--- In [email protected], Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On Nov 17, 2006, at 11:40 AM, Marek Reavis wrote: > > > Reading Sparaig's excerpt from the Shamatha teacher, it seemed to me > > to be, in essence, a verbose description of what Maharishi was able > > to succinctly capture in his teaching of an effortless meditation. > > > > But even Maharishi described his meditation, in the beginning days of > > his mission, as a form of mind control. That conceptual paradigm > > was/is a long-established one and, reading that description (of > > Shamatha) from the vantage point of a long-time TMer, it seems to be > > describing (albeit kind of complicatedly) correct meditation to me. > > Interesting. > > > > > The problem for the person being presented with that description of > > meditation would seem to be how to figure out, from all that wordage, > > that all you need to do is effortlessly think/use the object of > > meditation (whatever that would be in the Shamatha tradition) and > > whenever you were aware that you were no longer thinking/using the > > object of meditation, to quietly come back to it in the same, natural > > way that you think any other thought. Just effortless thinking. > > Effortless effort. > > A couple of things: in terms of meditation practice anytime you fail > to maintain the transcendent and are back in thoughts, the process, > intentional or unconsciously due to engrained repetition, this does > (in terms of meditation) constitute subtle effort. In Shamatha this > process of not being yet in effortless meditation is called > "patching", where we don't judge the fact that we are in thoughts, > but just return to the object of meditation easily and simply. This > actually represents about the 3rd stage of Shamatha. > > True effortless meditation in Shamatha is sitting to meditate, > deciding to meditate a certain amount of time and then transcending > the entire session: one inward stroke, one outward stroke. No > "patching".
You've got a different definition of transcending than the researchers into TM have. There's no decision-making to reduce activity of the thalamus.
