Playing with structures

Kotishka

Once labelled, it is tasted, and then it cannot be unstained so easily. Samsaric lifestyles vs spiritual lifestyles, a dichtomy which carries different adjectives or atributes.

After practising for a few years now (2019- ), I realise the importance of sitting and walking meditation, of time off screens, of balance in food, word and thought; kindness, recollectedness, equanimity. All these concepts and their behavioural manifestations are very powerful. I still do feel, and my text shows I think, how I cannot escape being analytical and cerebral. It does become a hindrance in the practice, sometimes even thinking of what this session meant, how it was so important and necessary.

I sense that the sitting and walking does help to overcome this, but this path is inevitably quite hard and boring. This last aspect is important to notice because it is in the mundane and wholesome where you find an ease hard to define. And a passionate career too, when you can. But the former feeling/state does remain in many more contexts.

Jeroen

Hmm yes. The cerebral / analytical part is a particular type of grasping, clinging in the mind. It is similar to the scientific urge to take things apart, to divide them up to see how they work. It is almost the same thing. It also engages the imagination, and it is very tempting to the mind because it makes it feel as if it has a grasp on things.

Ten years of relaxing and sleeping and learning to soft-focus the mind has almost gotten me to the point where I can leave science behind. Looking into dreams and sleep has been a real help. Have I mentioned that prior to this ten-year exploration I had a passionate cerebral career as a software architect and games designer?

I have come to think that analysing the mind with the mind is a futile effort, but there are other areas one can explore which take one closer to beholding the mind. One has to get really comfortable with looking at the mind, it takes time and solitude.

person

The intellect is a tool like anything else. If clung to or seen as absolute it can be a hindrance. But giving up on your ability to discern when its safe to cross the street or what types of food are better to eat for your health is losing balance.

Many highly realized people are quite smart and knowledgeable.

lobster

but this path is inevitably quite hard and boring.

Dear Selfies,
Remember when you were mind flutter, flittering to one mind stutter to the next?

Here is one for the heavy metal (whatever that is?) fan gals and boyz
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/when-death-metal-becomes-one-of-84000-ways-to-practise-buddhism/ar-AA1m7sbi

Meanwhile … I will be practicing my own favourite dharma concoction …
… boring?

well = New Age paganism + ZenEco + Sufism + Catholic Tantra (not yet available) with my own mantras and Anarchic Yoga Dharma
💔🏴‍☠️🦞

Jeroen

@person said:
Many highly realized people are quite smart and knowledgeable.

True. Osho for example was wel known as a voracious reader, with a library of 150,000 volumes when he passed away. He had also been a university professor and All-India debating champion. But he was rather poor on physics and science in general. He spoke many times on the effect of scientific thought on the mind, though, and what he said was quite insightful.

My personal experience was that science encourages you to take things apart, simplify them, and model them in your mind as a way of understanding them. I studied engineering at university, and that was very much done in that way. It’s very logical, a world of parts where things have well-known properties and are replaceable.

In the world of mythology, things are very different. It is a world of relationships, of gods and heroes who often have blood ties. It is a world allied to the world of dreams, where one might see a heroic journey to retrieve a lost soul from the underworld.

person

@Jeroen said:

@person said:
Many highly realized people are quite smart and knowledgeable.

True. Osho for example was wel known as a voracious reader, with a library of 150,000 volumes when he passed away. He had also been a university professor and All-India debating champion. But he was rather poor on physics and science in general. He spoke many times on the effect of scientific thought on the mind, though, and what he said was quite insightful.

My personal experience was that science encourages you to take things apart, simplify them, and model them in your mind as a way of understanding them. I studied engineering at university, and that was very much done in that way. It’s very logical, a world of parts where things have well-known properties and are replaceable.

In the world of mythology, things are very different. It is a world of relationships, of gods and heroes who often have blood ties. It is a world allied to the world of dreams, where one might see a heroic journey to retrieve a lost soul from the underworld.

I think my general approach to things like this is one of integration and synthesis. Rather than moving from one to the other, see how they each have their own domain while at the same time can help strengthen and learn from each other.

I always seem to come back to the idea of yin and yang. For example, we all have a masculine and a feminine side, social norms are often such that we will attempt to elevate one and repress the other. I've found it healthier to embrace both and seek to find a balance that makes sense for my own disposition.