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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Jun 28, 2014 - 07:29pm PT
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You Americans are hard to figure.
The American sense of humor is much more theatrical. It's the home of vaudeville, the one liner, the funny page, the long narrative joke, and the slapstick comedy movie.Americans can see the humor in too many things because Americans love to laugh.
A poll of resort , hotel , and restaurant owners and managers around the world rated the Japanese the most deferential and courteous. Americans displayed the greatest sense of humor.
The French were the rudest.
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Jun 28, 2014 - 08:13pm PT
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Holding the space in front of you vividly is very similar to the feeling or intense awareness you've had in the mountains right before a lightning strike (MikeL)
Oh man, it's been twenty years since I leapt from crag to crag tempting Zeus. Fond memories of hair on end. (of hair, period)
;>)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 28, 2014 - 08:21pm PT
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I regard this as a dissonant, dysregulatory meme that clearly makes a claim of revelatory truth while simultaneously disavowing its ultimate relevance and value to the individual.
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This kind of masochistic word-brokering underscores the dead-end mental kabuki I mentioned that always arises when people try and reckon things that are derived from guessing and evaluating - "But that's what he said!" You just keep looping arond in the same place - we can easily see why.
When we say to beginners that this is a trap, this obsessive guessing adn evaluating, what is meant is that so long as you keep sniping from an evaluating platform, it percludes you from actually doing anything, while assuring you cover no new ground. Picture the rat on the wheel - and then heap virtue on being there.
But again, nothing changes does it. Nothing shifts.
Ask a question. Problem is, this is almost impossible for a person stuck in this position. But its the only way out.
JL
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Jun 28, 2014 - 08:43pm PT
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Who says nothing is achieved on these threads? I just learned a new word!
dysregulation
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jun 28, 2014 - 08:46pm PT
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If you are a person who possesses little faith and essentially no wisdom, you are like the leading edge of running water downhill--you go anywhere you are led, taking anything said to be true, wanting to cry when you see others cry, wanting to laugh when you see others laugh.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH tHAT was a laugh ending in coughs.
MikeL returns YEA!
Now i gotta go back and see what else you said.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jun 28, 2014 - 09:51pm PT
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YOWWE! Everybody's funny tonightstars must in alignment?
i'm lovin this thread!
Cept for Largo, who's in The "FLOWCUS" (Flow>
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 28, 2014 - 10:35pm PT
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I think every poster should list how many alcoholic beverages they have downed before posting LOL.
But you can see how whenever someone asks for something from inside the circle, so to speak, it gets dragged out and twisted into the most tortured mumbo jumbo. BASE has the right idea: Find out what to do, and do that. But so long as you believe it is a mental journey, you'll never get past GO.
JL
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jun 28, 2014 - 10:41pm PT
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Thanks Jan,
As for remembering past lives, most traditions I know of say that it happens when you reach the right level of personal spiritual progress. Before that, if you could see how badly you have screwed up over and over in the same ways, you would be too depressed to handle it so that's why most people can't remember. Of course that's true of this present life as well, if one really reflects on it, so no need to worry about the past. Buddha said, "if you want to know your past life, look at the present one. If you want to know your future life, look at the present one".
For me, signing on with The Lord,has givin me the insight that i'm inherent to screwups. And thru HIS sacrifice, and my humility, my conscious is justified. And the wise man/woman will look to Jesus for a straight path.
And when the lesson is learned, the negative becomes a positive.
And ALL Glory goes to God!
For Buddha's sake,
If i want to know where i'm going,i need to know where i'm comin from.
Karmeticly, if i don't make amends for my past transgressions, i don't progress.
Alot of "i's" in that statement. No Him's! Make's me fell like it was "i" who is responsible for me being here..?
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jun 28, 2014 - 10:47pm PT
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I think every poster should list how many alcoholic beverages they have downed before posting LOL.
Hey i jus got home from Asher's 6th Birthday party! i only drank the kool-aid..
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 28, 2014 - 11:56pm PT
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....but a way to see how we have been mistaken about who we are and what this life is. Gotta love the parallels with old-timey 'original sin'. Humans - just how did they survive without religion and metaphysics?
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go-B
climber
Cling to what is good!
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Jun 29, 2014 - 02:55am PT
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...zilch zip nada!
We all need a Savior whether we admit it or not, and we sure have the one and only real deal in Jesus Christ! True enlightenment is asking Him to wash our sins away and knowing He will never leave us or forsake us! :)
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MH2
climber
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Jun 29, 2014 - 08:22am PT
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Find out what to do, and do that. (JL)
Eggzackly so.
And be willing to do it for years.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Jun 29, 2014 - 09:43am PT
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It is very difficult to clear my mind of everything. I concentrate on just breathing..without thinking about breathing, but a sound or something breaks the spell and I break down and think.
Pondering emptiness seems like a tough nut right there. It is hard to stop thinking.
I will work on it again in a few hours.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 29, 2014 - 09:48am PT
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you're not supposed to "not do" anything...
the state is one where all that goes on, but you're awareness is "bigger"... my yoga teacher earnestly encourages us to "slip between you thoughts." when I am doing this, I hear her but my attention is "nowhere"
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Jun 29, 2014 - 09:52am PT
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That's also like lucid dreaming. You are following the dream at the same time you are aware that it is a dream. Sometimes you can even hear the noises of life around you at the same time you are dreaming and yet you are not really in either situation.Your mind is dealing with three things at once - dreaming, listening to the world, and just being present.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Jun 29, 2014 - 09:57am PT
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And what base104 is experiencing is known in the East as the monkey mind.
We are all under the illusion that we are in control of our minds until we try to quiet them and concentrate. Then we become aware that our minds are really like a monkey leaping from branch to branch snatching at this and that and about as easy to control as a wild monkey in a tree.
I don't know about Zen's methods but my teachers always said it was good to meditate for short periods several times a day rather than one long one, so it seems you're doing it right.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 29, 2014 - 10:31am PT
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E said:
you're not supposed to "not do" anything...
the state is one where all that goes on, but you're awareness is "bigger"... my yoga teacher earnestly encourages us to "slip between your thoughts." when I am doing this, I hear her but my attention is "nowhere
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For many of us who are mind based, a yoga practice is a great avenue because the focus in on the body. Like I said, you get the mind to settle by indireect means - by focusing on the body. Attemps to clear the mind with the mind are of course a dead-end kabuki, a circle-jerk.
Few peopel actually believe that meditation or any of these practices are not simply mind games. It can cerainly seem that way, and be that way if your awareness is identified with mental content. Healyj hears echos of original sin in his mind and thinks it comes from someone else's words, but of course we source all of this ourselves. Hard to just keep our awareness off the geyser, and as Jan said, at the beginning those 35 minute session I used to tough my way through at the Baldy Zen Center seemed like ten days. But it gets easier as the silt settles and you can "find the space between thoughts."
JL
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 29, 2014 - 10:45am PT
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a rare instance of connecting this thread to climbing; I've found meditation practice in yoga to be very helpful in climbing, especially on lead.
I noticed it once on one of my first solos in the 'Gunks, when I was out on a face and came across sandy holds. I totally freaked out and thought I was going to die for sure (it was probably Beginer's Delight 5.3). The "rational" part of my mind assessed that something had to be done, so while the hysterical rantings were going on, it was simultaneously working out the plan to climb out of trouble (it was also noting that 5.3 was probably well within "our" ability, if we just kept "our" head).
But what was happening was the ability to step back from the frantic-wild-monkey-in-a-tree activity of the mind, and "just climb", recognizing a bigger picture, one that included more than just the discursive activities; in this case, the need to not get swept up in those activities.
When I got to the top of that climb (after passing a husband/wife team that were extremely anxious), I was overwhelmed with emotion, and sat at the top and wept. It wasn't out of desperation, though, or the thought of my near demise, it was something deeper.
I found yoga good training because it is a physical practice focused on the body. When I go to my usual wednesday session at the gym, 2 hours of climbing followed by 1.5 hours of yoga, I usually leave in a very calm state. I've tried to carry that over to my climbing too.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jun 29, 2014 - 10:57am PT
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Sully said,
Epictetus (born a slave with "no wisdom").
Throughout time there has been many like Epictetus isolated from "wisdom", or more importantly the words of God.Prolly most, like Epictetus come to a conclusion in life that the ONLY thing that matters and counts is ones Opinion. Besides experiences what else do we have that makes us individuals?
Our opinion and how we feel about any certain subject are uniquely our own and should be nurchered and cradled with both hands as if holding a baby dove,IMO.
Do people with absolutely no religious education have the opportunity to inherit the kingdom of Heaven? Jesus showed us the answer is Yes! While hanging on the cross, next to Him was a convicted thief. The thief witnessed Christs crucification and said, Truely You must be The Messiah.
And Jesus told him, today you will be with me in heaven.
In the blink of an eye, your opinion can set you free!
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 29, 2014 - 11:04am PT
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Plenty of humans throughout time possessing "no wisdom" and "faith" did NOT blindly follow. They did their own thing. They sought isolation and independence.
This is quentessential American, cowboy thinking. I know it well. The Lone Ranger and all that. Self reliance. The problem is this avenue rarely leads to self trancendence, but more often to even more self will and control issues. The point is to let the self vanish (provisionally), which ironically is most easily accomplished by mixing long periods of isolation with total blending with a structured group. But to be sure, every time anyone sits down to meditate, you do it alone.
JL
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