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  #1  
Old 01-12-2020, 06:02 AM
Gem Gem is offline
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Underlying principles of purification through mindful meditation

Lately there are a number of threads detailing conspiracy thinking and reactive tendencies toward C19. If there is conspiracy thoughts I reflect upon the troublesome nature of thought fabrication. This then relates directly to the reactivity which is the impetus to generate such thoughts.

I'm sure we all succumb to thoughts that trouble us. Distressing imaginings, self-image, and self-narrative is there because 'I' am always at the epicentre of psychological reactivity. I say this because where the disease is of concern, healing is relevant - and I don't mean healing this sickness or any other - I mean purification on the whole. Most of us (all) have blockages within the life form as emotional life issues that also manifest in density of the body expressed through posture and conduct. The purification regards the unbinding of these blockages and the influx of light to spaces where densities previously existed.

How? Teachers say imagine light or breath into it or some such thing, and it's very helpful, but there is a more endemic quality to the motive for remedies which isn't altogether benign: one's aversion toward the issue. The motive for purification is in itself wholesome, but aversion toward the issue is ill-willed. If we can see how we have hatred toward the issues, then we come closer to the subtler root of the dilemma.

Of course any one of us can recognise the trauma, the worry, the self worth, the self-defeating narrative and feeling blocked up, and we can feel the density within our bodies. When we recognise our own such issues, we react adversely to them and yearn for the relief. But that which is true of you is not to be hated anymore and the desire for it to be otherwise is not necessary. In Buddhist lingo, this absence of 'aversion toward' and 'desire for' is called 'equanimity', and the state of equanimity is referred to as pure awareness or pure observation because you are simply aware 'it's like this'.

If you followed this along, you will probably be wondering, but how to purify the blockages and undergo the healing? My point is there are any of 101 things to be done, but whichever strategy is undertaken, there is a single underlying principle that essential to them all. My claim is, equanimity is the single-most fundamental key to purification, and essentially, mindfulness is the practice of equanimity.
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  #2  
Old 01-12-2020, 08:53 AM
JustBe JustBe is offline
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Someone visiting my partner and myself recently has studied Buddhism, is very well studied in this field of development. One thing she commented on was the level of equanimity we have in our relationship and how we engage with each other. I took it as a compliment in relation to her point of focus looking into our relationship.

A week later at a meditation gathering, she was open about her difficulties with judgement and how she would get annoyed with herself when impatient with others. She looked at me and said. “How do you be so present without engaging your mind in moments where your challenged” “maybe you could show me how you have gained that?”. I said. “ it’s not something I can teach you”. It’s just something you do in every interaction. And then I said. And you do have to be willing to feel everything that you feel, without judgement.
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  #3  
Old 01-12-2020, 10:54 AM
Miss Hepburn Miss Hepburn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gem
*snip*
Of course any one of us can recognise the trauma, the worry, the self worth, the self-defeating narrative and feeling blocked up, and we can feel the density within our bodies.
When we recognise our own such issues, we react adversely to them and yearn for the relief. But that which is true of you is not to be hated anymore and the desire for it to be otherwise is not necessary..
This topic is very near and dear to me - but doesn't relate to Buddhism - I think it's ok if I comment.

When I was very burdened with all the words you said above after a long relationship ended I took a year
or more feeling my awful feelings. Ha!
Spiraled into a pit of semi-depression.
It/they did me no good, solved no problems - they were useless painful thoughts leading to useless painful feelings.

Then, a therapist friend said, "Ok, now it's time for Thought Control''.
Huh?
'When you think painful thoughts about the relationship - think something else, like changing a channel'.

Did it for one full week...it worked. I have continued for 13 yrs with enormous success.
If a thought comes in I simply do not want --I mean c'mon a memory from when I made a fool of myself at 15
yrs old making me cringe? No -
I just say, No, to it.
It becomes very easy like waving a fly away.

I'm probably the happiest person, consistently, you've ever met,
(so people tell me).
Unwanted thoughts waved away are the main reason.
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*I'll text in Navy Blue when I'm speaking as a Mod. :)


Prepare yourself for the coming astral journey of death by daily riding in the balloon of God-perception.
Through delusion you are perceiving yourself as a bundle of flesh and bones, which at best is a nest of troubles.
Meditate unceasingly, that you may quickly behold yourself as the Infinite Essence, free from every form of misery. ~Paramahansa's Guru's Guru
.


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  #4  
Old 01-12-2020, 11:49 AM
sky sky is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn
This topic is very near and dear to me - but doesn't relate to Buddhism - I think it's ok if I comment.

When I was very burdened with all the words you said above after a long relationship ended I took a year
or more feeling my awful feelings. Ha!
Spiraled into a pit of semi-depression.
It/they did me no good, solved no problems - they were useless painful thoughts leading to useless painful feelings.

Then, a therapist friend said, "Ok, now it's time for Thought Control''.
Huh?
'When you think painful thoughts about the relationship - think something else, like changing a channel'.

Did it for one full week...it worked. I have continued for 13 yrs with enormous success.
If a thought comes in I simply do not want --I mean c'mon a memory from when I made a fool of myself at 15
yrs old making me cringe? No -
I just say, No, to it.
It becomes very easy like waving a fly away.

I'm probably the happiest person, consistently, you've ever met,
(so people tell me).
Unwanted thoughts waved away are the main reason.



What your saying fits in perfectly with Buddhism. Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard said ' Thought's can be our best friends and our worst enemies.
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  #5  
Old 01-12-2020, 12:26 PM
JustASimpleGuy
Posts: n/a
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gem
Lately there are a number of threads detailing conspiracy thinking and reactive tendencies toward C19. If there is conspiracy thoughts I reflect upon the troublesome nature of thought fabrication. This then relates directly to the reactivity which is the impetus to generate such thoughts.

I'm sure we all succumb to thoughts that trouble us. Distressing imaginings, self-image, and self-narrative is there because 'I' am always at the epicentre of psychological reactivity. I say this because where the disease is of concern, healing is relevant - and I don't mean healing this sickness or any other - I mean purification on the whole. Most of us (all) have blockages within the life form as emotional life issues that also manifest in density of the body expressed through posture and conduct. The purification regards the unbinding of these blockages and the influx of light to spaces where densities previously existed.

How? Teachers say imagine light or breath into it or some such thing, and it's very helpful, but there is a more endemic quality to the motive for remedies which isn't altogether benign: one's aversion toward the issue. The motive for purification is in itself wholesome, but aversion toward the issue is ill-willed. If we can see how we have hatred toward the issues, then we come closer to the subtler root of the dilemma.

Of course any one of us can recognise the trauma, the worry, the self worth, the self-defeating narrative and feeling blocked up, and we can feel the density within our bodies. When we recognise our own such issues, we react adversely to them and yearn for the relief. But that which is true of you is not to be hated anymore and the desire for it to be otherwise is not necessary. In Buddhist lingo, this absence of 'aversion toward' and 'desire for' is called 'equanimity', and the state of equanimity is referred to as pure awareness or pure observation because you are simply aware 'it's like this'.

If you followed this along, you will probably be wondering, but how to purify the blockages and undergo the healing? My point is there are any of 101 things to be done, but whichever strategy is undertaken, there is a single underlying principle that essential to them all. My claim is, equanimity is the single-most fundamental key to purification, and essentially, mindfulness is the practice of equanimity.

The first practice I started in earnest almost a dozen years ago was Vipassana calm-abiding meditation. Being a simple guy I take the simplest of approaches and that's let the technique do all the work. In essence it's taking advantage of mechanisms of neuroplasticity. It's literally rewiring one's brain.

I don't worry about a goal or what needs to be fixed but just trust the practice and the process to do its magic. Attend an object (sensations of breath) and when the object is no longer in evidence because of distraction (noise, itch, thought, whatever) gently let the distraction go and without judgment (I'm terrible at this, I'll never progress, it's boring, etc...) and bring attention back to the object of attending.

If practiced properly and diligently equanimity is the natural outcome, and the more one practices the more that quality manifests outside of formal sitting. It becomes more and more a natural state of being.
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  #6  
Old 01-12-2020, 12:56 PM
Miss Hepburn Miss Hepburn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy
.... Attend an object (sensations of breath) and when the object is no longer in evidence because of distraction (noise, itch, thought, whatever) gently let the distraction go and without judgment ('I'm terrible at this, I'll never progress, it's boring', etc...) and bring attention back to the object of attending.
You'll like this, 1973, Key West - a sweet guy told me:
When you're meditating and you get distracted - it's like a baby on a bed...
if the baby starts to crawl away -
you don't grab it and roughly put it back..you gently pick it up,
gently place it back in the center of the bed. Ah.
All good. So simple.

(I relate it to as gently placing the needle back in the groove;
so simple, so gentle, no fuss.)
__________________

.
*I'll text in Navy Blue when I'm speaking as a Mod. :)


Prepare yourself for the coming astral journey of death by daily riding in the balloon of God-perception.
Through delusion you are perceiving yourself as a bundle of flesh and bones, which at best is a nest of troubles.
Meditate unceasingly, that you may quickly behold yourself as the Infinite Essence, free from every form of misery. ~Paramahansa's Guru's Guru
.


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  #7  
Old 01-12-2020, 01:55 PM
JustASimpleGuy
Posts: n/a
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn
You'll like this, 1973, Key West - a sweet guy told me:
When you're meditating and you get distracted - it's like a baby on a bed...
if the baby starts to crawl away -
you don't grab it and roughly put it back..you gently pick it up,
gently place it back in the center of the bed. Ah.
All good. So simple.

(I relate it to as gently placing the needle back in the groove;
so simple, so gentle, no fuss.)

Exactly! And I'll tie it back to the ego-self. Treat it gently and with loving-kindness and compassion. After all, it's only human.

Another way to think of it and in the words of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche (Tibetan Buddhist) is give Monkey Mind a job attending, but only a temporary job! LOL!

If it thinks it's a full-time job then one never truly escapes it and the Witness never truly reveals Itself. The observer is just a more subtle and benign version of the ego-self. It's the Observer Trap and is very common to meditation.
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  #8  
Old 02-12-2020, 01:08 AM
sentient sentient is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2017
Posts: 2,242
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy
Exactly! And I'll tie it back to the ego-self. Treat it gently and with loving-kindness and compassion. After all, it's only human.

Another way to think of it and in the words of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche (Tibetan Buddhist) is give Monkey Mind a job attending, but only a temporary job! LOL!

If it thinks it's a full-time job then one never truly escapes it and the Witness never truly reveals Itself. The observer is just a more subtle and benign version of the ego-self. It's the Observer Trap and is very common to meditation.

Excellent post

*
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  #9  
Old 03-12-2020, 07:56 AM
Gem Gem is offline
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The good reflections on the meditation are about a process more than a goal in the sense that change is inevitable and ongoing. Change implies a past, and even where the experience of psychological time is illusory and 'now' is all that exists, the fabric of the universe itself holds its history just as a person's mind is indelibly etched with their own life path memories.

During our life-journey we experience circumstances that are traumatic enough to undermine our ability to survive, and for the sake of living, we put things aside which we can't deal with until such time as we develop the fortitude to endure the traumatic feelings without survival being threatened. Hence we develop avoidance strategies that prevent traumas from surfacing to our conscious awareness. These work via a process of distraction. As the unwanted element peeks into consciousness, we react adversely to it and also generate a desire for some sort of pleasing experience, and this elicits the volition to run from the discomfort in pursuit of pleasure creating the illusion of a self enduring time. In Buddha speak it is called 'rebirth'. Hencewhy volition is the essence of kamma.

The buried stuff needs to come out, so rather than continuing the activities that work to keep the ugly aspects of self hidden in unconsciousness, secrecy and shame, one ceases such activity deliberately buy ceasing volition entirely so as to look and see what 'already is'.

When a person first stops to be aware of what the breathing feels like - it is a simply matter because all you do is pay attention to that sensation - however, one soon finds that the mind wanders off and generates melodrams and so forth. In this way, immediately upon attempting to feel breathing, one begins to become aware of their quality of mind. Thus, breath awareness is not 'just' breath awareness, but also a vehicle for self-knowing.

By ceasing to do things so as to feel your breath... the avoidance strategies I mentioned cease, and naturally, the things avoided are let loose and freed to come into conscious awareness. It's barely noticeable at first, but should one persist in meditation, they will find out how much emotional content is caught up in the mind/body from life-events that have long past. These can come into the light of conscious awareness, change as they are wont to do, and dissolve in a process of purification that clears old gunk from the channel through which the infinite outpouring of purity could be expressed.

You need not believe in some such outpouring, but you might feel density in you from underlying misery kept down so you can get on with the day. I don't say that's a bad thing. We couldn't get on with the day to day if overwhelmed by these necessarily suppressed life issues, and we have very good reasons to keep things down. Hence we don't deal with the life issue directly, but rather, we deal with our ability to live through them without becoming overwhelmed. That ability is equanimity, and meditation is the practice.
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