The Language Barrier

[Fyrenze]

I struggle constantly with my projection attempts and with pretty much everything because I'm one of those people who works hard to relax.

If the irony of that statement hasn't made itself clear, let's just say I work much harder than I should. I stand in the way of my own progress more than I'd care to admit. Anyway, I've been having lots of problems with even the simplest of meditations lately.

But today, listening to a lecture on Zen  Buddhism, I had a bit of a breakthrough.

First, the specific breakthrough was that Zen is great, but not for me. In this moment, anyway. I don't want to transcend life and death just yet because I'm enjoying life and death. Sort of.

The point is while I've been having a hard time doing what a lot of people term meditation, for me, meditation shouldn't have to be sitting in full lotus or even sitting in a comfortable chair, etc. I've been gaining all sorts of introspective knowledge and personal insight that I didn't notice because I was too focused on the form.

So I had been thinking for the past 6 months or so that I might like to visit a monastary at some point, but now I'm sure that I don't want to. To quote Dr. Hisamatsu, a great 20th Century Zen master, "The teacher is you. There is no need for any guidance."

And for me, there is no need for all the form and structure of Zen or Christianity or you name it. I do believe in the Void. But to my present understanding, perhaps everything is nothing. But I prefer to think of "the Void" as "Experience". The capital E for me implies universal experience. So yeah. One day I'll reunite with this Experience, but when I do, I want to be full of all my own wonderful experience. And I'm just at the start of the path. Because I believe I am more than my physical body, I don't think I need satori today, or before I die.

The first of the Four Noble Truths is that life is suffering. To me, suffering is a part of experience, but it's not all there is.

So anyway, on to the second half of this topic, which I've already touched on.

Labels are very hindering to me. But until I figure this whole thought-communication thing out, I need language to interact with others. I just have to take time to really consider perhaps I'm making progress is some form that I can't express. Today a few years of struggling clarified themselves as I tried to find the words to express a specific thought to my professor.

I apologize if this was unclear, it's another way I struggle with language; I often have so much spinning around in this blockhead of mine that I am unclear. Much of this was for my own personal digestion of what happened today, but I thought it might make an interesting topic. I suspect I'm not the only one who's gotten bogged down by doing things the "right" way. Every day, my idea of relativity grows...

[Leo Volont]

Dear Fyrenze

Lucid Dreaming is the best path for those who cannot relax.  Do your 'reality checks' throughout the day, and think compulsively about Lucid Dreaming, and you will inevitably have Lucid Dreams.

In a dream once, an Old Guri told me that 'even a few seconds of Meditation in a Dream is worth a thousand hours of waking meditation'.

So, in contemplating Lucid Dreaming, prepare a Lucid Dreaming Checklist -- things you wish to do in those few minutes you have available in a Lucid Dream.


But, as for Zen, I used to like its simplicity, but after some time found that same simplicity to appear dry and barren.   Particularly teaching like 'we must be our own teachers'.  What is that supposed to mean, anyway!?  Is it meant to intentionally dismiss the common sense assumption that the imagination of any twenty-year-old could not possibly be better than 50 Generations of tried and True Spiritual Tradition.  It is simply silly to suppose that Tens of Thousands of Spiritual Aspirants have not already covered the Same Ground, and that their Experience would be useless.

The Spiritual World is full of Being who already occupy the High Ground.  It is foolish Pride that would not seek help from their quarter.

Or perhaps your Zen Master's telling people to teach themselves was his way of being dismissive to those whom he didn't particularly like -- that he didn't wish to be bothered.

I suggest you take a close look at Zen Tradition and count the number of successful Aspirants who have achieved Satori without having learned under a Master, or Realization under a Guru.

[daem0n]

i
wait, i got satori before finding zen
well, it is good stretching and reminder, but i suppose it is more of hitting your mind against the rock until the rock cracks in half, to get enlightened, that is

as for relaxing, do something that relaxes you, perhaps good music, remember the state and then reexperience it, lie down comfortable if position is disturing to you, later on you will be able to relax in that position

you also don't need to project, work on your 3 eye and crown chakra for satisfying results

as for being my own teacher, yes, probably all what is needed is covered, but this is dead knowledge, until you manifest it it will be your greatest disadvantage and obstacle, although it may seem otherwise

[Fyrenze]

Let me start by saying I didn't actually mean to suggest I would from this point rely on myself as a teacher. I was more using it to say that under my own guidance I am deciding to stray from the well traveled path and try to bushwack a bit...Hmm...How I'd really like to bushwack in all possible connotations right now. Pardon that little bit of politics escaping.

Anyway, as for using lucid dreaming...The point is I also have to work to get to sleep. I've been realizing lately that that's precisely what I do. I have to try to push myself through exhaustion and run through a method that I have to will myself to keep following until I fall asleep. The trouble is the closer I get to falling asleep the less I can hang on to whatever method I'm using, but if I let go for an instant, I'll snap awake.

As I've said recently in a topic all about sleep, I find I can now fall asleep in a  chair during the day with much less resistance than I have when I try to sleep at night in a bed.

[Leo Volont]

Anyway, as for using lucid dreaming...The point is I also have to work to get to sleep. I've been realizing lately that that's precisely what I do. I have to try to push myself through exhaustion and run through a method that I have to will myself to keep following until I fall asleep. The trouble is the closer I get to falling asleep the less I can hang on to whatever method I'm using, but if I let go for an instant, I'll snap awake.

As I've said recently in a topic all about sleep, I find I can now fall asleep in a  chair during the day with much less resistance than I have when I try to sleep at night in a bed.

You DO need to relax.  You don't need to go to sleep thinking about Lucid Dreaming.  Just go to sleep!  You can trust that all the work you have been doing during the day will remind you, when you are finally dreaming, that you are dreaming.   Just let go and trust the process.  If you wake in the morning and did not have a Lucid Dream, but mention it to yourself with a hint of regret, and that way your Higher Self will take it under advisement to prepare a Lucid Dream for you and even to remind you of it when the time for it comes.  Stop obsessing.

[Fyrenze]

The only obsessing I do right now is over getting to sleep. I'm usually too exhausted at night to do anything else.

I'm an actor, so as tired as I am, I have to push past it and really bring 100% of myself to my work. This is not a lifestyle that allows for no sleep. It requires as much of it as is possible in down time.

My point about working to get to sleep was this: if I don't follow some sort of routine to get to sleep, I'll end up watching the ceiling all night.

But we're getting off topic. I really was curious about this language problem.

Who else has it? Don't the words ever get in your way?

[Leo Volont]

Your language problem is likely to remain persistent.  It is a cliche among Spiritualists that the Highest Experiences are 'ineffable', that is, that they cannot be described in words.

I think the problem arises from going into some Greater Collective Identity in which you can comprehend for a moment Everything with the resources of that Being, but then, afterward, when you come back to your biological self, very little of the Greater Experience can follow.  It is an incompatibility between the apparatuses of perception and memory.  Nobody has the brains to remember, entirely, everything they experience in the Higher Spiritual.  However, while not remembering the details of every particular, it is possible to remember the sweeping conclusions engendered by the Experience.  Good luck.

[jilola]

In a dream once, an Old Guri told me that 'even a few seconds of Meditation in a Dream is worth a thousand hours of waking meditation'.

My coment to this has nothing to do withthe subject at hand but withthe typo. One of the most significant people in my life is called Guri. []

Is it meant to intentionally dismiss the common sense assumption that the imagination of any twenty-year-old could not possibly be better than 50 Generations of tried and True Spiritual Tradition. It is simply silly to suppose that Tens of Thousands of Spiritual Aspirants have not already covered the Same Ground, and that their Experience would be useless.

It is meant exactly that way. Ten thousand generations of tradition is but a wind in a storm compared to a personal and immediate experience.

The Spiritual World is full of Being who already occupy the High Ground. Itis foolish Pride that would not seek help from their quarter.

High ground? Seek help where it seems appripriate, dismiss help that doesn't no matter where it comes from.

Or perhaps your Zen Master's telling people to teach themselves was his way of being dismissive to those whom he didn't particularly like -- that he didn't wish to be bothered.

If that is so then <several unprintable words> him.

I suggest you take a close look at Zen Tradition and count the number of successful Aspirants who have achieved Satori without having learned under a Master, or Realization under a Guru.

And do what?

2cents & L&L
jouni

[Leo Volont]

Dear jilola

Many of the Highest Religious and Spiritual Traditions have hinted that essentially it is all about Love.  I'm not overly sentimental, but I see that the Love they are talking about is in appreciating Society, and in seeing us as a big happy Collective.

But many spiritual aspirants apparently hate the world, and hate everybody in it.  They have this 'go it alone' attitude that is frankly contemptuous of the rest of Humanity.

But there have been spiritual traditions that have appealed to this contempt for Society.  Taoism and all forms of Stoicism focus upon the escape of the Individual from all social care and concern.  Love is discouraged as detrimental to Peace of Mind.  Buddhism, before the Mahayana reforms, was, despite all its renunciations of desire, basically an ego-centric philosophy.  It was all about self.

But do any of these Philosophies of Hate and Contempt actually work?  Sure, if isolation from society is all you are after.  But do they have a Spiritual Prize?  No.  Spirituality must depend upon inclusiveness.  One cannot take the Gates of Heaven by storm or assault.  Higher Advancement requires that some Doors be opened by others from the Inside.

Even the Black Magicians can't do the first thing until they establish a partnership with the Demons.  

Yes, I realize how proud and fulfilled one must feel to be able to accomplish everything entirely by oneself, beholding to nobody.   But I think Love probably feels better, and I am certain it can accomplish more.  

The first lesson of the Medievel Saints was Humility.