To: K-list
Recieved: 2004/02/29 16:34
Subject: RE: [K-list] Re: Applied and Sustained Concentration Leads toEc
From: Rich
On 2004/02/29 16:34, Rich posted thus to the K-list:
> I am glad you have found my contribution to this list of value. I find
> when
> people speak from personally experience there is often more useful
> information
> revealed than when they speak only from what they have read or heard.
Agreed. Although I can't be sure about 'useful'. If nothing, more tangible.
> Thank-you for the link, yes I am familiar with angelfire, Leigh Brasington
> and Bhante Gunaratana. While I find these sources have been of value to
> me,
> they tend to speak from the Visuddhimagga, which is a 5th century
> commentary,
> which does not seem to have the weight of authority that the Pali canon
> speaks
> with.
Theravada is the predominant Buddhist doctrine in Thailand, (useless fact...
now the advertised physical centre for Buddhism). But I think to read and
absorb the Pali Canon may take a long time. For me, better to stick to the
knitting.
> Actually if you read the Nikayas (Pali canon), you will see that the
> jhanas
> was indeed the method the historic Buddha followed to nibbana, although
> there
> are plenty of Pali scholars willing to debate this issue. But, most jhana
> practitioners find plenty of evidence to support the premise that nibbana
> is
> simply arrived at after passing through the 8th absorption (jhana). Dogen
> even
> considered nibbana simply the 9th level of absorption (jhana/dhyana).
> %%%%%%%
If nothing else they at least offer markers of the road map of experiences.
It is read, there are subtle boundaries from moving though one Jhana to the
next. Quite honestly, I don't know what I'm talking about. But...
A quote comes to mind.. "Don't let what you are being get in the way of what
you might become."
> %%%%%%% Jeff:
> I begin each day and end each day with these absorption states, and they
> have
> thus saturated my moment-to-moment reality with various charismatic
> manifestations that I find described on this list as Kundalini.
But what I don't follow and tell me if I am wrong in my perception, is the
way you describe it, in a way as if you were not really speaking it, but
speaking of it. Intellectually.
> Therefore
> they are in
> my "normal" life. This is my normal life. But, no, I do not work a 40
> hour a
> week job. I gave that up about 14 years ago when I found the "normal"
> life
> was impeding my contemplative practice.
You hold on to your practise.
> I have found a contemplative must often transform one's life to
> accommodate
> the spiritual journey, not the other way around. In fact I believe the
> difficulties people experience with the spiritual awakening are often due
> to either
> an inability, or an unwillingness, to make the necessary changes in one's
> life
> that the spiritual awakening is demands.
Balance. There is much to learn being in life. Life triggers stuff to
release. We can't hold on to practise forever.
When to make the jump to be the Absorption (K) instead of seeing it as
separate to what is you and experience as n o w.
To live bringing the spiritual into the now, moment in moment, newness like
seeds beating into life and moving up through the under-soil, scattering
their petals to experience newness of light and day; the perfection of
everything as is. Without separateness. Be life, not affixed to it.
> Yes, I am aware of many of the premises that have been concluded by the
> various K lists. While I value the service the people on these lists
> offer, I do
> not however support all of their conclusions. A belief that freedom from
> "emoti
> onal baggage" produces naturally arising "meditative states" is one that I
> do
> not subscribe to.
Have you tried it? Are you inclined to?
For Osho it was written that when he moved from his strictly disciplined
path that was where he found enlightenment.
Mind and body freeze our repeated patterns in subtle ways. Not all obstacles
can be seen easily...
I has been surprised how attached I'd become to my clothes. The cleaning
service I started using decided it would be beneficial to write my address
number on my clothes in permanent pen. Quite noticeable.
I was angry... and then well maybe ... these are not my clothes.
naked is better!
> If that were true then people giving rise to
> spontaneous
> arising kundalini would have no problems, but you and I both know that is
> not
> true.
The problem is the baggage, the clothing even. If there was no baggage it
would be hard to be hard.
> Another way of looking at your premise, is if it were true then
> those
> people who go through many years of psycho therapy would arrive
> spontaneously at
> spiritual awakening, but that is not true either.
Sometimes this happens. Gnosticism is a form of psychotherapy. The serpent
was the Gnostics' primary symbol of power.
Not all psychotherapy is releasing stuff. I don't have enough direct
experience to elaborate this point but what has been shown to me from people
who have been close to or have direct experience is that I realise there are
some shortcomings that don't make it a direct way to grater personal
freedom. Sometimes a case of replacing one thing for another.
I realise there are many different techniques and it is difficult to
generalise psychotherapy.
> I went through 10 years of weekly therapy in my process of awakening,
> however
> I was also engaged in a contemplative practice regimen at the same time.
> I
> did not find at any time that one negated or replaced the other. However
> I did
> arrive at a place where I was sufficiently free from objectified ego
> structures that therapy was no longer relevant.
> %%%%%%%
To me meditation gives the space to see things in a clearer way. Without
shakti or surrendering / releasing the expansiveness does not go too much
further than the meditation itself.
> %%%%%%% Jeff:
> Yes, I too see a difference in our philosophies and a resultant difference
> in
> our results. If you examine brain wave research there are four stages of
> the
> psyche Beta, Alpha, Theta, and Delta. If one never works in the three
> lower
> ranges one never has an opportunity to deepen one's emptiness, therefore
> one's
> emptiness is only going to effect the surface mind. This is why
> meditation
> is required, so that one works on establishing awareness, as well as calm
> and
> equanimity (emptiness) at deep levels of the psyche as well.
> %%%%%%%
What you say is true, but doesn't the deeper stuff bubble up anyway when the
surface is clear?
There is no questioning the depth of Guy's expression.
> Yes, I believe you are right, if one is constantly focused on the surface
> mind, then that is all one is going to have an effect on. If one
> meditates then
> one can access all levels of the psyche.
I *try* to keep one ear to the grounded part of me within. My outer action
becomes more spontaneous.
>
> %%%%%%% Jeff:
> You are on a K list and you ask me whether absorption is necessary? What
> do
> you think K is? It is the manifestations of absorption.
> %%%%%%%
Would this suggest one could not experience absorption without K?
I try to see K as me. Of course I could be delusional and ridiculous.
> > There are eight absorptions
> > (Jhanas) beyond emptiness, but I do not believe one will get to them
> > without a contemplative practice regimen.
>
> But here you say 'I do not believe' one will get to Jhana, but, before you
> say 'nor will one' (get to Jhana) without meditation.
>
> How can I be certain in what you do not appear certain about.
>
> Rich (Going to rest in py-jhana's) >>
>
> %%%%%%% Jeff:
> I am sorry you find it necessary to critic my English. I do not believe
> such
> a tactic will further our dialog.
Sometimes I need my ways questioning.
In naked love,
Rich
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