Thoughts on "looking"

I don't know, I'm thinking of posting various ideas I get about how best to look, to pay attention, etc. in order to get original insights. This relates to both seated meditation and mindfulness in daily life.

This could be the first and last post, we'll see.

-- Have no "context." Original discoveries happen when one is looking with an open (beginner's?) mind. Don't look as a "Buddhist." or as a "zen studen" or as a "vipassana" practicioner. Don't look with the context of whatever practive you are most influenced by at the moment. Looking with such a context will cause a "filter" to appear over experience, a filter that will obscure what is really going on. Raw experience has nothing to do with spiritual practice concepts -- unless we overlay those concepts upon our experience. Also, don't look with a sense of right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable, good or bad, better or worse. Just .... look.

As Yogi Berra said: 'You can observe a lot just by watching.'

There's something going on here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr Jones?

We just have to be cool with the fact that don't know what it is, and it's already going on. Yeah?

Don't be cool or uncool or medium cool. Unless that is exactly what you are right this instant.

Or does that sound argumentative?

"We do not need to ritualise the universe with nihilistic pretences. All we need to do is gaze tenderly at the living bedazzlement of existence. We could just simply gaze at whatever arises and enjoy the immense vision. We would then realise that celebration is taking place without remission in the vastness of inner and outer space."

-- Ngak'chang Rinpoche, in E-mailing the Lamas from Afar

I posted that bit above from the epigraph at the beginning of a chapter in the book; reading further, I saw that I should have included the paragraphs leading up to it-- it's really wonderful:

"...I said that space exists but that we tend to miss it... We miss space because we are always looking for it. Materialist nihilists look for it in facts. Jaded sensualists look for it in sex-aid shops. Monks look for it in chanting. Nuns look for it in mandatory humility. Perverts look for it in leather and rubber. Spiritual people look for it through a thick fug of carcinogenic incense. Newage neophytes look for it in crystals, dowsing rods, astrology and tarot cards. Gamblers look for it in the jubilant run. Gunslingers look for it at the end of the barrel. Drunkards look for it at the bottom of the barrel. Nudists look for it in volleyball. Golfers look for it in tedium. Politicians look for it in spin-doctoring. Journalists look for it in twisted angles. Newspaper reporters look for it in sensationalism. Masochists look for it in sadists and sadists look for it in masochists. Scientists look for it through devices-- but see less through seeing more. A vast dimension exists, but we never seem to see it. We tend to be too concerned with the microscopes and telescopes of conventional credibility. We try to enlarge what appears small via microscopes in order to see what is special. We try to enlarge what appears to be distant via telescopes in order to see what is special-- but we never gaze at immediacy with our naked eyes. If we simply looked we could find the specialness of reality-- rather than peering through microscopes and telescopes and interminable imputed liturgies of convention. We do not need to ritualise the universe with nihilistic pretences.

All
we need to do is gaze tenderly at the living bedazzlement of existence.
We could just simply gaze at whatever arises and enjoy the immense
vision. We would then realise that celebration is taking place without
remission in the vastness of inner and outer space."

Also:

Khandro Rinpoche on 'what meditation really is.'

Is incense smoke carcinogenic?

Over the weekend the thing that "looks" has been feeling very compassionate towards the Mike Monson thing. Poor Mike Monson clearly treats himself very badly and has for a long long time. Lots of judgement, lots of negative opinions and impressions about himself and the world. Mike Monson is good at projecting ill will and then living in that mucky atmosphere. Something worth looking at and working on.

I think I've been so used to doing it without questioning it that it was hard to really "see" until just recently.

Yeah, actually, incense smoke IS-- no different in its physical effects than any other smoke: not special, not privileged. I saw a little sidebar somewhere recently to that effect[not surprising if I think about it].

One of my big insight breakthroughs, Mike, is much as you posted above: I was sitting in the car, about to go somewhere-- in my all-too-driven way-- and I started in on my dissatisfaction with myself... And suddenly I really SAW what I was doing; it hit me in the solar plexus that I'd consider it pathological if it were one of my children I was 'saying' this stuff to-- I just felt the aggression and closed-heartedness to the degree of tears forming. It was the first time I understood how 'kindness begins at home' with my whole being. And that 'equanimity' and 'dispassion' begin with not excepting the 'self' as unworthy of respect and acceptance. Beating the 'self' into submission for all its confusion and errors compounds the confusion and error.

I've known for years that I had a lot of bad cognitive habits that greatly effect the quality of my life. There are probably layers and layers and layers of these. I'm getting into that negative layer right now and it is fascinating and sad.

At one time I thought that dharma practice and "enlightenment" would somehow fix all that stuff, that there would be some earthshattering moment in which I saw things so clearly that all the bad cognitive habits would just explode and go off into thin air never to return. I know longer think that -- what a lovely innocence that was.

"what a lovely innocence that was."

Indeed. Well said.

Couldn't resist sharing this.

He's pretty good at pop piano. Impressive.

He's pretty good at pop piano. Impressive.

-awouldbehipster

THANKS

Wow I just watched a couple of his videos hahahaahha wow I love the serious version of the cookie song. Why isn't he on saterday night live or something? And yeah great piano-ing

Wow I just watched a couple of his videos hahahaahha wow I love the serious version of the cookie song. Why isn't he on saterday night live or something? And yeah great piano-ing


Thanks.
Well, he wants to do something in "show business" but he is only 15 and isn't in a huge hurry yet. I think having the ability to go back into his room and make music and videos and post them on youtube is sort of his workshop where he gets to figure out what he likes to do and what he is good at. But, I think he may try some standup soon.

Awesome! You can't be all bad, Mike, I don't care what they say. Cool kid!

I've been making a committment lately to meet each moment with as complete acceptance as I can. This is a practice. It takes effort in a way. But not "hard work" kind of effort, just the effort to go ahead and do it.

I like this way of "looking." I find that one can't meet all experience with complete acceptance unless the experience is seen, is looked at.

This means that one can accept the fact that it is nearly impossible to have complete acceptance in every moment.

One discovery with this practice is the awareness of how little is usually accepted, how little one is really open to experience, how much one is making an effort in each moment to reject, judge, manipulate, criticize, etc. Another discovery is that all of that stuff can be accepted, that all that stuff, all that non-accepting type activity is the gate of liberation.

It sometimes seems like complete open emptiness is an entrance into a vast wild energy and that the non-accepting activities are like an attempt to put on the brakes, to drag one's heels, to try to control one's fate rather than jumping into the vast energy and being who we really are.

Amen brother! It's so amazing how the thing can shift when I open to all the "non-accepting activity" I bring to 99% of my waking life. If I can remember to, I can dig right in and see the resistance, fragmentation, suffering and learn more about how it functions, how it arises, how is passes, and the wide-open wilderness beyond that's our True Nature.

Sometimes it strikes me as so weird that I resist and struggle at all given the Nature of who I am and what I'm struggling with, and how awe-inspiring and magical reality is in each moment. I'm so quick to trade that awesome freedom from some petty agenda, some tiny like or dislike ("why'd you leave your shoes in the middle of the floor again?" "oh, no, I spilled my coffee. Of course I did, I'm right out the door now I'll have dirty pants all day or be late").

Amazing how BIG those things seem when my mind/heart becomes small enough But this is the fertile zone where freedom is really discovered in a practical way, by stopping and seeing this non-acceptance. Hard and rewarding work. And so damn human!!!

I've discovered that it is possible to look at and accept resistance, denial, suppression, dissastisfaction, turning away, the impluse to turn away, non acceptance,

Whatever you are doing, whatever is being done to or at you can be accepted and seen, even not looking and not accepting.

It's interesting that the topic of "resistance" is coming up here. In class last night, one of my professors (the one who practices Gestalt) gave a short psycho-education lesson on the topic of resistance in psychotherapy.

Being a "resistant patient" is looked down upon in many therapeutic settings, going back to when psychoanalysis was first arising and taking shape. But the Gestalt perspective on resistance is that it isn't good or bad, per se. Rather, it's an expression of the way that an individual has learned to regulate their experience in some way; this is often referred to as a "creative adaptation". Trying to push against the resistance that a patient is presenting usually results in some kind of power struggle, which in turn means that therapy goes nowhere fast. An alternate approach is to simply refuse to struggle with the client, in such a way as to move with the energy of the moment. Sometimes this leads to progress in therapy, and sometimes it doesn't. The point is here is that it's no use making someone into an opponent when they can be a colleague instead.

The same can be said of a kind of internal struggle that can occur in the interior dimension of the meditation practitioner. "I'm resisting. I should stop resisting. Why can't I just surrender. Let go already!" This just adds resistance on top of resistance. Why not just steer into the skid? Three things could happen: things could change in one direction, or change in the other, or stay the same for a while. Change happens eventually, but it's not something we have to struggle with.

So Mike, I love that you're getting interested in the way that your mind goes about its business. I think this is a wonderful skill to learn I think it's beneficial to realize that we don't have to wait for some special moment or circumstance before we practice. Whatever is happening right now is just as good as anything else, as far being mindful is concerned.

http://www.sfzc.org/zc/display.asp?catid=1,10&pageid=1029

This lecture by Steven Weintraub is brilliant and hilarious and intimate and human (by that I mean he is a humble rather than a hierarchical teacher) and says so many things that I'm trying to say but not as well.

I've posted it in diffferent places before but I've never been sure if anyone listened.

It's all about Suzuki Roshi and Dogen and each moment being the gate to liberation.

I'm going through a stage in which I think that the entire problem of suffering, of being a human, can only be solved right now, that the solution is in having a practice to skillfully greet each new moment. That mindfullness RIGHT NOW is practice, is enlightenment. The blinds can be closed, the blinds can be cracked open a bit, the blinds can be open all the way, or, the blinds can be torn off and the window itself can be open all the way.

Jackson, as you know, I have a lot of experience with therapy and mental health stuff. Either from my own therapy or therapy as a "couple" or from all the insane people that have been in my life off and on. (that is not an exageration)

Anyway, I've definitely found that the attitude of the therapist towards the client(s) can vary widely and, I am sure, have a great effect on the how well or bad the therapy goes. It seems like such an art form, when it is done well (which I've only seen very rarely).

I could go on and on about this.

If one can look with acceptance without any hopes for the future, the window might open wider.