[Gem]

Originally Posted by Rain95

I would say something similar. The now is what it is and in this now is all that is needed to experience the divine. The divine is not external to anything that is here, because our true nature is the divine. It is us and we are it. What gets in the way of the experience of the divine and our true nature is keeping our attention on the false, on the imagination, on words, thoughts, concepts, on the false created self.

I exist, I am fully here, but I am not here as memory, as the past, as a continuous person that is created by habitual and repetitive thought. I can choose to not identify with all of that if it comes or is here. The divine can only be experienced in the real and in the now. It is not in thought or memory or in the imagination. It is present in reality. All of the stuff that makes us a person, memory, the past, thought, can be dropped, seen as delusion, and thus I can become what I am and what everyone truly is, under all the delusion that keeps us bound to it.

I agree, but with the caveat that many or most people do not experience divinity, and have the experience that they do have whatever that might be. If the individual has strong notions of divinity and, like, I want divinity, why don't I experience divinity, then craving is the reality of their experience, and that is recognisable albeit usually overlooked. Returning attention to 'this' and being conscious of 'what is' is mindfulness, and in Buddhism at least, it is a deliberate practice.


There are various approaches including breath awareness, body sensation awareness, watching thought and probably others, but the defining element is pure observation.


Pure observation means being aware and not being anything you are aware of. Hence when the mind is agitated in reactivity to the senses, that is observable, so not-me, my, mine, I. IOW, if you are the one aware of agitations then you are not the one who is agitated, and if your are not agitated, there is no-one generating agitation - so there is no agitation in you.


This state of no agitation or reactivity is 'equanimity', so when they say equanimity is a subtle emotional state, it is actually the quality of 'pure awareness' and is not characterised by the presence of emotion or the absence of emotion.


In the meditation, which is the deliberate practice of equanimity, a person takes mastery of themselves by becoming conscious of the body sensations and their psychological reactions to them. A person sees that disconnect of 'first sensation - then reaction' and realises the reaction is a delusional fabrication as the sensation has already passed and the mind getting stuck on it. They deliberately practice body awareness without reacting by staying with the momentary truth 'this is how it feels'. They are still aware that the mind is trying to freak out as it is habitualised to to, but they know it delusionary fabrication of me my mine I. IOW, the delusion that I am the subject apart from and affected by sensation.



Then they overcome that limit of the body, aware of it and mindful, but not attached and able to remain very still in themselves during quite extreme discomfort or pleasure. This means their equanimity is getting strong and they can withstand deeper healing processes.


At this time, the surface agitation of reacting to sensations has subsided, so so the deeper aspects of the emotions start to rise up. These are we call 'trauma', which are very strong emotional reactions in the past that were not resolved at the time. Everyone has these because it's a natural function of our survival mechanisms, and the meditation allows the them to arise now because we became strong and stable enough through practice to survive them without losing our mind.


Because the meditator trained through the body, became still regardless of any sensation, they have stable equanimity. When the emotional storms arise the meditator in themselves is still and unaffected and simply know it is true, a great storm is rising. This allows the trauma to be exposed to the light of conscious awareness where it passes and dissolves away.


That dissolution is also felt on a physical level as the physical manifestation of that held emotion ceases to be regenerated, and through this process the purification process operates across the mind and body.


As the meditator becomes more and more stable in equanimity, this process both deepens and accellerates. It is important to keep your practice of equanimity and not try to 'make things happen' because, firstly, if you push things you can 'bite off more than you chew' and flip out and; secondly, there is a survival mechanism where if you become overwhelmed and start to over-react and become overwhelmed, the mind will return to a grosser level and lose awareness of excessively extreme experiences so you don't flip out. Hence, you are not involved in making healing happen. You are only watching without interference and letting nature do its thing.



After a good while, much of this old content has passed through, and some energetic experiences flow through the now significantly cleared body, which in themselves can become extreme and relentless, so the practice is not 'an energy practice'; it's still the practice of equanimity, often just holding the edges as the extremity of the experience is endured in this rapid purification stage.



At some point after significant clearing has occurred, the love of the universe begins to bubble up and overflow, and here is where metta truly comes into play as a real-lived fact which is just true of your heart.



In this way I described above, mindfulness precedes metta as way of purification that enables the love-light to flow through us, to everyone we encounter, to all living things, and the world and the universe beyond.



For our small sangha here, we are not going into days of serious meditation. We are just going about our rather distracted lives, so I think a minutes practice is suitable. It is nothing in time here and it has remarkably positive effects, so please invest one minute to be mindful in yourself, and from your calm centre, emanate loving-kindness for our mutual happiness.


Knowing this is mutual, may we all invest a minute to bring about greater happiness.