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Activity or passivity meditation wise?

As we all know meditation is a hard activity that takes effort. Or not. There we are sitting still, bristling with awareness, attention and mindfulness. So still we can barely hear our breath counting . . . or not . . .

Then one day we start sitting as a passivity, rather than an activity. Now what are we doing?

Comments

  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran

    You've stopped trying! Hooray!

    Buddhadragonnamarupa
  • howhow Veteran Veteran

    @lobster

    It is easier to think of it as a "come as you are" affair with activity or passivity simply being optional clothing choices.

    Hamsaka
  • JeffreyJeffrey Veteran

    I think implicit in sitting down and adopting a method for 30 minutes requires some activity. Even 'no method' you have to be on the ball to prevent having a method. Or am I wrong somehow?

    Buddhadragon
  • lobsterlobster Veteran

    @Jeffrey said:
    Or am I wrong somehow?

    I feel you are right somehow. All too often we aim to practice. That works to increase our aim. At other times our practice is active in our being, that does not mean we sit still or still sit, it means . . . wait a minute Mr Cushion has a message . . .

    Typical. More sitting advocated . . .
    That cushion incidentally is for a dog . . .

  • BuddhadragonBuddhadragon Ehipassiko & Carpe Diem Samsara Veteran
    edited June 2014

    If there is anything like passivity during meditation, I've never been there yet.
    Bliss, boredom, complete relaxation, stiff muscles, awareness, mind-chatter, I'm there everyday.
    Every day is a new experience and the only thing I know is that I can never tell beforehand what the cushion experience of the day will be.
    But till now, never a dull moment, never any experience of passivity.

    Jeffrey
  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran

    Meditation should be fun! Otherwise, why the hell would you do it?

  • howhow Veteran Veteran

    @anataman

    Meditation doesn't apply to should. It is potentially anything that the practitioner is facing at the moment. "The why the hell would you do it" is because the alternative is suffering!

    Shoshin
  • lobsterlobster Veteran

    But till now, never a dull moment, never any experience of passivity.

    :buck: I feel @how addresses this issue in his post.

    Activity is emptiness and form is passive . . . or words to that effect . . .

    I would also suggest that attentive rest/passive awareness/mind stilling/emptying/jhana jiving/etc arises and of course sits and dies . . . :wave: .

  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran

    Is it really? Don't see it the same way I'm afraid @how.

    Bashing yourself in the vain hope your going to achieve anything in meditation, is, in my limited view, suffering. You are just watching yourself be. So if meditation causes you grief - you've created a problem for yourself, and that would be most frustrating.

    Buddhist imagery in my experience never shows a buddha meditating with a grief-stricken or forlorn or angry pose does it now?

    Shoshin
  • robotrobot Veteran

    @anataman said:

    Buddhist imagery in my experience never shows a buddha meditating with a grief-stricken or forlorn or angry pose does it now?

    That's because the alternative is suffering

  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran

    But who or what is suffering @robot?

  • robotrobot Veteran

    @anataman said:
    But who or what is suffering robot?

    The self that arises from clinging to the skandhas. Is there any other? We all have one. Why act like we don't?

    howJeffreyBuddhadragonEarthninja
  • MeisterBobMeisterBob Mindful Agnathiest CT , USA Veteran

    It is a being rather than a doing. Bob

  • ShoshinShoshin No one in particular Nowhere Special Veteran
    edited June 2014

    Kia Ora,

    The meditation cushion beckons and nothing is done ...

    Metta Shoshin :)

  • pegembarapegembara Veteran
    edited June 2014

    It is said that an idle mind is the Devil's playground. In reality, it is an overactive mind which is the culprit. The body that appears to be sitting still tells us nothing about what is going on in the mind. That is why the epithet for nibbana is nippapanca. Literally "it is finished or done with".

    http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/21266/who-or-what-is-it-that-becomes-enlightened

    We all know what happens when a fire goes out. The flames die down and the fire is gone for good. So when we first learn that the name for the goal of Buddhist practice, nibbana (nirvana), literally means the extinguishing of a fire.

    http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/nibbana.html

    Buddhadragon
  • HamsakaHamsaka goosewhisperer Polishing the 'just so' Veteran

    @how said:
    lobster

    It is easier to think of it as a "come as you are" affair with activity or passivity simply being optional clothing choices.

    At least @lobster is wearing clothes. Besides, it's hard on the cushions, they have to put up with enough as it is.

  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran

    @robot I'm not acting like I don't have one, of course I have one, else who or what is writing this response; however, I see the upside to it all - I'm a glass half full man, if you know what I mean...

    There's nothing like taking a step back from being caught up in some silly fantasy during meditation, and seeing it for what it is, and that is what I mean by seeing it as fun, catching a glimpse of yourself in the act, the elusive me coming home and being welcomed. You are not practising to be something in meditation, it is an act of being, and that being is amazing. If you are going to spend a lot of time doing something, you had better enjoy it. If you don't want to be that which is being you, you've got a very frustrating problem. You can go out and work and suffer and earn money, but in my view meditation is done fore the sake of doing it to be, and be conscious of that being.

    Just being makes me blissfully happy, and that is to be simultaneously active-passive (to keep to the OP).

    It is quite clear that there are different levels of discussion, and at times it is hard to see what level the discussion is on, forgive me if I have misunderstood any of you, and caused a disturbance in your calm abiding.

    ... \ lol / ...

  • CittaCitta Veteran

    @anataman said:
    Meditation should be fun! Otherwise, why the hell would you do it?

    Meditation is many things. Often its suffering. Sometimes its coming face to face with the shadow. Its often far from fun.

    You do it to end suffering. That is a major undertaking.

    As my first teacher used to say...' Better not to start. If you DO start you have to see it through or you will be worse off than before '.

  • CittaCitta Veteran
    edited June 2014

    @anatman I find your statement that ' just being makes you blissfully happy 'extremely surprising.

    That's really not how you strike me at all. Quite the reverse.

    In fact you frequently seem to me to be a man near the end of his tether.

    Which is also an OK place to start.

  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran

    Now that was quite funny. That really just demonstrates how far you can be from knowing anything about anyone else really. It's nice to see how people project things onto others - projecting anything onto my words and sentences does not reveal anything about me, but rather it is a reflection of your judgements. But you know that, so stop judging me, it's not the first time you've made such comments. You have no authority to judge me I have not given you permission.

    Like an avatar, I don't play my real self here; that would be a very foolish thing to do revealing your self - wouldn't it.

    Now getting back to the end of my tether... It is quite clear there are different levels of discussion... Oh I said that already...

  • CittaCitta Veteran

    Blissfully happy ?

  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran

    Clinging onto my words - can't help yourself can you... \ lol / ... Now this is fun

  • namarupanamarupa Veteran
    edited June 2014

    When we keep choosing doors, life becomes like a gameshow. Passitivity can also be equanimous and positive sometimes.

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    @Citta, @anataman, get a room you two.... get any closer and you'll meld.... :rolleyes: .

    anataman
  • BuddhadragonBuddhadragon Ehipassiko & Carpe Diem Samsara Veteran

    @anataman said:
    Like an avatar, I don't play my real self here; that would be a very foolish thing to do revealing your self - wouldn't it.

    No, it wouldn't. I can't see why you couldn't play your real self here.
    Who said we can't be our real selves, whatever that may mean?

    Captain_America
  • CittaCitta Veteran

    Blissfully happy ?> @federica said:

    Citta, anataman, get a room you two.... get any closer and you'll meld.... :rolleyes: .

    I don't actually exist. I am Lobster's sockpuppet.

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    I've checked your individual IP numbers.

    Dammit, you're right!

  • CittaCitta Veteran

    Cushion..see..there ya go.

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    You're right. It's uncanny. I never spotted that before.... Sheesh, well, blow me over in a paper bag...

  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran

    And I'll just continue to be a muppet and observe the sockpuppet show...

    ... \ lol / ...

  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran

    @‌dharmamom

    I'm as real as you are gonna get on the net; yet not met; get set - 'FRET'

    Freely associative thinking is another domain,
    comes with less pain,
    and has no gain
    may go against the grain
    what you sayin?

    STET

  • BuddhadragonBuddhadragon Ehipassiko & Carpe Diem Samsara Veteran

    @anataman said:
    I'm as real as you are gonna get on the net

    You fly to Switzerland this moment and I am exactly the person I show here.
    Only thing you don't know is my name.
    Otherwise, warts and all, what you see here is what you get.

    anataman
  • DavidDavid A human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First Nations Veteran

    I confess that for me, it's still an activity. Sometimes it even feels like a chore. Sitting meditation that is... Walking meditation is different. Funny that to gain passivity, I usually have to be active.

    I am also the same here as in real life (whatever that is). Only difference is the editing.

    Buddhadragonanataman
  • lobsterlobster Veteran

    @ourself said:
    I confess that for me, it's still an activity.

    :D

    You know where you iz!

    I feel it is important to recognise that knowing about different stages does not mean one is there. We may for example feel 'calm abiding' is better than 'monkey mind meditation'. Or that concentration exercises are a constraint mechanism . . . but we may need that.

    This is where personal integrity comes in. We practice in the way we can. Not to some idealisation we can not yet match.

    Active doing is a practice. Doing without effort is easy to say but how do we work it into our discipline? In other words can we retain the discipline of the fist . . . but open the hand . . . :wave: .

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