You are what you think

Philosophy

#Consume

• Perfection not required
• Begin Again
• Important truth that most people don't know/realize
• Take the day a moment at a time. No need to rush into it, to rush to the next moment. The day will arrive anyway all on its own.
• Meditation is a fundamentally empirical exercise. > Asks; What is the mind like when it is doing nothing but noticing whatever is in the > stream of consciousness? > What is it like right now?
• We are our habitual thoughts
• Being mindful of thinking and emotion is the gateway to psychological well-being. (via Sam Harris)
• "Where is the self if every sign of it is appearing in consciousness?" (via waking up) > Self is supposed to be the thing that is conscious. However only sign of the self is in consciousness.
• Emotion is the enemy, do whatever you can to take emotion out of the equation.

• Mind as an enemy

  > Used to thinking of our minds as our allies. However in reality, > minds are prone to laziness/want to believe a good story/dont > want to be challenged/ etc It is reason that is our ally and is > needed to keep our minds in check/unbiased.

• "Fear is the bodies preparation for action.

  > Fear does things behind the scenes to get you physically ready. > Knowing that this is happening and feeling it work, can help > prepare the mind, prevent it from startling" (From Psychology of > the fighting man)

• Can satiate desire by thinking-about or being-aware-of desire. Don't necessarily have to indulge the desire.

• How do you know you're not a brain in a vat?

  > Turns outs, you are a brain in a vat! Everything you are, think, > see, feel is electrical signals. - Elon Musk

• Notice your emotions, dont necessarily act on them. (EQ)
• Practicing mediation has the intention to be happier and to be better placed to make others happier. To suffer less and to be a better placed to let other suffer less.

• The goal (system) of mediation is Wisdom.

  > The wisdom that comes from recognizing how things already are in > each moment. From stepping out of the fantasy life born of having > a mind that is constantly/perpetually distracted.

  • Why meditate?

    > "If you want to understand your mind, simply sit down and observe > it". Simple, no rituals/ceremonies, nothing to join. > Understanding ourselves is possible. Meditation is a pragmatic > methodology for doing it. In meditating, we begin to see what > creates suffering in ourselves and what brings greater happiness > and peace. When we see that we can make wiser choices. As we > make wiser choices we become happier; as we become happier we > make wiser choices. Leads to a spiral of greater fulfilment and > ease.

• What is enlightenment?

  > Is the mind free from the patterns/forces that cause suffering ? > Two forms/options: Are the patterns/forces uprooted ? Or, in the > moment of their arising are the patterns/forces seen through?

• Why would one want to meditate ?

  > Mind is the basis for everything you experience in life, for any > contribution you can make to others. Given this it makes sense > to train it. (We know what it is like to have an untrained mind). > An untrained mind allows us to be unhappy despite things being > about as good as they can possibly be. Even when everything is > fine many of us are consumed by stress. Most of our time is spent > thinking of things we need/want to do, or wish we hadn't done. > We spend very little time truly content and focused on the > present. Because of this we often fail to really connect with > people around us. Understanding our minds through meditation is > the best way to correct this. Spend most of our lives seeking to > Become Happy. However we can only truly Be Happy in the present. > Very few of us can come to rest in the present and experience the > peace and fulfillment available there. The luckiest people in > the world still live on the treadmill. They reach their goals > only to find each was a kind of mirage. Getting what you want > out of life is not quite good enough. Conversely, its also true > that you can be happy in an emergency. It is a fact of the human > mind that genuine well-being is available even in periods of > intense physical stress. Meditation (paying closer attention to > the nature of your own mind) is the most direct way to discover > that.

• Why use an App to meditate ? Is using an App a cop out ?

  > Some can make progress in silence (Rare.) > There is an enormous difference between having good and bad (or no) information. > Even professional athletes have coaches and trainers. > Even experts can continually refine their practice.

• "Important to find the profound in the ordinary" - waking up

  > Seems to be what "enlightened" people have found. > Enjoy/Marvel at the moment for what it is, NOW.

• Meditation is the art of realizing your are already fulfilled before you do/chase the next thing.

• Moods:

  > We tend to coarse grain how we feel ow what our moods are. In > reality things are constantly changing. Noticing that can help > break-up the apparent coarse graining. The coarse graining is > not accurate and can lead to suffering.

• Two ways mind-fullness greatly improves your life.

  > -) Give you space to reflect if something or some action is worth > doing. If the results of some action are likely to be good for > you or good for the world. It can allow for some wisdom to emerge > that considers the big picture.

  > -) It can make even unavoidable and unpleasant experiences the > source of psychological freedom. By paying attention to you > resistance and aversion you can watch these states of mind unravel > and disappear.

• Only way to live without regret is to pay attention.

• Think about what you are going to do:

  > Necessary and Enjoyable ? –> Do it > Unnecessary ? -> Dont do it. > Necessary and Unenjoyable ? -> Use as a source of meditation. Feel aversion.

• Two Steps to having a good life:

  > 1) Be a good person (Be the good) > 2) Pay attention

• Accept life as it is. Do this whenever you can. The next moment is as good a time as you are likely to get.

• Mediation is quite unlike not meditating.

  > Revolutionary thing to do. To be aware of liking and not liking an > experience is a separable concept of the experience. Need not > always, in every case, be taken in by it (the liking or not > liking). This is a remarkable insight into the nature of > consciousness. Mindfulness can shown that which is away of > unpleasant sensation is the same and feels the same as that which > is aware of pleasant sensation. There really is a kind of > equanimity to consciousness, which is liberating.

• Goal of mediation: (if there is a goal)

  > Is to give up the automatic struggle and acquire the ability to leave things as they are.

• Mediation is not something your doing. Its something your ceasing to do.

  > Your ceasing to be distracted by thought. Its acually not an inwardness, but an openness. Open to the world by paying attention.

• Its important to make a freind of your mind.

  > Its really all you have. Got to know it for whats it is: An open space where things (sensations/thoughts/feelings) appear.

• Our minds evolved to communicate with others and to guide our actions

  > (our actions mainly with regards to spawning) Ended up with minds that are fragmented and constantly chasing in the near-term things that are net-negative in the long-term. Mindfulness is a cure. Most of our thinking is pointless or actively harmful. This thinking is often born of anxiety, envy and self-judgment and it perpetuates those negative, harmful thoughts and states of mind. Mindfulness allows you to experience life in the present, without ruminating on what happened, what should of happened, almost happened or what might happen next. Mindfulness is directly connected to happiness. It allows you to pay attention to what actually matters. What skill is more important that that ?

• Our only contact with reality (anything) is via our minds. In a sense all we have is our minds and our consciousness. Makes sense to put in the time to understand our mind and to know "how to use it".
• Be mindful of moments when you disappoint yourself or others. Recognize it and apologize (to yourself and to those you disappoint) immediately if necessary. Immediately forgive yourself and begin again.
• Meditation is the art of recognizing again and again and again that you are not who you think you are. (Its that simple)
• You are not having an experience, you are an experience. Recognizing that is Meditation.
• DFW This is water The trick is keeping the truth up front in daily conscious". Learning how to think really means being aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.
• Self knowledge is the beginning of self-improvement (Baltasar)
• Our whole life if built of a number of primary instincts and impulses. Only that which is in some way connected with these (instincts and impulses) appear to us desirable or important. There is nothing (call it "reason" or "virtue") that can be outside these first movers (Russell)

Point of Meditation:

• What really matters is life outside of deliberte/dedicated meditation. This is where we spend most of our time. The goal is to be able to puncuate our normal experience with moments where we cut through our distraction/thinking to see they true character of experince. Dedicated practice helps us know that we are cutting through effectively. It doesnt actually do it for us in the moment.

• The only thing that counts with meditation is if you are actually able to pay attention in the present moment and see consciousness as it is. Nothing else really matters in the end.
• "You are not this next thought" - Sam Harris
• Practice to the point that you can see in this moment that you are already free. (What matters is this moment now in your life).
• Another aspect of meditation: Clear comprehension of what youre doing and why.
• This moment is the onlly place our life appears and it can only be enjoyed right now.
• Notice when rushing. Feeling of tension, take a breath, be mindful of situation and relax. (Memento Mori)
• Be mindful of comparing yourself to otherse (Both and bad comparisons). This tends to cause unneeded suffering. Ass you become mindful of it, you stop doing it.
• Meditation is the essence of everything else that makes life worth living.
• Meditation is just the act of noticing that every experince comes out of nothing and returns back into nothing, and you are always free to recognize that.
• To seek happiness in all the usual ways is to overlook it now.

Waking up

• The goal of waking up is to understand the nature of your mind and to bring greater freedom in your life.
• The purpose is to radically transform the sense of what life is about.
• Role of meditation:
  • Truly wake up from the unhealthy dream you call your life.
  • Radically transform your sense of who/what you are
  • Have fundamental insights into the nature of your mind.
• When you really learn to meditate you discover that you dont have the problem you thought you had. The part of reality that is outside your mind isnt something that you come into direct contact with. This indicates how important your mind is in determining the nature of your experinces. Your mind is the source and substance of all your experinces. Realizing this is empowering.
• Waking up is about confronting some of the deepest questions in human life:
  • How can we be truly happy when alll that we experince quickly fades and disappears ? When every desire we satisfy, or goal we achieve, reveals itself to be a kind of mirage ? (You never quite arrive)
  • What is the connection between being happier and genuinely fullfilled and being a good person ?
  • How good could human life become if we get our heads screwed on straight? (How many of the worlds probllems be solved by each one of us becoming better people individually? )
  • What is the connection between seeing reality clearly and being free psycologically ?
  • How is human suffering related to not understanding what is true about the nature of our minds?

• Skillful management of attention is the key to improving virtually every aspect of your experience. – Cal Newport (Deepwork)
• Notice thoughts:
  • Be aware of when you notice them. (eg: right away / During / Afterwards )
  • Are the thoughts skillful or un-skillful ? Unskillful: Remind yourself of that -> Be extra diligent Skillful: Be aware they are arising
  • What you continually think about conditions the mind. (Important to know what you're thinking about and to train the mind to think wholesome thoughts) wholesome = will lead to happiness
  • This practice should be active/dynamic.
  • Thoughts are slippery, low-impact events unlike sounds or sensations. Hard to even notice when they are arising.

• Importance of Recognizing Impermanence
  • "Awareness is not enough" Awareness is critcial to being able to investigatie the impermanent nature of everything.
  • "Things Change" - We know it intellectually, need to use mindfulness to know it in the moment.
  • Direct path to enlightenment when we know impermanence the mind is settled, when the mind is settled it does not cling, when it does not cling, it doesnt suffer.

Discernment:

• Relax, but dont be casual
• Awareness and discernment are crucial
• Not enough to be aware, have to know what your doing is
  • wholesome (= will lead to happiness)
  • approprate (= will be effective in the moment) (Be aware of the consequences of your action (to you and others)
• The right setting for enlightenment is when you are resting in awareness, avoid the trappings of the senses
• Need to approach the practice with a sense of humor.

• The cutting edge of this instant right here and now is always nothing less that the totality of everything there is. -Zen and MM
• Joseph Goldstein on "The end of craving"
  • Achieved is the end of craving. (ie: a mind free of envy/desire is enlightened)
  • Possibility and Practice of the end of craving, IN THE MOMENT and FOR THE MOMENT.
  • Can we let go of craving for a moment ? Right now ?
  • Practice teh recognition of the free quality of mind for short moment, many times
    • Can pratice the end of craving in the same way (short moments, many time)
  • Craving (or wanting/desire) obscures the nature openness (or ease/clarity) of mind.
  • When mind free of craving, can experience (for these moments) the taste of peace/freedom.
  • Need to recognize desire in the mind. Loot at what that quality of mind "looks like".
  • When the wanting goes away, watch how it feels in the mind when the craving is gone. (Should be obvious, the Dukka of wanting. The ease of not wanting.)
  • Explore the nature of desire:
    • Desire is a powerful habit of mind. Has tremendous consequences.
  • Explore means of feeling ourselves. 3 feilds of desire
    • 1) Sense pleasures (our culture fetish-sizes this craving) This is a challenge: Desires so familiar to us that they become invisible. Need careful attention.
    • 2) Craving as expectation
  • Craving is a type of expectation. –> A Huge hinderence!
  • Expectations always bring agitation (Hope and Fear)
  • Dont confuse expectation with aspiration!
    • expectation is a trap (this happens a lot)
    • aspiration is wise
  • Desires and expectataion are a hindernce to concentration (they dont even deliver on the promise of happiness)
  • Pleasant feelings are impermant. So will chase others, then others, then our life is at an end.
  • Although get caught in waking mind, we know not the path to fulfillment.
  • How much of our lives (How many of our choices) do we dedicate to this endless pursuit ? -> The habit is strong, so need to be active in the investigation of this.
  • Need an active interest in how our lives are unfolding.

  • 2nd kind of craving: (Goes deeper)

    • Basic urge/desire for continued existance. Craving for becoming.
    • See it when we are lost in "Planning mind"
    • Notice how oftern you get lost in the mind state of some future self.

    Goal: Not reliving the past, not hoping to be in the future, instead w/insight see each arising state.

    • This is a radically diffferent way of engaging with the world.
    • Look directly at what your experince is of time. Take note of how often the mind is in the past, or the future.
    • What is our experinece of the past? => Though + concept (past) as if it were reality.
    • We only experince the past (or future) as a thought in the present.
      • Recognizing this is so liberating. (Pay attention to this! Its not difficult)
    • Then, can go even further… "Let fo of the past, future AND THE PRESENT and cross over to the further shore"
    • How do you let do of the present ? -> Dont fixate on it. The notion of the present is a concept.

    • "In order to mind" when there is a leaning into the future:

      When this is going on we are forgetting that liberation comes not from some new experince, but from letting go.

      Not wanting, craving.

    • You are not practicing for some experince. We are actually practicing to let go. Freedom comes from the end of craving. (Need to hear this a million times)
    • Our habit of craving form the sense pleasures is "automatically" carried over to meditation (Huge trap!)
  • 3rd kind of craving: "Craving for non-existance"
    • Wanting to get rid of experince.
    • All of these forms of craving are rooted in the sense of self. (Not there in the 1st place)
  • How to free ourseles from this powerful force of craving that plays out in all these ways?
  • Can get very immediate taste of freedome: See impermance -> (leads to) -> Disenchantment –> (leads to) –> Dispassion –> –> Mind being liberated. Disenchantment: free of enchanment by the flow of experience Dispassion: Lack of craving. Movement back into peace.
  • One way to practice: Feel flow if impermance/ movement / changing experince. Call to mind ( + look back at the mind) of disenchanment (hang out there for a while) Call to mind Dispassion (Hang out there for a while)