Be sure to read the comments, especially my third one. It explains the white outs.
Arthur Zadonc Ph.D. is the Andrew Mellon professor of physics and interdisciplinary studies at Amherst College and is currently the director of the Academic Program of the Center for Contemplative mind, an organization of 1500 academics supporting the appropriate inclusion of contemplative practice in higher education. Dr. Zajonc is the former General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America, a cofounder of the Kira Institute, past President of the Lindisframe Association, and a senior program director at the Fetzer Institute. He has served as scientific coordinator and editor for several dialogues with the Dalai Lama: The New Physics and Cosmology, held in 1997 and published in 2004, and "The Nature of Matter, the Nature of Life" (2002) unpublished. He was also moderator for the 2003 MIT dialogue, published as the The Dalai Lama at MIT (2006). Dr. Zajonc is author of Catching the Light (1993, 1995), coauthor of The Quantum Challeng (2nd ed. 2005), and coeditor of Goethe's Way of Science (1998)
Jon Kabit Zinn, author of Coming to Our Senses and Arriving at Your Own Door, says this book ..." is a profound and masterful exposition of the calling, challenges, and above all, the immediate and harder-to-extract-but-worth-it gifts of meditative inquiry. Disciplining our unruly minds with marvelous exercises in attention and apperception that use all the senses and intelligences available to us, Arthur Zajonc employs his great skill as a teacher, his loving prose, and his razor-sharp intellect to guide us in the full dimensiality of our humanness, for ourselves and for others. A glistening gem of a book."
Sharleen wanted me to include this summary of some information from the book:
Contemplative Inquiry is a meditation technique that integrates our contemplative lives with our active lives. It is "the application of attentional breathing to one's research." One's research could be investigating a question or issue or task one needs to do or a relationship that needs healing.
Zajonc: "I have come to rely on contemplative inquiry as a trusted means of moving beyond brooding and intellectual analysis to what I experience as insights that bear with them the feel of truth and which also have proven fruitful in life. Most of the good I have done has its roots in contemplative reflection of this kind."
Zajonc talks about 8 steps in the path of Contemplative Inquiry:
Overview of the Path of Contemplative Inquiry
1. Enter through the portal of humility
2. Find the path of reverence
3. Cultivate an inner hygiene -- a state of well being (techniques such as Heart Math are helpful.
4. Birth the silent self. (not the social self, the "not I" (Jiminex a poet), the No-Self (Buddha), the Christ in
me (St. Paul.).
5. Meditation - "Cognitive breathing" between focused and open attention
The 4 part bell meditation is a meditation that demonstrates going between focused and open
attention. In Contemplative Inquiry, focused attention could be a word, an image, a sense, a question.
6. Integration
7. Journey Home
8. Gratitude
As a technical aside, the author of this website had some difficulty with the www.steinerbooks website below. It does not seem to allow copy and paste while working with the blogger website. Therefore the above summary is brief and does not explain all of the 8 steps. I suggest you go the website below and you can read about this book, and you can read the first chapter on the website, which Sharleen did include in our handouts. But do not try to copy any material from this website into another document as it contaminates your document with formatting that is not easily eradicated.. It apparently can interfere with your formatting in the document you are writing.
Sharleen wanted me to include this summary of some information from the book:
Contemplative Inquiry is a meditation technique that integrates our contemplative lives with our active lives. It is "the application of attentional breathing to one's research." One's research could be investigating a question or issue or task one needs to do or a relationship that needs healing.
Zajonc: "I have come to rely on contemplative inquiry as a trusted means of moving beyond brooding and intellectual analysis to what I experience as insights that bear with them the feel of truth and which also have proven fruitful in life. Most of the good I have done has its roots in contemplative reflection of this kind."
Zajonc talks about 8 steps in the path of Contemplative Inquiry:
Overview of the Path of Contemplative Inquiry
1. Enter through the portal of humility
2. Find the path of reverence
3. Cultivate an inner hygiene -- a state of well being (techniques such as Heart Math are helpful.
4. Birth the silent self. (not the social self, the "not I" (Jiminex a poet), the No-Self (Buddha), the Christ in
me (St. Paul.).
5. Meditation - "Cognitive breathing" between focused and open attention
The 4 part bell meditation is a meditation that demonstrates going between focused and open
attention. In Contemplative Inquiry, focused attention could be a word, an image, a sense, a question.
6. Integration
7. Journey Home
8. Gratitude
As a technical aside, the author of this website had some difficulty with the www.steinerbooks website below. It does not seem to allow copy and paste while working with the blogger website. Therefore the above summary is brief and does not explain all of the 8 steps. I suggest you go the website below and you can read about this book, and you can read the first chapter on the website, which Sharleen did include in our handouts. But do not try to copy any material from this website into another document as it contaminates your document with formatting that is not easily eradicated.. It apparently can interfere with your formatting in the document you are writing.
I
I particularly liked this tree. It was drawn after a research questionnaire showed all of these practices. it is not meant to be inclusive but it certainly includes millenia of spiritual practices that we all have heard about and maybe tried ourselves.
Sharleen gave us a website to access also: www.contemplativemind.org/practices/index/html. I checked it out and it is quite good.
Sharleen had us practice the bell meditation as available on a CD for guided meditation. Anyone who wants a copy of this CD, I am sure can obtain it from Sharleen. Also, the guided meditation is available at the link below. During this meditation, a bell is struck three times and the meditators are asked to concentrate strongly on the sound of the bell, how it feels, how it changes tone and intensity, to follow its exact change moment by moment. Then the meditators are asked to now do the exact same contemplation of the bell sounds without the bell being sounded. Finally the meditators are asked to now meditate without thinking of the bell sound, and finally meditate by allowing whatever arises to come into awareness.
Sharleen gave us a website to access also: www.contemplativemind.org/practices/index/html. I checked it out and it is quite good.
Sharleen had us practice the bell meditation as available on a CD for guided meditation. Anyone who wants a copy of this CD, I am sure can obtain it from Sharleen. Also, the guided meditation is available at the link below. During this meditation, a bell is struck three times and the meditators are asked to concentrate strongly on the sound of the bell, how it feels, how it changes tone and intensity, to follow its exact change moment by moment. Then the meditators are asked to now do the exact same contemplation of the bell sounds without the bell being sounded. Finally the meditators are asked to now meditate without thinking of the bell sound, and finally meditate by allowing whatever arises to come into awareness.
http://blog.onbeing.org/post/724957186/bell-sound-meditation-shubha-bala-associate
Our group had no difficulty discussing the topic of meditation. Some expressed frustration that they have difficulty stopping the "monkey mind" and not getting distracted. Others asked us not to criminalize distraction during meditation. Paul says: "Breath is practice. If you get distracted, then come back to breath. This is like daily life. This is OK. The only error you can make is to not meditate at all." The important thing about meditation is to do it. It is also important to have a meditative community.
Our group had no difficulty discussing the topic of meditation. Some expressed frustration that they have difficulty stopping the "monkey mind" and not getting distracted. Others asked us not to criminalize distraction during meditation. Paul says: "Breath is practice. If you get distracted, then come back to breath. This is like daily life. This is OK. The only error you can make is to not meditate at all." The important thing about meditation is to do it. It is also important to have a meditative community.
Our group
One member said he felt good if he could get 15 - 20 seconds where his thoughts are not all over the place. Others told us that even if we can grab a second of awareness of the moment, the so called sweet spot, this is good. That may be all we can achieve, but we must achieve these seconds as often as we can. Actually the idea of improving at meditation can even be a distraction.
One member said he felt good if he could get 15 - 20 seconds where his thoughts are not all over the place. Others told us that even if we can grab a second of awareness of the moment, the so called sweet spot, this is good. That may be all we can achieve, but we must achieve these seconds as often as we can. Actually the idea of improving at meditation can even be a distraction.
Todd told us that his study of self analysis through meditation advised to look closely at the thought just before the urge to think of something else or to get up and move around, to give up on the concentration. In that moment before the "monkey mind" takes over, there is "gold". There may be something that you need to know about yourself in that exact moment. Todd says he participated in a group - about 6 people - who would meditate each day at the same time . Then they would communicate with each other about what happened in the session. This communication might have been a phone call or an email. It might be as short as just a sentence of one or two thoughts.He said there were 14 rules for this meditation group but the most important one was to let go of blame and guilt. You must let go of comparisons. Comparison is a cancer to the soul. It was sometimes quite amazing at what was accomplished in this group.
One member interjected that she is reading a book about Wendy Wasserstein who wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning play The Heidi Chronicles in 1988, -- a biography, I believe, by Julie Salamon. It deals particularly with family dynamics and especially Wendy's relationship with her mother. It also brings out some of the issues in life that we have talked about here today.
Here is a poem that one member enjoyed: It is a version found written on the wall in Mother Teresa's home for children in Calcutta: and it is attributed to Mother Teresa.
People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
Sharleen closed with a very appropriate ending: Psalm 131: as translated by Stephen Mitchell from his book, The Enlightened Heart.
Lord, my mind is not noisy with desires,
and my heart has satisfied its longing.
I do not care about religion
or anything that is not you.
I have soothed and quieted my soul,
like a child at its mother's breast.
My soul is as peaceful as a child
sleeping in its mother's arms.
And of course, the last words from Eric on this date.
"Not who has the last word or thought, but who had the last non-thought."
3 comments:
Correction:
Zajonc, the author of Contemplative Inquiry, does not give 14 rules for meditation. It was Todd who said that there were 14 rules for the group he was in that shared meditation experiences.
I like Stephen Mitchell's translation of Psalm 131 better (from The Enlightened Heart).
Lord, my mind is not noisy with desires,
and my heart has satisfied its longing.
I do not care about relgion
or anything that is not you.
I have soothed and quieted my soul,
like a child at its mother's breast.
My soul is as peaceful as a child
sleeping in its mother's arms.
In trying to copy some information from the www.steinerbooks site into this blog, some formatting orders have contaminated my blog. They are responsible for the white outs above. I have worked to get these out, but they are spreading down the blog. So I will have to leave these white outs in the body of the blog. Instead I have typed the text that was whited out below. Sorry for this inconvenience. Sharleen's above corrections have been made, however.
"Our group had no difficulty discussing the topic of meditation. Some expressed frustration that they have difficulty stopping the "monkey mind" and not getting distracted. Others asked us not to criminalize distraction during meditation. Paul says: "Breath is practice. If you get distracted, then come back to breath. This is like daily life. This is OK. The only error you can make is to not meditate at all." The important thing about meditation is to do it. It is also important to have a meditative community.
"One member said he felt good if he could get 15-20 seconds where his thoughts are not all over the place. Others told us that even if we can grab a second of awareness of the moment, the so called sweet spot, this is good. That may be all we can achieve, but we must achieve these seconds as often as we can. Actually the idea of improving at meditation can even be a distraction.
"Todd told us that his study of self analysis through meditation advised to look closely at the thought just before the urge to think of something else or to get up and move around, to give up on the concentration. In that moment before the "monkey mind" takes over, there is "gold". There may be something that you need to know about yourself in that exact moment. Todd says he participated in a group -- about 6 people -- who would meditate each day at the same time. Then they would communicate with each other about what happened in the session. This communication might have been a phone call or an email. It might be as short as jut a sentence of one or two thoughts. There were about 14 rules for this meditation but the most important one was to not hold on to blame or guilt of any kind. You must let go of comparisons also. Comparisons are the cancer of the soul. It was sometimes quite amazing what could be accomplished in such a group."
Now proceed with the next paragraph, starting "One member....
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