Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
MIndfulness and concentrative practices disrupt the Default Mode Network of the brain, which is highly involved with self-referral processing and sense-of-self. In fact, long-term practices lead to a new style of functioning of the nervous system where the original functioning of the DMN, complete with relaxed, mind-wandering alpha, starts to become a thing of the past. TM, on the other hand, enhances the functioning of the DMN and enhances the brain circuits associated with sense-of-self. Which is better? Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, noozguru@... wrote : My experience has been that I don't exist. It just seems that I go through the week as someone just doing something. And it's not weird at all. Like you say it may be a little difficult to fathom intellectually especially if some people have had few experiences even of transcending. It's just at some point you no longer come out of meditation and it's not spaciness either an issue that David Frawely has tackled in some of his writings about false enlightenment. Just do some grounding things and if the experience remains it isn't spaciness. On 09/17/2014 08:47 AM, fleetwood_macncheese@... mailto:fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: It is an automatic process, Richard. The Self begins to witness in every moment, so that rather than having any attention, on giving up anything, it actually becomes impossible to be attached to anything. This can't be understood in the waking state. Once a person lives in freedom, a person can tackle any situation successfully. Life becomes as simple as we want it to be. Attachment is impossible, so even the most joyful and the most painful moments will pass. Contrary to what the rational mind may think, the witness capability, is not some sort of anesthetic. As Ann and I were discussing, life is so visceral, sensual and alive within itself, that even the witness revels in fullness. Everything is uncovered and seen for what it is. The inside and outside are balanced. Attachment, and its consequent delusion, are impossible, in a life lived in eternal freedom. No need whatsoever, to think about non-attachment. It is automatic, after awhile. -
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
From: lengli...@cox.net [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com MIndfulness and concentrative practices disrupt the Default Mode Network of the brain, which is highly involved with self-referral processing and sense-of-self. Written authoritatively by someone who has never in his life experienced mindfulness meditation or any technique based on concentration. Can I get a hearty laugh from the peanut gallery? I think I can. :-)
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
Bhairitu, I very much appreciate the simplicity and usefulness of your last sentence: just do some grounding, etc. On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 2:27 PM, Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: My experience has been that I don't exist. It just seems that I go through the week as someone just doing something. And it's not weird at all. Like you say it may be a little difficult to fathom intellectually especially if some people have had few experiences even of transcending. It's just at some point you no longer come out of meditation and it's not spaciness either an issue that David Frawely has tackled in some of his writings about false enlightenment. Just do some grounding things and if the experience remains it isn't spaciness. On 09/17/2014 08:47 AM, fleetwood_macnche...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: It is an automatic process, Richard. The Self begins to witness in every moment, so that rather than having any attention, on giving up anything, it actually becomes impossible to be attached to anything. This can't be understood in the waking state. Once a person lives in freedom, a person can tackle any situation successfully. Life becomes as simple as we want it to be. Attachment is impossible, so even the most joyful and the most painful moments will pass. Contrary to what the rational mind may think, the witness capability, is not some sort of anesthetic. As Ann and I were discussing, life is so visceral, sensual and alive within itself, that even the witness revels in fullness. Everything is uncovered and seen for what it is. The inside and outside are balanced. Attachment, and its consequent delusion, are impossible, in a life lived in eternal freedom. No need whatsoever, to think about non-attachment. It is automatic, after awhile. -
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
Mindfulness techniques are for mentally retarded individuals, who have very little self awareness. It would be a waste of time for a normal person, even harmful, to do this mindfulness. There is no need for the mini self referral loop that you entertain, if your mind was normally awake. However, with a mind retarded by so many past impressions, mindfulness may help dispel a bit of the murk, temporarily. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : From: LEnglish5@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com MIndfulness and concentrative practices disrupt the Default Mode Network of the brain, which is highly involved with self-referral processing and sense-of-self. Written authoritatively by someone who has never in his life experienced mindfulness meditation or any technique based on concentration. Can I get a hearty laugh from the peanut gallery? I think I can. :-)
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
Jim, you might be a little premature in this dismissal. Below is some of the research results on mindfulness from Harris' book. And I have some comments on my own after that. Long-term meditation practice is also associated with a variety of structural changes in the brain. Meditators tend to have larger corpora collosa and hippocampi (in both hemispheres). The practice is also linked to increased gray matter thickness and cortical folding. Some of these differences are especially prominent in older practitioners, which suggests that meditation could protect against age-related thinning of the cortex. The cognitive, emotional, and behavioral significance of these anatomical findings have not yet been worked out, but it is not hard to see how they might explain the kinds of experiences and psychological changes that meditators report. Expert meditators (with greater than ten thousand hours of practice) respond differently to pain than novices do. They judge the intensity of an unpleasant stimulus the same but find it to be less unpleasant. They also show reduced activity in regions associated with anxiety while anticipating the onset of pain, as well as faster habituation to the stimulus once it arrives.Other research has found that mindfulness reduces both the unpleasantness and intensity of noxious stimuli... ...One study found that an eight-week program of mindfulness meditation reduced the volume of the right basolateral amygdala, and these changes were correlated with a subjective decrease in stress. Another found that a full day of mindfulness practice (among trained meditators) reduced the expression of several genes that produce inflammation throughout the body, and this correlated with an improved response to social stress (diabolically, subjects were asked to give a brief speech and then perform mental calculations while being videotaped in front of an audience). A mere five minutes of practice a day (for five weeks) increased left-sided baseline activity in the frontal cortex — a pattern that, as we saw in the discussion of the split brain, has been associated with positive emotions. A review of the psychological literature suggests that mindfulness in particular fosters many components of physical and mental health: It improves immune function, blood pressure, and cortisol levels; it reduces anxiety, depression, neuroticism, and emotional reactivity. It also leads to greater behavioral regulation and has shown promise in the treatment of addiction and eating disorders. Unsurprisingly, the practice is associated with increased subjective well-being. Training in compassion meditation increases empathy, as measured by the ability to accurately judge the emotions of others, as well as positive affect in the presence of suffering. The practice of mindfulness has been shown to have similar pro-social effects. Scientific research on the various types of meditation is just beginning, but there are now hundreds of studies suggesting that these practices are good for us. Again, from a first-person point of view, none of this is surprising. After all, there is an enormous difference between being hostage to one’s thoughts and being freely and nonjudgmentally aware of life in the present. My first meditations were guided meditations, which work quite well because you are rather innocently following instructions. Then I learned a version of mindfulness, and on the whole, it did not go that well. TM proved to be easy for me, and that was basically what I did until about 10 years ago things started to shift, and TM started to morph into mindfulness. My meditation is now mostly mindfulness. The basic difference between the two is with TM you come back to the mantra, and with the variation of mindfulness that I do you come back to the breath. Breath is automatic because you need not do anything about it to keep it going. And sometimes I just sit there, doing nothing. Now some time ago you mentioned that mindfulness puts the cart before the horse, and in some ways that is true. Enlightenment is a state of non-forced mindfulness. Trying to emulate that state when you are not in that state simply does not work. The TM advantage in teaching is the checking notes, which run the student through the process systematically. This tends not to happen with mindfulness instruction, where instruction is more minimalist especially for people who try to do it from a book. My guess if you stole and rewrote the checking process and substituted 'breath' for 'mantra', mindfulness meditation instruction would probably improve, though some other adjustments might also be necessary. I think M's greatest accomplishment as far a meditation is concerned was the checking process. Eventually the 'depth' of meditation goes away as the fiction of transcendence becomes apparent, and what used to be a deep inner experience is now the surface of everything and one is left
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
L: Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... M: You bring up a valid point about the difference between subjective experience and research. I guess the next question would be to get behind the terms we are using like mindfulness which is not taught in the same fixed way TM is. Are you confident that you know what I am doing under the umbrella of the term mindfulness and that it is the same thing as what was studied by other people who took completely different paths to their practice? I am also open to the realiy that I will never experience mindfulness without my long association with the conditioning of my TM practice. I once checked the mindfulness practice of a friend to see if I could discern any differences in the answers he gave from checking TM. I couldn't. When he described his practice as we would do in 3 days checking I couldn't figure out how we might determine if his internal experience was different from TM people's. The language is too imprecise to make these distinctions. I don't know if the distinctions discovered in the research on particular types of mindfulness practices apply to mine. So without standardization I am left to draw my own conclusions from what I experience. TM and mindfulness practice lead me to a similar internal experience. YMMV and I agree that research will help us sort out the differences in brain states. But it is gunna take a while for the very young science of neuroscience as a whole to describe what these states mean with close to the same confidence you and most TM affiliated researchers put behind your theories. I think your confidence in your interpretation comes from TM triumphalist bias. Time will tell. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, LEnglish5@... wrote : MIndfulness and concentrative practices disrupt the Default Mode Network of the brain, which is highly involved with self-referral processing and sense-of-self. In fact, long-term practices lead to a new style of functioning of the nervous system where the original functioning of the DMN, complete with relaxed, mind-wandering alpha, starts to become a thing of the past. TM, on the other hand, enhances the functioning of the DMN and enhances the brain circuits associated with sense-of-self. Which is better? Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, noozguru@... wrote : My experience has been that I don't exist. It just seems that I go through the week as someone just doing something. And it's not weird at all. Like you say it may be a little difficult to fathom intellectually especially if some people have had few experiences even of transcending. It's just at some point you no longer come out of meditation and it's not spaciness either an issue that David Frawely has tackled in some of his writings about false enlightenment. Just do some grounding things and if the experience remains it isn't spaciness. On 09/17/2014 08:47 AM, fleetwood_macncheese@... mailto:fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: It is an automatic process, Richard. The Self begins to witness in every moment, so that rather than having any attention, on giving up anything, it actually becomes impossible to be attached to anything. This can't be understood in the waking state. Once a person lives in freedom, a person can tackle any situation successfully. Life becomes as simple as we want it to be. Attachment is impossible, so even the most joyful and the most painful moments will pass. Contrary to what the rational mind may think, the witness capability, is not some sort of anesthetic. As Ann and I were discussing, life is so visceral, sensual and alive within itself, that even the witness revels in fullness. Everything is uncovered and seen for what it is. The inside and outside are balanced. Attachment, and its consequent delusion, are impossible, in a life lived in eternal freedom. No need whatsoever, to think about non-attachment. It is automatic, after awhile. -
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
Curtis, would you be comfortable saying the same words as Nisargadatta below? Nisargadatta: You think you are coming and going, passing through various states and moods. I see things as they are, momentary events, presenting themselves to me in rapid succession, deriving their being from me, yet definitely neither me nor mine. Among phenomena I am not one, nor subject to any. I am independent so simply and totally, that your mind, accustomed to opposition and denial, cannot grasp it. I mean literally what I say; I do not need oppose, or deny, because it is clear to me that I cannot be the opposite or denial of anything. I am just beyond, in a different dimension altogether. Do not look for me in identification with, or opposition to something: I am where desire, and fear are not.
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
If things derive their being from you, how can they not be part of you, how can they not be yours? From: Duveyoung no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2014 12:16 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC Curtis, would you be comfortable saying the same words as Nisargadatta below? Nisargadatta: You think you are coming and going, passing through various states and moods. I see things as they are, momentary events, presenting themselves to me in rapid succession, deriving their being from me, yet definitely neither me nor mine. Among phenomena I am not one, nor subject to any. I am independent so simply and totally, that your mind, accustomed to opposition and denial, cannot grasp it. I mean literally what I say; I do not need oppose, or deny, because it is clear to me that I cannot be the opposite or denial of anything. I am just beyond, in a different dimension altogether. Do not look for me in identification with, or opposition to something: I am where desire, and fear are not.
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
I'm not Curtis, but I'll provide my short answer to Nisargadatta below: From: Duveyoung no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2014 6:16 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC Curtis, would you be comfortable saying the same words as Nisargadatta below? Nisargadatta: You think you are coming and going, passing through various states and moods. I see things as they are, momentary events, presenting themselves to me in rapid succession, deriving their being from me, yet definitely neither me nor mine. Among phenomena I am not one, nor subject to any. Fine, Nissy Baby...let's put this to the test, shall we? Leave your comfy home and walk out to a main street in Mumbai and step out in front of a bus that is traveling towards you at a fairly rapid rate. Then come back and tell me how you're not subject to any phenomena just because you think you aren't. I am independent so simply and totally, that your mind, accustomed to opposition and denial, cannot grasp it. I mean literally what I say; I do not need oppose, or deny, because it is clear to me that I cannot be the opposite or denial of anything. I am just beyond, in a different dimension altogether. Do not look for me in identification with, or opposition to something: I am where desire, and fear are not. Nisargadatta died of throat cancer in 1981, probably still believing that he was neither a phenomenon nor subject to any phenomena. You seem to like the fact that he can talk the talk of having no self. But the person who talked like that clearly had enough of a self to die when its body did. I guess I'm suggesting that I see no reason to believe that the stuff he wrote about what he believed about himself (or his lack of one) is to be paid attention to. It's just talk.
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 10:38 AM, curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: L: Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... M: You bring up a valid point about the difference between subjective experience and research. I guess the next question would be to get behind the terms we are using like mindfulness which is not taught in the same fixed way TM is. Are you confident that you know what I am doing under the umbrella of the term mindfulness and that it is the same thing as what was studied by other people who took completely different paths to their practice? According to Harris, vipassana or mindlullness is simple concentration on the breath with the goal of calming the mind. The emphasis is on the use of mindfulness to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. In contrast, Adyashanti's meditation is based on the Mahayana Zen practice of *shikantaza*, or just sitting and allowing everything to be as it is. This just sitting IS enlightenment. I am also open to the realiy that I will never experience mindfulness without my long association with the conditioning of my TM practice. I once checked the mindfulness practice of a friend to see if I could discern any differences in the answers he gave from checking TM. I couldn't. When he described his practice as we would do in 3 days checking I couldn't figure out how we might determine if his internal experience was different from TM people's. The language is too imprecise to make these distinctions. I don't know if the distinctions discovered in the research on particular types of mindfulness practices apply to mine. So without standardization I am left to draw my own conclusions from what I experience. TM and mindfulness practice lead me to a similar internal experience. YMMV and I agree that research will help us sort out the differences in brain states. But it is gunna take a while for the very young science of neuroscience as a whole to describe what these states mean with close to the same confidence you and most TM affiliated researchers put behind your theories. I think your confidence in your interpretation comes from TM triumphalist bias. Time will tell. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, LEnglish5@... wrote : MIndfulness and concentrative practices disrupt the Default Mode Network of the brain, which is highly involved with self-referral processing and sense-of-self. In fact, long-term practices lead to a new style of functioning of the nervous system where the original functioning of the DMN, complete with relaxed, mind-wandering alpha, starts to become a thing of the past. TM, on the other hand, enhances the functioning of the DMN and enhances the brain circuits associated with sense-of-self. Which is better? Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, noozguru@... wrote : My experience has been that I don't exist. It just seems that I go through the week as someone just doing something. And it's not weird at all. Like you say it may be a little difficult to fathom intellectually especially if some people have had few experiences even of transcending. It's just at some point you no longer come out of meditation and it's not spaciness either an issue that David Frawely has tackled in some of his writings about false enlightenment. Just do some grounding things and if the experience remains it isn't spaciness. On 09/17/2014 08:47 AM, fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: It is an automatic process, Richard. The Self begins to witness in every moment, so that rather than having any attention, on giving up anything, it actually becomes impossible to be attached to anything. This can't be understood in the waking state. Once a person lives in freedom, a person can tackle any situation successfully. Life becomes as simple as we want it to be. Attachment is impossible, so even the most joyful and the most painful moments will pass. Contrary to what the rational mind may think, the witness capability, is not some sort of anesthetic. As Ann and I were discussing, life is so visceral, sensual and alive within itself, that even the witness revels in fullness. Everything is uncovered and seen for what it is. The inside and outside are balanced. Attachment, and its consequent delusion, are impossible, in a life lived in eternal freedom. No need whatsoever, to think about non-attachment. It is automatic, after awhile. -
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : Curtis, would you be comfortable saying the same words as Nisargadatta below? Nisargadatta: You think you are coming and going, passing through various states and moods. M: Bit of a condescending start, but OK. N: I see things as they are, momentary events, presenting themselves to me in rapid succession, deriving their being from me, yet definitely neither me nor mine. M: Again with the guru presumption, but let's look beyond that opener. I do not believe that the phrase deriving their being from me is either accurate or even really comprehensible. He seems to be going the long way around just saying he notices things he experiences. N: Among phenomena I am not one, nor subject to any. M: Not sure what he is going for here. Maybe he is saying he is a bachelor who feels differently at different times and doesn't have a wife to call him on his inconsistencies. N: I am independent so simply and totally, that your mind, accustomed to opposition and denial, cannot grasp it. M: My only reaction to such a statement would be to F'off you pretentious douchbag. If he can't even grasp that he is coming off as an A hole I don't hold out much hope that he has the secrets of the universe or how our minds SHOULD be. N:I mean literally what I say; I do not need oppose, or deny, because it is clear to me that I cannot be the opposite or denial of anything. M: World salad that breaks down if look at each word and their meanings. N: I am just beyond, in a different dimension altogether. M: Sure you are buddy. Now finish your vintage Zima and please get out of my face back to your own dimension. N: Do not look for me in identification with, or opposition to something: I am where desire, and fear are not. M: Check please. Jesus when did this joint overrun by hipster poseurs? Another nice club goes the way of gentrification and becomes the place you give in directions as a reference point to going somewhere else! Turn right at the club with all the guys with bicycle powered Ipads... Hey Edg, I hope that was not too douchy on my part but that is really how it all strikes me. I am just not willing to assume that someone has a higher perspective because the assume it. He didn't say anything I couldn't have gotten from a Kahlil Gibran poster from the 70's. I am certainly open to the idea that I could just be an unenlightened cretin who doesn't recognize wisdom when it is presented to me but why does he have to deliver it the same way Professor Snape would at Hogworts?
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
My friend Bill had a conversation with Francis Bennett, one of Rick's BATGAP guys - Bennett has some friends who were around Nissy in the last years of his life and spent a good bit of time with him. They all told Bennett that Nissagardatta was profane when talking with his male friends and that after his wife died he visited hookers regularly. I have never seen any confirmation of that anywhere online but that's what Bennett told Bill. From: TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2014 12:31 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC I'm not Curtis, but I'll provide my short answer to Nisargadatta below: From: Duveyoung no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2014 6:16 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC Curtis, would you be comfortable saying the same words as Nisargadatta below? Nisargadatta: You think you are coming and going, passing through various states and moods. I see things as they are, momentary events, presenting themselves to me in rapid succession, deriving their being from me, yet definitely neither me nor mine. Among phenomena I am not one, nor subject to any. Fine, Nissy Baby...let's put this to the test, shall we? Leave your comfy home and walk out to a main street in Mumbai and step out in front of a bus that is traveling towards you at a fairly rapid rate. Then come back and tell me how you're not subject to any phenomena just because you think you aren't. I am independent so simply and totally, that your mind, accustomed to opposition and denial, cannot grasp it. I mean literally what I say; I do not need oppose, or deny, because it is clear to me that I cannot be the opposite or denial of anything. I am just beyond, in a different dimension altogether. Do not look for me in identification with, or opposition to something: I am where desire, and fear are not. Nisargadatta died of throat cancer in 1981, probably still believing that he was neither a phenomenon nor subject to any phenomena. You seem to like the fact that he can talk the talk of having no self. But the person who talked like that clearly had enough of a self to die when its body did. I guess I'm suggesting that I see no reason to believe that the stuff he wrote about what he believed about himself (or his lack of one) is to be paid attention to. It's just talk.
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
Thanks Xeno. Enlightenment is a state of non-forced mindfulness. I also like what you said about self referral looping as an indicator of integration, and the ultimate transparency of transcendence. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anartaxius@... wrote : Jim, you might be a little premature in this dismissal. Below is some of the research results on mindfulness from Harris' book. And I have some comments on my own after that. Long-term meditation practice is also associated with a variety of structural changes in the brain. Meditators tend to have larger corpora collosa and hippocampi (in both hemispheres). The practice is also linked to increased gray matter thickness and cortical folding. Some of these differences are especially prominent in older practitioners, which suggests that meditation could protect against age-related thinning of the cortex. The cognitive, emotional, and behavioral significance of these anatomical findings have not yet been worked out, but it is not hard to see how they might explain the kinds of experiences and psychological changes that meditators report. Expert meditators (with greater than ten thousand hours of practice) respond differently to pain than novices do. They judge the intensity of an unpleasant stimulus the same but find it to be less unpleasant. They also show reduced activity in regions associated with anxiety while anticipating the onset of pain, as well as faster habituation to the stimulus once it arrives.Other research has found that mindfulness reduces both the unpleasantness and intensity of noxious stimuli... ...One study found that an eight-week program of mindfulness meditation reduced the volume of the right basolateral amygdala, and these changes were correlated with a subjective decrease in stress. Another found that a full day of mindfulness practice (among trained meditators) reduced the expression of several genes that produce inflammation throughout the body, and this correlated with an improved response to social stress (diabolically, subjects were asked to give a brief speech and then perform mental calculations while being videotaped in front of an audience). A mere five minutes of practice a day (for five weeks) increased left-sided baseline activity in the frontal cortex — a pattern that, as we saw in the discussion of the split brain, has been associated with positive emotions. A review of the psychological literature suggests that mindfulness in particular fosters many components of physical and mental health: It improves immune function, blood pressure, and cortisol levels; it reduces anxiety, depression, neuroticism, and emotional reactivity. It also leads to greater behavioral regulation and has shown promise in the treatment of addiction and eating disorders. Unsurprisingly, the practice is associated with increased subjective well-being. Training in compassion meditation increases empathy, as measured by the ability to accurately judge the emotions of others, as well as positive affect in the presence of suffering. The practice of mindfulness has been shown to have similar pro-social effects. Scientific research on the various types of meditation is just beginning, but there are now hundreds of studies suggesting that these practices are good for us. Again, from a first-person point of view, none of this is surprising. After all, there is an enormous difference between being hostage to one’s thoughts and being freely and nonjudgmentally aware of life in the present. My first meditations were guided meditations, which work quite well because you are rather innocently following instructions. Then I learned a version of mindfulness, and on the whole, it did not go that well. TM proved to be easy for me, and that was basically what I did until about 10 years ago things started to shift, and TM started to morph into mindfulness. My meditation is now mostly mindfulness. The basic difference between the two is with TM you come back to the mantra, and with the variation of mindfulness that I do you come back to the breath. Breath is automatic because you need not do anything about it to keep it going. And sometimes I just sit there, doing nothing. Now some time ago you mentioned that mindfulness puts the cart before the horse, and in some ways that is true. Enlightenment is a state of non-forced mindfulness. Trying to emulate that state when you are not in that state simply does not work. The TM advantage in teaching is the checking notes, which run the student through the process systematically. This tends not to happen with mindfulness instruction, where instruction is more minimalist especially for people who try to do it from a book. My guess if you stole and rewrote the checking process and substituted 'breath' for 'mantra', mindfulness meditation instruction would probably improve, though some other adjustments might also be necessary. I
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 11:31 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: Nisargadatta died of throat cancer in 1981, probably still believing that he was neither a phenomenon nor subject to any phenomena. You seem to like the fact that he can talk the talk of having no self. But the person who talked like that clearly had enough of a self to die when its body did. I guess I'm suggesting that I see no reason to believe that the stuff he wrote about what he believed about himself (or his lack of one) is to be paid attention to. It's just talk. It sort of looks like Barry got confused - he just claimed to have read the new book by Sam Harris - and he still does not understand the no-self doctrine. Amazing! ...the use of mindfulness to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. - Sam Harris
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
Richard, I don't use focusing on the breath to calm the mind. I use it to settle the physiology. Then the mind calms down all by itself. On Thursday, September 18, 2014 11:47 AM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 10:38 AM, curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: L: Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... M: You bring up a valid point about the difference between subjective experience and research. I guess the next question would be to get behind the terms we are using like mindfulness which is not taught in the same fixed way TM is. Are you confident that you know what I am doing under the umbrella of the term mindfulness and that it is the same thing as what was studied by other people who took completely different paths to their practice? According to Harris, vipassana or mindlullness is simple concentration on the breath with the goal of calming the mind. The emphasis is on the use of mindfulness to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. In contrast, Adyashanti's meditation is based on the Mahayana Zen practice of shikantaza, or just sitting and allowing everything to be as it is. This just sitting IS enlightenment. I am also open to the realiy that I will never experience mindfulness without my long association with the conditioning of my TM practice. I once checked the mindfulness practice of a friend to see if I could discern any differences in the answers he gave from checking TM. I couldn't. When he described his practice as we would do in 3 days checking I couldn't figure out how we might determine if his internal experience was different from TM people's. The language is too imprecise to make these distinctions. I don't know if the distinctions discovered in the research on particular types of mindfulness practices apply to mine. So without standardization I am left to draw my own conclusions from what I experience. TM and mindfulness practice lead me to a similar internal experience. YMMV and I agree that research will help us sort out the differences in brain states. But it is gunna take a while for the very young science of neuroscience as a whole to describe what these states mean with close to the same confidence you and most TM affiliated researchers put behind your theories. I think your confidence in your interpretation comes from TM triumphalist bias. Time will tell. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, LEnglish5@... wrote : MIndfulness and concentrative practices disrupt the Default Mode Network of the brain, which is highly involved with self-referral processing and sense-of-self. In fact, long-term practices lead to a new style of functioning of the nervous system where the original functioning of the DMN, complete with relaxed, mind-wandering alpha, starts to become a thing of the past. TM, on the other hand, enhances the functioning of the DMN and enhances the brain circuits associated with sense-of-self. Which is better? Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, noozguru@... wrote : My experience has been that I don't exist. It just seems that I go through the week as someone just doing something. And it's not weird at all. Like you say it may be a little difficult to fathom intellectually especially if some people have had few experiences even of transcending. It's just at some point you no longer come out of meditation and it's not spaciness either an issue that David Frawely has tackled in some of his writings about false enlightenment. Just do some grounding things and if the experience remains it isn't spaciness. On 09/17/2014 08:47 AM, fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: It is an automatic process, Richard. The Self begins to witness in every moment, so that rather than having any attention, on giving up anything, it actually becomes impossible to be attached to anything. This can't be understood in the waking state. Once a person lives in freedom, a person can tackle any situation successfully. Life becomes as simple as we want it to be. Attachment is impossible, so even the most joyful and the most painful moments will pass. Contrary to what the rational mind may think, the witness capability, is not some sort of anesthetic. As Ann and I were discussing, life is so visceral, sensual and alive within itself, that even the witness revels in fullness. Everything is uncovered and seen for what it is. The inside and outside are balanced. Attachment, and its consequent delusion, are impossible, in a life lived in eternal freedom. No need whatsoever, to think about
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 12:55 PM, Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: Richard, I don't use focusing on the breath to calm the mind. I use it to settle the physiology. Then the mind calms down all by itself. *So, I mentioned this because some of the informants seem confused. The use of mindfulness is to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. Instructions for simple vipassana mindfulness meditation:* - Sit down in a comfortable position, on the floor on a cushion or in a chair. - Rock from side-to-side slowly a few times and feel the body as a whole. - Close your eyes and relax into thought - don't try to control your thoughts. - Being mindful of each thought - how it arises and it's duration. On Thursday, September 18, 2014 11:47 AM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 10:38 AM, curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: L: Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... M: You bring up a valid point about the difference between subjective experience and research. I guess the next question would be to get behind the terms we are using like mindfulness which is not taught in the same fixed way TM is. Are you confident that you know what I am doing under the umbrella of the term mindfulness and that it is the same thing as what was studied by other people who took completely different paths to their practice? According to Harris, vipassana or mindlullness is simple concentration on the breath with the goal of calming the mind. The emphasis is on the use of mindfulness to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. In contrast, Adyashanti's meditation is based on the Mahayana Zen practice of *shikantaza*, or just sitting and allowing everything to be as it is. This just sitting IS enlightenment. I am also open to the realiy that I will never experience mindfulness without my long association with the conditioning of my TM practice. I once checked the mindfulness practice of a friend to see if I could discern any differences in the answers he gave from checking TM. I couldn't. When he described his practice as we would do in 3 days checking I couldn't figure out how we might determine if his internal experience was different from TM people's. The language is too imprecise to make these distinctions. I don't know if the distinctions discovered in the research on particular types of mindfulness practices apply to mine. So without standardization I am left to draw my own conclusions from what I experience. TM and mindfulness practice lead me to a similar internal experience. YMMV and I agree that research will help us sort out the differences in brain states. But it is gunna take a while for the very young science of neuroscience as a whole to describe what these states mean with close to the same confidence you and most TM affiliated researchers put behind your theories. I think your confidence in your interpretation comes from TM triumphalist bias. Time will tell. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, LEnglish5@... wrote : MIndfulness and concentrative practices disrupt the Default Mode Network of the brain, which is highly involved with self-referral processing and sense-of-self. In fact, long-term practices lead to a new style of functioning of the nervous system where the original functioning of the DMN, complete with relaxed, mind-wandering alpha, starts to become a thing of the past. TM, on the other hand, enhances the functioning of the DMN and enhances the brain circuits associated with sense-of-self. Which is better? Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, noozguru@... wrote : My experience has been that I don't exist. It just seems that I go through the week as someone just doing something. And it's not weird at all. Like you say it may be a little difficult to fathom intellectually especially if some people have had few experiences even of transcending. It's just at some point you no longer come out of meditation and it's not spaciness either an issue that David Frawely has tackled in some of his writings about false enlightenment. Just do some grounding things and if the experience remains it isn't spaciness. On 09/17/2014 08:47 AM, fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: It is an automatic process, Richard. The Self begins to witness in every moment, so that rather than having any attention, on giving up anything, it actually becomes impossible to be attached to anything. This can't be understood in
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
Richard, I'm really glad I practice TM. Mindfulness seems like a heck of a lot of work, tracking the rising and continuing of thoughts! On Thursday, September 18, 2014 1:04 PM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 12:55 PM, Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: Richard, I don't use focusing on the breath to calm the mind. I use it to settle the physiology. Then the mind calms down all by itself. So, I mentioned this because some of the informants seem confused. The use of mindfulness is to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. Instructions for simple vipassana mindfulness meditation: * Sit down in a comfortable position, on the floor on a cushion or in a chair. * Rock from side-to-side slowly a few times and feel the body as a whole. * Close your eyes and relax into thought - don't try to control your thoughts. * Being mindful of each thought - how it arises and it's duration. On Thursday, September 18, 2014 11:47 AM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 10:38 AM, curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: L: Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... M: You bring up a valid point about the difference between subjective experience and research. I guess the next question would be to get behind the terms we are using like mindfulness which is not taught in the same fixed way TM is. Are you confident that you know what I am doing under the umbrella of the term mindfulness and that it is the same thing as what was studied by other people who took completely different paths to their practice? According to Harris, vipassana or mindlullness is simple concentration on the breath with the goal of calming the mind. The emphasis is on the use of mindfulness to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. In contrast, Adyashanti's meditation is based on the Mahayana Zen practice of shikantaza, or just sitting and allowing everything to be as it is. This just sitting IS enlightenment. I am also open to the realiy that I will never experience mindfulness without my long association with the conditioning of my TM practice. I once checked the mindfulness practice of a friend to see if I could discern any differences in the answers he gave from checking TM. I couldn't. When he described his practice as we would do in 3 days checking I couldn't figure out how we might determine if his internal experience was different from TM people's. The language is too imprecise to make these distinctions. I don't know if the distinctions discovered in the research on particular types of mindfulness practices apply to mine. So without standardization I am left to draw my own conclusions from what I experience. TM and mindfulness practice lead me to a similar internal experience. YMMV and I agree that research will help us sort out the differences in brain states. But it is gunna take a while for the very young science of neuroscience as a whole to describe what these states mean with close to the same confidence you and most TM affiliated researchers put behind your theories. I think your confidence in your interpretation comes from TM triumphalist bias. Time will tell. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, LEnglish5@... wrote : MIndfulness and concentrative practices disrupt the Default Mode Network of the brain, which is highly involved with self-referral processing and sense-of-self. In fact, long-term practices lead to a new style of functioning of the nervous system where the original functioning of the DMN, complete with relaxed, mind-wandering alpha, starts to become a thing of the past. TM, on the other hand, enhances the functioning of the DMN and enhances the brain circuits associated with sense-of-self. Which is better? Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, noozguru@... wrote : My experience has been that I don't exist. It just seems that I go through the week as someone just doing something. And it's not weird at all. Like you say it may be a little difficult to fathom intellectually especially if some people have had few experiences even of transcending. It's just at some point you no longer come out of meditation and it's not spaciness either an issue that David Frawely has tackled in some of his writings about false enlightenment. Just do some grounding things and if the experience remains it isn't spaciness. On 09/17/2014
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : Richard, I'm really glad I practice TM. Mindfulness seems like a heck of a lot of work, tracking the rising and continuing of thoughts! Hardly. The simple fact is there are many different types of mindfulness, some are easier than others but none are difficult. You just have to find one that suits you, I do several types and some are even easier than TM because you don't even need to say a mantra. I have two favourites out of the ten in my book, they have known psychological advantages and are pleasant to do as well, leaving me refreshed and clear. TM, it has to be said, can often leave you feeling crap and with all the resting and unstressing seems like a lot of work sometimes but I still do it because I like the overall effect. There's been a lot of crap spoken today about a popular, well tested and useful form of meditation but not by anyone that has actually tried it. Go figure. On Thursday, September 18, 2014 1:04 PM, Richard Williams punditster@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 12:55 PM, Share Long sharelong60@... mailto:sharelong60@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: Richard, I don't use focusing on the breath to calm the mind. I use it to settle the physiology. Then the mind calms down all by itself. So, I mentioned this because some of the informants seem confused. The use of mindfulness is to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. Instructions for simple vipassana mindfulness meditation: Sit down in a comfortable position, on the floor on a cushion or in a chair. Rock from side-to-side slowly a few times and feel the body as a whole. Close your eyes and relax into thought - don't try to control your thoughts. Being mindful of each thought - how it arises and it's duration. On Thursday, September 18, 2014 11:47 AM, Richard Williams punditster@... mailto:punditster@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 10:38 AM, curtisdeltablues@... mailto:curtisdeltablues@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: L: Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... M: You bring up a valid point about the difference between subjective experience and research. I guess the next question would be to get behind the terms we are using like mindfulness which is not taught in the same fixed way TM is. Are you confident that you know what I am doing under the umbrella of the term mindfulness and that it is the same thing as what was studied by other people who took completely different paths to their practice? According to Harris, vipassana or mindlullness is simple concentration on the breath with the goal of calming the mind. The emphasis is on the use of mindfulness to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. In contrast, Adyashanti's meditation is based on the Mahayana Zen practice of shikantaza, or just sitting and allowing everything to be as it is. This just sitting IS enlightenment. I am also open to the realiy that I will never experience mindfulness without my long association with the conditioning of my TM practice. I once checked the mindfulness practice of a friend to see if I could discern any differences in the answers he gave from checking TM. I couldn't. When he described his practice as we would do in 3 days checking I couldn't figure out how we might determine if his internal experience was different from TM people's. The language is too imprecise to make these distinctions. I don't know if the distinctions discovered in the research on particular types of mindfulness practices apply to mine. So without standardization I am left to draw my own conclusions from what I experience. TM and mindfulness practice lead me to a similar internal experience. YMMV and I agree that research will help us sort out the differences in brain states. But it is gunna take a while for the very young science of neuroscience as a whole to describe what these states mean with close to the same confidence you and most TM affiliated researchers put behind your theories. I think your confidence in your interpretation comes from TM triumphalist bias. Time will tell. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, LEnglish5@... wrote : MIndfulness and concentrative practices disrupt the Default Mode Network of the brain, which is highly involved with self-referral processing and sense-of-self. In fact, long-term practices lead to a new style of functioning of the nervous system where the original functioning of the DMN,
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
Thanks, salyavin, I just read about mindfulness on wikipedia. The article differentiates between state, trait and practice. I always thought it was simply paying attention to thoughts that arise in the moment. Is that a good definition? I sometimes pay attention to my breath. It sounds like Harris considers that a form of mindfulness. Don't tell!I've also done practices that involve paying attention to different sensations in the body. That can also be useful I've found, especially when coping with physical pain. I'd enjoy hearing about your two favorite forms. On Thursday, September 18, 2014 1:36 PM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : Richard, I'm really glad I practice TM. Mindfulness seems like a heck of a lot of work, tracking the rising and continuing of thoughts! Hardly. The simple fact is there are many different types of mindfulness, some are easier than others but none are difficult. You just have to find one that suits you, I do several types and some are even easier than TM because you don't even need to say a mantra. I have two favourites out of the ten in my book, they have known psychological advantages and are pleasant to do as well, leaving me refreshed and clear. TM, it has to be said, can often leave you feeling crap and with all the resting and unstressing seems like a lot of work sometimes but I still do it because I like the overall effect. There's been a lot of crap spoken today about a popular, well tested and useful form of meditation but not by anyone that has actually tried it. Go figure. On Thursday, September 18, 2014 1:04 PM, Richard Williams punditster@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 12:55 PM, Share Long sharelong60@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: Richard, I don't use focusing on the breath to calm the mind. I use it to settle the physiology. Then the mind calms down all by itself. So, I mentioned this because some of the informants seem confused. The use of mindfulness is to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. Instructions for simple vipassana mindfulness meditation: * Sit down in a comfortable position, on the floor on a cushion or in a chair. * Rock from side-to-side slowly a few times and feel the body as a whole. * Close your eyes and relax into thought - don't try to control your thoughts. * Being mindful of each thought - how it arises and it's duration. On Thursday, September 18, 2014 11:47 AM, Richard Williams punditster@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 10:38 AM, curtisdeltablues@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: L: Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... M: You bring up a valid point about the difference between subjective experience and research. I guess the next question would be to get behind the terms we are using like mindfulness which is not taught in the same fixed way TM is. Are you confident that you know what I am doing under the umbrella of the term mindfulness and that it is the same thing as what was studied by other people who took completely different paths to their practice? According to Harris, vipassana or mindlullness is simple concentration on the breath with the goal of calming the mind. The emphasis is on the use of mindfulness to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. In contrast, Adyashanti's meditation is based on the Mahayana Zen practice of shikantaza, or just sitting and allowing everything to be as it is. This just sitting IS enlightenment. I am also open to the realiy that I will never experience mindfulness without my long association with the conditioning of my TM practice. I once checked the mindfulness practice of a friend to see if I could discern any differences in the answers he gave from checking TM. I couldn't. When he described his practice as we would do in 3 days checking I couldn't figure out how we might determine if his internal experience was different from TM people's. The language is too imprecise to make these distinctions. I don't know if the distinctions discovered in the research on particular types of mindfulness practices apply to mine. So without standardization I am left to draw my own conclusions from what I experience. TM and mindfulness practice lead me to a similar internal experience. YMMV and I agree that research will help us sort out the differences in brain states. But it is gunna take a while for the very young science of neuroscience as a whole to describe what these states mean with close to the same confidence you and most TM affiliated researchers put behind your theories. I think your
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
From: salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : Richard, I'm really glad I practice TM. Mindfulness seems like a heck of a lot of work, tracking the rising and continuing of thoughts! Hardly. The simple fact is there are many different types of mindfulness, some are easier than others but none are difficult. You just have to find one that suits you, I do several types and some are even easier than TM because you don't even need to say a mantra. I have two favourites out of the ten in my book, they have known psychological advantages and are pleasant to do as well, leaving me refreshed and clear. TM, it has to be said, can often leave you feeling crap and with all the resting and unstressing seems like a lot of work sometimes but I still do it because I like the overall effect. There's been a lot of crap spoken today about a popular, well tested and useful form of meditation but not by anyone that has actually tried it. Go figure. Isn't that fascinating? They're willing to say seemingly definitive things about a practice they have never learned, and in fact never even considered learning. But it's not so strange when you realize that Maharishi made a career out of doing exactly the same thing. He had ZERO experience with any of the competing techniques he brushed aside and described in a derogatory fashion. He didn't know *diddleysquat* about any of them, which became apparent whenever someone would actually call him on one of his putdowns and get in his face with real facts. In those situations Maharishi would back down and drop the subject, but then he'd be back spouting the same ignorant bullshit the next day. Clearly many of his students learned well from his example...spout ignorance often enough and loudly enough and the weakest minds in the group you're speaking to will not only believe it, they'll repeat it to others as if it were the Highest Truth.
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
FYI MK, India culture is a bit different about those things and than the Chrischun influenced US culture. You should visit there sometime. It would give you even more material for your rants. :-D On 09/18/2014 09:54 AM, Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: My friend Bill had a conversation with Francis Bennett, one of Rick's BATGAP guys - Bennett has some friends who were around Nissy in the last years of his life and spent a good bit of time with him. They all told Bennett that Nissagardatta was profane when talking with his male friends and that after his wife died he visited hookers regularly. I have never seen any confirmation of that anywhere online but that's what Bennett told Bill. *From:* TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com *To:* FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com *Sent:* Thursday, September 18, 2014 12:31 PM *Subject:* Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC I'm not Curtis, but I'll provide my short answer to Nisargadatta below: *From:* Duveyoung no_re...@yahoogroups.com *To:* FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com *Sent:* Thursday, September 18, 2014 6:16 PM *Subject:* Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC Curtis, would you be comfortable saying the same words as Nisargadatta below? Nisargadatta: You think you are coming and going, passing through various states and moods. I see things as they are, momentary events, presenting themselves to me in rapid succession, deriving their being from me, yet definitely neither me nor mine. Among phenomena I am not one, nor subject to any. Fine, Nissy Baby...let's put this to the test, shall we? Leave your comfy home and walk out to a main street in Mumbai and step out in front of a bus that is traveling towards you at a fairly rapid rate. Then come back and tell me how you're not subject to any phenomena just because you think you aren't. I am independent so simply and totally, that your mind, accustomed to opposition and denial, cannot grasp it. I mean literally what I say; I do not need oppose, or deny, because it is clear to me that I cannot be the opposite or denial of anything. I am just beyond, in a different dimension altogether. Do not look for me in identification with, or opposition to something: I am where desire, and fear are not. Nisargadatta died of throat cancer in 1981, probably still believing that he was neither a phenomenon nor subject to any phenomena. You seem to like the fact that he can talk the talk of having no self. But the person who talked like that clearly had enough of a self to die when its body did. I guess I'm suggesting that I see no reason to believe that the stuff he wrote about what he believed about himself (or his lack of one) is to be paid attention to. It's just talk.
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 1:08 PM, Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: Richard, I'm really glad I practice TM. Mindfulness seems like a heck of a lot of work, tracking the rising and continuing of thoughts! You may way too advanced for a simple breathing technique - that's for beginners in order to calm the mind. It's just like when MMY told us to feel the body as a whole. You are already practicing the advanced techniques such as seeded meditation using sounds In which the true nature of mind is pointed out by the guru. *So take care not to impose anything on the mind or to tax it. When you meditate there should be no effort to control and no attempt to be peaceful. Don't be overly solemn or feel that you are taking part in some special ritual; let go even of the idea that you are meditating. Let your body remain as it is, and your breath as you find it.* - Sogyal Rinpoche On Thursday, September 18, 2014 1:04 PM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 12:55 PM, Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: Richard, I don't use focusing on the breath to calm the mind. I use it to settle the physiology. Then the mind calms down all by itself. *So, I mentioned this because some of the informants seem confused. The use of mindfulness is to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. Instructions for simple vipassana mindfulness meditation:* - Sit down in a comfortable position, on the floor on a cushion or in a chair. - Rock from side-to-side slowly a few times and feel the body as a whole. - Close your eyes and relax into thought - don't try to control your thoughts. - Being mindful of each thought - how it arises and it's duration. On Thursday, September 18, 2014 11:47 AM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 10:38 AM, curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: L: Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... M: You bring up a valid point about the difference between subjective experience and research. I guess the next question would be to get behind the terms we are using like mindfulness which is not taught in the same fixed way TM is. Are you confident that you know what I am doing under the umbrella of the term mindfulness and that it is the same thing as what was studied by other people who took completely different paths to their practice? According to Harris, vipassana or mindlullness is simple concentration on the breath with the goal of calming the mind. The emphasis is on the use of mindfulness to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. In contrast, Adyashanti's meditation is based on the Mahayana Zen practice of *shikantaza*, or just sitting and allowing everything to be as it is. This just sitting IS enlightenment. I am also open to the realiy that I will never experience mindfulness without my long association with the conditioning of my TM practice. I once checked the mindfulness practice of a friend to see if I could discern any differences in the answers he gave from checking TM. I couldn't. When he described his practice as we would do in 3 days checking I couldn't figure out how we might determine if his internal experience was different from TM people's. The language is too imprecise to make these distinctions. I don't know if the distinctions discovered in the research on particular types of mindfulness practices apply to mine. So without standardization I am left to draw my own conclusions from what I experience. TM and mindfulness practice lead me to a similar internal experience. YMMV and I agree that research will help us sort out the differences in brain states. But it is gunna take a while for the very young science of neuroscience as a whole to describe what these states mean with close to the same confidence you and most TM affiliated researchers put behind your theories. I think your confidence in your interpretation comes from TM triumphalist bias. Time will tell. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, LEnglish5@... wrote : MIndfulness and concentrative practices disrupt the Default Mode Network of the brain, which is highly involved with self-referral processing and sense-of-self. In fact, long-term practices lead to a new style of functioning of the nervous system where the original functioning of the DMN, complete with relaxed, mind-wandering alpha, starts to become a thing of the past. TM, on the other hand, enhances the functioning of the DMN and enhances the brain circuits associated with sense-of-self. Which is better?
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
Richard, I find following my breath excellent for settling my energy body outside of TMSP. It's like they say, Let's all just take a breath. But I don't try to slow my breath or deepen my breath. I simply follow it for 5 counts. Usually by #4, it's slower and deeper all by itself. And my energy field feels more settled too. On Thursday, September 18, 2014 2:46 PM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 1:08 PM, Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: Richard, I'm really glad I practice TM. Mindfulness seems like a heck of a lot of work, tracking the rising and continuing of thoughts! You may way too advanced for a simple breathing technique - that's for beginners in order to calm the mind. It's just like when MMY told us to feel the body as a whole. You are already practicing the advanced techniques such as seeded meditation using sounds In which the true nature of mind is pointed out by the guru. So take care not to impose anything on the mind or to tax it. When you meditate there should be no effort to control and no attempt to be peaceful. Don't be overly solemn or feel that you are taking part in some special ritual; let go even of the idea that you are meditating. Let your body remain as it is, and your breath as you find it. - Sogyal Rinpoche On Thursday, September 18, 2014 1:04 PM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 12:55 PM, Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: Richard, I don't use focusing on the breath to calm the mind. I use it to settle the physiology. Then the mind calms down all by itself. So, I mentioned this because some of the informants seem confused. The use of mindfulness is to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. Instructions for simple vipassana mindfulness meditation: * Sit down in a comfortable position, on the floor on a cushion or in a chair. * Rock from side-to-side slowly a few times and feel the body as a whole. * Close your eyes and relax into thought - don't try to control your thoughts. * Being mindful of each thought - how it arises and it's duration. On Thursday, September 18, 2014 11:47 AM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 10:38 AM, curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: L: Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... M: You bring up a valid point about the difference between subjective experience and research. I guess the next question would be to get behind the terms we are using like mindfulness which is not taught in the same fixed way TM is. Are you confident that you know what I am doing under the umbrella of the term mindfulness and that it is the same thing as what was studied by other people who took completely different paths to their practice? According to Harris, vipassana or mindlullness is simple concentration on the breath with the goal of calming the mind. The emphasis is on the use of mindfulness to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. In contrast, Adyashanti's meditation is based on the Mahayana Zen practice of shikantaza, or just sitting and allowing everything to be as it is. This just sitting IS enlightenment. I am also open to the realiy that I will never experience mindfulness without my long association with the conditioning of my TM practice. I once checked the mindfulness practice of a friend to see if I could discern any differences in the answers he gave from checking TM. I couldn't. When he described his practice as we would do in 3 days checking I couldn't figure out how we might determine if his internal experience was different from TM people's. The language is too imprecise to make these distinctions. I don't know if the distinctions discovered in the research on particular types of mindfulness practices apply to mine. So without standardization I am left to draw my own conclusions from what I experience. TM and mindfulness practice lead me to a similar internal experience. YMMV and I agree that research will help us sort out the differences in brain states. But it is gunna take a while for the very young science of neuroscience as a whole to describe what these states mean with close to the same confidence you and most TM affiliated researchers put behind your theories. I think your confidence in your interpretation comes from TM triumphalist bias. Time will tell. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, LEnglish5@... wrote : MIndfulness and
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 1:36 PM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: There's been a lot of crap spoken today about a popular, well tested and useful form of meditation but not by anyone that has actually tried it. Go figure. Buddhist vipassana is a practice for beginners given out as a preliminary practice by Tibetan Lamas for novice use - stream enterers. The advanced practices involve sounds such as mantras, images and visualizations. Seeded meditation is a very common practice in Tibetan Vjarayana while Vipassana is popular in Theravada countries. Sam Harris was trained in the Tibetan tradition. According to Sogyal Rinpoche, the author of the *'Tibetan Book of the Living and Dying',* there are certain methods and stages of meditation. In the first stage you must realize that meditation is not something that you can 'do', but rather something that you 'let happen'. Perfection (siddhis) is accomplished spontaneously, without any effort, not through mind-control or conscious effort. On Thursday, September 18, 2014 1:04 PM, Richard Williams punditster@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 12:55 PM, Share Long sharelong60@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: Richard, I don't use focusing on the breath to calm the mind. I use it to settle the physiology. Then the mind calms down all by itself. *So, I mentioned this because some of the informants seem confused. The use of mindfulness is to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. Instructions for simple vipassana mindfulness meditation:* - Sit down in a comfortable position, on the floor on a cushion or in a chair. - Rock from side-to-side slowly a few times and feel the body as a whole. - Close your eyes and relax into thought - don't try to control your thoughts. - Being mindful of each thought - how it arises and it's duration. On Thursday, September 18, 2014 11:47 AM, Richard Williams punditster@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 10:38 AM, curtisdeltablues@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: L: Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... M: You bring up a valid point about the difference between subjective experience and research. I guess the next question would be to get behind the terms we are using like mindfulness which is not taught in the same fixed way TM is. Are you confident that you know what I am doing under the umbrella of the term mindfulness and that it is the same thing as what was studied by other people who took completely different paths to their practice? According to Harris, vipassana or mindlullness is simple concentration on the breath with the goal of calming the mind. The emphasis is on the use of mindfulness to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. In contrast, Adyashanti's meditation is based on the Mahayana Zen practice of *shikantaza*, or just sitting and allowing everything to be as it is. This just sitting IS enlightenment. I am also open to the realiy that I will never experience mindfulness without my long association with the conditioning of my TM practice. I once checked the mindfulness practice of a friend to see if I could discern any differences in the answers he gave from checking TM. I couldn't. When he described his practice as we would do in 3 days checking I couldn't figure out how we might determine if his internal experience was different from TM people's. The language is too imprecise to make these distinctions. I don't know if the distinctions discovered in the research on particular types of mindfulness practices apply to mine. So without standardization I am left to draw my own conclusions from what I experience. TM and mindfulness practice lead me to a similar internal experience. YMMV and I agree that research will help us sort out the differences in brain states. But it is gunna take a while for the very young science of neuroscience as a whole to describe what these states mean with close to the same confidence you and most TM affiliated researchers put behind your theories. I think your confidence in your interpretation comes from TM triumphalist bias. Time will tell. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, LEnglish5@... wrote : MIndfulness and concentrative practices disrupt the Default Mode Network of the brain, which is highly involved with self-referral processing and sense-of-self. In fact, long-term practices lead to a new style of functioning of the nervous system where the original functioning of the DMN, complete with relaxed, mind-wandering alpha, starts to become a thing of the past. TM, on the other hand, enhances the functioning of the DMN and enhances the brain circuits associated
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 2:51 PM, Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: Richard, I find following my breath excellent for settling my energy body outside of TMSP. It's like they say, Let's all just take a breath. But I don't try to slow my breath or deepen my breath. I simply follow it for 5 counts. Usually by #4, it's slower and deeper all by itself. And my energy field feels more settled too. *There is a revealing Tibetan saying, Gompa ma yin, kompa yin,' which means literally: Meditation' is not; 'getting used to' is.' It means that meditation is nothing other than getting used to the practice of meditation. As it is said, 'Meditation is not stnving, but naturally becoming assimilated into it.' * On Thursday, September 18, 2014 2:46 PM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 1:08 PM, Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: Richard, I'm really glad I practice TM. Mindfulness seems like a heck of a lot of work, tracking the rising and continuing of thoughts! You may way too advanced for a simple breathing technique - that's for beginners in order to calm the mind. It's just like when MMY told us to feel the body as a whole. You are already practicing the advanced techniques such as seeded meditation using sounds In which the true nature of mind is pointed out by the guru. *So take care not to impose anything on the mind or to tax it. When you meditate there should be no effort to control and no attempt to be peaceful. Don't be overly solemn or feel that you are taking part in some special ritual; let go even of the idea that you are meditating. Let your body remain as it is, and your breath as you find it.* - Sogyal Rinpoche On Thursday, September 18, 2014 1:04 PM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 12:55 PM, Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: Richard, I don't use focusing on the breath to calm the mind. I use it to settle the physiology. Then the mind calms down all by itself. *So, I mentioned this because some of the informants seem confused. The use of mindfulness is to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. Instructions for simple vipassana mindfulness meditation:* - Sit down in a comfortable position, on the floor on a cushion or in a chair. - Rock from side-to-side slowly a few times and feel the body as a whole. - Close your eyes and relax into thought - don't try to control your thoughts. - Being mindful of each thought - how it arises and it's duration. On Thursday, September 18, 2014 11:47 AM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 10:38 AM, curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: L: Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... M: You bring up a valid point about the difference between subjective experience and research. I guess the next question would be to get behind the terms we are using like mindfulness which is not taught in the same fixed way TM is. Are you confident that you know what I am doing under the umbrella of the term mindfulness and that it is the same thing as what was studied by other people who took completely different paths to their practice? According to Harris, vipassana or mindlullness is simple concentration on the breath with the goal of calming the mind. The emphasis is on the use of mindfulness to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. In contrast, Adyashanti's meditation is based on the Mahayana Zen practice of *shikantaza*, or just sitting and allowing everything to be as it is. This just sitting IS enlightenment. I am also open to the realiy that I will never experience mindfulness without my long association with the conditioning of my TM practice. I once checked the mindfulness practice of a friend to see if I could discern any differences in the answers he gave from checking TM. I couldn't. When he described his practice as we would do in 3 days checking I couldn't figure out how we might determine if his internal experience was different from TM people's. The language is too imprecise to make these distinctions. I don't know if the distinctions discovered in the research on particular types of mindfulness practices apply to mine. So without standardization I am left to draw my own conclusions from what I experience. TM and mindfulness practice lead me to a similar internal experience. YMMV and I agree that research will help us sort out the
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 1:36 PM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: There's been a lot of crap spoken today about a popular, well tested and useful form of meditation but not by anyone that has actually tried it. Go figure. So far as I can tell the only crap that has been posted about meditation is the denial by Barry that the purpose of vipassana or mindfulness is the emphasis is on the the use of mindfulness to gain insight into the impermanence of the self-view. Go figure. My training includes TM; Tibetan Buddhism with three lamas; and a Zen Master and a Sufi Master.
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 1:51 PM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: *From:* salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : Richard, I'm really glad I practice TM. Mindfulness seems like a heck of a lot of work, tracking the rising and continuing of thoughts! Hardly. The simple fact is there are many different types of mindfulness, some are easier than others but none are difficult. You just have to find one that suits you, I do several types and some are even easier than TM because you don't even need to say a mantra. I have two favourites out of the ten in my book, they have known psychological advantages and are pleasant to do as well, leaving me refreshed and clear. TM, it has to be said, can often leave you feeling crap and with all the resting and unstressing seems like a lot of work sometimes but I still do it because I like the overall effect. There's been a lot of crap spoken today about a popular, well tested and useful form of meditation but not by anyone that has actually tried it. Go figure. Isn't that fascinating? They're willing to say seemingly definitive things about a practice they have never learned, and in fact never even considered learning. Anyone can learn mindfulness from reading a book, Barrry. It's not complicated. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/how-to-meditate But it's not so strange when you realize that Maharishi made a career out of doing exactly the same thing. He had ZERO experience with any of the competing techniques he brushed aside and described in a derogatory fashion. He didn't know *diddleysquat* about any of them, which became apparent whenever someone would actually call him on one of his putdowns and get in his face with real facts. In those situations Maharishi would back down and drop the subject, but then he'd be back spouting the same ignorant bullshit the next day. Clearly many of his students learned well from his example...spout ignorance often enough and loudly enough and the weakest minds in the group you're speaking to will not only believe it, they'll repeat it to others as if it were the Highest Truth.
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
Exactly. Up until now, all you could go by, as a meditation instructor was the *context* of the answers: how did the student learn in the first place? Hence MMY's extreme insistence on perfect adherence to his teaching methodology. Now, these days, you can look at how the brain is behaving, based on EEG and various imaging technologies, and see that there are indeed differences between people who learn TM, and people who learn mindfulness or samatha practices. I'm not making things up about mindfulness resetting the default mode network in a way that disrupts sense-of-self. That's a pretty normal interpretation of things based on what mindfulness researchers are saying. Nor am I making up the fact that mind-wandering (which is how MMY describes TM) is considered to be tied in with sense-of-self. That's what non-TM researchers say about it. In fact, here's a review article talking about the science of mind-wandering: Towards a Neuroscience of Mind-Wandering http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnhum.2011.00056/full http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnhum.2011.00056/full Towards a Neuroscience of Mind-Wandering http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnhum.2011.00056/full Mind wandering is among the most robust and permanent expressions of human conscious awareness, classically regarded by philosophers, clinicians a... View on journal.frontie... http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnhum.2011.00056/full Preview by Yahoo MW serves “self” functions As detailed in the context of strategy B1, there are theoretical (Gallagher, 2000), neuroanatomical (Gusnard, 2005; Northoff et al., 2006), and intuitive grounds to claim that MW is a self related cognitive function, which serves to create and maintain an integrated, meaningful sense of self out of various aspects of self-related information and cognition. and of course, the longer you practice mindfulness, the more pronounced the change in how the DMN operates, and along with that, the greater the reduction of sense-of-self. A good thing or a bad thing? Shrug. Research will say what it says. L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues@... wrote : L: Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... M: You bring up a valid point about the difference between subjective experience and research. I guess the next question would be to get behind the terms we are using like mindfulness which is not taught in the same fixed way TM is. Are you confident that you know what I am doing under the umbrella of the term mindfulness and that it is the same thing as what was studied by other people who took completely different paths to their practice? I am also open to the realiy that I will never experience mindfulness without my long association with the conditioning of my TM practice. I once checked the mindfulness practice of a friend to see if I could discern any differences in the answers he gave from checking TM. I couldn't. When he described his practice as we would do in 3 days checking I couldn't figure out how we might determine if his internal experience was different from TM people's. The language is too imprecise to make these distinctions. I don't know if the distinctions discovered in the research on particular types of mindfulness practices apply to mine. So without standardization I am left to draw my own conclusions from what I experience. TM and mindfulness practice lead me to a similar internal experience. YMMV and I agree that research will help us sort out the differences in brain states. But it is gunna take a while for the very young science of neuroscience as a whole to describe what these states mean with close to the same confidence you and most TM affiliated researchers put behind your theories. I think your confidence in your interpretation comes from TM triumphalist bias. Time will tell. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, LEnglish5@... wrote : MIndfulness and concentrative practices disrupt the Default Mode Network of the brain, which is highly involved with self-referral processing and sense-of-self. In fact, long-term practices lead to a new style of functioning of the nervous system where the original functioning of the DMN, complete with relaxed, mind-wandering alpha, starts to become a thing of the past. TM, on the other hand, enhances the functioning of the DMN and enhances the brain circuits associated with sense-of-self. Which is better? Research will furnish answers, I am sure, but in the meantime, anyone who says that TM leads to the same place as mindfulness and concentration is full of it... L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, noozguru@... wrote : My experience has been that I don't exist. It just
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 7:11 PM, fleetwood_macnche...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: As I mentioned, it becomes a matter of choice. Everything is now visible. It becomes a choice to entertain it or not. Any precepts become silly, like the earlier waking state discussion regarding anger. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : Richard, what feels right to me is the idea of roasted impressions. IOW, they are still in the field of individuality, but they no longer get activated because they are roasted. What do you think? *According to Vaj, seeded meditation alone does not burn up old karmic impressions. * *In order to perform tapas and burn up your karma you must give up the notion of me and mine - in reality, we do not act at all - it is the accrued karma that acts - the three gunas born of nature that are doing the acting. We are just the witnesses of the karmic acts - then you begin to understand that you are only going to get as much enlightenment as you are going to get, due to your samskaras or karma. * *You then give up striving and just do karma yoga for the good of all.You cannot stop acting, but you can realize that the I is not really you true Self - you are the self - the sum total of all your acts since time began.* *When you realize that there is no person doing the acting, you are free relinquish ownership of your acts. When you give up the fruits of your actions you are then able to act in an unselfish way - you just go around doing good for others, your spouse and/or your family. * On Tuesday, September 16, 2014 8:16 AM, Richard Williams punditster@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: fleetwood_macncheese: these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, *According to Vaj, seeded meditation does not remove samskaras, let alone strong samskaras; it merely plants nicer seeds to (hopefully) drown out the weeds.* *http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg161585.html* http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg161585.html *Samskaras are 'karma', or impressions left by karmic acts. Karma means action' in Sanskrit. In Buddhism, samskaras are mental and volitional formations, accumulated actions over many lives, and present actions as well; samskaras are conditioned phenomena; structures within the unconscious that are the basis for all worldly activities and future rebirth.* *In the enlightenment tradition, the endless round of becoming can be abolished through Yoga, that is, an adept of Yoga can burn up his karma through the practice of tapas, until the sum total of sankaras is zero. When that happens, the yogin is 'liberated' from samsara. There is no return.* *Reference:* *'A Sanskrit-English Dictionary'* *Monier Monier-Williams* On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 6:07 PM, fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: I was thinking more about Bhairitu's comment, and I googled 'samskara', and got back mental or emotional pattern. So, the CC Maharishi refers to, is a state of enlightenment, with samskaras mostly intact. This is why he describes it as a state of inner silence, the individual feels enlightened, but this is not reflected in his environment; CC. The silence, or light, or whatever one calls the universal motive force, cannot be reflected in the environment, the outside world, until the samskaras get illuminated, with further enlightenment. Then simply seen for what they are, these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, moving from impenetrable objects, to playthings. After the samskaras begin to get transparent, the silence or light appears to subjectively imbue and penetrate every experience, inside and out - the outside world is now enlightened, to a degree - oneness predominates, UC. A bigger state of enlightenment; the universal motive force is felt and seen everywhere, governing everything -
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
It is an automatic process, Richard. The Self begins to witness in every moment, so that rather than having any attention, on giving up anything, it actually becomes impossible to be attached to anything. This can't be understood in the waking state. Once a person lives in freedom, a person can tackle any situation successfully. Life becomes as simple as we want it to be. Attachment is impossible, so even the most joyful and the most painful moments will pass. Contrary to what the rational mind may think, the witness capability, is not some sort of anesthetic. As Ann and I were discussing, life is so visceral, sensual and alive within itself, that even the witness revels in fullness. Everything is uncovered and seen for what it is. The inside and outside are balanced. Attachment, and its consequent delusion, are impossible, in a life lived in eternal freedom. No need whatsoever, to think about non-attachment. It is automatic, after awhile. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, punditster@... wrote : On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 7:11 PM, fleetwood_macncheese@... mailto:fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: As I mentioned, it becomes a matter of choice. Everything is now visible. It becomes a choice to entertain it or not. Any precepts become silly, like the earlier waking state discussion regarding anger. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : Richard, what feels right to me is the idea of roasted impressions. IOW, they are still in the field of individuality, but they no longer get activated because they are roasted. What do you think? According to Vaj, seeded meditation alone does not burn up old karmic impressions. In order to perform tapas and burn up your karma you must give up the notion of me and mine - in reality, we do not act at all - it is the accrued karma that acts - the three gunas born of nature that are doing the acting. We are just the witnesses of the karmic acts - then you begin to understand that you are only going to get as much enlightenment as you are going to get, due to your samskaras or karma. You then give up striving and just do karma yoga for the good of all.You cannot stop acting, but you can realize that the I is not really you true Self - you are the self - the sum total of all your acts since time began. When you realize that there is no person doing the acting, you are free relinquish ownership of your acts. When you give up the fruits of your actions you are then able to act in an unselfish way - you just go around doing good for others, your spouse and/or your family. On Tuesday, September 16, 2014 8:16 AM, Richard Williams punditster@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: fleetwood_macncheese: these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, According to Vaj, seeded meditation does not remove samskaras, let alone strong samskaras; it merely plants nicer seeds to (hopefully) drown out the weeds. http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg161585.html http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg161585.html Samskaras are 'karma', or impressions left by karmic acts. Karma means action' in Sanskrit. In Buddhism, samskaras are mental and volitional formations, accumulated actions over many lives, and present actions as well; samskaras are conditioned phenomena; structures within the unconscious that are the basis for all worldly activities and future rebirth. In the enlightenment tradition, the endless round of becoming can be abolished through Yoga, that is, an adept of Yoga can burn up his karma through the practice of tapas, until the sum total of sankaras is zero. When that happens, the yogin is 'liberated' from samsara. There is no return. Reference: 'A Sanskrit-English Dictionary' Monier Monier-Williams On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 6:07 PM, fleetwood_macncheese@... mailto:fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: I was thinking more about Bhairitu's comment, and I googled 'samskara', and got back mental or emotional pattern. So, the CC Maharishi refers to, is a state of enlightenment, with samskaras mostly intact. This is why he describes it as a state of inner silence, the individual feels enlightened, but this is not reflected in his environment; CC. The silence, or light, or whatever one calls the universal motive force, cannot be reflected in the environment, the outside world, until the samskaras get illuminated, with further enlightenment. Then simply seen for what they are, these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, moving from impenetrable objects, to playthings. After the
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
I have to head for the hospital in a moment but I am curious. How do you experience inner versus outer? What is that like for you? If you replay I can read it later, if there is a later. From: fleetwood_macnche...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2014 3:47 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC It is an automatic process, Richard. The Self begins to witness in every moment, so that rather than having any attention, on giving up anything, it actually becomes impossible to be attached to anything. This can't be understood in the waking state. Once a person lives in freedom, a person can tackle any situation successfully. Life becomes as simple as we want it to be. Attachment is impossible, so even the most joyful and the most painful moments will pass. Contrary to what the rational mind may think, the witness capability, is not some sort of anesthetic. As Ann and I were discussing, life is so visceral, sensual and alive within itself, that even the witness revels in fullness. Everything is uncovered and seen for what it is. The inside and outside are balanced. Attachment, and its consequent delusion, are impossible, in a life lived in eternal freedom. No need whatsoever, to think about non-attachment. It is automatic, after awhile. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, punditster@... wrote : On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 7:11 PM, fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: As I mentioned, it becomes a matter of choice. Everything is now visible. It becomes a choice to entertain it or not. Any precepts become silly, like the earlier waking state discussion regarding anger. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : Richard, what feels right to me is the idea of roasted impressions. IOW, they are still in the field of individuality, but they no longer get activated because they are roasted. What do you think? According to Vaj, seeded meditation alone does not burn up old karmic impressions. In order to perform tapas and burn up your karma you must give up the notion of me and mine - in reality, we do not act at all - it is the accrued karma that acts - the three gunas born of nature that are doing the acting. We are just the witnesses of the karmic acts - then you begin to understand that you are only going to get as much enlightenment as you are going to get, due to your samskaras or karma. You then give up striving and just do karma yoga for the good of all.You cannot stop acting, but you can realize that the I is not really you true Self - you are the self - the sum total of all your acts since time began. When you realize that there is no person doing the acting, you are free relinquish ownership of your acts. When you give up the fruits of your actions you are then able to act in an unselfish way - you just go around doing good for others, your spouse and/or your family. On Tuesday, September 16, 2014 8:16 AM, Richard Williams punditster@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: fleetwood_macncheese: these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, According to Vaj, seeded meditation does not remove samskaras, let alone strong samskaras; it merely plants nicer seeds to (hopefully) drown out the weeds. http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg161585.html Samskaras are 'karma', or impressions left by karmic acts. Karma means action' in Sanskrit. In Buddhism, samskaras are mental and volitional formations, accumulated actions over many lives, and present actions as well; samskaras are conditioned phenomena; structures within the unconscious that are the basis for all worldly activities and future rebirth. In the enlightenment tradition, the endless round of becoming can be abolished through Yoga, that is, an adept of Yoga can burn up his karma through the practice of tapas, until the sum total of sankaras is zero. When that happens, the yogin is 'liberated' from samsara. There is no return. Reference: 'A Sanskrit-English Dictionary' Monier Monier-Williams On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 6:07 PM, fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: I was thinking more about Bhairitu's comment, and I googled 'samskara', and got back mental or emotional pattern. So, the CC Maharishi refers to, is a state of enlightenment, with samskaras mostly intact. This is why he describes it as a state of inner silence, the individual feels enlightened, but this is not reflected in his environment; CC. The silence, or light, or whatever one calls the universal motive force, cannot be reflected in the environment, the outside world, until the samskaras get illuminated, with further enlightenment. Then simply seen for what they
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
Xeno, as we all know, there is only the Eternal Now stretching infinitely into seeming past and seeming future (-: OTOH, hope all goes well in the hospital... On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 11:06 AM, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartax...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: I have to head for the hospital in a moment but I am curious. How do you experience inner versus outer? What is that like for you? If you replay I can read it later, if there is a later. From: fleetwood_macnche...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2014 3:47 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC It is an automatic process, Richard. The Self begins to witness in every moment, so that rather than having any attention, on giving up anything, it actually becomes impossible to be attached to anything. This can't be understood in the waking state. Once a person lives in freedom, a person can tackle any situation successfully. Life becomes as simple as we want it to be. Attachment is impossible, so even the most joyful and the most painful moments will pass. Contrary to what the rational mind may think, the witness capability, is not some sort of anesthetic. As Ann and I were discussing, life is so visceral, sensual and alive within itself, that even the witness revels in fullness. Everything is uncovered and seen for what it is. The inside and outside are balanced. Attachment, and its consequent delusion, are impossible, in a life lived in eternal freedom. No need whatsoever, to think about non-attachment. It is automatic, after awhile. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, punditster@... wrote : On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 7:11 PM, fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: As I mentioned, it becomes a matter of choice. Everything is now visible. It becomes a choice to entertain it or not. Any precepts become silly, like the earlier waking state discussion regarding anger. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : Richard, what feels right to me is the idea of roasted impressions. IOW, they are still in the field of individuality, but they no longer get activated because they are roasted. What do you think? According to Vaj, seeded meditation alone does not burn up old karmic impressions. In order to perform tapas and burn up your karma you must give up the notion of me and mine - in reality, we do not act at all - it is the accrued karma that acts - the three gunas born of nature that are doing the acting. We are just the witnesses of the karmic acts - then you begin to understand that you are only going to get as much enlightenment as you are going to get, due to your samskaras or karma. You then give up striving and just do karma yoga for the good of all.You cannot stop acting, but you can realize that the I is not really you true Self - you are the self - the sum total of all your acts since time began. When you realize that there is no person doing the acting, you are free relinquish ownership of your acts. When you give up the fruits of your actions you are then able to act in an unselfish way - you just go around doing good for others, your spouse and/or your family. On Tuesday, September 16, 2014 8:16 AM, Richard Williams punditster@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: fleetwood_macncheese: these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, According to Vaj, seeded meditation does not remove samskaras, let alone strong samskaras; it merely plants nicer seeds to (hopefully) drown out the weeds. http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg161585.html Samskaras are 'karma', or impressions left by karmic acts. Karma means action' in Sanskrit. In Buddhism, samskaras are mental and volitional formations, accumulated actions over many lives, and present actions as well; samskaras are conditioned phenomena; structures within the unconscious that are the basis for all worldly activities and future rebirth. In the enlightenment tradition, the endless round of becoming can be abolished through Yoga, that is, an adept of Yoga can burn up his karma through the practice of tapas, until the sum total of sankaras is zero. When that happens, the yogin is 'liberated' from samsara. There is no return. Reference: 'A Sanskrit-English Dictionary' Monier Monier-Williams On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 6:07 PM, fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: I was thinking more about Bhairitu's comment, and I googled 'samskara', and got back mental or emotional pattern. So, the CC Maharishi refers to, is a state of enlightenment, with samskaras mostly intact. This is why he describes it as a state of inner silence, the
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
Like. It sounds so simple that one wonders why Barry doesn't get it, even after reading a Sam Harris book. Go figure. On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 10:47 AM, fleetwood_macnche...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: It is an automatic process, Richard. The Self begins to witness in every moment, so that rather than having any attention, on giving up anything, it actually becomes impossible to be attached to anything. This can't be understood in the waking state. Once a person lives in freedom, a person can tackle any situation successfully. Life becomes as simple as we want it to be. Attachment is impossible, so even the most joyful and the most painful moments will pass. Contrary to what the rational mind may think, the witness capability, is not some sort of anesthetic. As Ann and I were discussing, life is so visceral, sensual and alive within itself, that even the witness revels in fullness. Everything is uncovered and seen for what it is. The inside and outside are balanced. Attachment, and its consequent delusion, are impossible, in a life lived in eternal freedom. No need whatsoever, to think about non-attachment. It is automatic, after awhile. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, punditster@... wrote : On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 7:11 PM, fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: As I mentioned, it becomes a matter of choice. Everything is now visible. It becomes a choice to entertain it or not. Any precepts become silly, like the earlier waking state discussion regarding anger. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : Richard, what feels right to me is the idea of roasted impressions. IOW, they are still in the field of individuality, but they no longer get activated because they are roasted. What do you think? *According to Vaj, seeded meditation alone does not burn up old karmic impressions. * *In order to perform tapas and burn up your karma you must give up the notion of me and mine - in reality, we do not act at all - it is the accrued karma that acts - the three gunas born of nature that are doing the acting. We are just the witnesses of the karmic acts - then you begin to understand that you are only going to get as much enlightenment as you are going to get, due to your samskaras or karma. * *You then give up striving and just do karma yoga for the good of all.You cannot stop acting, but you can realize that the I is not really you true Self - you are the self - the sum total of all your acts since time began.* *When you realize that there is no person doing the acting, you are free relinquish ownership of your acts. When you give up the fruits of your actions you are then able to act in an unselfish way - you just go around doing good for others, your spouse and/or your family. * On Tuesday, September 16, 2014 8:16 AM, Richard Williams punditster@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: fleetwood_macncheese: these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, *According to Vaj, seeded meditation does not remove samskaras, let alone strong samskaras; it merely plants nicer seeds to (hopefully) drown out the weeds.* *http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg161585.html* http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg161585.html *Samskaras are 'karma', or impressions left by karmic acts. Karma means action' in Sanskrit. In Buddhism, samskaras are mental and volitional formations, accumulated actions over many lives, and present actions as well; samskaras are conditioned phenomena; structures within the unconscious that are the basis for all worldly activities and future rebirth.* *In the enlightenment tradition, the endless round of becoming can be abolished through Yoga, that is, an adept of Yoga can burn up his karma through the practice of tapas, until the sum total of sankaras is zero. When that happens, the yogin is 'liberated' from samsara. There is no return.* *Reference:* *'A Sanskrit-English Dictionary'* *Monier Monier-Williams* On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 6:07 PM, fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: I was thinking more about Bhairitu's comment, and I googled 'samskara', and got back mental or emotional pattern. So, the CC Maharishi refers to, is a state of enlightenment, with samskaras mostly intact. This is why he describes it as a state of inner silence, the individual feels enlightened, but this is not reflected in his environment; CC. The silence, or light, or whatever one calls the universal motive force, cannot be reflected in the environment, the outside world, until the samskaras get illuminated, with further enlightenment. Then simply seen for what they are, these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, moving from impenetrable objects, to
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
My experience has been that I don't exist. It just seems that I go through the week as someone just doing something. And it's not weird at all. Like you say it may be a little difficult to fathom intellectually especially if some people have had few experiences even of transcending. It's just at some point you no longer come out of meditation and it's not spaciness either an issue that David Frawely has tackled in some of his writings about false enlightenment. Just do some grounding things and if the experience remains it isn't spaciness. On 09/17/2014 08:47 AM, fleetwood_macnche...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: It is an automatic process, Richard. The Self begins to witness in every moment, so that rather than having any attention, on giving up anything, it actually becomes impossible to be attached to anything. This can't be understood in the waking state. Once a person lives in freedom, a person can tackle any situation successfully. Life becomes as simple as we want it to be. Attachment is impossible, so even the most joyful and the most painful moments will pass. Contrary to what the rational mind may think, the witness capability, is not some sort of anesthetic. As Ann and I were discussing, life is so visceral, sensual and alive within itself, that even the witness revels in fullness. Everything is uncovered and seen for what it is. The inside and outside are balanced. Attachment, and its consequent delusion, are impossible, in a life lived in eternal freedom. No need whatsoever, to think about non-attachment. It is automatic, after awhile. -
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
I know! It is funny as hell to observe - seems so random, and fulfilling, and mysterious, and utterly mundane, all at the same time. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, noozguru@... wrote : My experience has been that I don't exist. It just seems that I go through the week as someone just doing something. And it's not weird at all. Like you say it may be a little difficult to fathom intellectually especially if some people have had few experiences even of transcending. It's just at some point you no longer come out of meditation and it's not spaciness either an issue that David Frawely has tackled in some of his writings about false enlightenment. Just do some grounding things and if the experience remains it isn't spaciness. On 09/17/2014 08:47 AM, fleetwood_macncheese@... mailto:fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: It is an automatic process, Richard. The Self begins to witness in every moment, so that rather than having any attention, on giving up anything, it actually becomes impossible to be attached to anything. This can't be understood in the waking state. Once a person lives in freedom, a person can tackle any situation successfully. Life becomes as simple as we want it to be. Attachment is impossible, so even the most joyful and the most painful moments will pass. Contrary to what the rational mind may think, the witness capability, is not some sort of anesthetic. As Ann and I were discussing, life is so visceral, sensual and alive within itself, that even the witness revels in fullness. Everything is uncovered and seen for what it is. The inside and outside are balanced. Attachment, and its consequent delusion, are impossible, in a life lived in eternal freedom. No need whatsoever, to think about non-attachment. It is automatic, after awhile. -
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
Reflection is inner, anything involving memory, inner. Outward engagement, social engagement, is outer. Probably the closest mix of the two is doing this writing, since I am acting and reflecting in about equal measure. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anartaxius@... wrote : I have to head for the hospital in a moment but I am curious. How do you experience inner versus outer? What is that like for you? If you replay I can read it later, if there is a later. From: fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2014 3:47 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC It is an automatic process, Richard. The Self begins to witness in every moment, so that rather than having any attention, on giving up anything, it actually becomes impossible to be attached to anything. This can't be understood in the waking state. Once a person lives in freedom, a person can tackle any situation successfully. Life becomes as simple as we want it to be. Attachment is impossible, so even the most joyful and the most painful moments will pass. Contrary to what the rational mind may think, the witness capability, is not some sort of anesthetic. As Ann and I were discussing, life is so visceral, sensual and alive within itself, that even the witness revels in fullness. Everything is uncovered and seen for what it is. The inside and outside are balanced. Attachment, and its consequent delusion, are impossible, in a life lived in eternal freedom. No need whatsoever, to think about non-attachment. It is automatic, after awhile. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, punditster@... wrote : On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 7:11 PM, fleetwood_macncheese@... mailto:fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: As I mentioned, it becomes a matter of choice. Everything is now visible. It becomes a choice to entertain it or not. Any precepts become silly, like the earlier waking state discussion regarding anger. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : Richard, what feels right to me is the idea of roasted impressions. IOW, they are still in the field of individuality, but they no longer get activated because they are roasted. What do you think? According to Vaj, seeded meditation alone does not burn up old karmic impressions. In order to perform tapas and burn up your karma you must give up the notion of me and mine - in reality, we do not act at all - it is the accrued karma that acts - the three gunas born of nature that are doing the acting. We are just the witnesses of the karmic acts - then you begin to understand that you are only going to get as much enlightenment as you are going to get, due to your samskaras or karma. You then give up striving and just do karma yoga for the good of all.You cannot stop acting, but you can realize that the I is not really you true Self - you are the self - the sum total of all your acts since time began. When you realize that there is no person doing the acting, you are free relinquish ownership of your acts. When you give up the fruits of your actions you are then able to act in an unselfish way - you just go around doing good for others, your spouse and/or your family. On Tuesday, September 16, 2014 8:16 AM, Richard Williams punditster@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: fleetwood_macncheese: these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, According to Vaj, seeded meditation does not remove samskaras, let alone strong samskaras; it merely plants nicer seeds to (hopefully) drown out the weeds. http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg161585.html http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg161585.html Samskaras are 'karma', or impressions left by karmic acts. Karma means action' in Sanskrit. In Buddhism, samskaras are mental and volitional formations, accumulated actions over many lives, and present actions as well; samskaras are conditioned phenomena; structures within the unconscious that are the basis for all worldly activities and future rebirth. In the enlightenment tradition, the endless round of becoming can be abolished through Yoga, that is, an adept of Yoga can burn up his karma through the practice of tapas, until the sum total of sankaras is zero. When that happens, the yogin is 'liberated' from samsara. There is no return. Reference: 'A Sanskrit-English Dictionary' Monier Monier-Williams On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 6:07 PM, fleetwood_macncheese@... mailto:fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote:
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 4:07 PM, fleetwood_macnche...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: I know! It is funny as hell to observe - seems so random, and fulfilling, and mysterious, and utterly mundane, all at the same time. *Karma is never random - it works on all levels just the way it's supposed to work. There are no chance events in the law of karma. You know it when you stub your toe - that there is a person who feels pain. That's the bottom line - who is exactly that feels the pain? When you hurt your foot, is it Barry that suffers? No.* ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, noozguru@... wrote : My experience has been that I don't exist. It just seems that I go through the week as someone just doing something. And it's not weird at all. Like you say it may be a little difficult to fathom intellectually especially if some people have had few experiences even of transcending. It's just at some point you no longer come out of meditation and it's not spaciness either an issue that David Frawely has tackled in some of his writings about false enlightenment. Just do some grounding things and if the experience remains it isn't spaciness. On 09/17/2014 08:47 AM, fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: It is an automatic process, Richard. The Self begins to witness in every moment, so that rather than having any attention, on giving up anything, it actually becomes impossible to be attached to anything. This can't be understood in the waking state. Once a person lives in freedom, a person can tackle any situation successfully. Life becomes as simple as we want it to be. Attachment is impossible, so even the most joyful and the most painful moments will pass. Contrary to what the rational mind may think, the witness capability, is not some sort of anesthetic. As Ann and I were discussing, life is so visceral, sensual and alive within itself, that even the witness revels in fullness. Everything is uncovered and seen for what it is. The inside and outside are balanced. Attachment, and its consequent delusion, are impossible, in a life lived in eternal freedom. No need whatsoever, to think about non-attachment. It is automatic, after awhile. -
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
fleetwood_macncheese: these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, *According to Vaj, seeded meditation does not remove samskaras, let alone strong samskaras; it merely plants nicer seeds to (hopefully) drown out the weeds.* *http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg161585.html* http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg161585.html *Samskaras are 'karma', or impressions left by karmic acts. Karma means action' in Sanskrit. In Buddhism, samskaras are mental and volitional formations, accumulated actions over many lives, and present actions as well; samskaras are conditioned phenomena; structures within the unconscious that are the basis for all worldly activities and future rebirth.* *In the enlightenment tradition, the endless round of becoming can be abolished through Yoga, that is, an adept of Yoga can burn up his karma through the practice of tapas, until the sum total of sankaras is zero. When that happens, the yogin is 'liberated' from samsara. There is no return.* *Reference:* *'A Sanskrit-English Dictionary'* *Monier Monier-Williams* On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 6:07 PM, fleetwood_macnche...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: I was thinking more about Bhairitu's comment, and I googled 'samskara', and got back mental or emotional pattern. So, the CC Maharishi refers to, is a state of enlightenment, with samskaras mostly intact. This is why he describes it as a state of inner silence, the individual feels enlightened, but this is not reflected in his environment; CC. The silence, or light, or whatever one calls the universal motive force, cannot be reflected in the environment, the outside world, until the samskaras get illuminated, with further enlightenment. Then simply seen for what they are, these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, moving from impenetrable objects, to playthings. After the samskaras begin to get transparent, the silence or light appears to subjectively imbue and penetrate every experience, inside and out - the outside world is now enlightened, to a degree - oneness predominates, UC. A bigger state of enlightenment; the universal motive force is felt and seen everywhere, governing everything -
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
Richard, what feels right to me is the idea of roasted impressions. IOW, they are still in the field of individuality, but they no longer get activated because they are roasted. What do you think? On Tuesday, September 16, 2014 8:16 AM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: fleetwood_macncheese: these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, According to Vaj, seeded meditation does not remove samskaras, let alone strong samskaras; it merely plants nicer seeds to (hopefully) drown out the weeds. http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg161585.html Samskaras are 'karma', or impressions left by karmic acts. Karma means action' in Sanskrit. In Buddhism, samskaras are mental and volitional formations, accumulated actions over many lives, and present actions as well; samskaras are conditioned phenomena; structures within the unconscious that are the basis for all worldly activities and future rebirth. In the enlightenment tradition, the endless round of becoming can be abolished through Yoga, that is, an adept of Yoga can burn up his karma through the practice of tapas, until the sum total of sankaras is zero. When that happens, the yogin is 'liberated' from samsara. There is no return. Reference: 'A Sanskrit-English Dictionary' Monier Monier-Williams On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 6:07 PM, fleetwood_macnche...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: I was thinking more about Bhairitu's comment, and I googled 'samskara', and got back mental or emotional pattern. So, the CC Maharishi refers to, is a state of enlightenment, with samskaras mostly intact. This is why he describes it as a state of inner silence, the individual feels enlightened, but this is not reflected in his environment; CC. The silence, or light, or whatever one calls the universal motive force, cannot be reflected in the environment, the outside world, until the samskaras get illuminated, with further enlightenment. Then simply seen for what they are, these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, moving from impenetrable objects, to playthings. After the samskaras begin to get transparent, the silence or light appears to subjectively imbue and penetrate every experience, inside and out - the outside world is now enlightened, to a degree - oneness predominates, UC. A bigger state of enlightenment; the universal motive force is felt and seen everywhere, governing everything -
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
As I mentioned, it becomes a matter of choice. Everything is now visible. It becomes a choice to entertain it or not. Any precepts become silly, like the earlier waking state discussion regarding anger. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : Richard, what feels right to me is the idea of roasted impressions. IOW, they are still in the field of individuality, but they no longer get activated because they are roasted. What do you think? On Tuesday, September 16, 2014 8:16 AM, Richard Williams punditster@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: fleetwood_macncheese: these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, According to Vaj, seeded meditation does not remove samskaras, let alone strong samskaras; it merely plants nicer seeds to (hopefully) drown out the weeds. http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg161585.html http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg161585.html Samskaras are 'karma', or impressions left by karmic acts. Karma means action' in Sanskrit. In Buddhism, samskaras are mental and volitional formations, accumulated actions over many lives, and present actions as well; samskaras are conditioned phenomena; structures within the unconscious that are the basis for all worldly activities and future rebirth. In the enlightenment tradition, the endless round of becoming can be abolished through Yoga, that is, an adept of Yoga can burn up his karma through the practice of tapas, until the sum total of sankaras is zero. When that happens, the yogin is 'liberated' from samsara. There is no return. Reference: 'A Sanskrit-English Dictionary' Monier Monier-Williams On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 6:07 PM, fleetwood_macncheese@... mailto:fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: I was thinking more about Bhairitu's comment, and I googled 'samskara', and got back mental or emotional pattern. So, the CC Maharishi refers to, is a state of enlightenment, with samskaras mostly intact. This is why he describes it as a state of inner silence, the individual feels enlightened, but this is not reflected in his environment; CC. The silence, or light, or whatever one calls the universal motive force, cannot be reflected in the environment, the outside world, until the samskaras get illuminated, with further enlightenment. Then simply seen for what they are, these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, moving from impenetrable objects, to playthings. After the samskaras begin to get transparent, the silence or light appears to subjectively imbue and penetrate every experience, inside and out - the outside world is now enlightened, to a degree - oneness predominates, UC. A bigger state of enlightenment; the universal motive force is felt and seen everywhere, governing everything -
[FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
I was thinking more about Bhairitu's comment, and I googled 'samskara', and got back mental or emotional pattern. So, the CC Maharishi refers to, is a state of enlightenment, with samskaras mostly intact. This is why he describes it as a state of inner silence, the individual feels enlightened, but this is not reflected in his environment; CC. The silence, or light, or whatever one calls the universal motive force, cannot be reflected in the environment, the outside world, until the samskaras get illuminated, with further enlightenment. Then simply seen for what they are, these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, moving from impenetrable objects, to playthings. After the samskaras begin to get transparent, the silence or light appears to subjectively imbue and penetrate every experience, inside and out - the outside world is now enlightened, to a degree - oneness predominates, UC. A bigger state of enlightenment; the universal motive force is felt and seen everywhere, governing everything -
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
Samskaras are defined as impressions. They are the impressions that make up your personality. There will some from your experiences during this lifetime and many believe there are also samskaras from prior lifetimes. It is believed that bad samskaras can be dissolved through sadhana. This is why saints who are believed to be enlightened don't necessarily behave the same. And even them some of are putting on the show. On 09/15/2014 04:07 PM, fleetwood_macnche...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: I was thinking more about Bhairitu's comment, and I googled 'samskara', and got back mental or emotional pattern. So, the CC Maharishi refers to, is a state of enlightenment, with samskaras mostly intact. This is why he describes it as a state of inner silence, the individual feels enlightened, but this is not reflected in his environment; CC. The silence, or light, or whatever one calls the universal motive force, cannot be reflected in the environment, the outside world, until the samskaras get illuminated, with further enlightenment. Then simply seen for what they are, these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, moving from impenetrable objects, to playthings. After the samskaras begin to get transparent, the silence or light appears to subjectively imbue and penetrate every experience, inside and out - the outside world is now enlightened, to a degree - oneness predominates, UC. A bigger state of enlightenment; the universal motive force is felt and seen everywhere, governing everything -
Re: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC
From: fleetwood_macnche...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, September 15, 2014 11:07 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] thoughts on samskaras and enlightenment - CC to UC I was thinking more about Bhairitu's comment, and I googled 'samskara', and got back mental or emotional pattern. So, the CC Maharishi refers to, is a state of enlightenment, with samskaras mostly intact. This is why he describes it as a state of inner silence, the individual feels enlightened, but this is not reflected in his environment; CC. The silence, or light, or whatever one calls the universal motive force, cannot be reflected in the environment, the outside world, until the samskaras get illuminated, with further enlightenment. Then simply seen for what they are, these mental and emotional patterns, their solidity begins to dissolve, moving from impenetrable objects, to playthings. After the samskaras begin to get transparent, the silence or light appears to subjectively imbue and penetrate every experience, inside and out - the outside world is now enlightened, to a degree - oneness predominates, UC. A bigger state of enlightenment; the universal motive force is felt and seen everywhere, governing everything - If this is your experience, I am not going to complain about it excessively but attempting to poke holes in a person's expression of enlightenment gives the opportunity to patch the holes. Maybe, contrary to your inclination, you should teach or talk about it more, but on FFL it is likely to be unproductive. To be productive a person has to approach you with a certain interest in the subject, but here on FFL, we (including you) seem to think we know everything even though we have wide disagreement. I think you tend to be too reactive to negative comments about your alleged state. I say alleged because I simply cannot tell by reading a bit of text whether someone is enlightened. I can kinda guess, but that is not particularly accurate. I do have an acquaintance who I think has had a strong awakening experience, but I cannot tell how it has matured or even faded. I am not unfulfilled as per your observation. Be careful how much you project on others. When you teach others (not necessarily about enlightenment) you discover things you take for granted simply have no reality for them, and you discover your mode of expression also may simply not work, and you have to adjust the way and pace of what you say to get them to understand more clearly. You are kind of like a bull in a china shop, to use a cliché, that is, your manner tends to be brusk._._,___
