Lost In Content

[John]

How does one formally separate the content out from their meditation?

If someone is grieving the loss of their Mother. Images, memories, thoughts, are all going to arise. The Person naturally needs to experience these, to look at them and feel them.

But meditation isn't about going into the narratives of our lives and trying to apply the teachings to the narratives.

It's about examining the bare bones experience that makes up out reality.

So how do we separate the two? While being true to ourselves and not denying or suppressing our experience and allowing the experience that needs to happen to flow freely

In my example, how would the student know when to be with the thoughts and not deconstruct them, then when to examine the thoughts for what they are, and the fact that there is no self observing them!

[electroBeam]

Whenever one feels that he/she is getting sucked into the memories, feelings and thoughts, its usually time to analyse them for what they really are. But the point of meditation, as you said, is not to over analyse the thoughts and feelings, its just to accept them in the present moment. If you aren't being sucked in, accept it. If you are, start coming back to reality.

[John]

Thanks.@electroBeam

It's still messy and murky waters for me to be honest. I am pushing on though, all I can do!

[PureExp]

10 hours ago, John said:

So how do we separate the two? While being true to ourselves and not denying or suppressing our experience and allowing the experience that needs to happen to flow freely

You answered your own question.

By not denying or suppressing our experience and allowing the experience that needs to happen to flow freely.

A better question is - do you really have a choice in regard to exactly when you are involved in thoughts and exactly when you do surgery on them?

Can you fix a time table for that?

[John]

Well, if you set aside 20 mins at 3.00pm everyday, then yes you do have some control over when you do surgery on them.

But the question is, when doing the surgery, I find myself subtly detaching from the experience. 

I use Shinzen Young's focus in technique. And while I am labeling my inner experience, there will be a subtle self arising that believes "So long as I just label these experiences, I am safe from them"

This seems unhealthy to me. Am I making sense??

Thanks,

John

[PureExp]

@JohnThen again you answered your own question about when a student can examine them. However, I was hinting at the possibility that thoughts do not arrive on a schedule, they do not follow a time table. You can follow a time table, but thoughts don't. You have to be alert always and observe them always. Observation would not mean suppression. In my experience, when I don't observe attentively, the thoughts take my mind where ever they are going, but when I observe, the thoughts lose steam quickly, but only after the primary thought has already passed. It never gets suppressed. The primary thought is non-verbal most of the time, its not even possible to see it coming. Its not possible to stop the seed thought from arising, but it is possible to cut down the whole train that follows.

Regarding the "voice" that comments on your observation, it is also a thought, just observe it. Its funny that it pretends to be an observer, but it is seen too, just like other "rogue" thoughts. The pretending voice pretends to be a "willful" thought, but it is rogue too. When it appears, shift your attention to the real observer. There can arise more pretentious thoughts like - "I killed the voice" or "I need silence here" etc etc, but these are all more thoughts. Let them come and go. It is unhealthy only if you believe these thoughts are yourself or "subtle self" or any kind of self, they are not, they are just events in the mind.

 

[Leo Gura]

@John Do a 10 day Vipassana retreat, and you will understand what mindfulness is.