (field of) vedana (to reach vedana-nirodha) is called vedagu.
Emphasising the arising of sensation in the body which results in the attainment of nibbana, the Buddha said in the Patthana-
Pleasant bodily sensation is the cause for the arising of pleasant sensation of the body, unpleasant sensation of the body, and attainment of fruition (nibbana) in relation to the strong dependent condition. Unpleasant bodily sensation is the cause for the arising of pleasant sensation of the body, unpleasant sensation of the body, and attainment of fruition (nibbana) in relation to the strong dependent condition.
This shows that the Buddha gave foremost importance to sensation for the realisation of the ultimate truth.
By moving with full awareness, remaining detached from the sensations within and without and observing them objectively, one reaches the cessation of consciousness.
Feeling the same pleasant or unpleasant sensations in the body, an ignorant personignorant person reacts to them and multiplies his or her sankhara. In contrast, a Vipassana meditator with the wisdom of sampajanna emerges from the old habit pattern and becomes fully liberated. Thus our bodies bear witness to the truthwitness to the truth. By observing sensations, we can advance from merely hearing about that truth to experiencing it directly for ourselves. When we meet it face to facemeet it face to face, we become transformed by the truth and faith arises in us, based not on blind belief but on experience.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Dependant Origination
(from Buddha Dharma Education Assocation http://www.buddhanet.net/funbud12.htm)
Today, in this tenth session, we are going to take up a very important topic in Buddhist studies and this is the teaching of dependent origination. I am aware of the fact that many people believe that dependent origination is a very difficult subject and I would not say that there is no truth in that belief. In fact, on one occasion Ananda remarked that despite its apparent difficulty, the teaching of dependent origination was actually quite simple; and the Buddha rebuked Ananda saying that in fact the teaching of dependent origination was very deep. Certainly in the teaching of dependent origination we have one of the most important and profound teachings in Buddhism....
....Let us take a few examples that establish the nature of dependent origination. Let us take first an example used by the Buddha Himself. The Buddha has said the flame in an oil lamp burns dependent upon the oil and the wick. When the oil and the wick are present, the flame in an oil lamp burns. If either of these is absent, the flame will cease to burn. This example illustrates the principle of dependent origination with respect to a flame in an oil lamp. Let us take the example of the sprout. Dependent upon the seed, earth, water, air and sunlight the sprout arises. There are in fact innumerable examples of dependent origination because there is no existing phenomenon that is not the effect of dependent origination. All these phenomena arise dependent upon a number of causal factors. Very simply, this is the principle of dependent origination.
Quote by Buddha
"In this way, Ananda, conditioned by feeling is craving, conditioned by craving is seeking, conditioned by seeking is gain, conditioned by gain is valuation, conditioned by valuation is fondness, conditioned by fondness is possessiveness, conditioned by possessiveness is ownership, conditioned by ownership is avarice, conditioned by avarice is guarding,[*] conditioned by guarding and resulting from guarding are the taking up of the stick, the knife, contention, dispute, arguments, abuse, slander, and lying. Evil and unskillful actions of many kinds thus appear in profusion."[
On watching the tendency of solidification of experience
Must watch the tendency to understand the 'habit' of solidifying of experiences. And to understand that the psychological pain is 'one of the many faces of the self as is the 'watching of phenomena as a detached observer and non identification.
Must also try to understand what Buddhism talks about dependant origination.
Must also try to understand what Buddhism talks about dependant origination.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Valuable note from Ravi
All this goes on as H describes it so well. As if we are puppets of some play.... How to bring the kind of attention that is independent of all this, which can see all this. The one which needs to fix this, that and every other thing is a pretender to the crown and expects obeisance. It even begins to use the language and the forms of the work for its purposes.
"What is needed? To remember that being human is an immense privilege and a wonder? Or?
"What does it mean to be free?
"I look forward to this week of work together. Perhaps we can find the place at the edge between what we know and what we do not know...and become available to the unknown."
"What is needed? To remember that being human is an immense privilege and a wonder? Or?
"What does it mean to be free?
"I look forward to this week of work together. Perhaps we can find the place at the edge between what we know and what we do not know...and become available to the unknown."
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Excerpts from the Gnostic Gospels
Gospel of Thomas
1.After all its not what goes into your mouth that will defile you. Its what comes out of your mouth that will defile you.
2.Whoever blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes against the son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the holy spirit will not be forgiven, either on earth or in heaven.
3.Lucky is the lion that the human will eat, so that the lion becomes human. And foul is the human that the lion will eat, and the lion still will become human.
Gospel of Philip.
1.The slave seeks only to be free, but he does not hope to acquire the estate of his master. But the son is not only a son but lays claim to the inheritance of the father. Those who are heirs to the dead are themselves dead, and they inherit the dead. Those who are heirs to what is living are alive, and they are heirs to both what is living and the dead. The dead are heirs to nothing. For how can he who is dead inherit? If he who is dead inherits what is living he will not die, but he who is dead will live even more
2.Names given to the worldly are very deceptive, for they divert our thoughts from what is correct to what is incorrect. Thus one who hears the word "God" does not perceive what is correct, but perceives what is incorrect. So also with "the Father" and "the Son" and "the Holy Spirit" and "life" and "light" and "resurrection" and "the Church (Ekklesia)" and all the rest - people do not perceive what is correct but they perceive what is incorrect, unless they have come to know what is correct. The names which are heard are in the world [...] deceive. If they were in the Aeon (eternal realm), they would at no time be used as names in the world. Nor were they set among worldly things. They have an end in the Aeon.
3.These are powers which [...] man, not wishing him to be saved, in order that they may [...]. For if man is saved, there will not be any sacrifices [...] and animals will not be offered to the powers. Indeed, the animals were the ones to whom they sacrificed. They were indeed offering them up alive, but when they offered them up, they died. As for man, they offered him up to God dead, and he lived.
4.Before Christ came, there was no bread in the world, just as Paradise, the place were Adam was, had many trees to nourish the animals but no wheat to sustain man. Man used to feed like the animals, but when Christ came, the perfect man, he brought bread from heaven in order that man might be nourished with the food of man. The rulers thought that it was by their own power and will that they were doing what they did, but the Holy Spirit in secret was accomplishing everything through them as it wished. Truth, which existed since the beginning, is sown everywhere. And many see it being sown, but few are they who see it being reaped.
5. No one will hide a large valuable object in something large, but many a time one has tossed countless thousands into a thing worth a penny. Compare the soul. It is a precious thing and it came to be in a contemptible body.
6.It is through water and fire that the whole place is purified - the visible by the visible, the hidden by the hidden. There are some things hidden through those visible. There is water in water, there is fire in chrism.
7.What the father possesses belongs to the son, and the son himself, so long as he is small, is not entrusted with what is his. But when he becomes a man, his father gives him all that he possesses.
8.God is a dyer. As the good dyes, which are called "true", dissolve with the things dyed in them, so it is with those whom God has dyed. Since his dyes are immortal, they become immortal by means of his colors. Now God dips what he dips in water.
9.It is not possible for anyone to see anything of the things that actually exist unless he becomes like them. This is not the way with man in the world: he sees the sun without being a sun; and he sees the heaven and the earth and all other things, but he is not these things. This is quite in keeping with the truth. But you saw something of that place, and you became those things. You saw the Spirit, you became spirit. You saw Christ, you became Christ. You saw the Father, you shall become Father. So in this place you see everything and do not see yourself, but in that place you do see yourself - and what you see you shall become.
10.Faith receives, love gives. No one will be able to receive without faith. No one will be able to give without love.
11.God is a man-eater. For this reason, men are sacrificed to him. Before men were sacrificed, animals were being sacrificed, since those to whom they were sacrificed were not gods.
12.As for the Wisdom who is called "the barren," she is the mother of the angels. And the companion of the [...] Mary Magdalene. [...] loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples [...]. They said to him "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Savior answered and said to them,"Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness."
1.After all its not what goes into your mouth that will defile you. Its what comes out of your mouth that will defile you.
2.Whoever blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes against the son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the holy spirit will not be forgiven, either on earth or in heaven.
3.Lucky is the lion that the human will eat, so that the lion becomes human. And foul is the human that the lion will eat, and the lion still will become human.
Gospel of Philip.
1.The slave seeks only to be free, but he does not hope to acquire the estate of his master. But the son is not only a son but lays claim to the inheritance of the father. Those who are heirs to the dead are themselves dead, and they inherit the dead. Those who are heirs to what is living are alive, and they are heirs to both what is living and the dead. The dead are heirs to nothing. For how can he who is dead inherit? If he who is dead inherits what is living he will not die, but he who is dead will live even more
2.Names given to the worldly are very deceptive, for they divert our thoughts from what is correct to what is incorrect. Thus one who hears the word "God" does not perceive what is correct, but perceives what is incorrect. So also with "the Father" and "the Son" and "the Holy Spirit" and "life" and "light" and "resurrection" and "the Church (Ekklesia)" and all the rest - people do not perceive what is correct but they perceive what is incorrect, unless they have come to know what is correct. The names which are heard are in the world [...] deceive. If they were in the Aeon (eternal realm), they would at no time be used as names in the world. Nor were they set among worldly things. They have an end in the Aeon.
3.These are powers which [...] man, not wishing him to be saved, in order that they may [...]. For if man is saved, there will not be any sacrifices [...] and animals will not be offered to the powers. Indeed, the animals were the ones to whom they sacrificed. They were indeed offering them up alive, but when they offered them up, they died. As for man, they offered him up to God dead, and he lived.
4.Before Christ came, there was no bread in the world, just as Paradise, the place were Adam was, had many trees to nourish the animals but no wheat to sustain man. Man used to feed like the animals, but when Christ came, the perfect man, he brought bread from heaven in order that man might be nourished with the food of man. The rulers thought that it was by their own power and will that they were doing what they did, but the Holy Spirit in secret was accomplishing everything through them as it wished. Truth, which existed since the beginning, is sown everywhere. And many see it being sown, but few are they who see it being reaped.
5. No one will hide a large valuable object in something large, but many a time one has tossed countless thousands into a thing worth a penny. Compare the soul. It is a precious thing and it came to be in a contemptible body.
6.It is through water and fire that the whole place is purified - the visible by the visible, the hidden by the hidden. There are some things hidden through those visible. There is water in water, there is fire in chrism.
7.What the father possesses belongs to the son, and the son himself, so long as he is small, is not entrusted with what is his. But when he becomes a man, his father gives him all that he possesses.
8.God is a dyer. As the good dyes, which are called "true", dissolve with the things dyed in them, so it is with those whom God has dyed. Since his dyes are immortal, they become immortal by means of his colors. Now God dips what he dips in water.
9.It is not possible for anyone to see anything of the things that actually exist unless he becomes like them. This is not the way with man in the world: he sees the sun without being a sun; and he sees the heaven and the earth and all other things, but he is not these things. This is quite in keeping with the truth. But you saw something of that place, and you became those things. You saw the Spirit, you became spirit. You saw Christ, you became Christ. You saw the Father, you shall become Father. So in this place you see everything and do not see yourself, but in that place you do see yourself - and what you see you shall become.
10.Faith receives, love gives. No one will be able to receive without faith. No one will be able to give without love.
11.God is a man-eater. For this reason, men are sacrificed to him. Before men were sacrificed, animals were being sacrificed, since those to whom they were sacrificed were not gods.
12.As for the Wisdom who is called "the barren," she is the mother of the angels. And the companion of the [...] Mary Magdalene. [...] loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples [...]. They said to him "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Savior answered and said to them,"Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness."
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Habit
Breaking of habits as a basis of sadhana appears to be quite interesting. Our false personality finally manifests into habits -physical, emotional and intellectual. We seem trapped and imprisoned by these habits and are powerless to do any thing 'out of character'.
Breaking of habits allows us to break the walls around us and then merge with the habitless and hopefully, the right action would follow guided by what is needed to be done and not based on the likes and dislikes of the habits.
True freedom, it seems, is freedom from habits.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Sadhana for the rest of the life
"Dispense with words. Turn the attention towards the organism."
"Discover what it means to have a real connection with the body."
" Discover what it means when the call to Work comes from somewhere other than the intelligence of the intellect."
"Discover what it means to have a real connection with the body."
" Discover what it means when the call to Work comes from somewhere other than the intelligence of the intellect."
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Oasis
Its been 6 days. There is a lightness. The breath flows in and out of both nostrils freely. As though at the top of the head is a hole that allows air to flow in and out freely.
There is a lightness. I am not carrying on my shoulder the constant ache of sexual desire. And when that weight is removed suddenly I am light.
Nothing else has changed. But this is grace. This lightness. There is no effort. Everything can be done in me as need be done.
Faint fears of knowing one day this could go away. But right now none.
This is a taste.
If this is a record that is ever going to be read by any searcher...remember, all the effort and hard work and sacrifice is worth this moment.
There is a lightness. I am not carrying on my shoulder the constant ache of sexual desire. And when that weight is removed suddenly I am light.
Nothing else has changed. But this is grace. This lightness. There is no effort. Everything can be done in me as need be done.
Faint fears of knowing one day this could go away. But right now none.
This is a taste.
If this is a record that is ever going to be read by any searcher...remember, all the effort and hard work and sacrifice is worth this moment.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Do your work
Harish..
You have got much. Now dont be lazy.
You have got on to something big after years of struggle and sacrifice.
Dont let go. Work harder. Listen. Just listen.
You have got much. Now dont be lazy.
You have got on to something big after years of struggle and sacrifice.
Dont let go. Work harder. Listen. Just listen.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Feeling the I in different parts of the b.ody
Interesting exercise. To feel the "I" in the hands..or the feet or the face..
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Insights on the Work
The Body is always in the Present Moment.
How to work well? Especially exercises that one cannot do even repeatedly? Its about egotism. We should not do this Work for personal benefit. We need to do it for our parents, and the people around us and for the people in the world. Its about duty now and not about personal search or about whether its fun or not. I have this physical body at my disposal to purify and make transparent so that the energy can flow down and help.." may Thine be on earth as it is in Heaven".
How to work well? Especially exercises that one cannot do even repeatedly? Its about egotism. We should not do this Work for personal benefit. We need to do it for our parents, and the people around us and for the people in the world. Its about duty now and not about personal search or about whether its fun or not. I have this physical body at my disposal to purify and make transparent so that the energy can flow down and help.." may Thine be on earth as it is in Heaven".
Sunday, February 22, 2009
work period 2009
Work period 2009
The Gurdjieff Work is something else. It is not about “my” search. It is about creating a live pool of consciousness from which will incubate newer searchers and a cumulative pool of consciousness created out of the combined Work of everyone in the pool. This pool is the food for all and with this food, more efforts.
This work period one understood the beginnings of the word 'responsibility'. To be a Senior in the Work. To be responsible means “to respond” not react. To everything. To everyone. And the first step towards that is to listen. To everything. To everyone.
So what is my responsibility? In the Work, to keep it alive. To have searchers at all levels so that the current flows without any break, at any level. And to Work myself. Ceaselessly. Because the domino effect of one person working is unbelievable. One person gives energy to the pool that energizes everyone else's effort and when everyone Works, the surge in the pool is a huge multiple of that single drop that a single person contributed.
How do I Work Intelligently?
I need to develop the sensitivity to what is needed right now. To what needs to be served right now. So that the energy that wishes to evolve will not return disappointed.
I need to Listen. Learn that language of the voice of the energy behind the words. Of the wish of the energy behind the sensations. Of the fervour of the energy behind the racing thoughts. I need to keep Working, till I find a true taste of the connection that Mme De Salzmann speaks about.
The Gurdjieff Work is something else. It is not about “my” search. It is about creating a live pool of consciousness from which will incubate newer searchers and a cumulative pool of consciousness created out of the combined Work of everyone in the pool. This pool is the food for all and with this food, more efforts.
This work period one understood the beginnings of the word 'responsibility'. To be a Senior in the Work. To be responsible means “to respond” not react. To everything. To everyone. And the first step towards that is to listen. To everything. To everyone.
So what is my responsibility? In the Work, to keep it alive. To have searchers at all levels so that the current flows without any break, at any level. And to Work myself. Ceaselessly. Because the domino effect of one person working is unbelievable. One person gives energy to the pool that energizes everyone else's effort and when everyone Works, the surge in the pool is a huge multiple of that single drop that a single person contributed.
How do I Work Intelligently?
I need to develop the sensitivity to what is needed right now. To what needs to be served right now. So that the energy that wishes to evolve will not return disappointed.
I need to Listen. Learn that language of the voice of the energy behind the words. Of the wish of the energy behind the sensations. Of the fervour of the energy behind the racing thoughts. I need to keep Working, till I find a true taste of the connection that Mme De Salzmann speaks about.
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