rationalskepticism.org

nunnington wrote:

Little Idiot wrote:

nunnington wrote:

Little Idiot wrote:yup.yup.
yup.
Doesnt make it wrong tho'

I had an experience the other day which brought to me a very vivid indication of how a seeming normal 'real' or 'physical' experience was in fact a mind made trick, an 'imagination'.
I will try remember to post about it later.
(Actually thats the main reason I dropped in here, as well as to chuck a coconut).

We used to call it mind-fucking, which is a rather melodramatic phrase. In Zen, it's known sometimes as makyo, all the garbage which the mind throws up in order to distract you, some of it very beautiful and serene and profound - people can have staggering insights. But press on, through the clouds of ecstasy, or the barren wastes of emptiness, or the insights.

Yes indeed, the stuff thrown up to distract 'you' from the real task at hand.
How easily distracted we are! Oft times, this very bed of vice that is Rat Skep has served the purpose of distraction. You may say 'deliver us from evil' in a popular prayer, but 'deliver us from distraction' is just as important at some stages

If you dont mind, a couple of questions about your views, to compare to my own. So in your thinking or narative
Who or what is the protagonist of this distraction? I call this the lower-self, the ego-self.
Who or what is being distracted? I call that the attention, the point of awareness which 'I am' as in incarnate entity.
Why does one distract the other? In my narative, to keep the ego as the center of attention, as a master which it is not, rather than as subservient, which it should be.
What is the one being distracted from? Thats the big one, right? In my narative, to hide the fact of the proper relation between the lower self (normally regarded as 'me') and that to which it should be subservient. To use popular language to keep the ego as the king and ignore the soul which animates it. To use more accurate language to obscure the correct harmony of individual and trans-personal in which and from which the individual 'is'.

I like that a lot, and agree with most of it. In my meditation group, we've tended to call the distractions the product of the mind, which wants to stop the process, but that is really the ego-mind. And I agree that the ego resents its hegemony being threatened, and tries every trick in the book to hold onto it.

The big one - yes, the name doesn't really matter, does it? But I go with 'the I am', the Self, God, the soul, trans-personal I.
]
Your point about attention is very good - yes, meditation is simply that. Or just noticing.

There is a nice Zen story called the Ox and the Herdsman, where the herdsman gradually tames the ox, then realizes that both ox and herdsman are empty, and that they are the same. It has a set of pictures with it. That seems to map all the stages - first separation between self and world; then the gradual connecting of them; then the realization of total emptiness - neither I nor the world exist; finally, complete harmony in the One.

But of course, the ego rears its head again! Although a friend of mine, who nearly died, seemed to go into permanent satori, so it does happen very rarely. But for most of us, the ego is the grit in the oyster, producing the pearl.