So those are my thoughts on the four important ideas behind what I think makes for happy, enlightened living.
None of them is easy to do and they all interact with each other in different ways - sometimes they help each other and sometimes they hinder each other.
There seems to be no doubt to me that putting the mental effort in to behaving in line with each of these ideas is worthwhile effort and makes me a better person along with making me feel better too, but it is a long slow road to improvement. It is particularly hard to try to balance these ideas in the "real time" world, and it seems to me that this is the real challenge.
But this challenge is also the solution. It seems that the biggest trick of all is to do all these things automatically without thinking, and this is happening more and more for me (although it is still a very long road with many ups and downs that I see ahead of me).
Rather than "thinking" about these ideas, they seem to all stem from the same place inside and its like a "life outlook" that drives these ideas. Its not driven by a "God" that I recognize (although I'm sure it would be easier if it was) but it is down inside in the same space somewhere.
I have no idea if that long series of posts means anything to anyone else, but it just seemed like I should write it down.... So there it is!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
A bit more on Caring
CARING
Over the years, I have met the occasional person with the ability to stay largely in the present and they display remarkable objectivity and simplicity and are unperturbed by other peoples opinions or external actions of almost any sort etc.
However, I have to say that these same people almost always have the ability to be incredibly inconsiderate and self-centred at times and that seems far from enlightened to me! I think it comes from the same source in that they just "don't mind" what other people think and they keep doing what ever it is they feel like. They truly just don't care... but I think in many cases they have unfortunately just "thrown the baby out with the bath water"...
I believe it is fine to be independent and not care at all about other peoples thoughts or opinions about ones self. However I also believe that it is a fundamental moral principal to care about other people - all other people (and animals and plants and rocks and dirt for that matter) . Its called Compassion and essentially its about respect!But I simply don't care about that other person, and what they are doing is wrong anyway!
Well, that just doesn't cut it!It may well be that that person has absolutely nothing to do with your life and you may not ever see them again. It may also be that what they are doing or thinking is pointless from your perspective or wrong or possibly even downright destructive to other people animals, plants, things etc...
I believe that we still have to respect them in a certain way!
I know that sounds hard to swallow but what I'm talking about is not the persons behaviors or their ideas, but more about their "inner humanity". Its like that idea that "all people are created equal". Clearly, on the outside, people are anything but equal, but it is without doubt a huge step forward in society when we agree that there is something deep and sacred in every person. - Magnacarta for the British, and the Constitution for the States etc... These all come from the same idea and it is a truly "Great" idea!
For myself, I believe that it goes way past just applying to people and in fact applies to absolutely everything (particularly things that have not been changed by human activities), right down to rocks. I know in the past that I have asked my fellow hikers not to move rocks around for their tent placements when we are in a very remote and "pristine" natural place, and I know some of my friends are very careful about even leaving footprints on remote alpine lake beaches. This is all the same idea - its respect.
So, back to those really unpleasant people that we run across. I too often have a really strong urge to make their lives difficult and to "teach them a lesson", but it is a very bold person who thinks they know what is best for someone else! And those bold people pretty much always end up on the receiving end of their own judgments given time, or so it seems to me!
So I think that the only acceptable way to impinge on someone elses life and choices is with love and acceptance. If there is any will or malice in it at all, chances are the effort will be misdirected and the results will be a failure. Again this is compassion.
And then there are all those incredibly sad and undesirable things that we see every day. Things that we would love to see changed or fixed or different... Its no wonder that most people who live in cities are so emotionally walled off from each other, There is so much confronting us all the time (more so than in smaller towns with less density I think) that we feel we need to put those walls up just to survive.
The trouble is that those walls that we put up to keep the pain out also keep the pain in. And those same walls also keep the "light" out and again keep the inner light in... Its a real "catch 22" problem.
So, how does one deal with it.
Answer is that I don't really know for sure but again knowing that it is happening is a big step. For myself I am finding that the "acceptance" thing really helps me with this one. I no longer feel that if I care then I absolutely need to intervene and try to fix every wrong that I see. I'm also accepting of myself and I believe that we all have energy to put into good causes but that these causes are different for each of us. If I feel it is the time and the place and the appropriate problem for me to put energy into then I do. If it is not the right situation then I don't, but I don't then go and beat myself up for not doing anything, and I don't try to tell myself that I don't care... And I certainly try very hard not to tell other people that they "should do something or other"...
As I said though, its a really tricky one to balance but that's what its all about - finding a balance!
I believe that we still have to respect them in a certain way!
I know that sounds hard to swallow but what I'm talking about is not the persons behaviors or their ideas, but more about their "inner humanity". Its like that idea that "all people are created equal". Clearly, on the outside, people are anything but equal, but it is without doubt a huge step forward in society when we agree that there is something deep and sacred in every person. - Magnacarta for the British, and the Constitution for the States etc... These all come from the same idea and it is a truly "Great" idea!
For myself, I believe that it goes way past just applying to people and in fact applies to absolutely everything (particularly things that have not been changed by human activities), right down to rocks. I know in the past that I have asked my fellow hikers not to move rocks around for their tent placements when we are in a very remote and "pristine" natural place, and I know some of my friends are very careful about even leaving footprints on remote alpine lake beaches. This is all the same idea - its respect.
So, back to those really unpleasant people that we run across. I too often have a really strong urge to make their lives difficult and to "teach them a lesson", but it is a very bold person who thinks they know what is best for someone else! And those bold people pretty much always end up on the receiving end of their own judgments given time, or so it seems to me!
So I think that the only acceptable way to impinge on someone elses life and choices is with love and acceptance. If there is any will or malice in it at all, chances are the effort will be misdirected and the results will be a failure. Again this is compassion.
And then there are all those incredibly sad and undesirable things that we see every day. Things that we would love to see changed or fixed or different... Its no wonder that most people who live in cities are so emotionally walled off from each other, There is so much confronting us all the time (more so than in smaller towns with less density I think) that we feel we need to put those walls up just to survive.
The trouble is that those walls that we put up to keep the pain out also keep the pain in. And those same walls also keep the "light" out and again keep the inner light in... Its a real "catch 22" problem.
So, how does one deal with it.
Answer is that I don't really know for sure but again knowing that it is happening is a big step. For myself I am finding that the "acceptance" thing really helps me with this one. I no longer feel that if I care then I absolutely need to intervene and try to fix every wrong that I see. I'm also accepting of myself and I believe that we all have energy to put into good causes but that these causes are different for each of us. If I feel it is the time and the place and the appropriate problem for me to put energy into then I do. If it is not the right situation then I don't, but I don't then go and beat myself up for not doing anything, and I don't try to tell myself that I don't care... And I certainly try very hard not to tell other people that they "should do something or other"...
As I said though, its a really tricky one to balance but that's what its all about - finding a balance!
A bit more on Acceptance
ACCEPTANCE
Now these emotions really only live in either the past or the future and not the now. Truly, we are only afraid of events in the future, and angry and sad are of the past- even if we are imagining how we will feel after future events have passed. We take a huge step forward if we can manage to live in the present moment and reallocate all that thinking time to "being" time and just let the experience of the moment flow through us.
When I get better at it, I'm sure I will be able to stay longer and longer with the inner joy :)
So, I think one of the Budhist statements isthat "desire is the cause of all suffering" and that when you give up desire you become free and enlightened.
Now, I believe this is true but its effectively unattainable for pretty much all of us. We just can not give up desire. If we did, there would be no society and no people because we would all just sit there and starve to death - but then again that wouldn't be a problem since we would all be enlightened and would go on to another plane of existence... But that kind of by-passes this existence, and I actually think there is plenty of stuff to learn and to enjoy in this life before we "move on" :))
One of the big things we all struggle with in this life, and I think the main motivator for many of our desires, is fear and its near relative (when fear moves into the past) hate. As I said before, these negative emotions are largely derived from non-acceptance of situations that ARE.
This was the essence of my post on "The myth of security" as well as the one about the imagined desirability of motorbike adventure touring. - overcoming fear.Now these emotions really only live in either the past or the future and not the now. Truly, we are only afraid of events in the future, and angry and sad are of the past- even if we are imagining how we will feel after future events have passed. We take a huge step forward if we can manage to live in the present moment and reallocate all that thinking time to "being" time and just let the experience of the moment flow through us.
This is becoming a more "common wisdom" but like the giving up of desires is very hard to do for most of us for any length of time.
That said, when we do achieve this state, we become far happier and remarkably empowered and independent people as well.
Essentially its about overcoming fear. And the trick of that is for any given situation to "not mind" what the outcome will be. Now this sounds a lot like "not caring" but in fact it is quite different.How is it done?
For me, I'm starting to spend more time in this state and even when I have those "bad" experiences (there are plenty of them) and life disappoints me in some profound way, I am finding more and more that even while I'm feeling the surface emotion, deeper inside me there is a profound "Joy" in the experience. Its happening faster and faster now, as I move from the surface sadness of the situation and shift focus to the inner joy of the experience of life. I'm not sure of the origin of that inner joy but if you can find it, it truly is all a gift.This is the "not minding" aspect- shifting focus as soon as possible to the inner Joy - It is Acceptance - and its a real trick to do (again it is up there in the top ten hard things to do) but its a huge relief/reward when you do.
Actually, I have a sneaking suspicion that the inner joy is coming from the same place that that inner light I saw came from...When I get better at it, I'm sure I will be able to stay longer and longer with the inner joy :)
A bit more on Presence
PRESENCE
So, I think that the rational mind is an amazing tool and I for one would not want to be without it, although at times I wish my brain was bigger.... or smaller even? :)
But, as I said, I think I am using it a bit too much a lot of the time (some of it consciously and some of it unconsciously). Its become a bit of an addiction for most of us - certainly for myself!
I described how I think that dwelling on the past or future is often a huge waste of time and the cause of great suffering. Now that's not to say that thinking on the past or future doesn't have its uses but how do we figure out when its useful?
Well, for me, I think that it is fine to think about past stuff if I am figuring out some kind of lesson. Otherwise its more or less a waste of time and Id be better off experiencing the present.
Same goes for the future. If I'm thinking about stuff that I need to do in the immediate future then that's fine, but if I'm projecting out further into the future or just spinning my wheels day dreaming then its probably wasted effort. I make an exception to this when the present is rather unpleasant (like its night time in a dingy hotel room with mosquitoes and a flashing neon sign outside and a club next door...) then its OK to day dream or project plans into the future, so long as I don't get attached to them :)
Now, Ive seen a few people who appear to be quite in the present and are just doing what feels right at the time, and this is admirable. The problem I see with this most of the time is that these same people have abandoned the Awareness aspect of things and they are totally in their own little world and are oblivious to what is going on around them and how they are (often times) being quite an obstruction to other people moving about their lives. To me this seems very disrespectful to others and is not at all admirable. It is also a product of not caring about their impact on other people... more on that later.
And what to do while you are here in the present?.... Well, just look around in wonderment and appreciate things. This sounds a bit strange to most people Id guess but when you do it there really is a lot to just take in and enjoy. This is particularly true in any kind of natural setting like gardens and parks or especially the wilderness.
Id guess that most of my friends are outdoors enthusiasts and really enjoy the wilderness. And a very large percentage of you also really enjoy what would be called "Adventure Sports" like back-country skiing, mountain biking, rock climbing, and mountaineering.
And the reason that you all like doing those things is because when you are engaged in doing them, you are actively practicing PRESENCE!...
Its true... when you are flat out trying to keep your balance on the mountain bike as you try to stay on "the skinnys", or you are clinging to a cliff face for dear life, or cranking hard in the powder to get that next turn in so that you miss that tree etc... your "mind" is pretty much switched off and you are just "doing". Your senses are wide open to whats going on and you are processing only the stuff that needs to be processed "right now" ... and its a real rush. This is the presence of DOING, but it can be brought home to "mundane" life while you are walking around or just sitting there too. This is the presence of BEING and it can be just about as rewarding (more so given that it can be a more or less permanent condition and requires no special equipment weather or location) and certainly frees you from obsessive thinking (which is half the point).
Its actually easy to achieve... All you have to do when you catch yourself thinking too much is to decide that you don't want to do that and decide to "pay attention" - Just look at stuff around you. Look hard and carefully - you will find that your mind switches off when you are looking hard, but if you ease up, the mind switches back on immediately and that inner commentary starts up again.
That's the trick with this one, sustaining it!
Detecting that the inner commentary is running and that its being non-productive... Then you need to switch over to presence mode and look/listen/feel stuff :))
So, I think that the rational mind is an amazing tool and I for one would not want to be without it, although at times I wish my brain was bigger.... or smaller even? :)
But, as I said, I think I am using it a bit too much a lot of the time (some of it consciously and some of it unconsciously). Its become a bit of an addiction for most of us - certainly for myself!
I described how I think that dwelling on the past or future is often a huge waste of time and the cause of great suffering. Now that's not to say that thinking on the past or future doesn't have its uses but how do we figure out when its useful?
Well, for me, I think that it is fine to think about past stuff if I am figuring out some kind of lesson. Otherwise its more or less a waste of time and Id be better off experiencing the present.
Same goes for the future. If I'm thinking about stuff that I need to do in the immediate future then that's fine, but if I'm projecting out further into the future or just spinning my wheels day dreaming then its probably wasted effort. I make an exception to this when the present is rather unpleasant (like its night time in a dingy hotel room with mosquitoes and a flashing neon sign outside and a club next door...) then its OK to day dream or project plans into the future, so long as I don't get attached to them :)
Now, Ive seen a few people who appear to be quite in the present and are just doing what feels right at the time, and this is admirable. The problem I see with this most of the time is that these same people have abandoned the Awareness aspect of things and they are totally in their own little world and are oblivious to what is going on around them and how they are (often times) being quite an obstruction to other people moving about their lives. To me this seems very disrespectful to others and is not at all admirable. It is also a product of not caring about their impact on other people... more on that later.
And what to do while you are here in the present?.... Well, just look around in wonderment and appreciate things. This sounds a bit strange to most people Id guess but when you do it there really is a lot to just take in and enjoy. This is particularly true in any kind of natural setting like gardens and parks or especially the wilderness.
Id guess that most of my friends are outdoors enthusiasts and really enjoy the wilderness. And a very large percentage of you also really enjoy what would be called "Adventure Sports" like back-country skiing, mountain biking, rock climbing, and mountaineering.
And the reason that you all like doing those things is because when you are engaged in doing them, you are actively practicing PRESENCE!...
Its true... when you are flat out trying to keep your balance on the mountain bike as you try to stay on "the skinnys", or you are clinging to a cliff face for dear life, or cranking hard in the powder to get that next turn in so that you miss that tree etc... your "mind" is pretty much switched off and you are just "doing". Your senses are wide open to whats going on and you are processing only the stuff that needs to be processed "right now" ... and its a real rush. This is the presence of DOING, but it can be brought home to "mundane" life while you are walking around or just sitting there too. This is the presence of BEING and it can be just about as rewarding (more so given that it can be a more or less permanent condition and requires no special equipment weather or location) and certainly frees you from obsessive thinking (which is half the point).
Its actually easy to achieve... All you have to do when you catch yourself thinking too much is to decide that you don't want to do that and decide to "pay attention" - Just look at stuff around you. Look hard and carefully - you will find that your mind switches off when you are looking hard, but if you ease up, the mind switches back on immediately and that inner commentary starts up again.
That's the trick with this one, sustaining it!
Detecting that the inner commentary is running and that its being non-productive... Then you need to switch over to presence mode and look/listen/feel stuff :))
A bit more on Awareness
AWARENESS
Well, the fact is that almost all of us remain almost entirely unaware of what is really going on around us. Its a product of our minds function and its entirely normal...
In reality there is just so much going on (even when nothing is happening) that we can not possibly manage to take it all in. The amount of information that is continually available to us through our senses is literally "mind bogglingly" large and it is one of the main functions of our brain to "filter" all that information.
It is called "abstraction" and it is a key function of the mind to prepare the incoming information and "format" it in such a way that the "Reason" part of the mind can use it (to compare with things) . Absolutely everything that comes in through the senses is abstracted by comparisons with expected inputs and then differences are compared to special cases (ouch that hurts or mmmm, I like that etc.) and only things that are outside of the "automated handling" patterns we have built percolate up to the conscious level...everything else is done by "autopilot".
This abstraction process can go through many many layers of processing before the automatic part of the mind is done with it....
For example, I bet not one of you even hesitated as your eyes scanned over the word "mind".
You instantly knew what I meant. But the brain had taken the visual images from the retina, abstracted the black and white shapes, decided they were letters, recognized which ones from the alphabet, assembled the sequence of letters, recognized the word, accessed the associated meanings and finally decided which one to apply in the context of the other words in the sentence.
Like I said, it basically needs to be this way or we would drown in information and be unable to do anything.
But, our mind is so good at this that far more than need be, is automatically handled. The truth is that we are not really looking that hard and "near enough is good enough" seems to be the rule in use - It makes our lives easier :)
But, in fact, in many ways I don't think it does. It traps us in our behaviors. It stops us seeing the patterns in things. It stops us from detecting what is really going on and what it means and what actually matters to us!
And that's where the discernment part matters. If we don't use the incredible ability of our mind to be rational and to decide things then we may as well just be sheep ... and most of us are! We have the power to take control of our lives but we just don't bother (look at the voter turn out in elections in the USA for example).
If, we pay attention, we will see that that abstraction process is misleading us a great deal of the time. Near enough is not good enough!
In particular if we pay attention to how we ourselves behave, and what we are feeling and what thoughts pop up in various situations we will get an amazing new insight into our selves (That's whats been happening for me anyway).
That insight gives us the power to change our selves as well as to see why things don't go the way we want or the way we expect (abstraction has been misleading us with the wrong expectations). We will also begin to see more subtle patterns in the way the world works. Once we see these things, we can start to work WITH them rather than against them as we have been doing... This makes the world far easier to navigate, and actually far more predictable than it was for us before...
And this will all make us much happier people, and that's the point :)
Well, the fact is that almost all of us remain almost entirely unaware of what is really going on around us. Its a product of our minds function and its entirely normal...
In reality there is just so much going on (even when nothing is happening) that we can not possibly manage to take it all in. The amount of information that is continually available to us through our senses is literally "mind bogglingly" large and it is one of the main functions of our brain to "filter" all that information.
It is called "abstraction" and it is a key function of the mind to prepare the incoming information and "format" it in such a way that the "Reason" part of the mind can use it (to compare with things) . Absolutely everything that comes in through the senses is abstracted by comparisons with expected inputs and then differences are compared to special cases (ouch that hurts or mmmm, I like that etc.) and only things that are outside of the "automated handling" patterns we have built percolate up to the conscious level...everything else is done by "autopilot".
This abstraction process can go through many many layers of processing before the automatic part of the mind is done with it....
For example, I bet not one of you even hesitated as your eyes scanned over the word "mind".
You instantly knew what I meant. But the brain had taken the visual images from the retina, abstracted the black and white shapes, decided they were letters, recognized which ones from the alphabet, assembled the sequence of letters, recognized the word, accessed the associated meanings and finally decided which one to apply in the context of the other words in the sentence.
Like I said, it basically needs to be this way or we would drown in information and be unable to do anything.
But, our mind is so good at this that far more than need be, is automatically handled. The truth is that we are not really looking that hard and "near enough is good enough" seems to be the rule in use - It makes our lives easier :)
But, in fact, in many ways I don't think it does. It traps us in our behaviors. It stops us seeing the patterns in things. It stops us from detecting what is really going on and what it means and what actually matters to us!
And that's where the discernment part matters. If we don't use the incredible ability of our mind to be rational and to decide things then we may as well just be sheep ... and most of us are! We have the power to take control of our lives but we just don't bother (look at the voter turn out in elections in the USA for example).
If, we pay attention, we will see that that abstraction process is misleading us a great deal of the time. Near enough is not good enough!
In particular if we pay attention to how we ourselves behave, and what we are feeling and what thoughts pop up in various situations we will get an amazing new insight into our selves (That's whats been happening for me anyway).
That insight gives us the power to change our selves as well as to see why things don't go the way we want or the way we expect (abstraction has been misleading us with the wrong expectations). We will also begin to see more subtle patterns in the way the world works. Once we see these things, we can start to work WITH them rather than against them as we have been doing... This makes the world far easier to navigate, and actually far more predictable than it was for us before...
And this will all make us much happier people, and that's the point :)
The List of Tricks
This is a much bigger post for my silence than anticipated, but since Ive written it, Ill post it:
Well, clearly Ive been spending lots of time thinking about what makes for a happy "enlightened" life. The following little brain dump is my current view on the subject. No doubt more enlightened people will disagree with it in places, and no doubt I will myself change my views in time. But this is what it seems like to me at the moment...
And I think for the most part it comes down to the following little list of "Tricks"
1) To be Aware.
2) To be Present.
3) To Accept.
4) To Care.
Sounds simple enough but I think it is the "all time list of hard things to do"!
The little rhyme to capture it is;
"Aim to stay present and aware, not to mind but to care"
And now for a short explanation:
The awareness means that we need to stop taking things for granted and pay a whole lot more attention to things. At present, most of us don't bother paying attention - we accept what were told by the media, we watch our sitcoms and eat our fast food - More or less we are brain dead and then we complain about why our life is so disappointing... If we were to actually pay attention, we will discern far more and be far better able to interact successfully with the world than we do as average people. It also means that we need to apply the intellect that we were given and to discriminate! That means deciding carefully about what things are important and what things are not, and what is true and what is false and what is some of each etc. - Its a big difference to the way we mostly live but it can easily make life far better although it also requires far more effort on our part - I guess that means that most of us wont bother!... oh well :)
Not only that but we will thereby be able to see far more of the absolute beauty that is always surrounding us but that we have just forgotten how to see :)
The Presence aspect goes hand in hand with the awareness but it involves "Disengaging the Mind" whenever possible and just letting our sensory input "wash over us". This aspect of disengaging the mind though is completely the mental reverse of the Awareness objective so it can be tricky to balance. Ive mentioned before that it seems like I have spent huge amounts of my life thinking things through. There is an immense amount of personal suffering involved in most of this thinking and most of it relates to either past or future events that absolutely nothing can be done about. - Its self inflicted suffering and I think most of us do it most of the time. We have been trained to do it almost all our lives so it is no wonder but it need not be so.
If you stop thinking about the past (and the futures that should have been...) and stop worrying about the future (which will get here when it is good and ready) then you will find that there is almost no bad feelings left in your life.... In fact, just about the only emotion that is left functional if you truly focus on what is happening right NOW is ... Love :)
Yep, everything else is a product of thinking about stuff. There are only a few things that effect us in the now and these are things like hunger, warmth, and pain and of course these need to be dealt with, but the rest is all from the thinking mind.
And again, if we can stop the mind making our lives hell and just look at all the amazingly beauty that surrounds us all the time, and let more of that sensory input come through to our awareness, we can feel that love welling up from inside and let it out into the world :)
The Acceptance aspect is the reason that we spend so much of our lives with our minds engaged and blocking out the experience of the present. As I mentioned in my post about "the myth of security", we are mostly being "run" by our egos and we fear change. This causes huge internal resistance in us (non-acceptance) which causes huge amounts of thinking and bad feelings and we let those out into the world rather than the good feelings... If we can learn to let the world be as it is and not to fight internally with the past or to worry so much about the future then we will have infinitely more time in the present to truly experience life.
The Caring aspect is a hard one to balance with the acceptance aspect.
So, the mind wont think as much if we accept the world as is rather than resisting. This is easily achieved if we just "don't care" about what it is that IS. For most of the stuff we come across in our daily lives, this is a very effective system!
And it seems that there are in fact plenty of people out there who don't "give a damn" about anything but them selves. They don't care about other people or the environment or anything - just money and their goals.
I for one think this is a problem! I think it is in fact critical to care, but the problem is that there are so many things that confront us every day that would just leave us as a weeping pile of misery if we let ourselves care as we currently understand the word, that we would be totally "consumed" in a matter of hours!
This is a huge challenge and how to balance caring along with acceptance is a huge trick ...
It is called Compassion! And without it, in my opinion we are little more than animals!
That's the short explanation and now I will try to elaborate in individual posts...
Well, clearly Ive been spending lots of time thinking about what makes for a happy "enlightened" life. The following little brain dump is my current view on the subject. No doubt more enlightened people will disagree with it in places, and no doubt I will myself change my views in time. But this is what it seems like to me at the moment...
And I think for the most part it comes down to the following little list of "Tricks"
1) To be Aware.
2) To be Present.
3) To Accept.
4) To Care.
Sounds simple enough but I think it is the "all time list of hard things to do"!
The little rhyme to capture it is;
"Aim to stay present and aware, not to mind but to care"
And now for a short explanation:
The awareness means that we need to stop taking things for granted and pay a whole lot more attention to things. At present, most of us don't bother paying attention - we accept what were told by the media, we watch our sitcoms and eat our fast food - More or less we are brain dead and then we complain about why our life is so disappointing... If we were to actually pay attention, we will discern far more and be far better able to interact successfully with the world than we do as average people. It also means that we need to apply the intellect that we were given and to discriminate! That means deciding carefully about what things are important and what things are not, and what is true and what is false and what is some of each etc. - Its a big difference to the way we mostly live but it can easily make life far better although it also requires far more effort on our part - I guess that means that most of us wont bother!... oh well :)
Not only that but we will thereby be able to see far more of the absolute beauty that is always surrounding us but that we have just forgotten how to see :)
The Presence aspect goes hand in hand with the awareness but it involves "Disengaging the Mind" whenever possible and just letting our sensory input "wash over us". This aspect of disengaging the mind though is completely the mental reverse of the Awareness objective so it can be tricky to balance. Ive mentioned before that it seems like I have spent huge amounts of my life thinking things through. There is an immense amount of personal suffering involved in most of this thinking and most of it relates to either past or future events that absolutely nothing can be done about. - Its self inflicted suffering and I think most of us do it most of the time. We have been trained to do it almost all our lives so it is no wonder but it need not be so.
If you stop thinking about the past (and the futures that should have been...) and stop worrying about the future (which will get here when it is good and ready) then you will find that there is almost no bad feelings left in your life.... In fact, just about the only emotion that is left functional if you truly focus on what is happening right NOW is ... Love :)
Yep, everything else is a product of thinking about stuff. There are only a few things that effect us in the now and these are things like hunger, warmth, and pain and of course these need to be dealt with, but the rest is all from the thinking mind.
And again, if we can stop the mind making our lives hell and just look at all the amazingly beauty that surrounds us all the time, and let more of that sensory input come through to our awareness, we can feel that love welling up from inside and let it out into the world :)
The Acceptance aspect is the reason that we spend so much of our lives with our minds engaged and blocking out the experience of the present. As I mentioned in my post about "the myth of security", we are mostly being "run" by our egos and we fear change. This causes huge internal resistance in us (non-acceptance) which causes huge amounts of thinking and bad feelings and we let those out into the world rather than the good feelings... If we can learn to let the world be as it is and not to fight internally with the past or to worry so much about the future then we will have infinitely more time in the present to truly experience life.
The Caring aspect is a hard one to balance with the acceptance aspect.
So, the mind wont think as much if we accept the world as is rather than resisting. This is easily achieved if we just "don't care" about what it is that IS. For most of the stuff we come across in our daily lives, this is a very effective system!
And it seems that there are in fact plenty of people out there who don't "give a damn" about anything but them selves. They don't care about other people or the environment or anything - just money and their goals.
I for one think this is a problem! I think it is in fact critical to care, but the problem is that there are so many things that confront us every day that would just leave us as a weeping pile of misery if we let ourselves care as we currently understand the word, that we would be totally "consumed" in a matter of hours!
This is a huge challenge and how to balance caring along with acceptance is a huge trick ...
It is called Compassion! And without it, in my opinion we are little more than animals!
That's the short explanation and now I will try to elaborate in individual posts...
Friday, May 23, 2008
Like a dose of Salts!
Well, while I,m here in the "big silence" I decided to use my time wisely and do a "Liver Cleanse"!
What exactly is that you ask?
Well apparently all the bile ducts in your liver get clogged up with assorted crap over time and this means things don't work so well. Clearing it all out can drastically improve your digestion as well as reduce your illnesses and can even completely free you of allergies - or so the propaganda goes.
Anyway a bunch of people here have done it and they seem to think its made improvements to their lives, so , what the heck :)
It takes only 24 hours of dietary abstinence and involves drinking a sequence of dissolved Epsom salts, followed by an Olive oil and lemon juice cocktail and then back to the salts.
So, I set about following the regimen - timing is important...
Well, I can now tell you from deep personal experience that the term "It´ll go through you like a dose of salts" really means what it says!
While sparing you the ghastly details, I can say that it is quite a gastro-intestinal adventure.
... And a vigorous one at that :)
Now that I'm all "squeaky clean" on the inside, its back to silence (in more ways than one!) and my regular diet of nothing but fruit and veggies - Oh well. Actually, I'm going to use my newly developed powers of divination and predict that there is a large juicy steak in my future....
No chances of me becoming a dietary Elitist any time soon :)
What exactly is that you ask?
Well apparently all the bile ducts in your liver get clogged up with assorted crap over time and this means things don't work so well. Clearing it all out can drastically improve your digestion as well as reduce your illnesses and can even completely free you of allergies - or so the propaganda goes.
Anyway a bunch of people here have done it and they seem to think its made improvements to their lives, so , what the heck :)
It takes only 24 hours of dietary abstinence and involves drinking a sequence of dissolved Epsom salts, followed by an Olive oil and lemon juice cocktail and then back to the salts.
So, I set about following the regimen - timing is important...
Well, I can now tell you from deep personal experience that the term "It´ll go through you like a dose of salts" really means what it says!
While sparing you the ghastly details, I can say that it is quite a gastro-intestinal adventure.
... And a vigorous one at that :)
Now that I'm all "squeaky clean" on the inside, its back to silence (in more ways than one!) and my regular diet of nothing but fruit and veggies - Oh well. Actually, I'm going to use my newly developed powers of divination and predict that there is a large juicy steak in my future....
No chances of me becoming a dietary Elitist any time soon :)
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Haiku
I thought this poem up in a minute or two, years ago while driving to Whistler with Dave and Janine.
Its a sort of a Haiku.
I'm in silence here so its just filler in the blog to let people know I'm still kicking :)
Look around, take stock.
Steady beats my mortal clock.
Time flies, past blue eyes.
Its a sort of a Haiku.
I'm in silence here so its just filler in the blog to let people know I'm still kicking :)
Look around, take stock.
Steady beats my mortal clock.
Time flies, past blue eyes.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Final Forty
Down to the last forty days of real silence now.
This means that I expect I wont be doing anything other than token posts every now and then till 21st June.
Then I´ll be back on line again and we´ll see whats happened!
Who knows what I´ll be like after this ???
This means that I expect I wont be doing anything other than token posts every now and then till 21st June.
Then I´ll be back on line again and we´ll see whats happened!
Who knows what I´ll be like after this ???
Another Little Prayer
Well, there are so many little ceremonies to open and close meditation sessions that I wore out that first little prayer and I felt I needed a new one.
I also feel that while the studies on "the tree of life" are quite useful to me for insight, they are only part of the process. More and more, I feel that a very important aspect of life is to disengage from my over active mind. This mostly means not rethinking the same ideas over and over and over again. These ideas are basically related to only two things:
I'm either going over stuff from the past that troubles me (that I have not "accepted/resolved" in some way),
OR, I'm going over things that I want to do in the future but they really don't need to be dealt with now.
I'm sure it is usually better to just leave those things alone (along with all their associated stresses) and to try to focus on living in the present.
So, the prayer is:
May my concerns for future suns wait there quietly in the East.
And may my thoughts of past suns sleep peacefully in the West
And may I let today's sun guide me as I strive to do my best.
Corny I know, but that's the space I am in at present :)
I also feel that while the studies on "the tree of life" are quite useful to me for insight, they are only part of the process. More and more, I feel that a very important aspect of life is to disengage from my over active mind. This mostly means not rethinking the same ideas over and over and over again. These ideas are basically related to only two things:
I'm either going over stuff from the past that troubles me (that I have not "accepted/resolved" in some way),
OR, I'm going over things that I want to do in the future but they really don't need to be dealt with now.
I'm sure it is usually better to just leave those things alone (along with all their associated stresses) and to try to focus on living in the present.
So, the prayer is:
May my concerns for future suns wait there quietly in the East.
And may my thoughts of past suns sleep peacefully in the West
And may I let today's sun guide me as I strive to do my best.
Corny I know, but that's the space I am in at present :)
Tattoo - Who Me?
Yep
Well, probably not like other people would do it but that's pretty much par for the course!
While hanging around in Quito, Marie was considering getting a tattoo put on her ear (it would not be the first one she has!). I did some doodling to try to come up with a nice design that would be elegant and not overly dark or strong. I successfully came up with something that I quite liked and I think Marie was OK with it too but for reasons I don't recall, the actual execution did not happen. I do recall that Marie tried quite hard to get me to get a tattoo myself. My response was that Id considered the idea in the past but never felt right about it with the following explanation.
For me to get a tattoo would require two things:
First, I would have to find a design/motif that I really connected with and that I would not get dissatisfied with over time, and this realistically meant that I would have to design it myself (since I have never seen something on someone else that I thought I´d want on my own skin).
Second, Id have to have some significant reason to do it. Ive never even had an ear pierced and never regretted the abstinence either. A tattoo is significantly more than that from my perspective and so is even less likely to happen. Ive just never been a "follower of the mob" and tattoos are definitely a bit of a pop item these days.
However, the design that I came up with for Marie´s ear was quite a good motif and I doodled away at it for a while and came up with a couple of modifications/extensions that I really liked and the designs stuck in my mind.
Now, months later after I have taken up meditating and encountered some of my inner light as well as some of my inner dark, I feel that these are significant events and worthy of remembering ... - but then again, that's what my memory is for!
...
But, Ive been thinking about my probable life back in Vancouver with all the hectic run-around. I m sure it will be far too easy to get caught up in all the hastle of day to day experiences and to forget about the stuff inside and how rewarding it can be and how completely unnecessary all that stress is.
So, I felt I would give myself a permanent and visible reminder to "disengage from the stress".
Thus I decided to get a couple of quite small tattoos on the insides of my wrists where they are very visible to me but not so much for others.
The low visibility for others is not at all because I´m trying to hide them from anyone, but I just don't feel the need to go around making bold public statements about myself through ink on my skin as it seems many people do.
Anyway, that's the genesis of it and here's what it looks like:
So, its official, Im now a "tattooed, skin head, biker"...
Who would have thought it - not me! - I must still be adventure touring I guess :)
Well, probably not like other people would do it but that's pretty much par for the course!
While hanging around in Quito, Marie was considering getting a tattoo put on her ear (it would not be the first one she has!). I did some doodling to try to come up with a nice design that would be elegant and not overly dark or strong. I successfully came up with something that I quite liked and I think Marie was OK with it too but for reasons I don't recall, the actual execution did not happen. I do recall that Marie tried quite hard to get me to get a tattoo myself. My response was that Id considered the idea in the past but never felt right about it with the following explanation.
For me to get a tattoo would require two things:
First, I would have to find a design/motif that I really connected with and that I would not get dissatisfied with over time, and this realistically meant that I would have to design it myself (since I have never seen something on someone else that I thought I´d want on my own skin).
Second, Id have to have some significant reason to do it. Ive never even had an ear pierced and never regretted the abstinence either. A tattoo is significantly more than that from my perspective and so is even less likely to happen. Ive just never been a "follower of the mob" and tattoos are definitely a bit of a pop item these days.
However, the design that I came up with for Marie´s ear was quite a good motif and I doodled away at it for a while and came up with a couple of modifications/extensions that I really liked and the designs stuck in my mind.
Now, months later after I have taken up meditating and encountered some of my inner light as well as some of my inner dark, I feel that these are significant events and worthy of remembering ... - but then again, that's what my memory is for!
...
But, Ive been thinking about my probable life back in Vancouver with all the hectic run-around. I m sure it will be far too easy to get caught up in all the hastle of day to day experiences and to forget about the stuff inside and how rewarding it can be and how completely unnecessary all that stress is.
So, I felt I would give myself a permanent and visible reminder to "disengage from the stress".
Thus I decided to get a couple of quite small tattoos on the insides of my wrists where they are very visible to me but not so much for others.
The low visibility for others is not at all because I´m trying to hide them from anyone, but I just don't feel the need to go around making bold public statements about myself through ink on my skin as it seems many people do.
Anyway, that's the genesis of it and here's what it looks like:
So, its official, Im now a "tattooed, skin head, biker"...
Who would have thought it - not me! - I must still be adventure touring I guess :)
Monday, May 5, 2008
One More Lap
I had to head over to the Mexico/Guatemala boarder on the weekend to renew my visa and to renew the permission for the temporary import of my motorbike. Its a fairly typical bureaucracy down here with the immigration and customs divisions of the government not being coordinated. My personal visa lasts for 90 days but that includes Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua (all acting together as a little block), but my bike permit only lasts for 40 days and is only valid for Guatemala. Its just the sort of thing you get used to while traveling on the bike.
My problem is that I´ll be here doing the meditation thing for a total of four months not three. Now it is possible to get a one time extension for the visa but only in the city (not at the boarder) - but doing that will not cover the bike as well, so I may as well just go to the boarder and get a new visa instead....
The only trouble here is that once you check out on the old visa, they are not allowed to issue you a new one for 72 hours!... That would mean missing classes for half a week which I don't want to do, and its hard to get things done in the real world when you are in silence too!
So, I headed to the boarder and I checked out of Guatemala and then set about checking straight back in... As with many of the "rules" down here, this one seems to be a bit flexible if you just provide the right incentive/lubrication.
OK, so for the price of $30 I have a new 90 day visa for myself - Now for the bike. So, I try to get an extension to the old bike permit but it turns out they cant do that anymore because the visa under which it was issued has been canceled! - Doh!!!
OK so we cancel the old bike permit and then for some reason I have to just wait around for a couple of hours before the guy will issue me a new one but at least I didn't have to buy him off :)
OK, got that all sorted out without too much trouble, but I admit that my silence didn't manage to survive the day - just not possible with the circumstances - I´ll just have to be "extra quiet for a few days - I´ll sneak around on tiptoe :)
Riding back to Lake Atitlan was no problem. It takes about three hours on good but quite windy roads. On the way back, the bike trip meter rolled over again. That makes 30 000Km of riding on this trip so far. I figure I have about one more lap of the clock to do (10 000Km) before I get home. That's a lot of Km with only minimal servicing to the bike. I'm on my third rear tyre, second front tyre, second (and nearly third) chain and about 5 oil changes. I really should do some top end adjustments on the bike engine but I don't have the shimms and I figure its made it this far, it´ll make it home.
The bike its self however is looking considerably the worse for wear compared to the near pristine condition it was in when I left home about a year ago.
Oh well, what can ya do...
Guess I wont get that much money for it when I get back. Probably wont sell it quickly anyway since I don't have any money left to buy a car and the bike will have to be my transport for a while... Could be a bit tricky getting dressed up for job interviews and staying neat after riding the bike.
I'm sure it´ll all work out OK.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Closer to the Light
Several weeks back I wrote a post about an experience that I had with "the light" while meditating.
Soon after that though, I had some personal insights and it made my mind go hyperactive, and that meant my meditation was very ineffective for a while.
Since then though, things have settled down and Ive been able to meditate quite a bit better. I've also had a couple more experiences with that "light" although not quite as strong and just as brief.
I've also done some reading and spoken to people.
It seems that it is quite likely the "inner light" that we hear about from time to time. In the West, we seem to hear more about it from people who have been in very personally traumatic situations and it is therefore a very emotional experience for them. Or alternately we have heard of it as a religious ecstatic experience of one of the saints etc. For me, I was just sitting there working in my head while meditating, so it was not quite so emotional.
After I got back to meditating, it took me several weeks before I was able to reproduce the effect but I did succeed. It was initially less than a week before the first minor recurrence and then a much longer three and a half more weeks before I got it again. As I said it has not been as strong as the first time, but it is definitely the same effect. My meditation is getting better slowly, and I am able to recognize the preceding stages to the effect too. I am slowly getting better at generating the preceding stages so I expect I'll be able to get better at the "light" as well. My goal for the time being is just to try to keep getting better. My aim is to be able to more or less achieve it at will and to go exploring in my head for other effects too.
At present, it seems that it is significantly easier to achieve during the full moon phase - yeah, I know that sounds a bit "new age" but it seems to be true. So at this stage I just keep working on my meditation in general and we'll see how it develops.
But what does it mean?
Well, it is a "near religious" experience when you find out that what is inside your head can be just as significant and powerful as the most rewarding physical experience that the human body knows!
Physiologically, my personal belief is that it is a cascade of hormone/endorphin releases from the spine and the Pineal gland in the brain (based on dribs and drabs of reading and talking and of course what it actually felt like). - I am of course only minimally qualified to make that statement.
From my readings in several esoteric books and some quality Internet research ;), this is a significant mystic experience and equates with the realization of a personal higher state of consciousness. In Kabalistic texts its known as "Knowledge and Conversation with the Holly Guardian Angel" and represents when your normal consciousness connects with your "Higher Consciousness" - (a bit too much to go into in the current forum). - In my case it seems to have been less of a conversation and more of a quick "hello" or perhaps "I´m really busy right now, can you call me back later" but I´m sure we´ll get better acquainted in the future :)
In Eastern texts, it seems to be referred to as "Kundelini" and is a release of spinal energy that is also a significant and potentially dangerous experience. In Western esoteric circles it is refered to by various names which we have all heard but we have a decidedly "Occult" type view of them as "magical/Mythical" physical world objects. One of the names, most people will have heard of (from the popular Harry Potter books) is "The Philosophers Stone" and other names are "The Fountain of Youth" and the "Holy Grail" etc...
That's a pretty big statement but here is my understanding of what it means:
Having the experience can easily be a "life outlook" and personality changing event. If you are religious then I´m sure it would leave you feeling certain that God exists, and that he loves you personally and the you are definitely going to heaven when you die (or maybe even before) and that in the mean time, all your worries are over - cos God loves you! :) That sort of experience will easily change the way you live your life, and you would not be worried about the future and you would have this incredible inner glow and just feel so alive, and you´d behave more like a child again and without all that life stress, you´d age slower and look younger etc ...
For non-religious people it turns out that the effect is quite similar, only milder... Trust me on this, its true... I know :)
Certainly I can see some element of these effects in myself and it is definitely helping me to change my outlook and also giving me the motivation to meditate more and learn more about whats inside. I´d have to say though, that I was thoroughly engaged in a "change in life outlook" before the experience, so its not clear to me how much effect it has had. But I´m glad of the experience and the motivation to continue that it provides :)
Again from discussions with others and my reading, it is held that the "inner world" is the "real world" (and is eternal rather than just temporary) and the experience of the normal "physical realm" is an illusion (and only lasts for your life time)!
For myself, I believe that the physical world is thoroughly real, but that the inner world is just as real - Since clearly from my cursory Internet research, the experience I had is recorded by very many people through history and in all cases is described very similarly - and hence all the "titles" given above. Despite the experience being identifiable, the meanings attributed to it depend on the religious inclination of the people involved. As always, I will reserve my judgment on meaning pending further personal experience and as for the eternal vs temporary aspect, I really don't know - but that gets back to religion and life after death and reincarnation etc - again I´m not starting that discussion up here since I´m just not qualified to shed any factual light on the subject.
What I can say is that my experiences are absolutely real for me, and those of you who know me personally will know that I´m a very highly trained skeptic of "mysticism" in the manner of most hard sciences professionals, so I don't say these things lightly.
So, more meditation and hopefully more inner experiences, and I'll get back to you with more information in the future :)
Soon after that though, I had some personal insights and it made my mind go hyperactive, and that meant my meditation was very ineffective for a while.
Since then though, things have settled down and Ive been able to meditate quite a bit better. I've also had a couple more experiences with that "light" although not quite as strong and just as brief.
I've also done some reading and spoken to people.
It seems that it is quite likely the "inner light" that we hear about from time to time. In the West, we seem to hear more about it from people who have been in very personally traumatic situations and it is therefore a very emotional experience for them. Or alternately we have heard of it as a religious ecstatic experience of one of the saints etc. For me, I was just sitting there working in my head while meditating, so it was not quite so emotional.
After I got back to meditating, it took me several weeks before I was able to reproduce the effect but I did succeed. It was initially less than a week before the first minor recurrence and then a much longer three and a half more weeks before I got it again. As I said it has not been as strong as the first time, but it is definitely the same effect. My meditation is getting better slowly, and I am able to recognize the preceding stages to the effect too. I am slowly getting better at generating the preceding stages so I expect I'll be able to get better at the "light" as well. My goal for the time being is just to try to keep getting better. My aim is to be able to more or less achieve it at will and to go exploring in my head for other effects too.
At present, it seems that it is significantly easier to achieve during the full moon phase - yeah, I know that sounds a bit "new age" but it seems to be true. So at this stage I just keep working on my meditation in general and we'll see how it develops.
But what does it mean?
Well, it is a "near religious" experience when you find out that what is inside your head can be just as significant and powerful as the most rewarding physical experience that the human body knows!
Physiologically, my personal belief is that it is a cascade of hormone/endorphin releases from the spine and the Pineal gland in the brain (based on dribs and drabs of reading and talking and of course what it actually felt like). - I am of course only minimally qualified to make that statement.
From my readings in several esoteric books and some quality Internet research ;), this is a significant mystic experience and equates with the realization of a personal higher state of consciousness. In Kabalistic texts its known as "Knowledge and Conversation with the Holly Guardian Angel" and represents when your normal consciousness connects with your "Higher Consciousness" - (a bit too much to go into in the current forum). - In my case it seems to have been less of a conversation and more of a quick "hello" or perhaps "I´m really busy right now, can you call me back later" but I´m sure we´ll get better acquainted in the future :)
In Eastern texts, it seems to be referred to as "Kundelini" and is a release of spinal energy that is also a significant and potentially dangerous experience. In Western esoteric circles it is refered to by various names which we have all heard but we have a decidedly "Occult" type view of them as "magical/Mythical" physical world objects. One of the names, most people will have heard of (from the popular Harry Potter books) is "The Philosophers Stone" and other names are "The Fountain of Youth" and the "Holy Grail" etc...
That's a pretty big statement but here is my understanding of what it means:
Having the experience can easily be a "life outlook" and personality changing event. If you are religious then I´m sure it would leave you feeling certain that God exists, and that he loves you personally and the you are definitely going to heaven when you die (or maybe even before) and that in the mean time, all your worries are over - cos God loves you! :) That sort of experience will easily change the way you live your life, and you would not be worried about the future and you would have this incredible inner glow and just feel so alive, and you´d behave more like a child again and without all that life stress, you´d age slower and look younger etc ...
For non-religious people it turns out that the effect is quite similar, only milder... Trust me on this, its true... I know :)
Certainly I can see some element of these effects in myself and it is definitely helping me to change my outlook and also giving me the motivation to meditate more and learn more about whats inside. I´d have to say though, that I was thoroughly engaged in a "change in life outlook" before the experience, so its not clear to me how much effect it has had. But I´m glad of the experience and the motivation to continue that it provides :)
Again from discussions with others and my reading, it is held that the "inner world" is the "real world" (and is eternal rather than just temporary) and the experience of the normal "physical realm" is an illusion (and only lasts for your life time)!
For myself, I believe that the physical world is thoroughly real, but that the inner world is just as real - Since clearly from my cursory Internet research, the experience I had is recorded by very many people through history and in all cases is described very similarly - and hence all the "titles" given above. Despite the experience being identifiable, the meanings attributed to it depend on the religious inclination of the people involved. As always, I will reserve my judgment on meaning pending further personal experience and as for the eternal vs temporary aspect, I really don't know - but that gets back to religion and life after death and reincarnation etc - again I´m not starting that discussion up here since I´m just not qualified to shed any factual light on the subject.
What I can say is that my experiences are absolutely real for me, and those of you who know me personally will know that I´m a very highly trained skeptic of "mysticism" in the manner of most hard sciences professionals, so I don't say these things lightly.
So, more meditation and hopefully more inner experiences, and I'll get back to you with more information in the future :)
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