Good Questions 4

Who is in charge?

Good Questions 3

Can I let it go?

Good Questions 2

Why is it so strong?

Good Questions 1

How are you?

The Realm of Death,The Realm of Deathless

I have found this similie useful. There are two realms:
 The Realm of death, the more go toward it, the less choice you feel to have, the more contraction.
 The Realm of deathless, the more you go toward it there is more freedom.

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The practice is about being with the unpleasant without being reactive to it.
 The practice is about being with the pleasant without being reactive to it.
 It is about investigating the pleasant and unpleasant without being reactive.

So what do we do during practice? My current understanding

The short answer is that we do two things: 1- We create some space, 2- We look into our mental objects. We shoud first develop some skill about number 1, then having found some skill we can do number 2.
 What dose it mean to create space?
 It means we stop reactivity. It is done by letting go of things in mindfulness meditation and by gratitude and loving kindness practice out of meditation.
 What dose looking into mental objects mean?
 It means we focus on them and investigate the how of them. The natural processes of the mind help us to untangle things gradually.
 So a meditation session has at least two parts, in the first stage we calm down the mind and create some space, then in the second stage we start investigating mental objects, we just look in to them. We do not struggle.
 It is very important not to forget 3 things, we should keep it simple, we shouldn't struggle and we shouldn't be hasty.Right view must also have a role to play here, but it is not so clear for me, so I will write about when I got it!

غم نشانه خوبی است

 Sadness is a good sign.
 It shows we are starting to get along.

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Mindfulness meditation, gives us an opportunity to notice the distinction between the sensations and first impressions and what mind builds upon them. Quite often we can let go of some of the secondary mental objects.

آهسته‌تر

جان عجول، جان حریص، جان ستیزه‌جو

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If you want peace here is the condensed instruction: stay with the initial tightening and don’t spin off. Keep it simple
- Pema Chodron

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The most impotant thing that I should learn is how to stop, the second most important thing is how to move.

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Don't look through your ego's eyes, let the ego look through your eyes.

A New Start

It is about three years that I haven't written anything here. These days I think I am taking the practice  more seriously than before. More over, I think now I have a better closeness to the practice, I think I am starting to understand it more wholeheartedly. So I decided to write about my search and practice once again.

 Last time, I was trying to write as clear as possible and to keep the text as understandable as I can. I have always considered clarity a very important standard of any writing that is going to convey some information and I still do hold this belief, however, sticking too hard to this principle makes it very difficult to write down ideas in their first stages of formation. This time I am not necessarily going to talk about things that have become more clear to me, I also want to talk about the raw ideas that I just come by and don't want to lose them. The language and terms in those parts may get quite vague or personal but the overall trend that I wish to see is to start from some vague ideas and to get to a more understandable and reasonable representation of them by examining them emperically(somehow) and critically.

 Not much more to say for this post, so like the the first time

  بسمه و به

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One of the most important teachings of mindfulness meditation is that when emotions arise we can, we really can, stop from getting involved.

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In times of dissatisfaction, I found it helpful to ask my self: "Am I taking it too seriously? How important is it?"

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When I am in a bad condition, but at the same time I don't like to change, I usually find myself clinging (unconsciously) to something in my current situation. When I find the thing, and when I know why I am clinging to it, change gets much easier.

So what is it that I am clinging to right now? What is it that I am averting right now?

The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.

Joseph Campbell , here.

I just saw this poem in Elisha Goldstein's blog:

How did the rose

Ever open its heart

And give to this world

All its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light

Against its being,

Otherwise,

We all remain

Too frightened

Really beautiful image.

He attributed this poem to "Hafiz", I am greatly dubious if we can find this image in Hafez's poems and you know there are inaccurate translations of Hafez there, but any way, it was beautiful.

Stretching The Space Between Stimulus and Response

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Viktor Frankl

In our everyday life it is not very often to notice how our response to a stimulus arises, however there are times we have the chance to get a rough idea of how this response or parts of it is getting formed gradually, for example some times I can notice how blood runs to my face when I get angry. And there are also times that I have some idea of my intentions when the response is getting created, and in some of these occasions, I feel I have some control over my thoughts and intentions and actions, I feel I can somehow manipulate them to some extent.

Wouldn't it be nice if I could notice this space between stimulus and response more clearly?

Wouldn't it be nice if I could prolong the time I have more control over what I can do?