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TWP
Trad climber
Mancos, CO & Bend, OR
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Hmmm indeed.
Seems you've (feralfae) attended more Quaker meetings than I - especially in recent decades. So I defer to you. Where may I ask?
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feralfae
Boulder climber
in the midst of a metaphysical mystery
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Meetings (mostly small) in Montana and Alaska in recent years. Usually un-programmed. A few meetings scattered around the country. Often programmed. As a child, our extended family constituted our own un-programmed meeting. Stuarts and Thatchers, mostly.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Focusing on the “I” as something that is problematical is itself problematical. It’s like the old party trick of, “don’t think about elephants.” The not-thinking either about elephants or an “I” entails thinking that has a sense of seriousness or concreteness to it.
One uses a car, and one probably calls it a “car.” That’s ok, isn’t it? One can do the same thing with “I.” The “I” is just a reference to a mind, and perhaps a body. I wouldn’t suggest taking either all that seriously or concretely.
Our worlds appear to be equifinal and infinitely ambiguous: there is not just one way, one set of features, or even one being (as definable and findable objects). Reality *can be* characterized scientifically, spiritually, religiously, reasonably, instinctually, artistically, socially, economically, legally, humanistically, etc.--but as Peggy Lee sang, "Is that all there is?"
Painting a picture appears improvisational. One starts with an intention, but somehow it becomes something else. It’s a form of eduction: “sensing” and “making” are mutually enacting / forming one another. It’s a kind of dance.
There’s also something called entrainment. Have one person start a beat, then after a little while, have a second person add-in another beat. Then after a little while, have a third person add-in yet another beat. Each person has to listen closely and respond with changes to match-up with each other, but if they think about it too much, they ruin the synchronicity. It’s a kind of dance. It’s improvisational. It’s being-in-the-moment. There is a sense of self-contradiction in it.
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L
climber
California dreamin' on the farside of the world..
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I need to know, need to be right
Earn approval, earn acceptance,
I'm not enough, I'm not ok
I don't deserve to be happy
I don't deserve to be
Bravo NutAgain...you so eloquently described the fundamental nature of our egoic mind state. Not just yours, but all of ours (unless one is an enlightened master, of course, and I haven't seen many of those posting on the Taco lately).
The eternal battle of the "I". A mental construct that now rules our lives and robs us of living.
As Eckhart Tolle says, "The mind is a wonderful servant, but a horrible master."
And like you, I'm really appreciating this thread...for so many reasons, not the least of which was a promise I made myself as a 5 year old that I wouldn't do this again. :-)
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feralfae
Boulder climber
in the midst of a metaphysical mystery
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Maybe there needs to be an "I" . . .
It is possible that since humans tend to be group or tribal beings, we all strive for a sense of belonging, and this striving can be expressed in many ways such as wanting to be liked, wanting to be seen, and in being very nice?
If, in our lifetime, we somehow learn that we are unworthy, not liked, or some such, we may carry this as a part of who we think "I" is. Like an innocent child who is taught to say bad words to amuse an adult of low character, we learn these (false) ways of being until we have the opportunity to learn better. Perhaps meditation helps the sense of "I" to become coherent, as well as to provide a means of re-aligning our body, mind, and spirit. Meditation seems to work well for fully integrating various aspects of our identity so that our interwoven systems communicate and synthesize data as a coherent unit.
LOL, L. I keep saying I am going to stay out of these discussions, then I start reading and thinking, and get caught in the process. Again. And again.
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TWP
Trad climber
Mancos, CO & Bend, OR
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feralfae wrote:
'Meditation seems to work well for fully integrating various aspects of our identity so that our interwoven systems communicate and synthesize data as a coherent unit."
You must be right; I just posted within the last two minutes a crude joke on the "Old Guys Rule" thread and this post here. Does this mean I've integrated the juvenile and the esoteric Terry?
Is this proof that 45 years of mediation have been a success or a complete failure in my case? Just wondering; something else to meditate upon.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Maybe there needs to be an "I" . . .
As I've mentioned elsewhere, If you experience full-blown "I-consciousness" in Castaneda's Art of Dreaming you will likely be impressed with the existence of this powerful force. It still resonates with me at a distance of 45 years.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Mike L said
"The not-thinking either about elephants or an “I” entails thinking that has a sense of seriousness or concreteness to it. "
I agree if you approach it with a seriousness it going to be a a awkward experience. If anything try approaching meditation with a sense of humor intact. But really you just make an effort to observe what is happening moment to moment no matter what it is and notice if you are trying to control the experience and then let go of the trying to control or get something.
One style I use sometimes is to ask what is "I" on the in breath and then on the out breath I answer with my body or my foot or my stomach; as a non-discursive answer. what happens is you immediately move from the discursive mind to the direct experience in the moment. just being in the moment of eyes ,ears, nose,touch, feelings etc. without labeling them. Just being.
The intent of this is there is no intent; but the result can lead to a clearer view of what is actually happening moment to moment and day to day.
And if you can perceive clearly you have a much better chance of acting clearly.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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PSP: . . . on the out breath I answer with my body or my foot or my stomach . . .
+1 (I didn’t even need to think about it. Rang true immediately. Excellent.)
Feralfae:
You are, I think, pointing out the need for community—as even here on ST, even if we are no longer climbing, even if don’t feel appreciated. Community is a powerful draw and appears to be a great source of energy that can be tapped into for all of us. It allows us to be more than just ourselves. It might be a reaching out of consciousness to know itself more fully.
As to that point—and to Jgill, you, L, and the others—may I suggest that ego and “I” should not be trash-heaped. Just transcended to a more inclusive points of view, IMO.
P.S. Feralfae, I hear your comment about getting hooked in a thread. :-) For me, it's a way of taking some time off from work. Better than TV. I come and go. All personal realities are trippy. Be well, M.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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One of the potential traps of a thread like this is the deeper the group goes into the subject, the more the conversation starts narrowing to specifics; and at some ineffable threshold, people like me start tumbling toward interpretations. Then the thrill is gone because, in my experience, knowing has trumped the adventure of embracing the nameless and unborn.
I always struggled with this, especially early on, when I was searching for what I was supposed to “do” during meditation. How might I “do it right?” It took a whole bunch of years to understand that to approach meditation in terms of doing this or NOT doing that was typically just an attempt to control the process, and pretty much kept me at the level I was trying to transcend. Basically. My ego or “intelligence” could not effect or occasion clarity in this regards, since I was using the same set of glasses – so to speak.
Specifically, I was looking at the process as something “I” did, and which required just the right participation on my part to “get” or achieve what the whole meditation thing was all about. To grasp the “point” or the answer. This discursive approach, the endless tasking to figure it all out by “doing” meditation a certain way, was the threshold I had to pass through before my basic things started to shift. I had to do the "spiritual" stuff just so, and all that jazz.
That much said, there WERE and ARE things I needed to do, mainly physical, in order to facilitate the practice. Few, but these matters of form were essential. For example, I had to have a firm base, and that mean sitting on a cushion. I had to keep my back straight and let my breathing stretch out and keep my head at the right angle, and most of all, for “no-mind” meditation, I had to keep my eyes open and soft-focused. Then it all came down to approaching the practice with an orientation and intention not hooked up with “doing?”
This, in my experience, is the slippery slope that most of us stumble on no matter how much we practice - how to not-do not-doing. Statements like that used to infuriate me, as though someone was intentionally obfuscating a topic that demanded plain language.
JL
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L
climber
California dreamin' on the farside of the world..
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Then the thrill is gone because, in my experience, knowing has trumped the adventure of embracing the nameless and unborn.
Well put, John.
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WBraun
climber
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The unborn (nameless) is not nor has ever been impersonal.
Impersonalism is the last pitfall ....
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nicely said, JL.
The folks here can surely handle a bit of dissonance or even contradiction, though. And as MikeL says, the generation of group spirit may be worth the few words it takes.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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MH2, I think the group spirit is a remarkably strong force in all things, especially for people like me who grew up feeling radically "other." They say that it takes a village to raise a child. I trust it takes the group spirit to ever get past being "bound by self."
JL
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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I’m reading the book, “Improv,” by Keith Johnstone (1979). I’m interested in improvisation ever since some teachers at SCU in the fine arts departments listened to me talk about wu wei and pointed to improvisation. Johnstone was / is a teacher of improvisation in established theatre in the UK.
In the first part of the book, he talks about how life became dull and colorless as he grew up. For some reason, he started to systematically observe the images that came to him at the cusp of when he fell asleep. After a while of learning to observe and remember those experiences, it encouraged him to look closely at conjured images, and much later, to everyday life. He writes:
“After a lot of practice at attending to the images I conjured up, I belated thought of attending to the reality around me. Then the deadness and greyness immediately sloughed off—yet I’d thought I’d never move through a visionary world again [as he experienced in his childhood], that I’d lost it. In my case it was largely my interest in art that had destroyed any life in the world around me. I’d learned perspective, and about balance, and composition. It was as if I’d learned to redesign everything, to reshape it so that I saw what *ought* to be there, which of course is much inferior to what *is* there. The dullness was not an inevitable consequence of age, but of education.”
The entire program, as that which meditation can introduce one to, is one of deprogramming what we’ve learned and become.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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The entire program, as that which meditation can introduce one to, is one of deprogramming what we’ve learned
Whew!
I resisted the temptation, so maybe I'm off to a start on the program.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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No, you are doing it all wrong! You need to put your left thumb in your right ear as you repeat the mantra: Ohwha tagoo siam. ;)
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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That belongs in the RCrumb thread.,..
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Or does meditation have to be physically inactive?
It's not easy to get a satisfactory answer to this fundamental question since the resident meditators are all sitters. I've asked this before. I doubt one could experience "no-thingness" while energetically engaged, but who knows? Certainly a moving meditator may leave their "I" for a short while.
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