Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Bliss
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
When it comes to discussing meditation the term Bliss or Blissful often pops up...
What comes to mind when one thinks of Bliss ?
When it comes to bliss...I'm ignorant 
Is Sukha Bliss ?
Some researchers have proposed that a "shift" in the activity of the medial prefrontal cortex is what supports a state of inner fulfillment and equanimity.
1
Comments
A spacious emptiness filled with wellbeing,
a pervading faith in kindness,
a gentle physical pleasure...
Bliss has different reflections.
Oh man! If there is one thing that gets my goat it's this modern day tendency to turn bliss and joy into "a shift in the activity of the medial prefront cortex"...
I thought bliss was an emotion.
is calm bliss the unity of equimity and ease? the faculty of ease and presence?
From my experience, I would say @paulyso is closest. It is not unusual for sustained practice to lead to well being/bliss ... eventually.
Ideally it is not an emotion, state or craving for permenance.
In that sense it is empty or without an opposite ...
http://www.homeoint.org/morrell/buddhism/bliss.htm
I guess I don't know what exactly it is, but I would think that at a minimum it is a quality that is internally generated rather than externally caused.
Can bliss be explained in words by someone who is not experiencing that state? And could someone in that state convey an understanding? If they could, how would we even begin to understand?
'Bliss' can also be termed as 'Ecstasy' in the sense that an overwhelmingly powerful and indescribable state of complete and all-encompassing happiness is felt, with a totally empty mind. it has been documented among Saints.
(ETA: Link)
Hmm to answer my own question ...this comes to mind...But I could be wrong
Before Bliss-Chop wood fetch water (same ol same ol)-After Blissed-Chop wood fetch water ...(wearing an inner smile that spreads outwards)
I don't know what bliss is, but I would sure like to find out. At the moment, I seem to have a much clearer idea of what it is not.
The theistic ecstasy that @federica mentions comes from love and devotion. It is found within Buddhist Tantric Guru devotion AND has to be gone beyond. It like secular love, has elements of loss, pain and denial when away from the object of devotion. So it is still ignorance or clinging ...
Eventually ...
When I turn My Face from you Lord Cod
Do you still Exist in Blissful Intoxicating Longing?
Very Well
I believe in No-About-Face
No Form or Emptiness
No Bless or Buddy Bliss
Let’s Fish for Buddha Saki
May you be well @Fosdick ….
Metta
This is my understanding of the word, it's a feeling that can't really be explained, but it is like becoming totally creative, as if there is nothing else anywhere but joy!I've be lucky to experience it a few times but afterwards it leaves you in the same state as Caliban in the Tempest, crying to dream again. I wonder if enlightenment is being in that state perpetually?
If you read Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now", he prefaces the book with his own experience of what one could describe as 'Bliss'. He continued in this state for some considerable time, and although it 'calmed, dissipated and mellowed' he still retained the "after-Effect" and did not go back to his 'Before-Bliss' state...
Say what you want about the man, attach whichever level of credence you will, it's quite a down-to-earth description.
I could find no reason to be sceptical of his account.
ive heard another zen phrase:before ectasy,laundry;after ectasy,laundry.i can only guess,this is bliss with excitement.
yeah been there.
This is interesting topic to me because I have had interesting mental states from schizoaffective bipolar subtype. The states can be maddening and frustrating in a way but colors can be brighter and you can find enjoyment more easily. I wonder if there is any kind of neurological similarity between those states I have experienced and the bliss from meditation.
Back to the topic of what Buddhism says about bliss I don't recall my teacher talking specifically about bliss, but 'the nature of mind' is something she talks about a lot. And part of 'the nature of mind' as sentient beings we have feeling and are sensitive to our world. And as part of that feeling is the potential to feel well being.
And then another thought I've had is listening to Thich NHat Hanh (dang auto correct spelling grrr) is that he talks about the pleasures of just breathing and the way he talks about it almost humorously sounds (occurred to me) like breathing is like an ice cream cone that he is eating and enjoying.
They say "Ignorance is Bliss" but obviously, that's along the same lines as "What the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't grieve over", or "what you don't know won't hurt"... But I sometimes wonder if, in order to attain a state of Bliss, we don't need to lay aside everything we think we know....?
Remembering the film "Dr Strange" he himself had to abandon all his deeply intellectual and acquired knowledge, and 'empty his cup'.... Only then was he able to abandon himself to the mysticism and spiritual mystery of that which is unseen, but is greater than the sum of its parts....
Maybe 'Let Go and Let Be' is a far more profound lesson than I personally gave it credit for....
We get (karma) credits?
In one sense let go and+ blessed bee are the base of all progress as an unlearning rather than a tightening of spiritual understanding ...
Who prefers bliss? If it is empty, who experiences un-bliss? We tighten or loosen up every screw ... crazy ... right ...
Cheers!
https://www.tlayt.org/samsara-is-nirvana-the-passions-are-enlightenment/
Hmm samsara is Nirvana? Call me old fashioned but the New-fangled fashion for equating things leaves me cold. I prefer to keep samsara in the samsara-box, which has engraved on it “suffering is here”, and nirvana in the nirvana box which says “bliss here”.
Hmm definatly a case of the piss pot calling the kettle (chamberpot) black
There is always a lot of psychological speculation about the states of mind artists and poets have discribed being neurological in origin @Jeffrey and they have grounds, I found out later in life that I had Aspergers syndrome, which explained a lot about my social klutziness! The bliss states are very intense, mystics have usually mentioned hightened colours and joy. I personally think it goes deeper than neurons but I could be wrong, I often am
@federica said
Have a lifelong passion for Dr Strange, loved the comics as a kid, and the fact that Benedict Cumberbatch played him in the film has nothing to do with my loving it!
But letting go and letting be is also becoming one of the more difficult and multi faceted lessons I am learning, slowly.
@kando
One of my clients has AS (as well as being diagnosed with a list of other mental conditions) he said at times it's as if everything is so intense, colours, sounds coming at you all at once...bombarding the sense doors from all directions...
He's very gifted, fluent Maori speaker, for a while he was teaching all the staff Maori, and about Maori spirituality...
He told me that there was a Maori tribe in the North Island who don't pronounce their "H"s ...Mm so there's ope for me yet to learn Maori.... "Cockney Maori"
He came up with this Maori proverb...which we use as our work logo...
"Ma Te Murumuru Ka Rere Ai Te Manu" ( adorn the bird with feathers so it can fly)
That's exactly what I feel my creativity did for me @Shoshin, it's a wonderful thing to be able to gift to other people. Maori society sounds very generous and emotionally aware, I love the idea of Cockney Maori
A kid free house (like today ???)
It is a True Story
I too love Dr Strange. Mundane Bliss for secularists ...
Tilda Swinton was an inspired choice also
I don't know if anyone has seen Derek Jarman's beautiful montage film Glitterbug, a true Swan song, the sequence with Tilda in always makes me cry and smile. Such affection.
Easy mundane bliss
http://sufi-stories.com/key-to-happiness
Something for the blissed out atheists ...
https://zoya-thewayofasufi.blogspot.com/2017/07/sarmad-kashani-mad-sufi-martyr.html