Questions on Sitting
Written by takuin on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 – 6:18 pmThese are question posed to me by Jerry on the post, Sitting #2.
Not judging the thoughts and or compulsions that seem to be unsavory and dark is one thing. However, is reducing them and even eliminating them possible?
Who decides that the thoughts are unsavory and dark? There needs to be the judgment of good or bad before any of that can take place. So, even if you consider you are not judging the thought, the idea that the thought is dark or should be eliminated is still a judgment.
When you sit in order to see these things, you must go slowly, in a step-wise fashion. Don’t instantly fall back on what you already know and have memorized. Leave space for the meaning to become apparent without your effort. This may not be easy to see yet, but you do not need to be there controlling what is happening. Just sit with your curiosity, and find out what is happening.
…when I am not in meditation, I am prone to experience thoughts and inclinations that are sometimes mean, unsympathetic, selfish, desirous and forgetful of higher spiritual truths and states-of-being.
That is exactly where you want to be. Forget what happens on the cushion, because that is not your daily life. It is just a short diversion, and when it is over, you will wish for it to continue.
If you have thoughts that are mean, selfish, and so on, those are your greatest teachers. It is the perfect opportunity to see what is happening within, without resorting to theorizing. When there is anger, it is not a theory; it is there. And it is in that moment when you can go deeper and deeper, sinking into the reality of how your mind is functioning. It is extremely beautiful to behold.
All of the thoughts you hate will set you free.
Don’t be so proud that you cannot step away from the anger to see it clearly. Usually, one is angry, and there may be a conscious recognition of that anger. But there is also a vested interest in staying angry. It could be that, if you suddenly stop being angry, people will think you are a fool for not sticking with it. Or it could be any of a thousand different reasons. But these will be clear when you see it for yourself.
There are no thoughts to avoid; only thoughts to observe.
Thru meditation and spiritual discipline, is it possible to be in that higher state-of-being more and more, without even meditating, so that the lower impulses are reduced and or eliminated?
If so called “lower impulses” are there, that is your meditation. It is not something you do for just one hour. It is the flow of awareness as you move about your day. It is everything as it is.
If you want to use it as a tool to eliminate certain types of thoughts, forget it. Awareness is the movement of sitting with what is (even if you are standing). It is something that moves as you move. It has nothing to do with what you believe to be good or bad.
That being said, it couldn’t be more simple. However, you might find it difficult to get into, if you have never considered such a thing. There is something I can recommend to you. If you decide to sit down and try to watch this movement, do it in nature. Go outside; somewhere close to mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, or whatever you happen to have where you live. Sit in that enviroment for some time and see what happens in your mind. Just watch, listen, observe.
The reason I recommend nature as often as I do is because it is something thought cannot touch. Thought can certainly make up stories and create theories about nature, but it cannot touch it. Thought can create a pencil, a chair, guitars, and the most magnificent cathedrals, but it can do absolutely nothing about nature. Only awe in its presence.
Or, are we doomed to exist with a mixture of yin and yang, positive and negative, that acceptance of(thus taking away their power over us)will bring about realizations which lead to enlightenment?
Is there doom in existing in a certain way, or is there only existence? Is thought good or bad, or is it merely your thoughts of thought being good or bad? Go deeply within yourself and look at it.
Do you want to accept + and - only because you crave an end result? If I accept what is, I’ll get the realization or the enlightenment. Is that it? If so, it is still the dualism of the seeker and the thing to be sought. Now, if this is what is there, it is absolutely fine. It simply becomes your meditation. You can only work with where you are and what you have.
You can never have more or less than what you have. That is where you start, and that is where it ends.
I don’t know that I’ve answered your questions, but I hope you can get something out of this. Feel free to leave your comments below, and maybe we can go into it together if you like.
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May 14th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
I am grateful for your response. You have reached a level of understanding about us which is deeper than my own. Your points about letting things be as they are; observing them. going deeper into them is well taken. I also understand what you mean when you point out that meditation and/or sitting is something that we do in all the instances where we are truly aware of what is happening within us. To be the observer as well as the one who is observed. My journey has been helped along by your gracious willingness to help me see.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:42 am
Beautiful, Takuin. I have found that everything we experience comes down to fullness, and resistance to fullness. Being with whatever comes up, as you describe, allows us to allow, to step past the resistance.
Even when awake, the surface may experience anger or fear. But unresisted, they become like a line on the water, then a line on air. They are there, then gone. But who we are is never disturbed and no judgment is required.
May 15th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Takuin, very nicely put. I felt the movement of It as I read. The allowing is growing, rising up. Even when the day is, as Jerry was asking, filled with the seeming negative, more and more I want to just be with it, “sit” with it, allow it, be it. Actually, I am it.
I listened to recent satsang of Adya’s on the The Simplest Thing. You echo many of his themes.
Thanks.
May 18th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Thank you, Jerry. Please stop in any time to leave your thoughts and let us know how things unfold for you.
In the end, it is all more simple than one could ever imagine. We can talk all day long about thought, belief, Truth, or whatever, but it really doesn’t matter.
Go into these things and see them fresh, in a way only you can do. The beauty of it is there already. This may take time for you to see, but afterward you’ll realize that no time was needed.
Keep with it.
May 18th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Well said, Davidya.
May 18th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Thanks, Tom.
Many people may say these things; this is simple, easy, nothing is to be done; but there may still be heavy effort-ing going on.
It may be necessary to ask if there is a doer, in the sense of the ambitious, callous fighter that wants to conquer the problem. (I am not speaking of anyone in particular here; certainly not you, Davidya, or Jerry. But it is something I go into quite a lot.)
Usually, one has the glimpse. The Dreaded Glimpse, haha. One realizes something, but it is not necessarily “the end.” This is easy to see for oneself. There may be pride in the knowing of what has happened. There may be the need to tell everyone what you now believe. There may be ongoing discussions of enlightenment being this or that. But is the stillness there? Or did the monkey simply take the train down a different track?
That monkey is devious. One must be ever vigilant.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:42 am
Devious indeed. I remember when I first noticed the monkey was pretending to be Self. It had latched onto the ideas of “spirituality” and played at being that. That aspect of my spirituality was pretend.
May 21st, 2008 at 2:45 am
SEE the thoughts. Do not BE the thoughts. Observe them as birds flying overhead allowing them to have their place in ourselves but independent of the Self which thinks them. If we see rather than be our thoughts we are not blinded by them into believing that this is the Self. Thoughts are a product of and not the essense of one’s being. Now, having said this…when we observe our thoughts with their effects upon us, but do so without attachment, is the observer also thinking thoughts which should be seen as seperate from our true being?
May 21st, 2008 at 7:13 am
Nicely put, Jerry
To your question, there is nothing separate from true being. That said, I find thoughts arise for different reasons. Sometimes background processing, sometimes individual stories, sometimes environmental, sometimes from the larger being. Simplest is just to allow them. See them as you suggest. If its important, it will ring clear and insistent.
May 21st, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Excellent, Jerry. Continue to be vigilant. Be sure to stay with the movement, and not resist or interpret or land on a conclusion. It is this open-ness that brings the energy to the fore; the seeming eternal energy that spreads like a flame through humanity. Stay with the seeing, and not with the believing.
On the question; separation only occurs within thought. If the observer thinks something it feels should be separate, that is all within the field of thought. Why should the thought be separate? Who is deciding that it should or should not be?
There is no good or bad in this observation, and no should and should not.
When we observe thought in this way, it isn’t as if there is an interpreter looking at the thoughts. And it isn’t really thought seeing itself, or whatever people like to call it. It is an awareness of the whole movement of thought. It is an altogether different kind of functioning.
Not that it is good or bad, but thought is limited. And if thought were truly aware of itself, it could only be aware within its own limited field. In other words, it can only relate to itself through what it already knows.
Now the movement I am speaking of; the observation of the movement; is beyond the normal capabilities of thought. It is a seeing that is not at all dependent upon knowledge, or what has come before. It is a freshness that permeates throughout everything and touches all. This freshness, aliveness, or whatever you might call it, is the well-spring of awareness. Some people have referred to it as Intelligence.
But let’s also remember to be kind to thought. It is an innocent victim, in a way. Haha. If it weren’t for your ability to think, you would never have gone down this road in the first place.
May 21st, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Very nice, Davidya. I appreciate your replies when I am not around.
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:17 am
I am reminded of nisargadatta and neti, neti or not this, not that…to infinity.
After a sustained open observation of the thought process i have become aware of a seperation or a kind of space/gap that seems to be growing between the thought and the awareness. By negation of everything that i am aware of there is a growing feeling for the no-thing that i cannot direct awareness onto. I cannot say for sure what is happening but there is a sense of something…. or is it a product of what i believe should happen??? It seems the more knowledge one gains regarding this the more easily the mind can sabotage our efforts.
In response to takuin, can thought relate to itself at all?? Yes it can obviously build on itself and from itself but without capturing our awareness, can it even do that? it feels like it is devoid of choice or conscious intention to do anything. Instead it is my choice, or illusion of choice, to attach to one of the many thoughts and create the merry go round of perpetual suffering. So i alone, decide where to focus my awareness, in effect giving life to something which is ultimately fleeting and ethereal.
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Hi Kris
I’m sure Takuin will have more to say on his return. But he doesn’t seem to mind me throwing 2 bits in
You have stated it very clearly and well.
You may find you cannot direct awareness to the no-thing as it is no-thing. It is not in one place. It is everything. One cannot experience it, one can only be it. In one way, it is the space you notice. In another way, it is the awareness itself. In another, it is the stuff of what you perceive. Each of these are a way to it.
To find the One, we first must step out of individuality. Curiously, this is gained through this experience of separation you mention. Having the sense of being separate from what is being experienced is a key part of the process. A process of growing clarity.
Having some mental framework allows us to verify experience and satisfy the mind so it will get out of the way. But equally, that metal framework can be used by the idea of individual to thwart that opening. That is the dance of opening - a little forward, a little back.
In the end we find that all the ideas of it are wrong as it has nothing to do with ideas. But without the idea in the first place, what will take the attention forward? Each stage has its value in the moment but must then be cast off for the next.
There can be a sense of something, then the mind will associate the experience with what it knows. Thats normal. When you can see the difference, you will be less inclined to fall into the mind’s story.
In that sense, thought is very self-referential and feeds itself. But thought cannot understand itself. Understanding only arises when you can step back, as you are doing.
You might ask yourself, what is the i that chooses where to focus awareness? You may find the answer changes.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:34 am
Davidya
I appreciate your input in takuin’s absence, or even in his presence…the more the merrier!!
I have often heard that true wisdom comes from the realisation that one knows nothing.
Only recently have i begun to see the truth in this beyond the words. The more i go into myself with an attitude of complete honesty, i find that there is less and less that can be known with certainty. In fact there seems to be nothing that i can know with absolute certainty….zero!!
This has come from an increasing willingness to see and acknowledge the root of many closely held opinions. Often i can find no real evidence for these opinions only a regurgitation of something i’ve read, or heard, an automatic response.
This can be applied to every area of life and in the area of ’spiritual development’ (if such a thing exists) it is particularly noticable for me. Although the mind likes to look for signs of progression along the path there is ABSOLUTELY no way of knowing, only automatic responses based on information gathered, nothing real, regurgitation.
In the same vein a sustained enquiry into the sense of ‘I’ seems to be yeilding to the same conclusions although the thoughts that provide the structure for the anchor of self are of a more subtle variety and as such are harder to see. There is a growing sense of their automaticity and the absence of an entity within. Again though, i can’t be sure..yet.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
You’re welcome, Kris.
Yes, always the mind has a story. Everything must be “explained”, however useless the explanation. When we see through the stories, mind begins to feel less a need. I think this is simply the nature of the mind and when we see past it, we pay much less attention to the stories. Then the habit slowly fades.
You are actually seeing the process quite clearly. It will get much clearer though. And clearer and clearer.
We find what we thought we knew ceases to be true. The stories were all a fiction. Even who we thought ourself to be. When we see through this idea of me, what someone described to me today as a belief, we “loose” the ego and have first awakening.
It is simply a process of observation and allowing. As you are doing.
Whats even more interesting is what happens later. After we loose the individual in surrendering to not knowing, we open more and more to the bigger Self. First the mind is absorbed, then the heart, and finally the root identity. We wake up from all the layers of illusion. We find ourselves part of the one life, the one heart, the one mind. In that one mind, beyond all illusion, is all knowledge. It is the very fiber of existence.
What we are giving up is the non-causal illusory knowledge. What that opens us to is something far more vast and deep. A little confusion along the way is worth it. (laughs)
Oh - and being sure becomes less important. If you are moving quickly on the path, what is true will continue to shift. When you are rooted in being, this is no longer a concern. We can just enjoy the ride
May 24th, 2008 at 4:28 am
Davidya
It all sounds beautiful from where i currently stand…..i hope it will be my experience soon enough.
One lifetime, or many, is certainly out of the question! haha
I dont know if this is something that could be addressed in another post by Takuin or you but it is something which i am currently stuggling with so please allow me the space to put this query to you.
With this increased observation of the mind has come a powerful urge to retreat into nature and disengage from life. I am aware that this is probably detrimental, but there is also the sense that to engage the mind with other minds and the menial everyday ’stuff’ would halt the opening that may be taking place…..any thoughts??
Thanks for your time by the way
May 24th, 2008 at 8:22 am
Kris,
I can understand this feeling you have. But question this as it goes on within. What is it that decides the menial versus the meaningful? Do you think that through separation this thing will come to you? Separation is there if we can look into it.
You want the end result, yet you may feel a need to separate yourself from the world in order to have it. There are so many questions that arise from this simple movement.
Is it an end result, or is it a living reality?
Is it possible to separate menial and meaningful life? Or is it all simply life?
It may seem like a high goal; to be aware, separate, enlightened or whatever. But you attack life as it is and separate it into the menial and the meaningful. It may seem like a strange way to put this, but it is a movement of violence. You can reach an apparent goal through violence, true, but more will be destroyed than could ever be gained.
I am writing this to you, Kris, but I am not at all saying that you have a problem, or that something you have done or said is wrong. Absolutely not. If there is this feeling of lack and a meaningless existence, that will be your greatest teacher. You can learn far more from that than you ever could from Takuin or anyone else.
You are on the edge now. The edge of the beautiful and the taxing; the free being and the image tightly held in bondage. Only you can move into this freedom that is already present. You may listen to others, and you probably should, but in the end you will find that it was a movement completed on your own.
The movement of separation is violence, yet one hopes to be free of pain and suffering through separation, creating more violence.
Separation can never bring unity. Be the light to the world you wish to possess. Let it go and be what is.
I’m writing this from Toyama, and we’re about to go to the oldest temple in the region. I can’t quite remember the name, though. So far, I’ve no clear pictures of the mountains, but we’ll see what happens today.
Thanks to everyone for adding their comments and making a great conversation. I’ll disappear for a bit more, but I’ll return in a few days.
May 25th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Takuin,
The desire to retreat arises from the sense of clarity and truth that is already apparent in nature.
There is, and always has been a powerful urge to physically dissolve into the very fabric of nature. It grows stronger day by day. There is the feeling that i have reached a fork in the road, i can take it all the way or i can continue to pursue this half heartedly while trying to build a socially acceptable life for Kris.
It is not so much a complete rejection of the human aspect, but a natural inclination towards that which gives strength.
May 26th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
@Kris
What you say may very well may be true. I would still question it all; this movement of retreat. Is it a retreat based on the idea of one thing being better than the other? Retreat is not the best word to use because it implies that one wants to get away from something that seems to be dangerous, lacking, unclear, or whatever. But is there any danger, lack, or fogginess of being? Or is it just more ideas of what could be? I am not saying it is or it isn’t, but it is something to meditate on.
Let’s make sure we are clear about this; you are not a mere part of nature and you are not separate from it, you are nature. You are everything that is beautiful in this world of natural phenomena. The mind stopping beauty of a flower is ever present in you. If there is a separation there, it is due to the activity of thought and has nothing to do with what you really are. Be sure the need to get back into nature is not part of the illusion the self has designed. In other words, the only thing the self can do is separate; it is the prime domain of thought, the differentiation, the this and the that, the me and the them.
It is interesting to consider. Humans believe that this world belongs to them, and can be manipulated to suit their own selfish needs. This separation, this greed and need for destruction, is part of the reason humans believe they are separate from nature. Nature exists and can only be. A tree or a beautifully flowing stream never ask how they can be loved, how they can get more, or how they can manipulate the environment. They can only give love, completely and irrevocably. And no matter how much damage we do, how many trees we cut down, how many rivers we bleed dry, it will always give love and only love.
Humans can do the same. But we don’t. It is all just so silly.
May 27th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Hi Kris
Takuin has covered your question well but I might add an old story they tell in India. If you want to make a cloth color-fast, you have to dip it in the dye, then bleach it in the sun. Put it in the dye again, then bleach it in the sun. Eventually the colour becomes fast.
Going within is an important part of opening but as Takuin observes, we are in the world. Without that aspect of life, your spiritual development will not “stick”. Your experience will be wishy-washy.
I was recently told that in order to be you must do. We are in the world to give expression. If we do not express, we miss an important part of our being.
Sometimes there may be a strong drive to go within. But look for the balance. And watch for resistance. Sometimes a strong drive to withdraw is driven more by avoidance than true opening. Takuin covered the judgment aspect that can also take place.
As Takuin observed, the One includes everything, inclusively. There is no other. As a wise man once said, “enlightenment can be found even in the smoke of a rotting bus.”
In the meantime, you may find a growing sense of separation from the world. Thats normal, but see it as a step, not a goal. A process to go through to leave the old behind. To step out of individual into the Being you already are. The old ego stories may come up to judge it this or that but pay more attention to who it is that is observing these things. That is the right path to follow. There you will find that it is the movement of being, the reason for doing, that is love.
May 28th, 2008 at 6:02 am
Takuin, Davidya
I acknowledge that i may have been confusing an egoic response with something more.
I have grown up in a fairly violent society, and as such maybe there is difficulty in embracing humanity with the same ease as i do nature.
I also am aware that to experience unity one must include humanity and all its viciousness, greed and self obsession.
As you say Takuin, we are nothing short of nature itself. I can intellectually grasp this, how could we be anything else, but to deeply feel it is something different.
Here is the biggest obstacle.
The pull to withdraw feels so real, so true, like something deeper and more profound, something that exists before thought. Or is it a clever disguise??
Again, there are only the endless blind allies of the mind.
Davidya, there is definitely a feeling of separation from the world and a need to be alone, a sense of death or no future is the best way i can describe it. A complete lack of motivation to ‘get involved’. The old reasons for living don’t have the same attraction.
Thank you again, guys.
May 28th, 2008 at 6:44 am
One more thought, arghh!! ha ha
The need to withdraw seems to have its origin in the inability to be real.
I have no idea, even as i have written these posts, what is true and what is fantasy.
There is a thousand different automatons inhabiting this body, each with different desires and opinions.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Hi Kris
It sounds like this exploration has been very fruitful. The ego is very tricky. It can pretend to be your spiritual nature, even the silence. The key question - is this resistance to what is, or is it stepping into the flow.
There is no obstacle but the one you hold. Your resistance to what is. As we begin to step back from mind, the ego can be quite concerned and can create the ‘endless blind alleys’. Fear can arise, which can come in many forms. Again, look to the silence, look to simple being. The mind is not the way out of the mind. Allow it to be as it is, true or untrue, wrong or right.
Sometimes, its about change too. The old is falling away. New choices are present. One feels out of balance. Again, just being is the center. It is the shifting that causes confusion. Clarity will return, then the next step will come.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
BTW Kris - that was an excellent insight. Being able to see through the story of the ego is the beginning of the opening.
May 29th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Thanks, Davidya. You covered it so well, there is no need for Takuin to comment, haha.
@Kris:
Please keep us all updated on the developments through comments (or the contact form, if you wish to continue through e-mail).
I am very interested in what is going on within you. It may seem blinding or frenetic or smoggy to you (or not), but there is the height of love and beauty there. It is all for you, but it is not necessarily happening to you, if you can understand that.
And thanks to everyone else that commented along the way, as well.
I’ll be updating photos from Gokayama soon (on Flickr).