"Liar42" <liar42 at aol.com> wrote in message
news:20011009185512.12316.00001109 at mb-ck.aol.com...
> > These days I'm very much tied down with some particularly difficult
problems
>> ... I might notice myself if they are bad.
You may notice, and you may not, or worse still you'll notice because things
do go bad.
> As with various drugs I might be more worried that internal balances might
be
> messed up with such if I were to take them every day, and also not be sure
how
> healthy they are for the kidneys and other organs.
>> >In my younger days I also found some styles of meditation, dhyana and
> vispassana, very useful in enhancing my concentration and pure memory
> ability. Additionally, Zen style, the initial one, concentration, the
> beginning of the great nothing, can help in enhancing memory,<
>> What are the differences between dhyana, vispassana and Zen?
> / How do they go?
Dhyana is a style for 'quietists', a gentle meditation of concentration. Not
for you. Nor is Zen, focus on breathing, but vispassana is worth a shot. You
don't try to concentrate, you don't try to do anything, you just sit back
and let your mind go. Important not to 'do anything' with your thoughts,
just let these rise and fall.
For concentration practice, music can be very good, but the right sort of
music (eg, I go for Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek on ECM Records, a German
Label of absolute quality and commitment to music). Most of the time when we
are listening to music we are anticipating the next note, tapping a digit or
whatever, the goal here is to simply and only hear the music flowing through
your head. Nice, v. relaxing.
> > but only if you're up for it, the game is harder than the uninitiated
> realise.<
>> Initiations aside, I am not good in concentrating long on somthing
tedious, and
> might be wandering off with my concentration withing minutes --- if not
less.
Everyone is like that and I don't advocate a routine of meditation but
meditation does make you explore your boundaries and give some insights into
your mind, particularly the vispassana style.
> > I hate meditation, as the enlightend D T Suzuki notes somewhere in intro
to
> Zen Buddhism, "Meditation is something artificially put on, it does not
belong
> to the natural activity of the mind." <
>> Aside from that I regard mind systems more to do with personality aspects
and
> not that relevant in many forms of energy works,
> that sort of sitting still and lowering energies and trying to hold rather
> still inside or slowly focussing around indeed does not seem very natural,
and
> various positions also unhealthy for my knees.
Forget about lotus position and the right way to sit, all that silly stuff.
Not important.
> >Then again, there is that old Buddhist idea of enlightenment, it's like
> crossing a lake, but once you've crossed the lake, you don't need the
canoe
> anymore .... . <
>> But if I wanted to again, unless swimming, I might prefer the canoe.
Good point, reminds me of the old Zen Buddhist warning that some who study
Zen become a little crazy, though I suspect you have to be a little crazy to
begin Zen. Cross the lake, give the canoe to someone else to make the
journey.
> Apart from that with enlightenment these days there are so many
artificially
> generated energies that alone the cancer dangers, also depending on the
area,
> might not be regarded as the most healthy,
> and that might be regarded more relevant than the method used to transcend
till
> enlightenment (--- unless straight being at altering methods to try to
counter
> cancer danger). And getting older does not really improve defenses against
> cancer.
Getting older is the highest risk factor for cancer.
> ... But I am not really the expert on enlightenment, more someone who is
on LSD
> maybe for a while liking to watch another when that one is in enlightened
> stage.
There's another oxymoron, "expert on enlightenment". No such creature
exists. As the Buddha said, "The ways to the one are as many as the ways of
men." Men? The Buddha clearly wasn't enlightened regarding
discrimination free language!
> >The phrase 'meditation group', is an oxymoron.<
>> What is an oxymoron?
Sorry, forgot about the language. "Oxymoron" means a statement that
contradicts itself. A Meditation group is an oxymoron because meditation is
about individuals. Many would disagree with me on this, insist on the
importance of a group to guide one, but more often than not groups just
constrain, and make us play all silly games with each other (I'm more
enlightened than you ... )
> > German author Hermann Hesse perhaps? <
>> I did not read much of him.
>> Actually I am currently at wondering with Siddhartha (which the first time
I
> did not like when I read it and the second time liked better, which also
showed
> me how much I had changed inside) and Narzis und Goldmund if those were by
him,
> as those I read, but am not too sure who wrote them.
>> >Peter Camenzind??
> Wonderful stuff ... .<
>> Don't recall reading a book by him.
Narziss and Goldmund, great book! Thanks for reminder about Siddhartha,
forgotten that title of his. Peter Camenzind is a novel by Hesse, an early
short novel. Try 'Damien', another brilliant short novel of his.
> >I don't like any work.<
>> Do I spy potential competation to the Reincarnation of the Goddess of
Laziness?
>Some people are lazy because they exist in profound disagreement with the
values of their culture. It's easy to work hard when you believe in what you
are doing, its complete stress to engage in what one perceives to be
meaningless, or worse, harmful, activities. Work is something artificially
put on, it does not belong to the natural activity of the mind! Go tell that
to the Puritans. Even Freud knew that, some comment he makes in
"Civilisation and its Discontents".
> >As for your pan psychic views, I never did like Spinoza<
>> Pan?
All embracing, Spinoza believed that everything is conscious. In a nutshell.
I never did like Western philosophy, most of it struck me as a waste of
words. You can learn more from poetry, and some poets to profess to a
universal 'ground of consciouness' so I'm in a bit of a spot there ... . .
> (I suspect we are not talking about a horned and horny guy with a reed
pipe
> here ... ;-)
The only pan piper I know is the one leading my country.
> Who was Spinoza and what concepts did he have?
No concepts worth thinking about.
>> > but given some other recent news claiming that even tiny insects had
> displayed 'distinctive individual
> traits' and the ongoing gafuffle about consciousness I'm up for any
> explanation <
>> For me it are the I s, but the time is too late to get serious info from
me,
> for that one would have to get me many years ago on trips at the right
time
> into the right stages.
> It's too long ago even that I reached prestages, where I could still talk,
but
> it was so different to other systems being more connected.
>> But that was less the explanations but more so segregated feeling stages
as
> such that were relevant there.
>> Also even if I were to point at several limbic systems where there are
hardware
> correlates to my own I magic systems, that does not make me you, nor are
there
> all I systems in my head, nor does that make a parrot me, nor does it make
us
> an octopus.
>> BTW, someone whom I also magically found interesting regarded all of us
animals
> as consciousnesses.
Could be true, wonderful story I saw on TV recently, The Lehrer Newshour,
USA free to
air news program showed here in Aus, interview with woman who wrote a book
on the last great buffalo hunts. She stressed this story was backed up by a
number of accounts:
During a slaughter of a few thousand buffalo, with the carcasses all over
the plain, the hunters moved in to begin butchering the bodies on the site.
The rest of the buffalo herd, however, maintained a safe distance and just
watched the butchering. Staying quite still, just watching, all day, as the
hunters carved up the carcasses. The following day, as the hunters had just
about finished the work, the buffalo were still there watching. Around
midday, some buffalo began a long drawn out groaning type of sound that was
slowly picked up by the rest of the herd until it became a sustained rumble.
Hunters began to cry because they knew that sound for what it signified:
Grief.
There are other stories too, its just convenient not to pay too much
attention to the same. You might want to look at www.sheldrake.org.
Sheldrake
I'm happy to leave alone, not sure what to make of it, but interesting if
you're prepared to believe in miracles and trust personal experience. Who
makes the laws anyway? Sheldrake claims to have proved that animals have esp
and if you speak to some animal owners they will reply, "that's a surprise?"
Don't know what to make of it but at my age I'm no longer surprised at what
pops up in the universe.
Then there is Peter Singer, the Australian philosopher now at Princeton and
raising hell in his usual style. Yes, we have seriously under estimated
animal consciousness but I'm sheeting that home to an unfortunately
effective synergy between the Laplace idea of animals as machines and the
christian theology of humans, not animals, possessing souls. You will find
agreement with some of Singer's ideas.
So what? You worry about what we do to animals. We can't even control what
we do to each other. Anyway, Nature is without compassion, far more cruel
than we would like to believe. Nature is without care for its creatures.
Then again, Nature cannot be a deteminant of moral structures. The "natural
fallacy" concept of G E Moore, 1902, which seems to be largely overlooked on
both sides of the genetic debate these days. You have your ideas about what
is good and just. All of us do. I think all moral structures are dreams, the
way we would like things to be. Necessary as a guiding stars in our moral
universe perhaps, but we tend to have differing views of the sky. There is
no solution to that.
Re your metaphysical leanings, no comment. I have noted some things that
happen here and there suggestive of esp or whatever but that's all I've
done: noted. I don't regard it as that important either. It would not
surprise me but unlike many others I'm not prepared to claim to know what
all that is about. The universe is spooky, some say science can explain,
others say religion, others say ... . Nothing can explain it. Not important.
LSD usage:
Make sure maintain good Vitamin E levels prior to trip and post trip co
enzyme q10 or whatever its called. Avoid Vitamin C min 3 days before trip
because Vit C, contrary to the popular wisdom, is now being shown to have
nasty affects in inflammatory states. Acid, like ecstasy, induces serotonin
metabolism, which in turn generates super anions. These, in conjunction with
nitric oxide, generated by glutamingeric activity, will, with super anions,
become peroxynitrate, which does really nasty things to cells. Hence long
term abuse of ecstasy killing all those serotongernic cells. Sustained
excessive activity or even short but very intense bursts of serotonin
metabolism can overwhelm our natural defences, so post trip also have good
carbohydrate based meals to boost serotonin synthesis back up, as the
oxidants created will also destroy tryosine hydroxlase, necessary for
synthesis. Good fish meal too(deep sea, lots of oil), or get some good fatty
acids to help limit the damage.
Last time I tried acid was nearly a decade ago, though only a few times.
Trouble used to be finding good quality but the thrill wears off pretty
quickly. Acid use demonstrates how fragile our consciousness of the world
is: it affects serotonin pathways. Significantly change one factor amongst
the multitudes in consciousness and for some people the world becomes a
miracle, though for me it just made it great fun to watch the fire.
"How wondrous this, how mysterious!
I carry fuel, I draw water."
Pang, possibly.
John H.