Rem Meditations
Saturday 10:45 a.m.
Nice, mild Saturday morning here in Edinburgh. I've done about an hour or so of meditations today. The flat is empty just now. I'll go into the lobby and meditate for a bit, then come back and try to describe what's been going on. This is RaBlissBlog. Let's talk about ra bliss!!
12:45 p.m.
Just finished and got a cup of coffee.
The first thing about these meditations ... is I don't know how to do them. All my information is from books. Once you start getting into doing Guru and Deity Yoga, you can see that there's a lot not in the books. I'm doing these meditations as a preparation (hopefully!) for doing a proper retreat in the Unheard of Island, or at Rumtek, or even in my hut.
In the first hour I didn't get much bliss. I did the usual opening with taking refuge, generating compassion, etc. Then, after a wee while, I went through the after death sequence. This is mirage, smoke, fireflies, butterlamp, white, red, black, and I assume is taking you from the complexities of mind (afflictive emotions, etc.) to the simple.
I am the dharmakaya. I assume that's something simple. Described elsewhere as the essence of thought. I tried to stay there for a while. This stage is a kind of mahamudra meditation, I think. You've negated the false sense of self by the dying stuff and then you let thoughts go.
" When we can see straightforwardly and non-conceptually, the nature of our clear light mind and remain totally absorbed in this nature without ever regressing from it, we have become a buddha." Dalai Lama. The wall. I don't know what that means. But "clear light mind" might be equivalent to dharmakaya.
The first hour was almost all done with eyes open. Strange things are going on in the visual field. I'm sitting in the lobby gazing down at the sticker of a kalachakra mandala on the front of an old diary. The colours loosen and it seems like you're looking at a negative for a bit. Highlights on the edges. Shimmering a little. Then objects might seem to move about a little, slip from their positions. The space between your eyes and the object seems to grow a little "thick."
I spent the first decade of so of meditations with my eyes closed, or rolled up to the top of my head. So I don't know if beginners get these visual quirks. At this stage I can't see much difference between this and zazen. Does anyone doing zazen get distortions of the visual field like this?
I don't have to sit upright very long before things start happening inside my body. It's as if something starts to hold you up. It stretches you. It puts a rictus smile on your face. I assume this is kundalini, chi or whatever, but I don't know.
At some point you move into sambhokakaya, which is the points in the body, symbols, coloured tubes, etc. I think you are supposed to concentrate on the red symbol in your navel here.
You're feeling pleasant here, but it's not really bliss.
I closed my eyes and went for some vase breathing. Then you're doing the big arising globules of bliss, etc. I went into nirmanakaya, which is the deity in the mandala, but I'm really useless at this. I think you should be doing 3D visualisations of the deity here, but my legs have gone and I have to get up.
Go into the kitchen and do the 108 moves of the tai chi set. Sit down again
Want to do bliss? No problem here. If you do a tai chi set and then sit down, close your eyes and you're whitied out! The chi or whatever you call it is up now.
Up till then I hadn't really been looking for bliss. Trying to get the mind settled and the thoughts moving easily from one to the other. Maybe more of an attention thing.
In the last session I did about four vase breaths. That's all. Not much breathing going on otherwise. As you become absorbed, you don't really want to do vase breathing. It's an effort. But when you notice you're becoming restless or agitated at all, you can put one in. You're previous thoughts just fly out the window. You're into heat now. Not much, but it's there.
This might be regarded as a preparation for the evening meditations. This evening there will be tons of bliss and heat if the flatheids will just go away and leave me alone. They're due back soon. I'll do a headstand just and sit again until they return. No, I won't. They're here!
7:20 p.m.
One of my favourite things is lying in the bath. I went to the hut to meditate as if grew dark and then came back and did twenty minutes skipping and ten minutes shadow boxing. Then the bath! When you're knackered, there's nothing like relaxing in the bath. Imagine being exhausted and lying in the bath in a big globule of ra bliss! It just came up and kind of sat there. Letting thoughts go ... into ra bliss!
I'm going to try and relax with some beer! I should just sit it out .... the flat is empty again till about ten ... but I've been feeling a bit tired a fed up when I'm not meditating recently and I'll do some beers and some surfing. Maybe blog a wee bit later.
Nice, mild Saturday morning here in Edinburgh. I've done about an hour or so of meditations today. The flat is empty just now. I'll go into the lobby and meditate for a bit, then come back and try to describe what's been going on. This is RaBlissBlog. Let's talk about ra bliss!!
12:45 p.m.
Just finished and got a cup of coffee.
The first thing about these meditations ... is I don't know how to do them. All my information is from books. Once you start getting into doing Guru and Deity Yoga, you can see that there's a lot not in the books. I'm doing these meditations as a preparation (hopefully!) for doing a proper retreat in the Unheard of Island, or at Rumtek, or even in my hut.
In the first hour I didn't get much bliss. I did the usual opening with taking refuge, generating compassion, etc. Then, after a wee while, I went through the after death sequence. This is mirage, smoke, fireflies, butterlamp, white, red, black, and I assume is taking you from the complexities of mind (afflictive emotions, etc.) to the simple.
I am the dharmakaya. I assume that's something simple. Described elsewhere as the essence of thought. I tried to stay there for a while. This stage is a kind of mahamudra meditation, I think. You've negated the false sense of self by the dying stuff and then you let thoughts go.
" When we can see straightforwardly and non-conceptually, the nature of our clear light mind and remain totally absorbed in this nature without ever regressing from it, we have become a buddha." Dalai Lama. The wall. I don't know what that means. But "clear light mind" might be equivalent to dharmakaya.
The first hour was almost all done with eyes open. Strange things are going on in the visual field. I'm sitting in the lobby gazing down at the sticker of a kalachakra mandala on the front of an old diary. The colours loosen and it seems like you're looking at a negative for a bit. Highlights on the edges. Shimmering a little. Then objects might seem to move about a little, slip from their positions. The space between your eyes and the object seems to grow a little "thick."
I spent the first decade of so of meditations with my eyes closed, or rolled up to the top of my head. So I don't know if beginners get these visual quirks. At this stage I can't see much difference between this and zazen. Does anyone doing zazen get distortions of the visual field like this?
I don't have to sit upright very long before things start happening inside my body. It's as if something starts to hold you up. It stretches you. It puts a rictus smile on your face. I assume this is kundalini, chi or whatever, but I don't know.
At some point you move into sambhokakaya, which is the points in the body, symbols, coloured tubes, etc. I think you are supposed to concentrate on the red symbol in your navel here.
You're feeling pleasant here, but it's not really bliss.
I closed my eyes and went for some vase breathing. Then you're doing the big arising globules of bliss, etc. I went into nirmanakaya, which is the deity in the mandala, but I'm really useless at this. I think you should be doing 3D visualisations of the deity here, but my legs have gone and I have to get up.
Go into the kitchen and do the 108 moves of the tai chi set. Sit down again
Want to do bliss? No problem here. If you do a tai chi set and then sit down, close your eyes and you're whitied out! The chi or whatever you call it is up now.
Up till then I hadn't really been looking for bliss. Trying to get the mind settled and the thoughts moving easily from one to the other. Maybe more of an attention thing.
In the last session I did about four vase breaths. That's all. Not much breathing going on otherwise. As you become absorbed, you don't really want to do vase breathing. It's an effort. But when you notice you're becoming restless or agitated at all, you can put one in. You're previous thoughts just fly out the window. You're into heat now. Not much, but it's there.
This might be regarded as a preparation for the evening meditations. This evening there will be tons of bliss and heat if the flatheids will just go away and leave me alone. They're due back soon. I'll do a headstand just and sit again until they return. No, I won't. They're here!
7:20 p.m.
One of my favourite things is lying in the bath. I went to the hut to meditate as if grew dark and then came back and did twenty minutes skipping and ten minutes shadow boxing. Then the bath! When you're knackered, there's nothing like relaxing in the bath. Imagine being exhausted and lying in the bath in a big globule of ra bliss! It just came up and kind of sat there. Letting thoughts go ... into ra bliss!
I'm going to try and relax with some beer! I should just sit it out .... the flat is empty again till about ten ... but I've been feeling a bit tired a fed up when I'm not meditating recently and I'll do some beers and some surfing. Maybe blog a wee bit later.
posted by Hotboy at 10:45 AM
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