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attached to those thoughts.

They can think anything, do anything and Not feel any sense of guilt. If you removed that sense of guilt, would our thoughts be more enjoyable? Somehow I doubt it because psychopaths are Not the happiest people I've known.

is such an interesting metaphor.

Early in my recovery work, I had a vivid dream wherein I was a vehicle like a car, and all my family was riding in me--on my back. My legs were twisted so that they ended in wheels, as were my arms. I remember the strong perception of "going nowhere," as I rolled along the hills and dales of this bizarre dream. My therapist had been gently prodding me to perceive my "rescue mode," but this dream really helped me understand that I was busy getting everyone else's ducks in a row so that I wouldn't have to even LOOK at mine.

My last foray into meditation was quite productive. I was doing visual meditations, and was gifted with a number of ideas for jewelry. I found it rather fruitless to "stop" my thoughts, and I am thrilled that these meditations resulted in some awesome designs.

I find your posts most interesting, Bodhi, and I sincerely hope you will continue to post herein.

May I share this, with attribution of course?

Last edited Mon Nov 2, 2015, 12:21 PM - Edit history (1)

In line with a practice I learned from UG Krishnamurti, I place all my work in the public domain. I explicitly remove any and all copyright or usage restrictions from it. After all, I don't own my thoughts.

If you do credit it, my real name is Paul Chefurka.

...

But seriously, thank you. Gives us all something to think about. Darn! I did it again!

The “problem” with thoughts – if there is one – is not with the thoughts themselves. It comes from our reactions to them."

Following the thread of that last sentence backward to uncover the reasons we react the way we do - and then changing what needs to be changed - is a life-long endeavor. I'm only a year and change away from 70, and I still got a ways to go. But even the most incremental progress in understanding counts, right?

I'm turning 65 in a month, and I've only been at this for a handful of years. I expect to be just about as stuck when I die as I was before I began the journey - but at least I'll be aware that I'm stuck... Or something :-D

The realization that there is no perfect end-state to be achieved, that it's all about falling down and getting back up again, helps me retain compassion for my insurmountable human fallibility.

... not at our destination.

As the truckers used to say, "Keep the greasy side down!"

When asked why he practiced zen, the student said, “Because I intend to become a Buddha.”

His teacher picked up a brick and started polishing it. The student asked “What are you doing?” The teacher replied, “I am trying to make a mirror.”

“How can you make a mirror by polishing a brick?”

“How can you become Buddha by doing zazen? If you understand sitting Zen, you will know that Zen is not about sitting or lying down. If you want to learn sitting Buddha, know that sitting Buddha is without any fixed form. Do not use discrimination in the non-abiding dharma. If you practice sitting as Buddha, you must kill Buddha. If you are attached to the sitting form, you are not yet mastering the essential principle.”

The student heard this admonition and felt as if he had tasted sweet nectar.

[center]
"This."[/center]

"It's the thought, only the thought. With your thoughts you tell your mind what to do with your body." Dr. Michael Preston

I sit about 20 minutes each day for Zen meditation. I'd let the practice slip for several years but started it up again about five months ago. It is easy to become discouraged if you think the benefits of meditation only come if you can turn off your thinking.

The benefits of meditation come to you by meditating. Sometimes during a session your mind becomes quiet. Other times it doesn't. Either result is just fine.

that the crux of meditation comes in the "bringing back" to the breath.

I used to think that if I have a practice (and who hasn't?) in which it seems like the ntire time I am -
going away, bringing back.. going away, bringing back.

and I would judge this a "bad" session bec. so much thinking/distraction going on.

But as Ram Dass said in his book, it is all Grist for the Mill.
I like the idea that no matter how many times my mind strays, each time I bring it back...
that is the treasure.

another is clouds moving across a clear blue sky. and another is waves in the ocean. Our human minds are concept generators. Ironically, no concepts is another concept also. For me, it's all about point of view. Whatever concepts my mind generates are completely subjective.

Such a fine sight to see.

We can say that when one is driven, then that one's thoughts are concentrated and controlled and focused on the end of the road and getting from here to there.

Being of sound mine and body (mostly) and having times of not, it is apparent to me that being able to chose which drive I shall take is an exercise of true freedom.

It's a girl, my lord, in a flat bed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me.

You go, Glider.

As a result of evolution. It's necessary for survival to be able to "take in" everything at once, and because we have been "evolving" for millions of years, our minds automatically filter out things unimportant and focus on the important. But "importance" is also subjective.

Most of our mental machinery operates out of our field of view. We have evolved special-purpose sensory interpretation circuits, selective filtering and prioritizing circuits, decision-making circuitry - all of it operating at a "hardware" level.

However, most of those automatic, unconscious mechanisms are primed or initialized by processes that are more accessible to our consciousness, either directly or indirectly. The outcome of logical thoughts, our emotions, our belief systems, our memories and learning - all that stuff serves to modulate the operation of our non-conscious cranial machinery. The "better" that input is, the more smoothly or effectively the system as a whole will operate.

In my view, the point of meditation is to improve the operation of my consciousness, so that the whole conscious/unconscious construct of the Self doesn't stumble quite as often, or as painfully.

On edit: The reason I look at it this way is that I'm a hard core materialist in my other life. Go figure.

tied to it. My ability to catch and examine the thought balloon depends on the length of the ribbon. Some of those ribbons are extremely short and I can't catch them. Others have such long ribbons that I trip over them and get tangled in them.

It seems like my mind saves the "most interesting" thoughts for when I'm sitting.
And I get to witness the debate - go with this thought, or let it go....

yes it is all fascinating.

And thinking they were "the goal", and working so hard to make them come more frequently and last longer. And being so disappointed when they did not.

Turns out that those moments are mainly of value to that fragment of the self that is still grasping: "See? I had one of those moments, just like the Buddha looking at Venus! Look at me, I made it!"

Nothing promotes humility like seeing that mechanism in action...

my teacher just shrugged it off without comment when I reported those moments. It finally dawned on me that she was saying, in effect, "those experiences are irrelevant."

I practice vipassana/insight meditation and just allow whatever comes up to come up, avoiding attachment/aversion and judgment of those thoughts the best (or most consciously) I can. The continual experience of letting thoughts go by helps me quite a bit off the cushion, because I can have this now-familiar mini dialogue to reason with the part of me that instantaneously "jumps in the car"... I am so grateful for those moments of increased awareness, the meta-cognition.