From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
--In [email protected], <dhamiltony2k5@...> wrote : It is wonderful that you are meditating again.C: Glad you approve Buck. I am hopeful that you will be equally supportive of my new practice of doing sunyama on the phrase "world petulance, suffering and war" for a few minutes after each meditation. I am thinking of forming a group so we can all do this together. B: I am even more proactive, and am collecting funds to sponsor a yagya promoting "world petulance, suffering and war." I'm sure Buck will want to participate, just as he felt others here at FFL would want to participate in his. :-) CurtisDeltaBlues [CDB] writes: I've been doing a mindfulness meditation the last month. I think I finally figured it out and how to do it in place of TM. Before the TM machine would just start up, but that is not happening now and the experience is distinctly different. I have noticed a lot of differences in how it makes me feel in activity from TM. In particular I am very pleased with the no coming "out" quality, even though the inner experience is as much of a shift of state in another way from what TM is. I'll keep at it as I find it very enjoyable in itself and it has not lead to any dissociation with my feelings in the way that TM seems to create. I have gone through a couple of cycles of doing TM and dropping it in the last few years due to not liking where it takes me. I'm glad I was able to figure out the differences so I can enjoy this as a new practice. i have purposely stayed away from reading much about it except to get a start with the practice. I am enjoying a practice without much of a model to shape it. I have a vague sense that I am becoming more aware of what right now means as a place to live my life from. That is about it. Probably too early to tell how I will feel about this meditation in a few months, but so far so good. I've been practicing 10 minutes with eyes closed and 5 with eyes open which is a contrast to my TM practice. It is engaging my mind MORE in the world, more awareness both during and after. It is distinctly different in orientation but just as pleasant as a version of gourmet consciousness. I always loved the experience of TM too, just not all the side effects. I don't really know how it will all turn out as we learn more about these practices from neuroscience, which one is better for me or not. I just know that I am all TMed up and am enjoying another approach to a state of mind to improve my mental orientation. I think it is worth a try to groove this in for a while to gain some of the benefits unique to this kind of practice. Any tips or insights, especially since you have a TM history and might know the issues TMers might have would be welcome. -CDB https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/382236 Okay, fine, so now you and Sam Harris are atheistic transcendentalists in experience without poetry. And by your own experience, in shorthand, a “substitutor meditator” in spiritual practice, Evidently like Sam Harris. Welcome back, -Buck Curtisdeltablues writes: Buck writes: Yes, evidently Harris is a transcending meditator even as a Buddhist! That is wonderful. -Buck in the Dome Did you see that even CurtisDeltaBlues is a transcending meditator now that way too? It's all the same Unified Field once you get going. C: Although Sam Harris practices a form of meditation that came from the Buddhist traditions he does not self identify himself as a Buddhist. Harris: "Given the degree to which religion still inspires human conflict, and impedes genuine inquiry, I believe that merely being a self-described “Buddhist” is to be complicit in the world’s violence and ignorance to an unacceptable degree". - See more at: http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/killing-the-buddha/#sthash.Hbqbm55C.dpuf Again Harris; "As students of the Buddha, we should dispense with Buddhism." - See more at: http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/killing-the-buddha/ As students of the Buddha, we should dispense with Buddhism. - See more at: http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/killing-the-buddha/#sthash.Hbqbm55C.dpuf As students of the Buddha, we should dispense with Buddhism. - See more at: http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/killing-the-buddha/#sthash.Hbqbm55C.dp Harris is an enthusiastic supporter of the kill the Buddha if you meet him on the road POV. As students of the Buddha, we should dispense with Buddhism. - See more at: http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/killing-the-buddha/#sthash.Hbqbm55C.dpuf As students of the Buddha, we should dispense with Buddhism. - See more at: http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/killing-the-buddha/#sthash.Hbqbm55C.dpufI think there are some useful distinctions to be made in these experiences. Lumping them all together under a banner of physics poetry is unlikely to result in our understanding the differences between these experiences, and I believe those distinctions could be useful. And not in some triumphalist "one is better than another", but perhaps people may need different techniques depending on the results they are seeking or even some personal variables that we will never understand if we throw them all together. Plus I believe there is some brain study research that supports the idea that there really are differences between meditations types neurologically. >From my limited experience it already seems that there are major differences >between the goals of different techniques as well as completely different >shaping of the interpretation of the experience and its meaning depending on >the belief support system. This may have an as yet unknown effect on the >experiences themselves. I am advocating epistemological humbleness as we try to understand ourselves through these different practices without coming to the lab with a set theory about what any of this means. That is a huge difference between our approaches to meditation practices. I am as skeptical of the Buddhist interpretation of meaning as I am the Hindus. I think we can do better with a fresh look outside these presumptions. B: I was reading a discourse recently by Guru Dev and he was urging people to just do it, meditate and it [the transcendence] will become more familiar. It is very beautiful in nature that way. -Buck C: He might have been more experimental in his personal life but in his role as the Hindu Pope he represents the exact opposite of the perspective I am seeking on this topic.But perhaps you can refer to me as a 'substituter" rather than a "quitter" from now on. I appreciate your open mindedness I really do. sharelong60 writes: Richard, sense of self vanishing and having greater well being sounds like what happens during TM! On Thursday, May 1, 2014 7:10 PM, Richard J. Williams <punditster@...> wrote: On 5/1/2014 3:26 PM, curtisdeltablues@... wrote: >>>>>> Any tips or insights, especially since you have a TM history and might >>>>>> know the issues TMers might have would be welcome. >>>>>> >>>>>According to Harris, by paying close attention to moment-to-moment >>>>>conscious experience, it is possible to make our sense of "self" vanish >>>>>and thereby uncover a new state of personal well-being. >>>>> >>>>>'The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason' >>>>>by SamHarris >>>>>W.W. Norton & Company, 2004 >>>>>p. 214 >>>>> >>>>>-- >>>>> >>>>>
