Body scanning

[sky]

Originally Posted by Gem

I take is as if your life depends on it, and other people will think that's intense, but it actually is, and I'm just being realistic

'Our life is shaped by our mind: we become what we think'.
The Buddha......

To each their own.... I've been practicing 'Body Scanning' for many moons and I can personally say it enhances one's life but my life does not 'depend' on it as it didn't before I began to practice.....

[Gem]

Just gonna rattle on because I even though I know it would be more comfortable to live less truthfully, I can't even fool myself to that degree anymore.

I still have teachers, but my teachers don't have any authority and I don't follow them. If I have an issue or obstacle they might explain the thing. I have to listen by testing it in myself. If I get that 'I see it' moment, then I continue under my own improved understanding. That's why I treat TNH as a human being without a fabled status.

The whole structure that creates mystical impressions of TNH is constructed within in the larger interplay of false identities. I get it because I've seen my own ghost and understand how people live and interact as that. For me the whole illusion is transparent because I'm also see through. Though-to-be-great figures are a person just like me, as is the degenerate sitting across on the bus. TNH wrote a poem about this many years ago, but I can't remember what it's called.

Since you can see how it's formed in your own imagination, you realise there is no one to follow and your ability to discern becomes absolutely necessary. Indeed, it is being able to discern between what's observable and what's added as fabrication in the mind that causes the entire charade to collapse.

[Redchic12]

Gem……..” take is as if your life depends on it, and other people will think that's intense, but it actually is,”

Can you expand on this a bit more?

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Redchic12

” take is as if your life depends on it, and other people will think that's intense, but it actually is,” Can you expand on this a bit more?

I copied that saying from Jon Kabat Zinn, but from my perspective it means it's the most important thing and it's the hardest most arduous thing. People suffer in ways that aren't just superficial, and undergoing the purification is going to raise things that are hard to go through. Even after much the gunk is cleared out, there's more energetic forms of intensity that are difficult to endure. People get taken to limits that they cannot surpass and start getting overwhelmed so they can no longer 'just be'. Their reactive tendency becomes too strong and they can't bear it 'as it is', and return to their old habit of 'making it as I want it to be'. Not mindfully and intentionally, but because they are completely compelled.

In practice, when that happens, you still remain and understand, this mind going wild, and try to keep attention on the feelings 'as they are' in the body. You have to teach yourself that you are not caused and the passing phenomena cannot affect your compulsion. You have to be willing no matter what, which is hardest thing of all.

That is not advanced advice or anything like that. It's the same reality for a novice or an adept. If the adepts come for a chat we'll talk about more refined aspects of it, and for the novices it's about being precise. I claim just doing breath awareness for a number of weeks is best. The body scan is feeling what's going on physically. Breath awareness establishes the 'way of observing' that leads to feeling 'the whole body'. It's done in the particular way that is pertinent to how one examines their physical sensations in say 6 months from now, and how to approach the subtler body, energy flow, heart opening and all the rest.

The approach I talk about gets uncomfortable physically, but training equanimity at that grosser level makes you ready to resolve old trauma and overcome sorrows. Currently we don't have the strength to endure the depth of it, so if it were to come fully into consciousness it traumatises us even more. If we can cultivate more stable equanimity, we are able to take much more and resolve deeply seated harder life issues. If we resolve things that are currently stuck, they cease to manifest their density in our physical sensations, and our entire lifeform starts to open up. Then it keeps getting harder just because our limits are a lot higher.

The reason I sound quite mad with all the intensity, and no-authority, and the imaginary mystical impressions, and full self-determination, which is a very radical narrative, is, you really have be serious about it. Because it's arduous, you have to be ardent.

Just for an example. Intend to yourself, 'I will sit up and remain motionless for a full hour'. Set a strong intention 'I'll not move no matter what,' then see if it's a 'walk in the park'. Typically, it starts to get uncomfortable, you start reacting and the mind goes wild. For most, the last 10 or 15 minutes will require a lot of determination.

After a number of weeks, just sitting there for an hour or so becomes fairly routine, no problem, but the levels of difficulty don't get less. People say they do, but when you practice right, you get to the point where it requires full determination, only the 'test' is harder. If a novice was taken to that level they'd be scarred by it. It means you're better established in the equanimity of mere awareness and will continue to grow stronger. In time you reach subtler and subtler aspects of the body, and when it opens up to an energy flow you understand why it was you trained in such a particular way, in equanimity, all this time - so you can continue to undergo the process to subtler levels and to extremes that you couldn't previously comprehend.

Taking it back to beginning, we know exactly what we train for. The first sitting is pretty intense, it immediately kicks the purification process into gear, and the process gets more intense as it unfolds. The ability to maintain perfect equanimity enables you to take more than you could before, which is an ongoing process. Hence, there's only two aspects to practice: ardent awareness with equanimity of mind. That's what we train.

[Redchic12]

Ok I understand what you mean now.

Thanks.

[Gem]

I would link to Jon Kabat Zinn (JKZ), because he's quite good, the best I can find online, and worth checking out. I'm not linking in this thread because after a certain point he goes off track and starts taking from typical mindfulness teachers things that I too have heard them say. For example, in his breath meditation narrative he does a nod to 'noting' instead of remaining with the pure way of 'just observing', and when he gets to the body scan, he goes way off into imagining the breath extending to the distal reaches of the body and maybe other things that stray from mere awareness.

For the most part, JKZ is right on the money, but from my perspective, it is great and will do a lot of good, but it's not really refined enough to encompass the intricate nuances of purification, so I'm not linking it here. But, if you are going to source information about this topic online, JKZ is up there with the best.

It's very hard for people, including the teachers, to resist adding an action or imaginary element because it's exceedingly difficult to not-do that in practice. There's reasons for that. It's just ego holding something to do because if it ain't doing, then who's steering the ship?

The purification is unleashed because you disrupt that 'self' at the most fundamental level. If you 'do' with the smiling, counting, imagining etc, sure it will be easier and more relaxed and calmer, but that's because ego knows it is firmly in the drivers seat, completely unthreatened, and has no reason to force you to become unsettled. If you don't-do, it will start rattling the cage.

When you start out with breath awareness, you're just aware that it 'feels like this'. Nothing else added. When you notice you've drifted away, you know you were lost in the mind and simply resume awareness of what breathing feels like.

Instead of adding a secondary contrivance to that, start looking more closely and feeling more clearly the subtler details of how it feels.

Just watch, examine and know. If you start actions, reactions and imaginations unintentionally, then fine, but intentionally adding your own thing to what 'just is' is the complete opposite of what this meditation is supposed to be.

Anyway. I am recommending JKZ (but not linking him here). I don't recommend just anyone, but this guy is top notch. Just remember he has no authority whatsoever and you have to discern for yourself.

[JustBe]

That’s really good info Gem.

You touched on a few things of real importance. Namely these distractions some meditations take up, do put you in the drivers seat, which can become a distraction, layering over what is already distracted.

I notice now with any meditation those guiding in this way, can add noise and distraction to my mind where it no longer craves either. So sitting with a teacher guiding in more silence than doing, is more what my mind/body requires. I don’t need a teacher of course, it’s easy now to just sit and notice, observe and let my breath be my guide.

That has come through developing my inner balance.

It’s a bit like the 79yr local lady in my town who’s been lifting weights for 40 yrs or more. I was chatting to her recently about her practice, she was sharing how she doesn’t need a personal trainer now, she knows how to train herself, train well and still compete ( when she feels like it) and take out the winners prize. No huff and gruff, no ego leading, just a lovely dedicated lady doing her thing, she has dedicated her mind/body/health too..��