Meditation, Spirituality Mindful Stuff
Okay, lovely ones:
I sat a course with Jack Kornfield years ago, know Noah Levine's parents, but have only read his books, met Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1982, spoke with Kevin Griffin on the phone after I fell off the meditation path into a wine bottle etc., etc., etc. I owe them all a tremendous debt of gratitude.
But here's the deal: Nothing changes in your life when you read these books, which actually ARE incredibly insightful and profound. There might be cool insights, discovering new points of view that help, even inspire . . .
The changes happen when you put your butt on a meditation cushion every day for some specific, committed-to amount of time and DO what the books tell you to do. Better yet, find a meditation center where you can "check yourself in," so you don't have to struggle with what to do next (or whether or not to do it), and firmly attach thy buttocks to thy cushion in a situation that doesn't allow (or at least discourages) getting up in order to avoid, well . . . being with no one except yourself, on a meditation cushion, for extended periods of time.
Intensive meditation, under impeccable guidance, took me out of all addictions for more than a decade. So, yes, experience rules, and I am absolute evidence that meditation provides a powerful way out. To do that, I had to make it a complete lifestyle.
A deeply traumatic experience 10 years in completely blew my daily practice (minimum of 1 hour and usually 2) and with that went my total abstinence from alcohol and all mind-altering substances. Hello wine bottle. Yuk.
In my experience and observation, it's damn near impossible to do this in your own little corner in your own little world. Think swimming upstream against human evolution.
I owe my life and health to serious meditation over an extended period of time and my way out of pretty genetically predictable alcoholism to MWO. So I'm thrilled to see burgeoning interest, and references to works of authentic and good teachers appearing here.
I posted this somewhere else, but there is an incredible golden mine of live talks given by many of the teachers you guys are reading at Dharma Seed You can search by topic or by teacher. All of the talks are those that are given at the end of the day during a meditation "course" lasting from 3 days to 3 months. The students in those courses are in silence the entire time, then have the great pleasure of listening to the teachers at the end of their day. There's magical, marvelous wisdom there. I can hardly believe I live in a time when such a resource is available at the click of a mouse.
The Buddha always insisted that no one should believe him. All should come to their own understanding of what he taught through their own experience. Bhavana-maya panna, it's called in Sanskrit. Direct, experiential knowledge. :h
Okay, lovely ones:
I sat a course with Jack Kornfield years ago, know Noah Levine's parents, but have only read his books, met Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1982, spoke with Kevin Griffin on the phone after I fell off the meditation path into a wine bottle etc., etc., etc. I owe them all a tremendous debt of gratitude.
But here's the deal: Nothing changes in your life when you read these books, which actually ARE incredibly insightful and profound. There might be cool insights, discovering new points of view that help, even inspire . . .
The changes happen when you put your butt on a meditation cushion every day for some specific, committed-to amount of time and DO what the books tell you to do. Better yet, find a meditation center where you can "check yourself in," so you don't have to struggle with what to do next (or whether or not to do it), and firmly attach thy buttocks to thy cushion in a situation that doesn't allow (or at least discourages) getting up in order to avoid, well . . . being with no one except yourself, on a meditation cushion, for extended periods of time.
Intensive meditation, under impeccable guidance, took me out of all addictions for more than a decade. So, yes, experience rules, and I am absolute evidence that meditation provides a powerful way out. To do that, I had to make it a complete lifestyle.
A deeply traumatic experience 10 years in completely blew my daily practice (minimum of 1 hour and usually 2) and with that went my total abstinence from alcohol and all mind-altering substances. Hello wine bottle. Yuk.
In my experience and observation, it's damn near impossible to do this in your own little corner in your own little world. Think swimming upstream against human evolution.
I owe my life and health to serious meditation over an extended period of time and my way out of pretty genetically predictable alcoholism to MWO. So I'm thrilled to see burgeoning interest, and references to works of authentic and good teachers appearing here.
I posted this somewhere else, but there is an incredible golden mine of live talks given by many of the teachers you guys are reading at Dharma Seed You can search by topic or by teacher. All of the talks are those that are given at the end of the day during a meditation "course" lasting from 3 days to 3 months. The students in those courses are in silence the entire time, then have the great pleasure of listening to the teachers at the end of their day. There's magical, marvelous wisdom there. I can hardly believe I live in a time when such a resource is available at the click of a mouse.
The Buddha always insisted that no one should believe him. All should come to their own understanding of what he taught through their own experience. Bhavana-maya panna, it's called in Sanskrit. Direct, experiential knowledge. :h
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