Re: Bringing "sitting meditation" into the rest of your life.
Posted by Eddie on 05/27/2011 14:09:45
In reply to Re: Bringing "sitting meditation" into the rest of your life. posted by sorrisi on 05/25/2011 06:45:24
Sorrisi and Class
Yes when I read that lesson of “Bringing ‘sitting meditation’ into the
rest of your life” Coach was sharing with Pauline over a decade ago
now, I was struck by how succinctly it seemed to ***match up with your
current experience with Kabat’s work/book/exercises.
I have been in a very general way somewhat familiar with some of the
work Pauline has done here at TTFMT Classroom Talk through the years,
and this particular piece of work that was going on there between
Coach and Pauline seemed to me to ***parallel in many ways to your
current life’s experience.
Where Coach had given such a clear description of the contrast between
sitting meditation and the practice of ‘Mindfulness’ where he
stated…”"Mindfulness" is taking this silent awareness of sitting
meditation, and bringing it out into the world with you . . . with
your eyes wide open, and while you are doing things, and things are
going on around you. That's what we are aiming for here, in learning
how to play the awareness game.”
And then he/Coach gave Pauline this encouraging admonition in regards
to the challenge she had expressed she had been experiencing; (which
was also similar to what I had felt that you expressed about your own
personal experience) …”Being disappointed with yourself is an old
habit with you, my friend. It is an unnecessary habit. Yet it is a
part of your habitual personality, and so you go on doing it, so far.
When you catch on to how it is with these personalities that we humans
all have, you will be able to let go of that. You'll be able to wake
up and say, "Hello. Here I am being disappointed with myself again,
that old bugaboo. Well, I'm awake now, and since I've come to
recognize that that's just my automatic personality stuff, I won't
take that so seriously any more now, will I?"
Now you ‘are’ the one that can know for sure and by no means can I
know for sure without your telling me so, but it appeared to me that
you and Pauline might actually have some of the same personality
traits in play. Again I don’t really have any firm handle on the
specifics on what those traits might be with you or even remember hers
for that matter, but I did feel something somewhat familiar to both of
you in that lesson Coach was giving her there…***and maybe even for
you here and now as well?
This is one of my major draw backs with properly doing this work with
others, and why I almost always defer to Scot or others; because I
can’t ever seem to remember others “types” even after they have openly
discussed them in class before, let alone have all the individual
types traits committed to memory.
But at any rate hopefully there have been some ‘work’ pointers with
that work Coach was doing back there that have given you some personal
support in your own ‘current’ personal practice.
For me personally there is one very inspirational aspect in direct
regards too our interchange ‘here now’ that has stood out for me
somewhat in high relief as Coach used to like to call it, that I will
try to explain.
I have been spending quite a lot of time for the past few months at
the same time that I have been posting all the different teachers work
in Classroom Talk reading, listening, and watching “all” the videos,
listening to the audio and re-reading parts of the written material.
In short I have been doing a lot of looking very closely at all the
material I have been posting. In one respect it has been in the nature
of a lot of reviewing and in another respect it has ended up being
some fresh glimpses at my own position from and in the “Now”.
I’m trying to keep this as succinct as I can. Any of you that know me
at all know that I have a big place in my heart for Coach and
his ‘work’, and miss him still today very much. So I think that part
of my heart is what has ‘moved’ me, so to speak, in the direction of
these more resent efforts. And in those regards I feel as though those
actions overall have sprung fourth from essence more so than from any
personality maneuvers on my part.
In my privet studies the other week, in particular where I have been
trying to re-read parts of Ouspensky’s “A New Model of the Universe”.
This book is way above my general intelligence, but that rarely stops
me from trying if it shows up on the trail of something I am
attempting to investigate.{Smiles} By the way that’s why I like
Nicoll’s writing so much better, where he is much easier for me to
follow in general.
Anyway my mind keeps repeatedly circling back around to a fundamental
principle or theory that I guess I’m kind of obsessed with.{Smiles}
Personally I’m convinced that this idea is in reality more than
theory, where I feel I have living proof of its reality living in my
own essential ‘being’. But all that’s rather challenging to prove
scientifically so to speak and there in lays the rub with my entire
current concept, and trying to share it here now.
Ok, now this post has already gotten way longer than I would have
liked for it to have gotten. I realize that you Sorrisi, as well as
all the other class members surly don’t have the kind of time that I
have to be looking at all this stuff, or possibly even to be reading
such long post as this one has became for that matter. I regret that
with my very limited intelligence I am unable to communicate these
ideas I am trying to investigate with less ‘words’. So let me say that
if any of you feel like responding don’t in anyway concern yourselves
with the length of your responses.
Since my “main” point with this entire post has as of yet only been
hinted at, and for the most part most likely un-recognizable to anyone
but me from what I have stated so far, I will now use a term that is
describe in some detail in the 4th Way known as our “Time Body”, so as
to begin to explain my current idea. Where I believe we may have
actually “experienced” this phenomena from the way I understand it
Sorrisi, in reality (in the now) to some degree in and around your
participation in regards to Coach’s lesson to Pauline. I feel that
through yours and mine and anyone else’s participation with that
lesson Coach/John left us demonstrates this extraordinary principle in
reality in the here and “Now”.
To be clear I take what Nicoll and Ouspensky write about in these
regards to be totally “real”, that is exists in reality. For me Coach
is still with us today; and not only that, but that the past and the
future exist ‘now’ with all of us as well; and that Coach along with
all of us is potentially changing all the time. In other words what
we ‘do’ now can change our past as well as our future; and not only
ours but others as well.
Nicoll makes this statement in regards to our “Time Body”…”So we are
not our bodies, but all that is laid down in our lives apart from
memory. We are our total lives from birth to death. This is our Time-
Body. It is all present, all there; and if I work on myself now,
observe myself, see where I am identified, see what accounts I am
making against others, how I justify myself and forgive no one, how I
think only how others are wrong, how I judge people mechanically
without seeing into their lives or seeing how self satisfied and
complacent I am, how I am not at all what I imagine—in fact, if I
begin to work on myself from the esoteric ideas of this Work which
seek to transform us, then I may be able to change my Time-Body by
getting on to another level of Time, on to another line where
everything in the past is altered— “
If anyone is interested in investigating this further it can be found
in the Commentaries in Book III pages 943-953.
http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/Psychological-Commentaries-
on-the-Teaching-of-Gurdjieff-and-Ouspensky-Vol-III.pdf
And not for the squeamish {smiles} but for what one might consider
even a rather bit more fantastic take on this idea you might be
interested in looking at Ouspensky take in “A New Model of the
Universe” at pages 90-117. (Note) this is more or less a very
arbitrary starting and ending place in this overall text that as a
whole builds on itself from the beginning through to the end like a
science theses, where I have simply pointed to a place in the middle
that speaks to my particular point.
http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/A-New-Model-of-the-
Universe.pdf
Granted it may be because I am getting so close to the end of my
personal timeline that I am so interested in all this…
Love;
Eddie