Just Concentrating on any part of your body affects it, it is known empirically. Increased blood circulation increasing oxygen and action potential. Rate of Transmission through the nerves increases. Every plexus, chakra or cluster has known domains and sensations that can be mastered through awareness, observation of causality, feedback.
With a map of the nervous system, there is a lot to be explored.
With a map of the nervous system, there is a lot to be explored.
❤5
Forwarded from Tibetan Buddhism Vajrayana Tantrayana esoteric tradition
Why Meditation Is Vital
Pema explains why it helps, and how to do it.
MEDITATION PRACTIC E AWAKENS our trust that the wisdom and compassion that we need are already within us. It helps us to know ourselves: our rough parts and our smooth parts, our passion, aggression, ignorance, and wisdom. The reason that people harm other people, the reason that the planet is polluted and people and animals are not doing so well these days is that individuals don’t know or trust or love themselves enough.
The technique of sitting meditation called shamatha-vipashyana (“tranquility-insight”) is like a golden key that helps us to know ourselves. In shamatha-vipashyana meditation, we sit upright with legs crossed and eyes open, hands resting on our thighs. Then we simply become aware of our breath as it goes out. It requires precision to be right there with that breath. On the other hand, it’s extremely relaxed and soft. Saying, “Be right there with the breath as it goes out,” is the same thing as saying, “Be fully present.” Be right here with whatever is going on. Being aware of the breath as it goes out, we may also be aware of other things going on—sounds on the street, the light on the walls. These things capture our attention slightly, but they don’t need to draw us off. We can continue to sit right here, aware of the breath going out.
But being with the breath is only part of the technique. These thoughts that run through our minds continually are the other part. We sit here talking to ourselves. The instruction is that when you realize you’ve been thinking you label it “thinking.” When your mind wanders off, you say to yourself, “thinking.” Whether your thoughts are violent or passionate or full of ignorance and denial; whether your thoughts are worried or fearful; whether your thoughts are spiritual thoughts, pleasing thoughts of how well you’re doing, comforting thoughts, uplifting thoughts, whatever they are—without judgment or harshness simply label it all “thinking,” and do that with honesty and gentleness.
The touch on the breath is light: only about 25 percent of the awareness is on the breath. You’re not grasping and fixating on it. You’re opening, letting the breath mix with the space of the room, letting your breath just go out into space. Then there’s something like a pause, a gap until the next breath goes out again. While you’re breathing in, there could be some sense of just opening and waiting. It is like pushing the doorbell and waiting for someone to answer. Then you push the doorbell again and wait for someone to answer.
Then probably your mind wanders off and you realize you’re thinking again—at this point use the labeling technique.
It’s important to be faithful to the technique. If you find that your labeling has a harsh, negative tone to it, as if you were saying, “Dammit!,” that you’re giving yourself a hard time, say it again and lighten up. It’s not like trying to shoot down the thoughts as if they were clay pigeons. Instead, be gentle. Use the labeling part of the technique as an opportunity to develop softness and compassion for yourself. Anything that comes up is okay in the arena of meditation. The point is, you can see it honestly and make friends with it.
Although it is embarrassing and painful, it is very healing to stop hiding from yourself. It is healing to know all the ways that you’re sneaky, all the ways that you hide out, all the ways that you shut down, deny, close off, criticize people, all your weird little ways. You can know all of that with some sense of humor and kindness. By knowing yourself, you’re coming to know humanness altogether. We are all up against these things. So when you realize that you’re talking to yourself, label it “thinking” and notice your tone of voice. Let it be compassionate and gentle and humorous. Then you’ll be changing old stuck patterns that are shared by the whole human race. Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.
Pema explains why it helps, and how to do it.
MEDITATION PRACTIC E AWAKENS our trust that the wisdom and compassion that we need are already within us. It helps us to know ourselves: our rough parts and our smooth parts, our passion, aggression, ignorance, and wisdom. The reason that people harm other people, the reason that the planet is polluted and people and animals are not doing so well these days is that individuals don’t know or trust or love themselves enough.
The technique of sitting meditation called shamatha-vipashyana (“tranquility-insight”) is like a golden key that helps us to know ourselves. In shamatha-vipashyana meditation, we sit upright with legs crossed and eyes open, hands resting on our thighs. Then we simply become aware of our breath as it goes out. It requires precision to be right there with that breath. On the other hand, it’s extremely relaxed and soft. Saying, “Be right there with the breath as it goes out,” is the same thing as saying, “Be fully present.” Be right here with whatever is going on. Being aware of the breath as it goes out, we may also be aware of other things going on—sounds on the street, the light on the walls. These things capture our attention slightly, but they don’t need to draw us off. We can continue to sit right here, aware of the breath going out.
But being with the breath is only part of the technique. These thoughts that run through our minds continually are the other part. We sit here talking to ourselves. The instruction is that when you realize you’ve been thinking you label it “thinking.” When your mind wanders off, you say to yourself, “thinking.” Whether your thoughts are violent or passionate or full of ignorance and denial; whether your thoughts are worried or fearful; whether your thoughts are spiritual thoughts, pleasing thoughts of how well you’re doing, comforting thoughts, uplifting thoughts, whatever they are—without judgment or harshness simply label it all “thinking,” and do that with honesty and gentleness.
The touch on the breath is light: only about 25 percent of the awareness is on the breath. You’re not grasping and fixating on it. You’re opening, letting the breath mix with the space of the room, letting your breath just go out into space. Then there’s something like a pause, a gap until the next breath goes out again. While you’re breathing in, there could be some sense of just opening and waiting. It is like pushing the doorbell and waiting for someone to answer. Then you push the doorbell again and wait for someone to answer.
Then probably your mind wanders off and you realize you’re thinking again—at this point use the labeling technique.
It’s important to be faithful to the technique. If you find that your labeling has a harsh, negative tone to it, as if you were saying, “Dammit!,” that you’re giving yourself a hard time, say it again and lighten up. It’s not like trying to shoot down the thoughts as if they were clay pigeons. Instead, be gentle. Use the labeling part of the technique as an opportunity to develop softness and compassion for yourself. Anything that comes up is okay in the arena of meditation. The point is, you can see it honestly and make friends with it.
Although it is embarrassing and painful, it is very healing to stop hiding from yourself. It is healing to know all the ways that you’re sneaky, all the ways that you hide out, all the ways that you shut down, deny, close off, criticize people, all your weird little ways. You can know all of that with some sense of humor and kindness. By knowing yourself, you’re coming to know humanness altogether. We are all up against these things. So when you realize that you’re talking to yourself, label it “thinking” and notice your tone of voice. Let it be compassionate and gentle and humorous. Then you’ll be changing old stuck patterns that are shared by the whole human race. Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.
❤9
Forwarded from Esoteric Dixie Dharma
I like remembering the perspective that the elites are only a force that facilitates what the people do to themselves. This keeps the focus on one's own sphere of influence and away from "muh look what they're doing to me" victim mentality. Own your shit and fix it.
Take responsibility and work within what you have influence over. This is not saying don't be aware of outside forces, it only means that you realize what you're experiencing in life is due to your own karma. Karmic law applies on the macro or collective level as well. And when the host becomes virile and conscious enough the parasite will be plucked as a matter of course.
Focus on the order of operations.
Take responsibility and work within what you have influence over. This is not saying don't be aware of outside forces, it only means that you realize what you're experiencing in life is due to your own karma. Karmic law applies on the macro or collective level as well. And when the host becomes virile and conscious enough the parasite will be plucked as a matter of course.
Focus on the order of operations.
❤7
Practitioners should know that when we talk about “no-self”, we talk about the lack of an independent and non-changing self. When we say anatman we don’t say “no soul” we say that all phenomena/appearances are impermanent, meaning they are in intermittent states of becoming or, let’s say begoing. No independent self means, among else, that the attributes ascribed to you are in relation to other people and conditions. A practical example of this is how you are a different person with family than with friends and different between different friends.
❤5
Forwarded from Esoteric Dixie Dharma
Misunderstanding of Buddhism is extremely common amongst people I come into contact with.
First of all language itself is a problem and will always be limited. Language is symbolism and symbolism is for communicating deeper meanings that cannot be conveyed explicitly. Symbols implicitly convey meanings. Symbols are the finger pointing at the moon. The finger is not the moon.
👉🏻 🌚
Things must be directly experienced. Real spirituality is about direct experience, not intellectualization - which does operate within the bounds of language. Reality itself cannot be limited to language or the mind's ability to conceptualize. Imagine thinking you could "think about" or intellectually pin down Dharmakaya. Is the Ineffable effable?
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
There's a reason this is literally the first verse of the Tao Te Ching.
So besides just the inherent limitation of language, a lot of Buddhist terms really get fucked in translation.
Once I had a chick tell me I was a psychopath when I was explaining detachment because she thought the word means to be cold hearted or callous. Others think it means aloof, life denying, or removed from the world - space cadet, absent minded professor or zoned out druggie. People just have all sorts of negative associations with the word detachment that are not what is meant by the term in Buddhism.
Detachment is a means towards transcendence. It is to go beyond attachment and aversion, beyond grasping and shoving. So you can see it's not actually about the word itself; the word is just to point you to where you should be going.
Everything in Buddhism is in relation to aiding an individual towards enlightenment. This is what the system is designed for. The Bodhisattvas are trying to extract you from samsara and you're geeking out over the word nothingness because it sounds fucked up to you.
Nothingness is not nothing in the sense that we think of it in the West. Really when we think of nothingness we are already messing up because nothingness is supposed to be an aid in getting beyond thinking and conceptualizations so that we experience reality directly. Instead, being the spiritual plebs that we are, we decide to keep thinking about that which is supposed to help us get beyond the limitation of thinking.
Nothingness is Dharmakaya which is the seed of all manifestation, the infinite, inconceivable reservoir of pure potentiality. Words cannot actually describe Dharmakaya though and any idea of it is wrong. So the point of me characterizing it how I just did was to break out the ole 👉🏻 and see if we can possibly get just a bit closer to "it".
Nothingness is meant to be used like - empty your mind because all of your conceptual frameworks trap you. Nothingness is supposed to help navigate the labyrinth of the mind.
Another way to think of it is like no-thingness. Interdependence and the lack of distinction between "things". Understanding this, again, helps us to go beyond the mind. The mind likes to break everything down into tidy, neat little boxes - but remember folks, boxes are gay and keep you stuck in samsara. Boxes are fabrications because reality is NOT actually broken down like this - (later I will write about the doctrine of 2 truths and the relative truth of the distinctions between things). It is our minds that break things down and make distinctions and form attachments to the distinctions and identify with the distinctions and... fuck... forget about our innate Buddhanature.
But the moral of the story is always remember Buddhism is fundamentally about liberating us from samsara and making us aware of our innate Buddhanature - so terms are tools to strike down obscurations, attachments, identifications that hold us in ignorance and that lock us out of nirvana. The moment terms become something other than that we have missed the whole point and fallen into the trap of language and ultimately the trap of our own minds.
First of all language itself is a problem and will always be limited. Language is symbolism and symbolism is for communicating deeper meanings that cannot be conveyed explicitly. Symbols implicitly convey meanings. Symbols are the finger pointing at the moon. The finger is not the moon.
👉🏻 🌚
Things must be directly experienced. Real spirituality is about direct experience, not intellectualization - which does operate within the bounds of language. Reality itself cannot be limited to language or the mind's ability to conceptualize. Imagine thinking you could "think about" or intellectually pin down Dharmakaya. Is the Ineffable effable?
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
There's a reason this is literally the first verse of the Tao Te Ching.
So besides just the inherent limitation of language, a lot of Buddhist terms really get fucked in translation.
Once I had a chick tell me I was a psychopath when I was explaining detachment because she thought the word means to be cold hearted or callous. Others think it means aloof, life denying, or removed from the world - space cadet, absent minded professor or zoned out druggie. People just have all sorts of negative associations with the word detachment that are not what is meant by the term in Buddhism.
Detachment is a means towards transcendence. It is to go beyond attachment and aversion, beyond grasping and shoving. So you can see it's not actually about the word itself; the word is just to point you to where you should be going.
Everything in Buddhism is in relation to aiding an individual towards enlightenment. This is what the system is designed for. The Bodhisattvas are trying to extract you from samsara and you're geeking out over the word nothingness because it sounds fucked up to you.
Nothingness is not nothing in the sense that we think of it in the West. Really when we think of nothingness we are already messing up because nothingness is supposed to be an aid in getting beyond thinking and conceptualizations so that we experience reality directly. Instead, being the spiritual plebs that we are, we decide to keep thinking about that which is supposed to help us get beyond the limitation of thinking.
Nothingness is Dharmakaya which is the seed of all manifestation, the infinite, inconceivable reservoir of pure potentiality. Words cannot actually describe Dharmakaya though and any idea of it is wrong. So the point of me characterizing it how I just did was to break out the ole 👉🏻 and see if we can possibly get just a bit closer to "it".
Nothingness is meant to be used like - empty your mind because all of your conceptual frameworks trap you. Nothingness is supposed to help navigate the labyrinth of the mind.
Another way to think of it is like no-thingness. Interdependence and the lack of distinction between "things". Understanding this, again, helps us to go beyond the mind. The mind likes to break everything down into tidy, neat little boxes - but remember folks, boxes are gay and keep you stuck in samsara. Boxes are fabrications because reality is NOT actually broken down like this - (later I will write about the doctrine of 2 truths and the relative truth of the distinctions between things). It is our minds that break things down and make distinctions and form attachments to the distinctions and identify with the distinctions and... fuck... forget about our innate Buddhanature.
But the moral of the story is always remember Buddhism is fundamentally about liberating us from samsara and making us aware of our innate Buddhanature - so terms are tools to strike down obscurations, attachments, identifications that hold us in ignorance and that lock us out of nirvana. The moment terms become something other than that we have missed the whole point and fallen into the trap of language and ultimately the trap of our own minds.
❤8
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We should really kill the banks. It is the only thing I can think of in the worldly, that is truly meaningful.
fightclub is a good script
fightclub is a good script
Forwarded from Adonis of Arkaim
Let me tell you about my personal experience with smoking Marlboros... I don't find it particularly detrimental to my health. When I do smoke, I do it. The cigarette ends, I put it down, and watch throughout the process. And you have accomplished another occupation in your life, as much as your toilet flushing down.
Chogyam Trungpa
Chogyam Trungpa