Knowing me, knowing you
lobster
Crusty Veteran
First of all the title is an English reference to a comedic characters catchphrase [Alan Partridge Aha]
From another thread:
My first meditation session took place in a group led by a Vedanta-trained instructor.
The only thing we were told was to close our eyes, breathe in and rhythmically join in an OM outbreath in unison.
We were about fifteen to twenty people, sitting cross-legged in a circle, and the session lasted about twenty minutes.
I still fondly remember it as the most "Aha" moment I ever lived.
The fact that the instruction was so scant made the experience more earth-shattering.
Like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.
These 'aha' moments are wonderful. I remember two: One when doing a very simple breathing exercise and twist, from yoga book. The exercise really was more akin to a qi ong exercise. Basically it loosened my up tight spine in a way the vigorous martial arts were failing to do. So gentle, so easy. "Aha" moment.
Another also physical art orientated, was when doing a kata (prearranged fighting moves) involving a double strike of elbow and fist to the back, that again twisted the spine. I suddenly realised I was doing a dynamic form of yoga - 'aha'.
Aha moments?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_effect
Comments
Abba, 1976.
@lobster
cool thread
took me a while to let something conjure up from the depths. ah, how wonderful mind can be, when you simply let a memory come!
So...
I love roller coasters.
Cedar Point has a roller coaster called the Millennium Force, it's really awesome. It's a steel coaster, the incline is like eighty-some degrees off the first drop, so it looks and feels essentially like free-fall. 300 feet high.
Plus, you have this tiny tiny pneumatic thing keeping you in your seat, and it seems very insane, the whole set-up.
It was the first coaster I ever rode, and I felt very relaxed and totally fine the initial time. Which was kinda cool.
Years later I rode the same coaster with my significant other at the time, and as the coaster climbed the first hill my pulse started to pump frantically. My body was kinda freaking out and I felt this charge of "ho goodness I'm gon die!"
As the top of the climb approached you can see out over some of the Great Lakes and over the states and it was a very riveting moment.
While I'm basically flipping my bowl of proverbial skittles, like a small animal trying to find a way "out" of something... something happened.
Right at the top, as the coaster started to pull over the hump slowly, this unusual acceptance of the situation came over me,
I felt comfort in the idea of transitioning (death)
and all the racing thoughts and stuff got overwhelmed by this .. light euphoria and clarity of mind.
The ride zoomed down the first hill, and I enjoyed in bliss the fall. Certain I would go straight to the ground through the coaster and zap, so long.
As evidenced by the mere fact of me typing this, the roller coaster worked as engineered. The whole ride felt like it went in slow-mo almost.
When I got off I felt refreshed, and mildly invincible.
More of an "ahh" of relief than an "aha."
Thank you, engineering.
Reading the first few pages of TTBOLAD, (Sogyal Rinpoche).
Man, what a long, protracted and deeply satisfying 'Ahaaaaah!' moment that was!!
On a personal more 'frivolous' level, there have been quite a few.....like, swimming the whole width of an olympic pool, underwater, and coming up, gasping for air, and sensing the achievement.... empty moment of blissful acknowledgement, that was...!
I'll be dotty here.
There have been several "aha" moments before my first meditation "aha" moment and after.
But my first, the very first "aha" moment my mind records as such, was back in 1977, release of "Star Wars - Episode Four."
I was six and totally swept off my feet.
Every time I watch it again -poor hubby and delighted son can attest, since we watch the whole saga, plus Indiana Jones' at least once a year- I watch it through those six-year-old girl's eyes.
My ex and I were on the last few miles of a 30 something mile hike near the trail head of the Pacific Crest trail in southern CA. It was late evening, and we were making our way down the side of a ravine with ski poles for balance and head lamps. I'd left exhausted behind LONG ago, as well as my last cigarette :buck: and as the ex pulled several yards ahead of me I found myself completely alone and my entire 'consciousness' or awareness focused within that beam of my head lamp as it illuminated the rocky trail a step or two ahead. It must have been around the new moon because it was BLACK night.
That's when I had my first whatever it was experience. The experience was simply the cone of light showing the rocks and width of the trail as it meandered down the ravine. To the right and above was pure black night, to the left, the basalt walls. My body (beyond exhausted and in a state of nico withdrawl) simply moved behind the cone of light, no effort, no pains or most notably FEAR of the gaping yaw of blackness to my right.
I've wrote this out several times before, trying to bring out more of the memories. It was completely, utterly unextraordinary. No revelations or gods or grand epiphanies. Just simplification. The moment was so rich that my awareness needed nowhere or no-when else to go.
What GETS me is that this occurred during physical and emotional extremis (30 mile hike up and down in less than two days). When I say "gets me" of course I mean it irks me that this peace is so deeply buried it was only available in complete mental and physical exhaustion. I'm probably looking at it wrong (in an 8 fold path way) to conclude my body and ego/self have to be beaten into a post-exhaustion state for this awareness to come to the fore.
It bugs me how much bullshit is between me and . . . whatever it is
.
I have had a couple of experiences lately of desperate sadness at some else's loss.
One was a man on TV whose mother was taken and killed by the IRA when he was around ten. He was there when they dragged her out of the house.
The other was last night also on TV. A lady had two children with severe issues at birth. One lived a few days and the other 14 months.
I wept both times.
Not sure if it's because I have kids now or perhaps this path has made my heart open more? Or both? Who knows.
Aha!
Sounds just right. 'Just Simplification', that is one of the best explanations of enlightened mind, Buddha Nature, the undying, nirvana etc I have heard in a long time . . .
As you realise, intense occupation/involvement can distract Mr Monkey Mind.
Thanks guys. Onward.
. . . how extraordinary . . . LOL
Too bad it takes being near physical and emotional collapse to clear out the nonsense.
Near sense exhaustion may produce a sport samadhi
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
However residing in or with a permenant unfolding is also an acceptance of being in and out of states of defined being.
The experience you describe happened to me during intense martial arts practice. So intense that I had in fact gone beyond the physical and mental capacity to continue (yes it can be like that). I arrived and resided in a state for maybe ten/twenty seconds where the sense of I was gone, the attachment to body and personal being was not present.
I could not call it aha, it was more like ahhhhhh . . .
However that is just one way in . . . (*)
Sometimes I get this crystallization of my vision. Everything gets sharper and clearer and my head feels good. Odd thing. Happens every so often probably 10 times in a year for about 5 to 10 seconds. My vision literally gets better.
I can relate to your experience, it happened to me for me for several minutes when I completely surrendered myself to the present moment by just being.
I did a parachuting course in the army and on my first jump, instead of doing all the drills that were drilled into me, when I leapt, it all went out the window. My mind just blanked; I was terrified.
In my parachuting log book the instructor wrote "Kicking", which is British understatement; what actually happened was kicking, screaming, and as my canopy was deployed by the static line - I actually tried to climb up it; hand-over-hand on the risers.
I obviously don't let go of things as easy as yourself.
Seems a natural enough response.
Sounds like monkey mind/body trying to protect itself. I feel equanimity in such a situation is available to those who are practicing at quite an intense level but I would also suggest that might not be so beneficial. I find your story interesting and wonder if the armed forces would benefit from mind training to prepare themselves for the trauma of the job . . .
. . . one day . . .
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Earth_Battalion