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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Jun 29, 2014 - 06:09pm PT
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Interesting ideas = healthy thread
;>)
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jun 29, 2014 - 08:12pm PT
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JG said "It has been remarked that finding one's "True Self" leads to a more benign, more compassionate personality . . . perhaps a living sainthood. I have my doubts, but I could be wrong."
On my zen path I have come to think of the "true self" to be the experience of being able to listen to people or observe situations without needing to get anything out of it for me or having the need to try to protect myself from it.
It is when the relationship of "reacting to my thinking or feelings" becomes significantly less dominant. The experience is that you are not distracted by your thinking or others actions. You gain the ability to listen and observe without distraction. It is a very confident relationship because there is no "I" to be insecure or greedy.
One great way to meditate is to just listen and when you find you have wandered off into internal dialog come back to listening; over and over again.
If you are going to meditate it is a good idea to meditate on a set schedule and do it whether "I" wants to or not. The set schedule creates an opportunity to observe the "I".
Zen Master Seung Sahn compared the "I" to a back seat driver ; he would ask who is driving your car ? Your true self or the backseat driver.
This body has had 1.5 beers! Cheers!
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MH2
climber
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Jun 29, 2014 - 08:14pm PT
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A poetically appealing physics analog to the self, the "I", the persistent illusion(?) of a center:
...we throw an object made of a lot of blocks and spokes, held together by strings, into the air. Of course we know it goes in a parabola, because we studied that for a particle. But now our object is not a particle; it wobbles and jiggles and so on. It does go in a parabola, though; one can see that. What goes in a parabola? Certainly not the point on the corner of the block, because that is jiggling about; neither is it the end of the wooden stick, or the middle of the wooden stick, or the middle of the block. But something goes in a parabola, there is an effective "center" which moves in a parabola.
The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume I, 18-1
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Jun 29, 2014 - 08:19pm PT
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Left prefrontal cortex activation correlates with happiness and Tibetan Buddhist monks have created the greatest measured spike in activity in this region produced by simple thought when meditating on compassion. The reported depth of meditation also corresponds to activity in the brain’s pleasure centers,.... This overt pleasure is accompanied by a shift in emotional self-regulation; meditators are more aware of thoughts and feelings conceptually, but less emotionally disrupted by them, according to one study. Both hemispheres are involved in self-observation.
This study was a real revelation to me when I first read about it. Because the methods I follow emphasize the unconscious mind and its effects on the body, I had naturally assumed that a more enlightened mind would be primarily centered in the unconscious or right side of the brain. Instead, when the monks were presented with disturbing photos of violence for example they reacted in the usual centers for emotion, but then immediately shifted their attention to the left frontal cortex and when asked later what they were thinking, came up with Buddhist philosophy for contextualizing what they saw.
I believe there are people on this thread who do the same thing, but with science instead of Buddhist philosophy. Some seem to do it also with remembering relevant scripture. The weakness of that approach it seems to me, is that one can dwell in dry intellectualism or dogmatic views if one hasn't worked on the emotional side of compassion enough first.
The danger of dwelling on the emotions and unconscious too long is mushy sentimentality or else emotional tribalism, both of which often occur in religion.
Bottom line, it's really hard to use more than one or two sections of the brain with real insight. I'm hopeful though that as we better understand how it functions, we will be able to make the process comprehensible to more people and easier (but not too easy).
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 29, 2014 - 09:57pm PT
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....but a way to see how we have been mistaken about who we are and what this life is. Any time someone claims humans are [innately] flawed, with sin, or "mistaken", I personally think they should not find it entirely unreasonable others might simply call bullshit on them.
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Jun 29, 2014 - 10:38pm PT
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Zen Master Seung Sahn compared the "I" to a back seat driver ; he would ask who is driving your car ? Your true self or the backseat driver.
I can't resist: My car must exhibit its True Self when the engine is off and it is sitting still.
It has become more benign and accommodating in this meditative posture.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Jun 30, 2014 - 08:30am PT
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On the other hand, when your car is meditating, it is not using up any of the earth's resources nor putting you in any dangerous situations, so we could say, this is an evolutionary adaptation of cars.
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MH2
climber
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Jun 30, 2014 - 09:28am PT
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My car is in a permanent state of no-mind.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Jun 30, 2014 - 11:17am PT
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JL,
Mr. Gill is making a point. From my readings on the topic of Buddhism, I've seen the references to the idea of no-self. OK, fine. It is an idea, but we all know that we are individuals and are individual beings. The idea of self in a practical sense is pretty obvious.
So going down the bunny hole of no-self seems a little odd. Yes, I know the basics of enlightenment, again from what I have read, but on the other hand I know that there is a very rich and real true self.
For instance we all pick a name to call each other and converse as individuals.
Look at a starling. The individual starling is born, grows up, takes shits, eats, screws, and has more babies. At the same time, it is amazing to watch a huge flock of them flying together. They seem to be thinking the same thing. I don't believe that they are communicating with ESP or anything, but being part of a flock is also a big part of a starling's life.
For my purposes, the baby steps, I am just sitting quietly and focusing on my breathing. It is a lot like focusing before a wrestling match (I used to wrestle). You focus on one thing only....the match.
I will say again that when I hear MikeL describe these ecstatic moments of clarity, that I have experienced something very much like it. So have most of us, I guess. Climbing certainly takes a high degree of focus and clarity, and sometimes you pull off a move that surprises yourself.
The best experience ever was jumping a big, terminal velocity object. Not a little 500 footer where you take a 3 second or less freefall, but the big objects where you get up to terminal velocity like El Cap.
Whoa man. If I could bottle up and sell that feeling, I would be the richest man in the world. Total clarity and awareness, or as total as I can imagine. Sometimes I wonder if Buddhists are seeking something similar just by training their minds.
It really is unreal. No thoughts. Just awareness and clarity. You think about it later. It is magic. I never got that far from my climbing, but I've heard so many climbers describe something similar. Jumping El Cap is turning it up to eleven. It isn't even that dangerous of an object.
It took a while to happen, but now BASE and climbing are almost overlapping pursuits among a fair number of people. I remember being practically alone. Will Oxx was off in the Air Force. Jon Bowlin was out there, but we never met.
There was one summer that I did a couple of walls and was jumping in the valley at the same time. You get different feelings from each discipline.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 30, 2014 - 11:23am PT
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BASE, I think you're still trying to do this all with your cognition, to "figure it out." To arrive at some new understanding.
The process as I know it goes in the opposite direction. It's a massive off-loading, till all that's left is . . .
JL
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jstan
climber
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Jun 30, 2014 - 11:51am PT
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On the other hand, when your car is meditating, it is not using up any of the earth's resources nor putting you in any dangerous situations, so we could say, this is an evolutionary adaptation of cars. Jan
Perhaps not. You also have to disconnect any batteries in order to shut the GPS unit off.
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Jun 30, 2014 - 01:55pm PT
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You also have to disconnect any batteries . . . (jstan)
And thus, jstan, we have the complete analogy: when the car is running along the roadway it is fully in I mode. When it sits quietly with motor off it is in True Self mode. When the battery is detached it is in Death mode.
;>)
The process as I know it goes in the opposite direction. It's a massive off-loading, till all that's left is . . . (JL)
When this is achieved and I is suppressed [has dissolved?] there are many possibilities:
from an ego-less Complete Awareness,
to a benign and compassionate existence,
to a Samurai self-sacrifice,
to sacrificial self-immolation,
to unthinking absorption into a terrorist group,
to . . .
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 30, 2014 - 05:44pm PT
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When this is achieved and I is suppressed
This assumes some agency suppressing our righfult "I," when in fact it drops away entirely on it's own sans direction or intention or agenda to "suppress my own self." How would anyone even do that? I also think the ego fears letting go like this, from what I have seen, throwing up all kinds of doomsday scenarios like we will run amok or light ourselves on fire if the ego isn't in control 24/7.
Can you get some sense of he control battle going on in this process?
JL
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jun 30, 2014 - 06:06pm PT
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^^^Are you courting a piece of the devil or the peace of God...
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Jun 30, 2014 - 06:11pm PT
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Can you get some sense of [t]he control battle going on in this process? (JL)
You bet I can. And it ain't pretty!
Right now it's 2:1 in favor of "I" vs "True Self"
If the battery is still supplying power let's take the car out for a spin!
The battery will fade soon enough.
;>)
edit: OK I'm stumped: Are you courting a piece of the devil or the peace of God...?
Which is which?
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MH2
climber
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Jun 30, 2014 - 08:38pm PT
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In the end we are all stumped.
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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujo de la Playa
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Jun 30, 2014 - 08:44pm PT
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I promise to go back and read through the entire thread, bear with me.
Meanwhile, in the immortal words of WHATSHERNAME
NEVERMIND
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 30, 2014 - 09:51pm PT
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I spent years focusing on the mental game per meditation, not realizing that this was a form of me controling where my attention was. When I learned that perception was just another cloud and not nearly the end of the adventure, I was stumped entirely. Once I accepted that I knew nothing and was only getting in my own way, I quite efforting and the process shifted.
JL
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Once I accepted that I knew nothing and was only getting in my own way, I quite efforting and the process . . . (JL)
I know you mean otherwise, but to some of us this could easily be written by the religious posters on this thread. It's so so similar to "turning over control to God."
Years ago my old bouldering companion, Rich Borgman, explained to me how his conversion to religion had not removed all problems, but rather "The problems are still there, but they are no longer in control and reside somewhere else, where God can help."
In a sense your "letting go" seems to be very much like this. You no longer "control your attention."
Just ruminatin'
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 1, 2014 - 11:56am PT
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Giving up control does not mean handing it off to God, whatever that means, but letting the process go whetever it will. The idea or belief that some entity controls us be it our own egos or God is an interesting thing to ponder. Without someone tending the store, will we all go mad and light ourselves on fire? What is the fear, exactly??
JL
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