the truly tough minded


I now have very little recall of what I did this morning. This may not matter. Why should I fill my brain with thoughts of the past when the present is here. If I am to give attention to the past (or my memory of the past) or the future (or my imagination of various possible futures) then I will drift without notice through the present. How then can this particular and unnoticed present become a meaningful part of tomorrow’s yesterday? And why should it? What does it mean to be ‘in the world’? Hard-nosed-people oozing with down-to-earth common-sense may not ask these questions – they are content to live in their robustly imagined boxes. Hail intersubjectivity and the conventional wisdom of the dominant group (COWDUNG).

How to sit (zazen positions)

There is no getting away from having good posture - mind and body are not separate!

beyond-meddling


"The main cause of suffering in individuals and empires is when the rational intellect decides that the illusory self has private ends to serve. Suffering ends when individuals and empires have learned to graciously accept and follow the ancient and time tested patterns of self regulation."

An alternative view to the mainstream media, Human rights; Social and economic justice; Foreign policy; Corporations; Media control, Travel in Africa, Asia and Latin America


"A properly functioning system of indoctrination has a variety of tasks. Its primary target are the "stupid and ignorant masses". They must be kept that way; marginalized, and isolated. Ideally, each person should be alone in front of the TV screen watching sports, soap operas, or comedies, deprived of organizational structures that permit individuals lacking resources to discover what they think and believe in, to engage in interaction with others, to formulate their own concerns and programs, and to act to realize them. This hapless multitude are the proper targets of the mass media and a public education system geared to obedience and training in needed skills, including the skill of repeating patriotic slogans on timely occasions."
Noam Chomsky

Zazen Posture

A short and very user friendly explanation of why and how to sit this way rather than that.

Taoism - The Wu-Wei Principle - Part 4


I googled wu-wei and came up trumps

Cultivating Stillness

All the spiritual traditions point to the wonders that accrue from being still. The link leads to the text of an early ancestor of the Tao teh Ching. If I am to programme my neorolinguistic doodahs than I need to keep pumping in these messages.

attac


3- When Big Biz Has Taken Over Everything (By Jerre Skog)

"After all, corporate America knows what's good for us all and deserves to be trusted, having shown it's adherence to law, ethics and morals in years gone by. Corporate America has integrity and honesty that can only be matched by the politicians it has bought! The notion, that many of its foremost exponents are greedy, selfish and utterly amoral, can be based on nothing but ugly rumours! What can be better than giving corporations full freedom?"


Chase this article it is in issue 153


How might future philosopher kings be educated?

Passing clouds of discontent



Personal, familial, community and cultural concepts of right and wrong (and all other forms of dualistic discrimination) are the basis of my conditioning. They are all historically and geographically located and have no abiding nature. Having transcended the ego illusion there is no longer a compelling need to hold with them. But they fight an effective rearguard action against the chances of my ego being transcended. Old habits (of mind) die hard.



It follows from the above that there might be concepts which lie beyond history and geography and which have an abiding nature. These would be those that have their basis in the structure of our long evolved nervous system. They are common to all of humanity and if they are contentious it is only because we now live in ways for which our evolution has not prepared us. (Civilisation and its discontents). Consider the non-abiding concepts of civilisation to be clouds. Blow them away and the sunshine of your innate nature will then shine through.

The task is to switch off the conditioned automatic pilot that has been guiding you since infancy and to take control of your own life; to live intentionally rather robotically. The task is to become mind-full rather than mind-less. Doctor heal yourself.



The good news is that all you need is already within. The bad news is that the automatic pilot is rigged so that you rarely glimpse the underlying mechanisms and, when you do, you are conditioned to ignore them. The further good news is that, through the centuries, there have been heroes and heroines who managed to re-condition themselves and leave guidebooks. These are readily available and, in these uncertain terms, are in increasing demand. The road has been charted and remains in excellent condition. All you need is an increasing awareness of its existence and a growing urge to travel along it. As Woody Guthrie said, "Nobody here can walk it for you, you gotta walk it by yourself."

Non judgemental noticing - describing reality

• I will endure random thoughts till a new theme emerges.


• 'Endure'? Why is having a theme better than having random thoughts? I can see it as different - but better? Which value system is being used?


• It is not a matter of good nor bad - go with the flow. Except - some flows are more conducive to peace of mind than others?


• And peace of mind is a good thing?


• It is 'preferable' to its alternative but this does not of necessity mean that it is 'good'. Description is one thing and evaluation is an added but non essential extra.


• Why is peace of mind preferable?


• I don't know for sure but it has to do with states in the brain and the stimulation of 'pleasure' rather than 'anxiety' centres.


• So pleasure is preferable to anxiety because of what it does to the brain. Not an altogether startling statement.


• Nope but 'startling statements' are the stuff of tabloid newspapers and political speeches rather than of quiet self knowing.


• So you would prefer statements which are 'less than startling'?


• I am not really concerned with 'statements' at all. What matters is intuitive experience. Visceral feeling rather than cerebral knowing. What matters is not what other people say (ie statements) but rather what can be personally experienced. Blind faith is not involved.


• So you seek the 'intuitive experience of visceral feeling' that leads to the 'pleasure' of 'peace of mind'


• Sort of - but you did not put inverted commas round 'you' and 'seek'. Words used in statements carry pre-conditioned baggage.


• Well yes - but how else is communication possible?


• There is non-verbal communication. Don't tell me, show me. Don't 'explain' the concept but rather be a living example of it. It is said that, "Those who speak do not know and those who know do not speak".


• Ah yes, and also that, "The reality which can be described is not the real reality". So should we end this conversation?


• Mmm.

Essence of Yoga


“What is this life if, full of care, there is no time to stand and stare?” I sit in a pause between activities and the mind skips around considering what to do next. It does not rest long with the possibility of doing nothing – as in ‘just sitting’ ie doing being, ie meditating. My ordinary mind is a distraction junkie. Conceptaholic. Linguistaholic. I have become conditioned as a talking head from the chattering classes. Motor mouth from a machine gun mind. Don’t stop the world as I have absolutely no intention of getting off! {AHA – the kleshas!]



In his Yoga Sutras Patanjali lists five plagues (kleshas) which are impediments on the way. They are ignorance, egoism, love, hate, and thirst for life. Ignorance (avidya) is the root of all the others.



The Visuddhi-magga lists ten kleshas – desire or craving, (trishna) hate, delusion, pride, false views (drishti), doubt (vichikitsa), rigidity, excitability, shamelessness, lack of conscience. The false views include belief in an ego, eternalism, nihilism, denial of the law of karma, persistence in these false views, and the belief that false views can lead to liberation. The false views can be eliminated merely by insight; the other passions that are based on desire, hate and similar emotional factors and are not, like the false views, intellectual in nature take longer and are more difficult to eliminate. One can get rid of them through regular meditation practice.

The Buddha Project: Links to Buddhism-related news,articles,stories,info,sites, & other tidbits

A like minded Blogger

Renunciant Frugality


The point is to be at peace with what goes on in my head. Avoid irrational emotionality – all of which is tied up with the ego illusion. Rest content with the universe as it is here and now. The past and the future are not knowable. The past is gone (memory is notoriously biased) and the future is unpredictable so there is no need to give them heed (except for little bits and pieces of pragmatic mundanities here and there).

Relax, take it easy, that is the message. You already have the vast majority of all that you will ever need. That which you crave will only feed your greed. If there was no greed there would be no need. Therefore cut back and simplify. Renunciant frugality – yoh!

Shambhala Search Results - Thomas Cleary

This long list of translations covers only those done for Shambala - he also has books published by several other companies.
I have many (haven't counted) of them. They are enormously calm and authoritative.

Two minds, four relationships


This explains the host/guest analogy (used below) in a bit more detail. There is a tune playing in the background

How to recognise a mystical experience


This is a page from my 'Let it begin with me website'. There is nothing extra-ordinary or ab-normal about mystical experiences. They are always there - they are part of our human nature. But there are clouds blocking the sunshine.

Meditation/Psychology - Jack Kornfield


"For most people meditation practice doesn’t "do it all." At best, it’s one important piece of a complex path of opening and awakening."


I find the writing of Jack Kornfield to be inspiring ie if my attention is inclined to wander into the conditioned bad habits of ordinary mind then a few minutes skimming the words of JK brings attention back to the existential plane.

Hui Neng


According to D.T. Suzuki "The Sixth Patriarch, Hui-neng, (638-713)was a great religious genius, and his life marks an epoch in the history of the Zen Sect in the Far East. It was due to him that his Sect, hitherto comparatively inactive and rather tending to ascetic quietism, now assumed a more energetic role in the demonstration of its peculiar features, and began to make its influence more and more felt, especially among the thoughtful class of people.," (not to mention Enlightenment to the prepared few).

About Dogen Zenji famous for saying 'just sit'
http://www.zenki.com/AboutDogen.htm

The word ‘God’ is a label for a state of mind. There are unusual states of mind – the muse, being in flow, being awestruck and/or entranced etc. In contrast there is the ‘ordinary mind’. The ordinary mind is a guest at the inn of the non-ordinary mind which is the host. All human suffering results from the guest having usurped the host and locked him/her in the basement. Peace of mind and the wisdom which results will appear once a seemly balance between host and guest has been re-established.


How to re-establish the balance? The guest is like a large television set playing at full volume in the corner of a small room in an infinitely large mansion. The task is to switch off the telly and pay attention to the small room. You will soon realise that the walls are illusions and that what at first appears to be a large mansion has no more substance than a passing cloud. The host is the everywhere and always that is the here and now. The Life Force is the ceaseless churn of birth and death. There is only an ongoing stream of creation and destruction as fleeting and fluid manifestations of the Oneness doing what the Oneness does.

· The devil finds work for idle hands to do. (Protestant work ethic)

· What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare (John Milton)

· Just sit (Dogen Zenji)

· Be still and know [that thou art God] (Aristotle? (Meister Eckhart?)

· If only you love God enough you may do as you please (St Augustine)

Challenge – say something about the process of thought. Thoughts keep coming but I am not as yet giving as much attention as I might to investigating the source of the thoughts. I am not clear what this would involve. It does not only mean coming to grips with the possible causes of that particular thought/feeling appearing at that particular moment although that is part of it, especially in the early days of the reconditioning process. It really means developing a new awareness of and attitude towards the source/energy/intention that causes any thought at all to arise. Why not stillness? Why all the activity? Not, “What is the purpose in Life?” but rather, “What causes the urge to think that their should be a purpose in life?”. And the answer to that question should be an intuition regarding deep consciousness/ neurology rather than a rationalisation about cultural conditioning.


Thus the value and virtue of just sitting. Be still and know. And yet I still have not developed a timetable and routine for meditation. I stick with an ad hoc schedule. Why is this? Is it really necessary to change? How are such questions to be answered? – By being still? By giving time to immersion in the wisdom literature? By staying away from the easy distractions of booze, media and society? I know the answers but there is resistance to applying them in a systematic manner. But perhaps I am being unfair. There have been several major steps towards renunciant frugality and right livelihood. I may not as yet correspond to a text book case but I am considerably further along the road than most people. But is there value in a normative approach to such an abnormal aspiration – possibly not. OK – but that thought train seems to have chugged out of range of up front consciousness.