Find Out More About Zen Meditation: Can Anyone Recommend a Book?

[Les Sleeth]

You stated in your first post in this thread that anyone who is serious about learning Zen meditation should be careful about who they let teach them. In your opinion, is learning from a master of the original teachings the only way to truly learn this ancient discipline, and if so, are there many Zen masters around the world who still teach this way.

Private message me if you are interested.

 

[Simetra7]

Private message me if you are interested.

This was more of a general question in line with the content of this thread. I was just wondering whether these people are out there, and available to teach someone who may be genuinely interested.

 

[Les Sleeth]

This was more of a general question in line with the content of this thread. I was just wondering whether these people are out there, and available to teach someone who may be genuinely interested.

Well, let me answer your question like this. How many people do you know who have meditated over an hour per day for nearly 32 years and still consider themselves unworthy to teach? The only reason for that is because the competence of stillness of who taught me is still far beyond what I have achieved. So why should I get in the way? Yet I am thrilled with what I've accomplished, and can heartily recommend others to try it.

My experience is, there are many, many willing to teach, but very, very few who actually can both impart the experience and keep one on track until one realizes how to realize the experience for oneself.

 

[Dr.Yes]

What does the Tao have to do with Zen? Taoists aren't reknown for meditation, but rather for participating in life a certain way, in harmony with the Tao. This has absolutely nothing to do with Zen.

I takes a certain meditation to participate in harmony with the Tao. I referred to the Tao because I saw it mentioned somewhere in the above posts.

What is the shadow side of Zen, meditation? Zen IS meditation and the experience that results when that meditation is successful, period.

The "shadow of Zen" is another way I attempted to describe the "flip-side of Zen".

Sorry, but I don't think you are making sense. We are in a thread talking about Zen meditation, ...edit We aren't talking about other resources, we are talking about Zen.

On the contrary, if you include my participation in this discussion, we are talking about resources etc.

I am not confused, I just don't think you know much about Zen, yet you are acting like you do.

My opinions are based on what I've experienced or know about a subject like you or anyone else.

Today all the lazy people think they get to be an expert on Zen by reading books,

They are experts at reading books.

I am not trying to say that your practices are wrong, or even that they might not be superior to a true Zen practice. If they work for you that's fine. What I am trying to say is that you haven't been speaking accurately about Zen.

Superiority is an unbalanced state which I try to avoid. I've only spoken generally about Zen. If Zen Buddist tradition is similar to what the Dali Lama practises, I have it on good authority that it is as outdated and psudo-domineering as the Roman Catholic Church and its cousins.

Meditation (of any sort) is one thing. Organized meditation is out-of-balance and down-right-plain-dangerous.

And please don't tell me about how organized, vigilante meditators can save the world. What are they, everyone's Mommy?

 

[Simetra7]

My experience is, there are many, many willing to teach, but very, very few who actually can both impart the experience and keep one on track until one realizes how to realize the experience for oneself.

So are you saying that the original meaning and practice of Zen meditation could eventually be lost forever, or are these teachings passed down through generations of certain dedicated families.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Superiority is an unbalanced state which I try to avoid. I've only spoken generally about Zen. If Zen Buddist tradition is similar to what the Dali Lama practises, I have it on good authority that it is as outdated and psudo-domineering as the Roman Catholic Church and its cousins.

Well, you are making my case for me that you've been talking about something you don't know much about. Besides the fact that modern Tibetan Buddhism is another subject, if you review my posts you will see that I've attempted to describe the origin of Zen--what it originally was--and not anything that's "organized" today. I am as against religion as anyone I know because I believe every time it strays miles from what the original teacher was doing.

That's why, if you read my first post in this thread, I attempted to show that Zen (Ch'an) started out with someone still trying to keep what the Buddha originally taught going (what I called a "preservationist") while the religion of Buddhism had totally overshadowed what little preservationism was left. Most of what people call "zen" today has little to do with the type of serious and lifelong dedication to meditation the Buddha and his faithful were into.

By the way, there were serious meditators within first the early Eastern Greek monasteries and later in the Catholic monasteries (although they called it "prayer" such as prayer of the heart or union prayer). The Catholic monastics appear to have learned this from the Orthodox practitioners, who themselves descended from the desert hermits populating remote areas of Palastine, Egypt, Asia Minor soon after the death of Jesus. The inner practices of these "preservationists," IMO kept the original teaching of Jesus alive for centuries while, again, the Christian religion grew and dominated until today all people think Jesus was about is the dogmatic and fantastic beliefs that represents so much of religion.

Meditation (of any sort) is one thing. Organized meditation is out-of-balance and down-right-plain-dangerous.

What is "organized meditation"? Meditation is personal, you can't do it "with" someone else even if they happen to be in the same room doing it too.

If you mean organizations set up to promote meditation, then it seems you equate "organized" with evil, but I don't think that's a fair assessment. The Buddha organized a sangha (monastic lifestyle) for people who wanted to give their full attention to inner practice. While devotees had the benefit of his single-pointed focus, the organization served a meditation purpose. But later (after the Buddha's death) when those in charge of the organization started adding religious practices, then the organization started serving a religious purpose. So organization isn't inherently evil, it depends on what the focus is. In the early Ch'an monasteries, it appears the focus was meditation just as it had been with the Buddha. But now, look at all the stuff people are doing in the name of Zen and you can see what the focus is (or isn't).

And please don't tell me about how organized, vigilante meditators can save the world. What are they, everyone's Mommy?

I haven't said or implied anything of the sort. In my profile you can review every post I've made here, and you will find me always recommending meditation for personal enlightenment, not world enlightenment.

 

[Les Sleeth]

So are you saying that the original meaning and practice of Zen meditation could eventually be lost forever, or are these teachings passed down through generations of certain dedicated families.

Well, this is a difficult question to answer quickly. To do it right, I have to distinquish between Buddhist meditation, and the practices specific to Ch'an (I'm going to use Ch'an because the Chinese are who developed the practices that later became part of Japanese Zen).

The meditation the Buddha mastered and realized enlightenment through is called samadhi, which means union. It's called union because one's consciousness, normally split into several aspects (intellect, sense data, emotions, etc.) all merge into one single experience. The mind becomes still, and one experiences "oneness" with the whole of reality. This practice involves a series of methods where one learns to recognize the inner brightness of consciousness, its inherent vibrancy, a gentle pulse consciousness has, and a total release from holding or feeling the body. Believe me, it takes practice to get anywhere first because the thinking mind won't let go either of control of consciousness, or of the body.

Letting go becomes a big deal, because as one learns, one realizes that one is surrendering one's self to a greater "something" that will absorb it once one can get the mind to submit (just as Mohammed said). When that absorption happens, that is samadhi/union. Most people think the purpose of meditation is to stop thinking, but it isn't (not samadhi meditation anyway). It's just that thinking prevents absorption; the real goal of samadhi/union meditation is that absorption.

If an individual has the right inner methods, then he can attain union. One can get so good at meditation that he achieves it at every sitting; but alas, the experience fades over the day, so one keeps practicing daily so that the union experience can last through life's hassles. This partial, in and out experience is not enlightenment, which is when someone achieves permanent absorption. When that happens, then that person may go and teach others if the orignal teacher is dead.

So, back to the Ch'an story. What the Buddha did was to achieve permanent union, and then he set up a situation where he could teach. Never in history have students had the opportunity for so much attention from a master. The Buddha taught for 40 years, and as a result quite a few people realized enlightenment. These people (the "preservationists") kept the experience alive, teaching others through the generations, but as the religion of Buddhism grew some went off to teach in more "neutral" settings (i.e., where Buddhism wasn't the dominant thing).

Before China, it appears some Buddhists taught Hindu priests because meditation masters show up there. The great master Kabir claims to have been taught by a Hindu master, and many believe Kabir taught Nanak, who would initiate several generations of serious samadhi meditators before it deteriorated into the Sikh religion. Some say Jesus went to India during his "missing years" and learned union; that would certainly explain the presence of monks and nuns practicing union in monasteries centuries after Jesus' death.

Anyway someone went to China about a thousand years after the Buddha. As usual, a preservationist adjusts his message to fit the beliefs, values and attitudes of his audience (the Buddha, for instance, designed his message for the forest full of ascetics who were his first followers; his "middle way" was a message aimed directly at their severe self-denial practices which were often physically debilitating and even life threatening). The preservationist who went to China, thought to be Bodhidarma, likely found his most enthusiastic followers among Taoists. I say this because you often see in the pecularities of Ch'an the Taoist value of naturalness. This shows up in the best Ch'an koans where students are constantly pressed to experience, and stop maintaining a concept about enlightenment.

I consider Joshu the greatest of all Ch'an masters, someone who meditated for 40 years and waited for his master Nansen's death before teaching. His koans show the naturalness that Taoist understanding seems to have imparted to Ch'an. For example, someone asked Joshu, "Master, where is your mind focused?" Joshu answered, "where there is no design."

"No design," is a what union is like, which is what is practiced first and foremost in meditation. If you know that, then you can see what a true master, someone within the experience himself, is doing when he interacts with students. He is trying to keep them in the "oneness" experience all day. That's how the experience eventually becomes permanent.

Here's another good one (and reflects Taoist influence too):

A monk asked, "Master, what does the enlightened one do?"
Joshu said, "He truly practices the Way."
The monk asked, "Master, do you practice the Way?"
Joshu said, "I put on my robe, I eat my rice."

There is "no design again. The Way is not a concept but the undivided experience of the present. Another example:

A new monk asked, "I have just entered the monastery, and I understand nothing. Please master teach me."
Joshu answered, "Before entering the monastery, you understood even less."

In other words, before you entered the monastery you hadn't heard about the Ch'an concept of being an empty vessel and understanding nothing, but now that concept is in your head which violates "no design." Here's one of my favorites:

A monk asked, "When you do not carry a single thing with you, how is it then?"
Joshu said, "Put it down!"

That is a teaching of no design too. Joshu recognizes the monk is carrying a concept about not carrying concepts instead of being in the experience of no design.

I've tried to show what was really going on FIRST in the original Ch'an, which was samadhi meditation, just like it was with the Buddha's followers. What people now think of as Ch'an or Zen is merely the external techniques used to guide students to stay in the experience. But obviously no student can be guided who hasn't experienced union regularly, yet that is exactly what Zen today has become. It isn't about samadhi (and that's the only kind of meditation to associate with the Buddha), it is about naturalness, and koans, and slapping initiates, etc. It's like trying to drive a car without the motor in it. You aren't going to get anywhere with Zen if you don't have the union experience there that Zen was designed to assist in maintaining.

Now to answer you question. My point has been that I believe preservationists have kept the experience alive throughout the centuries. Samadhi meditation still relies on the same inner methods, but the external methods change with each teacher. I don't see Zen as alive anymore, its time is past. But it I do think it was a great approach because it emphasized, just like how the Buddha taught, the experience and discouraged concepts.

Is there anyone around today qualifed to teach samadhi/union? As I said, I only discuss that in private.

 

[selfAdjoint]

If an individual has the right inner methods, then he can attain union. One can get so good at meditation that he achieves it at every sitting; but alas, the experience fades over the day, so one keeps practicing daily so that the union experience can last through life's hassles. This partial, in and out experience is not enlightenment, which is when someone achieves permanent absorption. When that happens, then that person may go and teach others if the orignal teacher is dead.

Believe me Les I don't want to insult you or your practices, but I have to respond to this.

Suppose I said "This is a person who has trained his brain to produce a certain result by self-hypnosis, biofeedback or whatever, and the brain produces it by say, a subclinical complex partial seizure such as Zooby has posted about, and now the person can reliably trigger that seizure, whose only perceivable symptom is this experience of oneness (which some epileptics also experience)?" This explanation accounts for the effects and uses only known facts about the brain. How would you respond?

 

[Les Sleeth]

Believe me Les I don't want to insult you or your practices, but I have to respond to this.

Suppose I said "This is a person who has trained his brain to produce a certain result by self-hypnosis, biofeedback or whatever, and the brain produces it by say, a subclinical complex partial seizure such as Zooby has posted about, and now the person can reliably trigger that seizure, whose only perceivable symptom is this experience of oneness (which some epileptics also experience)?" This explanation accounts for the effects and uses only known facts about the brain. How would you respond?

You aren't insulting me, so I hope you understand this response.

Suppose I said of the love you feel for your grandaughter, "This is a person who has trained his brain to produce a certain result by self-hypnosis, biofeedback or whatever, and the brain produces it by say, a subclinical complex partial seizure . . . and now the person can reliably trigger that seizure, whose only perceivable symptom is this experience of [grandaughter love]?" Are you ready to buy my theory, based on my own belief system about what a human being is, or do you prefer to trust your experience?

If your theory is that a seizure is at the root of 3000 years of consistant reporting by inner practitioners (and don't you think a seizure would grip the body in tension instead of producing the most total and complete relaxation I've ever experienced?), then it seems to me that should show up on electroencephalagrams, which it hasn't.

You can't dispute a theory that fits the facts, but competing theories can be made to fit the same facts. The only thing one can be sure of is one's experiences. I could go into why brain malfunction doesn't make sense, but you still won't be convinced because you and I can't share facts about the experience. I know it, you don't, so you are free to speculate anything you please about what it is or isn't. But I am constrained by what the experience has taught me. I say it is nothing like a seizure.

 

[hypnagogue]

But I am constrained by what the experience has taught me. I say it is nothing like a seizure.

Have you experienced any seizures?

Actually, whether these transcendent states are related to seizures or not, it is known that the baseline EEG of experienced meditators is different from non-meditators in a marked and predictable way, and various other brain imaging studies have shown distinct neural correlates of transcendent or ecstatic states arising from meditation.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Actually, whether these transcendent states are related to seizures or not, it is known that the baseline EEG of experienced meditators is different from non-meditators in a marked and predictable way, and various other brain imaging studies have shown distinct neural correlates of transcendent or ecstatic states arising from meditation.

I have seen this said before and never followed it up. Have you any sites where I might learn more about these meditation imaging studies?

And BTW, Les, I am perfectly comfortable with the idea that my love for my granddaughter, along with all my other thoughts and emotions, are the product of brain states. Whether I trained my brain to produce them I don't know - I loved her from the moment I saw her, only minutes after she was born.

 

[Dr.Yes]

Well, you are making my case for me that you've been talking about something you don't know much about. Besides the fact that modern Tibetan Buddhism is another subject, if you review my posts you will see that I've attempted to describe the origin of Zen--what it originally was--and not anything that's "organized" today. I am as against religion as anyone I know because I believe every time it strays miles from what the original teacher was doing.

That's why, if you read my first post in this thread, I attempted to show that Zen (Ch'an) started out with someone still trying to keep what the Buddha originally taught going (what I called a "preservationist") while the religion of Buddhism had totally overshadowed what little preservationism was left. Most of what people call "zen" today has little to do with the type of serious and lifelong dedication to meditation the Buddha and his faithful were into.

By the way, there were serious meditators within first the early Eastern Greek monasteries and later in the Catholic monasteries (although they called it "prayer" such as prayer of the heart or union prayer). The Catholic monastics appear to have learned this from the Orthodox practitioners, who themselves descended from the desert hermits populating remote areas of Palastine, Egypt, Asia Minor soon after the death of Jesus. The inner practices of these "preservationists," IMO kept the original teaching of Jesus alive for centuries while, again, the Christian religion grew and dominated until today all people think Jesus was about is the dogmatic and fantastic beliefs that represents so much of religion.




What is "organized meditation"? Meditation is personal, you can't do it "with" someone else even if they happen to be in the same room doing it too.

If you mean organizations set up to promote meditation, then it seems you equate "organized" with evil, but I don't think that's a fair assessment. The Buddha organized a sangha (monastic lifestyle) for people who wanted to give their full attention to inner practice. While devotees had the benefit of his single-pointed focus, the organization served a meditation purpose. But later (after the Buddha's death) when those in charge of the organization started adding religious practices, then the organization started serving a religious purpose. So organization isn't inherently evil, it depends on what the focus is. In the early Ch'an monasteries, it appears the focus was meditation just as it had been with the Buddha. But now, look at all the stuff people are doing in the name of Zen and you can see what the focus is (or isn't).




I haven't said or implied anything of the sort. In my profile you can review every post I've made here, and you will find me always recommending meditation for personal enlightenment, not world enlightenment.

You're right Les, I don't know anything about Zen because I don't practise it. Its like you said, people reading books about Zen don't cut the mustard, what I've heard about Zen doesn't cut the mustard either... you really "got to get some on ya" (Ken Kesey) to know what it is.

I apologize if I mistook you to be a modern day nazi boot camp zen kamindant. You have clearly shown me that you are simply a person who wishes the best for himself and others and offers an example to anyone who shows an interest in doing the same. I'm all for that.

Are you cutting and pasting all this information into this page or do you type at a ferocious speed with perfect accuracy and grammar?

 

[Simetra7]

I loved her from the moment I saw her, only minutes after she was born.

One of those perfect NOW experiences that makes the world a better place...

 

[hypnagogue]

I have seen this said before and never followed it up. Have you any sites where I might learn more about these meditation imaging studies?

I don't have time to do a web search right now (will try later), but experiments of this sort are described by the researchers in the book .

 

[Les Sleeth]

Have you experienced any seizures?

Indeed I have not. But the literature is abundant, and even the word seizure is derived from the concept of being "seized," and that is just about exactly opposite of the "release" that occurs in union. If reports about seizures are accurate, then it is easy for me to differentiate what I experience and what's described as a seizure.

Actually, whether these transcendent states are related to seizures or not, it is known that the baseline EEG of experienced meditators is different from non-meditators in a marked and predictable way, and various other brain imaging studies have shown distinct neural correlates of transcendent or ecstatic states arising from meditation.

True. But what if what is being measured only tells what physical effects meditation has on the body? Only if you assume up front that a transcendent state is purely physical can you also assume that the EEG is reflecting all that's going on.

 

[hypnagogue]

I have seen this said before and never followed it up. Have you any sites where I might learn more about these meditation imaging studies?

I couldn't drum up a good all-purpose or review site on these matters, but here's a full paper and an article about the effect of meditation on EEG readings:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/101/46/16369
Meditation Gives Brain a Charge, Study Finds

You can also find abstracts pertaining to this on PubMed. Entering "meditation eeg" returns 129 results, although "meditation fmri" and "meditation pet" return only 6 and 4 respectively.

I skimmed through the first chapter of Why God Won't Go Away and the writers mention research where they use PET to scan the brains of experienced meditators just as the meditators tug on a string to indicate that they are at the peak of their experience. The scan showed that during this experience, activity in the posterior superior parietal lobe (what the authors call "orientation association area" or "OAA") was significantly inhibited compared to baseline. One function of OAA is to help us orient our bodies in space and navigate through the world safely and coherently, and part of carrying out this function involves drawing an implicit boundary between the body/self and the external world. The authors propose, then, that decreased activity in OAA may be what is responsible for consistent reports that during peak meditative experiences, the self seems to 'dissolve' and become one with the entire universe. Because the OAA is being inhibited, no body/self boundaries can be drawn, and so the self is experienced as if it indeed has no boundaries.

 

[Les Sleeth]

I skimmed through the first chapter of Why God Won't Go Away and the writers mention research where they use PET to scan the brains of experienced meditators just as the meditators tug on a string to indicate that they are at the peak of their experience. The scan showed that during this experience, activity in the posterior superior parietal lobe (what the authors call "orientation association area" or "OAA") was significantly inhibited compared to baseline. One function of OAA is to help us orient our bodies in space and navigate through the world safely and coherently, and part of carrying out this function involves drawing an implicit boundary between the body/self and the external world. The authors propose, then, that decreased activity in OAA may be what is responsible for consistent reports that during peak meditative experiences, the self seems to 'dissolve' and become one with the entire universe. Because the OAA is being inhibited, no body/self boundaries can be drawn, and so the self is experienced as if it indeed has no boundaries.

Or . . . the OAA is one way consciousness is connected to the body, and a meditator's disassociation from the brain shows itself there.

What has become interesting to me is how clearly I can see the physicalist a priori assumption in all the brain research and subsequent theorizing, abiogenesis theory, and all evolution only by way of genetic variation and natural selection. Those theorizing have already decided that only a physical explanation is possible.

Lately I've been rereading my favorite books on evolution, plus perusing the net looking for the lastest finds. What is it that evolutionists claim evolution has done? Well, in 600 million years it has evolved most of the life forms that we see. That life includes some extremely complex organs, including the human brain.

What's the evidence that mutating genes can provide the variety of traits needed for nature to select in 600 million years (which includes a couple of mass extinctions) what's needed to produce a human brain? Well, there is none. What there is evidence of is that genetic variation and natural selection can make superficial changes to an extant organism. There is also genetic evidence that all life is related, so it is logical to infer life developed through genetic changes. What is missing, however, is evidence that self-directed genetic variation, naturally selected, can produce an organism. What you see in the record is bursts of creative genetic change that result in new organisms, followed by millions of years of relative stasis in surviving species. I say "relative stasis" because it's proven species can be modified superficially by genetic variation and natural selection.

There is not enough evidence to say that the force of genetic variation and natural selection alone can create an organism, or even an organ! Genetic variation and natural selection is far too puny, in terms of what we can actually observe, to at this time say it can do it without some sort of additional principle, force, process, etc.

So when reading evolutinary theory what you get is tons of information about simple speciation (because that's all we can observe), and then TONS and TONS of "the model predicts . . ." to fill in the huge evidentiary gaps needed prove genetic variation and natural selection can create an organism. This is exactly what physicalists have done with abiogenesis. They get a few proteins to self organize and then claim they've all but proven life started that way. Brain researchers see the brain respond to conscious activity and assume, without hesitation, that the brain is causing consciousness; it couldn't possibly be that consciousness is entwined with the brain somehow so there is correspondence.

It doesn't have to be true consciousness isn't physical, or that some creationary consciousness has been able to manipulate genes during key phases of evolution. But it doesn't have to be untrue either. Yet to the physicalists, they say "we can find no evidence of a creationary consciousness, all we find is physical stuff." But they also won't acknowledge they are only looking for physical stuff and what supports their beliefs, that they will only accept physical evidence and physical theories for the gaps in evidence, and that they exaggerate the significance of evidence they do have. Nobody in the physicalist camp admits what they are doing.

To get right, all they'd have to do is say is that they observe a small degree of self organization, they observe genetic variation and natural selection producing relatively superficial changes to extant organisms, and they have found correspondence between consciousness and brain activity. Beyond that, they don't actually know anything.

So why the incessant huge leaps to "physicalness has done it all" if physicalists are just trying to prove their theory (which would be fine), and really don't have an anti-spiritual agenda? Why treat doubters like they are too stupid to understand if there is no a priori assumption that physicalness alone is the orgin of all?

To me what's stupid is watching someone take apart a once living thing elegantly organized to function with near perfection as a self-sustaining system, describe all the relationships between the parts correctly as chemical, and then stand in the clutter of their disassembled life form and say, "See, mere chemistry." Now that is stupid.

 

[Dr.Yes]

But what if what is being measured only tells what physical effects meditation has on the body? Only if you assume up front that a transcendent state is purely physical can you also assume that the EEG is reflecting all that's going on.

Here are some of the results of MRI and other studies on meditators and a brief overview of the benefits of meditation from http://www.channel4.com/health/microsites/C/comp_medicine/meditation.html

Meditation

what is it?

For thousands of years meditation has been an important spiritual practice among Buddhists, Islamic Sufis, Christian mystics and other religious groups. But as recent research demonstrates its benefits for mental and physical well-being, efforts are underway to demystify and secularise the practice. Different schools of meditation favour different techniques, but all share a common basis: a focus of attention to which the mind can return if distracted.

what it's supposed to do

Professor Herbert Benson of the Mind/Body Institute of Harvard Medical School developed what he calls the 'Relaxation Response' after studying transcendental meditation practitioners in the 1970s. He found that simply sitting in a quiet place for about 20 minutes and concentrating on the breath or a particular word or phrase can reverse the physiological changes produced by stress. (In theory a word plucked at random from the telephone book will do, but most people seem to prefer something with a spiritual connotation.) Blood pressure, heart and breathing rates, metabolism and muscle tension are reduced, and the brain slips into a slower, calmer rhythm.

Meditation is commonly recommended to relieve stress and anxiety, high blood pressure, headache, migraine, fatigue, depression, insomnia, chronic pain, to overcome addictions, to enhance the immune system and for personal development.

what happens

Whatever approach is used, you will probably need a quiet environment where you won't be disturbed, a comfortable position (the lotus position is not obligatory but lying down can send you to sleep; many people like to sit upright in a chair), and a focus for your mind. The usual advice is 15-20 minutes meditation once or twice a day, before a meal when you won't be distracted by a full stomach.

The aim is to achieve a state of 'passive awareness', alert but detached from everyday surroundings. Whenever the mind wanders, draw it calmly back to the focus of meditation. Breathing is slow and regular so that the abdomen rises and falls gently.

The focus of meditation may be the rhythm of your breathing, a mantra (a word or phrase that is repeated continually, either silently or aloud), a physical object such as a candle flame or religious icon, a positive affirmation, feelings of loving kindness, visualising a sacred figure, or (for those who find it difficult to sit still) a repetitive movement, as in walking or t'ai chi. The Buddhist technique of vipassana or 'mindfulness', is defined as 'moment-to-moment non-judgmental awareness', or paying attention to whatever feelings or actions one is experiencing at the time.

what's the evidence?

Followers of transcendental meditation (TM), who work with an allocated mantra, have carried out extensive studies, though not always of a high quality. But recent trials published in Stroke in 2000 and The American Journal of Cardiology in 1996 and 2000 show that TM can reduce atherosclerosis and the risk of heart disease.

A form of meditation known as sahaja yoga, based on yogic breathing exercises, was found to help people with severe asthma, according to an Australian study in Thorax in 2002.

Research into an adaptation of the Buddhist technique of 'mindfulness' led by Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, shows relief for symptoms of heart disease, chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome, high blood pressure, headaches, anxiety and panic, cancer, AIDS, stress and chronic fatigue syndrome. Patients also claimed to have more energy, confidence, 'enthusiasm for life', and be more able to deal with stressful situations.

When combined with cognitive therapy (which aims to change unhelpful beliefs and thoughts), mindfulness meditation halved the risk of relapse for people with a history of clinical depression, according to a recent Medical Research Council study in Cambridge.

Neurobiologists have used positive emission topography (PET) scans and functional MRI scans to study what happens in the brain during meditation. Results indicate that different areas of the brain are involved than when merely resting, and suggest the mind can control the autonomic nervous system, which regulates involuntary body functions like respiration and circulation.

precautions

Go to the safety first section of 'before you start' for some general precautions to take into account when considering a complementary therapy.

* Check with your doctor before starting meditation if you have a history of psychiatric problems.

I have promoted and observed relaxation programs that were used in Cancer Institutes and that boosted the survival rates among patients to higher levels than those among patients not using meditation and relaxation as a complimentary treatment program. The rise in survival rates was significant to more than 20% above a 40-45 % level.

As far as I know today, relaxation programs for cancer patients have been scaled back by "budget concerns" and jealous pharmaceutical companies. The cost of a relaxation program equals the salary of two neurolinguists and some foam mats for the floor.

 

[Royce]

Like you, Les, I am constantly amazed at the huge leaps made in physicalist's claims.
I am also confounded when they see that the brain does exactly what it is expected to do in meditation, near death, out of body or any other phenomena and then claim that it is the physical brain that is both the source and sole cause for these apparent effects and the one experiencing these things are simply deluded.

Again it is the cart before the horse, confusing effect for cause . I ask why they would expect anything else other than to see corresponding brain activity to any experience whether spiritual, mystical or common everyday experience.

 

[selfAdjoint]

What has become interesting to me is how clearly I can see the physicalist a priori assumption in all the brain research and subsequent theorizing, abiogenesis theory, and all evolution only by way of genetic variation and natural selection. Those theorizing have already decided that only a physical explanation is possible.

Not at all. Nobody said it was the only explanation, just that it was a SUFFICIENT explanation. It accounts for the facts and doesn't require special pleading.

 

[Vossistarts]

Pages and pages of concepts trying to decide what zen is or what zen practice is and who should teach it . Zen and zen practice or zazen can be taught in a sentence. Sit and breath, learn to quiet your thoughts. No one can teach you to the goal. Its nothing more than learning to be quiet by being quiet so you can see the world for what it is, rather than what you think it is.

 

[Simetra7]

Pages and pages of concepts trying to decide what zen is or what zen practice is and who should teach it . Zen and zen practice or zazen can be taught in a sentence. Sit and breath, learn to quiet your thoughts. No one can teach you to the goal. Its nothing more than learning to be quiet by being quiet so you can see the world for what it is, rather than what you think it is.

Learn to quiet your thoughts...This is very much easier to say than it is to do. Thoughts have a tendency to just keep on flowing, and for most people, learning specific techniques is the only way to achieve that quiet state from where they can then progress in their practice.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Not at all. Nobody said it was the only explanation, just that it was a SUFFICIENT explanation. It accounts for the facts and doesn't require special pleading.

But, my friend, it doesn't really account for the design principles (and I am not talking about a designer, just the quality of organization of living things).

When you say "it accounts for the facts," IMO you are saying it explains the relationship between parts. As long as we stay on the level of looking at how things are linked up, a physicalist explanation works perfectly. My frustration here has been trying to get anyone to look at the quality of organization of those physical connections that leads to life. That quality contrasts about as dramatically as anything can from how physicalness operates outside of living things.

If you saw how Bystander debated me in the ID thread, when I complained about the lack of an explanation for organizational quality, he came back at me every time with more details about the purely mechanistic relationship between the components of life (which I've never disputed). In my years of debating here, possibly one person on the physicalist side has ever admitted to a problem with the self-organizing principle (Eh).

When I debate the physicalist, they typically try to overwhelm me with details about the purely physical nature of component interconnections. In that area, the evidence we already have is all that's needed for a proof. There is no dispute there! Those rare times I get anyone to address the organizational issues, all I hear is the Miller-Urey experiment, etc., the natural selection-genetic variation stop gap, and brain studies showing a correlation between brain activity and consciousness.

The contrast between the HUGE amount work done to illustrate physical component relationships and the ridiculously tiny amount of work done to account for organizational quality stands out like a sore thumb.

So that's why my opinion is that relationship-between-parts experts can become blinded by their own expertise. They look so exclusively at one thing they come to think that's all there is.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Learn to quiet your thoughts...This is very much easier to say than it is to do. Thoughts have a tendency to just keep on flowing, and for most people, learning specific techniques is the only way to achieve that quiet state from where they can then progress in their practice.

You are right. It is very difficult to quiet the mind. Maybe you'll tolerate an analogy.

I make pizza, and if you haven't made it you might not know that the dough is the absolute most difficult aspect to master, especially in home kitchens where people may not have the right equipment.

You can easily find tons of pizza recipes online or in books, but they don't reveal the secrets of the dough. Those secrets are in the possession of bakers, passed down from centuries of breadmaking, who have reduced the variables to a science. Once you master the science, only then you can be an artist.

The majority of home pizza makers just do the easy popular thing, so that's the common knowledge. But pizza nuts who get into it find out things like the importance of the final temperature to yeast action, hydration effects, enzymes ability to develop the dough, what refrigeration of the dough overnight does, the effect of oil on guten development . . . and so much more. Learn it all and you can really get into the art of dough-making.

Well, meditation has a popular version and the science-leading-to-art version. The popular stuff says just sit and breathe, or repeat a mantra, or stare at a candle, or count sheep. There is a lot more to it.

It isn't more "complicated" than sit and breathe, it is just more accurate. My favorite meditation thought for the day is to explain that the mind isn't stilled by any sort of effort to stop the mind. Rather, there is something inside of us that is already perfectly still. Learning how to find that is the first part of the secret; the second part is to submit to that stillness. When that happens, that which is still automatically and naturally stops that which is incessantly moving (the mind). My experience has been that finding the still place is hard, but mastering submission to it is a lifelong endeavor.

 

[Royce]

There seems to be some misunderstanding here about meditation. Focusing on an image mental or physical, focusing on our breathing or counting our breathes, quieting our minds are exercises by which we learn to find that quiet place within us all that Les mentioned above. and learn to listen and observe with our being. Only then do we without effort or intention slip into the meditative state of consciousness. We do not try to meditate nor learn to meditate. Trying and learning are doing something and doing something is the antithesis of meditation. Doing nothing is not meditation either; however, only by learning to quieten our minds of the constant chatter and random thoughts and images that we get hung up on and get carried away with, then finding that quiet place and doing nothing, can our consciousness automatically assume the meditative state. Then and only then are we actually meditating.

All the rest, all the techniques, the images and focusing are exercises by which we learn and train ourselves to come to the mental quietness necessary to allow meditation to happen. We benefit tremendously both mentally and physically by doing these exercises but it is not meditation. Once there, once finally quiet and in our center we begin meditating. It takes months if not years to train ourselves to achieve this quiet, doing nothing state. Once there meditation occurs on its own without effort or intention, without trying or focusing. When we finally reach the meditative state we do not know it or are aware of it until after the fact. It is very much like an "Oops, I did something right." experience.

This "oops" unintentional uncontrolled experience is the very essence of Zen thinking, martial and creative arts such as flower arranging, the tea ceremony, and calligraphy. It is doing without thinking, without analyzing. Seeing instantly what is necessary and doing it automatically. Golfers call it getting out of their own way and trusting there swing. We call it being in the moment and doing what come naturally. One aspect of this is that if what we are trying to do is proving to be difficult then we are not doing it the right way.

There are many levels of meditation. Deep meditation is when we become completely disassociated with our bodies and become "one with the universe", "one with the universal consciousness." There are many "places" that we may go during deep meditation, one is the Light, another the Void and another the Circle (of consciousness). There are many hang-ups and distractions alone the way. We can only work our way through these. There is a reason why we get hung-up and distracted and we will not move on until we are ready. It is a guided tour not random meandering around where we will. There is no danger and we are never alone. We may be afraid or reluctant to proceed, to go thru the door but we will never be forced or pushed. When we are ready the door will open again and we will go through without hesitation or thought and only later will we realize that we went through and wonder what all the fuss was about.

The ultimate result of meditation is enlightenment, the complete enlightenment reached by Buddha, becoming a Buddha ourselves, actualizing and becoming one with the Buddha within us all. In the Western Judeo-Christian religion it is actualizing our souls and becoming one with our God that is within us all.

[A bit aside:
I think this feeling of never being alone, of being gently and patiently led without feeling led, of seeing and feeling purpose, intent and direction in all that is, is one of the reasons that we so called mystics are so adamant that there is more, so much more to the universe, to life, to consciousness and to evolution than just the physical. There is a pattern, a purpose, an intent, a direction to all that is; and, all that is, is one, one universe, one consciousness, one reality. It becomes so obvious, so right, so true that we despair when others cannot and will not see it but cling desperately and stubbornly to their rock of physicalism and determinism, denying to the death, sometimes even violently that there is or can be anything else. As the saying goes;" Me thinks the Lady doth protest too much." As with all fundamentalist they cling to their paradigm, not allowing the least little bit of doubt to creep in lest their whole mind set, belief structure, come crumbling and shattering down leaving them no place to stand, no place to set their feet. They fear that this way leads to insanity, to chaos.

Know this: Sanity appears insane to the insane. Reason appears unreasonable to the unreasonable. Truth appears as lies to those living untruth and unwilling to accept or acknowledge the Truth. Reality appears unreal, illusion, delusion to the unreal. This is why the eastern mystics say that the physical world is illusion. It is not illusion as I know that there is one reality and all that is, is of that one reality. If it is, it is real. The physical world, universe, is real. It is a part of, a subset of, all that is, of all of reality. When looked at by the "mystics" it may be a small and insignificant part of reality; but, it is real.

This is in no way meant as a condemnation or even criticism. It is simply an observation by one who has been there, done that, got the tee shirt and the tattoo.]

 

[nameless]

This is why the eastern mystics say that the physical world is illusion. It is not illusion as I know that there is one reality and all that is, is of that one reality. If it is, it is real. The physical world, universe, is real. It is a part of, a subset of, all that is, of all of reality. When looked at by the "mystics" it may be a small and insignificant part of reality; but, it is real.

This is in no way meant as a condemnation or even criticism. It is simply an observation by one who has been there, done that, got the tee shirt and the tattoo.]

Sorry, that is not why the 'mystics' say that the physical world is illusion. We say that it is illusion because it only exists within 'mind', as a 'mental fiction', a 'dream'. It all certainly 'feels' real though... How is it that you speak and interpert for 'the mystics'?

About your one 'reality', are you implying that 'your' reality is all inclusive of 'illusion', 'delusion', 'truth', 'lies', all 'concepts', all 'perspectives', all 'theories', etc...?
Thanx..

Bye the bye, I've got a few tattoos myself! *__-

 

[Royce]

Sorry, that is not why the 'mystics' say that the physical world is illusion. We say that it is illusion because it only exists within 'mind', as a 'mental fiction', a 'dream'. It all certainly 'feels' real though...

I know what some mystics say and what some others say. If the physical world exists only in the mind or is only a dream then in whose mind does it exist as we all experience it? Whose dream is it and how do we all experience it? Are we all then of one mind, one universal consciousness that is the one reality?

How is it that you speak and interpret for 'the mystics'?

Because here at PF the words mystic, mysticism etc have come to be used for those of us who meditate and are non-physicalist and argue for the something more position. I do not consider myself a mystic nor what I believe as mysticism.

About your one 'reality', are you implying that 'your' reality is all inclusive of 'illusion', 'delusion', 'truth', 'lies', all 'concepts', all 'perspectives', all 'theories', etc...?

If there is one universal consciousness then my reality is your reality as we are all of that one consciousness. If there is one consciousness and all that is, is mental of that consciousness then there can be only one reality.

I have said in the past and here above that if it is, if it exists, it is real and that if it does not exist it is not real. If it is not real it does not exist. This view, theory or whatever you want to call it is the result of recent meditation. Not long ago I thought the same way that the physical world is illusion and in many ways it is depending on how we look at it. Lately I have come to see, to know that it is one and it is real. One Universe, One Consciousness and One Reality and it is all One. In that some of all that is, is real then all of what is, is real. In short ; "If it is, it is real. If it is not, it is not real." I know this ( possibly the same way I know that I am.)

Bye the bye, I've got a few tattoos myself! *__-

We all do, although some call them scars.

 

[nameless]

I know what some mystics say and what some others say. If the physical world exists only in the mind or is only a dream then in whose mind does it exist as we all experience it? Whose dream is it and how do we all experience it? Are we all then of one mind, one universal consciousness that is the one reality?

Nice to meet you Royce.
You must have been around for a few years. I can 'smell' it from the clarity and conciseness of your questioning.

As our commonly accepted notion of 'my-self' (as if there were a 'my' who possesses the 'quality/quantity' of 'self'!), whom we see in the mirror, is also 'fiction', asking 'whom' might not be appropriate here. I have never found any evidence of someone 'here' in 'existence'. Ultimately, it appears that 'concsiousness/awareness' contains/produces (words at this level must be metaphorically examined, considering the 'context') 'mind/ego'. It is mind/ego that conceives Duality, an imaginary boundary drawn around 'concepts', 'naming' the 'concept' into petrification, and taking the 'concept' as a distinct and uniquely separate 'thing', apart and distinct from all other concepts that have become 'things'. We 'conceptualize' our universes, populating them with things. From the subtlest of 'things', like 'thought', to the 'grossest', such as a galaxy, we populate our 'concept of life', our concept of space/time, our universes, our fiction, our 'dream'... Of course, I use the word 'our' almost as if there really were a 'me' or a 'we' other than as a 'dream' of consciousness... Consciousness is a rather homogenous 'thing', in and of itself... Perhaps that's why It 'dreams' in such 'living color'?

...and argue for the something more position.

Can you please explain what you mean by this? I am unfamiliar with that 'position'. (Two knees and an elbow? *__- ) It sounds 'somehow wrong' in that the way to 'truth' appears to be a 'something less' position... But, hey, WTFDIK?

If there is one universal consciousness

Almost, we all and each occupy a 'different' universe experienced from our own unique(?) 'perspectives', our own corner (ego/duality) of consciousness. The entire omniverse has existence, solely, within consciousness; there is not so much 'one universal consciousness', as consciousness of all universes as merely 'dream'. Consciousness, the literal 'Creator God' of all that is. Creator of Dreams that dream...

then my reality is your reality as we are all of that one consciousness.

If you are referring to 'consciousness' as an/the 'ultimate reality', both of us having our 'existence' within that Consciousness as 'dream', then perhaps. So from one 'perspective', that is correct. If you refer to our 'reality' as that which the mind conceives and the senses 'corroborate', our individual 'perspectives'. We all experience different universes. All existing in Consciousness.
But, THERE IS NO QUANTITATIVE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANYTHING IN OUR 'DREAMLAND UNIVERSES'

If there is one consciousness and all that is, is mental of that consciousness then there can be only one reality.

I wish that youd use a perhaps, capital 'R' or something to indicate Reality, that which is of omniversal perfect symmetry, 'ever the same', 'That-ness', 'Am what it Am' Reality, as opposed to the 'reality' that if I don't brush my teeth, I probably won't get kissed (except by my wolf, of course*__-) small 'r' 'subset(?).
One 'Reality', many (apparent) 'realities'.
Neils Bohr said once, "There are great Truths and there are trivial truths. The opposite of a great Truth is also True, the opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false!"

I have said in the past and here above that if it is, if it exists, it is real and that if it does not exist it is not real. If it is not real it does not exist.

'Exist' as in our common consensus 'reality', our 'Dream' 'existence'? That is the only 'brand' of 'existence' of which I have any 'experience'. Bye the bye, I think that the word 'real' comes from the Latin 'res' meaning 'thing', if memory serves..

This view, theory or whatever you want to call it is the result of recent meditation. Not long ago I thought the same way that the physical world is illusion and in many ways it is depending on how we look at it. Lately I have come to see, to know that it is one and it is real.

The state of understanding that all that we see in our universes is 'one' and that all 'distinctions' are subjectively arbitrary is commonly referred to as 'enlightenment'. Even the scientists will tell you that there is no definite place where one 'thing' ends and another 'begins'. Even science is becoming 'enlightened'. Sheesh! Hahahaha...

One Universe, One Consciousness and One Reality and it is all One. In that some of all that is, is real then all of what is, is real. In short ; "If it is, it is real. If it is not, it is not real."

Many, many universes comprising the omniverse, within Counsciousness which is the Reality that contains all the baby dream 'realities'... What some take to be 'real', isn't 'Real', just subjectively assumed to have 'inherent' existence. Delusion. I guess that is some ways, delusion can be 'reality'.

And, I guess that my understanding of what your 'in short' meaning means depends on what you mean by 'is'...

I know this ( possibly the same way I know that I am.)

Then perhaps one is a mite short from 'enlightenment', as, if all is 'one', then there is no longer an 'I' to 'Be' or to 'know' as there IS nothing to know, and no individual 'me' to 'Be'!
I posit that the only thing that can be truly 'known' is delusion.
Perhaps you mean 'strongly believe'? Otherwise you are dealing in the 'coin' of religious 'faith' and 'belief'. Dogmatic fundamnentalism. <shudders!>
How do you 'know' that you 'are'? The 'evidence' of the senses? Ego demands? Mind? Someone told you?
Remember,
'convictions' make convicts, 'beliefs' make 'believers', thought makes 'thinkers'.

We all do, although some call them scars.

And would display them proudly,
if 'pride' weren't a 'sin'...
*__-

Lots of words dealing in areas where words are rather tenuous at best. I hope that I have made some sense to you, and thanks for the opportunity of clarifying a bit of thought...
Peace...

 

[Les Sleeth]

As our commonly accepted notion of 'my-self' (as if there were a 'my' who possesses the 'quality/quantity' of 'self'!), whom we see in the mirror, is also 'fiction', asking 'whom' might not be appropriate here. I have never found any evidence of someone 'here' in 'existence'. Ultimately, it appears that 'concsiousness/awareness' contains/produces (words at this level must be metaphorically examined, considering the 'context') 'mind/ego'. It is mind/ego that conceives Duality, an imaginary boundary drawn around 'concepts', 'naming' the 'concept' into petrification, and taking the 'concept' as a distinct and uniquely separate 'thing', apart and distinct from all other concepts that have become 'things'. We 'conceptualize' our universes, populating them with things. From the subtlest of 'things', like 'thought', to the 'grossest', such as a galaxy, we populate our 'concept of life', our concept of space/time, our universes, our fiction, our 'dream'... Of course, I use the word 'our' almost as if there really were a 'me' or a 'we' other than as a 'dream' of consciousness... Consciousness is a rather homogenous 'thing', in and of itself... Perhaps that's why It 'dreams' in such 'living color'?

Yes, but illusions of our mind have nothing to do with if the physical universe is real. I don't think you understand Royce's point yet (not that I claim to represent his view).

The physical universe is real and our consciousness is real in that they both exist. This Eastern concept that the world is an illusion is commonly misinterpreted to mean the world itself is an illusion when it really refers to what consciousness believes about the world.

A similar example is someone on the desert who believes a mirage is water. Is the mirage real? Yes it is, it is a real mirage with actual physical characteristics. Is it an illusion? Yes it is an illusion as well if consciousness believes the mirage is water.

Our consciousness, bound in physicalness for now, accepts much about the effects of physicalness on consciousness as our nature. Since, for instance, in relation to us the physical is "out there" and we are thoroughly submerged in physical circumstances from the moment we are conceived, we come to believe contentment and lasting happiness are "out there." The inner perspective, however, claims there is nothing "out there" which can satisfy because physicalness isn't our true nature. So our pursuit of contentment and lasting happiness "out there" is an illusion; but a common way to say this in the East has to been to say "out there" (or the world) is an illusion.

BTW, recognizing a distinction between physicalness and consciousness doesn't have to be duality. Check out substance monism for an answer to that.

Almost, we all and each occupy a 'different' universe experienced from our own unique(?) 'perspectives', our own corner (ego/duality) of consciousness. The entire omniverse has existence, solely, within consciousness; there is not so much 'one universal consciousness', as consciousness of all universes as merely 'dream'. Consciousness, the literal 'Creator God' of all that is. Creator of Dreams that dream...

I say, one reality, many perseptives; and, most of us may be dreaming, but it isn't the only option. Once can experience reality without the dream.

The state of understanding that all that we see in our universes is 'one' and that all 'distinctions' are subjectively arbitrary is commonly referred to as 'enlightenment'. Even the scientists will tell you that there is no definite place where one 'thing' ends and another 'begins'. Even science is becoming 'enlightened'. Sheesh! Hahahaha...


Many, many universes comprising the omniverse, within Counsciousness which is the Reality that contains all the baby dream 'realities'...

That is not enlightenment. If you want to use the word as it was applied in 18th century Europe, then maybe. But the Buddha's enlightenment is something entirely different. It is to escape the "dream" you are talking about and merge with reality. Since that enlightenment is realized in a still mind, there is no possible way to "think" enlightenment.

And there is one place that both ends and begins in the same place, and that is each individual.

Then perhaps one is a mite short from 'enlightenment', as, if all is 'one', then there is no longer an 'I' to 'Be' or to 'know' as there IS nothing to know, and no individual 'me' to 'Be'!
I posit that the only thing that can be truly 'known' is delusion.
Perhaps you mean 'strongly believe'? Otherwise you are dealing in the 'coin' of religious 'faith' and 'belief'. Dogmatic fundamnentalism. <shudders!>
How do you 'know' that you 'are'? The 'evidence' of the senses? Ego demands? Mind? Someone told you?

You can speak for yourself, but not everyone. If you can't stop your mind, then yes you are doomed to knowing only what it tells you. If you can silence it and experience reality without it's incessant interpretations, colorations, aversions, lusts . . . then you may experience your own existence with the sort of certainty Royce hints at.

'convictions' make convicts, 'beliefs' make 'believers', thought makes 'thinkers'.

. . . and meditation can make enlightenment.

 

[nameless]

Yes, but illusions of our mind have nothing to do with if the physical universe is real. I don't think you understand Royce's point yet (not that I claim to represent his view).

First, you posit one HUGE 'if'. So far, if there is anything 'out there' it cannot be known, only posited as a 'speculative 'if''.
Second, if Royce feels that I didn't understand what he said, then I'm sure that he'll let me know. I can speak with him about 'his' understanding, I can speak with you about 'your's'.

The physical universe is real and our consciousness is real in that they both exist.

Fine, first define 'real' and 'exist' so I can understand YOUR meaning, your perspective?

This Eastern concept that the world is an illusion is commonly misinterpreted to mean the world itself is an illusion when it really refers to what consciousness believes about the world.

By your authority? Are you a Zen Master that feels qualified to interpert, broad brush, the entire 'Eastern concept'? A Zen Master would not have that 'egoic problem'. Having learned, practiced and understood 'Eastern Mysticism and philosophy and scriptures, I have found, in my experience, something other than what you have 'found'. Consciousness has no 'beliefs'.

A similar example is someone on the desert who believes a mirage is water. Is the mirage real? Yes it is, it is a real mirage with actual physical characteristics. Is it an illusion? Yes it is an illusion as well if consciousness believes the mirage is water.

The mirage is only APPARENTLY 'real' to the perceiving mind. You claim actual physical characteristics for a mirrage? A hallucination? Really? Sorry, in my understanding, illusion believed to be 'reality' is called 'delusion, not 'Truth', 'Reality'! It is only apparently (appears as) 'real' to the 'deluded mind'.
Again, Consciousness has no 'beliefs', 'beliefs are within 'thought' only.

Our consciousness, bound in physicalness for now, accepts much about the effects of physicalness on consciousness as our nature. Since, for instance, in relation to us the physical is "out there" and we are thoroughly submerged in physical circumstances from the moment we are conceived, we come to believe contentment and lasting happiness are "out there." The inner perspective, however, claims there is nothing "out there" which can satisfy because physicalness isn't our true nature. So our pursuit of contentment and lasting happiness "out there" is an illusion;

I understand your perspective, but I see it as deluded. Error creeps in with 'belief' and 'assumption'; fer instance, assuming that the 'evidence' of your 'senses/mind' is a true 'picture' of an 'external reality', 'believing' this apparent 'evidence' uncritically is unscientific, dishonest, and deluded.

but a common way to say this in the East has to been to say "out there" (or the world) is an illusion.

Appealing to your 'broad brush opinion' of 'Eastern thought' for validation of your 'beliefs' is cognitively fallacious. Might as well say that, "If Barbara Streisand believes it, it MUST be true." Do your own work, your own practice, your own studies, your own critical thought. Then, you can quote your own experience. You can find Eastern 'physicalists' to 'orbit' if you like, but they would be rare...

BTW, recognizing a distinction between physicalness and consciousness doesn't have to be duality. Check out substance monism for an answer to that.

Apparent 'substances' are 'monistic'. All distinction is artificial and ultimately, all is made of 'dreamstuff'.

I don't research cognitive error, unless I wished to learn more of error. Everything that you can define, name, percieve, believe, conceive, say, think MUST be within Duality. Without the artificial contrast of Duality, apparently, nothing can 'exist'. There can only be 'existence' within the artificial construct of Duality.
Do you find any distinction between the 'reality/world' of your nightly dreams and the 'world' of your 'waking' day?

I say, one reality, many perseptives; and, most of us may be dreaming, but it isn't the only option. Once can experience reality without the dream.

The only 'reality' that you can experience, have knowledge of, is the 'reality' within your dream, within your mind. You cannot 'know' that which is, if anything is, beyond your own mind. The very definition of 'knowledge' tells you this. You cannot 'experience' anything but within 'mind' which is where 'experience' occurs.

That is not enlightenment.

Perhaps you can describe YOUR 'enlightenment', so I can understand what it means to YOU? I already know what the sages and teachers and the mystics and the Buddha, and the scriptures, etc... mean by 'enlightenment' through the millennia. Perhaps you are describing a different experience. I can only assume (!) that you consider yourself 'enlightened' as you seem to be discussing it in a rather authoritative manner...

But the Buddha's enlightenment is something entirely different.

I'm truly humbled by your 'personal understanding' of the Buddha's 'enlightenment'! I read on with relish (and a bit of mustard! *__- )...

It is to escape the "dream" you are talking about and merge with reality.

Perhaps to 'awaken to the dream' into the 'Reality' of Consciousness. Nothing to 'escape' but one's delusions, and they are not 'escaped, but 'understood' as delusion, no one to 'merge' with anything. Thats part of the 'delusion'.

Since that enlightenment is realized in a still mind,

Is that a rule? Is that the only way that people have become 'enlightened'?

there is no possible way to "think" enlightenment.

You might do a search for Jnana Yoga... Educate yourself before offering these definitive pronouncements.

You can speak for yourself, but not everyone.

Then why are you 'helping' poor Royce here? Has he PMed you? Asked you to help him out? Then how is it that you are attempting to speak for all Eastern thought as if your 'broad brushing' has any 'meaning' other than as a misinterperted validation of your 'beliefs'?

. . . then you may experience your own existence with the sort of certainty Royce hints at.

Again, I'll discuss what Royce thinks with Royce. Do you think that he is incapable of communication? He appears to be very capable, to me. Is he a guru of your's? Do you feel a 'need' to 'defend' him?
If you are 'certain' of anything, convinced and convicted, a 'true believer', perhaps you would feel more comfortable discussing things with other fundamnentalists?
People who think are thinkers.
People who are 'certain' are deluded 'believers' and only 'think/assume' to 'validate' their delusions, not discover 'Truth'.

. . . and meditation can make enlightenment.

Meditation CAN provide an 'atmosphere' conductive to an 'enlightened understanding'. Yes, that is my experience. It is not the only way, but certainly one of the best practices for said result.
How long have you been practicing meditation?
What 'form'?

 

[Les Sleeth]

How long have you been practicing meditation?
What 'form'?

32 years this December, usually a bit over an hour daily at dawn. For the first 20 years I practiced up to 4 hours per day. I practice samadhi, period, which is what the Buddha taught.

I haven't claimed to be a Zen master, or any other sort of master.

So, you think I am undereducated in the history of enlightenment or mediation? As a matter of fact, I have an undergrad degree in exactly that subject, it has been the subject of my lifelong study, and it is plays an important role in a book I'm now trying to complete. But I agree, I am still a student.

Regarding Royce, he and I have exchanged ideas for years, so I think I understand him at least a little. But if he is upset over anything I've said, then I apologize.

In any case, your concept of "enlightenment" is easily recognizable by many people here as idealist philosophy. You can call it enlightened if you wish, but since this is a thread on Zen, and that enlightenment was defined by the Buddha's realization, I don't see how you would think it is appropriate to substitute your own idealist interpretations.

 

[nameless]

32 years this December, usually a bit over an hour daily at dawn. For the first 20 years I practiced up to 4 hours per day.

I practice samadhi, period, which is what the Buddha taught.

Ten dollars if you can show me where the Buddha taught that you 'should', nay, even CAN 'practice' Samadhi? If you understood what you are talking about, you wouldn't have just made this statement.

So, you think I am undereducated in the history of enlightenment or mediation? As a matter of fact, I have an undergrad degree in exactly that subject, it has been the subject of my lifelong study, and it is plays an important role in a book I'm now trying to complete. But I agree, I am still a student.

What has a 'student' to offer in a book?
If you hold that a scholastic education in this matter is of such value, perhaps you should have just taken an 'Enlightenment 101' course. You'll be able to proudly display your 'Certificate of Enlightenment' when you're done! And, reading about the 'history' of the 'writings and claims' of 'enlightenment' doesn't give you the foggiest idea of the 'actuality'. Become 'enlightened' and then (see if you still want to) write your book.

Regarding Royce, he and I have exchanged ideas for years, so I think I understand him at least a little. But if he is upset over anything I've said, then I apologize.

I try not to discuss others, other than the 'principles' in a conversation. It always leads to trouble. You are not an expert on Royce, you might be an 'expert' on yourself. Speak for yourself, please. Royce can speak for himself, though I'm sure that he appreciates your 'interest' and 'concern'.

In any case, your concept of "enlightenment" is easily recognizable by many people here as idealist philosophy. You can call it enlightened if you wish, but since this is a thread on Zen, and that enlightenment was defined by the Buddha's realization, I don't see how you would think it is appropriate to substitute your own idealist interpretations.

I guess that if you cannot discuss the subjevt intelligently, you can 'dismiss' me easily by 'labeling' me (like a 'cool person' or a 'kike' or a 'slope'.. or whatever 'group' you find easily dismissed). Now you don't have to deal with the 'meat' 'cause we all know about them 'niggers', 'idealists', Jews, etc.. You aren't exhibiting much intellect here. I do not think like any 'group', if you happen to find parallels, it is irrevelent.

And you seem to be 'reaching', again, for 'validation' in trying to assert that because and 'if' others agree with you that you are somehow more 'right'. Fallacy and ego!

I speak here on Zen as I live it.
You obviously are still trying... and your ego is showing...

Have I missed something? Have you been voted spokesman for the people here also as you presume to speak for Royce? I'm hearing no sign of original thought or experience. That is one problem with a formal 'education', you are not taught HOW to think, but WHAT to think. And now you try to seek validity in 'numbers'.

Then again, you did call yourself a student, so.. instead of automatically egoically arguing an alternative perspective, as a 'student', perhaps you might make the attempt to 'understand' it first? Otherwise, your statement about being a 'student' is only a nice sounding false humility...

 

[Royce]

Nice to meet you Royce.
You must have been around for a few years. I can 'smell' it from the clarity and conciseness of your questioning.

Thank you. Nice to meet you too and a slightly belated welcome to PF.

I must apologize for the delay in responding to your reply. This morning I was typing up my reply. It was the best work of my life, brilliant, elegant, impeccable logic unassailable reasoning, epochal in clarity and mind shattering in revelation and enlightenment! I can only conclude that mankind is not ready for such brilliance as when I submitted it God, the god head, the universal consciousness or maybe it was just Greg or a gremlin caused the server to not respond and all was lost perhaps forever. This is the first chance that I've had to re-respond.

As our commonly accepted notion of 'my-self' (as if there were a 'my' who possesses the 'quality/quantity' of 'self'!), whom we see in the mirror, is also 'fiction', asking 'whom' might not be appropriate here. I have never found any evidence of someone 'here' in 'existence'. Ultimately, it appears that 'consciousness/awareness' contains/produces (words at this level must be metaphorically examined, considering the 'context') 'mind/ego'. It is mind/ego that conceives Duality,

That is my point. There is no duality. There is only one reality. Whether we wish to call that reality God, the One or the Universal Consciousness doesn't matter as they are all human terms of the same entity. All is One. There is no outside, no meta or supernatural. All that is, is One. As that One is real, is Reality, all that is, is real. All that is not of the One, the One Reality is not real and does not exist. Ultimately there is only one I AM. There can be no distinction's no differences, no others.

an imaginary boundary drawn around 'concepts', 'naming' the 'concept' into petrification, and taking the 'concept' as a distinct and uniquely separate 'thing', apart and distinct from all other concepts that have become 'things'. We 'conceptualize' our universes, populating them with things. From the subtlest of 'things', like 'thought', to the 'grossest', such as a galaxy, we populate our 'concept of life', our concept of space/time, our universes, our fiction, our 'dream'... Of course, I use the word 'our' almost as if there really were a 'me' or a 'we' other than as a 'dream' of consciousness... Consciousness is a rather homogeneous 'thing', in and of itself... Perhaps that's why It 'dreams' in such 'living color'?

We, however, on another level, do exist as unique individual beings with our own identity, consciousness and experience. Yet we are of and one with the One. As the cells of my body are individual unique cells with existence of their own they are part of my body and cannot be separated from that unity that is me. Again this is not another reality but another facet or level of the one Reality.

My, your and everyones existence is real and not a dream nor figment of imagination Of the One, nor is the physical universe. It is all real and all of the one reality.

To say that all existence is a dream a mental image of consciousness it to say that there is that which is but is not real. Again duality. The One Consciousness is real as are the dreams, mental thoughts, and ideas of that consciousness. Ideas, thoughts, philosophies are real, even our own. If they were not real they would not endure, would not have any effect or meaning and lead to contradictions, oxymorons and paradoxes. Reality consists in part or that which we call physical, mental and spiritual. All are real. There is one reality. It is logical and reasonable. There are no contradictions and no paradoxes. Those which we do come up against are products of our language and sequential thinking and are not real.

Can you please explain what you mean by this? I am unfamiliar with that 'position'. (Two knees and an elbow? *__- ) It sounds 'somehow wrong' in that the way to 'truth' appears to be a 'something less' position... But, hey, WTFDIK?

Here at PF there are a number of physicalist who state that consciousness is an emergent property of the physical brain due to the brain reaching a sufficient complexity and size. They also believe that life came about by accident or a natural result of the mixing of the chemicals in the primordial soup. They also believe that Darwin's Evolution satisfactorily explains the origin of the species and all or our organs such as our brains.

One the other side of this on going discussion are people like Les and myself who believe that there is something more, be it God, the Creator, Intelligent Design or the Universal Consciousness. We believe that there is purpose, intent and direction to the universe itself as well as all life. Hence the coined phrase "the Something Else position" rather than the non- physicalist, meta- physicalist or the mysticism.

Almost, we all and each occupy a 'different' universe experienced from our own unique(?) 'perspectives', our own corner (ego/duality) of consciousness. The entire omniverse has existence, solely, within consciousness; there is not so much 'one universal consciousness', as consciousness of all universes as merely 'dream'. Consciousness, the literal 'Creator God' of all that is. Creator of Dreams that dream...

To create, the Creator must be real; or the creator is not real and there is nor can be anything that is real. If there is nothing real then there is nothing.
i am is absolute proof that I AM exist, is; i. e. in that my existence is undeniable to me, my existence implies, contains the necessity, that the Creator, I AM, exists, is. This is confirmed virtually every time I deeply meditate and is understood, acknowledged, at all other times.

I am.
i am of I AM.
I AM is the ultimate and one Reality.
As i am is of I AM, i am is real.

I have received order from SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED and have to take a break now. I will pick up where I left off later this evening.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Ten dollars if you can show me where the Buddha taught that you 'should', nay, even CAN 'practice' Samadhi? If you understood what you are talking about, you wouldn't have just made this statement.

As Joe Pesci said in "My Cousin Vinny," show me the money. Why doesn't an expert like you know samadhi (the eighth step of the eight-fold path) is the meditation the Buddha taught?

What has a 'student' to offer in a book?

Nothing to a know-it-all.

If you hold that a scholastic education in this matter is of such value, perhaps you should have just taken an 'Enlightenment 101' course. You'll be able to proudly display your 'Certificate of Enlightenment' when you're done! And, reading about the 'history' of the 'writings and claims' of 'enlightenment' doesn't give you the foggiest idea of the 'actuality'. Become 'enlightened' and then (see if you still want to) write your book.

YOU are the one who asked for credentials. Remember? What is this, bait and switch? Besides, I didn't say it was just scholastic . . . recall the 32 years of meditation? What have you to offer as expertise?

I guess that if you cannot discuss the subject intelligently, you can 'dismiss' me easily by 'labeling' me (like a 'cool person' or a 'kike' or a 'slope'.. or whatever 'group' you find easily dismissed). Now you don't have to deal with the 'meat' 'cause we all know about them 'niggers', 'idealists', Jews, etc.. You aren't exhibiting much intellect here. I do not think like any 'group', if you happen to find parallels, it is irrevelent.

Nice try. Associating yourself with the down-trodden to appear the victim. It is you sir who has consistantly been rude, condescending, and talking out of your backside.

I speak here on Zen as I live it.

Hmmmmmmm . . . so Zen is what you are living?

Then again, you did call yourself a student, so.. instead of automatically egoically arguing an alternative perspective, as a 'student', perhaps you might make the attempt to 'understand' it first? Otherwise, your statement about being a 'student' is only a nice sounding false humility...

Understand what? Meditation? Let's hear your credentials please . . . years devoted to meditation, education, posts/publications here or anywhere exposing to everyone on the planet to what you do and don't know . . . you know, a little more than big talk.

Do you understand my complaint? You are disrespectful, and trying to pretend you know more than you do. Just be honest and share ideas; you don't have to "be" anything to be accepted (or tolerated) here except sincere, willing to learn, teach (when you actually know), and respectful to others who are struggling like everyone else to understand things.

 

[Royce]

I'm back!

I swear, I can't leave you two alone for two hours without you getting into a fight and calling each other names What ego-less Zen practitioner is calling which ego-less Buddha practitioner a WHAT?

God, where is Li when you need him? A good taoist could straighten this out in a heartbeat if he didn't keep bumping into two living oxmorons or is it paradoxes?

Bye the way I am 63, have been studying, reading, Tao, Buddha and Zen for forty years and meditating for as long as Les ( mainly Zen) focusing on my breathe to start. I am more Zen because of its real life applicability and small steps to enlightenment along the way to Enlightenment. I am also a convinced christain

Les and I are old friends both joining PF in March of 03. We rarely have discussions between us because it sounds too much like a mutual admiration society though we do enjoy ganging up on and baiting physicalist. We usually see eye to eye, albeit, somewhat heatedly at times, but are coming from different places with different view points.

I am convinced that there are as many paths to Enlightenment and/or to God as there are individuals as we are all different and unique.

Now, where was I?

If you are referring to 'consciousness' as an/the 'ultimate reality', both of us having our 'existence' within that Consciousness as 'dream', then perhaps. So from one 'perspective', that is correct. If you refer to our 'reality' as that which the mind conceives and the senses 'corroborate', our individual 'perspectives'. We all experience different universes. All existing in Consciousness.
But, THERE IS NO QUANTITATIVE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANYTHING IN OUR 'DREAMLAND UNIVERSES'

Analyze and justify your above statements, the one I highlighted and the one you Capitalized. You have come this far. Take the next step and realize that they are both True and are both saying the same Truth.

Consciousness is the Ultimate reality. It is REALITY! As it is real all within it is real and all outside of it is unreal, is not. If as you said;"THERE IS NO QUANTITATIVE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANYTHING IN OUR 'DREAMLAND UNIVERSES.'" then our dreamland universes is the same universe seen and experienced in different ways by different beings. There is one consciousness, one universe and one reality and they are all the same entity.
We individuals at different places seeing and experiencing it from different viewpoints see it as different universes and as we cannot justify this with the One it must be dreamland, an illusion or delusion that is not real. It is not unlike Einstein's relativity.

I wish that you'd use a perhaps, capital 'R' or something to indicate Reality, that which is of omniversal perfect symmetry, 'ever the same', 'That-ness', 'Am what it Am' Reality, as opposed to the 'reality' that if I don't brush my teeth, I probably won't get kissed (except by my wolf, of course*__-) small 'r' 'subset(?).
One 'Reality', many (apparent) 'realities'.
Neils Bohr said once, "There are great Truths and there are trivial truths. The opposite of a great Truth is also True, the opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false!"

I have tried to comply with your wish but I cannot see that it helps much.

Omniversal is redundant and unnecessary as there is One Universe seen and experience in as many different ways as there are entities.

There is nothing that is 'ever the same'. The universe, the Creator, you and I are ever changing and ever creating just as the river I alluded to earlier.

One 'Reality', many (apparent) 'realities'.

Yes, now you've got it, the TRUTH.

The state of understanding that all that we see in our universes is 'one' and that all 'distinctions' are subjectively arbitrary is commonly referred to as 'enlightenment'. Even the scientists will tell you that there is no definite place where one 'thing' ends and another 'begins'. Even science is becoming 'enlightened'. Sheesh! Hahahaha...

In Zen it is a little step of enlightenment on the path to Enlightenment. There is a Japanese term for it but I don't remember what it is. Of course there are a number of different schools of Zen thinking.

Then perhaps one is a mite short from 'enlightenment', as, if all is 'one', then there is no longer an 'I' to 'Be' or to 'know' as there IS nothing to know, and no individual 'me' to 'Be'!

I am merely a traveler on a long twisting path or better in the stream. I have come a long way and have miles to go before I can rest.

In another thread I said that when God spoke to Abraham and sad; "I AM. I AM THAT I AM" he said all that was necessary to say, all that could be said.
I said here that I know,possibly the same way that I know that I am.

My writing often contain far more truths an what the mere words say. When I reread it, I am often surprised and delighted at the Truths it contains if one looks beyond the words alone. This is Zen at its best, a delight that often makes one laugh out loud when he learns that he knows more Truth than he knows that he knows.

I posit that the only thing that can be truly 'known' is delusion.
Perhaps you mean 'strongly believe'? Otherwise you are dealing in the 'coin' of religious 'faith' and 'belief'. Dogmatic fundamentalism. <shudders!>
How do you 'know' that you 'are'? The 'evidence' of the senses? Ego demands? Mind? Someone told you?

Here I have to agree with Les, you are talking out you back side.
One cannot know delusion as delusion by definition is not real. One cannot know a lie one can believe a lie but cannot know one.
I know that I am because I experience, am conscious of self just as I experience, am conscious of, I am a part of a greater consciousness that is part of me. If you do not know that you exist, that you are, then I posit that you do not exist, except possibly in your imagination, that you are not.
Please make up you mind. Are you or are you not?

By the way I too am ego-less and take great delight in telling everybody and anybody who will listen that I am ego-less. I am however still working on my humbleness. It's so hard to be humble when your so great! Its like trying to soar with eagles when your surrounded by turkeys.