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  #11  
Old 09-09-2018, 11:29 AM
sentient sentient is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gem
My approach is to be aware of the body as it feels, so when it's all space and there's no reference to discomfort and pain I think the narrative becomes more about the way people want to be rather that the way it really is.
I think I get what you mean - I could relate to the talk, but not that exercise as much.
Though it did remind me of a witness state - you enter into a situation with that childlike openness and then feel what your body tells you about the ‘weather of the situation’ – does your body tense up or relax for example or what does it feel …. And it is as if somewhere above you or behind you there is this detached witness witnessing all the nuances the body tells you …..

Witness situations with the open body on a stick:
https://i1.wp.com/www.thevarnishedcu...size=600%2C384

Quote:
He proceeds to some exercises tensing and relaxing, which is where I depart from his method, as I would become aware of body tension 'as it is' and ... so be it.
The thing is, if you are suffering from chronic stress you are not even aware anymore of how tense your body is – all the time. So you have to relearn not to tense your muscles at every little thing that comes your way.
Here this or some other herbal muscle relaxant can be of help:
https://www.metagenics.com.au/Products/Product/MPL
It delays the tensing process just enough for you to become consciously aware of the (subconscious chronic) pattern of tensing.


For me the merit of Yoga Nidra is in the total relaxation of the body and that it brings the brainwaves down from Beta to Alpha to Theta. In that state visualizations do work, such as opening of chakras – and conscious intent enters the subconscious.

In chronic stress your heart even goes numb or turns into stone, so it is not until you can open your heart again that you can start *holding space* for your ‘rapid dog’ response pattern – thus transcending it.

*
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  #12  
Old 09-09-2018, 02:20 PM
Gem Gem is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2010
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sentient
I think I get what you mean - I could relate to the talk, but not that exercise as much.
Though it did remind me of a witness state - you enter into a situation with that childlike openness and then feel what your body tells you about the ‘weather of the situation’ – does your body tense up or relax for example or what does it feel …. And it is as if somewhere above you or behind you there is this detached witness witnessing all the nuances the body tells you …..

Witness situations with the open body on a stick:
https://i1.wp.com/www.thevarnishedcu...size=600%2C384


The thing is, if you are suffering from chronic stress you are not even aware anymore of how tense your body is – all the time. So you have to relearn not to tense your muscles at every little thing that comes your way.


In the meditation approach, body awareness is a very effective approach to high stress because it gets people out of their heads and into the real lived moment of experience, and they become conscious of tensions they woudn't have otherwise even noticed.



Quote:
Here this or some other herbal muscle relaxant can be of help:
https://www.metagenics.com.au/Products/Product/MPL




It seems to be a magnesium supplement (of unknown price). It's far better to get such a micronutrient from food such as nuts, spinach, fruit like avacado, and wholegrains. If the diet provides enough magnesium, then the supplement is useless, and if the diet is low in magnesium, a dozen almonds will do the trick.



Quote:
It delays the tensing process just enough for you to become consciously aware of the (subconscious chronic) pattern of tensing.


Is that what they tell people they sell this to? Do they even explain the nutrient profile of the supplement and what foods are rich in magnesium? I doubt it, because they want you to buy a bottle of pills rather than spinach and almonds. I'm highly skeptical of the supplement market, as you can tell.



Quote:
For me the merit of Yoga Nidra is in the total relaxation of the body and that it brings the brainwaves down from Beta to Alpha to Theta. In that state visualizations do work, such as opening of chakras – and conscious intent enters the subconscious.


In chronic stress your heart even goes numb or turns into stone, so it is not until you can open your heart again that you can start *holding space* for your ‘rapid dog’ response pattern – thus transcending it.

*




True, body awareness is important in the Buddhist context because 'from feeling craving arises', and craving is the word used for all sorts of aversion/desire reactivity, avoiding, resisting/clinging, grasping etc. Hence the body awareness meditation is to feel the sensations sans all those reactions - to just be there and know 'this feeling'.


I knw people always want to add something, a special intention, a visulalsation or a mantra and so on, but personally, I wouldn't suggest doing any of that.
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  #13  
Old 09-09-2018, 04:24 PM
sentient sentient is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gem
It seems to be a magnesium supplement (of unknown price). It's far better to get such a micronutrient from food such as nuts, spinach, fruit like avacado, and wholegrains. If the diet provides enough magnesium, then the supplement is useless, and if the diet is low in magnesium, a dozen almonds will do the trick.
Is that what they tell people they sell this to? Do they even explain the nutrient profile of the supplement and what foods are rich in magnesium? I doubt it, because they want you to buy a bottle of pills rather than spinach and almonds. I'm highly skeptical of the supplement market, as you can tell.
A chiropractor might prescribe Myoplex for patients whose back muscles have totally seized up. Simple but effective.
Magnesium amino acid chelate 250 mg - Equivalent elemental magnesium 50 mg
Calcium lactate anhydrous 138.9 mg - Equivalent elemental calcium 25 mg
Passiflora incarnata, herb dry (Passion flower) 133.7 mg
Valeriana officinalis, root dry (Valerian) 50 mg

Quote:
I knw people always want to add something, a special intention, a visulalsation or a mantra and so on, but personally, I wouldn't suggest doing any of that.

Visualizations are part and parcel of Vajrayana.

*
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  #14  
Old 10-09-2018, 07:26 AM
Gem Gem is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sentient
A chiropractor might prescribe Myoplex for patients whose back muscles have totally seized up. Simple but effective.
Magnesium amino acid chelate 250 mg - Equivalent elemental magnesium 50 mg
Calcium lactate anhydrous 138.9 mg - Equivalent elemental calcium 25 mg
Passiflora incarnata, herb dry (Passion flower) 133.7 mg
Valeriana officinalis, root dry (Valerian) 50 mg



Visualizations are part and parcel of Vajrayana.

*




I'm sure that branch of Buddhism has a range of meditation techniques, but I don't know anything about Vajrayana or other Buddhist sects. I was only trained in the insight meditation outlined in the satipatthana sutta and attended all the discourses as part of that training.



When they take one thing called 'nidra' and say it is a non-volitional body observation technique, but then add volitional mantra and visualisations, am I supposed to be doing or not-doing? There is a clear contradiction in this regard. My own practice is based on non-doing, so if I notice myself doing anything, I stop doing that because all that 'making it as I want it to be' is aversion and/or desire driven, I.e. 'craving'. Hence if a person asked me about their mantra, visualisation, controlled breathing, breath counting or any other volitional activity, I could only say I'd stop doing that and just be aware of the real lived sensation 'as it is'.


If it were another technique, specifically an energy practice or something else, and not a body awareness technique, then fine, but the body awareness is fundamentally non-volitional.
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  #15  
Old 11-09-2018, 01:40 AM
sentient sentient is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gem
I'm sure that branch of Buddhism has a range of meditation techniques, but I don't know anything about Vajrayana or other Buddhist sects. I was only trained in the insight meditation outlined in the satipatthana sutta and attended all the discourses as part of that training.....................

I think that who we are and ‘where we are at’ determines where we fit in the ‘Buddhism spectrum’.
My own introduction to Buddhism was through the books by the Vajrayana teacher Chögyam Trungpa, and they seemed to be the only texts I could relate to even later on.

Yoga Nidra perhaps belongs to both Hinduism and Buddhism, but if it helps a person suffering from PTSD, who cares what particular tradition or lineage they belong to! (Though I think Chögyam Trungpa lineage encourages learning from other traditions too).


Had always worked with intent, juggling doing and not-doing. Without going into some magical dimensions of the Universe, intent can be like working with your subconscious.
Say you usually sleep till 8am, but now have travel plans and need to wake up at 5am. So you set up an intent to wake up at that time, and would you know – your body wakes you up 1 minute to 5.
Or when you are (doing) - racking your left brain to find an answer to a problem, then exhaust yourself and let go in a “I can’t do this” total give-up surrender to the Universe (not-doing). That is the time when your problem enters into your subconscious, and would you know – next day subconsciously something within your environment catches your eye – ‘vacantly’ you reflect on it and bingo! That is the solution to your problem!

Say you have a rapid dog response every time you are triggered by certain situations, or jealousy response, or ego-competitor response as your subconscious energy pattern. This can be rooted in the past trauma. And yes, the mindfulness meditation sure helps.

Listening Reggie speak about his childhood and his particular brand of (nobody loves me) neurosis, he could easily have ended up with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which I think is the hardest disorder to cure or subconscious energy pattern to transcend, because it was set up so early in the childhood that it now sits very deeply in the subconscious.

But then again, I think we all have our specific brand of neurosis that stem from subconscious patterning.

*

Reggie talks about the first veil – conflicting emotions ….
And the second veil which I, rightly or wrongly have identified as the CCF-barrier.

How open our minds are to begin with depend on where our Conscious Critical Faculty was set during our early childhood i.e. it depends on what belief system created your subconscious program – the first worldview you found functionality in.

Quote:
Since CCF filter is almost non-existent when we are born, everything the infant is exposed to goes right into the psyche and out of these “impressions”, subconscious programs develop.

There is a saying that goes: “Give me a child until he is five years old and I have him forever”. That’s because, by the age of five, a person has many programs in his/her computer mind and the critical faculty is well developed. Thus, the child grows to adulthood, functioning according to her programming.

The critical faculty is not a physical barrier. However, it is so effective at doing its job, it might as well be made of steel. What is its job? To “protect” you by making sure you never change. It does this by not allowing anything to reach your subconscious unless it agrees with your programming.

The Conscious Critical Faculty – a barrier between conscious and subconscious
The Conscious Critical Faculty under hypnosis feels like a psychological membrane you bypass at will to get to your subconscious.
Quote:
Your Conscious Critical Faculty filters out all information that does not fit in with your belief system. The mechanism is simple. Everything we encounter and every situation we meet, is compared with our existing knowledge-base – which includes all our previous limitations and awareness of things that we cannot do. If it does not find a match – that is, if it opposes what we already have learnt – then it is likely to be rejected as inaccurate or worthless.
CCF thus also seems to work as a Fear Barrier protecting the mind from receiving impressions that do not fit your map of the world or belief system and justly so because one may not be able to navigate/function within another belief system worldview.

What is your connection with your subconscious like?
Do you just read data knowledge or do you ask your subconscious to find answers to your questions, seeking knowledge that way?
Would you put trust in those answers your subconscious gave you?
If you do have a conscious connection with your own subconscious – how do you work with it?
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  #16  
Old 11-09-2018, 03:46 AM
Gem Gem is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sentient
I think that who we are and ‘where we are at’ determines where we fit in the ‘Buddhism spectrum’.
My own introduction to Buddhism was through the books by the Vajrayana teacher Chögyam Trungpa, and they seemed to be the only texts I could relate to even later on.

Yoga Nidra perhaps belongs to both Hinduism and Buddhism, but if it helps a person suffering from PTSD, who cares what particular tradition or lineage they belong to! (Though I think Chögyam Trungpa lineage encourages learning from other traditions too).


I don't care what sectarian tradition people belong to because I see dhamma as universal and not sectarian. I don't know anything about Trungpa's teachings so I can't make any reasonable comments on that.



I think the research shows that mindfulness meditation is effective in resolving PTSD, but the two guided meditations you linked are very different to each other, and to me it seems it could be anything from mindfulness, Breath and body awareness, affirmation, mantra, visualisation, and a mixture all these in a single sitting.


In this thread I took the time to go over everything, the long videos and links, but this didn't give me any clarity on what 'yoga nidra' is. I just see all sorts of things going on seeming randomly and one 'yoga nidra' meditation can be completely different to another 'yoga nidra' meditation.


Quote:
Had always worked with intent, juggling doing and not-doing. Without going into some magical dimensions of the Universe, intent can be like working with your subconscious.
Say you usually sleep till 8am, but now have travel plans and need to wake up at 5am. So you set up an intent to wake up at that time, and would you know – your body wakes you up 1 minute to 5.
Or when you are (doing) - racking your left brain to find an answer to a problem, then exhaust yourself and let go in a “I can’t do this” total give-up surrender to the Universe (not-doing). That is the time when your problem enters into your subconscious, and would you know – next day subconsciously something within your environment catches your eye – ‘vacantly’ you reflect on it and bingo! That is the solution to your problem!


It's not that I'm against intent as such, but I claim that body awareness meditation is not a volitional exercise. It's a neutral observation of feeling 'as it is'.


Quote:
Say you have a rapid dog response every time you are triggered by certain situations, or jealousy response, or ego-competitor response as your subconscious energy pattern. This can be rooted in the past trauma. And yes, the mindfulness meditation sure helps.

Listening Reggie speak about his childhood and his particular brand of (nobody loves me) neurosis, he could easily have ended up with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which I think is the hardest disorder to cure or subconscious energy pattern to transcend, because it was set up so early in the childhood that it now sits very deeply in the subconscious.

But then again, I think we all have our specific brand of neurosis that stem from subconscious patterning.

*

Reggie talks about the first veil – conflicting emotions ….
And the second veil which I, rightly or wrongly have identified as the CCF-barrier.

How open our minds are to begin with depend on where our Conscious Critical Faculty was set during our early childhood i.e. it depends on what belief system created your subconscious program – the first worldview you found functionality in.



The Conscious Critical Faculty – a barrier between conscious and subconscious
The Conscious Critical Faculty under hypnosis feels like a psychological membrane you bypass at will to get to your subconscious.

CCF thus also seems to work as a Fear Barrier protecting the mind from receiving impressions that do not fit your map of the world or belief system and justly so because one may not be able to navigate/function within another belief system worldview.

What is your connection with your subconscious like?
Do you just read data knowledge or do you ask your subconscious to find answers to your questions, seeking knowledge that way?
Would you put trust in those answers your subconscious gave you?
If you do have a conscious connection with your own subconscious – how do you work with it?




To me the subconscious means those subtle experiences which the mind is not sensitive enough to perceive, and in body awareness practice one will notice that some parts of the body are vibrant, distinct and easy to feel while other parts of the body are dull, hard to feel, or have no perceivable sensation whatsoever. The sensations are manifest from mind, so where there are dull or imperceptible areas of the body there are also subconsious thought structures (that's way oversimplified, but just represents the mind-body connection). The work of looking more deeply or feeling as sensitively as possible leads to these dull unfeeling parts becoming more distinct, and the progress from the hard solid body to the subtle more dynamic body is the progress from a dull, sleepy mind to a sharp, sensitive mind. As the mind become more brilliant and sharply perceptive it starts to notice things which were previous subconscious and one becomes aware of just how delicately poised their balance of mind is.


This is why the body awareness practice has nothing to do with what people want, so one can look deeply into it 'as it is', to bring the dull parts awake, to see the subtle dynamics below the hard and solid, to free persistent tensions and blocks which have previously operated unconsciously - and not because you will it intentionally to make it as you want it, but because you are willing to see it exactly 'as it is'.
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