Jump to content
Dharmaling Forums
Sign in to follow this  
lacu

Difficulty focussing when listening to Dharma

Recommended Posts

I find myself having difficulty focussing when listening to dharma teaching .What it means is that when Rinpoche gave teaching I always end up not remembering what he says .He can says something and the next moment I cannot remember it .This also occurs in my daily life also .Is this negative karma ?How to remedy it ?Any advice ?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi delek :hello:

 

I find myself having difficulty focussing when listening to dharma teaching .What it means is that when Rinpoche gave teaching I always end up not remembering what he says .He can says something and the next moment I cannot remember it .This also occurs in my daily life also .Is this negative karma ?How to remedy it ?Any advice ?

 

H.H. Dalai Lama said, that if we keep on practicing shine, our memory will get better. Specially he advices the moment we get up to do shine.

Other ways for improving your memory would be to receite the Manjushri mantra.

 

And when you are taking notes, that also improves your ability of concentration, but it it will not lead to that you can hold everything of the teachings. It just helps if your concentration is very very bad.

What you should do, is mentally to repeat things you have heared. Start with a book, read a chapter and then try to remember what was being said. When you take notes, directly after the teaching sit down and try to remember,then look again at your notes.

 

So all this is a question how much discipline you want to apply to improve your memory, it is a question of discipline......

 

Furthermore when we are little bit familiar with a topic, than we can also remember more. When Rinpoche lits all those 51 mental factors, I was not able to hold everything, and I think most of us wont hold everything, not even the half. But when we engage into the subject more deeply, then situation looks different......

 

With all my best wishes

Csillag

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi Delek

 

Is this negative karma?

 

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a negative karma, only ignorance. To change ignorance into awareness, it is not about to change just one aspect of our lives, expecting and wanting that everything else to stay much the same. If so, we will immediately run into obstacles. We are talking here about a change of heart and mind.

 

Best regards,

 

Simona

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi delek, :hello:

 

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a negative karma, only ignorance.

 

When you are saying there is no such thing as negative karma, then you must also say there is no such thing as ignorance. You can`t say that there is only ignorance.

From a relative point of view, from ignorance negative karma comes. Without ignorance there is no negative karma.

 

Realisation is mind and confusion/ignorance is mind

Mind is empty.

 

With all my best wishes

Csillag

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi Delek.

 

I use the word "strict" strictly to lighten up the very source or cause. Like the knife in surgeon`s hand. The cause of negative karma is ignorance. I never identify a problem that I have with the consequence, yet I want to go straitforward to the origin of it. To focus upon the source, rather than whirling. But, of course it is a matter of choice where to start.

 

For example, if I do not like to eat, I should not to identify myself as anorexic person, which would mean that I would become the problem itself. So, I should find the very origin of not like eating, which is a wish to be separated and purified, not contaminated by the material world. It means also that I have difficulty with closeness and contacts. When I know the origin, then I can start to do something, to develop empathy and compassion.

 

Best regards,

 

Simona

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi delek Simona :hello:

 

I use the word "strict" strictly to lighten up the very source or cause.

I can understand this and I was thinking before that this was your intention, but one can pin point out as well in different ways,

......I mean because people cannot read your mind, and as you were writing there is no karma existing only ignorance, ignorance could stay in their mind as something permanent, sth. substantial. We never know....

My views is that we should make clear when we talk on the ultimate level and when on the relative level and to be careful not to confuse ultimate with relative .

Not that you do not understand it,this is not what I want to say, what I mean is we have to be careful how how we express something, we should make it sure that what we are saying is correct also on other levels, and not just sayed somehow for emphasizing something.

What do you think ?

 

 

I never identify a problem that I have with the consequence, yet I want to go straitforward to the origin of it. To focus upon the source, rather than whirling. But, of course it is a matter of choice where to start.

Very good thinking in my eyes, I like your attitude. But for myself I realized it is good that I know about emptiness, but just the knowing about will not help me in my present situation. I have also to use other tools which are teached in buddhism, until I come to the point that I will able really to meditate on emptiness whatever happens all the time .

In order of being able to meditate on emptiness, you need to have first knowledge, then contemplating on the informations you have heared and just then comes meditation, putting what you have heared into practice.

 

When Lacu cannot even remember what has been said, if he sits in the teachings but cannot retain in his mind the teachings, so how he will then contemplate, not to talk about putting into the practice the teachings ?

So my views is, he needs first guideline how to improve memory, at present I don`t think that by talking just about emptiness, that this will help him. Well, of course it will help to some extent, if he knows little bit about emptiness, that he won`t take his problem so heavily, he will be able to relax.

But I don`t think this will help him to overcome his problem of not being able to retain the teachings, which is essential for a student of Buddhism : being able to retain what the teacher said.

 

I am sending you something from Khenpho Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, one of H.H. Karmapa main teachers. When you read this,you can see how much Rinpoche puts emphasis on right understanding in oder to relalize emptiness. So if somebody cannot retain the teachings, has bad memory....it is clear that he has mainly to work on that for the time being.

Of course there also exists introduction into minds nature, then you just have exercice to put yourself into that..........but also for being introduced into mind`s nature you have to be ready for that. You need lots of accumalted merit for that.

By studying, contemplating ad meditating and by other means your are accumulating that merit.

 

How should beginning students of the dharma - students in search of such-ness, who want to realize the true nature - be introduced to things?

First, teachers should say that things exist. They should explain things in terms of existence, which means that they should talk about past lives and future lives as being existent.

And why? Because they are an integral aspect of the principle of cause and effect, of the law of karma which is that good actions lead to happiness, and bad or harmful actions, negative actions towards other sentient beings, lead to suffering. This is an important principle, and we should be taught that it is true and potent, so that we will have faith in it and live by it.

 

We should also be taught that the three jewels really exist, that there is the Buddha, the Buddha's teachings called the dharma, and the community of dharma practitioners called the Sangha. The three jewels can provide us with a genuine refuge from cyclic existence and can lead us out of it. We should also be taught to be wary of cyclic existence, to feel disgust for it, because it is of the nature of suffering - especially the lower realms like the hell realms, where beings go who commit the most negative actions. We should be taught about all these things at first as being things, which are real. As a result, we will, if we understand the meaning of this, abandon desire. If we understand the meaning of all of this, we will no longer seek happiness from cyclic existence. We will no longer seek happiness by trying to fulfill the needs of this "I," by trying to make this "I" happy. And so we will no longer be caught in thinking that somewhere out there can be something that can bring happiness. We won't have any more desire for anything in the cycle of existence, and what that will lead to is an understanding of emptiness, which is here described as perfect transcendence.

 

It is important for us to realize how profound and how important this view being taught here in texts like Nargarjuna’s Sixty Stanzas of Reasoning is, because, if you know this view well, if you understand emptiness through this view, then you also can attain the great powers of realization.

 

The study and practice of Madhyamika reasoning’s is a powerful way of coming to see and to accept that the psychodramas of our lives are not real after all. If studied properly and meditated upon, Madhyamika becomes a tremendous aid to letting go of all our confusion and of allowing the mind naturally to return to a state of peace and mental health, out of which all the positive qualities of mind are free to manifest.

With this kind of Madhyamika understanding as a foundation, the practice of Vajrayâna becomes an even more powerful means of uprooting and purifying the deeper anxieties and traumas of the mind, and of finally dispelling the self-clinging, dualistic fixation, fundamental ignorance, and mental darkness that underlies all of them.

For that reason, it is often said in the Vajrayâna that Madhyamika is the ground and Mahamudra the path.

 

 

 

In the practice of meditation, the actual technique that we employ is never very difficult. Even in the very much more complicated meditative techniques of the Vajrayâna, involving visualizations, mantras, mandalas, and Mudras, the actual techniques are not difficult or particularly problematic; any intelligent seventh-grader could perform these practices as well, if not better, than an adult. The difficulties and problems are always simply how to relate properly to what arises in one's mind when one is employing any of these meditative techniques, how to relate to the incessant discursiveness and oftentimes intense emotional and cognitive confusion in the mind that one's meditation uncovers or stirs up.

 

For example, if I do not like to eat, I should not to identify myself as anorexic person, which would mean that I would become the problem itself. So, I should find the very origin of not like eating, which is a wish to be separated and purified, not contaminated by the material world. It means also that I have difficulty with closeness and contacts. When I know the origin, then I can start to do something, to develop empathy and compassion.  

 

Good example, but don`t you think that one has to be first mentally to be ready to see the origin of your problem, to realize that one has a problem at all?

People who do not have the will to look inward or the capacity for inwardlooking together with the will of wanting to change, which comes from understanding of the necessity of doing so, will have a hard time.

Analog to this situation, how do you want to be able to mediate in a "correct manner " if you cannot retain the teachings in "all aspects"/details? Even contemplation will be then very hard.

 

With all my best wishes

Csillag

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi Delek.

 

To be able “to focus” and to be able “to remember” are two different things, depend on each other. When someone says that he is not focused, could be that one is not focused upon the specific matter, yet one is focused on something else. I believe that one is always focused on something. And therefore there are some imprints made on the conscious level, by being focused upon. These imprints are stored in the memory. And when one said that can not remember, it could be that one was focused on the “right” matter, the imprints have beed made and stored in the memory, yet there is some disturbance by recalling them. Or simply, cause one was not focused upon the “right” matter, there were no imprints ever made about the “right” matter (how could even be), and they can not be recalled, consequently. From the writting of Lacu, I would claim, that in his case the last state is correct (having difficulty focussing) and that he has no problem with remembering something! And therefore I assumed, that he has a problem with the will, which plays an important role on the Path. There is a story of a man who lost the control of a horse he was riding. When he was asked, where he is going, he answered “I do not know, ask the horse.” Things can be controled, but there is a will needed for. Which means not to hanging on the simptoms and persuading oneself “I have a negative karma” (by the way, I read this sentence as a negative confirmation, and there for by writting that there is no such thing as a negative karma, one should understand it as denying the intention of the state, regarding in which way it was put) and creating problems on problems. I just wish that Lacu would not stick at, like the man from the story “I do not know, where am I going”, yet that he would grab the horse.

I pray, that this time I was clear. As far as I am not an enlightenened being, my writtings are coloured.

 

 

Best regards,

 

Simona

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hai Simona,

I believe that one is always focused on something.

If you call focusing even those short moments of mind's grabbing different sights, then I can agree. But, and I might be so wrong, I can also see focus as one's field of creation. Then, how can I do or experience anything in moments shorter then to say one syllabel! I do too so wish my mind to become more obeyable. {..} I see the capability to focus wherever you want for as long as you want softly as one most powerful tool to experiencing peace within oneself. {..}

I know you'll reply ;) but only hope it will not be too complicated for me to understand. :)

 

I wish you all the very best,

Pamo

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi Delek, Pamo.

 

I think that as long as one feels, there is focusing. It is about the rotating. Let us start with a feeling. So, one feels to be sad or happy. And from that feeling an attention is being shifted to the certain object. If one is sad, one will maybe notice that the glass is half empty and when one is happy, one will notice that a glass is half full. I experience that I pay attention to different objects (material world`s objects, thoughts, dreams, objects which are not really present...) depend on the mood. And once the relation to the object is established, a feeling will arise from that relation. Cause feelings are the result of one`s participation, not the separation from the world. I started with the feeling and finished with the feeling. The circle is closed.

 

To determine focusing by “the duration in the time” could be just one aspect of it. To go in the length. But, you can also go in the depth. Sometimes I experience also the incomplete focusing, being disturbed by some other surrounded influences. Well, it is not sometimes, it is most of the time. Only in the process of the meditation I do experience the perfect focusing, being free of any thought, being free of any disturbing impacts.

 

Best regards,

 

Simona

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest Ani.Chödrön

Tashi Delek,

 

I think that as long as one feels, there is focusing.

 

what I understand from your words sounds to me more like grasping to the apparent reality then being consciously focused to something. As you said, in meditation we can develop a different level of awareness, vigilance and concentration.

 

I do experience the perfect focusing, being free of any thought, being free of any disturbing impacts.

 

What is the aim of having no thoughts? How can one rely that his/her mind is not dull at that moments? :crunch: Some people like this method, but I personally prefer a classical Buddhist one: a visualisation of a chosen object (a Buddha). From two reasons:

 

- because I can follow the sharpness/dullness of my mind and consequently see more precisely how long my ability of concentration really is,

- and because it helps me with other visualisation practices while deepening a positive imprint of the Buddha in my mind.

 

I like this visualisation because this way the Buddha is getting really familiar, always present, a real object of refuge. !:! And this can offer us a necessary stability and faith that we need in the processes of unfolding our true nature. We cannot save us by ourselves.

 

All the very best, :D

chödrön

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi delek :hello:

 

To be able “to focus” and to be able “to remember” are two different things, depend on each other. When someone says that he is not focused, could be that one is not focused upon the specific matter, yet one is focused on something else.

 

I agree with you: focusing and to remember are 2 different things.

Now let`s take the case one has a good ability to remember in general, but one is not focusing during teachings, so this would mean I would say, one has not much enthusiasm for Dharma, not real interest and appreciation for ones precious human life.

As focusing and remembering "can "depend on each other, of course who is not being able to focus generally has most times also a bad capacity to remember.

What is for Lacu true, just he himself can know. ( Sorry Lacu that we mention so often your name, I don`t know how it feels for you....)

 

 

 

I believe that one is always focused on something. And therefore there are some imprints made on the conscious level, by being focused upon. These imprints are stored in the memory. And when one said that can not remember, it could be that one was focused on the “right” matter, the imprints have beed made and stored in the memory, yet there is some disturbance by recalling them.

 

 

Let`s say you are telling me a story, your problem. If I do not pay totally attention to you, I could misunderstand your problem, because during you talked I did not fully listened, but I was more concentrating on what I can say to you, being impatient of listening to you.

It even can happen that I will get you then wrong, because I did not listen fully to you...and I don`t think that I will remember later what you have said to me really during I was absent with my thoughts. I doubt that I would understand you fully later lets say in a month just because my subconsciousness or alaya made me to remember.

I never had such an experience and I never heared about such a case before.

 

You are saying the imprints will be stored in memory, and even when one cannot remember but one was focused on the right matter....well with this somehow I do not agree with, as in my eyes focusing can be on just one thing "mainly".Like you cannot throuh 2 balls the same time into the same hohle. Also from my previous studies, when I studied medicine, I know that this is impossible. You can switch with your focus very quickly, but you cannot focus at 2 different things with the same quality , one will be lesser.

 

 

I think imprints can have different weight. If you are mainly focused on thinking lets says of your girlfriend/ boyfriend and your subconsciousness would hear the same time the teachings, well I don`t think the imprint of the content of the teachings will be fully stored.

I would be interested what some lamas would say to this case.

 

How much imprint do we get from a teaching when our mind is focused during the teaching for example at our boyfriend/girlfriend?

( I am afraid that you get mostly the imprint of not being focused at teachings, which could become a bad habbit as well in future lifes....)

 

 

Of course some good imprints will be made being there at a teaching, but if one misunderstands something because of not having listened properly, because one were not focused, one can end up with a wrong view or when trying to put everything into meditation, one can do something in the wrong way.

 

If your subconsciousness could really retain everything what has been said while your mind was focused on something else, and just later there would be just some difficulties to remember, and that`s all, well then I don`t think Patrul Rinpoche and other lamas would have stressed so much the importance of not to be like an vessel having holes in it, which cannot retain the teachings, or being like a vessel which is upside down where nothing can enter because in your mind you are surving in california, so the teaching cannot enter.

If you would have just some difficulties to remember, then for what the teachings on the importance of being able to retain the teachings and to focus on the teachings ?

 

 

With all my best wishes

Csillag

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi Delek.

 

I don`t think that I will remember later what you have said to me really during I was absent with my thoughts. I doubt that I would understand you fully later lets say in a month just because my subconsciousness or alaya made me to remember.  

I never had such an experience and I never heared about such a case before.

 

Between the alaya (as you said subconsciousness) and the chitta (conscious cognizing mind), there is manas (the cenzor mind, which is controlled by yourself, by your ego). And because of the manas, you were absent with your thoughts at the first place and cause of the manas you did not understand me then, neither you would understand me fully even after one month. It is not alaya, which would make you to remember, yet it is manas, which decide what will you remember.

 

 

Best regards,

 

Simona

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi Delek.

 

You are saying the imprints will be stored in memory, and even when one cannot remember but one was focused on the right matter....well with this somehow I do not agree with, as in my eyes focusing can be on just one thing "mainly".

 

There could be some disturbances about any of the process of "remembering". It could be some problems with focusing (fatigue, worries,...). It could be some problems with storage or with recalling (epilepsy, alcohol abuse, aging, Alzheimer, Parkinson, other neurological disturbances...).

Maybe you experienced so called lapsus, when you could not recall the word or the idea from the memory, yet you were focused upon when you read it or heard it. And when you later finally remembered the "lost" idea, you found out that it was always in your memory, though.

 

 

Best regards,

 

Simona

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi Delek, Ani.Ch?dr?n.

 

what I understand from your words sounds to me more like grasping to the apparent reality then being consciously focused to something. As you said, in meditation we can develop a different level of awareness, vigilance and concentration.

 

One year ago, it was about the grasping from my side. And even then, at the beginning it was about the grasping I was not aware of, and later I became aware of it. Now, I find out that it is not so much about the grasping, yet about being biased. Which means I am able to apply much more will-power, yet still be more or less biased to the old patterns of functioning. I hope that some day I will be able to reach being fully directed by the will-power only.

 

 

Best regards,

 

Simona

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi delek, :hello:

 

Maybe yoou experienced so called lapsus, when you could not recall the word or the idea from the memory, yet you were focused upon when you read it or heard it. And when you later finally remembered the "lost" idea, you found out that it was always in your memory, though.

 

Yes, this exists I experienced that, but my opinion is, it is not the same case as described above.

So I would be interested what a Lama would answer to what extent remeberence of a teaching is possible when we were not focused on the teaching but on something else.

 

With all my best wishes

Csillag

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi delek, :hello:

 

Between the alaya (as you said subconsciousness) and the chitta (conscious cognizing mind), there is manas (the cenzor mind, which is controlled by yourself, by your ego).

 

I know what the 7th consciousness is there, called klesha mind.

I tryed to find for the subconscious mind a buddhist expression, that could be the subconscious mind. As the alaya ( the impure one ) is storing all the karma,all what happens it comes for me near to the subconsciousness.

 

When one is getting operated, and one is under "Narkose " one is not conscious. But it happend that even though one is unconscious, some people were able to tell afterwards what happened to them during the operation. This phenomena was explained with the subconsciousness.

 

Or another phenomena: you have to kinds of memory: implizit and explizit. Children just do have one kind of it, the other one develops with time, that`s why as adults we do not have much remeberence from our childhood. Nevertheless through therapy the therapist was able to activate the subconsciousness, in the subconsciousness everything was stored.

 

So in this sence for me this sounds like alaya, from the point of view that in alaya everything is stored. Of course alaya is more then subconsciousness, has much more meanings and other ways round the defiition of subconsciousness is not the same as that of alaya. Anyway I just tryed to find the right words.That`s all. Maybe I was not skillful in this.

;-)

 

 

It is not alaya, which would make you to remember, yet it is manas, which decide what will you remember.

- I don`t think my klesha mind has so much power to decide what to remember and what not, I would be happy if it were so, no more being afraid before exams, at will remembering everything. Wow that would be fantastic !

 

 

With all my best wishes

Csillag

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi Delek.

 

- I don`t think my klesha mind has so much power to decide what to remember and what not, I would be happy if it were so, no more being afraid before exams, at will remembering everything. Wow that would be fantastic!

 

"Manas acts as the organizer and cenzor, allowing some passions to rise up and keeping others suppressed. Generally, manas is a bit like a closed fist, keeping the mind in a firm grip. Manas is ordinarily controlled by the ego complex which exerts a dominanting influence over the whole psyche and constantly struggles to maintain this supremacy. Through the faculty of manas it strives to keep everything organized in a self-defensive or self-expansive way. The alaya stores our karma. Manas and the alaya together, in their conditioned state, ensure that chitta never gets a clear view of the buddhata. When conditioning is abandoned, manas relaxes, the alaya settles and the mind fills up with radiance from below. Chitta is then able to turn this light upon the world. The mind in this radiant condition becomes jnana." Brazier D. Zen Therapy

 

Best regards,

 

Simona

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi delek :hello:

 

Manas is ordinarily controlled by the ego complex

 

Then mana cannot mean 7th consciousness, the klesha mind, because klesha mind is the ego mind.

I don`t know much about Zen Buddhism, but do you know how mana is translated into tibetan buddhism ?Maybe 6th consciousness ?

 

I mean for example zazen in Zen is the same as shine /shamatha in tibetan buddhism .

 

With all my best wishes

Csillag

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi Delek.

 

In Buddhism there are 8 classes of consciousness: first 5 are the senses: sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing. The 6. is thought, the 7. is manas, and the 8. is alaya-vinana.

 

In Zen (but, please as far as I know, correct me!) there are in general 2 classes of consciousnesses; vijnana (deluded or dualistic consciousness) and jnana (non-dualistic consciousness or primordial consciousness).

Vijnana consciousness is further divided into:

1.six senses (6 different modes or channels of mind activity corresponding to the 6 “sense doors”, which yield data of six different kinds: form (the eyes), sound (the ears), smell (the nose), taste (the tongue), touch (body surface) and consciousness (brain)).

2.chitta (conscious cognizing mind)

3.manas (the cenzor mind)

4.alaya (storehouse consciousness)

5.buddhata (the light within the bottomless ocean).

 

Kleshas are rather mental contaminants, such as anger, fear, and resentment. You wrote about the kleshas mind, so you probably think of the mind which is contaminated by kleshas. I would say, such mind could be chitta and manas together = conscious mind.

 

Best regards,

 

Simona

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest Ani.Chödrön

Tashi Delek,

 

I hope that some day I will be able to reach being fully directed by the will-power only.

 

I'm joining your wishes for all of us to be soon lead only by the power of Bodhicitta and the perfect Wisdom. {..}

 

All the very best,

chödrön

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi Delek.

 

I do a lot of self-study, which gives the opportunity to step aside from the ego-centred mind, observing and letting go all the mental activities. This forum is like a study group from my point of view and I am very grateful to Lama Shenphen Rinpoche that he established and creates this web site and that he cares for all of us. I am also very grateful to have the opportunity to contact different people, who also put a lot of effort to progress on their Path, to exchange ideas and what we have been learnt, but specially to support each other on the Path. Tonight I will meditate upon my debt to all the beings that have been, are and will care for me, cause otherwise I would not have survived.

Keep going, I like you all.

 

Best regards,

 

Simona

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Dear Simona,

 

I think that as long as one feels, there is focusing.

I agree that we can focus to what is being supportive to us or insupportive, too. But, anawaringly, because, why would we choose the latter? With awarness we can walk the supportive for us way. I liked your example of the horse-back rider.

 

I experience that I pay attention to different objects (material world`s objects, thoughts, dreams, objects which are not really present...) depend on the mood. And once the relation to the object is established, a feeling will arise from that relation. Cause feelings are the result of one`s participation, not the separation from the world.

So, you call this focusing, too? (00) :?: What you are describing here, and if I understand you correctly, is something that's tearing me apart. When I am capable to focus, to concentrate for only a moment or two, it's when I experience myself as whole. Only a moment or two for the time being :), enough for me to know ;). The daydreaming I try to catch and get a tighter hold of the bridle of that horse. :)

 

To determine focusing by “the duration in the time” could be just one aspect of it. To go in the length. But, you can also go in the depth.

I am sure. But can not talk about it, being too weak with it still.

 

Sometimes I experience also the incomplete focusing, being disturbed by some other surrounded influences. Well, it is not sometimes, it is most of the time.

Same here. :(

 

Only in the process of the meditation I do experience the perfect focusing, being free of any thought, being free of any disturbing impacts.

Lucky lucky you. l-) I am very happy for you. :D Your shelter. Your refuge field. Your home. Where nothing else is needed.... So lucky lucky you. l-) If I had what you have I would stay there and bathe in this space for days and days and days and days until I am pure and free to be. {..} ''oo'' {..} l-) :% :hello: :*

 

I wish you all the very very best,

Pamo

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

...oh, I so appologize if I exposed some things twice. The message in my inbox gave the notion and the link brought right there, so I've only now seen there had been so much said afterwards already...

:DD

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tashi Delek, Pamo.

 

Only the Buddha himself knows where this debate will bring us. So, about focusing is nothing wrong by itself. What I find important is, upon what one focus, i. e. pay attention. The base are the senses, from them emotions arise and if one focus upon the emotions, it is over, I mean one is drawn by them and start to rotating. It is said that it is important to guard the "sense doors", not just because to look at what is entering, yet this is my opinion, to keep the focus on the senses, not on the emotions and other "who-knows-what" succession. I read :"Gotama was enlightenend by seeing something (My addition: he saw a star on the sky). Other famous teachers have been enlightened by hearing something. The Surangama Samadhi Sutra states that hearing is the easiest. Most kensho (My addition: enlightenment) experience, by all accounts, is triggered by something seen or heard. The others senses can, however, also awaken the mind. We have probably all had the experience of smelling something and being immediately transported into a different frame of mind. The use of smell and touch in therapy with elderly people, whose sight and hearing may be failing, can have powerful effects, not only bringing back memories, but also opening minds which had become sealed into subjective circlings."

Brazier D. Zen Therapy.

 

 

Best regards,

 

Simona

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
Sign in to follow this  

×
×
  • Create New...