Clif High - Mind Tools...

May 16, 2023 - Clif High

20:42

Mind Tools...

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	Hello humans.
	Hello humans.
	It's May 16th, 9 something.
	Maybe it's 9.20, something like that in the morning.
	Taking a break from cleaning in the greenhouse.
	Things are getting done.
	It's progressing.
	But that just means I find other chores when this is done.
	Anyway, so this is about mind tools.
	So we have people that will say, well, you know, and I go and I meditate five hours a day.
	Or they don't really say that.
	The one guy I'm thinking about says, well, he works on himself five hours a day.
	And he's like, maybe he's in his 50s.
	And so he's talking about, you know, doing his stretches and keeping his body up and all of that.
	But he does do meditation.
	You'll also see people that say that, you know, they do meditation every day and so on.
	Now, the issue is the definition.
	Okay.
	So what is meditation?
	And I'm not going to go into all of the different categories and all of that kind of crap.
	Meditation is not the range of thought that extends from musing over to enlightenment, right?
	Meditation is a tool that is used at the very end of that process.
	So it's not contemplation.
	There are some techniques, some heuristics that have been developed over the years by people that have done this, that have systematized and codified it, and you can find these.
	There's names for various schools and so on.
	But it all comes back to the Hindu science of Samkhya.
	And that itself comes down to there is the consciousness and then there is everything that is manifest.
	And at a very core level, all meditation develops from that thought, that there is consciousness and then stuff that is not consciousness that is manifest.
	And so in our very complex world, we need tools to deal with the world and with ourselves.
	And the idea here in Samkhya is that if you look at those things that are manifest and think about them in a particular way and do this in a particular way, you will come to understand yourself.
	And that's the whole point of meditation is to achieve yourself and overcome yourself.
	And we're not talking ego or any of that, right?
	It's your essence.
	It's beyond ego, beyond all of the aspects, attributes, and attributes and affectations of the personality, the total essence.
	And so the idea is that you can separate your essence and you can reveal it to yourself and that that's part of the process of universe is revealing to yourself your essence and universe wants this to occur.
	So it provides to you daily bazillions of opportunities for you to explore this under whatever form you want.
	And there's all different kinds of forms, right?
	So there's people that are at a level of spirituality where they reveal stuff to themselves in their dreams, okay, about themselves, not about the external world, but about themselves.
	And so they get some level of enlightenment by the dreaming, okay?
	And it's a process for them and some of them are codified and some of them not.
	There are various different kinds of approaches to this.
	Meditation is this narrow part of the category at the very end near enlightenment.
	And it itself is subdivided into all these various different kinds of meditation.
	They all share the same root of examining yourself relative to that that is manifest, that that may be apprehended, that which may be overcome, and thus universe reveals yourself to yourself.
	And at a practical level, here's how that shit works, okay?
	There's all different kinds of schools of meditation.
	The ones I'm most familiar with, the ones I'm most practiced in, are called Vipasana and Zazen.
	Vipasana is also known as the householder's meditation.
	And it is the subject of today's discussion.
	And it has been a very popular sermon, so I'm the only seven years old in 2022.
	If you're interested in it orcamp ADC-if you're interested in it, Thank you.
	Although it shares, as do all meditation forms, necessarily, key core techniques with Zen.
	Okay, so vipassana originates in the Southeast Asia.
	It's from what's known as the small raft school of Buddhism.
	Buddhi, the Hindu word buddhi, means enlightenment, right?
	It means wisdom, intelligence.
	So the vipasana is the householder's meditation.
	And from seen from the outside, you don't know that the guy is meditating or the woman.
	They're sitting there sweeping their floor, they're washing the dishes, you know, doing clothes, you know, all of the supposedly mundane chores of the householder.
	And see, this is why this is particularly a pertinent form of meditation for today's life.
	And I think it's very pertinent, especially for young women, because they've been tortured, in my opinion, by the mental conditioning and programming that has been put on them by society.
	But here's the technique, okay?
	In vipassana as well as Zen, the idea is there's a saying that is common to both of them, all right?
	And it's chew your food.
	And in Zen, they say, make sure to swallow when you chew your food.
	Okay, now chewing your food is the illusion, is an allusion to the concept that stuff's going to arise in your mind.
	And while the goal of meditation is this void state where thought does not bring attachment and eventually thought falls away and you reveal yourself to yourself, you have to go through that process of the thoughts arising.
	And they arise continuously as they are arising now, as you're listening to me, as they were arising before you started listening to this, and as they will arise after you cease listening to this.
	But hopefully there will be a difference when you cease listening to this and you go on.
	Because here's the concept for both Zen and Vipasana.
	And that is that a thought arises and you that's it.
	The thought arises.
	Okay.
	And so you chew your food if you're a householder.
	And the idea is that the thought arises.
	Maybe it's about a criticism.
	Okay, so this is especially pertinent for young women who are the focus of criticism about themselves at a continuous level that while it also affects young males, it's slightly different in its intensity and impact.
	Okay, but the thought arises.
	You need not own that thought.
	You need not involve yourself in that thought.
	You need not react to that thought, but you will.
	And that's the key, is that you will.
	Your mind will, especially in these early days of this process, will react to these thoughts.
	It will interact.
	And that's what you want.
	Because what you want to do is to become transformative of your mind.
	You want to control your mind, but you don't want to control it with brutality or any of that.
	You want to redirect it.
	So you will find, everyone finds this, that there is a criticism that arises in their own mind about themselves.
	Maybe, and usually it's not like body criticism, but frequently that's the case with young people.
	Frequently that's the case with young women.
	Well, you know, they see someone else and then the thought arises, oh, geez, you know, her butt looks better or her hips are slimmer or something like that.
	So it's a comparison issue, right?
	So you're comparing yourself with an external reality.
	You think you're comparing yourself with that other woman over there.
	And this comparison is, it's actually evil in a sense, wicked in a sense, not evil, but it's wicked because of the, you can't resist it because it is inbuilt to you as part of the sexual dynamics of our species.
	And so your mind naturally wants to compare you that because you want to compete for the best male, etc., etc., right, to make the best children, etc., right?
	And so this is an inbuilt part of humanity.
	But that's inbuilt into the animalistic, into the body part of humanity, and it need not occupy your mind and drive you crazy with the mind control that our modern media has placed on those kind of thoughts, elevating them to the point where they consume you 24 hours a day because you're constantly comparing yourself not only with the women in your circle, right?
	But also because that circle is now global.
	Look how many women you're comparing yourself with, billions.
	Whereas if you were a tribal person, there's 150 people in a tribe.
	And so it adjusts.
	And so everybody has a relative value relative to everybody else within that 150 people.
	And so it's not quite so stressful, right?
	And so the thought arises, you know, oh, her hips are better looking or whatever it is, right?
	That whatever it is.
	And then that's when you have to stop and you say, ah, it happened.
	It happened.
	A criticism came into my mind.
	This is what I was waiting for, right?
	And then here's what you do.
	You acknowledge that criticism.
	It's there.
	I can see it.
	Now, instantly, that takes the sting out of that criticism, right?
	Because you're not dealing with the intended impact of that on your psyche.
	You are dealing with it as the message, not the content.
	So you're dealing with it as the form, not the content.
	And so you say to yourself, ah, that part of my mind that is an observer has observed something and it is now bringing that observation forward.
	Now, our modern society has twisted that and taken that observation and put it into the critical part of your mind.
	But as soon as you recognize that it is merely a part of your mind that has observed something and is bringing that observation to your awareness, that's as far as you need go with it.
	Now, this is where it gets tricky and it gets into all kinds of complications, but fundamentally that is it, right?
	You get this awareness that you get the criticism.
	And then the idea is that you want to capture that criticism or that thought, that whatever it is that has grabbed your attention, you want to capture that as something that has grabbed your attention and recognize that it is an awareness factor that has arisen and that you're not involved in the content.
	You're now involved in the form.
	That is, the form is an awareness flag that has been thrown, an awareness notification, right?
	Now, you don't care at this stage in the meditation process what the content of that awareness notification is.
	You can involve yourself if you want, and that's where it says chew your food.
	So the viposana meditation is different from Zen.
	Here's where it departs, okay?
	In Zen, as a thought arises, you flick it away.
	You acknowledge that there's a thought, criticism, whatever it is, pain in your back, the ankles are killing you, it's too hot, your gi is scratching you in the back, you're sweating, whatever that thought is, whatever that awareness is, you have a mental process where you flick it away with your finger and you just sit and wait for the next one to arise.
	And sooner or later, just like in the Dune book, where it was constantly this internal monologue with the main character working through his own psychological issues, and it was always aimed towards the end result is that as the reality expresses itself, it shows me me and only I remain after that process, right?
	The awareness points out me to me.
	Who is being aware?
	Who is it that is aware of this?
	What is it that is aware of this?
	And then you can get into the details.
	That's the chewing of the food.
	So in the vipazana thing, so you get the criticism that other woman's hips are better looking or whatever it is, like I say, right?
	That other, whatever it is, that awareness that triggers in you.
	And then you can chew on that and you can say, aha, I'm now aware of this.
	And then you can say, how did that affect me?
	So again, you don't go into it.
	You don't attach to it.
	You don't care about the content.
	That's not the point at all.
	The point is that you've discovered this game with universe, this tool with universe, where universe is bringing stuff to your attention and you can harmonize with that and you can say to universe, aha, thank you.
	I understand now.
	Now, how do I feel about this?
	And why do I feel about this that way?
	This is the whole point of the meditative process, right?
	This is a self-curing process.
	It aids you.
	It cures your mind.
	It allows you to thwart mind control constantly because you're always constantly aware of your own reaction.
	Now, bear in mind, all of these reactions, most frequently denied in males and embraced in females in this process, this is why women love viposana meditation, is that it is all emotion, right?
	You deal with those emotions in a way that you cannot get at any other fashion, in my opinion.
	Okay, now maybe I'm wrong, but you just can't get to these emotions any other way than through these meditative processes.
	And vipazana is really good this way because you chew on it.
	You're allowed to chew on it.
	You're not encouraged to attach to the flavor.
	You're not encouraged to do anything but chew it until it's finally dissolved and then swallow and say, good, I'm done with that.
	Now I understand in this moment how those awareness factors affected my emotions and how those emotions, had I been trapped in them, would have led me to not like that person, you know, because her hips were better or whatever the fuck it is, right?
	And so you see that the process itself of recognizing the emotion, feeling the emotion, feeling where it leads, seeing where universe wanted it pointed, but not looking at the content, not looking at the finger, but looking at where the finger points, okay?
	So the critical finger, that is this warping, this malformation of your observing mind.
	Now, if you do this for a long time, you can get enlightenment.
	There's many householders that are fantastically enlightened all through Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, all the hell and gone through there, right?
	And you just don't hear about them because householder meditation, you don't go out and form groups and, you know, monasteries and that kind of stuff usually.
	It's a personal kind of a thing.
	And it's very, very, very effective.
	And it keeps you sane during all these processes.
	Like I say, it aids you in knowing when people are trying to fuck with you because you know your own emotions.
	You're not a victim of your emotion.
	You don't simply you're not subsumed by the wave of your emotions.
	You're swimming in it and you're aware you're swimming and you're aware of the emotions and where they're taking you.
	And so no one can misdirect you under those circumstances.
	And so it has this very practical benefit at that level.
	But it also has a practical benefit of helping you long term calm your mind, control yourself, and beat back the constant mind control that comes from our current social order.
	And all you do is chew on that thought, right?
	But you don't get involved in the attachment to the thought.
	You don't get involved in the attachment to the criticism of your own hips.
	You just note that, oh, look, universe wanted me to note that that woman, that I think that woman's hips look better than mine is the thought that is being presented to me.
	Now, why did that arise?
	And then you track that thought back and see where its roots are, see what its origin is.
	And so this is what's known as Prakriti, the emergent.
	This is in Samkhya.
	They call it the emergent or the manifest in Zen, right?
	And it's the same thing in Vipasana meditation.
	Now, in Vipasana, the focus is, this is why it's more favored by women, but also because you can do it while you're sweeping and all of that kind of stuff, right?
	You don't have to have any kind of formality to torture yourself.
	You could be tortured anyway by your own thoughts.
	You might as well just do it as you're getting something done.
	So it's a very practical kind of meditation.
	And you'll see women in Southeast Asia that you know are householder meditation followers because of the way that they shop.
	They're doing everything perfectly the way that they would without it, but there's just this emotional element that provides this level of calm detachment because you're not attached to the content or the consequences of the thought.
	You're intrigued by the thought and you're intrigued by where the thought points.
	And then you go down and investigate that.
	And so it becomes a very practical, very happy kind of a thing.
	Oh, look, I get to work on this today.
	Oh, look, look what universe brought up to me this morning.
	And, oh, I'll chew on this all morning long, right?
	And so you chew on your reality.
	In Zen, the idea is you want to munch, munch, munch, and swallow and get rid of it and go on to the next, right?
	In vipassana, it's a little bit more relaxed in the sense that, you know, there's a little bit more of an encouragement to really chew on it and get all of the stuff that you can out of it before swallowing.
	And again, the idea is you don't, in non-attachment, okay?
	You don't care about what the thought is.
	And yes, you will have an emotion.
	You know, you'll get these critical thoughts that you're not good enough or whatever the hell, right?
	And maybe some of them will come in with a school teacher's voice or a parent's voice or a grandparent's voice, some authority figure's voice that you will hear these thoughts that will make you feel bad.
	And this process can cure that because you will examine that and you will say to yourself, ah, hey, there's that voice again.
	Now, whose voice is that?
	And you'll chew on that for a while.
	Or there's that thought.
	Now, why does that thought make me feel this way?
	And you'll chew on that for a while.
	And then you get back to the root of it.
	All of a sudden, your eyes will open up and you'll say, ah, that's why.
	And then you'll forget about it and go on.
	And that's vipasana.
	That's samkhya.
	That's Zen, right?
	In Zen, you simply sit down and dedicate yourself to this process.
	You're not up sweeping the floors and stuff.
	But to be fair, almost every Zen practitioner I know is constantly meditating, even without the formality of the dojo in the setting.
	It's just something that you do.
	And so now I'm going to put this down.
	I'm going to try and get these in little bursts and not go rattle on for several hours, basically limiting them to a single cup of coffee and then get back to my own work, my own householder chores and my own meditations.
	You can get a lot of stuff done and you work on yourself at the same time.
	So anyway, this was just a mind tool for you.
	There's a lot of these.
	There's a lot of techniques that you can use in meditation.
	Maybe I'll see if I can do a whole series of these kind of things.

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