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Meditation is …simpler (and harder) seems so much easier to approach it with less baggage, just sit and notice without bringing all the baggage of a worldview to bare.
You can do it of course, read lots of books on Zen or Vipassana mould your ideas of mindfulness with our western dualistic tradition and all it’s kin just as with yoga or you can just sit.
Why does it seem so much harder to do that with the Yoga, just practice read those early texts for yourself without imposing your horizon on them (easier said than done though there is a skill to that), just let them, the texts, and the practice do their work, the simplest thing is the hardest.
Blogging less helps (says me turning my earlier comment into a blog post).
11 comments:
Blogging definitely reinforces discursive thought. That's all I'll say. :-)
Indeed Karen.... although Heidegger argues that discursive thought is grounded in disclosure and didn't Sankara tend to think that dualism (discursive thought par excellence) wasn't all bad in that it enabled us to grasp or approach (disclose) the non dual, thus discursive thought discloses the ground of it's own disclosure. There is the idea that understanding such things intellectually gives one a head start in meditation, in achieving samadhi..... me it just gives a headache.
btw, always wanted to mention Heidegger's later writing on meditative thinking, Glassenheit/releasment etc if your ever googling that way. Supposedly he once said on reading the Tannisho that if he had come across it earlier he would have learned Japanese instead of Greek : )
I dunno about the understanding things intellectually being a head start -- head start to what? Pretty much any word uttered in sanzen is going to get you dismissed. But my scope is limited to zen.
And I said the last thing I said was all I was gonna say. See? This thinking stuff is addictive!
Yoga sutras 1:49, it's just a beginning... supposedly
At the end you mention turning (a comment into a post). I read it as the turning. Blogging less has helped me, but you do so much. Your blog is your teaching. There is something there.
Ah. Sadly, my blogging doesn't rise to the level of anumana.
Mine neither Karen , too lazy plus I do tend to agree with your first comment though it's always good to remember that inference is there in the Yoga sutras, we're supposed to question what our guru's tell us and make sure it fits with our own experience and understanding....Buddha tells us to of the same thing no?
Die Kehre Chris : ) Thinking a lot about his later writing at the moment, wondering if everything written about Yoga since it came west is tainted by the Cartesian world view and how we can avoid that, avoid reading and interpreting Yoga's own dualist roots in the language of our own.
Intellectual pursuit to understand something that can only be experienced is a hindrance to spiritual progress according to current and former Masters of Sahaj Marg which is based on the Raja Yoga tradition. However, a determined pursuit of the practice (sadhana) is encouraged and required to make spiritual progress. I have been practicing this system of meditation for over 2 years now. What attracted me to Sahaj Marg are some of the same characteristics that brought me to Ashtanga in the first place. It is a structured practice consisting of morning meditation (1 hr), evening cleaning (20 min, cleaning your samskaras using will power, not a physical cleaning) and a weekly group meditation. It is absolutely free of cost to learn and practice. Networks of preceptors around the world provide access and support.
After 10 years of exclusively practicing Ashtanga (mainly home practice like you) while dabbling in different meditation traditions, two years ago I started this practice and have not looked back. The system is very open, subtle and involves no secret rituals or mantras. I still maintain a regular Ashtanga practice, but my first priority has become meditation.
I just wanted to share this unique practice that may appeal to many Ashtangis who are searching for a meditation practice in their spiritual quest. The only warning is that many Sahaj Margi’s may not share our enthusiasm for a hard physical practice and may view it as primitive compared to the more advanced practice in the 8th fold Ashtanga Marg :)
Satya
I kind of agree with your Sayta, I think 'intellectual pursuits' can only take you so far.
I can question dualism on an intellectual level and even overthrow it to my satisfaction but as soon as I take my philosophers hat of there i am in a dualistic world view. One of my main reasons for practice is to try to explore the same on a more...experiential, existential level that perhaps some would term a spiritual level.
The argument is that the intellectual understand may better prepare you ( in that you may be more ready to accept) for the spiritual actualization of that view. It's an argument that I'm not necissarilly convinced by.
My use of intellectual here certainly isn't supposed to conjure up book smart or academia.
I've come across the name Sahaj Marg but have never googled it until now. Will look at it more carefully, thank you for mentioning it.
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