Beautiful. Now that is where spirituality turns to sainthood in field effect. What you can do with a human system is way more than transcending, like also being of use in the lighthouse to others in life. -Buck
"for example, I may do a TM, or 1/2 a TM, simply for its ability to clear out stress - pick it up, and drop it off. Other than that, the best "technique" is attention - shining the light of infinity on anything." fleetwood writes: techniques, after enlightenment? Yep, TM - I don't find there is any settledness that needs to be reinforced, or have my attention on anything - but I live a pretty active life, and as a result of my enlightenment, don't put a lot of boundaries on myself. So if I spontaneously end up driving several hundred miles in a day, for example, I may do a TM, or 1/2 a TM, simply for its ability to clear out stress - pick it up, and drop it off. Other than that, the best "technique" is attention - shining the light of infinity on anything. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <anartaxius@...> wrote : === SHARELONG60 WROTE: Ann, thanks so much for posting this. Mindfulness sounds exhausting to me! All that continual manipulation of attention! Plus Kabat-Zinn himself says that all the contents of attention are fleeting. So why bother to focus on them?! Just let attention go where it goes naturally, to a field of greatest happiness. === FLEETWOOD_MACANDCHESE WROTE: As I have expressed before, I am not a big fan of mindfulness, as a meditation practice, on its own, eyes open, or closed, because to my way of thinking, it puts the cart before the horse. However, I can see the strong value in having a spiritual teacher that a person actually has a personal relationship with, combined with mindfulness. That way, the teacher is functioning, much like the correct use of the mantra, in TM - bringing the student to subtler levels and experiences, without the student having a say, in where they want to go (aka, take it easy, take it as it comes). Breaks boundaries, quickly. Seems to me, that the advantage, of a personal relationship, with a spiritual teacher, combined with mindfulness, if done right, would be big, dramatic breakthroughs, in many, many areas - much faster, than the gradual 'erosion' of the mantra - though possible not as comprehensive, either...Both of the Barrys have mentioned significant interactions, as a result of, both, their attention, or mindfulness, on where the guru was pointing, in addition to the strength of the experience, itself, as a result of the guru's proximity. === BHAIRITU WROTE: Mindfulness is just another door to the same room. === I learned both mindfulness and TM. I only practised mindfulness for a short time until recently. There seems to be various styles of meditation called mindfulness. What I learned long ago was not difficult conceptually or exhausting, but thoughts seemed to be a problem for me then. In some mindfulness systems the attention one pays to various things is no greater than one pays attention to coming back to the mantra in TM, so it is not intrinsically difficult or tiring, or effortful, so the characterisation of mindfulness being concentration is not necessarily correct. Fleetwood_MacandCheese's comments above here I think are pretty good. Eyes open mindfulness is primarily to prevent visual hallucinations. Eyes closed mindfulness is more pleasant. It is well known that sensory deprivation results in hallucinations. Meditation in general might be considered a somewhat less extreme form of sensory deprivation. We also experience sensory deprivation in sleep, and then hallucinations (dreams) arise. This invites the hypothesis that more extreme sensory deprivation might result in faster progress, though it seems likely you would have to be monitored for safety. My experience has been TM eventually transformed into mindfulness, for what the mind initially thinks of as transcendence turns into immanence. So Jim's comment about mindfulness putting the cart before the horse seems correct if you assume the only thing you are doing is practising the meditation as technique without input from a teacher. Conceptually TM assumes you do not have a clue as to the long term result of practice, and mindfulness (at least the versions I am familiar with) assumes the final result is already at hand, and you just have not noticed. At least early in the TM movement we have had comments recently that Maharishi attempted to indicate that we are already enlightened, which apparently did not go over very well with his followers at that time. My observation is that interaction with a good teacher with mindfulness (something I never really had) has garnered significant progress for a lot of people. You do not see people blissed out so much with mindfulness, they tend to be having rockier experiences as their conceptual world of thought crumbles, so good intellectual guidance is a big plus. I feel as far as TM, better intellectual guidance not based on the talking parrot model would have been a lot more helpful too, in the later stages as experience changed. I think my trip would have been a lot shorter. Dealing with dim-bulb teachers is truly frustrating. My current experience is just sitting quietly is the least effortful thing to do for 'formal' meditation. Thoughts and other experiences come and go at times, and one does not have to 'come back to the mantra' because there is nowhere for the mantra to go any more because the whole concept and experience that there is somewhere else to go or to experience has completely dropped away. Informal meditation is just what one does during the day. Same experience. The idea that mindfulness leads to the same result as TM seems to me to be correct. However the conceptual models people have about the result before the result is fully evident can colour how we think about these different methods. Experiences before clear 'enlightenment' and our understanding have wide variability. 'Enlightenment' itself concerns experience that is undefinable except by metaphor, and coming to agreement on which metaphors are suitable for pointing to the experience is probably ultimately a lost cause. The one or ones that work for you are probably only the ones of value and they might just not be of any use for someone else. All roads lead to Rome, and that metaphor is apt, if you happen to be in Rome, and know that is where you are. 'Right as diverse pathes leden the folk the righte wey to Rome.' — Chaucer Even Maharishi said techniques can take you only so far, so what are the signs that indicate that the techniques one practices have reached the limit of their utility for the purpose of enlightenment? Also, after enlightenment, are any techniques useful for anything?
