Given that most of us here are interested in Eastern Philosophy, do you have a particular way of deepening your insight, a particular approach, eg breath-awareness meditation, psychodelic trips, continual awareness practice, loving-kidness meditation, Zen, Therevada, Goenka, prayer, walks in the wood, art, music, etc etc Perhaps some people can share their approaches and how they came to practice them and how they find them useful.
Well, i can speak about psychedelic trippin alright......(...) as for Eastern ways, i have lost faith in all of that. though regarding just sitting, that's fine. it's when it becomes a DOGMA--an expected formalized mode to 'get to...' i find is dogmatic, and unnecessary but this is MY experience i like the terms you use ...ie., "DEEPENING insight"..i prefer 'deepen' than 'en-lighten' etc cause i see a lot of the Estern religious stuff as it is with most New Age stuff which got most of its ideas from Eastern ideology...that (takes breath)....it is seeking to get off-earth, off-body. away from the 'dark', and the 'deep'. I don't want that. so 'deepening' is exactly the metaphor i use myself often I recommend you research. so you aren't just spiritually exploring, but also intellectually. doing the latter will encourage the former It is really really important to not get suked into isms which indoctrnate shame about one's natrual self. the one that farts, shits, gets bored, lusty, angry etc etc. you know, human. we Are human but also ARe animals so for me hallucingenic experience is letting off the cultural inhibition about this. it is CELEBRATORY rather than 'kathartic'.....for example, do some research and this will much more-in depth explain what i mean about the difference between celebratory and kathartic. do a google on this title: 'From Orphism to Gnosticism'.......the fomer chose th kartharis/'purificational' route having reformed the more orgiastic celebratory and original earth religion of Dionysos as yu will see, the Orphics crated a very life-negative doctrine that believed the 'spirit' was trapped in the body and thus Nature. what i feel we really need now urgently is nto that, but a throwing off of our entrnched inhibitions regarding our animality, and thus our deep interrelation with Nature so, for example, creating a set&setting for a psychdelic trip: you would want to encourage the loosening of inhibition thrugh various means.......for example a technique i learned called groaning and toning.....where you allow groans to come from the belly. you take deep breath then let out a really uninhibited groan....keep doing this till you feel yourself loosening up....then start making tomes like UUUUUU EEEEEEEEE IIIIIIIII OOOOOOOOO.....just do each vowel sound for a long while takin deep breaths in between o'course. soon you will hear overtones and feel your body vibrate...great feeling also you can combine free flow movement whicl doing is, and change UUUUU to EEEE all in one movement. try it ie. you are loosening u sos when you Trip you ar meeting it half way. not just lying back and saing 'enterTAIN MEEE'....its a dance think about having Trip in Nature. near trees and water is great. ,...continued below
.......Theere is a PLAY with Nature...an orgiastic erotic relationship with Nature which we need to rekindle through deep experiential experiences. it's like for many, the logical left brain is assuming dominance and thus is wanting to control wildness......Eastern forms of meditation are alright-ISH, but from my experience and from communicating with people who really make out their shit is IT, i funfd them very reactionary and abusive to any mention of hallucinogenic experience, and any challenge to their belief-systems. for me a bad sign as well as all this is to realize he importance of politics. that it is not just about interelating with Nature--though that is CENTRAL. but also, realizing the actual going on. the mindset that is seeking to conquer Nature. make it into a toxic carpark. so it is both spiritualearthy and political.......a continuum. when you see someone you love being fuked with you want ot speak out and protect them yeah? isn't this the same with our home, Earth?
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Thank you for your reply, Duendy. I think most of us can really appreciate how important a relationship with nature is now, and I like your gutsy attitude. I'm sad that you've had a bad experience with the people who say they practice Eastern religion/ meditation. Perhaps they were seeing their repressed sides in you and got scared off? One question, what's your attitude to order, structure and discipline in your life? Spidergoat: WARNING: THIS FORUM DOES NOT EXIST and probably neither do you. But please, do keep going with your replies!
My practice: awareness. I meditate daily and try to bring awareness to everything I do. Physical awareness of the body, awareness of the feelings, thoughts, breath, of what goes on around me. Listening attentively to myself, to others, to whatever there is. This practice, or rather this way of life is gradually changing my perception.
dan74, I find this practice really works, reminding me that objects and people, and by extension, ego, are like temporary phantoms. It helps to shock the system into letting go of its attachments. It's also funny, sometimes people can take Zen too seriously. Setting up expectations and then doing the unexpected seems to be a preferred method of Zen teachers. The ego's got a tight hold on our brains. Sure, my car doesn't exist, but I'm driving it anyway, what a situation! The website of the flat-Earth society is down, too bad, they had stickers you could print out.
I checked the website out - it's fun! Thanks, Spidergoat. I appreciate your point, but I am wary of falling into nihilism and treating life as a joke. After all, this is the real deal, it's no rehearsal. I know a few people that invent all sorts of ways to try to avoid taking responsibility and engaging in their life fully. With all their feelings, energies, strength, etc. Do you know what i mean?
yep. i do appreciate the entheogins. im 37, and dont use standard recreational drugs, just natural educational and renewal plants. im fond of woodrose lately. i cant imagine ever being too old to dust out the oul cobwebs now and then. i have learned a lot and learn a lot from those experiences.. like bill hicks commented " gods little evolutionary accelerator pads".
The world we see is filtered through perceptive mechanisms influenced by our particular experience, culture, society and expectations, so in a very real sense, the world we experience isn't real. It's a small slice of a much larger pie. It's the only thing we can experience, but we can increase the size of the slice by freeing yourself of expectations and preconceptions. The paradox of eastern philosophy is that it says the best way to be fully involved in reality is to cultivate a certain kind of indifference to it. Reality, as we know it, is provisional. To take it seriously only ties us more tightly in knots. The more we try to hold on to it, the worse we are at playing the game. I think there are similarities between nihilism and taoism, but taoism doesn't have all the political implications. Also, taoism supposes a passive kind of order inherent in everything.
What you mean by "indifference" is not holding on, right? But that's not indifference at all, that's just giving up the illusion of control and recognising our attachment, our clinging. Sure, many of us think that if you are not indifferent to something, you should worry, try to influence, control, hold on etc etc. This mindset partly comes from not being able to really be together with something/someone, to flow together naturally. It comes from the illusion of separateness, from the perception as an observer, not really in it, but a little apart, detached. Ultimately it comes from holding on to the concept of self and refering all experience to this "entity". If reality is provisional, so are you, and your thoughts about it. What is not provisional then? A playful, kind of indifferent attitude, might rob you of a chance to really take the plunge and commit yourself fully to whatever it is that matters. But I might've misinterpreted what you were saying - these things are very hard to pin down, and we are all coming at it from different angles..
Not indifference to the thing you experience, but indifference towards your reaction to the thing you experience. In other words, we are always trying to create rules for living, what is the best way to react to some type of situation. No doubt, there is some practicality to this exercise, but we overuse this type of thinking. There is a natural intelligence that takes no effort to use. I think the secret to "finding yourself" is realizing that the seat of our psyche is not contained within this rationalizing mind, indeed, it can be found nowhere. The mind can't grasp itself, but it can be allowed to function without the policeman of self-awareness handicapping it. Zen students aways talk about becoming aware, but that's just the beginning, self-awareness leads to self-unawareness, which is the natural state also called enlightenment.
I am with you now. The only thing that still doesn't quite make sense to me out of what you said, is this "indifference towards your reaction". I am guessing you mean not getting caught up in your reaction. Because if you cultivate a kind of distance from your reactions, then instead of engaging with them, and with your humanity and the totality of your experience, you are aiming for a kind of detachment that will impoverish your mind. I know a psychologist like that and quite a few daily pot-smokers. Not really on this planet, just orbiting, observing, musing on the absurdity of it all. Too much suffering, to much stupidity, greed, easier to just laugh at it all, in a 1000 years or so, everything will straighten itself out! A lot of practitioners of Eastern religions have this tendency. I know it from myself Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Aren't reactions enough? The constant second-guessing were are encouraged to do creates a pathological separation between how you are and how you are told to be. Indifference isn't separation, but complete unity. There is your reaction, and that's it, since no further self-reflection is necessary, your mind is free to react to the present. It's a strange, seemingly paradoxical result of zen. If you were really indifferent, you could be indifferent to the difficulties involved in helping people too. There is no concrete implication to this as far as what action it leads to.
I think I understand you now. What you call indifference is what some call equanimity, and basically spontaneous (wu-wei, like in Tao Te Ching) response, with the whole YOU behind it. I am not sure what you mean by the second half of what you say. Do you want to say that Zen is amoral? I've heard some people say that, but that's not so in my experience. Compassion is no less a core value in Zen than in any other Buddhist sect. It is just what one is naturally led to: as the sense of one's self diminishes, you naturally become mre open to other people's suffering, to other "selves". Don't you think so?
Come to think of it, complete engagement with existence and complete indifference are identical. If we are completely involved in something, there is no room for philosophical judgements. Yes, Zen is amoral, or doesn't address morality as such. To have an interest in Zen in the first place you are probably already a sensitive person. Most immoral actions are the result of placing your own interests ahead of others, not considering the whole picture. Well, considering the whole picture is how they spend their time- in meditation. True morality requires no particular instruction. But what are the implications of an ideal like compassion? It may be more compassionate in the long run to ignore someone's problems. But, if you are always determined to do the obviously compassionate thing, you might do the wrong thing. Buddhism in the traditional sense is a more comprehensive system of instruction, they accepted all kinds of people from different backrounds, and it was designed to address all kinds of basic questions about getting along in society, things that would probably be self evident to a motivated student of Zen. I am wondering about the Buddha's advice on heedfulness. If you try to be aware, what about being aware of what's trying to be aware?
