Secular Buddhism

[BigMoaner]

someone mentioned earlier any physiology changes noticed through meditation, i listed some but i also noticed last night laying in bed that all the tension went from my eyes a year or so into starting meditation. i would have this permanant sort of intense scowl as i navigated one ball ache to the next. sort of hyper focus. it went and it's never come back. less frowning. no tension in neck. no rigid and tight sense of self behind the eyes (though a sense of self is still of coure there). i used to rub my eyes all the time, they seemed sore with tension. all went. but only yesterday, 9 years on, that i noticed that it' was one of the first things to change.

of course it could be anything that's changed that, but i suspect meditation is the cause.

 

[Yu_Gi_Oh]

I've just begun a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course (the one designed by Jon Kabat-Zinn) in the hope of getting my practice back on track. It's eight 3 hour sessions, plus daily meditation homework, plus a seven hour "retreat" at the end. The first meeting was today and it was lovely. Feel tremendously grateful to be able to do this.

 

[ska invita]

someone mentioned earlier any physiology changes noticed through meditation, i listed some but i also noticed last night laying in bed that all the tension went from my eyes a year or so into starting meditation. i would have this permanant sort of intense scowl as i navigated one ball ache to the next. sort of hyper focus. it went and it's never come back. less frowning. no tension in neck. no rigid and tight sense of self behind the eyes (though a sense of self is still of coure there). i used to rub my eyes all the time, they seemed sore with tension. all went. but only yesterday, 9 years on, that i noticed that it' was one of the first things to change.

of course it could be anything that's changed that, but i suspect meditation is the cause.

eye socket massage is a thing (btw) ... eye socket tension is real

 

[BigMoaner]

what did you forget alan watts is one of the greats. no one said it clearer in western zen/buddhism

 

[BigMoaner]

he sounds so certain. he speaks from experience in my belief. not from opinion, or thought, but experience.

 

[BigMoaner]

when i hear him speak, it always strikes me, what with his vocab and his way of speaking, that we won't get public intellectuals like him again. they died with the internet. i'm not sure how. i think it's because he was performing to such small audiances, it was more from the heart, he took more risks, he let language explorer fundemental matters without worrying about likes or followers.

 

[BigMoaner]

i listen to this now and then

 

[lefteri]

I've just begun a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course (the one designed by Jon Kabat-Zinn) in the hope of getting my practice back on track. It's eight 3 hour sessions, plus daily meditation homework, plus a seven hour "retreat" at the end. The first meeting was today and it was lovely. Feel tremendously grateful to be able to do this.

i did that a while back, i got a lot out of it - the book ‘full catastrophe living’ that goes with it is very good too

 

[Yu_Gi_Oh]

i did that a while back, i got a lot out of it - the book ‘full catastrophe living’ that goes with it is very good too

I will get a copy of the book, thanks.

I feel a bit fraudulent at the group because everyone else is totally new to mindfulness and I have had some form of practice for about four years, and used to do it every day, sometimes twice.

I'm a bit about having to meditate every day during the course but I guess this is exactly why I've signed up. Nothing else is getting me to sit.

 

[han]

he sounds so certain. he speaks from experience in my belief. not from opinion, or thought, but experience.

Wow. I love this....and it really rings true to me.
But. It doesn't really allow for anyone who needs to process and let go of trauma. Does it?

 

[8ball]

he sounds so certain. he speaks from experience in my belief. not from opinion, or thought, but experience.

Certainty can ring alarm bells.

 

[Pickman's model]

Certainty can ring alarm bells.

So can campanologists

 

[BigMoaner]

Wow. I love this....and it really rings true to me.
But. It doesn't really allow for anyone who needs to process and let go of trauma. Does it?

No, not at all. It's metaphysics rather than therapy.

 

[BigMoaner]

But it can help I guess

 

[BigMoaner]

Attach to hard to it and can spend lifetime "trying to be present". But you can't help be present. Everything is present. Even the wandering mind.

 

[8ball]

Attach to hard to it and can spend lifetime "trying to be present". But you can't help be present. Everything is present. Even the wandering mind.

That’s going to save me a lot of meditation time.

 

[han]

Attach to hard to it and can spend lifetime "trying to be present". But you can't help be present. Everything is present. Even the wandering mind.

Aha!

 

[BigMoaner]

That’s going to save me a lot of meditation time.

I think with meditation it just enters naturally in every day life eventually. No need to try to be present etc.

 

[BigMoaner]

Although of course if it helps it helps!

 

[BigMoaner]

I've had to practice being present recently after a few bust ups with my folks that set me back emotionally real bad. Nothing major, we all just blew up a bit and I hated myself for reacting.

 

[BigMoaner]

On the present moment, and I like writing about these things as I am not a part of a Sangha or anything. in my experience (stress on my, everyone is different init), instead of trying "to be present" (as if the present moment was some sort of track you have to get on, where in reality everythign is present, even thoughts of the past/future (which we need for evolution!)), there is what they call in hindiusm i think "self remembering" - in other words there is a remembering to be present, rather than a trying to be present. so i'll be waiting at hte bus stop, lost in thought, heading inch by inch towards some neurotic grinding of mind, and then the remembering of present moment awareness takes over. A connection, ever at hand and ever waiting, with the unnamable, the void out of which everything comes. Self as the eternal now, no form or shape, beyond space and time, beyond concepts, beyond words and thoughts, no self, no dooer, no causality. "You can't catch hold of it, nor can you let go of it. In not being able to get it, you get it. When you speak, it's silent, when you're silent, it speaks". This is not even spiritual - it's what Zen calls seeing your true face, i.e. what you were before you born. Many masters get their students to practice meditation until it becomes exhausting - so they finally see there is no method. There is no method. So if there is no method, what then? If there is no way to resolve the fundemental existential pain of existance, if there is nothing to get rid of it - there's a giving up - the practice becomes a no practice. the method of no method. non trying. but trying not to try is also trying! so it's living with the paradox.

that's why a lot of people who have been meditating for decades say they do it out of simple pleasure, because they know deep within that there is no method. this is it. and that the practice can become the suffering (i.e. they desire enlightenment, and we all know hwat buddha says about desire). They've died to it and new things have started happening.

 

[BigMoaner]

"enlightenment is accidental, but meditation makes you accident prone!"

which is prob while i'll be sitting for the rest of my damn life

 

[BigMoaner]

another beaut. he's so much better than the droning youtube buddhism videos.

 

[8ball]

Something a bit more urbanz:

 

[BigMoaner]

utterly beautiful from JDK. he had a lovely way with words when he wanted to

 

[BigMoaner]

Something a bit more urbanz:

strange/sad/confusing that he was a chaotic alcoholic. affairs. multiple wives etc. but there is so much wonder in his work.

 

[danski]

strange/sad/confusing that he was a chaotic alcoholic. affairs. multiple wives etc. but there is so much wonder in his work.

Not so strange perhaps. It’s like you’ve more or less said; without that which you are not, that which you are, is not.
Trite maybe but it helps ground me.

 

[BigMoaner]

Not so strange perhaps. It’s like you’ve more or less said; without that which you are not, that which you are, is not.
Trite maybe but it helps ground me.

And frees up so much rigid thinking and feeling.

 

[danski]

And frees up so much rigid thinking and feeling.

Aaand that’s me. Rigid thinking.
tbf, I am really making an effort right now and with this thread and the Alan Watts talks, among other things, I’m feeling the benefit.

Big thanks all xx

 

[BigMoaner]

Aaand that’s me. Rigid thinking.
tbf, I am really making an effort right now and with this thread and the Alan Watts talks, among other things, I’m feeling the benefit.

I've listened to and read so much over the years and he still comes out on top. He knew East and Western thought and psychotherapy like the back of his hand so when he speaks, I listen. I am suspect of people who haven't given this deep thought and compared it with other modes of thinking/philosophy. Someone like watts, beliefs are formed after a process of trial and error and compare contrast. Time is precious and its good to be skeptical of this stuff. But I trust him. Does it make a difference that he knew art, the western and Eastern philosophical cannon, literature like the back of his hand. Yes, to me massively so.