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  #41  
Old 05-09-2022, 06:21 AM
JustBe JustBe is offline
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@Gem Transcend entirely
Yes body awareness can often be overlooked if it’s very subtle and entwined in an issue unresolved. Especially people who are not body conscious and more live in their head. Your right re my friend, sadly she has a very big monkey mind that goes off on tangents as it can do. So those tangents take her away from what bridges deeper awareness of those sensations and physical fallouts. Sometimes the depth of disconnect can and will break through in patterns on the surface but sadly many don’t see, how transcending entirely, you have to go deep into those patterns and root implants to change the way you do things. Mindfulness requires focus to let yourself move deeper in this way, but I suspect not everyone is on this pathway to transcend entirely.

I know people older than myself who’ve journeyed through the awareness of their minds. Gained great knowledge and understanding, through Buddhism and it’s teachings, but neglected the body as part of the whole. I think they modelled to me, how easily a practice can negate the body and lived experience as one total package of self transcending to live it.

I’m beginning to see how easily subtle intricacies can be overlooked. Even as clear as you might become, there is often a need for more attentiveness. Because those subtle layers are often deeper in the body and may not be so noticeable.

I think with body awareness, you’ve got to want it. Some people don’t until it’s too late. Some people have a physical crisis and then act.

I guess there are lots of opportunities the way you choose.
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  #42  
Old 05-09-2022, 06:22 AM
Gem Gem is online now
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Just going to bring it back - looking at these teachers was interesting, and I watched quite a few videos. They have a lot of great things to say and seem like likeable folks. In Buddhist learning: 1) you hear it; 2) discern if it's sensible and reasonable; 3) if it is, investigate for yourself and find out the way in which it is true for you. That way, motivation is inspiration from one's own intellectual understanding (not doing stuff just because you think a teacher knows).

I'm thinking better re-focus, but my asides are an example of how analysis goes. I always remember a guy named Trungpa who presented himself as a teacher. He founded a school where a lot sexual abuse of all ages took place. Great pedigree; bad dude. The famous Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron came from that school. She's a great gal, but she got caught up in protecting the teachers and ended up hurting a lot of people. She was wrong, and now has that cross to bear. That sort of thing is not uncommon, so I'm not going to say a guy has great pedigree and therefore his teachings are great. I'm going to say you walk that path like there's poisonous snakes all through the jungle.

A lot of people get hurt, and worse, get misled into hurting people without even knowing it, but if we could say the gravity of that, and therefore the importance of discerning is out of the way, better move on.

Problem being, it doesn't move on. It's just deeper nuances of the same thing. Since practice doesn't go from past to future, but from physical and hard to subtle and sublime - the narrative also goes from crass and self-evident to the intricate nuances.

In the threads I can only go with breath awareness because expanding to body awareness is a lot. Even breath awareness is hard to thread because I can only generalise about 'feel your breathing'. I have tried before to refine for greater effect, but it stalls on the thread. If you think about it, your breath awareness after 3 months should be something a new novice can't do at all. Imagine if you played the piano for 3 months and your playing wasn't any better than what a total newbie could do. I wish I could do a thread that went that way, but what I wish was possible and what is really possible are 2 different things HaHa.

Make the most of what's really possible I always say .
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  #43  
Old 05-09-2022, 07:45 AM
JustASimpleGuy
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Concerning body awareness how I've heard it put and quite succinctly is place body on cushion and then mind in body. Whether I'm practicing mindfulness of breath, sound or smell or effortless or loving-kindness and sometimes even candle gazing I have a warm-up. After seated comfortably take a few slow and deep breaths and then do a body scan, starting at the feet and moving up to the crown, sensing tension on the inhale and releasing tension on the exhale.

For the breath awareness I practice (Shamatha/Calm Abiding) and from the instructions I found all those years back this is the neuro-physiology it explains is at work behind the scenes.

In the western world we are trained from an early age to identify with our intellect and thinking. We all, to a greater or lesser extent, "live in our heads". The furniture we use, the ways we use it and the habits of body and mind we accumulate add to this imbalance. This practice of paying attention to bodily sensations as we breathe in and out, and calming the body as we do so, whilst learning not to identify with thoughts has a strong backing in Neuro-Physiology.

One of the most important features and reasons for the success of the practice is that it re-embodies us: that is to say that it reconnects our body and mind - our bodymind.
The brain has twelve pairs of nerves that enter directly into the brainstem bypassing the spinal cord. Most of these nerves serve functions in the head and face: smell, hearing, sight, etc.

The tenth "Cranial" nerve, the Vagus nerve or "wanderer", exits the skull through the Jugular foramen, a hole in the base of the skull. It is one of only two of these pairs of Cranial nerves that enters the body. The Vagus nerve has branches that connect to the ears and larynx and it plays a significant role in speech and language comprehension through these. It then travels down the neck inside the back of the throat and enters the chest cavity. It provides feedback to the brain from the lungs and heart including blood pressure, oxygen and carbon dioxide content of the blood (via the Aortic receptors).

The Vagus also provides feedback to the brain from all the internal bodily organs in our abdomen and plays a pivotal role in controlling the stomach and the pancreas. It has strong links to all of the main nerve plexuses (groups of nerves like mini-brains) in the body.

It is clear to see that with connections to language and thinking (through the branches to the ears and larynx), breathing and heart (including bodily stress-levels) through the branches to the lungs, heart and Aortic receptors, emotions and feelings which actually arise in the body when we become aware (through the strong links to abdominal organs and especially stomach - hence the expression such as "gut feelings"), that the Vagus nerve is the information super-highway that links body and mind into one: bodymind, that links the physical to the intellectual through it's expression of feeling, animal instinct and involvement of language.

This practice revitalises and fully activates the Vagus nerve in a very direct manner. It is the principal Neuro-Physiological mechanism through which the practice works due to the nerve's connections to the functions the practice changes: bodily and mental stress levels (or level of calm) thinking, awareness of the bodymind as one connected entity - as opposed to the sense of the body being separate from the mind. Additionally, and over time, many other positive changes will occur to brain function and Neuro-Chemistry as a result of this practice. Scientific research has begun to document these quite widely.
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  #44  
Old 05-09-2022, 09:22 AM
JustBe JustBe is offline
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That was very interesting to read JSAG.

I relate very strongly to your understandings of the vagus and it being a conductor in the body, supporting so much.

I like how you’ve brought me back to the awareness of linking mind and body together.

Just one question though.

Are you saying that the breath awareness/meditation, stimulate the vagus nerve directly?
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Your trials did not come to punish you, but to awaken you - to make you realise that you are a part of Spirit and that just behind the sparks of your life is
the Flame of Infinity.
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  #45  
Old 05-09-2022, 12:01 PM
sky sky is offline
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@JASG.

This may be of interest
https://buddhaweekly.com/science-cen...on-works-body/
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  #46  
Old 05-09-2022, 12:03 PM
JustASimpleGuy
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JustBe
Are you saying that the breath awareness/meditation, stimulate the vagus nerve directly?
Calm Abiding breath awareness attends to sensations of breath wherever they occur. Nose, airway, lungs, muscles associated with breathing including diaphragm, stomach, chest and shoulders. There's a lot of upper and lower torso body awareness and since the Vagus nerve is integral to communications between all the major organs and the brain yes, it does stimulate it directly.
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  #47  
Old 05-09-2022, 12:15 PM
JustASimpleGuy
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sky
Great link! The piece I posted is from Matthew who runs Vipassana.net, and some time back he gave me permission to post it. Here's the entire PDF.

https://www.vipassanaforum.net/meditation/Shamatha.pdf

I'm surprised the site is still up and running because not too long ago I got an email notifying everyone he was going to shut the site down. The date might be in the future when it's time to renew his hosting service?
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  #48  
Old 05-09-2022, 04:04 PM
sky sky is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy
Great link! The piece I posted is from Matthew who runs Vipassana.net, and some time back he gave me permission to post it. Here's the entire PDF.
I like the idea of 'Mental Hygiene' that Matthew mentions
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  #49  
Old 06-09-2022, 12:07 AM
JustBe JustBe is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy
Calm Abiding breath awareness attends to sensations of breath wherever they occur. Nose, airway, lungs, muscles associated with breathing including diaphragm, stomach, chest and shoulders. There's a lot of upper and lower torso body awareness and since the Vagus nerve is integral to communications between all the major organs and the brain yes, it does stimulate it directly.
Yep.

I think that’s why I agree with Gems approach. It doesn’t require too much complex knowledge, that often can move you away from your own mind body/breath focus.

When the mind body is in a state of calm it naturally can heal itself and become more aware and mindful of its own movements and health.
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Your trials did not come to punish you, but to awaken you - to make you realise that you are a part of Spirit and that just behind the sparks of your life is
the Flame of Infinity.
Paramahansa Yogananda
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  #50  
Old 06-09-2022, 02:41 AM
Gem Gem is online now
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I tend away from terms like 'calm abiding' because i don't even know what it means, and contrary to popular opinion, breath awareness isn't necessarily calm. It can be, and ideally should be, but if it's boring, frustrating, uncomfortable, impatient and otherwise uncalm, then you can see how an inane, reactionary mind creates stress - which is not optional as such - but through recognition of it being unreasonable and futile, it tends to lessen a bit over time.

If indeed the wild mind is stressing out somehow, leave it to its devices and become more determined about feeling the breath. That way the wild mind learns that cannot control and compel you. It recognises what used to work no longer works, and moves its tricks to deeper levels which as yet you might not be conscious of.

The ego is deprived of 'fuel'. You stopped giving energy to it when you 'just observed'. It starts to freak out, so you can reasonably expect meditation to be rough sometimes. Since you know your 'just observe' is disruptive in this way, you understand, 'oh this ego is being starved out of hiding and is trying to keep control'. It wants to keep that position of 'me' and does everything possible to rule the roost. It brings aches and pains to the body, some emotional turmoil and negative self-chatter because to remain the imposter of 'me', it has to keep you in a reactive, distracted state - which we can recognise as aversion, boredom, frustration, impatience and all those things etc. Craving a 'special experience' is also a good trick. That's probably the best trick it has.

If those sorts of reactionary feelings come up for you, good, it means wild mind is being tested, or it's testing you - either way of conceptualising it is fine. If it learns it has no power to compel you, what it's doing its not working, it stops doing those tricks. Hence the mind becomes less wild - and therefore calm.

Don't start thinking this will be calm or not calm. It so happens that it tends to be mostly calming so it's generally quite pleasant, but when the mind does get wild, and it will get wild, be determined, even more determined, to only feel the breathing. If the inner-voice is like 'I don't feel like it' etc. recognise the negativity and be like, I see you wild mind, and you are not the master.

In the formal practices this is called 'Strong Determination' (google it). And that's an aspect of the 8 path 'right resolve', 'right motive' or something like that, and also pertains to 'right effort'.

I just say after some months of refining breath awareness one extends that observation to full body awareness. The scan method mentioned in the article is the best because it covers every part without missing anything. However, I would recommend doing breath awareness with the sort of resolve I alluded to for maybe 3 or 4 months, and at some stage, you start to feel lighter feelings in the overall body. Ants crawling on the crown, forehead pressure, tingle all over, waves, vibrations and/or any sorts of feelings, as you experience them, that are less hard, dense and solid physically, and more subtle and dynamic. When subtler feelings start, I'd remain with just breath for another month or so until it's common and established - and that's when I'd start extending the observation to the rest of the body.

The other thing is, with breath awareness as I describe it, your growing ability to focus microscopically and sustain long enough attention span is really needed for progression into body awareness... but I can feel my own tendency to be overly pedantic kicking in here so I'm dropping this and letting it be as it is .

Yea - more to 'calm' than one first thinks.
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