Entries Tagged as 'meditation'

Raw mechanics of zazen

  1. sit down
  2. tongue up
  3. center attention at hara
  4. count the breaths. inhale, 1, exhale, 2, etc.
  5. if a thought comes up:
    1. look at it
    2. acknowledge it
    3. deliberately and consciously return to the breath

Should you manage step #4 without effort or interfering thought:

#2 becomes count cycle of inhale and exhale instead of separately

Should you manage this step #4 without effort or interfering thought:

just follow the breath

Should you manage this step #4 without effort or interfering thought:

Go on to koan study or shikantaza

How is that for a chart of abilities and awareness, Scientology?

Weekend Meditation Tank Intensive

Herein is the suggested daily schedule for a weekend meditation intensive mixed with floatation tank work.

Zazen instructions are here

6am floatation
floatation
8am breakfast, reading
zazen
10am floatation
floatation
noon lunch, reading
1pm zazen
2pm floatation
floatation
4pm dinner, reading
5pm zazen
6pm floatation
floatation
8pm snack, reading
9pm zazen
10pm floatation
floatation

Floating has never failed me

There is a wanting in me to achieve Self-knowledge. Therefore, I lose the game. How can you find yourself by wanting to find yourself? You have run right by yourself in the process of trying to find yourself. This is vanity but a hard to find vanity.

Now, floating has never failed me. But I have failed to take it to the next level. So far, my wins have been primarily physical… but they are great physical wins. I have had a few mental wins… managing to drop out of injecting 400 million “I” thoughts into this body per millisecond.

I read “Reality in 40 Versions” Ulladu Narpadu and want the end result.. NOW! But don’t realize that wanting is a form of tension and only relaxing and allowing gets me to what I want. In fact, I cant get to what I want.

I wonder why I would do weekend long Buddhist retreats and not give the same respect to floating? Buddhism is man-made… by Gautama. The Arunachala ashrama system is man-made, by Maharshi. The float tank is man-made by John Christopher Lilly. A controlling belief is at work — milliions of people do these other systems. These other systems are “traditional”.. they are closer to the beginning. They come from a less materialistic society. It is amazing the number of things I use to make those other man-made systems right and floating unacceptable.

“Your goal is to make your mind silent”

Acharya Kedar

A standard for Objective Relaxation

Awhile back, when I was doing Silva Ultramind, I would fall alseep during the sessions. Now, an advanced Silva practitioner would not do that. What I have discovered in that I need way more rest than I have ever gotten. If I were “awake” and then had a massage, I would end up asleep on the table whereas otherwise I would not have.

Until a person can listen to Silva Ultramind without falling asleep (after a good nights sleep), then she needs to continue the journey to Standard Relaxation. And every time you fall asleep prematurely, rejoice! For you are closer to a very useful state of being!

Now enter diet.

Aural exhalation part II

Today, when I reached a good point of relaxation, I began a series of moans… “oooooohhhhh” , “aaaaahhhhh” — getting out that unseen tension via sound…

However, I must admit that methodic use of the Silva Ultra Mind System brings you to a much deeper relaxation methodically.

Thus, I think I will start using it regularly.

The first annual World Floatation Day

Thanks to Kane Mantyla of Float Matrix in San Francisco, CA we are having the first (and not last) World Floatation Day. This is a day when we get together and float with a common intention. If you need an alarm clock, I use this software for the PC. Here is Kane’s final announcement!

on watching the breath

It amazes me that I cannot sit still and watch my breath without being carried off into thought.

Is this simple Buddhist practice showing me what I’m really made of? That because I cant control my thinking, any thinking really is just robotic response mechanisms?

Perhaps I’m taking the wrong viewpoint. Who said there is a me, a breath, and a visual thing to focus on. maybe floating starts way beyond this. Beyond the physical assumptions of that breath practice.

What I find in the tank is constant floating of thought – no ability to hold a thought train. What I find in shamatha meditation (the breath thing) is that I fixate on certain thoughts which aggravate or excite me.

So one practice draws me into a bee’s hive of attraction or repulsion if I am not aware. The other keeps thoughts surfacing and falling away if I am not aware…. hmm..

Now, if you can have a thought and not react to it, then that means that you have weakened its effect on you.  So maybe floating is dropping the charge in my thought bank automatically. While I have to work at it in shamatha?

serious stomach pain all day

A day ago, I really pushed hard to sleep in the tank, putting in about 5.5 hours. The next day I had general discomfort all through the upper body. It seemed like my biochemical balance was being righted too fast for me to adjust.

Undaunted, I went in for what was at least 6 or 7 continuous hours last night. It was _great_ when I came out. And then in my shower, this rubbery black gunk was rubbing off my arms. And then a by morning time, I had this serious stomach pain.

Being on the the warrior diet, I eat raw all day and eat my omnivorous cooked meal at night. Last night, I ate something I dont usually eat. Pasta with sphagetti sauce and some cheese that I really dont think was so great.

I also follow the Hulda Clark bowel maintenance program. And I took my Betaine Hydrochloride first thing in the morning. And after that is when the pain hit.

This pain has been interesting. I called this girl who is a healer and requested distance healing. Before we could get to the healing, i kept feeling better and better and better. I actually _saw_ that some aspect of me was remembering that I am supposed to be sick and kept trying to return me to the sick state.

Eventually my memory of illness won out and I went back downhill, but not into doubled-over pain. I got some ginger trips from Whole Foods (ginger and vitamin b-6 as Pyrodoxine HCl) and that made me feel better.

Now, I think the worst part is over. I’m going for some foot reflexology healing tonight and have 3 hours before I go… I really would like to float, and I am going to wait until I am drawn to long-term tank sleeping. I was really pushing things because I wanted to experience the thngs I’ve read in the archives here.

So I’m going back to 1 – 1.5 hours per day until I truly feel more is helping and not rushing.

That was a nice nap.

i really dont know how long i was in the tank. but man was that a great session. i came out and realized i needed to invite trishaluv to a soul gazing session.

in the shower, this rubbery black gunk came out through my skin.

you CAN have too much of a good thing

I planned to sleep in my tank tonight. I did the first session and had to come out to urinate. Then I went in for a second session and it started getting a bit hot in the tank. I feel very odd. I feel like I have not slept, but I dont feel sleepy. Also, I feel like my body chemistry is “too improved for its own good” —

This is definitely a case of too much too soon. Everything about what happened is positive, but it improved me too fast. Best to return to daily floating for 1 or 2 hours and stretching it out to 3 or 4 on the weekend… eventually your love for the tank will grow in harmony with your ability to assimilate its merits.

Then sleeping becomes a possibility.