Try to say what can only be said by not saying it.

---

From a lofty summit
The panorama extends forever
I sit alone unknown
The lone moon lights Cold Spring
The moon isn’t in the Spring
The moon is in the sky
I sing this solitary song
But the song isn’t zen.

- Han shan

---

http://www.dailyzen.com/

freedom tastes like air.

ive been meditating regularly everyday for approx a year now...latley when i sit, and i choose to have my eyes open...my head feels like its pulsating, and my vision blurs.
after i blink i imediatley have a hightened sense of awarness of myself and my surrondings, as well as my surroundings to me. but i cant figure out why my head puslates and my eyes tear...let me know please.
enjoy your day all who read this.
with love,
brett

light workers,

finals suck! ha-ha. But was able to convince a Prof to let me do one on yoga. Specifically the possibility of treating anxiety with Yogic techniques. I thought I'd post it. One part of the paper called for making your own research study (proposal). I'd especially suggest if anyone does suffer from anxiety to check out the last part of the paper where I have compiled a system of four exercises to combat anxiety when done as a system. Actually, the techniques that I use in the system are powerful spiritual techniques that anyone would benefit from. I chose those four out of the literally hundreds of meditation, pranayama (breathing) and yogic techniques because they are some of the most foundational and useful to stabilize the mind.

Anyway, the program outline is at the end of the paper, along with a bibliography if anyone wants to learn more about the exercises (and others). All the books on it are fantastic. So...read if your bored (or anxious! ;), -MAtt:


“The twentieth century has brought with it a desperate need of escape for the basic reality of living. The methods of escape vary from the relative innocence of cinema and television to the deteriorating vices of alchohol and drugs. It is not enough to ask what we are running from (tension? boredom? hopelessness?), but we must also ask what we escaping to. The really pitiful thing about these methods is that they take the individual to nothing greater, nothing more stable but only to a vicarious pleasure and a temporary, illusory reality. As a result we flee from one darkness to another without ever finding a light.
The eternal, age-old path of Yoga has designed techniques which permit a man not just to escape the illusion (Maya) we term “life”, but to escape within himself to a true inner reality wherein maybe found the flaming lamp of transcendental consciousness. As man uses Yoga to probe deeper within the grottoes of his own mind he approaches closer and closer to the core of his own being until he experiences self-reintagration physically, mentally and emotionally.” (Mumford, p. 29)

The research proposal that I would like to develop in this paper is one in which I would construct a treatment protocol for anxiety based disorders incorporating Eastern and alternative methods for treatment. While in my initial “formulation” I sited a specific pre-built protocol (the Preksha Dhyana system), after much research into the subject since that time, I feel I am actually in a position to propose my own treatment program incorporating elements from several different sources. I feel that this method is more original and stands to benefit me more personally because of the research that I must do to construct such a protocol.
The problem that I am trying to address with this protocol is the one of honestly disappointing success rates of both talk and psycho-pharmaceutical treatments of anxiety disorders. My idea springs from the frustration of this realization. My feeling is that there most be a better way. Not only a “better” way, but a more effective way to treat these disorders.
I then turn to a tradition of psychological thought that predates the Western tradition by several thousand years. I feel that the Western psychological community is very dismissive of Eastern methods of psychological treatment in general. But I would counter by asking them why they are so confident in a science that has only had a life of under 200 years!
It would seem only logical to assume that with the number of years, also follows the amount of time devoted to discovering and perfecting therapeutic techniques. Also, not only has the East a good couple thousand years over the West in the area of psychology, it also has millions more people (during that time duration) who have used and proven out the effectiveness of said techniques. This seems to only logically follow.
So it is with these thoughts in mind that I have decided to seek answers in the East to problems that we have indeed well formulated in the West, but, I would argue, have not come up with very good answers. I have consulted Eastern psychological experts on this very subject and they agree that the West has done a very splendid job in diagnosing and pathologizing mental illness, but would also agree that our tradition is just too young to expect to arrive at very effective means at combating these very deep seeded maladies.
So from this premise I will pose a research question: “How will the effectiveness of my Eastern influenced treatment protocol compare with current Western approaches?”
I am going to be working under the influence of a psychodynamic foundation in my formulation of a treatment protocol. The Eastern conceptual model of the mind is amazingly close to what Freud developed. Especially in terms of the Pleasure Principle, Drive Theory, and the idea of sublimation. The idea of Sublimation will be an important one to consider in respect to my purpose. In Moore and Fine’s “Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts, ” Sublimation is defined as, “A psychic process the Freud defined in two ways. As first conceptualized (1905), sublimation involved instinctual drives’ being somehow deflected from their original aims and/or objects to more socially valuable ones, this obviating the need for continuing repression. Freud originally proposed that all behavior originated from and was powered by the libidinal drives, whose aims were often in conflict with cultural and social directives. This hypothetical process was his attempt to explain the existence of socially valuable, apparently nonsexual and nonconflicted activities – artistic creation, work, wit, and so on…. Freud’s second definition was far more abstract, involving a theoretically inferred (not clinically observable) desexualization of psychic energy. So defined, sublimation became the pathway for the formation of character traits and later became an indispensable conceptual tool to account for what Freud considered to be crucially important developmental alterations of libido, and he saw it in his later writings as the energetic basis for identification. Thus his second definition, very different from the first, expressed Freud’s commitment to the idea that psychic energy is fundamentally important to the theoretical views expressed in his metapsychology.” (Moore, pp. 187-188).
I give this example because of what I feel are somewhat analogous views about the psychic system held by both Freud and Eastern theorists: 1.) that it is ultimately an “energy system” that we interpret through our equivalent senses, 2.) that this system is stressed to pathology by imbalances in this system, and 3.) one way to maintain/(re)achieve balance is through sublimation of that energy.
Now what some Eastern systems of psychological thought believe is that one of the healthiest and most effective ways to remedy emotional imbalances is to be purposeful about your sublimation. In other words, where Freud’s system posits that “sublimation” is an unconscious compromise, Eastern psychology will go a step farther and posit that one can skillfully and purposefully direct this energy through sublimation by utilization of certain techniques. Both would agree on the cause of emotional imbalance (a misdirection, or repression, of energy), but because of a great deal more years of experience observing and treating the phenomenon, the Eastern psycho-pharmacopeias has many more methods and techniques for treating imbalance, where the West offers relatively few in comparison.
I might at this point refine my research question to more simply, “Does my “Yogic Protocol” (YP) reduce systems of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)?” The variables are simple and clear. I believe the Independent Variable would be: the “Yogic Protocol”, where as the Dependant Variable would be “anxiety symptoms.”
I have decided to construct a treatment system out of four Eastern psychologically oriented meditative and breathing techniques. I have ordered them in a way in which I feel the participant would best reap its benefits.
Before describing the elements that make up the protocol, let me speak to the suggested usage of this program. I would suggest that it be done 2x a day. Once upon awakening (preferably at sunrise) and again in the evening (preferably at sunset). The criteria would include a time window of 40 days in which to be working the study protocol.
In the research study that I propose to develop, I would like to have as large of a sample as possible. (wouldn’t everybody?) I would like the sample to meet DSM criteria for GAD. I would administer the Covi Anxiety Scale as an additional way to measure participant eligibility. After eligibility was determined through these means, I would like to break up my pool of participants into four groups. The first (Group 1) would complete the Yogic Protocol for 90 days. The second (Group 2) would received Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for 90 days. I would prescribe (pun intended) that the third group (Group 3) take anti-anxiety medication for that time period, and finally I would like to have a control (Group 4) group that took a placebo (sugar pill) under the impression that they might be taking an anti-anxiety medication. At the end of the 90 days, I would again administer the self-reports and Covi Scale and compare the results. My study design would follow a “multi-group pretest-posttest design.”
The following is a description of the four techniques that make up the Yogic Protocol:

The first technique is an ancient Indian technique for relaxation. The West pirated it and renamed it “progressive relaxation”, but its original form is that of “Savasana.” To complete this technique one lays flat on the floor, back down. Arms to the side comfortably and palms up. Legs are about a shoulder length apart. This pose is often referred to as “Corpse” pose for obvious reasons. One then is to mentally bring one’s focus to ascending parts of the body while relaxing them along the way. Relaxation, in this context meaning a lack of contraction in the muscle. So one would visualize:

Left foot Right foot
Left calf Right calf
Left thigh Right thigh
Left buttock Right buttock
Abdomen
Stomach
Left forearm Right forearm
Left upper arm Right upper arm
Left side of chest Right side of chest
Left side of neck Right side of neck
Front of neck
Back of neck

A participant would spend about 3 seconds at each area. I would recommend 11 minutes of this technique. “Having relaxed the body…incorporate the most important feature of savasana, the affirmation. Affirmation achieves goals that you have set for yourself mentally.” (Kriyananda, pp 83-84) I would suggest an affirmation for this protocol as, “I am letting go of my worries.”
The second intervention method of the YP will be a breathing exercise meant to clear blocked and stagnant energy from one’s mental system. It is a Tibetan technique. It is referred to as the “Breathing Technique for the Nine fold Purification of Energy.” (Rinpoche, pp. 26-30) To complete this technique one follows the following steps:
“Slowly bring your left hand up to your nose while turning the palm out. Now press on your left nostril using your ring finger and start breathing slowly through your right nostril. Consciously hold your breath for a short time.
While you are holding your breath, lower you left hand and rest it in your lap, then slowly raise the right one, again turning out your palm and bringing it up to your nose. Take your right ring finger and use it to close your right nostril, then expel your breath slowly and with purpose through the left nostril. Repeat this exercise 3x.
Now slowly bring your right hand up to your nose while turning it palm out. Press on your right nostril using your ring finger and start breathing slowly through your left nostril. Consciously then hold your breath for a short time. While you are holding your breath, lower your right hand and rest it in your lap, then slowly raise the left one, again turning out your palm and bringing it up to your nose. Now take your left ring finger and use it to close your left nostril, then expel your breath slowly and with purpose through the right nostril. Repeat this exercise three times as well.
Finally, take three even breaths through both nostrils; hold your breath consciously and then expel it slowly and with purpose, using both nostrils. Your hands should be resting palms down on thighs.” (Rinpoche, pp. 26-30) Hence you have by now breathed nine rounds of this exercise, thus completing it.
The third (or the four) techniques I would incorporate into the YP is something called the “Yoni Mudra”. This should be done for 5 minutes in duration. In John Mumford’s book “Psychosomatic Yoga” the outline the benefits of Yoni Mudra:
1.) The five senses are shut off mechanically and this leads to a semi-automatic state of Pratyahara.
2.) The nervous system is rejuvenated, particularly as the eyes are shut (and they use more nervous energy than any other sense organ).
3.) Co-operation is brought about between the mind and the body as a result of the disciplined conditioning required to maintain the pose.
4.) The mind is given an opportunity to introvert and experience complete cutting off from what may be a disturbing environment.”
The technique is as follows:
1. Sit in a meditative pose. [straight spine]
2. Raise the elbows level with the shoulders and at right angles with the body, jutting out at each side
3. [simultaneously] (a) Close the ears with the thumbs by inserting in the ear.
(b) Close the eyes with forefingers, placing fingers along lower lids.
(c) Place the middle fingers on either side of the bridge of the nose, leaving the nostrils open for breathing.
(d) Press the middle fingers on either side of the bridge of the nose, leaving nostrils open for breathing.
(e) Press the lower lip shut with the little fingers.
4. Breath slowly and evenly while concentrating the mind upon any visual images, spots or colors that may arise. If spots appear, visualize them contracting and expanding.
Finally, I would like to add the technique of “Tratak” as the fourth and final technique comprising the Yogic Protocol. Tratak is basically a technique meant to sharpen the mental faculty of concentration (or focus). By strengthening your mind through this technique, one becomes able to purposefully ignore superfluous stimuli. In this case, anxious thoughts and feelings.
This technique calls for the participant to focus single-pointedly upon an object. In particular, a single flame, like that of a candle, is often used. In his book Dhanwantari : A Complete Guide to the Ayurvedic Life, Harish Johari describes the technique:
“Tratak induces this single-mindedness by focusing awareness on a flame or black circle. After slowing and synchronizing the breath, the meditator gazes into the object of concentration with both eyes. Tratak induces the state of single-mindedness by first stilling and harmonizing the breath, and then by providing a fixed source of sensory input at which one gazes, both eyes sharply focused, until the mind frees itself of all external distractions…[hold optical focus with determination and without blinking]. When tears flow, then the meditator closes the eyes and visualizes the spot or flame internally, where it appears as an afterimage on the retina-the surface of the brain’s optical nerve. The eyes are brought to one internal point just slightly above the center of the eye brows [third eye]. The eyes are now directed to the plexus (network) of the three nerves considered most important in yoga physiology. This is the plexus activated by the pineal gland…
With full pineal function restored, the body gains new balance. Nerve energy flows evenly through both halves of the organism. Neither electrical nor magnetic currents predominate. In this state the central passage of the spinal cord opens and energy flows upward through the spine into the brain. It is this upward rush of energy that is experienced as bliss, the state which the meditator knew long before-and which drove one to seek the disciplines of self-evolution.
The opening of the pineal gland takes time. What took years to wither does not miraculously regenerate overnight. Tratak is a discipline of yoga requiring regular and persistent practice. But there are immediate effects as well: enhanced ability to concentrate, greater awareness or the visual realm, and more centered and relaxed state of mind, and the positive feelings that flow from the knowledge that one has at last discovered a means of elevating consciousness.” (Johari pp. 53-54)

*YOGIC PROTOCOL OUTLINE (40 days):
1.) Savasana 11 minutes, 2x a-day
2.) Breathing Technique for the Nine fold Purification of Energy, 1 round, 2x a-day
3.) Yoni Mudra, 7 minutes, 2x a-day
4.) Tratrak, 7 minutes, 2x a-day



References

Johari, H. (1998) Dhanwantari : A Complete Guide
to the Ayurvedic Life. Rochester, VT: Healing
Arts Press.

Kriyananda, G. (2002) The Spiritual Science of Kriya
Yoga. Chicago: Temple of Kriya Yoga.

Moore, B. (1990) Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts.
New Haven, CT: The American Psychoanalytic
Association and Yale University Press.

Munford, J. (1966) Psychosomatic Yoga. London:
Thorsons Publishers Ltd.

Rinpoche, D. (1999) The Practice of Tibetan
Meditation. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions.

Those who read this truly dont have to say anything anyway. Our link together grows as we read each others thoughts and I dont just mean on here.

ok, that just tripped me out ... and it is probably true ... but hard to let the critical mind let that one by ..... we are so conditioned to believe the 5 senses are the senses.

So in between now and that point of actualization ... these notes serve as reminders.

Everything I've ever said
Was something that could be said only
By never having said it.
My words are only a substitute for my touch.
My thoughts are little fractions of my feelings
And our minds will never know
What our hearts have never doubted.

What is it?
[They should ask.]
-That they do not recognize about themselves,
that causes them to not recognize us?

Always trying to learn more from the present moment ....
What would it be like to take the consciousness of dreaming self into the waking life - examining everything as if it is being seen for the first time ... because it is ... every moment is new.

'Justice' posted this as a bulletin ... I thought it would be a nice addition to the meditation section .... when I get more time (soon) I am going to post links or copy all the meditation exercises , experiences that have been posted in other topics into this one ..... i think it would be nice to see this thread come to life.

---

From: Justice
Date: Oct 27, 2005 2:09 PM

Here is a great set of Meditations that I like to use whenever I walk. This is a combination of a few techniques wrapped up into one of a few focused walking meditations. If you find it difficult to do everything at once, try part of the meditation and build toward the whole thing And if you can keep the Focus, add something else to it or Change it Whatever

Please Start Slow and work your way up. They get interesting as you practice and you will notice your body will begin to change as you subtly change your energy.

The Point
To Gain Focus, to Help Clear the mental swirl. To begin synchronization. To Raise Energy and Awareness.

Start with your body and posture.

You should feel your body at all times through out the day regardless of this mediation or others.

Feel your spine straight and erect. Feel a line through your hips at a 90 deg to your spine.

Count your steps. Start with 4s.

Breathe with your steps.

Start with 4 in and 4 out.

Remember as you breathe in to push out your stomach and when you breathe out use your stomach to control the timing of the exhale.

As you breathe find a comfortable pace to breathe at. Try 4 in and 8 out. 4 in and 12 out. 4 in and 16 out.

Keep the same breath pattern for a while so you can feel how it works with your body. The better you get at controlling and focusing your breath, the more you will feel that you can suck in a large amount of energy quick, and sustain it for a long time.

Relax your chest and stomach muscles. With every breath, feel light fill you belly from the bottom up, and feel your tensions congregate within the air in your lungs. As you breathe out, allow that stress to leave the body. If you are dealing with specific issues My Damn husband is being a jack @$$!! This is a great place to focus on that issue, and realize that the issue is unimportant. Allow the anger/frustration related to this issue to be released as you allow your breath out of the body. You can always work any issue out, if you have a clear focus and can look at the issue from multiple perspectives. All sides need to be resolved, not just one side.
So, Relax. As you walk along, specifically feel the areas of the heart and the sternum. Feel the tensions in these areas lighten. Feel them soften up and melt. You know how you feel after the last time you cried your eyes out. When all of that tension has been let go of, that is what you are after. Let go. You dont need it. Feel how light your chest feels. Feel how light your heart feels. Feel how light your head feels. You can feel this all the time if you remember to let go of the stress.

Draw in energy.

There are many complicated ways to draw in energy through the charka system. I am going to give you a very simple one. And then we will try a little more complicated ones.

Polarizing
As you start your in breath, let your belly start to fill with a bright white light. Allow that energy to fill like water being poured into a bag. At the same time as you begin your breath, feel the warmth of the Sun touch the top of your head. Imagine the Light as Energizing, Warm, Orange, Yellow, Red, Gold, Masculine, Projective Energy. Feel your skin change as the Warm light of the sun moves down your face. Let your whole body fill with this sun light from top to bottom, and allow that to happen in conjunction with your breath. As you take four steps and breathe in, divide your body into four. You first step you should feel the light spread from the top of your head to the heart. The second step you should feel the light spread to the groin. The third step you should feel the light spread to the knees, and the Last step, you should feel it spread to your feet. As you breathe out, feel how the light loosens all tensions from the body and allow them to dissipate. Next Breath in, feel the Moon. Feel the light as Cool, Calming, Blue, Green, Purple, Silver, Feminine, and Receptive Energy. Let it wash over you in the same way as you do the Sun Energy. Alternate these two energies to keep the body polarized much as a magnet becomes when all of its molecules align.

A bit more Complex.

Who wants to work with Chakras?

Ok, Keep in the ideas of Polarizing, but now we are going to change our breath, and how the energy moves. These Breaths will be even, and should be balanced with the number of Chakras used. Your in and out breaths will be Seven Steps.

As you breathe in, feel the Suns light enter your crown, and feel the crown as a White luminescent ball filling with the suns light. On the second step, feel the light spread to the Third Eye, and feel it fill your face as a Purple Orb. Third Step, feel the Light Spread into the throat, and feel the Blue Orb glow with the sunlight. The Fourth Breath is the Heart and Green, the Fifth is the Sternum or solarplex and Yellow, and the Sixth is the Naval and Orange. The Seventh is the Root; it is Inside of the Pelvis or the uterus and is Red. As you Breathe out, Let the energy move in reverse. Allow the cooling energy of the Moon to start from the Root and with each step move up toward the Crown. Feel how this exercise creates a cycle of energy.

More Complex?
Ok

This one takes fewer breaths, but requires more focus to concentrate on.

This is a Four Steps in and what ever you want for your out breathes.

First Step, Feel the Suns light Start at Both the Crown and the Root Chakras.
Second Step, Feel the Light Spread to the Third Eye and the Naval.
Third Step, Feel the Light Spread to the Throat and the Solarplex.
Fourth Step, Feel the Light Spread to the Heart.

As you take your steps to breathe out, feel the energy move from the Heart into the Hips and the Shoulders. Feel it move down through your legs and out through your arms. Feel your Fingers and toes tingle. I love this one.

Well. We could get more complex, but I think you have plenty to chew on for a while.

BREATHE LIGHT, Eat Love and Drink Life.

Namaste you

We

More Methods

From: The Treasury of the Basic Myspace of Phenomena
Date: Oct 30, 2005 9:26 AM

When you meditate, breathe naturally, just as you always do.

Focus your awareness lightly on the outbreath. When you breathe out, just flow out with the outbreath. Each time you breathe out, you are letting go and releasing all your grasping. Imagine your breath dissolving into the all-pervading expanse of truth.

Each time you breathe out, and before you breathe in again, you will find that there is a natural gap, as your grasping dissolves.

Rest in that gap, in that open space. And when, naturally, you breathe in, don’t focus especially on the inbreath but go on resting your mind in the gap that has opened up.

-Sogyal Rinpoche

Isn’t it extraordinary that our minds cannot stay still for longer than a few moments without grasping after distraction? They are so restless and preoccupied that sometimes I think that living in a city in the modern world, we are already like the tormented beings in the intermediate state after death, where the consciousness is said to be agonizingly restless.

We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We don’t know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.

Meditation, then, is bringing the mind home.

--Sogyal Rinpoche

Once there was a Dzogchen yogi who lived unostentatiously, surrounded, however, by a large following of disciples. A certain monk, who had an exaggerated opinion of his own learning and scholarship, was jealous of the yogi, whom he knew not to be very well read at all. He thought: “How does he, just an ordinary person, dare to teach? How dare he pretend to be a master? I will go and test his knowledge, show it up for the sham it is, and humiliate him in front of his disciples, so that they will leave him and follow me.”

One day he visited the yogi and said scornfully: “You Dzogchen bunch, is meditate all you ever do?”

The yogi’s reply took him completely by surprise: “What is there to meditate on?”

“You don’t even meditate then, ” the scholar brayed triumphantly.

“But when am I ever distracted?” said the yogi.

--Sogyal Rinpoche

All the spiritual teachers of humanity have told us the same thing, that the purpose of life on earth is to achieve union with our fundamental, enlightened nature. It says in the Upanishads:

There is the path of wisdom and the path of ignorance. They are far apart and lead to different ends. . . . Abiding in the midst of ignorance, thinking themselves wise and learned, fools go aimlessly hither and thither like the blind led by the blind. What lies beyond life shines not to those who are childish, or careless, or deluded by wealth.

--Sogyal Rinpoche

To say "it is" is to grasp for permanence.
To say "it is not" is to adopt the view of nihilism.

Therefore a wise person does not say "exists" or "does not exist."

- Nagarjuna

More Methods

From: The Treasury of the Basic Myspace of Phenomena
Date: Oct 30, 2005 9:26 AM

When you meditate, breathe naturally, just as you always do.

Focus your awareness lightly on the outbreath. When you breathe out, just flow out with the outbreath. Each time you breathe out, you are letting go and releasing all your grasping. Imagine your breath dissolving into the all-pervading expanse of truth.

Each time you breathe out, and before you breathe in again, you will find that there is a natural gap, as your grasping dissolves.

Rest in that gap, in that open space. And when, naturally, you breathe in, don’t focus especially on the inbreath but go on resting your mind in the gap that has opened up.

-Sogyal Rinpoche

Isn’t it extraordinary that our minds cannot stay still for longer than a few moments without grasping after distraction? They are so restless and preoccupied that sometimes I think that living in a city in the modern world, we are already like the tormented beings in the intermediate state after death, where the consciousness is said to be agonizingly restless.

We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We don’t know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.

Meditation, then, is bringing the mind home.

--Sogyal Rinpoche

Once there was a Dzogchen yogi who lived unostentatiously, surrounded, however, by a large following of disciples. A certain monk, who had an exaggerated opinion of his own learning and scholarship, was jealous of the yogi, whom he knew not to be very well read at all. He thought: “How does he, just an ordinary person, dare to teach? How dare he pretend to be a master? I will go and test his knowledge, show it up for the sham it is, and humiliate him in front of his disciples, so that they will leave him and follow me.”

One day he visited the yogi and said scornfully: “You Dzogchen bunch, is meditate all you ever do?”

The yogi’s reply took him completely by surprise: “What is there to meditate on?”

“You don’t even meditate then, ” the scholar brayed triumphantly.

“But when am I ever distracted?” said the yogi.

--Sogyal Rinpoche

All the spiritual teachers of humanity have told us the same thing, that the purpose of life on earth is to achieve union with our fundamental, enlightened nature. It says in the Upanishads:

There is the path of wisdom and the path of ignorance. They are far apart and lead to different ends. . . . Abiding in the midst of ignorance, thinking themselves wise and learned, fools go aimlessly hither and thither like the blind led by the blind. What lies beyond life shines not to those who are childish, or careless, or deluded by wealth.

--Sogyal Rinpoche

To say "it is" is to grasp for permanence.
To say "it is not" is to adopt the view of nihilism.

Therefore a wise person does not say "exists" or "does not exist."

- Nagarjuna

More Methods

From: The Treasury of the Basic Myspace of Phenomena
Date: Oct 30, 2005 9:26 AM

When you meditate, breathe naturally, just as you always do.

Focus your awareness lightly on the outbreath. When you breathe out, just flow out with the outbreath. Each time you breathe out, you are letting go and releasing all your grasping. Imagine your breath dissolving into the all-pervading expanse of truth.

Each time you breathe out, and before you breathe in again, you will find that there is a natural gap, as your grasping dissolves.

Rest in that gap, in that open space. And when, naturally, you breathe in, don’t focus especially on the inbreath but go on resting your mind in the gap that has opened up.

-Sogyal Rinpoche

Isn’t it extraordinary that our minds cannot stay still for longer than a few moments without grasping after distraction? They are so restless and preoccupied that sometimes I think that living in a city in the modern world, we are already like the tormented beings in the intermediate state after death, where the consciousness is said to be agonizingly restless.

We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We don’t know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.

Meditation, then, is bringing the mind home.

--Sogyal Rinpoche

Once there was a Dzogchen yogi who lived unostentatiously, surrounded, however, by a large following of disciples. A certain monk, who had an exaggerated opinion of his own learning and scholarship, was jealous of the yogi, whom he knew not to be very well read at all. He thought: “How does he, just an ordinary person, dare to teach? How dare he pretend to be a master? I will go and test his knowledge, show it up for the sham it is, and humiliate him in front of his disciples, so that they will leave him and follow me.”

One day he visited the yogi and said scornfully: “You Dzogchen bunch, is meditate all you ever do?”

The yogi’s reply took him completely by surprise: “What is there to meditate on?”

“You don’t even meditate then, ” the scholar brayed triumphantly.

“But when am I ever distracted?” said the yogi.

--Sogyal Rinpoche

All the spiritual teachers of humanity have told us the same thing, that the purpose of life on earth is to achieve union with our fundamental, enlightened nature. It says in the Upanishads:

There is the path of wisdom and the path of ignorance. They are far apart and lead to different ends. . . . Abiding in the midst of ignorance, thinking themselves wise and learned, fools go aimlessly hither and thither like the blind led by the blind. What lies beyond life shines not to those who are childish, or careless, or deluded by wealth.

--Sogyal Rinpoche

To say "it is" is to grasp for permanence.
To say "it is not" is to adopt the view of nihilism.

Therefore a wise person does not say "exists" or "does not exist."

- Nagarjuna