Selections on 'meditation, practices'

December 2009

A LIVING GEM FROM RAMESH (previously unpublished)

Daily Living Made Simple

1. In any given situation, do whatever you feel you should do. Whatever you actually do would be based entirely on two factors which God made -- your genes and your conditioning. Therefore, whatever you do would be precisely what God expected you to do. There cannot be any sin for which you need to fear God.

2. Whatever happens after you have done what you felt like doing, would be according to God's Will/Cosmic Law. Whatever happens and the consequences -- for better or worse -- will have to be accepted by you; you have no choices.

3. At any time, do not judge anyone as good or bad, neither yourself nor the other; because no one, neither the sage nor the psychopath, does anything: everything happens according to God's Will/Cosmic Law.

November 2005

March 2009

A LIVING GEM FROM RAMESH (previously unpublished)

Intuitive understanding may or may not give one supernormal powers which function to the extent that they are not forcefully willed or claimed, for the truly awakened ones know that their real siddhi is everything going on in the universe. On the other hand, siddhi, such as telepathy and clairvoyance, may be cultivated by special disciplines just as exercises are used for physical hygiene. But however far such disciplines may be pursued they do not lead to prajna, but tend rather to obstruct it by encouraging the sort of egocentricity which is often noticed in great athletes and actors.

Courage in living, the grace in living, spontaneous living comes naturally from prajna - the intuitive realization of being one with all that exists.

1989

April 2006

A LIVING GEM FROM RAMESH (previously unpublished)

Ramana Maharshi generally advocated the practice of self-attention or awareness of the I-thought, which begins as a mental activity, but as it progresses naturally, the thought 'I' gives way to 'subjectively experienced' feeling of 'I'. And when this feeling ceases to identify with thoughts and objects, there comes about an effortless awareness of being in which no personal effort is concerned. The final effect happens - the transformation is complete - when the 'me' thought never arises again.

Hermosa Beach, 6 January 2005

Webcast Transcript Excerpt

...Does it help the world as a whole to instead of talking about being in the front lines fighting the systems or is it better to be in meditation and being in bliss?

Wayne: Depends on who you ask!

It’s better for me but I don’t know about the world. Is it the vibration that is going to make the difference in how the world is?

Wayne: I have absolutely no capacity to foretell the future, unfortunately. [Laughter] What I’m sort of present with, is what’s happening, What Is. And what is is that we’ve got people fighting on all fronts, violently, passionately, in a variety of ways, and energetically And then we have others who are passive, who are very expansive, who are very open, in a state of bliss. And both exist, you see, as part of the functioning of the universe, part of what is. The creation, of god’s creation if you will.

So could you say that god expresses through all of us, even those of that are fighting as well as those of us who are in meditative bliss.

Wayne: Absolutely. That’s the model here. That Consciousness or God or whatever - there is only One. There is only One. And thus all of the permutations of the Oneness are still the Oneness. So the fighting, ugly, monster is as much the Oneness as the beatific saint whose very presence inspires love and generosity in the hearts of all who perceive him or her.

So what do you make of that?

Wayne: I don’t know, what do you make of it? [Laughter]

It just includes everything I guess, but how come those of us who are peaceful get to be that way and those of us who are in hell you know and anger and what have you, in resentment, hate…

Wayne: Do you want me to answer that question? Do you want the Christian answer, the Buddhist answer, do you want the Jewish answer, do you want the Hindu answer? I mean we’ve got the karmic answer, we’ve got the original sin answer - we’ve got lots of answers for that particular question of why things are as they are. Why there’s apparent imbalance in the spread of wealth, goods, generosity, kindness. I mean you look around - it’s not evenly distributed. [Laughter]

So I don’t even know what the question is.

Wayne: Well the essential question is why are things as they are? Why is it this way? And you pick out why is this this way, why is that this way. And over the millennia, those questions are not unique to you. They’ve been asked before. [Laughter]

And so over the millennium there have come answers. I mean people go and they say you’re the wise guy, we’ve put you up here in this house and you know put stained glass in the windows and we feed you and take care of you, now give us some answers, or we’ll find somebody else who will basically, and so to keep his job the guy says, OK this is why… [Laughter]

And over time, these answers, the good ones, get turned into religions. So all that said, there’s no shortage of those answers for you. You see. But really what we’re dealing with here is simply pointing to What Is, saying What Is is the manifestation of the Source Full stop.

But the Source has to go through filters in each individual who whatever they’re conditioning was, is…

Wayne: Yes.

The energy that comes through them either comes out as anger or peace…

Wayne: Yes...

November 2004

Hello my loves,

When I started my spiritual quest - nineteen years ago or so - I got various books on meditation and began doing Tai Chi and such. I even cobbled together my own meditation. Basically, what I did was get up about 6:30 in the morning and sit quietly on the floor, cross-legged with my back up against a straight surface. I would watch my breath exit the tip of my nose, and I had a mantra that I went through - it was about 10 or 12 words. Each time I went through it I dropped a word, then when I got down to one word I went back up by adding a word on each repetition. I did this most mornings.

One morning I was sitting in meditation and all of a sudden an incredible rush of energy ran right up my spine and out the top of my head. My entire being flooded out the top of my head and started jetting out into the universe. I was sitting there thinking, "Oh, this is good! This is really good!" (I'd done enough drugs in the past to know what to do with an experience like this, so I went with it. ) My whole being was expanding out the top of my head and merging with the universe. There was a continuous rush. It was absolutely extraordinary. It was so amazing! I never had a drug experience this good. Compared to any of the psychedelics I had ever done, this was the ultimate! Wow!

After fifteen or twenty minutes, it all settled back down and I was sitting there thinking, "This meditation stuff is great!" So, the next morning I get up at about 6:10, (I figured it wouldn’t hurt to start twenty minutes early) I sit back down, settle into the same position and start the mantra. "Okay, here we go!" I said, urging the energy to begin its movement up my spine. No luck. Every day, for weeks, I was back in that exact same position and the energy-up-the-spine experience never came back.

I had a similar experience playing golf. I played a hundred and twenty rounds of golf that were crap. Then one day I played six holes in which the ball went precisely where I was aiming, it rolled to the exact spot it was supposed to; everything was perfect. Of course then I started thinking, "What did I just do to make that happen?" and my game went back to crap again.

I no longer feel compelled to sit in formal meditation or to swing a golf club. I am truly blessed.

With love,

Wayne

A LIVING GEM FROM RAMESH (previously unpublished)

The only understanding is that there is no entity to be enlightened by any doctrine, and the only enlightenment is the understanding that there is no entity to be enlightened. Without this understanding, any kind of teaching or practice would only reinforce the illusion of such an entity.

Hermosa Beach, 27 September 2004

Webcast Transcript Excerpt

...Wayne: Have you been interested in this subject for a long time?

Yes. Quite a long time. I’ve found it quite fascinating, from what my focus has been of a lot of Zen meditation, to be reading people who are saying that [practice] actually is keeping it at a distance from you.

Wayne: I’m familiar with that argument or discussion. I’m not enamored with it. To my mind, and this is purely my opinion, any practice – be it Zen practice or inquiry practice – happens as part of the functioning of Totality. The observation of course is that the ego may well claim that happening and become inflated by it: “I’m a Zen student. I can sit twelve hours, while people who are hitting me with stick, and not flinch. Look at how spiritual I am.” That kind of ego involvement happens. Sure, you can point to that and say, see, this practice is producing a stronger ego and it is, in fact, the obstacle to greater understanding. But that, to my mind, is a very shortsighted vision, because if we expand the scope, we understand that happening – the happening of the meditation practice and the happening of ego becoming involved - are part of the same functioning of Totality. In another case the practice can “lead” to a very deep, humble understanding.

So, in all these spiritual circles the pendulum swings back and forth. It swings into some very heavily defined practices and those practices become the kind of fashion. And then the spiritual fashion pendulum swings back into, “Oh, all those things are crap; they block you from enlightenment. Our way of not doing anything, which is really doing 'not doing', is the way.” Essentially, it’s where you hit the swing of that arc as to what is currently in fashion.

Now you can stay in that community, out of the hustle and bustle of the people who are flitting from one spiritual teacher to another; that way you stay focused and the values of that community are rigidly maintained and you’re reinforced in whatever you’re doing. The same applies, of course, if you’re in the community of non-doers. They’ve all reinforced one another, as well: we’re not doing anything and our not doing anything is the true way of not being, and none of us exists and none of us exists together as this great group.

What we’re trying to do here is get beyond all of that, get beyond the swing of the spiritual fashion pendulum into a real look at what’s going on, at 'what is' - without dogma, without saying this is how it is and that one is dangerous and another creates problems or any of that nonsense. They are all tools. They are all part of 'what is'. They all happen. We get back to the basics: What is it that is functioning? What’s going on here...

Hermosa Beach, 14 August 2004

Webcast Transcript Excerpt

...Wayne: How long have you been meditating?

Seven years.

Wayne: So would you say that you’re spiritual interests are more physical and practical than they are intellectual?

Yes. That’s kind of the way it was presented to me. You can read about it all you want, but you’re going to have to actually try it and see.

Wayne: What would you say the benefits of these seven years of meditation have been for you?

Boy, that’s hard to assess, because there was so much going on when I started to meditate (as far as things were changing in my life) that I don’t know if I can pull apart that aspect of it and say what affect that had.

Wayne: So what did you do with it then, if after seven years you stopped the practice?

Well, I’ve taken some time off it recently; it became something I just do. I never looked at it as a goal-oriented thing, it was just 'do this'. I experimented with other things, but it’s always a thing that I did on a regular basis.

Wayne: You’re not doing it now?

No.

No. It feels like I should be sitting, but I just won’t do it. It got really difficult with the group that I sit with. We do these [meditations] for all night. I couldn’t seem to go through it. I miss it.

Wayne: So if you miss it, why do you think it is that you don’t do it?

I wish I had the answer for that. The work I’ve been doing for the past year (painting) is a lot more physically demanding than what I used to do. I was in the internet business for a long time. I’ve become older in the past few years and it’s harder to get up in the morning and do it – a lot harder. It’s more painful. If I sit at night, which I like doing as well, I notice that I’m having a much tougher time going to sleep. I’m more awake after I sit; it wasn’t working. I feel like I really should do it.

Wayne: Should is a very interesting word and a very interesting feeling as well: you should do something that you’re not doing. It might be worth investigating the nature of that sentence, “I should be doing something other than what I am doing” because it stems from a very interesting presumption, which is that you are the source of the doing in the first place. Without that presumption, should makes no sense. Should is only applicable to the situation if you have some creative input to the situation, by creative I mean that you, as a source of action, are responsible for creating this action.

It feels like the reverse. It feels more negative, like I’m saying no.

Wayne: Whether it’s positive or negative, it’s still doing. Whether it’s the source of the negation or the source of the assertion makes no difference. What we’re looking at is the presumption of being the source, the presumption that'I' am the one responsible for this. Now, there’s no doctrine here; we’re not saying that one thing or the other is true; we’re not about that at all. Rather, we are directing your attention to see what these assumptions you quite obviously hold are all about. I say quite obviously because when you articulate that you should be doing something, it only can stem out of one place - this presumption of being the author.

Go back to this presumption and look at it. See if, in fact, you are the source of the negation of the doing, see if that is true. Does the buck stop there? Or is this you – Tim - an instrument through which the 'not doing' happens? Is Tim’s aging, the fact that his body reacts that way, within Tim’s control? Is that something that Tim decided to do or is it something that the universe has brought forward into the mix? If it’s a universal influence – of time and space and age, of the constitution of the organization and the affects of the environment - where does Tim’s 'should' come from?

What’s making that happen is not Tim. You can see that these influences are outside of Tim’s control, yet they dictate the response - in this case, the negative response. In that seeing, perhaps comes some insight. Not necessarily, mind you, but perhaps...

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