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Mindfulness


Sherapy

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1 minute ago, Sherapy said:

Cookie Monster, thank you for your thoughts but this is not mindfulness it is the micromanaging of ones thoughts via suppression and repression, or what I call reactive or you are not explaining yourself with clarity. 
 

IMHO, It is important to make this distinction. One wants to be reflective not reactive. 

Anchors are utilized in mindfulness to teach a person a new approach to paying attention, one doesn’t get rid of or silence their thoughts, one redirects their attention to their chosen anchors to create space between the thinking mind and awareness and the feeling self. 

One can use their breath to help understand this. Inhale to the count of six at the top of the inhale hold for the count of 6 and exhale to the count of 6 it is the space between the inhale and exhale (the part you held )that is the present moment and it is this space you want to grow. You don’t get rid of your mind or your thoughts or your humanness you grow in acceptance of these elements and in doing so you make decisions from this space. 
 

 

You can take a penny, nickel, dime, whatever really and look at it. Not just stare but look. Look at all the tiny details, any scratch, and marking. The fine detail of the printing. Doing something like this a few minutes a day is an exercise in Detail. 

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1 hour ago, XenoFish said:

You can take a penny, nickel, dime, whatever really and look at it. Not just stare but look. Look at all the tiny details, any scratch, and marking. The fine detail of the printing. Doing something like this a few minutes a day is an exercise in Detail. 

Indeed, great example of how to nurture paying attention, I use the practice of yoga, each asana gives me an opportunity to practice being in the present. For me, mindfulness is really just finding a more effective way to deal with life based on what we are naturally. 
Quoted from your thread:
 

1. Life involves suffering, duhkha.

The “illness” that the Buddha diagnosed as the human condition is duhkha, a term often rendered in English as “suffering” or “unsatisfactoriness.” The Buddha spoke of three types of duhkha. First, there is the ordinary suffering of mental and physical pain. Second, there is the suffering produced by change, the simple fact that all things—including happy feelings and blissful states—are impermanent, as is life itself. Third, there is suffering produced by the failure to recognize that no “I” stands alone, but everything and everyone, including what we call our “self,” is conditioned and interdependent.
 

Looking at the bolded above, we are never not what we are, we can not pay attention to these aspects, deny, them repress them, suppress them as we still are human, still dealing with reality and there are aspects of ourselves that are conditioned and are part of a system, ( biological) on the mindful path we include our whole self and use and know what is in us already. I chose Buddhism Zen ( a non dogmatic approach ) because it is honest about what it is, it isn’t trying to sell me BS, it gives ideas and in application,I see how it works for me and what doesn’t, well I don’t have to use the ideas, just let them go. 
 

 

Edited by Sherapy
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48 minutes ago, Golden Duck said:

Uhhh... isn't the first rule of Fight Club, Don't talk about Fight Club?

Wotz'at yer say? 

Quote

 

[00.01:10]

~

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2 hours ago, Sherapy said:

CM thank you for your contributions, what are your thoughts on mindfulness? 

What has been, what is, and what is to come.

The lynch pin of all three are the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, we have at any given moment in time. The mindfulness people learn to let go of what has been, and what is to come, by focusing on what is happening in our minds at the given moment in time while not attaching to it. 

I say let go of the present too. Go go Dharma instead. The cessation of all thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. The watching of the mind and shutting down of everything that wants to pop into it relating to the past, the future, and the present. For a novice it takes a few hours of repeated trying to achieve total silence. 

When they reach total silence they start to loose awareness of where they are and the passage of time. Reality begins disappearing, bits of it are lost from the mind. Pretty soon it becomes hard to have any thoughts or feelings or perceptions at all. In fact, it takes conscious effort to start having them again once you have trained yourself not to have them.

Why is Dharma superior and why is it taught as the highest mystical state?

Well the individual and rest of the universe are all interconnected. But we cannot see how until Dharma is achieved. To put it simply everyone has heard of the idea that mind has primacy, but have never experimented with their mind to figure out how. Below is a very quick guide how:

Step 1: The person moves themselves into a state of mind where they attempt to have no thoughts, feelings, or perceptions.

Step 2: After some time of repeated trying they get there.

Step 3: They can now experiment by keeping their mind free of all thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, except one. Lets say the only thought they have is of other people with broken arms (as an example).

Step 4: Keep on and wait for people with broken arms turning up, or experiences related to other people having broken arms.

Then you get it! You understand how mind creates, how it has primacy.

Edited by Cookie Monster
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10 minutes ago, Cookie Monster said:

What has been, what is, and what is to come.

The lynch pin of all three are the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, we have at any given moment in time. The mindfulness people learn to let go of what has been, and what is to come, by focusing on what is happening in our minds at the given moment in time while not attaching to it. 

I say let go of the present too. Go go Dharma instead. The cessation of all thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. The watching of the mind and shutting down of everything that wants to pop into it relating to the past, the future, and the present. For a novice it takes a few hours of repeated trying to achieve total silence. 

When they reach total silence they start to loose awareness of where they are and the passage of time. Reality begins disappearing, bits of it are lost from the mind. Pretty soon it becomes hard to have any thoughts or feelings or perceptions at all. In fact, it takes conscious effort to start having them again once you have trained yourself not to have them.

Why is Dharma superior and why is it taught as the highest mystical state?

Well the individual and rest of the universe are all interconnected. But we cannot see how until Dharma is achieved. To put it simply everyone has heard of the idea that mind has primacy, but have never experimented with their mind to figure out how. Below is a very quick guide how:

Step 1: The person moves themselves into a state of mind where they attempt to have no thoughts, feelings, or perceptions.

Step 2: After some time of repeated trying they get there.

Step 3: They can now experiment by keeping their mind free of all thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, except one. Lets say the only thought they have is of other people with broken arms (as an example).

Step 4: Keep on and wait for people with broken arms turning up, or experiences related to other people having broken arms.

Then you get it! You understand how mind creates, how it has primacy.


Thank you for your post. It has some common misconceptions about what mindfulness is are you open to exploring them with me?

To begin: Do you meditate regularly? Moving or formal?

 

Edited by Sherapy
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11 minutes ago, Sherapy said:


Thank you for your post. It has some common misconceptions about what mindfulness is are you open to exploring them with me?

To begin: Do you meditate regularly? Moving or formal?

 

None, but my interest is the mysticism side of things.

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3 minutes ago, Cookie Monster said:

None, but my interest is the mysticism side of things.

Thank you for your honesty, I could glean from your posts that you do not meditate or practice mindfulness.

Mindfulness is not mystical at all, it is about experiencing the present as it is and it offers tools to do this. 
 

 

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23 minutes ago, Cookie Monster said:

What has been, what is, and what is to come.

The lynch pin of all three are the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, we have at any given moment in time. The mindfulness people learn to let go of what has been, and what is to come, by focusing on what is happening in our minds at the given moment in time while not attaching to it. 

I say let go of the present too. Go go Dharma instead. The cessation of all thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. The watching of the mind and shutting down of everything that wants to pop into it relating to the past, the future, and the present. For a novice it takes a few hours of repeated trying to achieve total silence. 

When they reach total silence they start to loose awareness of where they are and the passage of time. Reality begins disappearing, bits of it are lost from the mind. Pretty soon it becomes hard to have any thoughts or feelings or perceptions at all. In fact, it takes conscious effort to start having them again once you have trained yourself not to have them.

Why is Dharma superior and why is it taught as the highest mystical state?

Well the individual and rest of the universe are all interconnected. But we cannot see how until Dharma is achieved. To put it simply everyone has heard of the idea that mind has primacy, but have never experimented with their mind to figure out how. Below is a very quick guide how:

Step 1: The person moves themselves into a state of mind where they attempt to have no thoughts, feelings, or perceptions.

Step 2: After some time of repeated trying they get there.

Step 3: They can now experiment by keeping their mind free of all thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, except one. Lets say the only thought they have is of other people with broken arms (as an example).

Step 4: Keep on and wait for people with broken arms turning up, or experiences related to other people having broken arms.

Then you get it! You understand how mind creates, how it has primacy.

https://medium.com/desk-of-van-schneider/if-you-want-it-you-might-get-it-the-reticular-activating-system-explained-761b6ac14e53

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6 minutes ago, Sherapy said:

I am not getting the connection this link has with mindfulness can you clarify? 

Focused attention. The brain filters information, which is why we notice certain things. Hearing your name in a crowd or finding quarters. The link explains CM's post. In other words, it isn't mystical or magical. 

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58 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

Focused attention. The brain filters information, which is why we notice certain things. Hearing your name in a crowd or finding quarters. The link explains CM's post. In other words, it isn't mystical or magical. 

Aww, gotcha.

 

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On 2/22/2021 at 5:16 AM, Cookie Monster said:

Come on guys/gals its quite simple.

Its Sunday evening, you have a few hours to go before bedtime, lets get you having no thoughts for the rest of the evening. Clear the mind, stop all thoughts arising, whenever you sleep up start again. Give it an hour and you will struggle to have thoughts.

Then once you have mastered it you can how thoughts in the present moment (second by second) just dont allow the others to creep back in.

As far as I know that s physically impossible Only dead people or those highly sedated have no thoughts at all 

Of course that is my personal experience and I might be wrong, but how can you stop a mind thinking anything at all, and what productive purpose would it serve ?    Its like deliberately stopping your heart from  beating or your lungs from  breathing 

To stop a thought requires a thought command.

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13 hours ago, Sherapy said:

Good morning.

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953865A6-8861-4861-97FB-D90A0164AE4D.jpeg

Poor old Bart was taught a lesson in mindfulness when he forgot his permission slip.  He was lucky to have a mentor in Principal Skinner teach him how to live in the moment.  You'd have to guess that Bart was born in 1978.

 

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38 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

As far as I know that s physically impossible Only dead people or those highly sedated have no thoughts at all 

Of course that is my personal experience and I might be wrong, but how can you stop a mind thinking anything at all, and what productive purpose would it serve ?    Its like deliberately stopping your heart from  beating or your lungs from  breathing 

To stop a thought requires a thought command.

I think you are confusing emptying your mind with being dead or knocked out.

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3 hours ago, Cookie Monster said:

I think you are confusing emptying your mind with being dead or knocked out.

In my experience;  (and  I am the only mind I can be sure about ) the mind is never silent unless it is  deeply unconscious Even when asleep and dreaming I am conscious and aware of who i am and that I am dreaming.

  Even in my dreams I am choosing and constructing my thoughts 

The idea of  an empty mind, before one is dead  or knocked out,  is incomprehensible to me.

I dont believe its possible, but again, that is because I  cant experience it 

eg one would not know who one was, where one was. etc. One would have no thought or memory of past, present or future.   One would not have any feeling of sensation . Indeed one would no longer actually be "alive"  to either inner or outer sensory experiences

I think you are talking about something else, such as focus or clarity of mind, not emptiness of mind 

My mind is always focussed and clear. I don't have any thoughts which I dont construct deliberately   I dont take drugs or alcohol, so my mind is never confused  or clouded  

I dont have to empty it to achieve this. It's been that way, constantly, for over 50 years, at least  

The application of data and logic, combined with experience,  means that thoughts are always consistent and productive.

There is no angst, confusion, doubt,  or conflict in my mind, ever.

Data, logic, and experience, will always give the best possible outcome available when applied .   Or at worst, ONE of the best possible outcomes 

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29 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

The idea of  an empty mind, before one is dead  or knocked out,  is incomprehensible to me.

Just as is imagining what non-existence "is like." It isn't like anything, there is no thing to imagine. I think therefore I am not non-existent, so to speak.

Of course, we can recall that we were non-existent before we came into being, but not the qualia of not being, since there are no such qualia to recall.

Somewhere in that there is something Zen.

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