Quote:
|
Originally Posted by JustBe
@Gem.
It would pay to be aware it’s all temporary, that should be the first thing people should learn when starting out. Love and bliss included. Integrated into balance. logic minded brother who was concerned for me and told me this, very directly. It hit my like a ton of bricks as ‘truth’ and consequently I dropped fast out of it.
|
I wasn't at all sure about where to start out, so I did a post about life circumstances and seeing if it's possible to improve how things are in terms of aligning social life to conditions that are more conducive to a spiritual life.
Even if that pre-meditation preparation is the best step for someone, knowing things change makes you better able to cope with the changes you think are worth making. Often we get stuck and maybe even overly secure with the way things are, so making a positive change is like the fear of losing the unwholesome situation one is currently secure in. Agree, facing the truth that everything is always changing can free you up in a positive way that allows and enables a improvement in conditions, both external and internal.
With my approach, the early period where it's not necessarily pleasant takes advantage of discomfort to train being at peace inside whilst pain is in body. Later on when experience lightens up and there's more pleasure you have already learned the 'observational mindset' and can remain in that 'just observe' zone. The early part is actually a bit easier because you are so fully aware of how adverse reactions relate to unpleasant feelings. It's very obvious. In later part it's much subtler, it's more insidious, because you get a bit intoxicated with things and don't even notice the craven tendencies. The ego can go into overdrive and say 'I'm doing so good, see how spiritual I'm becoming' etc. Hence I think it's great if we start out on the right foot to understand 'observation' and avoid getting tripped up down the track.
It usually gets missed because people think meditation is pleasure, (but life is pleasure and pain); then when they experience discomfort, displeasure, they think they can't meditate like that. Its actually not the unpleasantness that's killing the vibe. It's the adverse reactivity agitating the mind so much you lose the plot. If you can remain still minded, discomforts of the body won't agitate you.
Some the 'rest in awareness' types will think we 'drive through the pain', but actually, life comes with pain and the way you make peace with it is fundamentally optional. I say 'fundamentally' because it's not just a choice. People have their own amounts of how much a koala can bear. When the novice sees the adepts up front of the hall, motionless, peaceful, one might assume they are experiencing a lot of pleasure. The reality is they are going through the waves of pleasure and pain just like everyone else, and the only difference between the novice and the adept is the adept remains unperturbed and sees change as being equal in any case. It's more probable the adepts experience greater extremes of both beyond the coping ability of a novice, because they can remain quiet and aware internally at extremes of experience that would drive a novice mad.
That's why when starting to 'just observe' nature tends to take you an extreme that is your personal limitation. That could be pain or pleasure, but even when pleasure like bliss gets too much it can be more than a koala can bear. It doesn't actually make much sense to imagine pleasure and pain in separate categories because it's one and the same flow of change in a sea that never stays the same.
In my case I was fine with love coming up through me and had no attachments, but another thing showed me how pleasure is the literally the same as pain. I had an energy flow which was so so nice, until it turned up to 11. It wouldn't let up and I could barely cope with it. I just wished it would stop. The same thing was pleasure and also unbearable. I knew my art so I did my best to remain even minded and it all worked out fine because I learned the way of peaceful observation in my early training with discomfort. It's a hard skill to muster, but as far as possible regard whatever feelings just the same. Just as it is.
Be open to change and understand the truth of impermanence, for sure. Nothing can possibly last.