whispers from everywhere

"Words of Faith" from the Lesotho days

Available through www.lulu.com

 

Find at http://www.lulu.com/content/3516069

basics and extras

George G Clark, 20 May 2009

I got frazzled while shopping in Tescos. I felt the need for a session of just sitting. This raised the question of  "Why not sit still most of the time?" The answer that emerged is set out in the following box where three life styles are set on a continuum of worldly involvement.

Life Style		Basic things	Extra things	Just sitting
1	consumer	ü	lots	none
2	the middle way	ü	some	some
3	meditator	ü	none	lots

 

1. Consumer: Life = basic things + lots of extra things

The basic things would include arranging for food, clothing and shelter and stepping out of the way of rampaging elephants and ten ton trucks. This would have been straightforward in the hunting and gathering days but would have got more complicated once agriculture was invented and then modern civilisation with its advertising.

It is easy to make fun of the knick knacks that make up the extra things in our status anxious modern life styles. Think of the grades of rich and poor and how they tend to read different newspapers and shop in different supermarkets. In a given supermarket, think of the range of prices for similar items packaged differently (Who would not be seen dead with value brand products in their baskets in Tesco?). Think more generally of people's pattern of consumption and of how when they earn more they spend more and thus never have enough.

3. Meditator: Life = basic things +lots of just sitting

Most mature cultures have their hermits and recluses. These are the saints who chose to be frugal and prudent and thus to get by with the basic things. They thus have time for just sitting, for being still, for noticing what they notice, for thinking about thinking. They have time 'to stand and stare'. And what good does this do? They get in touch with what Huxley called the perennial philosophy. They become inspired by the interpenetrating oneness of 'reality' and thus come to know the peace that passes all understanding. The spiritual insights of the best of them form the bases of the world's main religions.

Note in passing that those of the saintly persuasion are often gathered together in monasteries where their lives are systematically pared back to the basic things + just sitting. This can be a severe approach and is often caught up in the inadequacies that characterise most mature and institutionalised state religions. But not always!

2. The middle way: Life = basic things + some extra things + some just sitting

And then there is the middle way. The everyday Zen of the householder. The idea is that total absorption in consumer capitalism is an existential cop out and leads to suffering. The goal is to go beyond robotic patterns of craving and aversion, to be unattached to the impermanent things of this world, and thus to find peace.

The good news is that our essential nature is peaceful like a mirror. The problem is that civilisation with its never ending stream of extra things is like dust on the mirror. So how might we remove the dust? By making time for just sitting, for being mindful, for meditating.

Ultimately it is a matter of balance. Set aside some time each day (5, 15, 45 minutes?) for quiet reflection. Notice what is going on in your head. Many of the extras will thus become less attractive and easy to renounce. You will thus be on the road to peace of mind and thus to deep happiness and contentment. Why not memorise the following saying and call it to mind when you are getting frazzled:

Don't just do something,
Sit there!

 Printer friendly one page version at http://www.spanglefish.com/SRDS/documents/eastern%20thinking/basics-and-extras.doc

theological imperialism

Huxley's religious future

"Like any other form of imperialism, theological imperialism is a menace to permanent world peace. The reign of violence will never come to an end until:

• First, most human beings accept the same, true philosophy of life;
• Second, this Perennial Philosophy is recognized as the highest factor common to all world religions;
• Third, the adherents of every religion renounce the idolatrous time-philosophies, with which, in their own particular faith, the Perennial Philosophy of eternity has been overlaid;
• Fourth, there is a world-wide rejection of all the political pseudo-religions, which place man's supreme good in future time and therefore justify and commend the commission of every sort of present iniquity as a means to that end.

If these conditions are not fulfilled, no amount of political planning, no economic blue-prints however ingeniously drawn, can prevent the recrudescence of war and revolution."

Aldous Huxley (1945) The Perennial Philosophy; Flamingo; ISBN 0006547338

stillness after breakfast

George G Clark, 12 April 2009

 

A period of stillness after breakfast and I am aware of many vague thought threads. I get the impression that the inner censor is vetoing many of them - or is that being paranoid?

One of the thought threads wonders how many 'agencies' are contained in such a concept? There are perhaps three main ones:

·         Generating thought threads. 
Most thought threads arise from unconscious causes and conditions - external and internal - many and varied - noble and ignoble - habitual and creative. The inbuilt life force doing its thing.
"The mind has a mind of its own!"

·         Vetoing by the inner censor.  
This is a result of other unconscious causes and conditions. There is a tendency to try and maintain a consistent self concept by limiting attention to the familiar and parochial - note that the self concept can be robust or weedy!) Panic attacks are part of the arsenal.
"Don't even go there!"

·         Witnessing the above.
By consciously noticing thought patterns (with their associated feelings) you thus become, to some extent, unattached to them. 'You' are thus potentially able and willing to 'look into' some mental stuff that might normally be avoided.
"Aha, so this is what 'anger, greed, compassion, generosity etc' is like!"

 

Note that the third agency is the one that enables insight and thus liberation from reflexive habit. By being truly aware of what is going on in your head it becomes possible to choose for or against particular patterns of thought and feeling.

Aha - it pays to have periods of stillness after breakfast. Be still and know!

 

to some extent awake

Before getting out of bed this morning I noticed that attention was filled with sights and sounds from a telly programme I watched last night. So ‘I’ switched attention to breathing and body awareness. But ‘it’ quickly switched to thinking of the details of a project at the weekend and to work that needs doing on some web sites. So, again, ‘I’ switched attention to breathing and body awareness.

It is to be noted that attention rarely stayed with the present moment for more than a few seconds. But there was quite good awareness of what was going on - there was thought - but ‘I’ was not lost in it - not completely! As I woke I was to some extent awake - yahoo!

Blind habits

While in the kitchen I noted an urge to put the milk bottle to my lips and to eat dates but I resisted the temptations and then felt a spoiled brat temper tantrum welling up. “I want it now!”

And that melodrama took less than a minute to unfold. Minor mood colours. All part of a days churn.

There is much mental stuff that is not normally noticed or understood. Blind habits. So wake up to them and be free to live authentically in the present. Why not?

stew juice

I noticed myself obsessing over trivia - stewing in my mind made juices. Given that the energy comes from the amazing life force how come it manifests in such a scatty and disorganised way in me?

Presumably I am not unique. So how come there is so much cerebral noise. Good enough I suppose is good enough. The bare necessities get covered and the rest is fluff.

The bottom line is brute physical survival - food, clothing and shelter.

The psychological stuff on top is go faster stripes.

The transcendental stuff on top of that is pretty rarefied.

Rumi's mental guest house - welcome them all - a short poem

enlightenment2 - neuroscience etc in search of the ineffable - some hugely clever stuff now presented in bite sized video chunks

Joseph Goldstein and Carol Wilson the Vipassana people talk about it on video