quaker
Toucan
Joined: Aug 16, 2010
Age: 47
Posts: 294
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 Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 6:24 am Post subject: |
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| Very beautiful.....Thank you |
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Art-sung
Snowy Owl
Joined: Aug 13, 2011
Posts: 171
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| Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 7:50 am Post subject: |
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Hello,
The Indian master Asanga stated that;
"Loving kindness is the canal through which the stream of compassion flows"..........................
I have always thought this simple and direct instruction to be a wonderful guide in practice.
May virtue ensue! |
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Moog
Pussycat
Joined: Feb 26, 2010
Age: 34
Posts: 17636
Location: Untied Kingdom
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| Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 7:53 am Post subject: |
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I'm a mongrel Buddhist.
I dubbed myself 'omniligious' since I draw from all the worlds religious and spiritual traditions.
But I began with Buddhism, and it forms the core of my spiritual practice.
_________________
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Art-sung
Snowy Owl
Joined: Aug 13, 2011
Posts: 171
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| Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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Hello Moog
Omniligious is a great word . It is both open and comparative.
Thank you for posting about your approach. I think many ASD folk will agree in many ways.
All rivers lead to the ocean. The ocean accepts all rivers regardless of direction.
In the Middle Way we say to hold no view is the correct view. In this way we try to get out of the construction bussiness, releasing conceptual constructs in our practice.
Thank you for posting Moog
Please do share your experience |
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Art-sung
Snowy Owl
Joined: Aug 13, 2011
Posts: 171
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| Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 3:10 am Post subject: |
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This thread has slowed up.
Where is everyone, have you gone missing in action?
Mindfulness is a wonderful method for people on the spectrum. As is compassion and the clear logic of philosophic study.
Mindfulness is the experience to release thoughts, thus developing non-attachment to whatever arises. Positive emotions are enhanced through positive self-dialogue. Whereas negative emotions are diminished. The Five Poisons of Mind are; Ignorance, Attachment, Aversion, Pride and Jealousy. They all simply arise from dualism.
The purity of awareness is paramount within the meditative experience. It is reflexive in nature and has the fundamental wisdom of knowing itself. This is beyond the reflective nature of ordinary awareness.
In the Mahayana we do not talk about development, rather we talk about purification. The Mahayana has the confidence which arises from knowing the inherent possession of the awakened nature within, hence there is no need to grow it.
It is the very nature of our sentience.
Thank you for reading my post |
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quaker
Toucan
Joined: Aug 16, 2010
Age: 47
Posts: 294
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| Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 3:42 am Post subject: |
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Hi Art sung
Nice to hear you again.
It is a common occurance here to find People just disapear into thin air. It took mě a while to not take this personally.
I would find it v interesting to hear a condensed version of yr life story. Including how AS has played itself out in you.
I think many folks with AS would find 'non self' and the letting go of concepts of self really hard. Could you tell us more on of yr experience in this context. |
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Art-sung
Snowy Owl
Joined: Aug 13, 2011
Posts: 171
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| Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 7:53 am Post subject: |
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Hello Quaker,
You have asked a sincere question, I can say a bit from my side in frankness.
My father was a good stonemason. His father was a senior research horticulturalist. His father was a Master Mariner who was in the British Merchant Marine in Africa and India before Australia. His father was a Parish Clerk for 62 years, recording up to 3 generations in most local families [ I have his lifes work on parish microfiche]. His daughter was the school mistress of the Parish at age 16.
Asperger's may have possibly been in the family for several generations.
Both my son's have AS. So Iam both Asperger's, and a parent of others on the spectrum.
I became interested in Buddhist thought while in my teens, it became one of my special interests.
I first saw the Dalai Lama when I was 16, on his first tour of Australia. My life really changed from that point. If I had met Mother Theresa- I might have been Catholic. If I met Gandhi- I may have been Hindu.
I came to Buddhism due to my mother's passing when I was 10. My father was not in the picture and did not know about my mother's passing.
As many of you may know early loss for people on the spectrum is both very painful and confusing.
My family did not seek professonal help for me.
I was both lonely and lost.
I could not tie my own shoes up untill I was 10. I did not know the correct order of the month's until I was 14, although I did read books.
I was slow in school due to learning difficulties.
Many people on the spectrum may relate.
Buddhist thought and it's practice has been a great support to me personally. I have learnt many good lessons.
This is important as life often tests us, before we have learnt the lesson. So we get caught in our pain and confusion.
For people on the spectrum confusion may be a daily experience. It is important to be grounded and logical. Thus we can learn how to live with our condition.
It is not a nice feeling to be uneasy in our own skin, so a compassionate approach is absolutely supportive.
Many times in my early practce I just sat in my personal emotional pain. It took me a while to understand that my emotional pain was not the same as physical pain.
Buddhism has given me a wonderful way to work on myself.
You have asked about non-self. This is an important process of maturation within experience.
1st we investigate that all phenomena is impermanet in nature, [In a constant state of flux, shape-shifting].
2ndly we investigate that all phenomena is a sum of parts [composite phenomena].
3rdly we investigate that all phenomena is named through convention alone.
4thly we investigate that all phenomena is interdependant on both causes and conditions.
This is how we practice to unfetter the bonds of a disenfranchised self, separated from the nature of all phenomena.
As the radient Buddha taught, the more we are attached to things, the more we will experience suffering. It is all in equal degree. So in compassion we generate this wisdom.
When we practice this we come to the wisdom that both phenomena and noumena are a singular purity. Interbeing is the experience of this purity. This is different from a universal sense of self, beyond an individual sense of self. Interbeing means one with the universe as a singular purity which is beyond any sense of self. This is the view of non-dualism, as this singular purity is beyond "I" and "it", for these conserns are dualistic and thus confused about the true nature of reality.
There is a treasury within and practice is it's own path.
In a comparative way, I am really talking about human development, the human potentiality.
Thank you for your question.
Can you say something from your side?
All my very best!
Last edited by Art-sung on Sun Aug 21, 2011 4:47 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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quaker
Toucan
Joined: Aug 16, 2010
Age: 47
Posts: 294
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| Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 10:27 am Post subject: |
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Thank you Art-sung. I was very touched by your story.
I was born in London in 1965 and have lived in London all my life.
My adopted parents were very unhappy people, they had suffered much in their childhoods and concequently I suffered in mine.
In many ways, my life has been a journey of coming to terms with suffering. This journey has led me into psychotherapy, 12 step fellowships, survivours groups, retreats, and in recent years contemplative spirituality, including Quakerism and Buddhism.
I trained to be a teacher of the alexander technique 15 years ago. Many people say that in essence AT is an approach to Mindfulness.. My desire to train to be an AT teacher, was that I wanted to be more in the world and less awkward.
In hindsight i can see that although this desire to be less compromised by the weight of the world had its place, the dark seeds of sorrow and disbare in my store consciousness were driving me to refine my mask of normality.. Consequently I learned how to hide my emotional and social discomfort behind a 'zen like' facade.
It tool me many years to understand my autism, to feel the pain that i had cast into the shadowlands, and start the healing process of affirming my self emotionally, neurologically, and spiritually. |
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Art-sung
Snowy Owl
Joined: Aug 13, 2011
Posts: 171
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| Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 4:41 pm Post subject: |
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Hmm....I hear you!
Now we have met!
Life is difficult [dukka] for people on the spectrum. It makes me think of people who have other disability.
We can relate to each other because of our experience. This suffering has made us grow in ways that are unique. Letting go of our pain may be like letting go of a loved one. It takes time...... there is also grief.
Thank you for sharing.
The mask we wear is our attempt for instant protection. It is like the telephone voice, everything is cool.
You have mentioned the Alaya Vijnana or storehouse.
Everything is;
Impermanet
The Sum of parts
Named through convention
Interdependant
Our pain as sublte phenomena of mind, are also constructs, reactions and then negative habits.
In Buddhism once we know their nature, we do not need to go back and correct these. All we do is just develop new positive habits of mind. We do not ignore the fact that they are there, we just go beyond them in new ways.
We do not wish to continue the negative self-dialogue as it is destructive.
There is only so much we can think about in a Day and Night, there is only so much energy we can give before we fall a sleep. If we fill this space of time with new positive thoughts through the power of our practice then the negative ones do not have the air-time to play themselves out. The energy used to play out negative thoughts is now used for positive ones. Thus the power of negative thought is transformed. Even our dreams will be filled with virtue/a positive state of mind.
Because we are habitual we can train ourselves.
The nature of mind is stainless. This means that it can not be stained by emotions and their habits. The purity of awareness is there always. It is constant. We mistakenly think we are our thoughts but this is not so.
Awareness is present as the first generation experience. Once we preceive something, any thing. We then try to conceptualise, or give birth to an emotional reaction, or both. This then is the second generation experience. It is in the purity of the first generation experience that we aim the arrow of our practice so that we become familiar with it. We need mindfulness to be stable, but we have reflexive awareness to sit in our purity beyond the limitations of negativity. This is called Insight meditation beyond mindfulness, rather it is the union of mindfulness and Insight.
I know you know this!
May the sunshine of compassion follow you in all your activities.
Thank you Quaker.
Ps. I was born in the summer of 1965 in Sydney. |
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Tim_Tex
Professor Hineybottom
Joined: Jul 03, 2004
Age: 33
Posts: 41865
Location: Houston, Texas
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| Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 6:04 am Post subject: |
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| Welcome to WP! |
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slipacre
Blue Jay
Joined: Aug 18, 2011
Age: 65
Posts: 97
Location: NY state - in the woods
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| Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 7:23 am Post subject: |
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I am with Moog, a mongrel Buddhist with spiritual DNA from any number of other sources making waves in my consciousness..
Much of this comes from nature which I see as a reflection of the universe's creativity, beauty, joy and sense of humor.
Finding and embracing this has been crucial to getting out of myself - a place where there were many wrong turnings and
dangerous dead ends.
For what its worth I've done a little booklet which captured my thoughts at one particular moment
click here to read it
Editing to include a bit more:
I am 63 and have taken a long time to put the pieces together.
My path included much confusion, gnashing of teeth, and self medication which took me to some very dark places.
At 39 I bottomed out - the ladder out of my pit was 12 step programs where for the first time in my life
I felt as though I belonged. This was profound, and soon I realized that the substances were not
the problem, it was an dis-ease inside me, deep - at my core.
I am still involved in twelve step recovery, but have branched out - I am still far too stubborn
to accept any "organized" religion or spirituality but recognize a kinship
I have only in the last week found this place and understand I inhabit just one orbit.
I am quite pleased to have found there are others on a similar path.
Todd, aka slipacre |
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Art-sung
Snowy Owl
Joined: Aug 13, 2011
Posts: 171
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| Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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Hello Slipacre,
Here is a little poem I am now writing.
May I see all things as divine
In the deep mountains and valley's of my mind
May all arise in simple perfection
water, river's and perception
May I walk unlimited steps
In every moment of mindfulness
May my talk be full of care.
In every day this divine laid bare.
May I touch the ground in centred ease
Seeing all things as they should be
Arising, abiding and releasing flux
All I meet is touched by such
As the flowers come to bloom
I do not need to pick their loam
For I see all things in my mind
This ground essence of humankind
All my very best to you! |
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Art-sung
Snowy Owl
Joined: Aug 13, 2011
Posts: 171
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| Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 9:30 pm Post subject: |
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Hello Tim Tex,
Thank you for your greeting. You have been on WP for a long time.
Have a wonderful day |
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Art-sung
Snowy Owl
Joined: Aug 13, 2011
Posts: 171
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| Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 6:14 pm Post subject: |
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Hello,
Today I am posting a short poem of meditative instruction by the Tibetan yogini, Lady Machig Labdron.
"Simply relax in the natural state
of being;
why try to tie knots
in the sky?
"First tighten loosely,
then loosen loosely-
hold onto nothing.
"Let it go
as it goes,
and rest at ease
as you are."
Have a wonderful day! |
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slipacre
Blue Jay
Joined: Aug 18, 2011
Age: 65
Posts: 97
Location: NY state - in the woods
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| Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 12:16 pm Post subject: |
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art sung thank you for sharing a piece of your soul.
[img]http://www.flickr.com/photos/slipacre/4208287779/[/img] |
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