Going deeper into the security/fear thing. It appears to be about control, to be able to control my circumstances. The belief that I have to be careful, or I might cause unsafe/unpleasant circumstances. However, when I see the ever changing impermanence of everything then I recognize that I really have no control and never did. People die, get sick, lose purses or keys, are happy one moment sad the next. It's just happening. There's a relaxation in this. There's a doubt that I really get this truth as it appears to be "new". The character Lorraine was so self reliant to survive, now there's the unknown and the dissolving of that character. It's freeing and mysterious and all so damn uncertain!
Enjoying Jed. I lived in that part of Iowa and also am a storm watcher. He speaks of going "further" and of multiple doors to go through. This resonates with me. Not as an active doing but just what happens. He speaks of just following patterns, not the details and going with the current. And that he just knows what the "right" thing to do vs the "wrong thing to do" as he watches what's presented in the moment from a higher altitude. Am I on the right track with that? Not as a doer, just what does.
My friend's stories/problems are real to them in the moment yet those are also ever changing. The only thing that "IS" is whatever is going on in the moment during our conversation. And that is changing also. For instance, a friend texted a problem she was having. I felt an emotion of alarm and familiar thought of "helping" her. I quickly responded to her and she said it had all been worked out! There is seeing what I'm doing with the familiar patterns yet still doing them. Oh well.
Clarity sensed. Peace, enjoying the silence and not doing anything. Or thinking and doing yet it's not having the same heaviness/importance. Enjoying sitting on my balcony and just being with what is.
Peace
Authentic
Re: Authentic
I'd say don't think about this too much. All thinking about the "right" vs "wrong" thing and the patterns etc. is kinda pointless. It can also be a point of hanging onto control for some. The thing is, you can't be out of the current because you're not a separate thing apart from the current, so there's really no point worrying about it.He speaks of just following patterns, not the details and going with the current. And that he just knows what the "right" thing to do vs the "wrong thing to do" as he watches what's presented in the moment from a higher altitude. Am I on the right track with that? Not as a doer, just what does.
Yep.. shit happens 😂However, when I see the ever changing impermanence of everything then I recognize that I really have no control and never did. People die, get sick, lose purses or keys, are happy one moment sad the next. It's just happening. There's a relaxation in this. There's a doubt that I really get this truth as it appears to be "new". The character Lorraine was so self reliant to survive, now there's the unknown and the dissolving of that character. It's freeing and mysterious and all so damn uncertain!
Oh well. Nothing to fix, just keep seeing.My friend's stories/problems are real to them in the moment yet those are also ever changing. The only thing that "IS" is whatever is going on in the moment during our conversation. And that is changing also. For instance, a friend texted a problem she was having. I felt an emotion of alarm and familiar thought of "helping" her. I quickly responded to her and she said it had all been worked out! There is seeing what I'm doing with the familiar patterns yet still doing them. Oh well.
Sounds awesomeClarity sensed. Peace, enjoying the silence and not doing anything. Or thinking and doing yet it's not having the same heaviness/importance. Enjoying sitting on my balcony and just being with what is.
Re: Authentic
Finished reading Jed book. Answered a lot of questions about being around others. Especially the last part of the book when he meets with his sister. I ordered all of his books cause that's what I do, go obsessively seeking. But I have limited the reading/watching videos to 1 1/2 hr a day, which isn't much time with all the free time I have. This book is THE most important book I have ever read. (Said I many many times!) Really, this is the only book that is clear about me going within, answers are all within, no teacher-books-videos-practices will do this for me. This is an alone job. All of my dissatisfaction with teachers makes sense now. And the bouncing to another teaching just kept accelerating like some kind of fast track that was beyond me. But not beyond me, "purity of intention". Much gratitude towards you, the conduit Tyler.
Lack of interest in many things. Especially things I "should" do, like get batteries for a device, make health appointments, fix things in the condo. Things feel meaningless and there's a heaviness when I think about doing them. Perhaps I "should" sit with that heaviness and inquire? Yet, things seem to get done without me thinking about them, eventually. Just the mind playing tricks with me? Many things just not important. Judging mind says I'm lethargic. Still settling into the fact that decisions and things getting done have already been decided and done. Thoughts are just the after effects.
About the anxious losing my purse recurring dreams: it's my ID in the purse that I've been afraid of losing! HaHa!! The ID of me, I, I AM!! HaHa, let someone else take on my old ID! Interesting if I'll still have those dreams.....
Much gratitude and appreciation for you and LU.
Lack of interest in many things. Especially things I "should" do, like get batteries for a device, make health appointments, fix things in the condo. Things feel meaningless and there's a heaviness when I think about doing them. Perhaps I "should" sit with that heaviness and inquire? Yet, things seem to get done without me thinking about them, eventually. Just the mind playing tricks with me? Many things just not important. Judging mind says I'm lethargic. Still settling into the fact that decisions and things getting done have already been decided and done. Thoughts are just the after effects.
About the anxious losing my purse recurring dreams: it's my ID in the purse that I've been afraid of losing! HaHa!! The ID of me, I, I AM!! HaHa, let someone else take on my old ID! Interesting if I'll still have those dreams.....
Much gratitude and appreciation for you and LU.
Re: Authentic
If you keep reading Jed books, take what he says about "Truth" and "Consciousness" with a grain of salt. His later books talk about that quite a bit. Just word salad. I thinm his best books are the 1st and "Play".
He does err on the nihilistic side a little bit. He doesn't talk much about the vividness/luminosity of the senses. I mean, past the first book, I'd say read on for amusement, but be careful not to mystify him adopt his beliefs. My other favourite is "Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse, which I think is deeper actually. It's also fiction, so it's quite interesting.
The ID thing is really funny 😂😂
He does err on the nihilistic side a little bit. He doesn't talk much about the vividness/luminosity of the senses. I mean, past the first book, I'd say read on for amusement, but be careful not to mystify him adopt his beliefs. My other favourite is "Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse, which I think is deeper actually. It's also fiction, so it's quite interesting.
The ID thing is really funny 😂😂
Re: Authentic
Thanks for the Herman Hesse recommendation. I have always enjoyed his quotes. Yes, I catch the self wanting to latch onto Jed as newest and bestest teacher who will finally get me to be fully enlightened and do it quick now dammit! HaHa! Thanks for catching that subtle bit of seeking which I was slightly aware of but it feels so good!
Sitting on balcony, the birds, water, stillness, palm trees, breeze on my legs. Sublime. Til a mosquito comes! HaHa, always changing, cannot latch onto anything anymore.
Easier to just sit now. A calm peace despite the thoughts that still come.
Practicing noticing thoughts as you had suggested. Noticing how the mind wants to attach to a memory, concept, image, anything and everything.
Noticing how worry thoughts come about a future thing. Reminded that I'm not in control, life is just happening on it's own. No need to decide, choose, analyze, do anything. Then thoughts float away. And interestingly, the situations play themselves out, way different than the worry thoughts had imagined.
Twice this week I initiated conversations with elderly people I didn't know. Interchanges of connectedness, compassion, love. Beautiful in the moment. Then, the mind wanted to take credit, to focus on the outcome, on the do-gooder Lorraine. (Rather the do-do gooder! HaHa!)
Questions arise, mostly on how to interact with friends, from this new alien place I'm at. The questions fall, as recognize it's only THIS.
Freedom, release in seeing that I have never done anything wrong, am not doing anything wrong, cannot do any future wrong.
Peace
Sitting on balcony, the birds, water, stillness, palm trees, breeze on my legs. Sublime. Til a mosquito comes! HaHa, always changing, cannot latch onto anything anymore.
Easier to just sit now. A calm peace despite the thoughts that still come.
Practicing noticing thoughts as you had suggested. Noticing how the mind wants to attach to a memory, concept, image, anything and everything.
Noticing how worry thoughts come about a future thing. Reminded that I'm not in control, life is just happening on it's own. No need to decide, choose, analyze, do anything. Then thoughts float away. And interestingly, the situations play themselves out, way different than the worry thoughts had imagined.
Twice this week I initiated conversations with elderly people I didn't know. Interchanges of connectedness, compassion, love. Beautiful in the moment. Then, the mind wanted to take credit, to focus on the outcome, on the do-gooder Lorraine. (Rather the do-do gooder! HaHa!)
Questions arise, mostly on how to interact with friends, from this new alien place I'm at. The questions fall, as recognize it's only THIS.
Freedom, release in seeing that I have never done anything wrong, am not doing anything wrong, cannot do any future wrong.
Peace
Re: Authentic
I don't feel the need to comment on anything you've written. Sounds like things are nicely deepening on their own :)
Re: Authentic
Hey Lorraine, wanted to check in on you. How have things been? :)
Re: Authentic
Hi Tyler,
I have meaning to give you an update. Recent hurricane flooded my car, my side jobs limited, sister diagnosed with cancer, another hurricane coming. Anxiety, sadness, guilt, and drinking too much. Going to sit with emotions longer and be in senses.
I'm "normally" resilent, a fighter, survivor. Now it's no control over anything, surrender. Watching carefully the thoughts.
Any words of advice, pointers would be most helpful. You have been incredibly helpful to me already and assisted in the major shift of "this, not that".
Emergency Sirens going off daily, thought was "oh those poor people, someone hurt, dying, so sad".
Then someone had posted on social media, "so thankful for our emergency people." Wow. Contrast. Damn devious thoughts!!
Lorraine
I have meaning to give you an update. Recent hurricane flooded my car, my side jobs limited, sister diagnosed with cancer, another hurricane coming. Anxiety, sadness, guilt, and drinking too much. Going to sit with emotions longer and be in senses.
I'm "normally" resilent, a fighter, survivor. Now it's no control over anything, surrender. Watching carefully the thoughts.
Any words of advice, pointers would be most helpful. You have been incredibly helpful to me already and assisted in the major shift of "this, not that".
Emergency Sirens going off daily, thought was "oh those poor people, someone hurt, dying, so sad".
Then someone had posted on social media, "so thankful for our emergency people." Wow. Contrast. Damn devious thoughts!!
Lorraine
Re: Authentic
Sorry to hear about everything. The timing is quite uncanny, isn't it?
There's a Zen koan where a monk is hanging from a tree with his teeth and another monk comes to help him and asks "what is the one true thing you could say to save your life?"
What could the monk on the tree do? Nothing.
"Why is this man clinging to the branch? Because he does not want to fall. He does not want to die as he meets the ground below. However he is clinging to an illusion, the illusion that death can be indefinitely avoided or averted. Eventually he and every one of us will crash, passing into oblivion. It is inevitable, not matter how healthy and strong any of us living up the tree are, eventually our jaws will tire and our grip will fail. Yet we live our lives as if that will never happen. And what is the price of that avoidance of death for this man and for all of us as well? His life is spent clinging by his teeth to the branch. He is unable to speak, to teach, to express and manifest the Dharma. He lives and yet he misses all of life by clinging and vainly trying to preserve life."
It's one thing to say our emotions come from our interpretations of what's happening. But practically, this is it. What you feel is what you feel. Sitting with emotions or numbing them with alcohol is the same thing if you're doing it with the intention of getting rid of the difficult emotions. The emotions are a part of this. Those people who died because of the hurricane could not have lived, because they died. Your car had to have been flooded, because it was. Your sister cannot be cancer-free, because she has cancer. We will not, cannot, and should not live forever, because we will die one day. If it happens tomorrow instead of years ahead, is that bad or wrong in any way?
If you drink, you drink. If you resist the emotions, you resist the emotions. Can you surrender to even your resistance if it's a part of this?
Yeah, you see how hope and despair are only different because of a subtle flavour difference in thought. All these difficult emotions (nothing wrong with them) arise due to our interpretations.Emergency Sirens going off daily, thought was "oh those poor people, someone hurt, dying, so sad".
Then someone had posted on social media, "so thankful for our emergency people." Wow. Contrast. Damn devious thoughts!!
There's a Zen koan where a monk is hanging from a tree with his teeth and another monk comes to help him and asks "what is the one true thing you could say to save your life?"
What could the monk on the tree do? Nothing.
"Why is this man clinging to the branch? Because he does not want to fall. He does not want to die as he meets the ground below. However he is clinging to an illusion, the illusion that death can be indefinitely avoided or averted. Eventually he and every one of us will crash, passing into oblivion. It is inevitable, not matter how healthy and strong any of us living up the tree are, eventually our jaws will tire and our grip will fail. Yet we live our lives as if that will never happen. And what is the price of that avoidance of death for this man and for all of us as well? His life is spent clinging by his teeth to the branch. He is unable to speak, to teach, to express and manifest the Dharma. He lives and yet he misses all of life by clinging and vainly trying to preserve life."
It's one thing to say our emotions come from our interpretations of what's happening. But practically, this is it. What you feel is what you feel. Sitting with emotions or numbing them with alcohol is the same thing if you're doing it with the intention of getting rid of the difficult emotions. The emotions are a part of this. Those people who died because of the hurricane could not have lived, because they died. Your car had to have been flooded, because it was. Your sister cannot be cancer-free, because she has cancer. We will not, cannot, and should not live forever, because we will die one day. If it happens tomorrow instead of years ahead, is that bad or wrong in any way?
If you drink, you drink. If you resist the emotions, you resist the emotions. Can you surrender to even your resistance if it's a part of this?
Re: Authentic
Yes, most uncanny the timing.
Looking at my resistance to the happenings and emotions. The resistance seems to be hidden. I wish to "see" the resistance. The avoidance conditioning to unpleasant things seems so strong, yet is it really? Everything is to be questioned or at least seen.
A friend evacuating with me thought she had lost her home, was in deep despair and angry at God. Found out she didn't lose it and then felt guilty for being angry at God. Oh the suffering we cause ourselves!
Things just happen. Even the emotions just happen. I'm observing the push/pull in me to go and get things done, like practical matters with car and finances. I saw the doer this morning and now I'm doing nothing for now. Sitting with mosquitoes on my balcony, just watching the water and birds. Even the mosquitoes are ok. Nothing good, nothing bad. "Just this".
More thoughts you can share on resistance?? How to recognize it? Is the feeling of peace and flow a sign that I'm not resisting or am I just avoiding unpleasant tasks, emotions? Right now the body is doing automatic, I have no control, never did. And a creative financial solution appeared when I ceased the doing this morning. Appears I'm on right track but so hard to let go of the doer pushing to get things done NOW!
Much gratitude to you, Tyler.
Looking at my resistance to the happenings and emotions. The resistance seems to be hidden. I wish to "see" the resistance. The avoidance conditioning to unpleasant things seems so strong, yet is it really? Everything is to be questioned or at least seen.
A friend evacuating with me thought she had lost her home, was in deep despair and angry at God. Found out she didn't lose it and then felt guilty for being angry at God. Oh the suffering we cause ourselves!
Things just happen. Even the emotions just happen. I'm observing the push/pull in me to go and get things done, like practical matters with car and finances. I saw the doer this morning and now I'm doing nothing for now. Sitting with mosquitoes on my balcony, just watching the water and birds. Even the mosquitoes are ok. Nothing good, nothing bad. "Just this".
More thoughts you can share on resistance?? How to recognize it? Is the feeling of peace and flow a sign that I'm not resisting or am I just avoiding unpleasant tasks, emotions? Right now the body is doing automatic, I have no control, never did. And a creative financial solution appeared when I ceased the doing this morning. Appears I'm on right track but so hard to let go of the doer pushing to get things done NOW!
Much gratitude to you, Tyler.
Re: Authentic
At the end of the day, resistance is just another label. When you have the time, look in your experience, especially at sensations, and see if there's anything you're trying to change. See if there's something you don't like about what's here and see if there are thoughts about how to change it.
Maybe there isn't resistance, maybe experience just doesn't feel so good because it doesn't feel so good, and that's all there is to it. Even looking for resistance as a thing you can get rid of is just a means to make yourself feel better now, in other words, resistance. You don't need to worry about making a judgement about whether you're resisting or not. Just look at what's here. What are you trying to change?
Maybe there isn't resistance, maybe experience just doesn't feel so good because it doesn't feel so good, and that's all there is to it. Even looking for resistance as a thing you can get rid of is just a means to make yourself feel better now, in other words, resistance. You don't need to worry about making a judgement about whether you're resisting or not. Just look at what's here. What are you trying to change?
Re: Authentic
Yes, appears I'm trying to change the anxiety. It was a profound shift that occurred when you and I had the zoom and then shortly after that all hell broke loose. Disorientation and reactivity to events and people. Now I'm back to letting things flow on their own except that anxiety arises with that also. Thoughts seem strong and demanding until I look at them and pause. Seeing the resistance is new and it seems to "win" each time, even though I see it. How to be with the resistance? Any pointers on that? Is just seeing it enough? Thoughts that I have gone backwards, that I'll never get this, how can I just be if I resist the unpleasant? It's all rather fuzzy.
Thank you
Thank you
Re: Authentic
Asking "How to be with the resistance?" is already resisting the resistance hahah. What's the point? It's not as if things could be different than the way they are. Your resistance is just self-sabotage.
When you find yourself in a thought loop trying to figure something out or change something and you feel the thoughts and resistance propagate along with discomfort, meditate on this mantra:
Experience will not be pleasant all the time
I will not be happy all the time
Things will not be okay all the time
Do NOT do this with the intention of making resistance go away. It may not have that effect. It doesn't matter
When you find yourself in a thought loop trying to figure something out or change something and you feel the thoughts and resistance propagate along with discomfort, meditate on this mantra:
Experience will not be pleasant all the time
I will not be happy all the time
Things will not be okay all the time
Do NOT do this with the intention of making resistance go away. It may not have that effect. It doesn't matter
Re: Authentic
Ahhhhh, I'm seeing that I have not been ok with what is. Everything is perfect, it is happening on it's own. Even the imperfect, the unpleasant, the painful. It is all just happening. Even resistance arising, thoughts, emotions. Comes and goes. No clinging to thoughts, ideas, but just clearly see them. Ghosts coming, going. Moving, changing, not solid, nothing to stick to, nothing permanent.
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