Dear Friends,<\/p>\n
I enjoy taking online classes related to mindfulness, meditation, and Buddhism. This fall, I took a course<\/a> based on Guy Armstrong’s book Emptiness:\u00a0A Practical Guide for Meditators<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the book and course, Guy talks about his experience of observing autopsies, which he did while a monk in Thailand. After the autopsies were finished, he was waiting for his bus to go back to the monastery, and he noticed, as people walked by,<\/p>\n The living and the dead were so alike. The difference I perceived was that with the living, there was some kind of light that shined out through the eyes. In the dead, that light had gone out. What was that light? It seemed to me that it had something to do with consciousness …. There was a brightness of knowing — the spark of conscious experience, joined with the body — that was present in the living and not present in the dead.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In the book, Guy suggests four reflections to try – “based on the two kinds of truth: conventional designation and a more fundamental reality.” Unfortunately, I can’t find any recordings or free versions of these reflections, but I’ll give a short summary of the reflections.<\/p>\n Reflection 1 is based on a friend’s story. We are invited to bring to mind a friend that you know well, feel affection for, and then recall details about that person’s life situation – current joys and struggles; family situation; health; livelihood; successes and failures; personality.<\/p>\n Guy offers:<\/p>\n Reflect until you’ve brought together a comprehensive portrait of this person.\u00a0Hold your friend and all this information charitably, without much judgment.\u00a0Notice that a large part of what you\u2019ve brought to mind is around the person\u2019s\u00a0past and future. This is the “conventional” view of your friend.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Then releasing this image and clearing the mind, one can begin Reflection 2, which is based on the friend in the moment. We imagine meeting this friend for the first time, and perceive them in the present moment as only body plus consciousness. He calls this the “fundamental” view. “It doesn\u2019t depend on fabrications of memory or imagination,\u00a0which are subject to many whims and vagaries.” Then he asks, “Does it feel different to see\u00a0her in this way?”<\/p>\n Then following this second reflection, Guy invites us to notice:<\/p>\n Which reflection gave a lighter, freer, less constricted feeling\u00a0about your friend? In which view was your friend freer to feel, move, breathe,\u00a0change? Was it the usual way, the conventional way, with the additions of past\u00a0and future, with prior associations and conclusions? Or was it the more fundamental,\u00a0with your friend seen in her basic nature of body and consciousness? The\u00a0conventional view sees in terms of a being with an assumed personality based on\u00a0a continuing existence over time with past and future. The more fundamental\u00a0view, … is seeing in terms of the aggregates\u00a0as they are in the present moment. We are not trying to ignore your friend’s\u00a0thoughts and feelings, but by framing it in this way, you can see these as impermanent\u00a0and lighter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Then for reflections 3 and 4, you repeat this process, but with yourself as the subject.<\/p>\n I’ll confess – while on an intellectual basis, I get what Guy is trying to have us see, I find, in an experiential way, this set of reflections doesn’t work for me. However, I know from discussions I’ve had with others who took this class, they found these reflections useful. I’d be interested in hearing what you notice, if you try this out.<\/p>\n Guy concludes his chapter with this distinction:<\/p>\n The conventional view of a human being as a single entity continuing unchanged\u00a0over time does not hold up in the light of impermanence and death. …<\/p>\n We don’t want to hold the fundamental, or ultimate, view as superior or the\u00a0conventional view as inferior. We need them both. The conventional view is useful\u00a0in the realm of society, work, and relationships. The problem comes when we\u00a0think that it tells the whole truth. It doesn’t. The ultimate view tells the rest of\u00a0the truth, and it is the discovery of this “other half,” we might say, that frees us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A more poetic reflection on death comes from Mary Oliver… When Death Comes<\/a>, which someone made into a video: I like Mary’s encouragement:<\/p>\n When it’s over, I want to say all my life May these reflection inspire you to amazement.<\/p>\n With warm wishes, Dear Friends, I enjoy taking online classes related to mindfulness, meditation, and Buddhism. This fall, I took a course based on Guy Armstrong’s book Emptiness:\u00a0A Practical Guide for Meditators. In the book and course, Guy talks about his experience of observing autopsies, which he did while a monk in Thailand. After the autopsies were finished, he was waiting\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[102],"tags":[128,125,106,22,17,129],"class_list":["post-341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jan-2018","tag-consciousness","tag-death","tag-first-foundation","tag-guy-armstrong","tag-mary-oliver","tag-vinnaa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":976,"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions\/976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=IhkWTLMhk2A<\/a><\/p>\n
\nI was a bride married to amazement.
\nI was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nAndrea<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"