awouldbehipster's practice notes

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Thanks... Jackson

"

I had an image of you typing "RAIN" into google

I actually did use Google, Gary, but I was also interested in the particular references Jackson might point me to.

Tara Brach talks about it a lot in her podcasts tarabrach.com

Like I've said many times before, her teachings are great at getting at day-to-day peace making skills.

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www.jackkornfield.org/index/articles?id=doingthebuddaspractice
www.awakeninthenow.com/2009/09/mindfulne...ce-of-rain/#more-488
www.burningturban.org/mindsprings/?p=342
"

I also use of this similar tool 6R by Bhante Vimalaramsi

The '6R's' are steps which evolve into one fluid motion becoming a new wholesome habitual tendency that relieves any dis-ease in mind and body. This cycle begins when MINDFULNESS recollects the '6R's' which are:

RECOGNIZE
RELEASE
RELAX
RE-SMILE
RETURN
REPEAT


www.dhammasukha.org/Study/Articles/simple-easy-mind.htm

For those of you who haven't read it yet, I want to direct you to a brief yet profound article by Hokai Sobol titled "Authority, Trust, Devotion" - located here...

www.buddhistgeeks.com/2010/03/authority-trust-devotion/

The exerpt below is one of many that jumped out at me...

"The basis of trust is the method of meditation itself. We sit without fidgeting, confident we can handle the challenges presented by states of body and mind, as they arise, continue, or simply pass. By trusting the method we allow ourselves to relax and thus become more sensitive to the more subtle phenomena. This new sensitivity is a kind of heightened perception, essential for acquiring direct knowledge of impermanence.

"Trusting the method gradually becomes a source of self-confidence and fearlessness. This isn't courage based on prowess or ingenuity, but instead a patient acceptance of an increasingly evident, uncontrived, basic state of openness, usually referred to as buddha-nature. Off the cushion, this trust becomes the basis for establishing authentic relationships, essential in these times of viral cynicism."

Read the rest!

Throughout the course of our meditation practice, one is sure to come to the practical realization that you can't transcend what you do not own in your experience.

For example, you can't transcend what you are not aware of, or that you, whether intentionally or un-intentionally, ignore. The root cause here is delusion.

You can't transcend what you continually try to shove away, as transcendence is not passing over so much as passing through. The root cause here is aversion.

You can't transcend (or pass through) what you cling to. If you can't let it go, you can't pass through it. The root cause here is grasping.

But fortunately for us, the prognosis is good for this dianosis, and the course of treatment is a steady application of'¦ you guessed it'¦ Mindfulness.

Allowing attention to be open and curious, we discover that which we have been ignoring. This is the treatment and cure for delusion.

Once we are aware of whatever appears, allowing it to remain within the field of our mindful attention is both the treatment and cure for aversion.

And applying mindful attention to the object of our grasping allows wisdom to inform us of the truth about it. Deeply experiencing this truth, we let go. This is both the treatment and cure for grasping.

Not only is mindful attention the treatment and cure, it is also the very innate awareness that is our destination. Our own inherent ever-present wakefulness is the Path and the Goal. Take refuge in Buddho - your own intrinsic knowing nature - and find inner freedom in this very life.

I just listened to an episode of the Sounds True Insights at the Edge podcast featuring Adyashanti. Towards the end, he said something that really resonated with where my practice has been leading me...

"The whole idea isn't simply that you realize the ultimate reality. The idea is that you consciousness becomes so flexible, and so lacking of self or ego, that consciousness can move anywhere that is necessary. The situation dictates where consciousness moves and where action comes from - where the response to any moment comes from. And in order to have that happen, every view has to - the grasping at it has to be let go of. The view doesn't have to be let go of, but the grasping does."

What he's articulating is the "no fixed position" I keep blabbing about. Realizing the ultimate reality is a good place to start, but freedom comes by integrating this reality into your life so that there is "no block" between one position and another. I think this is another way of understanding what Kenneth calls "Teflon mind" - as in, non-stick mind. Sitting in samadhi, grocery shopping, doing taxes, working, posting at KFDh, sitting in traffic, cooking dinner, reading dharma, watching reality TV, holding a loved one's hair back while they are sick - no block.

Listen to the episode here'¦ www.soundstrue.com/podcast/audio/IATE_043.Adyashanti.mp3

Nice.
I randomly saw one of his youtube videos because I was looking at something else and he came in on the "related videos" section. I've never had a good feeling about him but I may be changing my mind.
Anyway, he said, and I'm paraphrasing from memory, "what is amazing isn't non-dual reality -- that's just there,not amazing at all -- no, what is the miracle is how we do all the things we do all the time to not see it.. How we manage in every waking moment to miss what is right here -- that's amazing."

This is getting to heart of the issue that I call "What's Next?"

I just watched this YouTube video by Shinzen Young title "From Surface to Source & the Gold Standard of Spiritual Maturity."



As always, his commentary is spot on.

Enjoy.

"I just listened to an episode of the Sounds True Insights at the Edge podcast featuring Adyashanti. Towards the end, he said something that really resonated with where my practice has been leading me...

"The whole idea isn't simply that you realize the ultimate reality. The idea is that you consciousness becomes so flexible, and so lacking of self or ego, that consciousness can move anywhere that is necessary. The situation dictates where consciousness moves and where action comes from - where the response to any moment comes from. And in order to have that happen, every view has to - the grasping at it has to be let go of. The view doesn't have to be let go of, but the grasping does."

What he's articulating is the "no fixed position" I keep blabbing about. Realizing the ultimate reality is a good place to start, but freedom comes by integrating this reality into your life so that there is "no block" between one position and another. I think this is another way of understanding what Kenneth calls "Teflon mind" - as in, non-stick mind. Sitting in samadhi, grocery shopping, doing taxes, working, posting at KFDh, sitting in traffic, cooking dinner, reading dharma, watching reality TV, holding a loved one's hair back while they are sick - no block.

Listen to the episode here'¦ www.soundstrue.com/podcast/audio/IATE_043.Adyashanti.mp3 "

Listened to the podcast. Very good, thanks.

I spent my lunch time meditation reflecting on "no fixed position." This is another way of getting at the sort of surrender and emptying that I've been working on lately.
I find that just the words "no fixed position" followed by a quick jumping into such an attitude immediately creates:
1. A lightness to my body and mind.
2. Brighter surroundngs - literally, my office was brighter.
3. A creater sense of intimacy with the space and the objects in the room.
4. A light headedness and warmth around the neck, cheeks and ears.
5. A sort of quiet joy and enthusiasm for life and practice.
6. An emptied mind with thoughts sort of slowly going by like snails.

"I spent my lunch time meditation reflecting on "no fixed position." This is another way of getting at the sort of surrender and emptying that I've been working on lately.
I find that just the words "no fixed position" followed by a quick jumping into such an attitude immediately creates:
1. A lightness to my body and mind.
2. Brighter surroundngs - literally, my office was brighter.
3. A creater sense of intimacy with the space and the objects in the room.
4. A light headedness and warmth around the neck, cheeks and ears.
5. A sort of quiet joy and enthusiasm for life and practice.
6. An emptied mind with thoughts sort of slowly going by like snails.
"

Nice. Thanks for sharing.

Keeping mind of 'No fixed position' during practice, or throughout one's day, is an interesting practice indeed. One's experience will never confirm otherwise, as one's experience, perspectives, thoughts, moods, meditative states, whatever - are in flux. Trusting one's self to this... it's good stuff.

I'm finding that a quick reminder: "no fixed position" throughout the day brings an instant sense of greater freedom. It sort loosens the grip of self centered striving and brings things in perspective.
Also, I'm finding this:
The usual location of "me" for me is right behind my eyes and forehead. It is from there that I've most of my life tried to orchstrate and control reality (with no real success ever of course).
Surrendering into nothing or "no fixed position" changes that. "Me' can actually be gone in a way and self centered perception moves to a much larger area that seems to come from outside the body somewhere. Body aches and pains associated with anxiety, worry, fear, emotions go away at least for a while.
I keep thinking about "big mind" or "buddha mind" or even "christ consciousness."

Things haven't been going so smoothly over the last few days. My concentration is lacking, and I'm getting stuck in some unpleasant states. I worked a lot of overtime last week, so I wonder if the lack of sleep is catching up with me.

Practice has its ups and downs. If practice was great all the time, everyone would do it!

This is something I've always endeavored to explain to people, but it has never come out in anywhere near as effectively as KW puts it here. There is such a strong bias in psychological studies toward one's everyday, mundane, gross waking state that accesses one's environment via normally functioning sense faculties. This, they say, is "real". But if we were to say that the only really physics is that which doesn't use instruments that enhance our ability to observe objects at increasingly subtle levels, then we wouldn't take seriously the majority of what is considered scientific fact in that field today. The instrument makes all the difference.

Another thing... In researching views on higher states of consciousness by those who are heavily biased toward materialist neurological research, I often encounter the position that such states are all in one's head. Experiments are conducted to locate the areas of the brain that "light up" when one is having a mystical/spiritual experience. After obtaining some data, they point to those areas on the screen and say, "See, there's your God!"

But KW has another argument against this as well... say you were to hook someone up to an EEG machine and then hold an apple in front of them. They would see the apple, and there would be areas on a screen that represent which parts of the brain are "lighting up". Could you, then, point to the areas of the brain which are lit up and say, "See, there's your apple!" Of course not. The point is, there are neurological correlates to the vast majority of conscious experiences. But that doesn't mean it all happens "inside" one's head. Whether the stimuli is available to gross waking experience or not, there will be neurons firing when an experience of even formless realities are had.

(continued below)

I'm currently reading Ken Wilber's book 'One Taste'. The following is an excerpt of an interview KW did for Pathways magazine.

PATHWAYS: But what about the notion that these experiences of 'One Taste' or 'Kosmic Con-sciousness' are just a by-product of meditation, and therefore aren't 'really real'?

KW: Well, that can be said of any type of knowledge that depends on an instrument. 'Kosmic con-sciousness' often depends on the instrument of meditation. So what? Seeing the nucleus of a cell depends on a microscope. Do we then say that the cell nucleus isn't real because it's only a by-product of a microscope? Do we say the moons of Jupiter aren't real because they depend on a telescope? The people who raise this objection are almost always people who don't want to look through the instrument of meditation, just as the Churchmen refused to look through Galileo's telescope and thus ac-knowledge the moons of Jupiter. Let them live with their refusal. But let us'”to the best of our ability, and hopefully driven by the best of charity or compassion'”try to convince them to look, just once, and see for themselves. Not coerce them, just invite them. I suspect a different world might open for them, a world that has been abundantly verified by all who look through the telescope, and micro-scope, of meditation.

(continued below)

This is a classic example of researchers coming solely from a particular perspective of reality as if it were the only valid one. Is it useful to study one's first person/interior perspective from a third person, "outside-looking-in" perspective? Of course it is! But to deny data from the first person/interior perspective as used to describe the same perspective is grave error, in my view. As I've been saying over the last few weeks, there is no fixed perspective. Being a connoisseur of the many available perspectives is a much better way to go about both study and everyday life.

Wonderful, Jackson!

Thanks for the book recommendation even if it wasn't intended as one. I am always looking for new material regarding awakening. Thanks again. Peace.

As some of you may know, I am in the process of applying to an MA in Counseling Psychology program at a local University. I just received an email from them saying that they were "impressed with [my] credentials" and that they are inviting me to continue the application process by coming in for an orientation and interview! Woo hoo! One step closer to having a meaningful career

I'm excited, and I'm allowing myself to get my hopes up. I am hopeful in the midst of uncertainty. Here goes nothing!

~Jackson

"As some of you may know, I am in the process of applying to an MA in Counseling Psychology program at a local University. I just received an email from them saying that they were "impressed with [my] credentials" and that they are inviting me to continue the application process by coming in for an orientation and interview! Woo hoo! One step closer to having a meaningful career

I'm excited, and I'm allowing myself to get my hopes up. I am hopeful in the midst of uncertainty. Here goes nothing!

~Jackson"

You'd be good at that profession.

"You'd be good at that profession. "

Thanks, Mike. I hope I get the chance to find out

Best of luck, Jackson. I, too, think you'll be excellent in that profession.

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Best of luck, Jackson. I, too, think you'll be excellent in that profession.

"

Thank you, Chris. I really appreciate the encouragement.