I've been quiet for a while, but reading and enjoying the conversations of recent days. I need to repair my commitment (again). Sigh. I disappoint myself (again). Back onto the cushion.
I ran across this quote today and, as one who tends to struggle with my thinking during meditation, it stopped me cold: "When you are practicing zazen, do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something come into your mind, let it come in, and let it go out. It will not stay long. When you try to stop your thinking, it means you are bothered by it. Do not be bothered by anything." --Shunryu Suzuki Roshi I think I'm afraid that if I let a thought go, it will stay and stay and lead to other thoughts.
Feeling a little unsettled this morning. Could you tell? ;-)
Hello everyone! Long time no comment from me but I'm here and have been doing *something* towards my commitment most days (but not all). Commitment repair in place again. Been having craniosacral therapy for the headaches and have found this really effective. As part of the treatment I am doing a daily (last thing at night) five minute breath awareness and breathing into every part of the body which is deeply relaxing. Keeping on with the ten minute session at the end of the twice-weekly yoga class. Bought a cd of meditating (through sound) and that is helping me to establish a regular 20 minute daily session as I find the track lengths helpful in knowing how much I'm doing. So all in all I'm moving (albeit erratically) towards becoming a meditative woman :) Anna.
sounds gorgeous jude, just the words 'bush at dusk' make me feel calmer.
beth it is far from quiet - thousands of disappointed emails and fan letters for J, plus his birthday lunch but I found ten minutes after my run.
I am observing how i am beginning to observe sounds = listen to them move towards away from and around me. this has been quite a challenge and I wonder if thoughts are just the same...not 'mine', just to watch them come and go...?
bravo for finding the time devon. It's so easy no to!
Yes, thoughts are just like the sounds and sights and smells -- they just come and go, and it's not a problem; you don't have to try to make them go away. (And you can't, anyway; trying to do so usually just gets you more tangled up in thoughts.)
But there's a big difference between watching a thought arise and disappear and being carried away by it. That's why we ordinarily have an "object of meditation," such as the breath, or a mantra, or whatever -- so you can tell the difference. When you realize that the object of meditation has vanished from your awareness, you know that you've been carried away.
It's perfectly possible to meditate without an object, once you've learned to recognize the difference. After a while I came to feel the difference almost as a physical sensation -- like the difference between a loosely opened hand and a closed fist. But of course when I started off it was just all a confusing whirl of stuff; it takes some time to get the hang of watching the mind. & I still find it easier to use an object, most of the time. But it's interesting to try it without one.
Hello everyone, thank you for your comments yesterday. It's been a bit of a whirl but I am in the process of perhaps breaking up with the Science Professor, at least I think I am. Last week I was falling in love; this week I am running away. Could be a pattern.
It is my belief that you should endeavour to leave someone in better shape than you found them. Doesn't matter who leaves who. I hope I leave him more trusting and believing in his ability to love and be loved.
I couldn't deal with the age issue, and deep down, I don't believe he could either.
But neither do I seek to "be alone," so we'll see what transpires with him, or whoever else appears.
Too much love in my heart to keep it all to myself... :)
MB, & Dale, thoughts, yes, they come and go, so do emotions, bodily sensations, everything pretty much. We're just a nexus of energies, a grand central station of possiblities, a motion of multiple trajectories.
I use a simple mantra which I focussed on so adamantly the first few years; now I barely hear it. It helped to keep the very busy mind occupied so I could hear the silence.
To switch topics, yesterday I mentioned a way of talking about the ego in a post. For Freud, the ego was actually the skin itself. How we view ourselves and how we're viewed. Our perceptions of how we're perceived by others, by 'the world.' Our ego is our self-perception, then. Our self-image. How we see ourselves.
It was a most interesting exercise to consider moments when 'flow' occurs because I realized I couldn't remember what happened between effort and effortlessness and thought perhaps it was an 'ego-less' moment, not remembered because out of the range of the self-image.
jude - I consider knitting a form of meditation also ...like meditation, it calms the monkey down … in the quiet, repetitive, hypnotic rhythms of the knitting needles
brenda - I share your 'falling in love/running away' pattern. Your ego question is too much for me to deal with right now, but the love/run thing is deeply connected to my father ... I was married three times and had numerous lovers ... and dammit, I still couldn't find him/make him love me.
mb and ruth – here’s another famous quote from Suzuki Roshi:
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few.
A few years ago, I had the good fortune to participate in a three-month retreat with Jakusho Kwong Roshi at Sonoma Mountain in California. He is a Dharma successor to Suzuki’s Roshi’s lineage. That's a piece of his calligraphy on my blogspot. There is a stupa in Suzuki Roshi's memory in the woods. You can see pictures here if you’re interested.
http://www.smzc.net
I’ve pasted this quotation on the mirror in my bathroom. It’s from Jane LaFazio, a San Diego artist.
"What I do today is important because I am paying a day of my life for it. What I accomplish must be worthwhile because the price is high."
:-) The lama at my center refuses to use the word "ego" at all, because it means too many different things to different people. (& some of them are very pejorative things indeed!) I think he's wise in that.
There's "ego" in a Freudian sense, meaning something like "self-concept" -- that's a thing that you can shift somewhat just by rethinking it, without ever leaving the conceptual realm.
Then there's "ego" in the sense of a character defect, roughly equivalent to "conceit" -- someone has a lot of "ego" if they're full of themselves.
Buddhists use the word, too, to translate a couple concepts that I think are quite different from either of those, though of course they overlap. One of them is "ego" in a sense sort of similar to Freud's -- my ego is the various things that I identify with. Like being prudent or uninhibited, or liberal or conservative, or a person who likes fish and chips or a person who hates fish and chips. We could all rattle off a list of things as long as your arm, without pausing for breath, of qualities we associate with ourselves. Internet "memes" and quizzes are mostly designed to get people to produce versions of their lists.
But there's another Buddhist "ego" which is under the conceptual level, which you can't even touch by thinking about it, and that's the sense of self in a very primitive, fundamental sense -- virtually any sentient being has this sense -- the sense of being distinct from our environment, and distinct from other sentient beings. This "ego" of course is the foundation of ego in all the other senses, and Buddhist practice is virtually all directed ultimately at undoing it -- it's thought of as the original confusion, the confusion from which all other confusion arises.
This ego can only be undone by experiencing its falsity. You can think about it all day, and declare that you don't believe in it as vehemently as you like, without ruffling its feathers a bit. Meditation is a way of inducing the experience of its falsity.
Er... how did I get up behind this lectern? Speaking of ego... :-)
Hello all. Devon, Jude, Anna. Welcome again. Anna - very pleased to know the cranio-sacral work has been helpful.
I have been sitting regularly, chanting + meditation. Very helpful comments, thank you all, re the inevitability of thoughts coming and going. It takes so much pressure off to know I don't have to fight the thoughts when they arise. And I'm another meditative knitter too ... :-)
Relationships. Much on my mind at the moment as well ... I'm having to learn to let someone I'm involved with be who they are, and relax and enjoy that, without trying to control outcomes all the time. And to try and refrain from judgmentalism and to keep an open heart even if that means I may get hurt ... No choice really, I know from experience that the pain of a closed heart is worse. And I am finding that a meditative stance, not just when I'm practising but throughout the day, is very helpful for this. So, thank you all for the encouragement to keep going.
I'm not an authority of any sort on ego, except perhaps my own. ;-) I mean, I could speak about Freud but Dale's already done that, and I'm not interested to. But I can say that my most joyful moments are when I leave that "me" behind -- that string of experiences and thoughts and emotions that I think of as "me" -- and immerse myself in the experience. For me, this does not involve conscious letting go, but rather reaching forward, relaxing, opening, entering into something greater. I can't put it into words. Nor can I control it completely, although I've noticed there is a predispositional mindset. But I can't fully control that either. Love has a lot to do with it, though.
Which somehow seems related to the very real and lovely things Mary spoke of in her last paragraph above.
11 Comments:
I've been quiet for a while, but reading and enjoying the conversations of recent days. I need to repair my commitment (again). Sigh. I disappoint myself (again). Back onto the cushion.
I ran across this quote today and, as one who tends to struggle with my thinking during meditation, it stopped me cold:
"When you are practicing zazen, do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something come into your mind, let it come in, and let it go out. It will not stay long. When you try to stop your thinking, it means you are bothered by it. Do not be bothered by anything."
--Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
I think I'm afraid that if I let a thought go, it will stay and stay and lead to other thoughts.
Feeling a little unsettled this morning. Could you tell? ;-)
MB, I love Suzuki Roshi's simple, totally to-the-point comments on practice - they've been so helpful to me. Thanks for reminding me.
Devon, keeping you in my thoughts. best wishes with everything you're dealing with.
You too, Brenda!!
Ruth, today must feel really quiet! Good for you for finding a space in the vines yesterday.
Hello everyone!
Long time no comment from me but I'm here and have been doing *something* towards my commitment most days (but not all). Commitment repair in place again. Been having craniosacral therapy for the headaches and have found this really effective. As part of the treatment I am doing a daily (last thing at night) five minute breath awareness and breathing into every part of the body which is deeply relaxing. Keeping on with the ten minute session at the end of the twice-weekly yoga class. Bought a cd of meditating (through sound) and that is helping me to establish a regular 20 minute daily session as I find the track lengths helpful in knowing how much I'm doing. So all in all I'm moving (albeit erratically) towards becoming a meditative woman :)
Anna.
beautiful quote mb. thank you.
sounds gorgeous jude, just the words 'bush at dusk' make me feel calmer.
beth it is far from quiet - thousands of disappointed emails and fan letters for J, plus his birthday lunch but I found ten minutes after my run.
I am observing how i am beginning to observe sounds = listen to them move towards away from and around me. this has been quite a challenge and I wonder if thoughts are just the same...not 'mine', just to watch them come and go...?
bravo for finding the time devon. It's so easy no to!
happy weekend all
Hi All
Hey, glad to see you back, Jude & Anna & Devon!
Yes, thoughts are just like the sounds and sights and smells -- they just come and go, and it's not a problem; you don't have to try to make them go away. (And you can't, anyway; trying to do so usually just gets you more tangled up in thoughts.)
But there's a big difference between watching a thought arise and disappear and being carried away by it. That's why we ordinarily have an "object of meditation," such as the breath, or a mantra, or whatever -- so you can tell the difference. When you realize that the object of meditation has vanished from your awareness, you know that you've been carried away.
It's perfectly possible to meditate without an object, once you've learned to recognize the difference. After a while I came to feel the difference almost as a physical sensation -- like the difference between a loosely opened hand and a closed fist. But of course when I started off it was just all a confusing whirl of stuff; it takes some time to get the hang of watching the mind. & I still find it easier to use an object, most of the time. But it's interesting to try it without one.
Ruth, what's your book?
Hello everyone, thank you for your comments yesterday. It's been a bit of a whirl but I am in the process of perhaps breaking up with the Science Professor, at least I think I am. Last week I was falling in love; this week I am running away. Could be a pattern.
It is my belief that you should endeavour to leave someone in better shape than you found them. Doesn't matter who leaves who. I hope I leave him more trusting and believing in his ability to love and be loved.
I couldn't deal with the age issue, and deep down, I don't believe he could either.
But neither do I seek to "be alone," so we'll see what transpires with him, or whoever else appears.
Too much love in my heart to keep it all to myself... :)
MB, & Dale, thoughts, yes, they come and go, so do emotions, bodily sensations, everything pretty much. We're just a nexus of energies, a grand central station of possiblities, a motion of multiple trajectories.
I use a simple mantra which I focussed on so adamantly the first few years; now I barely hear it. It helped to keep the very busy mind occupied so I could hear the silence.
To switch topics, yesterday I mentioned a way of talking about the ego in a post. For Freud, the ego was actually the skin itself. How we view ourselves and how we're viewed. Our perceptions of how we're perceived by others, by 'the world.' Our ego is our self-perception, then. Our self-image. How we see ourselves.
It was a most interesting exercise to consider moments when 'flow' occurs because I realized I couldn't remember what happened between effort and effortlessness and thought perhaps it was an 'ego-less' moment, not remembered because out of the range of the self-image.
What are your takes on this?
What is the ego?
jude - I consider knitting a form of meditation also ...like meditation, it calms the monkey down … in the quiet, repetitive, hypnotic rhythms of the knitting needles
brenda - I share your 'falling in love/running away' pattern. Your ego question is too much for me to deal with right now, but the love/run thing is deeply connected to my father ... I was married three times and had numerous lovers ... and dammit, I still couldn't find him/make him love me.
mb and ruth – here’s another famous quote from Suzuki Roshi:
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few.
A few years ago, I had the good fortune to participate in a three-month retreat with Jakusho Kwong Roshi at Sonoma Mountain in California. He is a Dharma successor to Suzuki’s Roshi’s lineage. That's a piece of his calligraphy on my blogspot. There is a stupa in Suzuki Roshi's memory in the woods. You can see pictures here if you’re interested.
http://www.smzc.net
I’ve pasted this quotation on the mirror in my bathroom. It’s from Jane LaFazio, a San Diego artist.
"What I do today is important because I am paying a day of my life for it. What I accomplish must be worthwhile because the price is high."
:-) The lama at my center refuses to use the word "ego" at all, because it means too many different things to different people. (& some of them are very pejorative things indeed!) I think he's wise in that.
There's "ego" in a Freudian sense, meaning something like "self-concept" -- that's a thing that you can shift somewhat just by rethinking it, without ever leaving the conceptual realm.
Then there's "ego" in the sense of a character defect, roughly equivalent to "conceit" -- someone has a lot of "ego" if they're full of themselves.
Buddhists use the word, too, to translate a couple concepts that I think are quite different from either of those, though of course they overlap. One of them is "ego" in a sense sort of similar to Freud's -- my ego is the various things that I identify with. Like being prudent or uninhibited, or liberal or conservative, or a person who likes fish and chips or a person who hates fish and chips. We could all rattle off a list of things as long as your arm, without pausing for breath, of qualities we associate with ourselves. Internet "memes" and quizzes are mostly designed to get people to produce versions of their lists.
But there's another Buddhist "ego" which is under the conceptual level, which you can't even touch by thinking about it, and that's the sense of self in a very primitive, fundamental sense -- virtually any sentient being has this sense -- the sense of being distinct from our environment, and distinct from other sentient beings. This "ego" of course is the foundation of ego in all the other senses, and Buddhist practice is virtually all directed ultimately at undoing it -- it's thought of as the original confusion, the confusion from which all other confusion arises.
This ego can only be undone by experiencing its falsity. You can think about it all day, and declare that you don't believe in it as vehemently as you like, without ruffling its feathers a bit. Meditation is a way of inducing the experience of its falsity.
Er... how did I get up behind this lectern? Speaking of ego... :-)
Hello all.
Devon, Jude, Anna. Welcome again. Anna - very pleased to know the cranio-sacral work has been helpful.
I have been sitting regularly, chanting + meditation. Very helpful comments, thank you all, re the inevitability of thoughts coming and going. It takes so much pressure off to know I don't have to fight the thoughts when they arise. And I'm another meditative knitter too ... :-)
Relationships. Much on my mind at the moment as well ... I'm having to learn to let someone I'm involved with be who they are, and relax and enjoy that, without trying to control outcomes all the time. And to try and refrain from judgmentalism and to keep an open heart even if that means I may get hurt ... No choice really, I know from experience that the pain of a closed heart is worse. And I am finding that a meditative stance, not just when I'm practising but throughout the day, is very helpful for this. So, thank you all for the encouragement to keep going.
I'm not an authority of any sort on ego, except perhaps my own. ;-) I mean, I could speak about Freud but Dale's already done that, and I'm not interested to. But I can say that my most joyful moments are when I leave that "me" behind -- that string of experiences and thoughts and emotions that I think of as "me" -- and immerse myself in the experience. For me, this does not involve conscious letting go, but rather reaching forward, relaxing, opening, entering into something greater. I can't put it into words. Nor can I control it completely, although I've noticed there is a predispositional mindset. But I can't fully control that either. Love has a lot to do with it, though.
Which somehow seems related to the very real and lovely things Mary spoke of in her last paragraph above.
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