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.
Mechanics of Meditation
taiyaki
Veteran
Our normal perception of reality is based on a subject/object relationship, which assumes that the exterior is always an object. I (subject) touch a basketball (object). We also assume that the I (subject) is our feelings, thoughts, sensations we feel.
Objects in the external world change, thus we can say that object are not singular, permanent, and intrinsically the object we perceive it as. So when I look at say an apple eventually it will be eaten or it will decay. It will eventually change from being an apple to fertilizer for the soil. Everything in our physical reality is in constant flux.
This also applies to the interior world as well. Feelings and thoughts come and go. Some days we are happy and some days we are sad. One day we might be a democrat and eventually we might change our minds. So you could say that everything in the world, including ourselves changes.
Meditation in it's true form is all about a radical shift in our sense of subjectivity. The subject becomes everything. Objects don't exist anymore.
So when one meditates, they just sit there. They watch. They see things come and go. Feelings come and go. The itch comes and goes. Everything is in constant flux. The only thing that doesn't change is the one that watches. This is why we still have a sense of self that doesn't change. That sense of self is this awareness.
Through mediation you experience that you aren't your feelings or thoughts. There is awareness before all the feelings and thoughts. That awareness is always there. Without that awareness we wouldn't be able to experience the world. So basically we learn that our true subject is awareness and everything else are objects of the mind.
Through constant mediation we break the identification of the ego structure (feelings, thoughts, etc) and we almost spontaneously identify with consciousness. We identify not as a concept of consciousness but as really a NO identity. You learn that you are nothing, which makes you everything. To the ego structure this is very horrifying.
With this new subject there is no ground to stand on. There are no divisions between objects that you look at and the subject that looks at them. The subject/object relationship is completely severed.
From this perspective we can see how Jesus and many other enlightened figures see the world. Everything is one. Everyone is you. You don't exist because previously you thought of yourself as an structure of ideas and feelings.
There is a zen metaphor that basically sums all this up. You become the sky. The clouds come and go. These clouds are the feelings, thoughts, etc. But even when all the clouds disappear there is something that remains. And it is the sky. The sky isn't an object. It is formless. It cannot be bounded in a conceptual structure. You can call it God. You can call it consciousness. Awareness. Buddha Nature. Soul. Love. The silence. Truth. Light. The 11th dimension. But these are just pointers to what it is.
How to meditate: Just sit there and watch. Don't comment. Just be right here and right now. Don't do anything but just be. Watch your thoughts. Watch your feelings. Watch the sensations in the body. Watch them arises. Watch them fall.
You will have a thought. and then your will go into that thought and thinking will occur. This is how dreams work as well. Thinking and dreaming are basically the same thing. Notice when you get out of thinking, it feels just like waking up. Don't criticize yourself for thinking. Just let things be. Our biology and original state want us to be conscious.
If you cannot concentrate just keep watching and being. Listen to the sounds. If you want anchor yourself to the breath. If something more compelling comes along put your awareness on it. Eventually you will watch awareness move by itself.
TLDR: Meditation is the experience of being consciousness and creating a gap between awareness and mental phenomena. You may understand all this intellectually but the only way to have a shift in perception is through experience.
Objects in the external world change, thus we can say that object are not singular, permanent, and intrinsically the object we perceive it as. So when I look at say an apple eventually it will be eaten or it will decay. It will eventually change from being an apple to fertilizer for the soil. Everything in our physical reality is in constant flux.
This also applies to the interior world as well. Feelings and thoughts come and go. Some days we are happy and some days we are sad. One day we might be a democrat and eventually we might change our minds. So you could say that everything in the world, including ourselves changes.
Meditation in it's true form is all about a radical shift in our sense of subjectivity. The subject becomes everything. Objects don't exist anymore.
So when one meditates, they just sit there. They watch. They see things come and go. Feelings come and go. The itch comes and goes. Everything is in constant flux. The only thing that doesn't change is the one that watches. This is why we still have a sense of self that doesn't change. That sense of self is this awareness.
Through mediation you experience that you aren't your feelings or thoughts. There is awareness before all the feelings and thoughts. That awareness is always there. Without that awareness we wouldn't be able to experience the world. So basically we learn that our true subject is awareness and everything else are objects of the mind.
Through constant mediation we break the identification of the ego structure (feelings, thoughts, etc) and we almost spontaneously identify with consciousness. We identify not as a concept of consciousness but as really a NO identity. You learn that you are nothing, which makes you everything. To the ego structure this is very horrifying.
With this new subject there is no ground to stand on. There are no divisions between objects that you look at and the subject that looks at them. The subject/object relationship is completely severed.
From this perspective we can see how Jesus and many other enlightened figures see the world. Everything is one. Everyone is you. You don't exist because previously you thought of yourself as an structure of ideas and feelings.
There is a zen metaphor that basically sums all this up. You become the sky. The clouds come and go. These clouds are the feelings, thoughts, etc. But even when all the clouds disappear there is something that remains. And it is the sky. The sky isn't an object. It is formless. It cannot be bounded in a conceptual structure. You can call it God. You can call it consciousness. Awareness. Buddha Nature. Soul. Love. The silence. Truth. Light. The 11th dimension. But these are just pointers to what it is.
How to meditate: Just sit there and watch. Don't comment. Just be right here and right now. Don't do anything but just be. Watch your thoughts. Watch your feelings. Watch the sensations in the body. Watch them arises. Watch them fall.
You will have a thought. and then your will go into that thought and thinking will occur. This is how dreams work as well. Thinking and dreaming are basically the same thing. Notice when you get out of thinking, it feels just like waking up. Don't criticize yourself for thinking. Just let things be. Our biology and original state want us to be conscious.
If you cannot concentrate just keep watching and being. Listen to the sounds. If you want anchor yourself to the breath. If something more compelling comes along put your awareness on it. Eventually you will watch awareness move by itself.
TLDR: Meditation is the experience of being consciousness and creating a gap between awareness and mental phenomena. You may understand all this intellectually but the only way to have a shift in perception is through experience.
0
Comments
Like the "TLDR"; no one's used that here before, had to look it up and find out what it meant.