The rambling of the mind

[Mr Interesting]

Oh yes Gem... you Gem!

I knew a Jem who was a Turkish Restauranteur and he was a pirate too. I enjoyed our adventures as we built without permission and built crews of ill repute but was joyous when found out and the promised ones enjoyed our recklessness... He was eventually thrown out of the country for laundering Gang money. A silly man, a lovable rogue.

These findings of yours are my well timed interventions. I have removed past guilts and shames but sat enduring weights and pressure and thought to dispel them also then came to somehow like the enduring and wondering whether it was something to be accepted, which was only a word then, but with time the enduring and being it softened things and a deeper resolve yet unseen has found light in this latest link out of here.

[Gem]

To define acceptance is pretty important because it doesn't really exist. Acceptance only means the absence of resistance, so it isn't possible to examine acceptance; it's only possible to examine resistance, so we can forget acceptance in principle and look at resistance in some careful detail.

First, one must notice something (that is then resisted). In that it is noticed, it is acknowledged and resistance is only after the fact, and in face of the fact, resistance is futile.

One can see the mechanism of resistance when it occurs, and to describe this is to first say that something is noticed. It is.

It is, and since it is not pleasant, the 'I' is invoked under the delusion that I can make it not happen, when actually, it's already noticed to be happening and anything 'I' do is a reaction after the fact.

This means that resistance is actually reactivity to what is noticed, and acceptance is the absence of that reactivity. The hardship of meditation is the habit of mental reactivity. An event occurs, and instead of retaining a neutral disposition, 'I' pops up with thought like 'I don't like this' 'when will it end' 'this isn't working' 'I'm no good at this' and feelings of frustration, impatience, disappointment soon overwhelm the meditation.

Thus... resistance is not a choice to resist, it is an adverse personal reaction to something that has already been noticed. Acceptance is the absence of reactivity.

The meditation remains at the moment of initial noticing. The reaction is secondary to it, and thus meditation ends where I starts and reaction begins.

[Gem]

It goes to follow... and after posting the same article in another thread, I thought it had a place here too.

http://www.shinzen.org/Retreat%20Rea...Equanimity.pdf

[Gem]

Hanging out in Meditation forum, some say they do this and others say they experience that... all kinds of things... and interesting enough, but there's only two sides to it. First there's what is... as opposed to what you want it to be.

In the very moment of first noticing, that's what is. One really wants to stay right where they first notice; in that moment before trying to change it. It's already there, do nothing.

People would think doing nothing is the easiest thing in the world, but because one is habitualised into continually trying to make things happen, meet expectations and habitually reacting to any little itch or noise, and also, becoming disappointed, frustrated or impatient after a minute or two, or thirty seconds... and it takes a bit of persistance to break the habits of the mind.

Just be, and of course one will notice what goes on in the mind, the things that usually go unnoticed, and in that quiet space of just being present, one has the room to notice these things.

[jonesboy]

Good post Gem

[Gem]

Nice video I found on another site, and figured I'd spread the joy... so, en-joy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDlnkNu0au0