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Activity or passivity meditation wise?
lobster
Crusty Veteran
in Meditation
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?
0
Comments
You've stopped trying! Hooray!
@lobster
It is easier to think of it as a "come as you are" affair with activity or passivity simply being optional clothing choices.
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?
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 . . .
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.
Meditation should be fun! Otherwise, why the hell would you do it?
@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!
: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: .
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?
That's because the alternative is suffering
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?
It is a being rather than a doing. Bob
Kia Ora,
The meditation cushion beckons and nothing is done ...
Metta Shoshin
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
At least @lobster is wearing clothes. Besides, it's hard on the cushions, they have to put up with enough as it is.
@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 / ...
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 '.
@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.
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...
Blissfully happy ?
Clinging onto my words - can't help yourself can you... \ lol / ... Now this is fun
When we keep choosing doors, life becomes like a gameshow. Passitivity can also be equanimous and positive sometimes.
@Citta, @anataman, get a room you two.... get any closer and you'll meld.... :rolleyes: .
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?
Blissfully happy ?> @federica said:
I don't actually exist. I am Lobster's sockpuppet.
I've checked your individual IP numbers.
Dammit, you're right!
Cushion..see..there ya go.
You're right. It's uncanny. I never spotted that before.... Sheesh, well, blow me over in a paper bag...
And I'll just continue to be a muppet and observe the sockpuppet show...
... \ lol / ...
@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
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.
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.
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: .