Sunday, March 13, 2011
On Meditation
We need to put our tools down so that we can (re)learn that they aren't actually parts of us.
On Meditation
Our mental habits all feel extremely important and immediately pressing – crucial to continuing existence, as we know it. And most live as though this is simply the way it is, and has to be.
Not surprisingly, junkies feel very much the same, about their next fix.
Not surprisingly, junkies feel very much the same, about their next fix.
On Asana
People usually enter the practice of yogasana with a feeling of superiority over their bodies, and lofty ambitions of “mastering” them. As practice matures, one realizes that the most effective way to “master the body” is to be its devoted servant.
Tooling Through Toon Town
Imagine a cartoon depiction of a psychedelic trip. A point of view journey through a twisted landscape that continually morphs, sprouts new objects and larger than life characters and leaps chaotically from perspective to perspective, as colors dance across the scenery like the skin of a schizophrenic chameleon. Time slows down, speeds up and spins backward. The sound track is disjointed and abrasive, making sure that stability and security fail to root, for even a blink.
This isn't as far fetched an experience as one might think. We perceive our world in the present moment from only one singular perspective. Our past helps to guide what in our experience we focus on and our vision is further skewed by expectations and preconceptions. Others ply us to agree with their perceptions and assessments, and we have a penchant for seeing what we want to see, rather than what is.
Our slanted observations are then subject to relatively random interpretations. Again, steered by outer pressures, inner habits and personal desires. Our sight and our interpretations of what we see are both entirely subjective and, looking from a longer perspective, largely arbitrary.
So the worlds that only exist inside of our heads are built on quicksand, constructed of fluff and subject to drastic and uncoordinated make-overs, without prior notice. But we bend the lens we view through enough to convince ourselves that our inner representation of the whole is actually uniform and consistent. We do so because it's a more comfortable notion to live with.
This, of course, doesn't change the fact that our mindscapes really aren't much more stable than the landscapes in that imaginary cartoon.
Observe your reactions to this notion.
It will be natural for many to see this as a bad or undesirable truth – therefore an ignorable or deniable one. But it's simply the way it is. It's how we're engineered. We evolved within a fluid system and are made to be compatible with, and adaptable to, life's ever changing “rules” and circumstances.
Think of it like the weather. We always need to monitor and forecast it so that we can intelligently plan our activities around what it's doing. It may frustrate us at times, but we can clearly see that its nature is to be erratic, and so we adjust our thinking accordingly. Seeing, accepting and understanding that the mindscape is creation in action empowers us to embody a purer state of being and way of seeing. One that accepts knowing from a wiser source than our reasoning, and is eager to, unabashedly, see all of our foibles.
No longer caught in a tug of war between numerous random thoughts, feelings and images, with the strongest ones getting to have their way with us. Free to explore or ignore notions as seems right from a comfortably removed, relatively dispassionate perspective. Content with our perpetually inaccurate and incomplete understanding.
The problem isn't the trippy toon like way of our inner world, but the fact that we see them as solid, take them as gospel and discount other possibilities.
Th-th-th-that's all, folks!
This isn't as far fetched an experience as one might think. We perceive our world in the present moment from only one singular perspective. Our past helps to guide what in our experience we focus on and our vision is further skewed by expectations and preconceptions. Others ply us to agree with their perceptions and assessments, and we have a penchant for seeing what we want to see, rather than what is.
Our slanted observations are then subject to relatively random interpretations. Again, steered by outer pressures, inner habits and personal desires. Our sight and our interpretations of what we see are both entirely subjective and, looking from a longer perspective, largely arbitrary.
So the worlds that only exist inside of our heads are built on quicksand, constructed of fluff and subject to drastic and uncoordinated make-overs, without prior notice. But we bend the lens we view through enough to convince ourselves that our inner representation of the whole is actually uniform and consistent. We do so because it's a more comfortable notion to live with.
This, of course, doesn't change the fact that our mindscapes really aren't much more stable than the landscapes in that imaginary cartoon.
Observe your reactions to this notion.
It will be natural for many to see this as a bad or undesirable truth – therefore an ignorable or deniable one. But it's simply the way it is. It's how we're engineered. We evolved within a fluid system and are made to be compatible with, and adaptable to, life's ever changing “rules” and circumstances.
Think of it like the weather. We always need to monitor and forecast it so that we can intelligently plan our activities around what it's doing. It may frustrate us at times, but we can clearly see that its nature is to be erratic, and so we adjust our thinking accordingly. Seeing, accepting and understanding that the mindscape is creation in action empowers us to embody a purer state of being and way of seeing. One that accepts knowing from a wiser source than our reasoning, and is eager to, unabashedly, see all of our foibles.
No longer caught in a tug of war between numerous random thoughts, feelings and images, with the strongest ones getting to have their way with us. Free to explore or ignore notions as seems right from a comfortably removed, relatively dispassionate perspective. Content with our perpetually inaccurate and incomplete understanding.
The problem isn't the trippy toon like way of our inner world, but the fact that we see them as solid, take them as gospel and discount other possibilities.
Th-th-th-that's all, folks!
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