TJC1 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I'd also like to try 'soul-gazing', apparently you can see old red Indians in your partners face! If anyone does this, be good to talk. xx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
janie48 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 .. I'm sorry to hear that janie, have you talked to Pattricia about her meditation as she seems very happy with the results, maybe sharing ideas may be beneficial? Not yet,theres plenty of time i'm not in any great rush. I shall keep on with the short practices,at my own pace. I like to read the posts on here because i find them very informatve,and its good to know about other peoples experiences,but my only purpose is to improve my concentration and memory and gain benifits from that. So its just simple meditation for me,nothing deep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
janie48 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Some lovely other people here joining the conversation, welcome. Indeed,and there are some lovely people on the forum,as i have discovered on other threads too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dutch Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I wouldn't worry about the symantics too much phan. Think 'finger pointing at the moon', once you've landed on the moon, you don't need to keep thinking about the figer. Or... You can't eat the menu. Spot on Janie, the first experiences of meditation can wake a lot of emotions and intense feelings. That does get better over time. When you say "just simple meditation, nothing deep" you are already very close moving the right way. As soon as it gets complicated and far away you lose touch with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaliRichard Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Not yet,theres plenty of time i'm not in any great rush. I shall keep on with the short practices,at my own pace. I like to read the posts on here because i find them very informatve,and its good to know about other peoples experiences,but my only purpose is to improve my concentration and memory and gain benifits from that. So its just simple meditation for me,nothing deep. I'm not sure there is anything other than simple meditation, not from the Buddhist perspective anyway. It's the states of concentration that deepen as the analysis used becomes subtler and subtler, but the 'method' remains simple right to the 'end'. Many of the methods mentioned on here, and used on different religions/traditions and even secular meditation share the same 'mechanics', it is largely the analysis or philosophy (or if you prefer, as some do) baggage that produce the various results. But the meditation, the method, remains the same for the masters and the students. That is of course, only the Buddhist perspective, what others think I don't know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJC1 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I'm not sure there is anything other than simple meditation, not from the Buddhist perspective anyway. It's the states of concentration that deepen as the analysis used becomes subtler and subtler, but the 'method' remains simple right to the 'end'. Many of the methods mentioned on here, and used on different religions/traditions and even secular meditation share the same 'mechanics', it is largely the analysis or philosophy (or if you prefer, as some do) baggage that produce the various results. But the meditation, the method, remains the same for the masters and the students. That is of course, only the Buddhist perspective, what others think I don't know. So tell us, how would one begin to meditate? because I'm dying to get started. x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dutch Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 That is of course, only the Buddhist perspective, what others think I don't know. I am double laughing, now you know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waldo Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 They're constructs, and to a degree, mechanical in nature. They purport to take you places; and I don't dispute that there is value in some of them. But once the boat has carried you across the river, it doesn't have so much use for you. That said, it may have a great value for someone else.. I think the danger lies in confusing 'finger' with 'moon', and failing to recognise that the whole shebang is just a paradigm, a model, a cultural context that attempts to explain and guide us back to our true original nature. I like what Emmerson had to say on this matter... http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect. They say with those foolish Israelites, 'Let not God speak to us, lest we die. Speak thou, speak any man with us, and we will obey.' Everywhere I am hindered of meeting God in my brother, because he has shut his own temple doors, and recites fables merely of his brother's, or his brother's brother's God. Every new mind is a new classification. If it prove a mind of uncommon activity and power, a Locke, a Lavoisier, a Hutton, a Bentham, a Fourier, it imposes its classification on other men, and lo! a new system. In proportion to the depth of the thought, and so to the number of the objects it touches and brings within reach of the pupil, is his complacency. But chiefly is this apparent in creeds and churches, which are also classifications of some powerful mind acting on the elemental thought of duty, and man's relation to the Highest. Such is Calvinism, Quakerism, Swedenborgism. The pupil takes the same delight in subordinating every thing to the new terminology, as a girl who has just learned botany in seeing a new earth and new seasons thereby. It will happen for a time, that the pupil will find his intellectual power has grown by the study of his master's mind. But in all unbalanced minds, the classification is idolized, passes for the end, and not for a speedily exhaustible means, so that the walls of the system blend to their eye in the remote horizon with the walls of the universe; the luminaries of heaven seem to them hung on the arch their master built. They cannot imagine how you aliens have any right to see, — how you can see; 'It must be somehow that you stole the light from us.' They do not yet perceive, that light, unsystematic, indomitable, will break into any cabin, even into theirs. Let them chirp awhile and call it their own. If they are honest and do well, presently their neat new pinfold will be too strait and low, will crack, will lean, will rot and vanish, and the immortal light, all young and joyful, million-orbed, million-colored, will beam over the universe as on the first morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dutch Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 "But once the boat has carried you across the river, it doesn't have so much use for you. That said, it may have a great value for someone else.. I think the danger lies in confusing 'finger' with 'moon', and failing to recognise that the whole shebang is just a paradigm, a model, a cultural context that attempts to explain and guide us back to our true original nature" Again spot on waldo You are your original true nature. It is imposible to not be it. You only think you are not and get confused looking for true nature outside while it is right here right now within. Mind looks for things all over the place while they were allways present right here, now. Moving back to true nature is difficult, you never moved out of it, mind gets confused, meditation slows it down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaliRichard Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 They're constructs, and to a degree, mechanical in nature. They purport to take you places; and I don't dispute that there is value in some of them. But once the boat has carried you across the river, it doesn't have so much use for you. That said, it may have a great value for someone else.. I think the danger lies in confusing 'finger' with 'moon', and failing to recognise that the whole shebang is just a paradigm, a model, a cultural context that attempts to explain and guide us back to our true original nature. I like what Emmerson had to say on this matter... http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm I agree and disagree with aspects of this. I do agree that the 'path', the boat/finger has to be abandoned once one has reached the goal. I think the biggest problem is that far too many people abandon it before reaching the goal because they wrongly assume they are there. Note that nowhere in the sayings you quoted does it say there is no finger, there is no boat. I was a student of zen for a long long time (as I have previously related) and I will repeat part of its problem is that it is too simplistic, people tend to grab it intellectually and assume that they have 'got it'. The part I don't agree with, as a Theravadan is 'our true original nature', in traditional Buddhism that was never taught, it is I believe a later 'addition' by some zen schools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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