Zen Living Part 10 (summarized): Breath and Other Paths to Mindfulness

by JimmyPage 11 Replies latest jw friends

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  JimmyPage

  Techniques to help calm and focus your mind toward mindfulness include following your breath, counting your breath, visualizing, relaxing, or focusing on a visual point (such as a mandala) or a sound (such as a mantra).

  Many religious, philosophical, and spiritual traditions throughout the world use different meditation techniques, and all of them may be useful for quieting mental clamor.

  Kinhin is the walking counterpart to zazen.

  Eventually, you will be able to sit in awareness without techniques and then carry that awareness throughout the day.
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  BabaYaga

  Eventually, you will be able to sit in awareness without techniques and then carry that awareness throughout the day.

  That has been the most amazing part.
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  Robdar

  and once you become aware, it is amazing what you will notice.
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  Anti-Christ

  I am sorry if my question sounds weird but I have been asking myself this every time I hear about being "aware", what does it really mean?
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  BabaYaga

  That is a great question, Anti-Christ, and not an easy one to answer.

  To me, in simplistic physiological terms, it is right-brain awareness rather than left-brain awareness. The left brain never shuts up, unless you learn how to to quiet it. It just keeps jabbering and chattering... what the Buddhists call "monkey mind". When you quiet the left (logical) side of your mind, the right side is allowed to notice... and it perceives things very differently than you are used to perceiving them.

  I hope that makes sense to you. The best way to describe that difference is by showing you Jill Bolte-Taylor's "My Stroke of Insight".

  http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

  Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions -- motion, speech, self-awareness -- shut down one by one. An astonishing story.
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  awildflower

  BY, that's a fantastic explanation! I've been thinking all day how to answer that, LOL. And Jill's experience (which you can also you tube her) is so interesting. Great book!
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  poppers

  I have been asking myself this every time I hear about being "aware", what does it really mean?

  Aware means just that, aware. It is "knowingness"/consciousness; it is what allows what is seen to be seen; it is what allows what is heard to be heard; it is what allows what is touched to be felt, and so on. Awareness/consciousness is the backdrop to all experience, much like the screen upon which a movie is projected. Were it not for awareness/consciousness no experiece could be possible - it is the very essence of life, the very foundation of all things, sensations, emotions, experiences, ideas/thoughts, events. It is what you are left with when you strip away all ideas about who/what you are. Zen is dedicated to showing you what you are in the most direct and immediate way possible in order for you to wake up from the dream idea of who you think you are into the reality of what you are - consciousness itself.
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  Anti-Christ

  Wow! thanks I did not expect for more than one answer. I got a scientific and a philosophical answer cool thanks. I have seen the video of Jill Taylor very fascinating. And poppers what you said sounds like a "death of the ego" kind of thing.
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  BabaYaga

  Anti-Christ said:

  sounds like a "death of the ego" kind of thing.

  Exactly, yes... that is very, very much a part of it, too. Of course, as you can imagine, it is difficult to define, difficult to describe, and it's not that easy to explain how to do it exactly (even though it is not as difficult or out of reach as most folks think!) Words really don't do the state of "mindfulness" justice.

  I'm very happy our combined efforts to explain it made sense!!! (And thank you for your lovely compliment, Dear Wildflower.)

  Love,
  Baba.
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  poppers

  And poppers what you said sounds like a "death of the ego" kind of thing.

  Not so much the "death of the ego", but the realization that ego is not actually "alive" to begin with. Ego is only an accumulation of thought forms existing within mind that provides a framework for the mind generated sense of separation. In other words, ego is a phantom, a mental image and thought stream that plays out nearly continuously in the mind; apart from "thoughts of me" no me will ever be found. The seeing/realization of what you truly are is the beginning of the end of identification with ego as "me". As that identification drops away what's left is the unobstructed clarity of what you truly are, consciousness/awareness.

  Words really don't do the state of "mindfulness" justice.

  That's right. No words can give justice to the nonconceptual formless awareness that is one's essence.