MuddyBoots

I'm unsure about this whole debate too, just how real is climate change etc. So I sit on the fence. But the worrying thing is how regressive are the proposals and new taxes being brought in (in my country), ie the extra costs & restrictions flat rated instead of income related. If we've got to have rationing, let's be honest and have ration cards rather than rationing by (lack of) wealth.

Not me @Truth Addict I've been saying for years that consciousness is a working model, part of the mind-body duality. Great to see that @Scholar has broken through from consciousness/awareness to isness/being. @Scholar out of interest, did this change happen spontaneously or as a result of you viewing your meditation differently? Just trying to figure out if there's a link with you changing your use of language and approach to meditation.

I'd start by saying how porn is completely unreal and often involving exploitation of either the models or the viewers. It's no good as a guide for real relationships. In any case, I worry what effect the availability of internet porn (straight & other) is having on young people growing up. If someone is disgusted by the thought (or sight) of gay sex, that doesn't necessarily mean they have any suppressed tendencies, that is just their preference. But is there also a projection of our own preference out onto the other person? That is, if it's a fact that gay sex is disgusting for me (I am straight), is there another action of me projecting and saying the gay person is disgusting? But from the gay person's point of view, he is doing something loving and beautiful. Maybe that's the mistake, not recognising different POVs. As a straight man you may feel disgust at the thought of a gay man coming on to you. Maybe this can give you an insight into what life is like for a good looking woman being pestered by unwanted attention from men. Often the societies which put a taboo on gays also control women's sexuality. This is global, my own country used to be like this until the 1960s. As a 13-14 year old, you were only a child and a victim of abuse, so yes it's really sad that you felt your parents would blame you rather than support you. Whether that was true or not you don't know, but the fact that you believed it says a lot about the culture. Not just your culture, child abuse exists in every country and we forget how recently we have been waking up to the problem.

If you come across all evangelical, most people are on the defensive because they think you're out to convert them. I agree with the others. Do your work and let it transform you into a better, happier person, and that will attract people instead.

I did something like this years ago with co-counselling, although one person would be speaking and the other just looking into their eyes. It was powerful stuff, that caring attention was enough to bring up buried feelings.

Hi there You're doing just fine. Please don't add to your anxiety by worrying about whether you're doing it right, or you're experiencing the correct things. And good on you for sharing with the forum to discuss it. You've only just started with do-nothing, it's perfectly normal to feel intensified awareness because our usual default mode is distracting ourselves from deeper feelings by flitting between thoughts,and external stimuli of all kinds. My suggestion for what it's worth, is to choose one meditation technique (after a suitable time spent researching your options), learn it from a good teacher and stick at it for at least a month. 10 minutes per session is fine to start with, or even less if the effects are too strong for you. It's ok, take the long view and be kind to yourself. Build up gradually if you are feeling a bit fragile. You can keep a private journal to reflect on your experiences, or use the journal area here, but in any case if you feel tempted to change to, say, a breathing technique, you can mull it over first. The grass is always greener on the other side.

Just caught up with your journal, you've come on such a journey, your honesty is inspiring. Peace and best wishes, life really is good despite all the turbulence. Nick.

Meditation. Having done an unstructured method for a while now, I've reached a stage where the self exists for practical purposes in life, but between times there is awareness of (being). Or rather, just (being) because "awareness of something" suggests a separation of awareness and its contents. I like the metaphor of waves on the ocean. It's all one ocean, but some of the waves on the surface start thinking for themselves and competing against the others. Oh heck, I sound really clichéd now! I think I'm ready to try another meditation, for October. The ones I'm experienced in are: # Choiceless awareness CA (current one) # Mindfulness of breathing MOB (my 2nd one) # Body scan (done less than first two) # Sublime abodes There's an historical Buddhist influence here so I've a week to decide what I need for October's sitting. Perhaps I could do CA or MOB in the mornings for continuity and a new type in the evenings. I'll do some research. Reading. Currently: Be Here Now - Ram Dass Mindfulness for Dummies - Shamash Alidina The Shaking Of The Foundations - Paul Tillich I'm a REALLY slow reader, especially nonfiction, quality over quantity. The ideas are a slow burn for a slow mind. I'd rather spend a few months reading and sucking all the juice out of a good book, than race through one per week. Plus, I like to do a short review of spiritual books on some of my forums (mostly Unitarian). I wonder if reviews are welcome here? I have a good friend very seriously ill at the moment. My heart prays to the holy spirit for healing, even though my head is atheist. But I don't want to be narrow minded, so I also pray for healing for everyone else. The holy spirit has enough to go round, surely? A miracle for one person is wonderful but not newsworthy. Miracles for all sick people would be just crazy! Even Jesus allegedly only healed a handful, not the whole country ... why not? Hmmm.. Blessings all, Nick

Yes, but have you tried practicing with a traditional Zen group? When I used to in a Rinzai community, there was an almost macho disciplinarian atmosphere. We had to walk in right angles, bow the prescribed way, got whacked on the back with a big stick if we got tired. Someone would patrol the meditation hall looking for incorrect posture and correct you. We had to chant the Heart Sutra in Japanese, only had Japanese incense, bells & gongs etc. After a few years I couldn't stand the disconnect between the culture of my spiritual practice and my own culture. It was a huge barrier. That was the 1980s, it may be different now of course, but please can I have a spirituality which just fits into my ordinary life. Nick. Edit. It's as if the hardcore Zen people are trying to do a monastic practice in lay life. On reflection, it reminds me of how Islam has an almost monastic practice absorbed into lay life too. 5 prayers per day, fasting, robes (for women at least) , teetotal, lots of rules. Works for some people I guess.

Alan Watts has done some quite good critiques of Zen Buddhism and its connection with Japanese culture although may be dated nowadays (he died in 1973). It's the cultural clinginess which put me off, although that's not confined to Zen of course - many other traditions are like that too.

I just had a question come to me during my evening sitting. What about when I need to face my fears, be courageous, have some backbone and do something difficult, against my inner resistance? Don't I need some will-power and egoic guts to get it done? Or is this whole struggle only going to happen while I'm still stuck in the dualist ego belief? After I fully surrender to The Self etc, then there's no struggles therefore no need for courage? Nick.

Great question! Got me thinking ... Dead people: Alan Watts, Jiddu Krishnamurti. Living people apart from Leo: Vishuddha Das (Koi Fresco), Rupert Spira (occasionally). Although I don't really consider them my teachers, more like influences, people I listen to.

hubris ... I'm feeling chuffed about losing some weight (down by 1 whole stone now!) but still struggling with temptation, comfort eating, eating for boredom etc so expect a bumpy journey with ups and downs. Part of it is feeling ok to be a bit hungry sometimes, in fact I should be hungry when it's mealtime otherwise I'm eating too much previously!

@DoTheWork "WHAT TO DO NOW? The thing is, I feel like there is no higher "level" to reach." What comes across is, and please correct me if I've misunderstood, that you’re seeking experiences and insights for yourself. Absolutely fine, but how do you apply and embody what you've learned? Have you got any more work to do in the area of compassion and service to others, the planet, even your home town? There's an ocean of suffering out there, human society is a big mess, and we need all the enlightened people we can get to help put us back on track. Great thread though, thanks everyone _/|\_

@Synchronicity fascinating thread, I'd love to hear more. Random cherry picking is fine, or you can let compassion be your guide: choose stories which you think are helpful in some way. Also, how does this affect your everyday life, does it help or complicate things for you?

Wikipedia: A construct in the philosophy of science is an ideal object, where the existence of the thing may be said to depend upon a subject's mind. This contrasts with a real object, where existence does not seem to depend on the existence of a mind.[1] This isn't an attempt to get into an intellectual debate, but rather to say I'm at the verge of giving up on the ideas of 'real', 'reality', 'imaginary', they confuse me more than help clarify anything! Maybe this is this the language problem again, but this seems to say that the entirety of existence is being conned by a small construct which it itself has created. I think I'm lacking a decent philosophy of mind. But then, you claim you are enlightened and I claim I'm not. So that entirety is divided between our two minds, isn't it? I'm trying to fully appreciate this distinction between Difference and Separation. We're saying that Being has differences, an infinity of features, such as your mind and mine, but none are separate. We communicate, influence each other, over time there is a flowing through of features into each other because the boundaries are porous and unfixed, Yet we view life as a series of fixed snapshots where the differences appear separate. This could be the survival strategy you mention VeganAwake, although I'm not quite sure whether it's really dysfunctional, if it's objective is survival and reproduction of the human organism. But it does cause suffering along the way.

Whilst I agree with the gist of this, it is a counsel of perfection. Conditioning is the position of the newcomer to spirituality, the state from which we need to bootstrap ourselves out of. As you say, everything which us unenlightened beings are doing is conditioned to some extent (myself included) not just spiritual practice. William Blake said that if the fool persists in his folly he will become wise: if we can do our yoga, meditation etc mindfully then we may start to see the conditioning and ego games. We can then come to a crisis point where we realise the hypocrisy of our spiritual ambitions hereto, and from this crisis may just break out of this trap. I like most of what you say but find this part hard to understand. It could be just the limitations of language, but seems to be giving the ego some sort of actual existence. On the other hand, if the ego is an illusion then this is just the mind playing tricks on itself. To ask us unenlightened people to start talking to our ego is likely to end up with the ego talking to itself, or even to think there's another little 'me' behind my ego

Love isn't the same as liking, so Being can love all even the 'bad stuff'. Falling in love even with one other person just blows away the intellect, so falling in love with the universe is infinitely greater. We are already in love with the universe, as we are it, but it feels too deep from my point of view. Love is there, but covered up with layers of illusion and devilry, so the work is whittling down those layers to reveal what's always been there. Totally awesome you feel God's love, I've got some way to go yet.

Meditation is on track at the moment, twice yesterday and then today with some friends at my local Unitarian chapel, 20-30 minutes per session. Individual & group sittings is a good comparison. The odd thing is, the longer I've been practicing meditation, the less defined it becomes. I don't really have a consistent name for what I'm doing nowadays, it's something in the region of do nothing, choiceless awareness, letting go, let it be, passive awareness (my own name), just being, pure awareness. I don't even have a clear 'technique', but rather a non-technique of letting go of the active doer, the observer. When I first started I had very defined techniques, such as TM. I do use mindfulness of breathing and body scanning when my monkey mind is too active. Also, I often want to bow at the end of a meditation, sometimes even to prostrate on the floor. What is this about? My ego trying to communicate with the Unity of Being perhaps? Or just phoney humility? One of my obstacles to mindfulness is music and catchy tunes going round my head. Wondering how many others have this issue, my mother did too so it may be inherited. We're surrounded by trashy muzac, it's like the wallpaper of modern life but is really a veil between our awareness and reality. Even some spiritual people even put a layer of muzac on their youtube videos. Weight loss is progressing too. Mainly just reducing portion sizes and cutting out high fat 'treats'. I lost half a stone when I was ill a couple of months ago and hardly eating, managed to keep it off and lost a bit more, down to nearly a stone lost now and my clothes getting loose. The psychological comfort eating is gradually surrendering to the rest of me which only wants what I actually need. And I feel lighter and more energetic too! Maybe this means I'm due for a fall in this area Nick.

Loving this conversation and just grateful that I'm too new on this site for anyone to be analysing me But riveted by your views on people TruthAddict. On the laziness thing, most lazy folks I know are just happy to be lazy; it takes a special person to know they're lazy and want to do something about it. I think I'm in the middle somewhere: I'm a bit lazy too but keep reminding myself about short-termism vs long-termism. Ie that laziness is the short-term option but in the long term it makes life harder. That's kind of my definition of spirituality, moving from narrow mindedness to broad mindedness. Short termism is an example of being narrow. Individual ego is narrow too, needs expanding to greater circles of Self. Mind you, coming from the UK we still have the (orange?) protestant work ethic compared to the apparently laid back catholic and orthodox Mediterranean countries. So I'm a product of my culture I guess. Nick.

Considering how little good historical information we have about Siddartha Gotama Buddha, they don't like to admit that the Buddha of the Buddhist religion is largely mythological too and based on oral tradition. Just like with Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Krishna, even perhaps Mohammed too. Most historical religious figures are depictions created in the image of their followers. That may sound cynical, but it's not really, it's all part of the process of creating a religion and gives some freedom back to the followers.

Leo's done a video on Zen's ten oxherding pictures which describe the levels form the Zen Buddhist point of view. The first stages are In Search Of The Bull, and Discovering The Footprints. It's symbolic of course, but we first get glimpses of the absolute nonduality while living in duality most of the time. Thinking may stop temporarily, or you notice the gaps between thoughts, or maybe thought is seen as part of the whole unity. It depends, you don't need to have a fixed idea about what will happen.

Never been near a prison but I doubt if most inmates are meditating like it's a retreat. I think the benefit of do-nothing is to collapse the division between the doer and the done. Give the active controller a rest, until you see through the illusion of a separate controller. It's relaxing and de-stressing too, as an extra benefit.

Hi, you are journalling here regularly (I've just got into this section of the actualized site), plus you have a regular job. It sounds like you're being a bit hard on yourself? Perhaps just picking and choosing which things to be disciplined about I know what you mean though, I have oodles of to-do lists full of undone stuff! I think I'm too slack scheduling in my tasks and having a realistic routine. Nick

@Bill W your plan sounds so good, but we all know how hard it is to deal with the resistance we get when implementing our vision. One I'm working on right now is to improve my daily routine - getting enough sleep, going to bed early, making time for things I know I need, not wasting it on diversions. Such basic stuff. Your postings about caffeine are a really helpful pointer for us too, it's often overlooked as a bad influence. Thanks for sharing your journey with us, doing this shows you're a stronger person than you perhaps realise. I'm also mulling over doing a journal, rather anxious about how much to share with everyone etc, but they seem worthwhile too. Nick.