Techniques we use

I am interested in learning what technqiues people are using for freeing their minds from compulsive thinking and from belief in the reality of one's thoughts.

 I have found Buddhist Dzogchen, Byron Katie's work, and ACIM's workbook too all be useful, as well as using ecstatic dance to get out of my mind/body and into the space beyond separate identity. I'm interested in learning of other techniques people are using, as well as learning more about how you might be using any of these 4 techniques also. What experiences are you having with applying these methodologies for freeing oneself from the tyranny of your mental constructs?

I particularly hope that this pod will not focus on drugs. I realize that many people take drugs to disable their intellects by damaging their neurological system, thus allowing a deeper experience of being to get through to conscious experience, but I believe that such abuse of the physical body will hamper one's development in the long run and will not lead to stabilization within the natural state of mind. Let's instead focus on techniques we can use that support our health at all levels, including respecting the body.

Re: Techniques we use

I do not claim to be any sort of expert on this subject, and my idea is a very basic, simple one that you may already have employed, but here it is anyway…

I was speaking to a coworker recently about these compulsive thoughts and what to do about them.  Her suggestion was pretty simple.  She labels these thoughts “gremlins” and whenever she finds herself thinking them, simply stops and labels them.  “Oh, that's a gremlin.”  I have tried this and have found it to make a tremendous difference.  The trick for me is to only label them and not try to change my thinking.  By trying to stop thinking compulsive thoughts, I find myself being more compulsive.  The simple act of labeling these thoughts automatically creates a seperation between me and the negative thought, which in turn helps to free my mind of compulsiveness.

Re: Techniques we use

I can relate. I have come to see that the biggest problem I have with thoughts is not that they happen so plentifully, but that I have a habit of believing that they are true. 

I sometimes do something similar when I have the presence of mind to do so. I just acknowledge, “oh there goes mind again” and don't believe the “hype” associated with my thoughts. I don't bother trying to stop them because I know they will disappear on their own in time, just like all the others have, and that they have no basis in reality anyway.

Re: Techniques we use

How about thinking of the mind as a mirror that reflects what it sees or experiences (ie,  sensory input, emotions, pain, etc) back instead of absorbing it.

Take it one step further and think of the mind as one mirror in a large hall of mirrors (like those in a carnival fun house) where the objects are reflected from the mind to the other mirrors and then back to the mind…..back to the other mirrors ad infinitum.

Soon you become the Watcher of the objects being reflected and not attached to the objects themselves.

Love & Light,

Alex

Re: Techniques we use

After reading your post, I tried thinking of all I saw as a reflection of mind as I went about town today, but I don't think I was quite getting it because I was too absorbed by the idea philosophically.  I think you have to develop the understanding separately from applying it so that in application you aren't still ruminating how it could be so.  My thought about non-thought was interfering with non-thought.

I can see what you mean though when you call the mind a mirror in a hall of mirrors. Projection seems to be the source of everything we perceive.  We see ourselves in our projections about others and yet even our very existence is like a projection of the formless into form.

Seeing that my beloved Luminous Emptiness itself is projected in all I see, I have stopped making an enemy out of projections. I'm content now for them to be there, I just don't choose to believe they are real anymore.  Or rather, I pray that I might no longer believe they are real, since most of the time I still buy into the lie and only intellectually understand that what I perceive is not truly existent as what I perceive it to be.

I do find it very useful, however we achieve it, to allow the mind to merely reflect what it sees “instead of absorbing it.” Don't believe the hype, is how I phrase it. I have no aggression against the fact that my mind seems obsessed with a nearly endless stream of thoughts about this that and everything. It's okay, because its just something showing on the screen.

I often think of this world as a movie, but the mirror concept goes one step further because it addresses not only the original projection of the script playing out, but also includes the interaction of the screen itself. The screen (the mirror) doesn't just display what is projected on it; it adds new projections to bounce off all the other screens. It's an intricate game of validation, where we each can say “I must be real because you are reflecting me” and yet none is real. It is all interdependently arising, to use a Buddhist phrase.

Well, the mind circles now, so I'll stop here. Blessings.

Re: Techniques we use

Hi Sky,

I have several techniques listed at my pod if you're interested.  There are single experiences as well as an entire week long program to try.

Check it out if you'd care to at:

Discovering the extraordianary http://pods.zaadz.com/profound_reconcilitation_of_life

Love,

Alex

Re: Techniques we use

Cool. I'll check it out.

 ~ Blessings

Re: Techniques we use

Try reading ‘The Celestine Prophesies’ by Neale Donald Walsch …
It will allow the mind to go where it hasn’t gone before … but will not
know that it needed to go there at the same time!

When we don’t like what our mind puts us through, perhaps
we need a ‘new’ perspective. Perspectives change as we
desire them to change … as we give up certain personal beliefs
that are hampering us … quite hanging onto ourselves so much.
Because, we are going to constantly change anyway … if not
physically, than emotionally, or spiritually. Sometimes all at
once, sometimes, here a little and there a little. But if you really
want a change … it will arrive.

‘When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear’ …

Re: Techniques we use

hello! i am just joining this pod so greetings to you all. i am a visionary artist which in many people’s understanding means i must take entheogens (it sounds nicer than drugs) to get my visions. i don’t.
several years ago i was leading a very self destructive lifestyle to put it mildly and then one day i blacked out and saw a mandala (i learned it to be called later) spinning and rotating in on itself, made of eyes and fire. i began painting it immediately and became obsessed with it for months. a friend turned me on to Jung’s work with mandalas where he would have his patients draw pictures of mandalas and as their mental health grew better, the mandalas became more whole and cohesive. i realize then that my mandala came to heal me and that this was a sign i needed to pay attention to. i recieved several more very powerful visions throughout the coarse of the next few years which i also painted, but i realized that the visions were like holding a sleeping lion at the end of a leash. i needed guidance on how to handle these things. i have taken up shambhala meditation in the last 6 months and have found it amazing. it has a sitting practice of meditation which creates a space for all of our discursive thoughts which pop up within us. within the space the meditation creates, we can allow the thoughts to be without going on the rollercoaster ride they tempt us with. this space is an opening up, a gentle loving powerful sadness in which we live.
many blessings,
krisztina

Re: Techniques we use

Krisztina wrote: “within the space the meditation creates, we can allow the thoughts to be without going on the rollercoaster ride they tempt us with.”

That is what I love about awareness meditation myself. I like the extra umph I get from Dzogchen, which is classified as a form of awareness meditation if I recall correctly, because it adds the understanding that all that I do see as I witness my thoughts and emotions is just the play of Mind. Not even my private mind, since I don't exist so how could I truly have an actual mind of my own. It's just the play of Aliia (which I'm sure I am misspelling).

A Course in Miracles takes it even a step further than that and says that not only is what we see when we watch our thoughts the play of something other than our private mind, but it is all a projection of our unconscious guilt and is always designed to place us in either a state of blame or shame. 

Whether with regular awareness meditation, Dzogchen, or ACIM, when I watch my thoughts I realize that I am not the one causing them to arise. They arise and disperse on their own if I don't cling to them and make them out to be something important and real that I need to ponder and do something about. Just watching causes the peaks and valleys of the roller coaster ride you mention to lessen over time.  As I decide not to react I confirm to my unconscious that what I see does not warrant reaction, it is all so insignificant. That is good training for being less affected by the inevitable ups and downs of life.

Re: Techniques we use

Dear Skydancer:

This is a link to my blog about Vipassana… it is similar to what you described… and you are right… it is awesome… thank you.

http://earthenergy.zaadz.com/blog/2006/6/official_recognition_of_vipassana_by_the_government_of_india

Re: Techniques we use

Neale Donald Walsch - wrote the Conversations w/God

 James Redfield - wrote the Celistine Prophacy…

= = =

just in case someone is looking it up … well, they will probably find it anyway… no biggie… 

Re: Techniques we use

What am I?  Am I these thoughts? 

Of course I'm not.  I know that there are ideas about matter that create the appearance of form, but no form or matter apart from these ideas. And I know that my sensory system relies inherently on this non-existent matter, or else there would be no body to sense anything. And I know my mind sets to making meaning out of that sensory experience, deciding what it wants more of and what to avoid based primarily on past training.  And of course I know that anything made solely out of ideas is non-existent, since ideas aren't objects.  They are just imagination.

This world is not figuratively imagined. It is literally imagined and cannot be otherwise unless matter was actually solid, which it has been conclusively proven not to be by both philosophical insight and scientific experiment. People may say, “well why aren't we all walking through walls then.” And I say, “if at a cellular level we were fully convinced of how thoroughly insubstantial both our bodies and walls are, we could walk through walls.” In fact, if electronic microscopes could walk, they'd be walking through walls all the time.

Yet here I remain.  I can be non-reactive to my opinions and emotions. I know they're just made up stuff. But who am I?  How can it be that I don't exist when I am sitting here writing this right now? I am aware of myself. So how can I not exist? How can the non-existent be aware of itself? That is a logical fallacy.

I note that I seem to be a composite of body, habitual meaning-making and reaction patterns, and memories.

I have already established that the body is not solid. It's just a bunch of ideas about solidity. So I can't exist as that or I'm back to not existing again.

Similarly, meaning making and habits are obviously nothing more than ideas.  They are purely and directly nothing but idea. That's what they are about, our ideas about what is happening within the supposedly solid matter we are sensing around our supposedly solid bodies, about what we intend to do about it, and about what we think about the situation (the judgment which further entrenches the meaning making and reaction habits).

So the only thing I could actually be that would make me existent are my memories. I remember all kinds of scenes, experiences, thoughts and emotions from my life that all come together to form a cohesive story of a person called Me. That must be who I am.

Yet how can I be a story!?  A story is not only a set of ideas, but made up ideas about the past, which definitely would be no longer existent even if it ever had truly existed.  My life story is more imaginary and subjective than any of what I have so far examined. It is the least solid of all things.

Stories about the same matter, the same experiences, the same meaning-systems even, vary not only from person to person but within the same person from day to day. I summarize the story of my life differently depending on what's “up” for me lately and my frame of mind. I forget all kinds of details that don't fit my governing story, then remember them when I “reframe” the story to highlight different features. If that is what I am I am not very substantial. To be so insubstantial, so arbitrary, so made up out of selective attention, doesn't make me feel particularly real. 

And yet, who is writing this? Clearly I exist, but I do not exist as any of what I can point at. I can't talk about what I am. I have no characteristics to speak of.

Words like Love and Peace and Unity have been pointed at me, but really that's just mirror games being played. More ideas. Nice ideas, but still not anything real in themselves. Love is an idea. Peace is an idea. Unity is an idea. If ideas are real I might as well just settle for being the idea of a body having sensory experiences that have certain meanings that I know well and am prepared in advance to respond to in the way I judge to be best. At least that has a whole mythos built around it. It comes with a whole world to support it.  Choosing to be an unpopular idea is foolish.

I cannot accept that I am an idea. If I exist, I exist as something beyond ideas, something that can't be touched by ideas, something that is bigger than ideas and more substantial. Something that actually is real and existent. Yet my mind only knows how to work with ideas. I can't think of myself without ideas. I can't be anything to my mind other than a set of ideas.

So if I will ever know myself, it will not be with my mind.

Re: Techniques we use

Hay sky

Well written, but I can't think of a reply… I don't disagree, but I wanted to reply some how????

Personally, I have seen or experienced the mind of god, I've seen the energy dance that masquarades

Re: Techniques we use

Hay sky

Well written, but I can't think of a reply… I don't disagree, but I wanted to reply some how????

Personally, I have seen or experienced the mind of god, I've seen the energy dance that masquarades as solid matter… and my thoughts are …

… ok, I can reply to one thing… you said that thoughts are not objects… so I also would say that… but people who study this stuff do say that thoughts are “objects” of one can describe them as a distinct thing… not a “solid” object… but a mind object… distinct, definable, with a beginning and an end…

so thinking is not an object… but items that bubble up can be described as “thought” objects…

but this does not change, or modify, or diminsh anything you said…  just an observation …

it's all good

love and peace

donald