[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by Gem

I'm attending an 'industry week' seminar thing now and a lot of it is just a big sales pitch, but a couple of them are more serious and more focused on correct motions and balance, so it's not all bad - some of it is really good.

That's good.

I think in the mindfulness thing, this notion of truth is the essential ingredient, and yes the philosophers will have a lot to say about it (because they need to outsmart everyone) but I'm only talking about truthfulness in terms of honesty and trust, and how we might be involved in a lot of stories because facing personal truths is hard to do.

I understand that stories become a part of the letting go process and life itself, so it all fits the picture through the choices we make to unfold in our own truthfulness. Everything serves itself until it no longer does. I mean some stories play out for years and years, people deciding they like to sit in that zone, hold the truth of themselves within that space. For me in being more open to my own truthfulness, there is a natural awareness of others that brings up a greater impact in me to be mindful of the external world moving through their own stuff. In some ways where I am now, more open and clear, the harder it has been to just sit in all others stuff mindfully. I am not talking "work mode". More in general, or social mode. I noticed recently because my sensory awareness is becoming so clear and heightened in myself, that I actually can hear the past, present and future in the play on words of others still bound to themselves. Some jump out at me in ways where it is hitting my senses more directly. Usually I can sit on the surface with people, but lately this is showing me how "more mindful" in my practice I have to be in this way. This is something new and more clear now, so again for every opening and clear flow in myself, there is this awareness of others more heightened outside of me. So again another level of mindful awareness and not getting caught up in their altered reality that shows me quite openly where it is at. Its tricky because in this situation where you expect to chill and enjoy yourself, people's reality is hitting you in the face on every level when they are just talking about surface stuff. But again I am a great advocate that if your ignoring yourself in mindfulness of others and life in general, it will come up in everyway of your world and life to practice this stuff. As you know for its the lived experience of this, where I seek to practice this stuff, so their is no avoiding myself in this way. I think sometimes when you get people in a forum, safely seated on their bottoms, playing on line, not having much direct contact with life around them, but growing and opening through this means, its all well and good. One can derive a very grounded presence and believe they have their poo together, spouting knowledge and telling others how it is and should be, but ultimately take that into the real world and it really does open up another level of mindfulness as a practice for real. For me more than ever this mindfulness of self, is the place I am holding as the way through life, more than anything else. I cant avoid myself now and the nature of truthfulness speaks very direct to me in myself, not only for me, but the world around me. So its even harder now to hold your own presence when the world is going crazy. But its a good challenge and one I thrive on more naturally now. Even in groups I participate in real life with, they all have these needs to be doing externally for the world and others, which is great, but then I am looking into those heightened moments, thinking, but hey "get your own poo together, cant you hear yourself? Cant you see yourself? Can you feel that in yourself? And then I realize in that moment, how blind I was, how at times I couldn't hear the truth, how I couldn't see myself until I could, I suppressed feelings to protect myself and all that jazz. And hearing and seeing it all, feeling their unresolved stuff and all that jazz, I realize how easy it becomes to just be alone..hehehe

That to me is a fundamental, because mindfulness is to recognise things for what they are, and a story is a story - perhaps a very comforting one such as a religious story - or a very destructive and negative one - but everyone has to deal with esteem because we can only be who we think we are, and what we think and believe makes the life we have from day to day.

Yep looking at things more directly as I mentioned. Its just finding the mindfulness within that all exposed view that hits you directly when your clearer in yourself and more open to notice. It is hard when the story and the words coming out show the destructive nature of itself playing out as one. The mindfulness in staying present in that space of another reflecting to me what I have been, what I am open to clear in me now is like sitting with yourself exposed in everyway without even trying to be. I see these situations as positive awareness especially when you have people who don't want to move forward. Allowing but respecting mindfully that space. Its hard all the same, because your limited to the walls they are continually reinforcing over and over to keep their world as it is. I am very aware of more, that is not the issue, I feel much more even without their story in that space deeper. Its more that they content in this way and I find that difficult to grasp at times. Silence and a listening ear even as I know, is golden in these times I guess..well I am learning that. And mindfulness with someone who doesn't want to know, doesn't want to tell themselves the truth, is a deeper gain for me in my own practice and being in the world with others.

Mindfulness is like being the knower of one's life, like, 'I know what's going on with me'. It isn't so much, 'this feels bad and this is negative and I need to fix it'. It's just 'this is the way it is right now'. It doesn't make anything easier and it can't work as an escape from oneself. It can only reveal what is true of oneself - and this being seen is akin to you being revealed in the light of conscious awareness. The skill of it is to be OK so when the hard issues arise that like and dislike isn't so extreme as one can simply be like 'this' is the truth of how it is.

Yes I understand all this. It fits as I see it. And those hard issues, are not always about you, but they definitely can affect you which will bring you back to you to notice what is there in deeper truths in this way.

In fact, nothing needs to be done, and more often that not just leaving things alone lets them sort themselves out, but realising an issue more deeply might inspire a person to do something about it, so there's no golden rule - except of course knowing what it is at the root of ones own suffering.

Yes that is where I am now gaining deeper in myself. Leave things alone, let them sort out for others. How I manage myself in others in this way, actually shows me deeper how to stay present with stuff I don't need to do anything about. Even with people around me, wanting, needing to do, fix etc that too is a challenge to let go and just stay present deeper in myself. So far its working and showing me the ease at which mindfulness becomes without thoughts of "needing to be that", more seeing the practice of it leads itself more naturally over time with practice.

So people are looking for joy and bliss, and we sell meditation by promising these to people, but the desire embedded in that can be a problem when people think it's a tactic to avoid life's pain. This dynamic tension between avoiding some things and chasing after other things, running from discomfort and chasing pleasure, is all a big movement and we can live in that, as we must, because we survive by avoiding pain that indicates harm to ourselves, but then we also need the skill of honestly finding out how we generate our own negativity, so we can stop blaming all the hard things in life and the other people who hurt us.

Yep avoidance is running rife in this day and age..I will share a little story with you about the guitar son. He is quite obsessed with his Ipad, mother takes him off it for two weeks. He is eight years old. She has been noticing he has been more tearful in that time, but one night in his room, she walked in to find him sobbing deeply. Like deep in his core crying. She quickly went to his aid and hugged him. After a little while she asked him if he wanted to talk about what was upsetting him. He said through his outpouring and chocking up, he would try. He said to her, "I have been thinking about existence". She was shocked for moment, collected herself and asked him, "What is upsetting you so much about this?" Well he said, "I have been thinking about, what if I don't exist?" (tears flooding) "what am I?" "Where would I be?" It all poured out of him. "And if I don't exist, and you don't exist and Nan and Pa don't exist, If P (meaning me) doesn't exist, where are we all?" His mum preceded to give him what she perceived he needed in that moment, which settled and calmed him down, enough so he could get back to sleep.

For me life gets hard because I don't have any excuses or justification stories, and I have to face everything I do fully. It was a lot easier when I have some stories to comfort me, but it was less honest, and even if we start to think it's better for me to be honest, we slide into that desire for some sort of pleasurable reward. It's more like it is better because it is purer. Actually truthfulness can lead to more pain in life, and there are no material rewards for oneself, there is nothing to gain by it... so I guess this might indicate how truthfulness can interrupt the ego complex through a disposition of pure ethics - not for the sake of getting anything as a reward for it.

Yes I get it. It was a lot easier when I had reason for being, now its more difficult as I am aware in myself with life around me. In facing it all head on, I have no where to go now when life around me shows me itself. With no reason other then its "life" as it is, you can only manage and practice a more mindful awareness of others and life and just get on with it. I wouldn't want to live in the old way of being, it does feel more pure now and for me regardless of what is moving around me, my centre of being smiles at the many things in life I am happy for, thankful for and so I enjoy my life and create in many ways of it. Living with a more clear non attached relating, has opened my own freedom in me to immerse deeper and feel more rewarded from within myself regardless of what is moving outside of me. That to me is the ultimate, where I gain from the little things or the simplicity in life. There is always something to enjoy in life. Its what I create and make it to be really...