Re: Shut Up, Sit Down and Play Dead (was Where rubberz meets the

RaaN wrote:

> On May 15, 11:39 pm, Robert Epstein <vze25...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
>>Sniped <
>>
>>>I would contend that if the meditative state were a natural healthy
>>>one it would occur naturally just as exercise is healthy and physical
>>>activity occurs naturally.  My personal bias against meditation is the
>>>same as my bias against all sorts of regimented disciplined activities
>>>(or non activities)  I have no doubt that I have gone into meditative
>>>states naturally at various times but any sort of discipline in this
>>>regard would render it an exercise in futility and frustration, and
>>>without that natural barometer free to determine when and for how long
>>>I should be active or inactive etc there is a clear danger of
>>>increasing rather than decreasing stress and tension not to mention
>>>more severe results of excess.  So if any would-be master should tell
>>>me to shut up and sit down and play dead you can well imagine what my
>>>response would be.
>>>--
>>>RaaN
>>
>>It is not natural to develop skills, except for the most rudimentary
>>ones.  If you left a child alone with a book he would not learn to read.
>>  Everything we do that is of a higher function, including exercise, is
>>a learned, practiced skill.  You confuse natural with things that happen
>>"all by themselves" without our active participation.  If you want to
>>take the position that hunting and gathering is natural, but
>>cultivation, farming, irrigation and passing on of more efficient tools
>>from one generation to the next is not, then you will at least have a
>>consistent argument.  But to say that meditation is bad because it
>>doesn't happen without discipline and cultivation is meaningless.  That
>>which happens randomly is often of little ***ulative use.
>>
>>Robert
>>
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> 
> 
> I do not think learning need be some disciplined practice but interest
> can motivate one to play which would entail practice and improvement.
> But essential mental states arise spontaneously such as play and
> physical activity and sleep and so forth but I do not recall other
> than pretending to be dead to ever have done anything like sitting
> breathing meditation.  Maybe I'm wrong since I have found myself doing
> activities in which I lost all self consciousness and time seemed to
> stand still or fly by.  That's not meditation like sitting like a
> zombie though.  For myself it was only after I was done with school
> that I began to learn following a driving interest that was
> unquenchable and led me to read and write and think at deeper and
> progressively sophisticated levels as an incidental side effect of
> following my spontaneous mental hunger.  The entire idea of discipline
> is to my mind a totally dehumanizing ideal inculcated into children
> wholesale as a kind of brainwa****ng to create a manageable populace.
> So my entire inclination is not to lay down and play dead because some
> self appointed master tells me to nor am I inclined to tell anyone
> else not to.  I hope this helps to clarify my general view on things.
> --
> RaaN

Well I think it's honest and it does clarify your view, but it does not 
change my perception that you have a very very skewed idea of what 
meditation is, I mean an incredibly ignorant one.  When you call it 
"playing dead" it shows that you just have no idea at all what it is 
about.  I would never think of it in such terms as it has nothing to do 
with it.  So you are looking at an image of someone doing something and 
deciding what it is by looking at it, rather than doing or understanding 
it.  I guess I would expect you to be more scientific about it, since 
you demand that from others.  That would mean, either suspend judgment, 
or find out more about it so that you know what you are talking about. 
You seem to also have this issue with "masters" as if the reason for 
meditating is because someone "orders" you to.  No one is demanding that 
I do yoga or meditate.  I'm not part of a cult.  I started doing these 
activities, like you do with yours, out of my own inclinations.  If they 
hadn't fascinated and called to me, I never would have done them at all. 
  So I can perfectly understand your "not being called" to do something. 
  What I cannot understand is your defensiveness and presumption about 
it, based on what?

As for natural discipline and imposed discipline, there are activities 
in life that require strict discipline and those that do not.  You can 
develop a deep and eclectic philosophy by your own repeated 
investigations, just as I developed a certain saxaphone style during a 
period of years where I basically played by myself in a corner exploring 
the sounds and melodic lines I wanted to create.  That is one thing.  No 
one would recommend however taking that approach to sending a rocket to 
the moon or learning heart surgery.  You need to learn the steps by rote 
with absolute precision before you enter into the creative part of such 
things.  And there is creativity, but it follows the discipline rather 
than precedes it.  Even in my approach to playing sax, I studied 
classical clarinet for ten years so I had a structure backing me up; 
then I was free to go where I wanted to go and was not restricted to 
that training.  Even so, I had places where I couldn't go technically 
because I did not have certain kinds of training and as experimental as 
my approach was that was still frustrating.  Today if I had time to 
re-engage the sax, the first thing I would do is go to a teacher and get 
some lessons on the upper third register, which is very hard to master 
on your own.  Not because I 'have to' but because it's something I want 
to know how to do!

It's the same with meditation.  The Buddha and a bunch of other folks 
explored, codified and outlined the steps to reaching certain mental 
states, and they laid out a good set of possible pathways.  You can 
learn the principles and make them your own and then run with them 
anywhere you want to, you are not imprisoned by learning how to do 
something, anymore than learning how to use a saw a certain way 
restricts you from finding a new way to use it that is even better.  No 
such restrictions exist.  With meditation the teachers that I did spend 
some time with taught me things that formed a foundation.  When I 
recently went back to a yoga class it was great - the teacher saw things 
that I had not been aware with.  I took that away and applied it in my 
own way to my own practice.

Your reluctance to learn something, to follow a path, to try something, 
I can only see as a kind of fear that is not based on the truth of what 
you would encounter, but on something else, some internal factor that is 
beyond my knowledge of you to account for.  I respect you when you 
debate about things that you have explored and understand, even when I 
disagree; but you have to admit that your view on meditation is not 
based on knowledge or reason, just fear and prejudice.

The kind of mindfulness or awareness-based meditation that we have been 
talking about does not put one into a death-like state, or resemble 
sleep.  It opens up the refined world of consciousness for direct 
exploration and greater awakeness.

Robert

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