A Critique of “Stillness of Mind”

reply to post by winofiend

I find that with the way I now live, I actively put myself into situations that I once ran away from. I'm testing my resilience. it's an empowering feeling, to want to engage in things that used to scare the crap out of me. Socially, emotionally, physically.. I used to run to the bottle. "Save me mr Stolichnaya!" I'd cry and he'd always be there to make sure I fell over as I ran away from everything.

Ahh, I swear I've either gone completely mad, or the world has changed. And even better, when I see old patterns I don't go into automatic pilot mode. I seek answers to it, as if I've never seen it before. It's kinda groovy, having an insight into my own gulliver.

Billions would scream in despair at the thought of the inside of my head, but hurrah! It's roomy.

Exactly. And look at all the beauty you're capable of just by articulating those thoughts, however chaotic they may be, into something meaningful. That's artistry, the place where painters draw their ink from, not a source of worry or discontent. What is a painter without his paint? Likewise: what is a human without his thoughts?

reply to post by Itisnowagain


No, she said it is almost impossible and thats her view. Lots of new age guru's with different ideas on this.
Eckart Tolle is one I got into in the late 90's who pushes the stilling the mind barrow. I try to find a quiet spot in my mind, and let all conscious thought dissapate, taht is good for relaxation especially after a hard day at work. Let your thoughts go and try not to think of anything, I for many years get a spark of white light in my minds eye and concentrate on that, sometimes it dissapears to be replaced by a spark of dark light, then I try to seek out the white light.
There are times when I almost blackout and no I dont fall asleep and then become aware 20 -30 minutes feeling really refreshed and buzzing. So yeah you can in a way still the mind.

reply to post by NiNjABackflip


What is a human without his thoughts? A politician.
You had to ask.

kudegras
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

No, she said it is almost impossible and thats her view. Lots of new age guru's with different ideas on this.

She did say that it is possible to notice the stillness (the quiet) that thoughts appear in.
Then it does not matter what thoughts arise because one knows the stillness is constant - the stillness is where the thoughts appear.

kudegras
I try to find a quiet spot in my mind, and let all conscious thought dissapate, taht is good for relaxation especially after a hard day at work. Let your thoughts go and try not to think of anything, I for many years get a spark of white light in my minds eye and concentrate on that, sometimes it dissapears to be replaced by a spark of dark light, then I try to seek out the white light.

Seeking the stillness by doing something at the end of the day is not the same as being the stillness at all times.
Thoughts come and go but the stillness is the ground of all being.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


I disagree, If thoughts are appearing then the mind is not still it is active. Only when your mind is empty of thoughts, which means you are probably in another state is your mind fully still.
It is hard to explain as it needs to be experienced, I think I sometimes can do it and its not sleep it is just a different state which is relaxing and coming back to wakefulness is usually a jolt to the senses.
You feel your body jolt not unlike the jolt you get from an out of body experience only you wake up or come to fully relaxed and invigorated.
Point of fact, if you try hard like the lady in the vid says she trys but cant achieve it, she'll never get there as trying is thinking and its the opposite you need to do you need to let go of your thoughts and over time it will just happen.

kudegras
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

I disagree, If thoughts are appearing then the mind is not still it is active. Only when your mind is empty of thoughts, which means you are probably in another state is your mind fully still.
It is hard to explain as it needs to be experienced, I think I sometimes can do it and its not sleep it is just a different state which is relaxing and coming back to wakefulness is usually a jolt to the senses.
You feel your body jolt not unlike the jolt you get from an out of body experience only you wake up or come to fully relaxed and invigorated.
Point of fact, if you try hard like the lady in the vid says she trys but cant achieve it, she'll never get there as trying is thinking and its the opposite you need to do you need to let go of your thoughts and over time it will just happen.

I know of the silent mind - quietness with no words appearing. It is pretty much constant here but words do still arise/appear or there would be no writing happening.
The words appear out of nothing and subside back to nothing.

Thoughts are of the appearance and what I am does not appear - that recognition is all that is required.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


I take it you are trying to be clever while I was trying to be constructive?

kudegras
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

I take it you are trying to be clever while I was trying to be constructive?

Take it any way you are.

You think you are being constructive - how?
And you accuse me of being clever - how?

Is this a conflict within you?

reply to post by Itisnowagain


My conflict is now with you my friend, your answers are obtuse and full of riddles.
As I said I have experienced this stillness of mind and as such put forward my views, your answers are full of nothingness so methinks you are screwing with me.
Every bridge has a troll, I dont care to feed them.

kudegras
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

My conflict is now with you my friend, your answers are obtuse and full of riddles.
As I said I have experienced this stillness of mind and as such put forward my views, your answers are full of nothingness so methinks you are screwing with me.
Every bridge has a troll, I dont care to feed them.

A conflict with a friend? Do you not see where the conflict lies?

Your initial reply started with 'no' and then another post with 'I disagree'.

I am not agreeing with you and now you turn on me - ok, call me names.

What does 'stillness of mind' look like - nothingness.
I point to nothingness but you don't want nothingness.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


Alright maybe you weren't trolling me.
I apologise.
But stillness of mind doesn't look like nothingness, it doesn't look like anything. When you meditate you're
eyes are closed so how do you see with your eyes closed ?
Please dont say third eye, because that would imply you are looking through your third eye, which implies thinking and therefore no stillness of mind.
Stillness of mind is a state of mind, almost like you enter a void for a brief time. It doesn't look like anything as you have no awareness, which is why I dont get what the lady says in the video.
But to each their own.
Cheers

NiNjABackflip
reply to post by Cabin

 

If you have had experience or interest in electronics, you have probably heard of "noise", unwanted random additions to the signal, which do not provide any value are simply unwanted by-product of the signal, which can deal lots of damage to the original signal - that is what I would compare a large number of human thoughts with random noise which just happens without any particular reason, but interferes and disturbs the quality thoughts.

That is what meditation, the stillness of the mind is about - controlling your thoughts better : when you are trying to focus on something, the less random thoughts, the less disturbing factors and noise, the easier it is. For me personally meditation and the same principle have had tremendous effect. Focus is much-much easier and I can pay much longer my attention on something.

To you and many others, the noise of thoughts is an unwanted by-product of thought. To me, it is a necessary occurrence of a thinking being. One should learn to utilize the noise than to simply disregard it. For me personally, out of this noise is where my best creative ideas come from.

So you are speaking of listening for the ambient "noises", watching the peripheral as a larger part of the whole experience? If so that's cool. Seems that allowing oneself to take it in is a sort of relaxation. Its may be all about the squelch setting different folks use, filters.

kudegras
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

But stillness of mind doesn't look like nothingness, it doesn't look like anything. When you meditate you're
eyes are closed so how do you see with your eyes closed ?
Please dont say third eye, because that would imply you are looking through your third eye, which implies thinking and therefore no stillness of mind.
Stillness of mind is a state of mind, almost like you enter a void for a brief time. It doesn't look like anything as you have no awareness, which is why I dont get what the lady says in the video.
But to each their own.
Cheers

When the mind is not wording there is still vision. When the mind is not talking there is still hearing.

When the mind speaks it speaks in concepts, in words and ideas.
If the mind is still - seeing and hearing are happening without conceptualizing.

It seems as if there is a 'wanting' of peace which drives one to seek it at the end of the day or at particular times (sitting down to meditate) when really it can be found to be constant at all times and in all places.
It is the true nature of all things when the concepts are seen for what they are.

reply to post by kudegras


Deep sleep is the void where no 'things' are appearing. Yet even in deep sleep there is awareness - otherwise there would be no point in alarm clocks - awareness is all that is present in deep sleep - nothing else.
Then the light comes on and there are 'things' to be seen.

It appears that there is a person who longs for peace.

The person is appearing in peace.

Pure awareness is what you are - it is the void of deep sleep.
Only when the light comes on do thoughts appear - thoughts are just part of the light show called apparent existence.
Apparent existence is what is seen now.
Not appearing existence is what is seeing now.

This is and will always be - non (apparent) existence and (appearing) existence - it is one. Presence.

NiNjABackflip

One such cure they offered, as if I was somehow infected by some non-existent disease, was “stillness of mind”, or the release of attachment as they explained it, where I could exist in a state of peace once my wants and desires melted into a landscape of ever-presence.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


Well it's not really a disease, is it? No infection is present, yet they speak ill of themselves as if they were infected. Look how the sage glazes over as he proceeds to take long pauses, as if it helped his discourse in any way, as if he thought he was fighting off some non-existent infection. I see the same look when people watch television or play video games—"being asleep while awake" as he calls it. I sleep enough when I'm asleep.

The addiction to weird silences, the striving to act the character of a sage, the implying that one is diseased when one is really not, the attempt of a complete overthrow of language as if it was in our true nature to not speak a word, to call ourselves nothing—these are his attachments and desires and vanities, no different than anyone else's.

NiNjABackflip
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

Well it's not really a disease, is it? No infection is present, yet they speak ill of themselves as if they were infected. Look how the sage glazes over as he proceeds to take long pauses, as if it helped his discourse in any way, as if he thought he was fighting off some non-existent infection. I see the same look when people watch television or play video games—"being asleep while awake" as he calls it. I sleep enough when I'm asleep.

He is not 'glazed over' - there is no tinted window (no division at all) dividing what is. What is - Is. But the mind is seeking something more.
The mind makes the body feel uneasy as it seeks a solution to the current problem - the mind has always got a problem ready to take you away from 'what is'.

The addiction to weird silences, the striving to act the character of a sage, the implying that one is diseased when one is really not, the attempt of a complete overthrow of language as if it was in our true nature to not speak a word, to call ourselves nothing—these are his attachments and desires and vanities, no different than anyone else's.

Words are arising - there is no problem with words. It is about seeing that words arise and then are no more - they disappear. Thoughts are just wisps of nothing appearing in nothing.
The beauty is that nothing is the true state of all things.

Can nothing ever begin or cease?

Appearing things have to have space for them to appear in - things come and go in that which never comes or goes.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

The mind makes the body feel uneasy as it seeks a solution to the current problem - the mind has always got a problem ready to take you away from 'what is'.

That's exactly my point. You make this out to be a problem, when it is simply "what is". Like the sage, you seek a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

NiNjABackflip
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

The mind makes the body feel uneasy as it seeks a solution to the current problem - the mind has always got a problem ready to take you away from 'what is'.

That's exactly my point. You make this out to be a problem, when it is simply "what is". Like the sage, you seek a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

I am not seeking any solution - there is no problem.
Life is art - not a completion or a puzzle.