Bhagat ji,
Quote:Originally Posted by Confused
So yes, what is meditation? Could it be something which then allows any and everybody to project whatever preferred meaning and significance they’d like to? I think not. Firstly, as I understand it, meditation like all mental states must come down to a particular quality of mind which must necessarily be momentary / fleeting. We can’t therefore appeal to some conventional activity of noting this or that object in this or that posture which in fact then becomes a convenient screen to hide behind. Indeed this is what followers of all the thousands of meditation techniques taught today appeal to and are happy to stand united with each other for, while they continue to avoid facing the fact of disagreements in other areas. And are they not insecure about it all?!!!
Bhagat:
Yes merely doing those things you mention won't help at all. and I understand this is what is commonly done. And it's because meditation itself, the point when you are actually meditating, when the meditation is successful, is actually very hard to get to. The experience of meditation is for most a momentary experience. It is momentary because it is difficult for the mind to stay in this state.
Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji points to us that ego is what prevents us from getting there. Once the ego is diminished then that state can be activated 24/7 or 8 peher.
C: There is a common misconception apparently colored by ambition on the part of those who entertain the concept. In the Buddhist tradition people are led by the idea of being ‘mindful’ when in fact they should be thinking in terms of developing ‘understanding’.
When thinking in terms of the need to be mindful or focused and no interest is had to the fact of understanding the present moment, the attention invariably goes to the idea of a ‘self’ who is mindful. This ‘self’ then pays attention to equally illusory concepts of objects, situations and activities, which in fact is just more “thinking” and is *not* mindfulness of a present phenomena! This is one “illusion of result” people unwittingly fall prey to from which grows the idea of need then, to be mindful for extended periods of time. And yes, this is what they could in fact achieve, i.e. to be mindful for a long time, related to which is the idea of carrying over mindfulness from the time one is on the cushion to times off the cushion.
All this however is a perversion of view, encouraging of more ignorance and attachment. The fact being that no understanding has arisen to know the object through the five senses and the mind, which if it did must necessarily give the impression of fleetingness, of being conditioned and beyond control. Instead, the vastly greater tendency to ignorance and attachment has arisen continuously to think in terms self, situations and activities, and wrong understanding arose intermittently to amongst other things, mistake attachment for mindfulness. Hence one goes away with the impression of doing the right thing / being on the right track when in fact one isn’t.
Right understanding on the other hand thinks in terms of developing right understanding and not to being more mindful. The interest is to the present moment instead of being drawn in by ideas about past and future, not to speak of “more”. The aim is never to have mindfulness all the time given the understanding that there is ever *only NOW* to understand. And given where most of us are, I’d think that even one moment of genuine mindfulness to the characteristic of a mental or physical phenomenon through one of the five senses and the mind is worth all the gold in the world. Certainly it is better to have taken one baby step in the right direction that a thousand in the wrong ones? One does not mind then, if little understanding has arisen knowing that it can’t be hastened by any wishing and willing. Such an attitude itself is reflection of a level of understanding which most would do well to have. Instead, greed drives people to follow suggestions by meditation teachers, resulting in what is akin to a blind being led by another blind and getting positive feedback from other equally blind people all believing that they can actually see.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Confused
Wisdom is foremost and with it is mindfulness of the object of consciousness. This is what meditation in the final analysis is. We could therefore conclude that meditation is in fact the ‘development of wisdom’. This being the case, asking oneself “what is it that is known and understood now” may be a way to get oneself on the right track. If not, then only wisdom itself will know, otherwise one is definitely going to be led by ignorance.
Bhagat:
Yes mindfulness is important.
C:
It is one thing to understand the role of mindfulness as support for wisdom when it arises. The error is in the idea to develop mindfulness on its own.
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Bhagat:
These qualities (conceit, anger, craving: greed, lust, the 5 vices) belong to the ego. Our ego manifests itself in our thoughts. So it makes sense that if we slowly train our mind to a reduced level of thoughts, and if we slowly train our mind to stop buying into the thoughts we have, then we can slowly kill off our ego.
C: Another very common misconception, namely that thinking is a problem and that it can be reduced.
Consciousness is sometimes described as ‘that which thinks’, this is because thinking happens all the time. Indeed after every experience through one of the five senses, the consciousness at the mind door immediately follows to ‘make sense’ of the object. With more and more input from the different senses, concepts about things and situations are formed. Were these not to happen, we’d not be able to function in the conventional world at all. How could anyone communicate with another? Indeed how could a teacher teach and students learn if thinking didn’t arise to perform its function?!
The problem is not that we think. The problem is in it being fueled by ignorance, attachment, aversion, conceit and worst of all, wrong understanding, day in day out. Thinking does not give rise to conceit, but rather conceit having arisen, begins to direct the show. All our thoughts, justifications and reasonings take on a direction determined by these unwholesome realities. This is why in any argument between two people who are angry; both parties go away feeling righteous about themselves. And why no amount of logic used by one person can change the beliefs and views held by another.
This very idea to reduce / suppress thinking in order to give rise to desired states identified as ‘momentary death of ego’, is likely yet another line of thought dictated by the afore mentioned unwholesome realities. The fact being that thinking continues to arise and has only changed objects but now having a ‘different feel’. Besides ego or conceit, together with ignorance and craving for being, are the last of the tendencies to ever be eradicated at the point of complete enlightenment. To think otherwise and having thoughts to tackle it would be then reflection of misdirected efforts / ambition.
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Bhagat:
We essentially live at the mercy of the discursive dialogue that is always taking place within us. We are always talking to ourselves... I am doing so as I type. This dialogue is basically our ego.
C: There are the three proliferations, namely craving, conceit and view. These are what drives our thoughts and they can very quickly alternate.
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Bhagat:
Many have found that once this mental discursive dialogue is quieted down, there are wonderful experiences to be had. There is 'happiness' and by that I mean well-being, to be found once the dialogue is quiet. Such happiness/well-being is independent of wordly things. it is independent of eating delicious foods or spending time with friends or family. it is independent of maya.
C: Attachment will take on any object, including the idea of “self being able to do without”. The question to ask of those who claim to dwell in states beyond that of sense pleasures is, what is known and what is understood about the experience? If they are unable to answer and appeal to ineffability with a broad smile, chances are that attachment is still very much at play, only delusion now plays a significant role as well. And this is Maya in one of its more tricky forms.
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Bhagat:
A few questions arise at this point:
Is there really a happiness, a well-being that is independent of maya?
C: There is, but first we need to identify correctly what this maya really is. Not only we may miss out on the possibility of understanding what in fact is *not* maya, namely the conditioned phenomena, but may mistake states which in fact are still dependent on maya as being independent of it. So we come back to the need to develop understanding and not aim at happiness or anything else.
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Bhagat:
How do we start seeing (intuitively) the danger of attachment [*], and how do we eradicate our ego?
When we meditate. More specifically, when we train the mind, to notice our moment to moment experience. When we train it to see how our ego rises and falls, how it responds to things. Once we start to see it before our eyes, doing what it does, we can address it.
C: And what if we are mistaken, would it not result in falling prey to illusion of result?
The very intention to observe or note starts off a train of thought which include the idea of “someone who is observing something”. This is Maya, the kind particularly tied to people who have heard about the need to be mindful and go about it fuelled by desire.
I was just talking to a friend yesterday, who was a monk for a long time and disrobed about a year ago. He now has the idea of re-ordaining. I tried to reason with him about the wrong intentions involved and what the consequence of that would be. At the end of our discussion I told him about the need for all of us to acknowledge that we are ‘beginners’ and the need to always begin again and again. All this requires patience and courage.
My point is that we need to first and foremost recognize where we are at, being that it is only with this understanding that any progress can ever be made. If we don’t know our own strength and seek to overreach, we end up moving clumsily in the dark and going in circles.
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Bhagat:
Meditation techniques often involve learning to focus and concentrate on mundane tasks, tasks that otherwise arouse little interest and little attention.
C: And it is so easy to begin to have an interest in almost anything especially when supported by good reasons and particularly with the idea of having made some progress is projected into it all. ;-)
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Bhagat:
This is so that we can train the mind to be senstive to our experiences, so that is able to notice minute things that happen within us. it would not be much of a training if it involved for example, watching TV to which we readily pay attention to.
C: Well, if we understand that there is only ever one moment of consciousness taking on one object at a time which has arisen and fallen away instantly, then watching TV is a situation no worse than being alone in the forest. Indeed we may come to realize that when understanding is absent, our whole waking life is akin to watching a film or being in a dream. The attachment to the stories of our lives is no different to the attachment to the stories we read in a book or in a movie. They are all the same.
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Bhagat:
Ego is almost invisible to the average Joe. So the first step in eleminating it, is to learn to notice it.
C: Forget elimination; forget even “trying” to note. Think instead in terms of ‘developing understanding’ which will condition lending ear to the wise and engaging in discussions. Better to return to the beginning again and again.
Sorry for such a long response. It likely is an overload, but I couldn’t help it. :-/
