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There are absolutely no words that can describe the way these past 10 days have made me feel. I embarked on a 10 day silent meditation retreat in Vipassana and it was by far the most amazing experience I have ever had. Don't get me wrong, there have been some hard and bitter times when my mind has really hit me; however, at the end of the experience, I realized that I had never experienced this kind of happiness.
10 days ago I considered myself a very happy person and, by my standards, I was. From family, friends, significant others, education, work, mindset, trust or life purpose… I was extremely happy and had the answers I needed to live a comfortable life. There were absolutely no complaints I could have generated about my life. Yet, after the course, I realized how incomplete things without Vipassana were in my life, and I wasn't even aware of it. I earned so much once I walked through the downtown gate and walked the path of noble silence.
When I introduced myself, I was extremely anxious and couldn't stay calm. Random thoughts like: “What happens if I quit? What if this isn't for me? What if I don't like it? What if I went crazy just thinking so much? They don't serve dinner, what if I starve? 11 hours of meditation every day, what if i can't do it? “I have to admit I was worried and skeptical. However, I just took one step at a time and probably thought about quitting every day; however, I persisted. The next thing I learned is that the journey was complete.
I don't think I can formulate words about this experience that will make travel any kind of justice, because it wasn't intellectual learning… it was experiential learning. The only way to make a full profit is to jump on the path and walk it yourself. Your life will be different from any other person's life and by reading I don't think you will get it. You have to experience it firsthand to see how your mind reacts to certain things.
I've made many important discoveries along the way and learned a lot. My greatest learning and innovation came from the teacher talking about misery. I will share my thoughts and experiences on this topic because misery is something everyone can relate to. Misery is universal. What is misery?
mis · er · y (n.): a state or feeling of great distress or discomfort in the mind or body.
During the course, we learned that two things in life cause suffering. The first is craving and the second is aversion. What is craving and aversion?
desire (n.): a strong desire for something.
a · ver · sion (n.): a strong dislike or disinclination.Now that the formalities of these words are out of the way, let me explain how these things work. Keep in mind that all of these things above go hand in hand. When things and situations happen in life, from an early age we develop cravings based on things we like and aversions based on things we don't like. When you are a child, let's say you like applesauce, you will naturally start craving it and if you don't get what you crave, you will start crying. On the other hand, let's say you don't like vegetables, you will naturally try to distract yourself from them and if they show up, you will cry again. There is a level of suffering that is attached to this type of crying. With this misery of not getting what you want or getting something you don't want, you will develop feelings of: anger, hate, disgust, agony, sadness,
The funny thing about this whole process is that we adults like to think we are much smarter than we were as children. In fact, we think we are freeing ourselves more and more as time goes by. To some intellectual extent this is true; however, on an instinctive level, this is actually far from the truth.
During my seventh night or eighth morning, I took this path to think about all my life experiences. I started from my earliest memory up to what I was experiencing that day. Why did I do it? I do not know. After all, I had nothing but time to sit there and do it. This is what my mind naturally started doing one night.
I have begun to realize that we as humans can think of ourselves as this independent figure and in some cases we can finally learn how to be. But for most of us, we are just the manifestation of what happened to us in the past and we are now living in the present moment. We are in a sense the sum of all our past experiences.
I came across this thought about an experience lived in the fourth grade. We were a middle class family and nothing special. I had this pair of shoes and they were a “Spalding” brand but they looked like Iversons. I thought they were really cool. I remember one day a sixth grade came up to me and said, "Oh hey, nice shoes." I said, "Thanks." And then, between careful inspection, he said, “Wait, those aren't from Iverson, those are fake! “I being the innocent in fourth grade, I said,“ No, they're not fake, I'm Spalding. "He replied," Well, yes, but you only have them because they look like Iverson's. ”This was true, I did.
I started laughing in my mind and smiling at that moment. I also realized that I didn't like that feeling at the time. I didn't like the feeling of being called fake, I mean who wants that feeling? I can't imagine many would do that. But I started to delve into this feeling. Now I look at my shoes, the best. I look at other things I own, all material possessions, and it's all on a higher level. I try my best to be a top notch person with everything I do when it comes to looking or dressing up. But what is my motivation? I noticed that it is aversion to the feeling I once had when. If somebody in a club stopped me and said, "Hey, that velvet blazer is fake." My reaction: "What the fuck are you talking about, boy?" And one thing leads to another, maybe a fight, who knows. Then in my mind all night, the same moment repeats itself over and over, and it sticks to me. That feeling is back.
My friend, this is the beginning of misery.
Now this is just one of my many experiences that I thought about that night when I created who I am very early on. I know this may have nothing to do with you because your experiences are truly unique from mine and vice versa. But the feeling of suffering is something that is not unique. As I have already said, our misery as a collective is universal.
In many other cases you may be an individual who has or has a desire for prestige. So, in order to satisfy this craving, you have a fancy job title and make good money. But deep down, why would individuals want this? Perhaps because the parents were farmers or a janitor father and a stay-at-home mom. In order to avoid the ridicule that the company can take such positions, attempts are made to compensate.
Perhaps an individual grew up poor and now they try to go out and accumulate material possessions to show themselves and others that this has changed and they do it to compensate for insecurities. Their purpose is to avoid that negative feeling they may have had about themselves or that society has placed on them.
Maybe an individual who is promiscuous is just like that because they weren't the most beautiful creatures growing up (something I think most of us think) and maybe all of this person's friends had boyfriends and girlfriends in high school. They began to ask, "What's wrong with me?" Or maybe nobody wants to be with me. In order to avoid these questions or feelings in asking these questions themselves, they now go out and sleep with more people to show that they are wanted or can feel fulfilled by doing so.
Perhaps an individual goes out and reads a lot of books and has accumulated a few degrees because they have the urge to be very intelligent. This need comes from the fact that they were in sixth grade, where they used to sit in the back of the French class and get all the answers wrong and the other kids laughed at them. They now want to avoid these feelings of mockery and shame.
These are cases where feelings of aversion have occurred because the thought of discomfort may be too uncomfortable to think about. As a result of these unpleasant feelings, we turn our cheeks away and most of this happens on a subconscious level. Right now, we begin to see these notions of filling these gaps with distractions. What is distraction?
revelation (n.): a thing that prevents someone from paying full attention to something else.
As a society we have learned to distract ourselves from important things. The things that really matter are starting to drown because we don't take aversion seriously enough. Finally, even if we wanted to take these aversions seriously… how could we? They have already been filled and buried so deeply and the unconscious mind has taken full control of them. Now let's start taking mental heuristics to a hyper-speed level because there are distractions.
An example of these things happening: You are in the middle of an argument with someone close to you. Maybe it's a spouse, parent or sibling. Your mind and body begin to realize that this is an argument and you don't like this feeling. The first thing the unconscious mind starts thinking about is how to avoid these feelings. Now the distractions go. Instead of arguing and leaving everything in / out, we take our phones. We start pretending that something is going on and when we realize that we are not, we simply open a social media tab and start scrolling nonsense. You don't want to acknowledge the topic because it hurts too much, so divert your attention elsewhere.
Another example is when you are in a bad mood. Instead of facing this bad mood and thinking about it, open Netflix and start scrolling nonsense again. Take your attention away from yourself and move on to something else. This is distracting the mind at best. The result is misery and even if you don't feel pain because you are distracted, it will be filled and eaten by the unconscious, but don't be fooled… it's still there. Also, what happens when Netflix says, "Sorry, an error has occurred." Or "No Internet Connection". Oh, the misery. The worst 3 minutes of your life.
How many distractions can you invent?
Phone. Texting. Social media. Reading. Movie. Television. Food. Smoke. Sex. Alcohol. Drug. Workout Music. Guide. Intoxication. I can go on for a while. "I want to get it out of my mind." Sound familiar? The craziest part of it all is yet to come. The next thing I realized completely numbed my mind. We think distractions are bad, and yes they are. But that's not even the worst part. It's only the beginning. The body and mind have begun to cling to these things. Because? Because they make us feel good. The things that make us feel good especially when we are down are even more powerful in gaining traction. What happens to these things when we feel good? Ah, a craving arises.
We have now moved from aversions to distractions and are starting to crave distractions because they make us feel good. It is a vicious circle. Dealing with cravings is a very dangerous game because what happens when these cravings are not satisfied? You start to fidget. Agitation leads to feelings of anger, hatred, frustration, sadness and last but not least misery.
This leads me to intoxication and why it's such a big deal. This is because in the beginning what started as a distraction has now become a craving. The next thing you know is that people drink senselessly on weekends. Because? "I work hard from Monday to Friday, I can." They are avoiding their feelings Monday through Friday by drinking to sleep on the weekend. "Ah, I can't believe it's Sunday night and he'll be working again tomorrow." People, who drink alcohol and use drugs, started with aversion, used it as a distraction and, in turn, began to desire it. These intoxicants allow you to escape for a partial moment. Society uses these intoxicants to avoid unwanted feelings and escape the reality they live in. This is how alcoholics and drug addicts are created. What happens when their wish is not fulfilled? Yes, you guessed it ... Misery. This is large-scale misery.
You might ask, "Well Sunny, that's great, but why is it important?" These things happen in life and they happen to everyone. It is so. It is important because misery is at the center of these problems. No matter how big or small, the uncomfortable feeling is there. With this feeling, this is not equanimity of your mind. If someone stops me in a club now and says: Hey, that velvet blazer is fake! "I'll reply with:" Oh yes, and it was also heavily discounted. "I mean who cares? Why should I let myself be disturbed? My state of mind is more important. My internal mind being in a state of equanimity is more important than any other external force.
All of these problems that we wanted to avoid were problems that were important to us at some point and they left a footprint on our mind. Just because we got over them doesn't mean we forgot about them. In most cases we may even think that we have forgotten about them; however, this is not the case. These feelings persist and are often unconscious. They carry out our daily actions; however, we are not aware of what is going on. The key to Vipassana is to bring the unconscious mind ever closer to the conscious mind. Through noble silence, one is able to calm the mind and body enough to examine the change in bodily sensations as certain feelings emerge. When suffering arises, you feel it on a physiological level.
One might ask, "Well, why are you hearing it now and not before?" This is because there were a lot of distractions first and then the cravings kept me going. I was in a vicious circle and didn't even realize it. I had my biggest breakthrough on day 8. It's 192 hours of silence. 192 hours without distractions. 192 hours of absence of cravings or satisfaction. 192 hours of nowhere to run and divert my attention. At that moment I had to face the music because there was nothing else to do. It hit me like a ton of bricks and was extremely painful. The build-up on day 8 was very painful. It was such a crazy journey; it can only be understood by going and growing through it.
Even though this ride was on a roller coaster and I had my moments of really messed up thoughts, I have to say it was worth it. It's crazy, right? The liberation I feel today is worth every minute. The feeling I got when I spoke for the first time was a real madman. I will never forget how the vibrations of my voice shook my mind. I can truly sit here and say that for the first time I have experienced happiness without unhappiness. This is a completely different level of happiness on its own.
I want to finish by saying this. This post has its ups and downs and it has its perfections and flaws. This is all great and wonderful now that I have written it. But my intention behind this was not, “Oh, hey, I'm Sunny Mhay. I did this amazing thing. Watch me. Look how cool I am. Look at my release. Look at my wisdom. "NO. NO. NO. My intent behind this message is to look you in the face and say: just look inside. This is not about me; I don't even care about my trip anymore. It's all over. I am looking at this present moment with a heart full of good vibes and I want to sincerely share my love with you. I would do you injustice if you didn't share. I would do everyone an injustice if I didn't encourage you to take a look. There is nothing religious going on, only nature. This is spirituality. This is a natural study of your mind, body, and experiences.
I want all of you to be peaceful. I want you all to be happy. I want all of you to be set free. I want everyone to experience love. There is no other reason behind this post.
And most importantly, I want you to punch misery in the face
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