No experts on meditation

[VinceField]

The irony of how easily attachment can develop to a practice/activity that is aimed at eliminating attachment.

Imagine if the time spent debating and declaring our views about meditation were actually spent...dare I say... meditating?!

From my own experience, it's a matter of priorities- dedication to the development of wholesome qualities of mind and the elimination of harmful qualities. The times when I've felt most drawn to expressing my views and debating on forums have been the times when my motivation and dedication to the practice have been the weakest.

There seems to be a pure aspect of my mind that desires to help others and provide practical and beneficial advice, simply out of compassion. Then there is that ego that wants to express its views for the sake of it, correct others when their beliefs don't agree with mine, assert its beliefs, and waste time reading and talking about things that the pure aspect of my mind knows will not truly be of benefit to my spiritual growth.

I say all of this so that perhaps those reading will consider these points the next time they feel the urge to get involved in threads like this one. Where is that urge really coming from? Developing mindfulness of my intentions and motivations, and learning not to act on those that are born of the ego and instead to let go, has helped me tremendously in terms of furthering my meditation practice, my self-awareness, and my spiritual development. I'm sure I'm not the only one this could help.

Take care all

Originally Posted by VinceField

From my own experience, it's a matter of priorities- dedication to the development of wholesome qualities of mind and the elimination of harmful qualities. The times when I've felt most drawn to expressing my views and debating on forums have been the times when my motivation and dedication to the practice have been the weakest.

I say all of this so that perhaps those reading will consider these points the next time they feel the urge to get involved in threads like this one. Where is that urge really coming from? Developing mindfulness of my intentions and motivations, and learning not to act on those that are born of the ego and instead to let go, has helped me tremendously in terms of furthering my meditation practice, my self-awareness, and my spiritual development. I'm sure I'm not the only one this could help.

Take care all

Hi everyone. I'd like to jump in here. Thank you Gem for starting the conversation.

VinceField, I really connected to your observation about the urge to debate on forums coming at times when your practice has been the weakest. I find this a fascinating idea and am going to meditate on it some more. (ha ha)

To be upfront, know that I am not an expert in meditation. I would even say I am still a beginner at meditation. However, there have been times that have felt like bliss for me, for just a few seconds until the mind chatter jumped back in. But I've learned to use the moments of chatter as a comparison for not-chatter - and it is the not-chatter that feels most beneficial for me. That weightless sense of I-am-ness. Delicious. Afterward my mind feels cleaned out of junk and toxins. Thoughts and experiences feel purer.

I really don't meditate as much as I should. I honestly don't know why I don't - I say I'm "just lazy" but there has to be something else going on beneath this resistance? reluctance? to actually sit for meditation. Arrogance, perhaps? Fear? I don't understand this about me.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by VinceField

The irony of how easily attachment can develop to a practice/activity that is aimed at eliminating attachment.

Imagine if the time spent debating and declaring our views about meditation were actually spent...dare I say... meditating?!

From my own experience, it's a matter of priorities- dedication to the development of wholesome qualities of mind and the elimination of harmful qualities. The times when I've felt most drawn to expressing my views and debating on forums have been the times when my motivation and dedication to the practice have been the weakest.

There seems to be a pure aspect of my mind that desires to help others and provide practical and beneficial advice, simply out of compassion. Then there is that ego that wants to express its views for the sake of it, correct others when their beliefs don't agree with mine, assert its beliefs, and waste time reading and talking about things that the pure aspect of my mind knows will not truly be of benefit to my spiritual growth.

I say all of this so that perhaps those reading will consider these points the next time they feel the urge to get involved in threads like this one. Where is that urge really coming from? Developing mindfulness of my intentions and motivations, and learning not to act on those that are born of the ego and instead to let go, has helped me tremendously in terms of furthering my meditation practice, my self-awareness, and my spiritual development. I'm sure I'm not the only one this could help.

Take care all

This is right... motivation is a tricky business because we really have to discern what we ourselves get out of it as well as discerning what good is it in the general sense. This is important because without that kind of self awareness one merely uses others to fulfill their own needs.

If we look at 'actions born of ego' are we really talking about blind reactions as opposed to mindful responses? I think that's at the crux of it and it relates to this self awareness whereby if one is aware of what occurs within themselves then they also respond with mindfulness. I also suggest that none of us actually respond to each other, but rather, we only respond to what others invoke within ourselves. If this is accurate, we find that when we are mindful we rarely use 'you statements' because we don't entertain stories about the others. Instead, we tend to use 'I statements' because we speak in response to what occurs within ourselves.

The computer emocon is actually very meaningful, because I don't know about others, but social media such as this is a great distraction and mode of procrastination for me, and it's reported as a social issue generally... oh yea, and an attachment is an understatement. It's outright addiction in my case.

In the end though, there's no issue in the conversation. It issue arises because of the derisions that are below the surface currently, but still evident in language usages like 'threads like this one' and also in your prior comment about my threads and power.

[jonesboy]

Originally Posted by Gem

There are pitfalls particular to tradition where the past produces expectations of the future so that what we do now as a practice becomes a secondary activity as a means to an end.

That can happen with anything. Hardly a reason to condemn entire systems.

The 'how to practice' mentality is fundamentally flawed and produces obedient people who imitate someone else who leads by promise. The systems provide tools, techniques and other forms of skills that can be attained, so it's good, but there are also the pitfalls of dogmatic adherence and disempowered obedience and the false promises that entice people into that.

Give me examples of this. You say this often.

Show me.

People with preconceived notions already know what they are going to say, and this is quite predictable, for example, I know that you have preconceived notions and will plug the AYP site, and in order to retain your instructive position you'll position other people,

I mention the AYP site because it is the only free traditional system with all of the lessons online that I know of.

If you know of another one like it and would prefer to use it as an example I am all for it.

Show me.

which is why you demean me so often simply because I don't serve to validate any position at all, and therefore must be the fool the ego the poor hurt person the one that shouldn't be listened to, who should stop talking, the ignorant one etc and so on, because I have certainly heard a lot of these assertions, and they primarily are made by 'experts'.

I don't demean you Gem. I am not trying to hurt you or be mean to you in any way.

I do have to say you try this often and this is another example of you saying you have no position at all while at the same time you created a topic based on a position. Everything you have said about people being obedient, experts, listening verses answering etc is a position.

I know it's all dressed up in kindness and in helpfulness and so on... but if you can't begin to see that problems with the authority by this illustration, then you must be friggin blind.

I see your issues with authority but you have not presented any examples of these problems.

Show me.

That's right, the meditation is the observation, not the thought, and it explores deeper.

What do you mean by observation and it goes deeper?

I didn't say everyone is wrong or that I know better, and that isn't the case.

Some recent examples.

My general thrust isn't the bagging out of formal technique. Though the problems associated with systematic methodology are quite numerous, and a large number of instructive practices are somewhat misguided, there's problems with everything and everyone is misguided sometimes. The only difference is being indoctrinated and conditioned by rote and repetition and remaining flexible enough to change direction when you find you're being led down the garden path by the gnomes.

There are things I've become sensitive to in my communications with 'the experts'. There's a lot of noise that makes listening difficult, such as my attempts to explain the more underpinning concepts of the breath meditation was practically impossible to do because the forces of antiquity and discourses of knowledge are extraordinarily loud for me speaking as one little person, and where the consensus is that your breath is but a method of mental focus, there is no room to converse on the deeper aspects of it, because to do so is bound to contradict the antiquity from where prescriptive discourse perpetuates.

P.S. These are also positions that you are taking. Very strong, opinionated positions that could be considered insulting by many.

[Mr Interesting]

I like to have fun... oh yes, even when the heaviness and seriousness prevails there is a part of me that just wants to goad it then laugh as it gets all angry and even then it might shirk from being seen... Not just Girls, but Boys too, we wanna have fun.

It's not for me to say you're this or you're that. But I can say what I am and what ever you do is your responsibility... or un-responsibility as the case may be. I mean even logic is good to a point, ah, that's what crossed my mind and I may play with for a while... I'm a romantic pragmatist. I don't know what it means yet but it seem's to have that mixture of not so mixxy things that then requires some - what is it, that stuff that is in soy, that, ah - emulsifier! something that allows two different things to mix together that otherwise acted as if their lives depended on not mixing... Love and Hate, ohhh.

So lighten up peoples, the world keeps turning, and even whilst we might be little boys taking on the seriousness of fighting and being at war... they aren't real guns. So I'm kinda comin' on all lordy and clever like I'm above it all... but so what, I'm the ones gotta live with myself. I'm the one to choose where my fun goes even if it falls over and breaks it's ankle then rues the decision to go sliding on ice.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by jonesboy

That can happen with anything. Hardly a reason to condemn entire systems.

I think you overlook anything I say about the benefit of systems and only see what I say about the issues.


Give me examples of this. You say this often.

Show me.

I mention the AYP site because it is the only free traditional system with all of the lessons online that I know of.

If you know of another one like it and would prefer to use it as an example I am all for it.

Show me.

[quote]I don't demean you Gem. I am not trying to hurt you or be mean to you in any way.

I do have to say you try this often and this is another example of you saying you have no position at all while at the same time you created a topic based on a position. Everything you have said about people being obedient, experts, listening verses answering etc is a position.

I see your issues with authority

You perceive my issues with authority, but you don't see them. It's just a story you tell yourself.

but you have not presented any examples of these problems.

Show me.

I have met a lot of people who are negatively affected by meditation systems, and seen a few go straight from the ashram to the nuthouse, but you only think I completely denigrate meditation methods, but I don't. Even though I am aware of the adverse affects that they have, there are benefits.

What do you mean by observation and it goes deeper?

Observation is perception and there is a lot to say about certain aspects of what 'going deeper' refers to, but I don't believe that you are prepared to listen.

Some recent examples.

My general thrust isn't the bagging out of formal technique. Though the problems associated with systematic methodology are quite numerous, and a large number of instructive practices are somewhat misguided, there's problems with everything and everyone is misguided sometimes. The only difference is being indoctrinated and conditioned by rote and repetition and remaining flexible enough to change direction when you find you're being led down the garden path by the gnomes.

Quite a balanced statement

There are things I've become sensitive to in my communications with 'the experts'. There's a lot of noise that makes listening difficult, such as my attempts to explain the more underpinning concepts of the breath meditation was practically impossible to do because the forces of antiquity and discourses of knowledge are extraordinarily loud for me speaking as one little person, and where the consensus is that your breath is but a method of mental focus, there is no room to converse on the deeper aspects of it, because to do so is bound to contradict the antiquity from where prescriptive discourse perpetuates.

P.S. These are also positions that you are taking. Very strong, opinionated positions that could be considered insulting by many.

The bolded is what I experienced.

You're the person who has derided and demeaned me more than any other person. Almost every time you address me you assert some kind of slur, like the above 'issue', and I challenge you to find a single instance where I have done the same.

[Gem]

It's going to be hard, because I understand the need to be a meditation expert and approach it with the prescriptive discourse, but this isn't the place for it.

There's some who have done a lot of meditation, years of it, and there's others who started just this year. This is the fact. I'm probably of the former category but that doesn't make me an expert. The expert is a self image, not a fact.

The reason I say so is in order to empower the voices of people, because no one really knows anything about how a person sees their own difficulties, obstacles or issues or how they determine their own needs. That why the conversational approach is required. It takes a lot of listening to get the 'big picture' because 'getting to know' isn't factual information, it's more like an affinity with others or an intimacy with self.

I completely understand the compassionate impulse to be of service to others, however, such a thing requires acute and continual self awareness because I might have the underlying need to be appreciated and compulsively seek it out, or some other personal need such as acceptance within the sangha. How many experts have such needs? All of them. Every single person has their own particular needs, their own life issues and their own way of seeing them.

Vince raised the point of understanding the motivations and discerning between the egoically driven motivations and what I'd call 'motivations of the greater good'... and I know personally that a mountain of derision and belittlement which can disempower voices is dressed up as 'helpful' and because of the ambiguity between the nature of self interest and human service, things are not always what they are presented as.

That's why this becomes a sincere conversation. You don't have to validate anything, and in fact, the need for validation on the part of either party in the discussion should be brought under scrutiny. People don't need to be right or wrong with what they say, no doubt the content of any person's dialogue will contain both those elements.

This is to say, the discourse of knowledge has some rather small place in the scheme of conversation, but as a preconception it stifles and impedes conversation. It limits the scope by having answers that are assessed from the past rather than responses that arise in the present, and I really can't express the nuances that it over-rides.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Mr Interesting

I like to have fun... oh yes, even when the heaviness and seriousness prevails there is a part of me that just wants to goad it then laugh as it gets all angry and even then it might shirk from being seen... Not just Girls, but Boys too, we wanna have fun.

It's not for me to say you're this or you're that. But I can say what I am and what ever you do is your responsibility... or un-responsibility as the case may be. I mean even logic is good to a point, ah, that's what crossed my mind and I may play with for a while... I'm a romantic pragmatist. I don't know what it means yet but it seem's to have that mixture of not so mixxy things that then requires some - what is it, that stuff that is in soy, that, ah - emulsifier! something that allows two different things to mix together that otherwise acted as if their lives depended on not mixing... Love and Hate, ohhh.

So lighten up peoples, the world keeps turning, and even whilst we might be little boys taking on the seriousness of fighting and being at war... they aren't real guns. So I'm kinda comin' on all lordy and clever like I'm above it all... but so what, I'm the ones gotta live with myself. I'm the one to choose where my fun goes even if it falls over and breaks it's ankle then rues the decision to go sliding on ice.

I have noticed, and it's made me very curious, that people don't respond to your posts. I find that to be rather strange.

In contrast, I invoke response, probably because some of what I say can be challenging to social normalcy and therefore controversial and that's why I'm prone to personal assertions that 'call me this or that'. It is my point exactly that I can say what I am or make my own personal narrative. People assert I have issues, ego etc.., but the assertion of personal narrative is deplorable, yet it is socially normal, and I think that normative presence makes it easy to predict that having a voice will mean risking the assertion of a derisive public narrative. I fear that this has 'un-voiced' many people, and it prevents individuals from 'finding their voice', and is a primary reason for the 'fear to speak up'.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Raven Poet

Hi everyone. I'd like to jump in here. Thank you Gem for starting the conversation.

Thass K.

VinceField, I really connected to your observation about the urge to debate on forums coming at times when your practice has been the weakest. I find this a fascinating idea and am going to meditate on it some more. (ha ha)

To be upfront, know that I am not an expert in meditation.

Good.

I would even say I am still a beginner at meditation. However, there have been times that have felt like bliss for me, for just a few seconds until the mind chatter jumped back in. But I've learned to use the moments of chatter as a comparison for not-chatter - and it is the not-chatter that feels most beneficial for me. That weightless sense of I-am-ness. Delicious. Afterward my mind feels cleaned out of junk and toxins. Thoughts and experiences feel purer.

Good approach. Discerning between 'chatter and non chatter' seems like a good idea, and I would consider the 'cleaned out' and 'purer' feelings to be clear indications of being on the right track.

I really don't meditate as much as I should. I honestly don't know why I don't - I say I'm "just lazy" but there has to be something else going on beneath this resistance? reluctance? to actually sit for meditation. Arrogance, perhaps? Fear? I don't understand this about me.

Right, I think we all have certain procrastinations and avoidance strategies, and in my case I try to identify them, like I was saying the internet is a distraction and procrastination, and other things like going to bed late etc arise from that... they all fit together really... what it means to me is, meditation practice isn't just about the meditation sitting; it looks at life as a whole, because one has to have things in pretty good order, have it together, so as to allow meditation into their lives.

[Mr Interesting]

Originally Posted by Gem

I have noticed, and it's made me very curious, that people don't respond to your posts. I find that to be rather strange.

In contrast, I invoke response, probably because some of what I say can be challenging to social normalcy and therefore controversial and that's why I'm prone to personal assertions that 'call me this or that'. It is my point exactly that I can say what I am or make my own personal narrative. People assert I have issues, ego etc.., but the assertion of personal narrative is deplorable, yet it is socially normal, and I think that normative presence makes it easy to predict that having a voice will mean risking the assertion of a derisive public narrative. I fear that this has 'un-voiced' many people, and it prevents individuals from 'finding their voice', and is a primary reason for the 'fear to speak up'.

Yeah, I've noticed it too, though I have noticed too that while individual posts may not be answered outright I have noticed a swaying towards the ideas I might present as if on the level of normal back and forthiness I don't really present a way to react that'll fit as it might normally but then I have often presented an alignment possibility which starts to appear in others posts. In that respect it might be that it's similar to my art where I don't necessarily present an opinion as such but I do present ideas in a way that might form opinions dependant on how the ideas are put together.

So people might see my artworks and have no idea on the surface what they actually are saying but then the ideas presented stay with them on a deeper level and then rise up later when they start to form into cohesive opinion of their own later on. This might even be a propaganda of sorts.

I may actually be reading more into this than is actually there as a way of consoling myself that what I might say has a use but then again my observations could be on the mark and that in itself, that unsurety of not really knowing whats going on and then sensing a way forward more than being sure of a way forward appeals to me... it always has.

Actually this then leads into an aspect of expertise I find intensely alluring. That people can and do, through self discovery, become efficient at whatever it is they practise and at a certain point this is rather obvious to others who are less efficient dependant, somewhat, on the efficient persons obvious talents and observation by those hoping to have those talents themselves but also entailing a middle ground where the talented make their talents obvious and the yet to be talented are seeking those talents.

This is all well and good but then the onus is on the talented to decide whether there next talent might be disseminating this efficiency and/or deciding not to and knowing this becoming an expert is only a perspective offered because they have been observed as better.

Then everything branches off into all kinds of possibilities except mostly everyone settles for the obvious which is the supposed expert teaches but as a teacher the expert is a novice as the qualities that made him an observed expert are now completely different and the expert may not be able to make the jump especially when he/she believes they are an actual expert.

And then this is where it actually gets interesting for me anyways with a statement like the only real experts are those that are unobservable as experts.