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  #11  
Old 09-02-2019, 11:29 AM
Gem Gem is offline
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Of course I encourage people to look into any concept raised on the thread, and read and/or watch videos about them, but having done so, please share your inner understanding in your own words if you want to rather than posting your research here.


If you have nothing of your own to say, that is perfectly fine - no need to say anything - otherwise, speak freely. Either way, share your merit generously for the greater happiness of others.
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  #12  
Old 09-02-2019, 01:12 PM
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Two types of Metta Meditation.

Immeasurable Release of Mind is the first.


“What, householder, is the immeasurable deliverance of mind? Here a bhikkhu abides pervading one quarter with a mind imbued with loving-kindness,likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth; so above, below, around, and everywhere, and to all as to himself, he abides pervading the all-encompassing world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness, abundant, exalted,immeasurable, without hostility and without ill will.“ - MN 127 Anuruddha Sutta



Exalted deliverance of mind is the second.


And what, householder, is the exalted deliverance of mind? Here a bhikkhu abides resolved upon an area the size of the root of one tree, pervading it as exalted: this is called the exalted deliverance of mind. 1181 Here a bhikkhu abides resolved upon an area the size of the roots of two or three trees, pervading it as exalted: this too is called the exalted deliverance of mind. Here a bhikkhu abides resolved upon an area the size of one village, pervading it as exalted…[ 147]… an area the size of two or three villages… an area the size of one major kingdom… an area the size of two or three major kingdoms… an area the size of the earth bounded by the ocean, pervading it as exalted: this too is called the exalted deliverance of mind. – MN 127


You can Google Visualizations to use or use your own, whatever is best for you. I personally use what comes to me, I prefer happenings rather than doings.
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  #13  
Old 09-02-2019, 11:53 PM
Gem Gem is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sky123
Immeasurable Release of Mind is the first.


“What, householder, is the immeasurable deliverance of mind? Here a bhikkhu abides pervading one quarter with a mind imbued with loving-kindness,likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth; so above, below, around, and everywhere, and to all as to himself, he abides pervading the all-encompassing world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness, abundant, exalted,immeasurable, without hostility and without ill will.“ - MN 127 Anuruddha Sutta



Exalted deliverance of mind is the second.


And what, householder, is the exalted deliverance of mind? Here a bhikkhu abides resolved upon an area the size of the root of one tree, pervading it as exalted: this is called the exalted deliverance of mind. 1181 Here a bhikkhu abides resolved upon an area the size of the roots of two or three trees, pervading it as exalted: this too is called the exalted deliverance of mind. Here a bhikkhu abides resolved upon an area the size of one village, pervading it as exalted…[ 147]… an area the size of two or three villages… an area the size of one major kingdom… an area the size of two or three major kingdoms… an area the size of the earth bounded by the ocean, pervading it as exalted: this too is called the exalted deliverance of mind. – MN 127


You can Google Visualizations to use or use your own, whatever is best for you. I personally use what comes to me, I prefer happenings rather than doings.








Of course I encourage your research into the topic, but I have also requested 3 times now that participants do not cut and paste their research on the thread.
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  #14  
Old 10-02-2019, 12:42 PM
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The story of the historical circumstances which led the Buddha to first expound the Karaniya Metta Sutta originally comes from Acariya Buddhaghosa, a 5th-century Theravada Buddhist scholar, who received it from an unbroken line of elders going back to the days of the Buddha himself.



https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/...el365.html#ch2
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  #15  
Old 11-02-2019, 06:25 PM
Rain95 Rain95 is offline
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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.
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  #16  
Old 12-02-2019, 12:10 AM
Gem Gem is offline
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Quote:
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.
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  #17  
Old 12-02-2019, 04:10 AM
Rain95 Rain95 is offline
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Any form of "trying" within conceptual time asserts the false self. One is either awake or not awake in any given moment. One cannot "try" to be awake as all this does is assert the false self and a person. There is no person. The person is delusion. It's being brainwashed in a sense. It's an ego seeking the spiritual experience when the ego covers up and obscures and prevents the spiritual experience.

The logic of ego is like this:

I hear about the spiritual experience.
I want the spiritual experience.
I do various things, methods, practices to have a spiritual experience.
What "I" am does not fundamentally change.
(Because ego is the seeker, the person put together through memory and thought and conditioning,)

The path.

I hear about the spiritual experience.
I want the spiritual experience.
I change what I am through changing what I am identifying with
in any given now moment. What I am fundamentally changes.
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  #18  
Old 12-02-2019, 05:19 AM
Gem Gem is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rain95
Any form of "trying" within conceptual time asserts the false self. One is either awake or not awake in any given moment. One cannot "try" to be awake as all this does is assert the false self and a person. There is no person. The person is delusion. It's being brainwashed in a sense. It's an ego seeking the spiritual experience when the ego covers up and obscures and prevents the spiritual experience.

The logic of ego is like this:

I hear about the spiritual experience.
I want the spiritual experience.
I do various things, methods, practices to have a spiritual experience.
What "I" am does not fundamentally change.
(Because ego is the seeker, the person put together through memory and thought and conditioning,)


Yep, pretty much.


Quote:
The path.

I hear about the spiritual experience.
I want the spiritual experience.
I change what I am through changing what I am identifying with
in any given now moment. What I am fundamentally changes.




In Buddhism, the path being the 8 fold path, the tendency to desire special sorts of experiences subsides as the fullness of attention remains with 'this' experience 'as it is' in just the way you experience it.


Often people will have unpleasant experiences during their meditation sessions, and the imagery of 'oh so wonderful' meditation is not the way it really is. People will desire something special, and this impels them to efforts to make special experiences happen, but that is not the 'way'.


You can with visualisations and mantras and other volitional exercises bring about something special, but mindfulness is to cease trying to make it other than it is, which is cessation of volition. My teacher told me, Your job is only to observe. Dhamma does the rest.


Buddha introduced the purpose of mindfulness in the satipatthana sutta: "This is the only way, O bhikkhus, for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the destruction of suffering and grief, for reaching the right path, for the attainment of Nibbana".


Of course, the method in itself is not the 'the only way', but the principle of non-volitional observation is the 'way of being', and is the fundamental 'way' that purification happens. Awareness without the volition, without the reactivity, is 'pure awareness' or equanimity, and regardless of how adept a meditator becomes, this remains the 'way of practice'.


The effort which is called 'right effort' is also elaborated on in the Buddhist philosophy and has various aspects of cultivating meritorious qualities and diminishing negative qualities, but essentially, in the meditation context, this sort of effort is not a volitional effort to make things other than they already are. There are times during the purification that are very difficult, and meditation is the most difficult of things, because it demands all of your attention and the experiences that arise can be extreme and unrelenting. The effort then, is to maintain balanced equanimity of mind regardless of whatever experience happens to be, as the highly reactive mind can be so overwhelming.
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  #19  
Old 12-02-2019, 07:35 AM
Rain95 Rain95 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gem
Awareness without the volition, without the reactivity, is 'pure awareness' or equanimity, and regardless of how adept a meditator becomes, this remains the 'way of practice'.

I'm not very familiar with the use of the word volition. Does it have a source from some group or teaching or is it a word you decided to use to communicate what you know to be true?

The formal definition online is:

Quote:
Volition or will is the cognitive process by which an individual decides on and commits to a particular course of action. It is defined as purposive striving and is one of the primary human psychological functions. Others include affect, motivation, and cognition. Wikipedia

I like the word but then all words have their limits. I wonder if the average person would know what the word means. Besides knowing the formal definition, would they recognize volition in themselves?

Could the word "person" be substituted for it in some contexts and retain the same meaning?

Like: just be, without volition

or

just be, without person

Seems like they can communicate the same meaning.

Or the old saying;

Sometimes I sit and think.
Sometimes I just sit.

But then like many teachings on this subject, it is easy for the reader to assume a vegetative like state, a doing nothing, a meaningless state....without merit or purpose.

A person-less person is mistakenly identified or conceptualized as a vegetable doing nothing type thing because the average person cannot imagine such a state in themselves. If someone has fully identified with the aspects of person, my past, my story, my memories and thoughts...then any reference to such a state not identified with these would mean a person doing nothing, (lazy) or being nothing, wanting nothing, in the full negative concept of that.

But really what is being described is a rising above the norm. The easy lazy path is following thought. Letting it dictate our interpretations and reactions and emotions. To rise above this given takes introspection, self observation, insight into what is within and so more awareness, not usual normal everyday awareness. But then the more one practices these states, the more often and "normal" they can become.

I think it was Tolle who said they start out few and short..... with normal thought centered consciousness being the norm, then over time this reverses.... one can stay in the enlightened state most of the time and ego thought centered consciousness comes rarely.

Oh and one more limit with the word volition is it is identified with the "will" in a person. So to be without volition implies to be without "will" when really the will is still there.... it is just the will of the consciousness instead of the "will" of habitual and conditioned thought.
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  #20  
Old 12-02-2019, 11:43 AM
Gem Gem is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rain95
I'm not very familiar with the use of the word volition. Does it have a source from some group or teaching or is it a word you decided to use to communicate what you know to be true?


It's an English translation of the Pali "cetana", but it has a range of contextual meanings, and I'm just using volition to mean the urge to make an experience other than it is.


Quote:
The formal definition online is:



I like the word but then all words have their limits. I wonder if the average person would know what the word means. Besides knowing the formal definition, would they recognize volition in themselves?


Easy to recognise reactivity, which is avoidance, aversion, resistance on one side and craving, clinging, desiring on the other side, and even though this is 'tanha' in Pali, action/reaction are essentially volition because volition is 'cause' regarding kamma.


Quote:
Could the word "person" be substituted for it in some contexts and retain the same meaning?


Technically yes, as volition, reactivity, is the 'fuel' of ego me my mine I.


Quote:
Like: just be, without volition

or

just be, without person

Seems like they can communicate the same meaning.

Or the old saying;

Sometimes I sit and think.
Sometimes I just sit.

But then like many teachings on this subject, it is easy for the reader to assume a vegetative like state, a doing nothing, a meaningless state....without merit or purpose.

You wouldn't believe how hard it is to convince people to stop doing and just be, but pure awareness, objective observation is foundational to meditation. It usually takes a while before they understand cessation of volition. Though that is the mindfulness part of it. Metta is more intentional.

Quote:
A person-less person is mistakenly identified or conceptualized as a vegetable doing nothing type thing because the average person cannot imagine such a state in themselves. If someone has fully identified with the aspects of person, my past, my story, my memories and thoughts...then any reference to such a state not identified with these would mean a person doing nothing, (lazy) or being nothing, wanting nothing, in the full negative concept of that.


Its not as if volition is a bad thing. It's just that volition is the 'cause' in kamma, so in Buddhism they teach 'good-will' = good outcomes and 'ill-will' = bad outcomes, and of course the world is a happy place when people have good-will and it is horrid place when people are malicious. It's plain common sense really, which is the general purpose of metta meditation, but no one is saying people are sensible, right?



Quote:
But really what is being described is a rising above the norm. The easy lazy path is following thought. Letting it dictate our interpretations and reactions and emotions. To rise above this given takes introspection, self observation, insight into what is within and so more awareness, not usual normal everyday awareness. But then the more one practices these states, the more often and "normal" they can become.


Yes.


Quote:
I think it was Tolle who said they start out few and short..... with normal thought centered consciousness being the norm, then over time this reverses.... one can stay in the enlightened state most of the time and ego thought centered consciousness comes rarely.

Oh and one more limit with the word volition is it is identified with the "will" in a person. So to be without volition implies to be without "will" when really the will is still there.... it is just the will of the consciousness instead of the "will" of habitual and conditioned thought.


I don't really get that, but what I say is an outpouring of love is endemic to our existential nature, and good-will is really only the absence of the reactive mentalities called 'tahna' in Pali.
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