Zen Anybody

[Phaelyn]

Originally Posted by sky123

You said,

'It's like asking what a car is. One can point to one and say that's a car, '

If you can point to one and say that's a car then you KNOW it's a car. so why ask ?

Because "car" there is a word. A symbol. That is knowing conceptually which is delusion. Question everything one "knows."
Then a mechanic will have to ask what kind of car is it, electric or 4 cylinder to work on it...

What's interesting about this idea, that I can name something and therefore know what it is....is that really knowing? Zen would say no. The name is never what "it" is. Really what "that" is, is a consciousness identified with the conceptual reality and not the real one.

The parable of the Blind Men and an Elephant originated in the ancient Indian subcontinent, from where it has been widely diffused. It is a story of a group of blind men who have never come across an elephant before and who learn and conceptualize what the elephant is like by touching it. Each blind man feels a different part of the elephant's body, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then describe the elephant based on their limited experience and their descriptions of the elephant are different from each other. In some versions, they come to suspect that the other person is dishonest and they come to blows. The moral of the parable is that humans have a tendency to claim absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience as they ignore other people's limited, subjective experiences which may be equally true.

I have a friend who refuses to own a car, to him, they are an expense one does not need.

[sentient]

Originally Posted by sky123

That's me with the ear phones listening to myself talking gobbledegook, tangled within and tangled without....

Lol.

One more to share
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/de/0f...bd22493485.jpg

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[Phaelyn]

Krishnamurti on why ask

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDcSbZmH4Oo

[sky]

Originally Posted by sentient

Lol.

One more to share
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/de/0f...bd22493485.jpg

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Love them which one is you ?

[sentient]

Originally Posted by sky123

Love them which one is you ?

All of them – but sometimes I lose the plot

https://artblart.files.wordpress.com...age-leunig.jpg

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[sentient]

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

I'd say what one need's awareness of is now free of thinking, emotions are kinda secondary to that as they can be triggered by thinking.

It's kinda the reverse of the way you worded it there. Now is ...... it's what it is, to make it into "something" word or concept based is what we do... the opposite of a "liberated state"

So the "goal" is not to be aware of thoughts and emotions, that is adding a concept to now, it merely to be aware of what is.....that awareness of what is, may include thoughts and emotions if they actually exist in the here and now to be included in the field of total awareness... one does not specifically look for something, that is not meditating, one merely is aware of what is

Like the metaphor of a huge town square and I am standing up on a roof looking down at it..... up here on the roof, I'm not really involved in anything going on down there....... the voices are like a blur.... I can't make out what is being said..... the emotions down there..... I see movement but I'm not sure whats what.... it just is..... maybe I make out what is being said....make out an emotion.... but it's not me or mine.... it's just a part of this field...this ever changing now

What I am aware of is when I am zooming down into a particular sound, concentrating and focusing wholly on it, a voice, and making it phenomenal.... a "thing" instead of this field of reality that's its basis is up on the roof....then I've changed what this now is... thought is then not something I am merely aware of non-phenomenally, it produces an effect.

That's a metaphor, to use a actual word for it is usually some form of the word "emptiness" but that word is just as bad as the metaphor. It is merely now before I interpret it though my conditioning, habitual thought...

It's not the becoming aware of thought, it is the separation that occurs when one realizes me and my thought are two things, the realization I can be un-moved by thought, the realization I can let go and be free of this mental content.... that what now is, is being determined by what I think about it and what I think about myself. And a different reality is here, has always been here, and the path to it is the ceasing of that old way to be.

What to you is the difference between meditation and dissociation?

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[Joe Mc]

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

I'd say what one need's awareness of is now free of thinking, emotions are kinda secondary to that as they can be triggered by thinking.

It's kinda the reverse of the way you worded it there. Now is ...... it's what it is, to make it into "something" word or concept based is what we do... the opposite of a "liberated state"

So the "goal" is not to be aware of thoughts and emotions, that is adding a concept to now, it merely to be aware of what is.....that awareness of what is, may include thoughts and emotions if they actually exist in the here and now to be included in the field of total awareness... one does not specifically look for something, that is not meditating, one merely is aware of what is

Like the metaphor of a huge town square and I am standing up on a roof looking down at it..... up here on the roof, I'm not really involved in anything going on down there....... the voices are like a blur.... I can't make out what is being said..... the emotions down there..... I see movement but I'm not sure whats what.... it just is..... maybe I make out what is being said....make out an emotion.... but it's not me or mine.... it's just a part of this field...this ever changing now

What I am aware of is when I am zooming down into a particular sound, concentrating and focusing wholly on it, a voice, and making it phenomenal.... a "thing" instead of this field of reality that's its basis is up on the roof....then I've changed what this now is... thought is then not something I am merely aware of non-phenomenally, it produces an effect.

That's a metaphor, to use a actual word for it is usually some form of the word "emptiness" but that word is just as bad as the metaphor. It is merely now before I interpret it though my conditioning, habitual thought...

It's not the becoming aware of thought, it is the separation that occurs when one realizes me and my thought are two things, the realization I can be un-moved by thought, the realization I can let go and be free of this mental content.... that what now is, is being determined by what I think about it and what I think about myself. And a different reality is here, has always been here, and the path to it is the ceasing of that old way to be.

I'll give you a bird's view of what I've read in your response. I like the image of an overview much like a bird on a high perch. Once in my meditation i had one of these larger than life images ..just appear on the screen of my mind..in total stillness in total technicolour. It was of a Bird in a nest high up ..A Raven perhaps. As i say the image was more real in a way than what appears on the retina etc. Some days later I met an American lady living quite close to me. She lived near the top floor of a 10 story flat complex. The flat complex was coloured a very deep grey, painted that way and reminded me of something from East Germany post World War 2. I knew as I climbed the stairs to her apartment, or perhaps later on, that the image or vision was related to her. She was a 'Shaman' and our acquaintance was brief in the overall scheme of things. I'm not sure if i was sent to teach her something or her me ..or both of us to teach each other. Although thanks for memory.

Maybe i recount this tale as to allude to the unpredictable nature of meditation to or the magical nature perhaps. What you say in your post is good and helpful thanks for that. And i enjoyed reading it although my mind is often quite simply and not able to handle big ideas and synthesis and hypothesis lol..no wonder im poor eh ? Anyways. How we pour ourselves or not pour ourselves into this world is mighty important especially at the present time it seems. I'm hoping you might have something to say about that and of course anybody else, Still Waters especially as he is a wise fellow. :)

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[Joe Mc]

Originally Posted by Still_Waters

Pir Vilayat Khan, the son of the Sufi Master Hazrat Inayat Khan, once said: "The ego is very important until one no longer needs it." Similarly, the intellect (thought, etc.) is also very important ... until one no longer needs it ... and intuitively "knows without thinking".

Ramana is one of my favorites and it is indeed an interesting process to trace the "I" thought back.

This is nice, nice quote. It's open ended, so when and if i find someone waving their fist at me ..through a car window ..i feel hope or me waving a fist at them ..thanks

[Still_Waters]

Originally Posted by sky123

Yes
When, friends, a noble disciple understands the unwholesome and the root of the unwholesome, the wholesome and the root of the wholesome, in that way he is one of right view.

Exactly "right" !

[Still_Waters]

Originally Posted by sentient

Had never heard of Pir Vilayat Khan, but what he says sounds true …..

“The ego is very important until one no longer needs it”.
The development of ‘spatial awareness’ can be sudden or gradual.
It is just difficult to assign “I”, me & mine to inner (unified) outer space (witness) - perspective.

“Similarly, the intellect (thought, etc.) is also very important ... until one no longer needs it ... and intuitively "knows without thinking”

I think it is here; - where it becomes important to know 'who one is and where one is at'.
Merely to drop all thinking without first having developed/aligned with ‘intuitive knowing’ is foolish. That it is just living-up-to-a-concept – a journey from ignorance to ignorance – and at some point the bitterness, like that of a ‘jilted lover’ comes in …. negativity towards faith in anything ‘spiritual’ - because it led to nothing.

And it is not that this ‘intuitive knowing’ is out there somewhere, beyond the physical … it is – yet it isn’t.
An example that I use, is that you are just sitting in your living room, when all of a sudden you feel the urge to get up and go to the front door, and as you open it – somebody is there – just about to ring the doorbell – and you-both are surprised.

“Who” was it that told you?
Was it inner or outer space? Yes both – yet neither …. But something that non-dually knows the perfect timing in the physical – beyond the physical. And like a ‘hollow bone’ one is becoming ‘an instrument’ of THAT.


Living-up-to-the-concept of “wholesome” is also different to “I don’t know”, which is sometimes translated 'There is no awareness of self' ….. i.e. the ego defining & dictating to self & others what “wholesome” is and how everybody must abide the ‘rule’ or ‘text’ …. than – the ‘intuitive knowing’ arising out of the impermanent snap-shot situation …… out of the ‘not knowing’.

Inspired to listen to the Sufi talk - Thanks!:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC0TD_g29GU

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I actually studied under Pir Vilayat Khan for a while and his book about his father, Hazrat Inayat Khan ("The Message In Our Time"), is one of the most insightful, practical , illuminating books I have ever read.

Thanks for the video link. It reminds me of the awesome time that I actually spent with Pir-Vilayat-Khan with some really unforgettable one-on-one encounters.