Excerpt from Finding Oneness in Loving Awareness
By Thomas D. Stanks
By Thomas D. Stanks
Chapter IV
BUDDHISM
A. AJAHN BRAHM: MINDFULNESS, BLISS, & BEYOND
So far, I have been dealing with two centers, the heart loving and the mind knowing. I would like to look at the mind from a Buddhist perspective, using what Ajahn Brahm says in his book. MINDFULNESS, BLISS, AND BEYOND. Employing words, meditation is difficult to teach. Brahm began his life as an academic at Cambridge, and fulfills his calling here as a caring and impassioned teacher.
As Jack Kornfield says in the Forward to Brahm's book, "(Here) you will find a thorough set of teachings for developing and deepening meditation, aimed at attaining absorption, or JHANA SAMADHI, and opening to the insights that can follow from it." This is very high state of consciousness, a meditative state of profound stillness and concentration. "'You' do not do anything....the doer has to disappear. You are just a knower, passively observing."
Within the Jhana state, Brahm explains on p 155:
"There is no possibility of thought;
No decision-making process is available;
There is no perception of time;
Consciousness is nondual making comprehension inaccessible;
Yet one is very, very aware, but only of bliss that doesn't move;
The five senses are fully shut off, and only the sixth sense, mind, is in operation."
I see only so much of reality, depending largely upon my state of consciousness. And that becomes my comfort zone. If things, people, events, are outside that vision, I usually question, oppose, or deny their offerings. Not everyone wants enlightenment or realization. Many or most of us still want involvement, exploration, amusement.
BUDDHISM
A. AJAHN BRAHM: MINDFULNESS, BLISS, & BEYOND
So far, I have been dealing with two centers, the heart loving and the mind knowing. I would like to look at the mind from a Buddhist perspective, using what Ajahn Brahm says in his book. MINDFULNESS, BLISS, AND BEYOND. Employing words, meditation is difficult to teach. Brahm began his life as an academic at Cambridge, and fulfills his calling here as a caring and impassioned teacher.
As Jack Kornfield says in the Forward to Brahm's book, "(Here) you will find a thorough set of teachings for developing and deepening meditation, aimed at attaining absorption, or JHANA SAMADHI, and opening to the insights that can follow from it." This is very high state of consciousness, a meditative state of profound stillness and concentration. "'You' do not do anything....the doer has to disappear. You are just a knower, passively observing."
Within the Jhana state, Brahm explains on p 155:
"There is no possibility of thought;
No decision-making process is available;
There is no perception of time;
Consciousness is nondual making comprehension inaccessible;
Yet one is very, very aware, but only of bliss that doesn't move;
The five senses are fully shut off, and only the sixth sense, mind, is in operation."
I see only so much of reality, depending largely upon my state of consciousness. And that becomes my comfort zone. If things, people, events, are outside that vision, I usually question, oppose, or deny their offerings. Not everyone wants enlightenment or realization. Many or most of us still want involvement, exploration, amusement.