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Sharing practice through non-practice
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
I came across this teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh…
I really just wanted to talk about the first 20 minutes of this, where he talks about Mother Earth being within us and just relaxing, not-doing while we breathe, and thinking that healing and nourishment come to us on the in-breath and out-breath, that by letting Mother Earth act for us in walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, we can bring healing to our body, our mind, our society and our planet.
I’ve listened to it three times, it seems to be a way within. Wonderful!
🙏
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Comments
Its been half a dozen years or so since I've had a slowish winter season and I've forgotten what a gift it can be to be able to remove oneself from the movements of the world and slow down.
My twice daily meditation practice while in the world acts like a battery recharge, or a letting go of the worldly accumulations. Not having to counteract that accumulation, I'm reminded of the capacity for practice to deepen and strengthen one's mind.
@Jeroen Synchronicity, I watched that same talk (or very similar one) and practised that same method yesterday evening and was planning to do the same today. Maybe the YT algo decided to push that video on all Buddhists yesterday?
I used to call it "active rest" - where I/we are "just resting". I found it very regenerative and good in my situation of monkey mind and monkey emotions where if I try to bring some calm to the system actively, I often (not always) just make it worse.
I think in scientific jargon this would be called accessing the rest&digest nervous system state. Kind of like after having lunch the body wants to snooze a bit or rest after a workout. These are not laziness but the way the body looks to process and get back to balance.
@Person "Battery recharge", yes!
Thanks for sharing.
I feel we can engage with a series of stages until we find the just resting place.
For me (at the moment) formal sitting starts with a period of unloading. Just watching the mind drifting away and returning. Always returning to the rest. The breath. The gentle but alert posture. The unloading leads to a gentle slowing. And before I know, I start chanting. Usually aloud but very quietly. Noticing the nature of the chant. The smoother the breath and mind. The clearer the sound.
I rarely time meditation because at a certain point it stops when ready. Quite a natural process.
In a strange way, it is not a practice. It is just sitting. In this sense, practising meditation is very much ease, eased into...
Yes, I’ve noticed that, often after I try to purposely relax I feel worse than after I just make tea or engage in another no-concentration activity.
I love snoozing, it’s my favourite activity. Perhaps I should have been born a cat. 🐈
On the occasions I've heard you talk about your experience with meditation it sounds like you probably suffer from trying to hard syndrome. Or maybe it has more to do with the types of meditation techniques you've been taught?
There are loads of differing techniques and some are largely about settling in and letting go. I'm guessing the obstacle you're facing is you turn meditation into a project that needs to be solved or won in some way, giving it some sort of higher purpose than the just resting state. You're perhaps putting some sort of pressure on it that is counterproductive?
I have a nature of mind that wants to do everything quickly… it seems to flash from topic to topic with great speed. So when it comes to meditation where speed is not the answer, it feels a bit like a bull in a china shop. I have had successes with meditation, quite a few, but they have mostly come when I have moved away from identification with mind.
I do think you need to look into mindfulness meditation more. It isn't about achieving some state, success in that sense doesn't apply. It's about getting familiar with the way our minds work so it doesn't own us so much.
I too have a very active mind. Rarely in practice does it stop flitting about (never actually). Much of the point is to practice doing something different with the mind, to develop a different skill set, that of reflective awareness.
It seems to me like you grew up being exposed to certain styles of meditation that attempted to achieve certain states and you have an intuitive sense that this sort of practice isn't where its at and want to avoid it.
Thus have I heard...
Expectation is the killer of meditation.
No, I realise that mindfulness meditation is not about a state. For me it is more about being aware of what happens within, paying attention on a certain level. Then I can observe quite a lot of detail, for example about how thoughts trigger emotions and keep them going.
But meditation in general I do not find restful. A snooze is restful, meditation even in the form of just-sitting is enforced non-movement.
That is an interesting idea, but I face certain challenges in that respect. I don’t have an inner monologue for example, so many standard techniques that are taught are useless to me. The way my mind is arranged is unusual.
Hmm, I never really meditated before I was about 25. I was in Osho’s discourses from time to time, and often ended up in trance like states.