Continued discussion on fundamentals of mindfulness meditation

[JustBe]

I think that the breathe itself can calm the body but it doesn’t negate what might want your attention, within the whole system, it really just slows everything down to come back to what is in that moment, with a more overall focus.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by JustBe

I think that the breathe itself can calm the body but it doesn’t negate what might want your attention, within the whole system, it really just slows everything down to come back to what is in that moment, with a more overall focus.

I was headed into the reeds about the hard, dense things in the body (don't get me started ), but recognised I'm getting pedantic.

Enough to say breath awareness is generally calming, but when the mind gets wild, well, if this is working, that is going to happen. Difference is, instead of it taking control as it has in the past, this time it can't because you became conscious of it, and if you determined to observe breath, mind cannot tell you otherwise.

Usually we don't know we are compelled because e never really noticed. We will sit for a while, until the reactivity starts, and then we be like, I don't feel like it now, and quit. Anyone can manage 30 minutes so I'd call that a minimum, but if possible to make it an 45min or an hour, the mind probably starts getting a bit wild in the last 15 minutes. I'm not saying this is true. I'm just saying try and see. I'd bet a red cent there will be some significant disturbances to equanimity at times, so I'm just suggeting when that happens, remember who's house it is and don't let the guest tell you what to do (Gibran: On Houses).

On retreat we start pretty easy because we can move a bit if we feel uncomfortable, but later on we have to sit still. It's like torture and the mind gets crazy wild, and you can be like, "this is suffering''.

The spiritualists will say they sit in bliss for hours and deride 'sitting through pain' and stuff, and then sell something which is no pain/only pleasure. In reality, everyone's life including theirs includes pleasure and pain. There are ups and downs we have to live through. That's just how life goes. Mindful meditation is awareness of life as it is. That means in time-set-aside formal sitting practices the same pain/pleasure calm/agitation one has normally day to day is going to be part of formal meditation sessions.

The only difference is, are you rattled around by craving/reactivity, or can you do life with a pretty even keel? You could be a drama banana and everything is stress, and mindfulness can teach you that you don't actually have to react like that. You could 'just observe' instead. Then you're told, 'observe breath for one hour,' or something, and you realise not-doing the reactivity is harder than you'd think. That's why I'm not going to say it's just wonderful and promise peace in a rainbow cup. I'm actually going to say this can be rough sometimes and it's probably gunna test your limits. That's why I have no customers .

[Gem]

A bit hard to nail the point, and because there is a surface level there is a surface narrative, and where there's a deeper level, the narrative is more sublime.

Since I don't think it's possible on a forum to talk about the sublime, the meditation is breath awareness and the narrative is surface discussion. I'm confident that near enough everyone who does breath awareness routinely will find that the sorts agitations I mentioned do happen to them - try it and see - But in mindfulness, we only train for calm.

One is determined to remain calm. When there's pleasure and life is going well, and there's much to happy about, it's not that hard, and we don't really get to understand the problem with pleasure at the breath awareness stage, but we do get to understand how pain/discomfort/life-pressures lead to aversion-reactions that generate the agitations that disturb our calm. Meditation is a way to recognise it clearly, and stop doing that.

Indeed discomfort in itself doesn't disturb the calm. The mental reactivity to it does. The problem is, when you get agitated, you can't start fighting with the reactivity to force-stop it, so you just understand, it can be as it is but I'm too busy observing the breath to give it anything. All attention is on the feeling of breath, so there's no giving your energy the mind-stuff. As such, you can notice how the intense sensation and/or hectic life situation etc. is unable to elicit any adverse reaction from you, hence there isn't agitation, and thus you remain calm.

There are all sorts of states consequential to mindfulness, but things change, and the meditation is actually independent from any experience or special states. It's about that calm regardless of circumstances that are always changing. The sorts of experiences that occur, change and pass by are ultimately irrelevant to what we train for.

In writing it's easy but in practice it's harder. Even a small itch can get you reacting hard and making the mind really wild. It doesn't take much... and if there is a lot of pressure in life, busy as hell, investments going down, no money for home repairs and so on, the mind obsesses... but all we have to do is watch this breath, then this one, one at a time, until meditation time is up. You can learn a lot about yourself, and it's really surprising how much happens in just an hour of doing nothing.

Anyway, I went about the point and hope it makes a bit of sense.

[JustBe]

I have been more attuned to the hard reeds in most of my processors and experiences. I think it taught me a valuable lesson about balance and shifts, where by, I never truly had an opportunity, to grasp too tightly, onto those openings after the mud had settled and I climbed up and out. As soon as the highs arose and the ‘feel good’ feelings became apparent, there was always more to integrate, deepen and balance out. You call it moving from dense big pockets that become more subtle and finer, which makes sense in relation to my processors, when moving through my own issues. In moving through process in this way, you learn quickly that balance as the integration or purification is neither too high nor too low. It’s a steady stream of balanced mind/body that becomes more like a neutral canvas. The middle way of yourself. Your feeling body becomes clear, the mind no longer attaches to a story or drama and eventually all becomes transmuted as clear seeing and clear feeling. You do feel more alive, energy flows more sustained and steady, you look after yourself aware and listening to yourself differently. You live from a place of authenticity and truth for you. You understand your place on earth with less worry and concern about others and their lives. You live more in trust of all things and take care of yourself and support those where you can. You understand there’s nothing to chase after but rather, you meet life as life is.

I’ve been through a very intense dark night of the soul intermixed with a mystical awakening. Over three months, I endured the depths of myself and honestly there was no blissful fairy floss moving through that time frame. It was intense, difficult and I was running scared for most of it. I was challenged, confused, struggled and felt very alone and thought I was going crazy. My mind was in total unrest. There was no bells and whistles or blissful angelic choruses playing. Of course this was only the deeper harder levels of myself. The layers before this level really took up most of my early life and it was difficult to overcome as well.

In some ways I’m glad I didn’t get stuck in the bliss zone. I see now the benefits of facing myself head on in the way I did, allowed me to stay in the void of suffering and fears, to undo everything holding me back from being open and clear, without them. Be myself, without them.

In the end we are simply offloading the baggage to live and enjoy life without it.

Of course I should add, the depth of my life experience matches the depth of myself I entered, so I do get to enjoy a very rich and deeply inspiring life process from doing the work that deep.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by JustBe

work that deep.

Brilliant post. I was waiting a couple of days to see what replies came up, but none.

It's all exact, as if we get the big highs we still know, this is changing and it won't last, so we return to the underlying balance, and the same when it's not that great, can see it changing and won't last very long, so stay still.

The best point you touched on was bringing 'the middle way' into what it means in life. In the texts there is surface level stuff about not being too greedy or not denying yourself too much, being moderate etc, but in the end the middle way is equanimity. The philosophy in Buddhism is pretty clear, that's the only thing we are training for.

The observer is a 'blank canvas', but we don't completely get that until the one who pretends to be me is found out. There is a ton of no-self stuff in Buddhism. People don't like it, but the meditation is about no me, my, mine and I. Once a person gets to subtler levels and can focus microscopically, they can search the body for I, and realise no such thing exists in the material. I always explain how there is sensation, and each reaction/desire/aversion/craving has I at the centre. There is always a me, my, mine, I referenced with reactivity. I is a bunch of reaction, which is why it's constricted and tied in knots, which you can actually feel manifest as density and tension in the body. This is the underlying reason why the purification is not actually pleasant. The tendencies of that 'ego' are going to be revealed. When it is exposed in entirety you can differentiate, that's not me. I'm the one aware.

There is still purification to happen, so the attention will drift back to where some sort of reaction going on, but the nice thing with equanimity is you can just notice whatever is happening and let it be as it changes and resolve in its own time according to natures way - which is non-resistance.

The only reason I bang on about that is not the drop truth bombs, but as a way to reflect how to approach breath awareness. I know how to expose the ego, and I know it will do all that tricks to keep us distracted from finding it out, and my view from that perspective is the 'added on' bits and bobs that most teachers prescribe are also ego's tricks. So as golden rule, Feel yourself breathing and nothing more than that. That's gonna bring m
Mr. me out of hiding.

[JustBe]

Like you I’m not accustomed to replies when my response deters the bells and whistles.. haha

As I shared the beautiful gift of doing deep inner work is being able to live deeply connected to you, aware and clear and living through the potentials of you as a human, creator and your in your own aliveness.

That’s very special of course. Through process the complexity of the journey, simplifies itself. You understand personal responsibility and your peace and place in the grander scheme of life.

Many people close to me think my process was quite remarkable at the time. But twelve years on, most look at me now, as being happy and content. Not someone having a profound experience way back when. So there is the simplicity born from complexity noticed by those who know you best.

The middle path was my utmost learning through that time. Even through integration, you reach a place of understanding and awareness that you know that place will always reveal itself, when you let go and not resist what you feel and are going through.

When your aware you know what’s going on inside, there is no confusion, so it becomes effortless and you shift faster without avoidance, but rather giving time and space to yourself.

Feel yourself breathing and nothing more, ends those stories and ideas that it had to mean something. But in fact your giving birth to you as the meaning. Sometimes that’s difficult to grasp when soo much is going on.

Originally Posted by Gem

People don't like it, but the meditation is about no me, my, mine and I. Once a person gets to subtler levels and can focus microscopically, they can search the body for I, and realise no such thing exists in the material.

That's the heart of Advaita Self-inquiry too. Same for Ramana Maharshi's Who Am I? (Nan Yar?) inquiry. There is a difference in approach though as Advaita uses traditional meditation as a supporting practice to bring about clarity of mind and then there's Vedantic meditation which is a contemplative inquiry into the nature of self using various vivekas which are basically sourced from the Upanishads. For Ramana it was a simple "Who Am I?" question.

A very common one in Advaita is Drg Drsya Viveka (Seer and Seen Discernment). Without sufficient clarity of mind these approaches aren't very useful.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

That's the heart of Advaita Self-inquiry too.

I'm into Ramana's self-inquiry. I don't have a negative critique on his teaching because there's no really direct contradictions. Since it's pretty much perfectly consistent on a logical level, it's reasonable to follow through with practice. I really like his determination and unrelenting persistence as well. It's a serious undertaking and you have to really mean it, and I think it's a great approach.

In the body based approach I talk about, it's mostly to do with body/mind purification. The self-realisation is like you as you are now, including the blocks and what have you, but the purification is how you work at the limits of your perceptive ability to penetrate the lifeform to the subtlest levels of mind and body as one. But it has to be pure awareness, which is simply conscious awareness free from desire/aversion, or IOW, conscious awareness with equanimity of mind.

That means by investigating the feelings (vedana) very closely we can hone the perceptive ability over time to detect the subtle and subtler levels, and by no- reacting/resisting/craving/clinging to the feelings, we strengthen the balance of equanimity. After a while, mind can remain completely unperturbed even though experiences get pretty intense. If the feelings running through the body cannot disrupt stillness of mind, the impurities or obstacles in the system are set free and come out into the light of your conscious awareness and resolve. There's a rough stormy emotional healing thrown in the mix so we get a lot of thick tar-like densities, and after a bit of these densities have resolved, the love of the universe starts to rise in the heart. When things clear out quite a bit, strong and fast internal movement is 'unleashed', which is really hard to endure, but if you practiced right-meditation from the beginning, there will be enough equanimity or stability to endure without losing your proverbial. Then there's pretty smooth sailing, but it's best if you notice the importance of the most nuanced and delicate point of balance rather than become overly enamoured with bliss.

My guess is, after self realisation as per Ramana, might as well start the breath awareness/mind/body training to purify the life form so the great outpouring can flow freely through.

Just raving for conversation's sake. Probably makes no sense.

Originally Posted by Gem

My guess is, after self realisation as per Ramana, might as well start the breath awareness/mind/body training to purify the life form so the great outpouring can flow freely through.

In the Vedantic tradition purification is accomplished through Karma Yoga and by one of four techniques:

1 - Work for God
2 - Work as Witness
3 - Lila (Divine Play of Consciousness)
4 - Surrender

Work as Witness is the Path of Knowledge (Jnana) approach and is probably closest to Buddhism. Not the doer of action but the Witness of action. The ultimate form of these practices is engaging them 24x7, in effect spiritualizing every aspect of life.

Advaita also posits both clarity and purity of mind are prerequisites for Self-realization/Enlightenment.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

1 - Work for God Work as Witness Lila Surrender 24x7 Self-realization/Enlightenment.

Mindfulness is much the same, but you could believe in God or not, doesn't really matter as it makes no difference to practice, and 'divine consciousness' sounds a bit mysterious and I don't know what it is.

Witness and surrender is the general theme, but witness it would be worded something like 'just observe', and surrender would be cessation of volition (let it be as it is). 24/7 is the same as well. There are 4 defined jhanas in the mindfulness discourse. I know the 4th one is 'equanimity'... can't remember the other 3.

Hence with breath meditation you feel the air and know: 'feels like this' - but you have to look as closely as possible and really feel what it's like.

It's just the same in principle... somewhat different application...

Self realisation to me isn't dependent on some degree of purity - it's just you as you are now. I just imagine enlightenment as having more to do with being completely purified... but that's just me and other people will say something different... There are a few different things. I think the zen guys delineate kensho from satori, but again, I don't know what it means.