What supports your practice?
Your teacher. Teachings to contemplate. Your daily activities. The community around you.
What challenges your practice?
Your teacher. Teachings to contemplate. Your daily activities. The community around you.
What's missing?
Clarify your practice. Let your practice clarify you.
Monday, September 28, 2015
Friday, September 25, 2015
When do you decide?
Have you ever watched people trying to park in a parking lot?
Most people circle around the aisles trying to get the close spots, waiting for people to load there car and back out. If nothing is open at the time they will swing back around and take another go at it, maybe get lucky.
Why don't they just drive to the back of the parking lot and park?
Why not just do that right away?
Park. Walk the extra distance. Get started.
Maybe this isn't the right spot. Maybe there are better spots out there to start. Better places to be in, more conducive situations. You might make a bad choice.
There are a lot of reasons to put off starting our practice. Even more reasons to prevent us from going deeper. At some point you just need to decide.
When do you decide?
Most people circle around the aisles trying to get the close spots, waiting for people to load there car and back out. If nothing is open at the time they will swing back around and take another go at it, maybe get lucky.
Why don't they just drive to the back of the parking lot and park?
Why not just do that right away?
Park. Walk the extra distance. Get started.
Maybe this isn't the right spot. Maybe there are better spots out there to start. Better places to be in, more conducive situations. You might make a bad choice.
There are a lot of reasons to put off starting our practice. Even more reasons to prevent us from going deeper. At some point you just need to decide.
When do you decide?
Monday, September 21, 2015
INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL EXPERIENCE
I watched an interesting TED talk the other day by David Eagleman about how we experience the world. David and his team are doing breakthrough research for deaf people using technology to allow deaf people to actually hear. It's pretty amazing stuff what they are doing.
In his talk he mentions the German word umvelt, which means the surrounding world. David argues that our experience is constrained by our sense perception and that the reality that we experience is defined by the limits of our sense organs. He also talks about what would happen if we use technology to increase our sensory experience, such as being able to directly perceive UV light or infrared light.
Would that increase in sensory experience expand our umvelt? Would it lead to a more expansive experience of the world?
Surely. Without a doubt.
But how does that actually benefit us?
When I was in college, me and my roommate got in a heated discussion with one of his friends about the use of LSD or other psychoactive drugs. The basis of his argument was that our brain is wired to only experience reality a certain way and by taking drugs you could expand that experience and presumably gain something in the experience.
Is it our experience of reality that limits us?
It is without a doubt in my mind that we could experience more, indefinitely so. We could experience an expanded visual consciousness, a wider auditory consciousness, a more subtle olfactory and taste consciousness, and a much more discerning perception of touch. We could do all of those things.
All of this is based on the assumption that we have insufficient data or information, and that insufficiency limits us. It limits our experience and our experience equals...what does more experience equal?
More experience could equal more humility, more awe and insight. I think that is really the hope. But truly, more experience usually equals more ego. What if we could become like the gods and know all? How marvelous would we be? Our amazing experience would mean that we are amazing. The significance of everything that we experience would translate to our lives being significantly significant. We would find our lives meaningful. Having experienced EVERYTHING, our lives would be fulfilled. Maybe we would even finally feel satiated.
What really limits our experience is that we crave experience for our own sake. Then we fixate on that experience of reality as true, having experienced it ourselves.
Craving and ignorance, those are our real inadequacies.
Craving keeps us in a cycle of consumption. Ignorance fixates on me and mine. Neither are fulfilling. Both constrict our experience.
In his talk he mentions the German word umvelt, which means the surrounding world. David argues that our experience is constrained by our sense perception and that the reality that we experience is defined by the limits of our sense organs. He also talks about what would happen if we use technology to increase our sensory experience, such as being able to directly perceive UV light or infrared light.
Would that increase in sensory experience expand our umvelt? Would it lead to a more expansive experience of the world?
Surely. Without a doubt.
But how does that actually benefit us?
When I was in college, me and my roommate got in a heated discussion with one of his friends about the use of LSD or other psychoactive drugs. The basis of his argument was that our brain is wired to only experience reality a certain way and by taking drugs you could expand that experience and presumably gain something in the experience.
Is it our experience of reality that limits us?
It is without a doubt in my mind that we could experience more, indefinitely so. We could experience an expanded visual consciousness, a wider auditory consciousness, a more subtle olfactory and taste consciousness, and a much more discerning perception of touch. We could do all of those things.
All of this is based on the assumption that we have insufficient data or information, and that insufficiency limits us. It limits our experience and our experience equals...what does more experience equal?
More experience could equal more humility, more awe and insight. I think that is really the hope. But truly, more experience usually equals more ego. What if we could become like the gods and know all? How marvelous would we be? Our amazing experience would mean that we are amazing. The significance of everything that we experience would translate to our lives being significantly significant. We would find our lives meaningful. Having experienced EVERYTHING, our lives would be fulfilled. Maybe we would even finally feel satiated.
What really limits our experience is that we crave experience for our own sake. Then we fixate on that experience of reality as true, having experienced it ourselves.
Craving and ignorance, those are our real inadequacies.
Craving keeps us in a cycle of consumption. Ignorance fixates on me and mine. Neither are fulfilling. Both constrict our experience.
Friday, September 18, 2015
The practice of compassion.
What do you think about when someone says to practice compassion?
Do you think about helping someone. Lending a hand. Tending to the suffering, feeding the hungry. Do you think about a mother caring for her child. A father picking up their child from an accident.
We tend to think of the practice of compassion as an act.
But what if the practice of compassion was to be open, available and responsive? What if the act of compassion was to remain open, available and responsive?
The practice isn't about doing, it is about being.
Being open, available and responsive- you could help someone, lend a hand, tend to their suffering, feed them when they are hungry.
You could also simply maintain that space for them. Be there, with them, not doing anything. And not needing to.
Do you think about helping someone. Lending a hand. Tending to the suffering, feeding the hungry. Do you think about a mother caring for her child. A father picking up their child from an accident.
We tend to think of the practice of compassion as an act.
But what if the practice of compassion was to be open, available and responsive? What if the act of compassion was to remain open, available and responsive?
The practice isn't about doing, it is about being.
Being open, available and responsive- you could help someone, lend a hand, tend to their suffering, feed them when they are hungry.
You could also simply maintain that space for them. Be there, with them, not doing anything. And not needing to.
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Upcoming workshops!
MEDITATION WORKSHOP
Join us for a practice intensive. Receive meditation instruction,
ask questions, engage in discussion with other practitioners.
Clarify your practice. Let your practice clarify you.
Sunday September 27, 2015
10am - 12pm
Sunday November 8, 2015
10am - 12pm
Sunday November 8, 2015
10am - 12pm
1716 NW Market St
Seattle, WA 98107
Suggested donation $10
For more information contact Greg at siddhearta@gmail.com.
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