Apart from thought – is there a thinker?
Apart from thought – is there a doer?
Apart from thought – is there a meditator?
Apart from thought – is there an observer (hearer, feeler, seer, etc.)?
Apart from thought – are there any distinct objects?
Apart from thought – is there Nirvana/Samsara?
Apart from thought – is anything wrong?
Thinking “I am just a thought” does something…
“Feel your body, all at once. Don’t pick it apart, just let it be whole. Notice that anxiety, anger, resentment, aversion, or agitation, no matter how subtle, can be experienced as energy disruptions in the body. You might notice a hardness or seeming blockage in the neck or shoulder, for example. Don’t try to fix it. Just rest your attention on it gently and continuously as you might rest your hand on the shoulder of a loved one to reassure them.”
“Now look around. See like an artist. Notice the brightness and immediacy of colors. See how shapes and patterns captivate the attention. Feel your body again and ground the anxiety. If excitement arises, see it as an energy disruption. Ground it by placing your attention on it. Speculation arises; is this practice valuable? Ground it in the body….”
Kenneth Folk
September, 2010
Read more about this wonderful practice at:
A tour through the afterlife Tibetan style. It’s odd how the Christian heavens and hells, purgatory, the phenomenon of ghosts, reincarnation, the tunnel of white light, and everything is accounted for in this model. Weird that most of the Buddhas, devas, etc. look like celebrities (Donald Trump, Zodd, Spice Girls, etc.)
Hilarious and beautiful:
Kenneth Folk (this picture was taken by Vincent Horn)
I have been studying meditation with Kenneth Folk and have been an active member of the Kenneth Folk Dharma site since June of this year.
Here are some links if you are interested in finding out more about this:
BG 156: Ordinary People Can Get Enlightened
BG 157: Unifying Developmental Enlightenment and Timeless Realization
Abstract:
Introspection reveals that the core of subjectivity — the `I’ — is identical to awareness. This `I’ should be differentiated from the various aspects of the physical person and its mental contents which form the `self’. Most discussions of consciousness confuse the `I’ and the `self’. In fact, our experience is fundamentally dualistic — not the dualism of mind and matter — but that of the `I’ and that which is observed. The identity of awareness and the `I’ means that we know awareness by being it, thus solving the problem of the infinite regress of observers. It follows that whatever our ontology of awareness may be, it must also be the same for `I’.
http://www.imprint.co.uk/online/Deikman.html
Same as : http://you-are-that.com/
St. John’s, Newfoundland
Mile One Centre
May 24 2008
Life isn’t a Journey, it’s a song.
Hurry up before she’s so pissed she starts getting angry!
