The Fabric of Self: Meditations On Vanity and Love

[riff]

Without love you are an empty shell. You may work, hope, dream, seek riches and power, but your conflicts and suffering will continue. The absence of love creates and emptiness that cannot be filled by any ambition, success, pleasure, or possession. Fear grows in this emptiness. But where love exists, there is fullness and life.

--John McAfee, founder of the Relational Yoga Mandiram

 

[glamorilla]

Masturbation rawks!

 

[Wiggles]

Without love you are an empty shell. You may work, hope, dream, seek riches and power, but your conflicts and suffering will continue.
--John McAfee, founder of the Relational Yoga Mandiram

Isn't this true *with* love? Life would be damn boring without conflict and suffering. It's a learning tool.

 

[riff]

Masturbation rawks!

Awareness is the fundemental force of change of self. When we become aware, deeply and completely, of the attachments, prejudices, arrogance, bitterness, fears, and all the othe vanities that make up our daily existance, then the true change is realized.

 

[glamorilla]

Awareness is the fundemental force of change of self. When we become aware, deeply and completely, of the attachments, prejudices, arrogance, bitterness, fears, and all the othe vanities that make up our daily existance, then the true change is realized.

That plus it feels good.

 

[riff]

Re: Re: The Fabric of Self: Meditations On Vanity and Love

Isn't this true *with* love? Life would be damn boring without conflict and suffering. It's a learning tool.

Sugar, I am just writing what I am reading in this book.

Awareness is the natural result of abandoning illusion. As long as we deny our true natures, struggle against our vices, and attempt to discipline or change the reality of ourselves, then awareness will elude us. When we abandon the struggle and cease our self-judgements, then we banish illusion, and open ourselves to awareness.

 

[erosman]

I am not sure being devoid of love creates an 'empty shell'. That is to assume that love is a definable entity. I mean, you either have love or not.

Ideal love seems to be more of a balance of self...self-less, and selfish. Vanity can be found at either end of the spectrum, either in self-centered pursuits, or proud expressions of self-lessness. To achieve that balance without struggle might be the objective. Awareness of the tension, but not flooded with its possibilities, probably looks a little like you have your act together...enlightened.

There is a lot to be said for practicing this balancing act.

 

[riff]

This book is dedicated to the seed of beauty within the human condition

To be aware of every though, every act, every gesture, expression, word, and feeling; and at the same time to be aware of the wind rustling through the trees, and of the sun reflecting from the damp rocks, and the person sitting next to you: This is what it means to be fully here, in the moment. This place, right here, right now, is where the truth lies. It is always here, always moving, always living.

Personally, I really dig this shit!

 

[riff]

How can we be aware in the present moment when we are rehashing a past experience or planning some future event, or chewing over some insult or flattery? And what is our level of awareness when we are judging the present moment: comparing, evaluating, scheming, demanding, or rejecting? We are aware only of an image-- a construct used for comparison. The image is not reality. The present is the only reality.

 

[riff]

Meditation is not something that we do for brief periods, in isolation, with closed eyes, repeating a mantra, or emptying the mind. It's not something what we do at all. It is something that happens when we drop our judgements and our attempts to control. It is a condition of openness from which we are able to perceive the heart of truth. Meditation happens when we observe without choice and without any wish to change what we observe. It is a state of clarity and purity, without which we cannot come to a complete understanding of ourselves.

 

[Ishmael]

Awareness is the fundemental force of change of self. When we become aware, deeply and completely, of the attachments, prejudices, arrogance, bitterness, fears, and all the othe vanities that make up our daily existance, then the true change is realized.

Hmmmmmmm, does that mean that being aware of picking your nose in public is the same as not doing it?

Ishmael

 

[riff]

Hmmmmmmm, does that mean that being aware of picking your nose in public is the same as not doing it?

Ishmael

It's your question. You tell me.

Good morning by the way.

 

[erosman]

so riff,

Are you just exploring this 'zen'? I have been seeing a lot of benefits from the non-judgmental, open-oneself ideas of eastern philosophy and religions. The observation thing without bias and feeling a need to control people and their choices has a lot of merit. Not letting feelings flood your moment so as to muddy your choices, is really helpful too. The other thing that I am embracing, is the whole idea of peeling away layers of the past - through writing - and setting myself free from the emotional constipation.

 

[riff]

Re: so riff,

Are you just exploring this 'zen'? I have been seeing a lot of benefits from the non-judgmental, open-oneself ideas of eastern philosophy and religions. The observation thing without bias and feeling a need to control people and their choices has a lot of merit. Not letting feelings flood your moment so as to muddy your choices, is really helpful too. The other thing that I am embracing, is the whole idea of peeling away layers of the past - through writing - and setting myself free from the emotional constipation.

I guess I am just exploring it. Yesterday I took a break from the computer and went to the new age store that was having a sidewalk sale. I bought for myself a choker neckless of amber beads (said that amber signifies personal power) and saw this book. So I bought it, and thought I would share it with the people of lit as I read it.

I need the kind of peace it offers me so I guess I am getting into it. It makes a lot of sense.

 

[erosman]

A colleague of mine, who is quickly becoming a good friend of my whole family, is actually pursuing a form of Buddhism through classes. His says his motivation is to replace the angry responses from his neurotic disappointments with a more peaceful lifestyle. I think he is making tremendous strides. Other friends notice as well. Frankly, I can see a lot of merit in the practice of calmness and openness. I'm not sure where the balance lies for one's passions though. I'm still not convinced the self is as cumbersome as they propose. I'm thinking that balance of passion and peace is still attainable.

 

[riff]

We must combine meditation with living. It is easy to find peace in a cave, isolated from the world of temptations and antagonisms, or in a quiet room for a few minutes each day. It is much more difficult to bring peace into the world of relationships. It is in the world of action, the world of relationships, that meditation has its place and value.

 

[Ishmael]

It's your question. You tell me.

Good morning by the way.

Good morning riff.

Maybe my question, but you're the one on the philosophy kick today.

Finish "Focaults Pendulum" yet?

Ishmael

 

[riff]

Good morning riff.

Maybe my question, but you're the one on the philosophy kick today.

Finish "Focaults Pendulum" yet?

Ishmael

Actually, I have read Foucault's Pendulum twice from front to back. My latest exploration of it has been more of scaffolding from which to see how our minds fill in blanks. I will return to it from time to time. The current novel on riff's nightstand is Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Playpal.

You can be you will hear from the Pendulum again.

 

[riff]

Meditation is a way of living, not an isolated practice. It is a way of looking at the world. It is complete awareness in all of our actions. It is observation without the observer, thought without the thinker, experience without one who experiences. It is the beginning and the end, the first step and the last.

 

[GreenEyedGirl]

Meditation is dropping the veil. Allowing the here and now to be absorbed. It is a moment of clarity in chaos.
And it is harder to do than shitting out of your nose.

"To be aware of every though, every act, every gesture, expression, word, and feeling; and at the same time to be aware of the wind rustling through the trees, and of the sun reflecting from the damp rocks, and the person sitting next to you: This is what it means to be fully here, in the moment. This place, right here, right now, is where the truth lies. It is always here, always moving, always living. "

To have every fiber of your being in tuned with the inner, outer, and other stimuli is to find peace, balance, and calm.
But abandoning those illusions is scary. Facing real is scary. Dropping the veil is not so easy. But when you can, oh boy, life just crisps before your mind.


Great stuff my friend! As always.

Oh, and amber is pretty much only found in Russia and the Balkans. So that is appropriate, yes?

 

[riff]

Oh, and amber is pretty much only found in Russia and the Balkans. So that is appropriate, yes?

A russian friend gave me a thing like a sandpainting made with amber. It is a tree.

 

[riff]

The question is not how to meditate, but what meditation is. If meditation had a "how," then it would be mechanical, a formula, a finite process; and we cannot encompass the infinite through any finite thing. We wish to know truth, beauty, and immortality. But these things are boundless, alive, moving, and we can only know this movement by breaking down our mechanistic practices and abandoning our formulas. Meditation is meeting each moment of life anew. If we understand this simple thing, then the "how" becomes meaningless.

 

[riff]

There can be no meditation where there is effort or control. Effort and control imply a goal we wish to acheive. But a goal is necessarily of the future, so our focus has shifted to the future. Thus we use the present as a tool to achieve some future result, and the present becomes a means to an end rather than the end itself. But truth exists eternally in the moment, and meditation is the awareness of that moment.

 

[riff]

LOVE

We have all known the beauty of love, and the possessiveness that follows. This possessiveness leads to jealousy, and then to anger. But can possessiveness, jealousy, and anger co-exist with love? They cannot. The one destroys the other. Love eradicates personal hatreds and jealousies, and jealousies or possessiveness destroys love. True love has no object. It is a state of being. It is the infinite beauty of life that blossoms when we see the pettiness of our jealousy, the futility of our possessiveness, and the root of our anger.

 

[GreenEyedGirl]

Re: LOVE

We have all known the beauty of love, and the possessiveness that follows. This possessiveness leads to jealousy, and then to anger. But can possessiveness, jealousy, and anger co-exist with love? They cannot. The one destroys the other. Love eradicates personal hatreds and jealousies, and jealousies or possessiveness destroys love. True love has no object. It is a state of being. It is the infinite beauty of life that blossoms when we see the pettiness of our jealousy, the futility of our possessiveness, and the root of our anger.

Truer words have rarely been written. I have often said that jealousy is misdirected anger that smoothers love.
Love as the "infinite beauty of life" - I like that. I like it a lot.
How can one possess another? To want to become "one" with another makes me itch and chafe. Two separate beings in symbiotic harmony is the closest thing to true love I think we may ever reach as humans.
(Damn the "Princess Bride" for making me want that!)