Blueanchor wrote: Gemmy wrote:One thing within my practice, or way of life, is to always know the motivation behind what I think, say and do - and regardless of what that motivation is, the ego is enlivened by it. For what is motivation apart from some sort of desire, and what is desire but fuel for egocentricity, and what is egocentricity but reactionary concern for me, mine, my and I? I find that in the moment my attention enters distraction, that ego resumes its position as 'me', and the only concern involving the ego is the belief that what is imagined as me in the mind is really me.
These motivations, to be higher by putting another beneath you, to win by defeating another, to protect oneself from pain by hurting someone else, and establishing ones own position by forcing others into validating roles - And how better to make others perform that function than eliciting their personal reactivity. Egocentricity is completely reliant on creating situations where such reactivity can be sustained. And what better way to do this than to create hurtful social environments?
I can see the competition, and it is quite obvious what is going on. I gather that from within the competition it isn't so obvious, it is all quite unclear and the intent preceding the words and actions is obscured. People are distracted by the outcomes of the intent, caught in the reactivity and emotional excitement of it all, and the noise prevents them from seeing the real underlying wish - the truth of their motivation.
It is understandable because we have all been wounded, and there are things in the past that have not come into full conscious awareness. Each time they rear up a little, the same reaction is used to distract us from the discomfort of it. There was a time when there was good reason to keep it in the dark, just to get through the day, but it then becomes habitual, the mind become automated, and we have to live under that conditioning. It has happened to everyone, and that's really just a part of being human.
But this is a spiritual space, so it is here where the spell can be broken, and that old stuff with all its reactivity can arise just as has in the past, but this time in self awareness so that it no longer compels us, rather than in distraction where it takes us unawares and causes mindless speech and action.
The awareness of mind is the truth of how things are. We know what we think. But we can be drawn to live after the fact in the realm of the dream man we believe to be 'myself'. The one in the dream is affected by everything. It creates the belief that all this is happening to 'me'. So one should watch that pretender, because as soon as you are distracted from 'your presence', it will resume it's position as 'you'. It can't take that position as the one who is consciously aware.
I heard someone say once, fly high but land often. To my way of life, it is to experience the states I reach in quiet meditation, but also to live humanly. To be in an alternative state seems simple (and too often preferable - thats another thread)... but understanding humanity and the choices of how to respond to others - not inwardly, thats just keeping up self honesty in observation - but how to respond in action is challenging.
Intention decides the role to be played out of many. The need for position limits the choices, but perhaps makes choice of ressponse easier .
To give myself a more comfortable ride with the boys, I should ofcourse position myself in agreement and overt recognition of your intelligence. I actually dont understand exactly what your own meaning is in your wording.... so I just share thevway un which I relate to those words.
Yes, it's great to 'fly high', in that it's pleasurable, though the experience is in essence merely momentary, but the way we might cling to experiences, and the way we might want more and higher and higher, is a midguided desire based in the premise that more will make me happier. In that all experienced things are temporal, they are all the same - unlasting.
When we refer to states of mind, it really doesn't matter what state it is in, all that matters is the conscious awareness of 'this' state just as it is. Most people come to spirituality because they want special spiritual states, and there are no shortage of teachers who cater to that demand - of course the advocacy of desire is popular because people hope to get what they want. The whole of capitalism is based on it, and in that sense, it is very successful.
So in peoples everyday lives, there is pleasure and pain, so they begin to react strongly at a very early age, run from pain and chase after pleasure, but not in a practical sense of survival, but for the sake of self-satisfaction, so it is quite obvious that a sense of lack in that regard drives people. The problem being, the dynamic tension between aversion to discomfort and desire for pleasure is dissatisfaction itself. Therefore it is counterproductive to pursue 'highs' - or avoid discomforts - for the sake of self satisfaction.
Since such an endeavour is futile, people realise there is no happiness in the acquirement of physical things, and things are only vehicals for pleasure, right? So we reduce it all to the sensations, because an addict doesn't actually crave the heroin - they are strongly adverse to the withdrawl and strongly desire the sensation the hit brings to them. This means people are only chasing after sensations, which we already know are unlasting, and hence can not bring satisfaction.
Having found there is no happiness in this pursuit, people turn to the spiritual, hoping that that will give them a lasting pleasure that satisifies them somehow and they conjure images of heaven out of hope for the ultimate pleasure - like a reward for their own suffering. They go well into the spiritual but with the same habitual mind caught between aversions and desires, and that mental energy brings about the illusion that there is someone coming from the past and going into the future, the one we call 'me'. The starring role in the drama.
I have sat with many meditators form all sorts of spiritual backgrounds, and it is difficult to communicate to them, 'be aware of 'this', just as it is, in the way you experience it'. People will say 'nothing is happening', but they mean nothing special happened. The sat there and discomfort came in, sore knee, pain in lower back, sweat ticklin their face and so on, and became 'disatisfied', then blamed their sensations, when in fact they became agitated their reactivity in aversion to their discomforts and their impatient craving for pleasure of the spiritual kind. People say they can't concentrate, focus, stop their thinking - but of course, it is their reactivity that agitates the mind, not any sensation or experience, and they can't concentrate because the mind is running from pain and craving for pleasure, basically.
It's actually simpler that people say it is, and I started to refine the meditation practice by discarding anything that was unnecessary. I removed controlling the breath, counting breaths, sorts of visuation aids, as I know these were just means to an end, secondary things being used in desire to get me some state I desired - just like heroin.
When it was reduced completely, I was watching, paying attention, being alert, but without doing anything. 'This' could be 'as it is' and I am presently aware. It is ironically difficult to do nothing, but there is a difference between being willful in effort and being willing regardless of the arising sensations, just as they are.