If anybody would like to try this and provide feedback I’d be delighted to hear from you.

BASIC INSTRUCTIONS:

Initially, you’re being asked to listen with “narrow” attention (rigid, selective attention, as Culadasa might put it) to the piano melody alone, trying to push away everything else (kind of the way people often do breath…[Read more]

waving at you waving being a wavicle intermingling, inter-playing, smiling, laughing inseparably with all other waves oceaning/Being together…….

This may be different from what you’re looking for – I’ve used it since 1985 and have found it profoundly useful in many contexts. I have used it as the main means of recovering from severe back spasms; as a means of learning to transition from waking into a dream with full awareness, to fall asleep when having a bout of insomnia, and…[Read more]

No problem at all. Sam’s a bright guy, and besides, it’s always quite valuable to examine views that are different from the ones we hold. I make a point of reading right wing and left wing views online, and taking Julie’s suggestion, if you can see the aggregates that make up the empty views, it makes for a good foundation for equanimity,…[Read more]

Sam Harris believes that a yogi sitting in a cave, as he describes it, doesn’t have any insight about anything but his own mind.

It’s this…[Read more]

It could…[Read more]

Distinguishable, but not separate, not “inherently existent.”

Distinguishable in the same way an apple can be distinguished from an orange, without in any way compromising or negating the essential unity (but not uniformity!) of all.

****

I did think…[Read more]

I saw your post and initially wasn’t sure what I could say that would be helpful, without knowing more about you and your practice. However, this just occurred to me and perhaps it could help.

I did my doctoral dissertation on mindfulness and pain reduction. The way it originated was in doing work with pain patients in the mid…[Read more]

The question “Do you think your chair is conscious?” appears to me – if I understand the context correctly – to be based on the kind of perceptions and assumptions about the world, about chairs, and about consciousness that are taken for granted in the earlier stages.

If you read in…[Read more]

just wanted to stop by to update you on attention/awareness/brain info.

I’ve been trying to be very careful not to fall into the “brain localization” fallacy in an e-course on mindfulness and the brain I’ve been working on. In fact, many of you may be aware that Culadasa, in the endnotes to “Mind Illuminted,” does NOT identify…[Read more]

I’ve used this exercise for many years to help with falling asleep. It may be similar to what Blake describes, as it involves attending to body sensations.

It may be different for many people, but something particularly interesting I find with it is I can predict with some precision the point at which I’m beg…[Read more]

I was listening to this and thinking that it might be an interesting way to experience the distinction between attention and awareness. There is a steady sound in this (admittedly not profound or deeply artistic) music – often referred to as a drone – and there are changing melody notes occ…[Read more]

It sounds to me like both folks are saying, “don’t be concerned for now about philosophic questions.” This is different from self-doubt. Do you really need to resolve this issue in order to motivate you to practice? If so, you might want to save that for an in-depth analytic meditation.

I’d also suggest if you possibly can, find…[Read more]

There Is No Left Brain/Right Brain Divide

Just so you don’t lose heart in McGilchrist’s work, virtually every idea in Kosslyn’s 2013 article is painstakingly dealt with in…[Read more]

There Is No Left Brain/Right Brain Divide

Well, I tend to write a lot, so you both may regret asking me this question:>)) Here is something I just “jotted down” quickly…[Read more]

Jan (my wife) and I are developing an e-course on meditation and the brain. We came across Culadasa’s excellent book recently. We’re particularly taken with his distinction between selective attention and peripheral…[Read more]

I’ve only found in the last several years that “relaxing” in relation to them is a powerful aid to focusing the mind.…[Read more]

Yes, I agree that mindfulness and lucid dreaming are very strongly correlated. I always have more lucid dreams when I’ve gone on retreat, or when my sittings (and daily mindfulness) have been more concentrated.

False awakenings are often very funny. I remember once dreaming I…[Read more]