Practice

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by Moondance

Hi Gem

I’m not sure that the ‘doer’ question is relevant here.

In sentient organisms there appears to be the innate tendency/drive towards survival, continuity and freedom. When this drive manifests as the spiritual quest, our apparent choices will, in many cases, lead to a sense of opening up to life's wider spectrum. Along the way this inclination enables us to engage in activities (practices) which facilitate the shedding of many types of constricting conditioning - we are gravitationally pulled towards a sense of greater understanding, sensitivity and freedom. But nowhere in this is there the suggestion of an inherently existing, separate doer - not even in our most ‘ego driven’ doings.

That sits well in me as I perceive it.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Moondance

Hi Gem

I’m not sure that the ‘doer’ question is relevant here.

I just mention it because it's the crux of non-duality.

In sentient organisms there appears to be the innate tendency/drive towards survival, continuity and freedom. When this drive manifests as the spiritual quest, our apparent choices will, in many cases, lead to a sense of opening up to life's wider spectrum. Along the way this inclination enables us to engage in activities (practices) which facilitate the shedding of many types of constricting conditioning - we are gravitationally pulled towards a sense of greater understanding, sensitivity and freedom. But nowhere in this is there the suggestion of an inherently existing, separate doer - not even in our most ‘ego driven’ doings.

Yes. I think the general process is first seeing that all the acquirements of wealth, fame, position and so on don't bring any happiness, so the person's interest shifts to spiritual things, even though the desire driven pursuit itself hasn't changed, but after a while, realising that all these experiences are fleeting and don't bring happiness, the interest in 'this' experience 'as it is' grows. Then what I call 'practice' commences when the interest brings attention to what is happening now.

The other things people do to bring on experiences are fine and of course have their own benefits in developing skill and ability, but to me, 'meditation' is a particular thing which is essentially non-volitional, for non-volition is to see it as it is, just observe; and volitional exercises are aimed to make it as you want it to be.

The non-duality paradigm says there is no doer, so volition is just an illusion of desire, but this person, Gem, can't actually do anything anyway because Gem is basically a collage of thought, mostly psychological reactivity, which produces an illusion of myself as a separate agent with free will, which is to say, I run from the adverse and pursue the desirable.

The practice is conscious awareness aware pervading throughout the body/mind. This means the perceptive sensitivity of the mind becomes sharper to be able to consciously notice the finer and finer subtleties of this lifeform, and because awareness is pure, without reaction of aversions and desires, the obstacles of the lifeform are exposed and dissolved in the light of conscious awareness. As these obstacles are resolved, the body so purified opens up and the lifeform becomes an efficient channel through which universal love may flow. It's a very complex stage, really, because it's still a sensation through the body/mind, which has the pitfalls of aversion to the intensities and desires for more, so the fundamental practice itself, to maintain that balance of equanimity, is where practice starts and always remains.

The other things, the purification and opening, of course of enormous benefit to me and everyone else, are not essentially important, and can be considered as merely consequential. The practice regarding the delicate poise of mindful balance, equanimity, is the centre and core which enables all else.

That basically sums up my way of practice, so thanks for making the space for me to say so, Moondance.

[akez24]

a sincerity to know and understand oneself without prejudice or desire but, with real first-hand experience.

[Moondance]

Originally Posted by Gem

That basically sums up my way of practice, so thanks for making the space for me to say so, Moondance.

Thanks for sharing Gem - nicely expressed.

[Moondance]

Originally Posted by Jyotir

Hi Moondance,

Or that the word 'practice' has "too many connotations" precisely because of the very richness of viable possibility within it ... that 'practice' is the deliberately attempted consistency, continuity, or constancy of that re-orientation...which could likewise, also apply to concentration, intensification, acceleration, purification, etc. They all qualify as that re-orientation 'of sorts' - none of them mutually exclusive in principle.

~ J

Let’s refine this further. What is it that practice or reorientation does? It facilitates a sidestepping of our habitual locked-in tendencies of mind. It wakes us from our default repetitive narratives.

So it’s not really the practice as such which is pertinent here, it’s the requisite of conditions which take us to the edge of our habituated outlook.

This requisite* can be facilitated by various means such as meditation, inquiry, existential crisis, trauma… I hear about it sometimes with terminally ill folk who suddenly see life anew as if for the first time - they often describe a euphoria which in many respects resembles a form of low level satori.

And this is where we might disagree slightly. I don’t actually have a problem with the suggestion that a direct pointing approach could be the catalyst for a shift of perception. I could believe that someone could (for instance) spend three hours at a Tony Parsons** meeting and experience a clear seeing and a shift into a sense of freedom. But my concern would be that this is likely to be short lived other than as an intellectual understanding. And this is because the issue of habituated mind states that keep us locked in contraction are still in play.

The point being is that if we default to (as is most likely) our deeply embedded narratives, abstractions and conceptual constructs, we are less likely to inhabit a dynamic sensibility of no-separation.






* Let’s have a timely reminder here. There are no requirements to be met in order for Oneness/Reality/Source/God to be the case… only (in some cases) for the seeing, realisation, knowing of this. And this is where a red herring can come in to play. It’s absolutely true that there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to change in order for Oneness to be the case… but that’s not the issue here.


** Being from the UK, I got to see TP on a few occasions in the early noughties - it was three hours of pure and powerful ‘pointing out’ of the inescapable obvious. And just for the record, he was actually very charming and lighthearted with no sense of cult about him whatsoever. :)

[Iamit]

Originally Posted by Moondance

Let’s refine this further. What is it that practice or reorientation does? It facilitates a sidestepping of our habitual locked-in tendencies of mind. It wakes us from our default repetitive narratives.

So it’s not really the practice as such which is pertinent here, it’s the requisite of conditions which take us to the edge of our habituated outlook.

This requisite* can be facilitated by various means such as meditation, inquiry, existential crisis, trauma… I hear about it sometimes with terminally ill folk who suddenly see life anew as if for the first time - they often describe a euphoria which in many respects resembles a form of low level satori.

And this is where we might disagree slightly. I don’t actually have a problem with the suggestion that a direct pointing approach could be the catalyst for a shift of perception. I could believe that someone could (for instance) spend three hours at a Tony Parsons** meeting and experience a clear seeing and a shift into a sense of freedom. But my concern would be that this is likely to be short lived other than as an intellectual understanding. And this is because the issue of habituated mind states that keep us locked in contraction are still in play.

The point being is that if we default to (as is most likely) our deeply embedded narratives, abstractions and conceptual constructs, we are less likely to inhabit a dynamic sensibility of no-separation.






* Let’s have a timely reminder here. There are no requirements to be met in order for Oneness/Reality/Source/God to be the case… only (in some cases) for the seeing, realisation, knowing of this. And this is where a red herring can come in to play. It’s absolutely true that there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to change in order for Oneness to be the case… but that’s not the issue here.


** Being from the UK, I got to see TP on a few occasions in the early noughties - it was three hours of pure and powerful ‘pointing out’ of the inescapable obvious. And just for the record, he was actually very charming and lighthearted with no sense of cult about him whatsoever. :)

Understood Moondance, Maybe we were at the same meetings. A friend of mine also gives talks on non duality and is a friend of TP so I have meet him over lunch on a few occasions as well as the meetings, and share your description of him.

Some describe thier experience of the end of the search as a resonance between mind and the concept All is One. It may be, as N suggests to some seekers, that one of the requisite states of mind can be despair, that practise no longer has any value for the character, yet has still not realized! I'd be interested to hear some experiences of this.

[Moondance]

Originally Posted by Iamit

Understood Moondance, Maybe we were at the same meetings. A friend of mine also gives talks on non duality and is a friend of TP so I have meet him over lunch on a few occasions as well as the meetings, and share your description of him.

Quite possibly. I used to see him at Exeter - this was when he lived in Penzance (I’m just up the A30 near Truro.) One time, a couple of days after a meeting I phoned his number (which was on his website) to query something he had said. His partner answered the phone and explained that he was in the middle of something and that she would get him to call me back. I gave her my number and sure enough, ten minutes later he phoned. We chatted for a good half hour to forty minutes - at his expense. He was open, friendly and accommodating.