About "Just Sitting"

[Korpo]

IIRC that in Zen usually the beginning monk is usually assigned some breath practice. Counting, or feeling at the nostrils. But the term is "Just Sitting". And I wondered about that, and about the fact that the Chinese term for meditation (again IIRC) is "sitting".

Meditation is observation of the mind. So what would happen if a person just sat down every day without any pregiven practice, close the eyes, sit still and "look" what happens? Wouldn't that do the same in the long run...?

I mean, even without any special intent either the mind would run out of fuel or jump on any little input. Fantasize and whatever. And if you watch long enough, those tendencies would run out of fuel and the mind would settle on its own, creating meditation.

Or so I think. ;) I guess that is how someone came up with meditation, by sitting down and watching nothing but what goes on inside. But I guess as a practice it would require great self-discipline to repeat that experience over and over until you get results. Think: Old wise ancient master on the mountain style of discipline. :)

So: What do you think about that? And has anyone tried this out seriously or got experience with it?

Oliver

[CFTraveler]

I have (years ago as part of martial arts practice) and found it very centering.
The instructions were just to sit there and be aware of my surroundings, without looking at anything.
We were not told to 'empty our minds' or anything like that, just to 'be aware'.
I could do it for a long time and found great pleasure and peace of mind that was not able to get any other way.

I had forgotten about that when, later on (but a while ago) I remembered about this when my son was a newborn having trouble sleeping. I realized that he and I were connected, and the minute I thought "Ah, finally he's asleep, now I can take a nap" he would wake up. So I decided to do this 'sitting' and it worked. Instead of immediately thinking about anything, I would just lay there and 'be aware', and eventually pass out (I wasn't trying to meditate, I was trying to sleep) and actually get a map. It seems this approach helped me not generate any thoughts that would wake him up.

Later on, when I formally started to meditate again, that is the technique I went to when it was time to do 'mind emptying', something that is very difficult for me, because I'm one of those people that live in their mind. And have to say works wonders. I call it 'centering', but it really is just 'being'.

[Korpo]

What do you mean with "living in your mind"?

We seem to be very different in mental/emotional makeup, because for me such techniques usually bring up a lot of chaos and turmoil first before anything settles... :)

Oliver

[CFTraveler]

That would be a long story. Perhaps another thread-

[star]

The awareness thing is good, that I agree on - have you ever become so deep in your thoughts that the loudness of your thoughts scared you out of meditaton? My point of awareness would wander a bit, and when it hit my mind it was already that deep. I have trouble getting that deep now becuase I have some reluctance to to see my thoughts in "movie" mode again. Its rather off putting.

[Korpo]

Why is it?

Oliver

[sleeper]

Just sitting makes up the majority of my meditation; I aim to just sit for at least an hour each day after work, before doing anything else. Sometimes, I do it for up to 5 hours, but that is rare.

Just observing my thoughts does help silence my mind, up to a point. I got to a point where I had about 15 seconds between thoughts during this kind of meditation, and I maintain that through out the day-to-day, whether i'm meditating atm or living daily life. it has caused me to wonder what the masters are really talking about when they say that they are completely thoughtless all of the time, because of some things that come up from thoughtlessness. you guys probably know this, but in a reasonably deep trance, if you are completely thoughtless for up to 3 minutes, projection symptoms come very fast. At the very least, if i am low on energy, i get into a constant falling feeling in my meditation, when I am truly thoughtless. So it would seem to me that the masters would be projecting all the time if they were actually thoughtless - or I just don't understand them.

Another cool thing I've got from just sitting is watching my energy. Just sitting in a trance, and observing my bodies, I eventually started to notice how much i waste energy with emotional and mental effort. So in these meditations, I worked on making no emotional effort, no mental effort, and that has transferred into my day to day life, and it's really interesting. I'm actually still pretty wasteful with my thoughts - (Korpo won't be surprised) - but not with other areas of energy, so i don't raise energy as much any more, because i'm staying near-full all the time. Except in my head, where i fill it with energy occasionally, and have been working on not making mental effort with energy as much.

also regarding arriving naturally at meditation, that is why I write about despair so often - it seems to be the natural catalyst for meditation, and grace.

I'm not saying that I don't do energy work, i do the majority of that at night, in and out of sleeping. I just make time for "just sitting" (or lying down, which i prefer), and let that session decide what to do next - depending on what arises in sitting.

[Korpo]

I suppose masters don't have that "problem", as you can stay inside the body and continue to meditate if you focus on something in your body, the breath can be pretty grounding. In Vipassana practices you often watch the breath *and* what you want to look at.

I know of at least one person that willfully induces the projection reflex but just keeps it going. That kind of meditation is actually continually dissolving energies within. From that account I take that you can stay in that state and just release for a long time, like a full meditation session.

The masters supposedly stay in this state because their capacity to release has not only freed them of what needs dissolving, they also have a bigger capacity for releasing than there is stuff coming in. Kind of like "escape velocity".

Or so I read, heard and believe. ;)

Oliver

[Korpo]

also regarding arriving naturally at meditation, that is why I write about despair so often - it seems to be the natural catalyst for meditation, and grace.

So, you seem not to be convinced it is just an emotional/mental block like any else? IMO possibly a key blockage in your case, because everything gets flowing when you work it. The dam is not causing the river. ;)

Oliver

[sleeper]

also regarding arriving naturally at meditation, that is why I write about despair so often - it seems to be the natural catalyst for meditation, and grace.

So, you seem not to be convinced it is just an emotional/mental block like any else? IMO possibly a key blockage in your case, because everything gets flowing when you work it. The dam is not causing the river. ;)

Oliver

Well, things are flowing quite well now, but i tend to look back fondly at the grace of those despair moments, which i didn't appreciate at the time. I wish i had been able to recognize the rest, the silence, the insight that I was being given in those "dark night of the soul" moments. they were catalysts that taught me to let go, to surrender, which is something taught in the east but not in western countries, and I had to learn it - the natural way.

don't' get me wrong, I still feel it at times, but I don't see how i can care for other people without also despairing somewhat for them also. I'm not sure if that has caused me to have any blockages.

[Korpo]

don't' get me wrong, I still feel it at times, but I don't see how i can care for other people without also despairing somewhat for them also. I'm not sure if that has caused me to have any blockages.

You got me wrong. I am saying that despair is a blockage. Despair is a typical block-embodied conflict between "is" and "should be". Without any conflict in your mental space that you want things to be different than they are, there would be no conflict, no despair.

IMO your despair is the symptomatic feeling associated with an mental-emotional blockage. By focussing your attention on the sensations of the blockage you actually start to release it. This process of releasing the blockage removes the obstacle to the energy flow bit by bit, and the heightened energy flow, the unimpeded energy flow, this is what brings about the spiritually inspiring feelings.

As I said: The dam is not the river.

Despair is a block in the flow, not enabling the flow, but preventing it. Facing the despair is a method of dissolving the block, thereby enabling flow. That's why you have less despair now - you have dissolved most of the block that caused despair. The symptom (the feeling of despair) vanishes with the underlying cause (the block in your energetic flow).

IMO you have declared the dam (the blockage in your mental-emotional space) which causes obstruction (and despair) to be the enabler, while in fact it was more an obstruction. Not even a special one. For other people it is anger, sadness, etc. A blockage is a blockage.

Oliver

[sleeper]

are you saying that people shouldn't be happy? because they aren't.

conflict seems to be the state of reality. Beyond a lobotomy, i'm not sure how I could get conflict out of my brain, unless I stop paying attention to reality.

[Korpo]

Conflict may exist "out there" but does not need to exist within you. You can accept the world as it is at any time, you don't have to internalise conflict, or resist your perceptions of the world. A blockage is often "inner conflict" - some part of yourself living in denial about the facts.

Despair - the state of the world saddens you. Is there any purpose to this? Does you being in despair help anyone? If you weren't in despair, could you do something better? The despair has one and only one purpose - to tell you that within you something is not right. Something is not smooth, flowing.

What I wanted to say is this: You declared the problem (despair) to be the cure. To be more precise, facing the problem is the cure. There's a big difference in cause and effect relationships here. You don't have to feel despair to become spiritually free. But if you feel despair, exploring it and facing it (like any other "negative" emotion) moves towards being spiritually free.

Oliver