I have not "observed him for years" and perhaps
because of that there is freshness in what I see. I just take
what he said without prejudice or even the need to put him
down.
In time you shall see.
Chanting dulls the mind as any monotonous repetition will. This
could easily be proven in the lab.
It quiets and stills the mind, it does not dull the mind. When I chanted a mantra (even though this is not my main practice) I am just amazed at how the mantra becomes an anchor into the state of presence. I am simply aware of everything, the chanting, the mind, etc. Whatever you say is not going to change my mind on this because this has been my experience, your experience might be different.
I can't see how chanting can lead to dullness unless one allows the mind to wander off the chanting (which is to chant in mouth only without the presence of mind) or chant without mindfulness or awareness. In other words, practicing chanting in the wrong way.
With awareness, chanting will not dull the mind and this can
also be proven in the lab.
Ok, so your view is more balanced than I thought.
So, which came first ?
Being aware is a choiceless state where there is no engagement
between the consciousness of the person and his environment and
hence no impose or projected images and ideas. Even if words and
meaning arises there is still awareness. The separation
between words,meaning and reality is not awareness.
There is a difference between the contents of thoughts and reality itself, the thought itself, the sensation itself. When we practice something like Vipassana/insight meditation, we do not engage with the contents, just vivid clarity of all sensations (including thoughts), and this is awareness -- observing naked reality as it is not through a layer of concepts, but bare attention.
Reality includes thought, but when we are practicing something like Vipassana, we are sensing reality and not the concepts, as I have previously pasted an article distinguishing concepts and ultimate reality. We can use concepts as a tool, but it must not be mistaken as reality, and also we should not get lost in it (worrying about past present future, daydreaming, etc) An example of mistaking thought as reality: "I used to experience Awareness, and now I have lost it" and this thought then leads to frustration, sense of loss due to a sense of self, while reality is more like Awareness is experiencing the thought including the thought of 'having lost awareness', and the notion a separate experiencer, an "I" is merely a thought and not reality. Of course this is just an example, there are other countless examples in which we experience suffering due to the notion of a separate self, taken to be real. In reality the "I" thought is just a story, it has no reality, no substance. The story has no actuality, the 'I' cannot actually be found in real-time sensate reality, it is just a story, a concept! -- in actuality there is simply arising sensations and the activity of thinking which are all the manifestations of Awareness, and there is no separate self or experiencer that can be found within or apart from these manifestations. So when we practice Vipassana we disregard the content aspect of the thought, the story of 'me', or whatever imagined story or concept -- and just observe the thought for what it is, an arising and subsiding thought as part of the ongoing sensate reality.
However, when we engage and get lost in thinking about the content of the thought, we are not seeing the thought in itself, we are not being mindful or aware of the activity of thought in itself (we are thinking about something, imagining, fabricating and conjuring up images and concepts about things instead of being aware of what is actually present here and now, i.e. the thought and all sensations as it is) --
As Zen teacher Barry Magid says,
Our usual way of thinking is to think about something - we sit and think about something out there that our thoughts are descibing or imagining. This kind of thinking is characterized by its descriptive content - what it's about. But what if instead of focusing on the content of thought, we see thought as an activity on its own right?
As something that we, or our body, does? Our foot itches, our knee hurts, our head thinks. It is just this perspective that labeling our thoughts come about. When we repeat the thought "thinking about 'the cat on the mat,'" our attention is no longer on the cat but on ourselves having a thought, engaging in the activity of thinking. Often in Zen literature we find the words not-doing used to refer to a not-separate mode of cuntioning. No thinker having a thought. Just the activity of thinking.
And Bhante Gunaratana states:
If you are
remembering your second-grade teacher, that is memory. When
you then become aware that you are remembering your second-grade
teacher, that is mindfulness. If you then conceptualize the
process and say to yourself, "Oh, I am remembering",
that is thinking.
And Daniel M. Ingram states:
Another reason that students often fail to make progress is that they confuse content and insight. I suspect that they are confused because they have spent their whole lives thinking about content, learning about content, and dealing with content in a context where content matters, i.e. when one is not doing insight practice. You can’t take a spelling test in first grade and say that all that is important is that words come and go, don’t satisfy and aren’t you. This just won’t fly and wouldn’t be appropriate. Just so, when practicing morality, the first and most fundamental training in spirituality, content is everything, or at least as far as training in morality can take you. You can’t be a mass murderer and rationalize this by thinking, “Well, they were all impermanent, unsatisfactory and empty, so why not kill ’em?” This just won’t fly either, and so content and spirituality get quite connected. This is good to a point: see the chapter called Right Thought and The Aegean Stables.
Fixation on content even works well when practicing the second training, training in concentration. When meditation students are learning to concentrate, they are told to concentrate on specific things, like the breath, a Green Tara (a tantric “deity”), or some other such thing. This is content. There is no such thing as the breath or a Green Tara from the point of view of insight practices, as these are just fresh streams of impermanent and absolutely transitory sensations that are crudely labeled “breath” or “Green Tara.” But for the purpose of developing the second training, concentration, this is ignored and these impermanent sensations are crudely labeled “breath” or “Green Tara.” Thus, even for pure concentration practice, what you are concentrating on, i.e. content, matters. Thus, the idea that content is everything is reinforced.
However, when it comes to insight practice, content will get you nowhere fast. In insight practice, everything the student has learned about being lost in the names of things and thoughts about them, i.e. content, will be completely useless and an impediment. Here the inquiry must turn to impermanence, suffering and no-self. These characteristics must be understood clearly and directly in whatever sensations arise, be they beautiful, ugly, helpful, not helpful, skillful, not skillful, holy, profane, dull, or otherwise. Anything other than this is just not insight practice, never was and never will be.
It doesn’t matter what the quality of your mind is, or what the sensations of your body are, if you directly understand the momentary sensations that make these up to be impermanent, unsatisfactory and not self, then you are on the right path, the path of liberating insight. However, as mentioned before, off the cushion the quality of your mind, your reactions, your words and deeds all matter. These are not in conflict. Insight practice is about ultimate reality, the ultimate nature of reality, and thus the specifics don’t matter. Morality and concentration are about relative reality, and thus the specifics are everything. Learning to be a master of both the ultimate and the relative is what this is all about.
Chanmyay Say�daw states:
However
in vipassan� meditation every object of meditation must be absolute
reality, ultimate reality, paramattha. In vipassan� meditation no
concept can be the object of meditation. Concept cannot be the object
of vipassan� meditation because vipassan� meditators need to realise
the specific characteristics and general characteristics of mental and
physical phenomena, which are absolute realities. So the object must be
either mental or physical processes which are ultimate realities. If
concept is the object of vipassan� meditation, vipassan� meditators
cannot realise any characteristics of mental and physical processes
because you cannot find any real characteristics in concepts. Concepts
are created by the mind.
Also, one more thing:
Though we simply sense reality and usually disregard the contents of
thoughts in Vipassana practice, when we engage in worldly activities (especially if our job requires a lot of planning, logical analysis, and so on),
there is no way we can avoid dealing with the contents. Thusness was
just talking about this with me a few days ago.
He said that in this
case, what is important is to lose the sense of self in relation to
personal gain or loss. That is not having the sense of self in work has
a lot to do with full involvement but not concerning with gain or loss.
Then one will realize how the six parimatas is related to the insight
of anatta (no self), then meditation will take a different role for one
that arises 'deep' insight of anatta.
In short, when engaging in content, one has to be egoless and free from personal
gain/loss. When in bare, realize that there is no observer, no agent, just manifestation. Then one's practice becomes complete. However many practitioner do not understand the implication before the maturity
of insight and cannot find the place of this anatta insight in daily involvement
of worldly acitivities, thus the categorization of arahat and bodhisattva.
Even if one realizes Anatta (emptiness of self) when the practitioner gets involved in worldly things they may have trouble experiencing and applying that insight in worldly matters. Hence this is also important. That is, what is described above is the way to apply the insight of Anatta when dealing with contents, instead of phenomena. I should also note that many people see this as a practice, however what Thusness is talking about is really about applying the anatta and dependent origination insight and experience to flow to the content level itself. So far, I and Thusness have not come across any writings that talk about this aspect.
I have not experienced this myself, and for the moment Thusness told me there is no need to focus on this yet, just practice non-dual (with bare sensate reality) and dropping first, then give rise to insight.
|
Mindfulness
is nonconceptual awareness. Another English term for Sati
is 'bare attention'. It is not thinking. It does not get involved
with thought or concepts. It does not get hung up on ideas or
opinions or memories. It just looks. Mindfulness registers experiences,
but it does not compare them. It does not label them or categorize
them. It just observes everything as if it was occurring for
the first time. It is not analysis which is based on reflection
and memory. It is, rather, the direct and immediate experiencing
of whatever is happening, without the medium of thought. It
comes before thought in the perceptual process.
.............
|
From this I know that you do not know what you are
talking about.
How do you distinguish between concentration,
attention and mindfulness ? Or are you able to ? Many people
mistook concentration for mindfulness.
I also know you do not know what I am talking about. Reality, is always present, and available. There is absolutely no state that we cannot practice insight meditation. Even if we enter into shamatha jhanas, we can practice awareness and vipassana within that shamatha jhana. Awareness/reality is always available at all circumstances.
Concentration is the focusing of mind on a single point to the exclusion of other things. In practices such as anapanasati, there are two ways to do it: either shamatha, or vipassana. In shamatha we simply focus on the concept, the content, the breathing in and out, or the visualized mental image, and fix our mind on that specific content alone. This leads to shamatha absorptions and jhanas but not insight.
However, if we concentrate on the breathing sensations, and sense the qualities of the breathing sensation, the contact with the air, the coldness, warmness, softness, hardness, etc, that is Vipassana because we are observing reality itself, not our concept of it. While observing reality itself we then observe its three characteristics (impermanence, suffering, not-self) and this is the practice of Vipassana. This is the practice of mindfulness, not concentration. There is some element of attention or concentration involved here when practicing anapanasati, that is we focus awareness on the breathing sensations, or there can be a more wide open, less focused way of practicing vipassana or naked awareness -- i.e. choiceless awareness practice. However meditation with support (e.g. the breathe) is useful and easier in the beginning, though at certain phase there will be a preference for awareness without a particular object. It's all fine, it's all the different ways of experiencing awareness.
Neither does the flower had shapes and colours if it is the
"direct touch".
The flower does not have inherent shapes and colours, (for example other animals may not see a red apple but a black one, or if you look with quantum vision you may see mostly space instead of a fixed shape, so there's nothing inherently solid and objective characteristics out there) but that is what it appears -- due to dependent origination. It's empty of inherent existence, but this emptiness does not deny the appearances -- which is hollow and empty like a mirage.
There is no need to deny appearances which are all the vivid manifestation of Awareness. Of course when we practice bare attention we also do not label it as "red", "round", etc, we just observe as it is.
If there is no concept, notion etc. in a person who is fully
aware would he/she be able to avoid a hole when he/she sees one
?
It is fine to use thoughts, however in my experience I naturally avoid things without the need to contemplate. I simply walk without the need to think "left, right, left, front" -- it is totally natural and effortless. In actuality there isn't a 'doer' -- things simply emerge spontaneously. When one experiences or realises this, wisdom emerges spontaneously and not through a lengthy process of thinking, but as an immediate response to circumstances. If thoughts arise, it arises without a thinker, and if action arises, it arises without an actor. In any case as I stated -- we can use concepts, but not to mistake it as reality, and also we should not get lost in it (worrying about past present future, daydreaming, etc). Simple.
http://www.jenchen.org.sg/vol9no3b.htm
Excerpt:
Often people ask, "How is it possible to not think? I've got work to do!"
The
untrained mind is always thinking, so much so that it is difficult to
imagine what the state of not thinking is like! Once thinking begins,
it is like throwing a pebble into a completely still pool; ripples
after ripples ensue and the pool is no longer still. Thus, Buddhism
advocates that when we have work to do, do it. It serves no purpose to
lament (think) about the whys, the ifs and the buts. Just do it. Many
wise teachers liken a pure mind to a smoothly polished mirror -
unmoving, clear and bright. When a red apple is placed before it, it
just reflects the exact red apple. It is not concerned with its colour,
sweetness, shape or size. The mirror 'just does its job'.
Some
years ago, my company held its annual Dinner & Dance by the
poolside of a hotel. During the party, a little boy of about 3 or 4
years of age walked straight into the pool. Almost instantaneously, a
colleague who was about 3 tables away plunged into the pool fully
clothed and pulled the little boy out. There was work to done and so he
just did it. It was spontaneous; there was no further thinking. I never
forgot that incident because it was an excellent example of an action
not adulterated by thinking. It was selfless. The notion of 'self' or
'I' was not involved at all.
So vulgarity is based on some social mores and standard or as
one fellow said conventionally vulgar (gosh! the play on
words). If all these are conventionally established than
according to the "teachings" in buddhism wouldn't this be false
? If it is false then why get upset ? Isn't it because you
are trying to live up to some conditioned conventional and false
reality or to put it in another way to live up to your delusions
?
Btw. I am not defending Herzong_zwei. Just hoping that you could
see a bit of your own delusions - we seldom could do that on our
own ;-)
I am not upset here, just doing my job as a moderator. Please see our new Rules & Regulations, which in fact is mostly the same as the one written in 2006.
As you yourself said, even Buddha follows convention. So I am using conventions to judge whether certain words are deemed as rude and vulgar. For example if someone persistently wrote the F word here, some actions will be taken. (I am not saying anyone, and anyway I am guilty of using these words myself when talking with my friends [it's funny], but I hope this forum will be more orderly) Nothing wrong.
Don't you know that there is also a thing call
"moving concentration" ? It is called the access state of the
mind. For those with very active mind moving concentration
meditation chould lead to access state much faster than jhana and
we all know that with access state insights will arise. Now that's
what visuddhimagga said but then again what do I know ;-) .
Yes. Some amount of moving concentration is needed in Vipassana. Like the breathing sensations are moving, but there is momentary concentration on every arising sensations, which does not solidify anything into something fixed (that would be shamatha). Unless you are practicing in a choiceless, relaxing into wide open awareness, then the type of concentration or focus is a bit different. There isn't the sense of effort or attempt to fixate on anything, rather one rests in wide open and spacious presence that reflects everything spontaneously. I am not very familiar with Visudhimagga terms.
Oh no! aren't we a tad sensitive here. Don't take it
so personally.
Sorry. Agree was a bit too harsh.
