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Not Holding On

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Wednesday, 18 Oct 2023, 11:22


Instead of letting go or not clinging. I prefer the term 'not holding onto' that seems to work for me. Just let things be without holding onto them. I can still enjoy things then, and live, but if I don't hold onto them, then I don't have to worry about letting go of them later, because I never became attached. 

I've done some pretty stupid things in my life and made some poor choices. When I try to let go of the regret I feel for that, it doesn't seem to work for me. I find that although I seem to let go for a moment, I find myself clinging again the next moment.

When I think instead about not holding onto anything, then that makes it easier. I don't know why, it means the same thing as not clinging, but a different use of wording has a magic effect on the mind. 

There's nothing to hold onto, everything changes from moment to moment, this moment is already gone, and the next, and the next... and everything and everybody is destined to die one day. I don't mean that to sound depressing. On the contrary, it is a relief to know this. Nothing matters then. One becomes like a peaceful life stream just flowing from one moment to the next without stressing.



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Asoka

Walking

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Sensations of feet connecting with the ground, and the feeling of the body moving through space from one point to the next. The flow of air all around, touch of it on skin and clothes. Eyes half-closed, with a soft gaze. Mind centered with the body and the experience of walking. But aware of what is happening in peripheral awareness. Knowing where I am. What I am doing.

With walking there is that sense of working through stuff. Perhaps it is the forward motion of walking which brings a feeling of making progress, pushing through it, the sensations of movement and change.

I can get into a flow sometimes when walking. The self disappears and everything becomes energy. There's a feeling of oneness, absorption, a blissful feeling of freedom from the unpleasant feelings that come from longing, aversion and conceit.

Sometimes I stop and look at the sky. And feel a sense of awe, that there is even such a thing as sky. The clouds pass by over the blue background, and the cool breeze feels pleasant, the plants swaying, all of it is changing.

...

Permalink 2 comments (latest comment by Richie Cuthbertson, Saturday, 15 Jul 2023, 21:57)
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Asoka

Spring breeze

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photograph of a painting

Prints of this painting are available from here.

May all beings be safe, well, peaceful and happy (-:


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Artificial hallucinations, propaganda, and flow

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Monday, 27 Feb 2023, 13:00

An AI hallucination is when an artificial intelligence behaves in a way that deviates from what would be considered normal or expected based on the input it receives.
 
Machine learning can hallucinate when the data it is trained on is noisy, incomplete, or biased. It can also hallucinate when it encounters something different from what it has learnt about before.
 
AI hallucinations can be dangerous, they can lead to erroneous decisions being made, inaccurate predictions, and can even lead to dangerous situations, like for example an hallucinating self-driving vehicle; or the spread of misinformation via the media, such as an AI generating realistic images of people or events that never occurred.
 
This last example highlights the potential for A.I. to be deliberately misused in order to spread disinformation and manipulate public opinion. So the time is coming where people will have to be extra mindful, extra vigilant and practise critical thinking when consuming media. Fact check everything and be careful not to jump to erroneous conclusions based on anything you read, see, or hear on a digital device.
 
It might be wise to find time in the day to withdraw from digital devices and the media, and look after our mental health. Do something creative instead. Meditate, find ways to get into a flow state. Learn how to calm down the thought energies, and have a rest from it all.
 
Flow states are beneficial and can help bring some lucidity and calm to the mind, which can help us think better and see things more clearly. It is important to do this now more than ever I think, to learn how to get calm and centred. To have moments where we withdraw from the world and develop some serenity, composure and clear seeing.
 
Hopefully then it will be harder to be misled and deceived by those who may not have our best interests at heart; and also perhaps a way to flow peacefully with what is now a surreal and rapidly changing world.
 

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Asoka

Dissolving problems

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I am enjoying meditating on the breath energy at the moment and moving it throughout the body. It helps me maintain interest and curiosity in the breath as a meditation object, and it feels enjoyable and invigorating.

I place my attention on the cool air going into the nasal cavity and the warm air going out, like the waves of the sea going into a cave, breathing in, breathing out. I become aware of the whole body at once, feel the breath energy travel deep into the body, into the lower belly and down into my feet and toes, making them tingle with happiness. I feel it in my hands also as I breathe in and out. The energy permeating the whole body, like the ocean filling inner coves. It feels cool, soothing, and refreshing. The spine tingles, and the scalp and back of the neck lights up with pleasure. The feeling of air and the touch of clothing on skin feels pleasant, and the body is comfortable and at ease. The cool air all around me enters the pores of my skin with each inhalation, nourishing every fibre of my being. It feels wonderful.

After a while of doing this, the energy becomes more settled and serene, and then it feels good to stop moving the energy round the body, and just let it be, resting quietly in the awareness of the inner body. The energy bubbles and flows gently on its own, and the mind settles into a peaceful state, composed, content and lucid. Not wanting to be anywhere else. The body and mind feels satisfied and becomes very still, no longer harrassing itself, tranquilised and at peace (-:

It doesn't matter if this is supported by science, meditation is not about objective reality. Meditation is about the subjective reality. It is about the inner world, the inner body, inner being. In meditation, the chakras, the breath energy, magic can all be real, and it can heal.

I read an article recently about the power of the placebo effect, and I wonder if that is an indication of the magic potential of the mind when it comes to the subjective experience (-:

I wonder if that was the meaning behind the movie: 'Life of Pi'. If that film was about the importance and value of the subjective experience, because that is where we live.

I am starting to realise that many of our problems are not really problems, they are just mental constructs and imaginary fears that don't need to be resolved at all. They just need to be dissolved by tranquility. Then whatever's left is easier to work with and understand.


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Time is change

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Monday, 23 Jan 2023, 22:21

The mind is a mix of positive and negative tendencies. Some of which can remain dormant for long periods of time until the right causes and conditions in life occur to activate them. The potential for both good and bad lies dormant in us like karmic seeds. I think from what little I know about biology, DNA works in a similar fashion. We all have strands of inactive DNA which remain dormant until the environment around us changes in such a way that the conditions are ripe to activate it.

When a tadpole becomes a frog. During the different stages of mutation in the biological flow, what is it that transfers from one moment to the next?
What is left of the caterpillar when it becomes a butterfly?

This mysterious flow of life has no discernible beginning, even the Buddha said he could not see the beginning of Samsara, no matter how far back in time he looked he found no beginning to it. We have been entangled in this cycle of birth and death for an incalculable amount of time, becoming different beings over the course of our endless rebirths, playing different roles in this neverending story of self.

The Buddha said that the problematic behaviour that keeps us bound to Samsara springs up from three unwholesome roots: greed, hatred, and delusion. But because we are ignorant of their presence in the mind, these three poisons keep creating problems for us. And until we have properly uprooted them we are a mixed bag of karmic seeds, some of which can lie dormant in us for a considerable length of time, some for as long as lifetimes, waiting for the right conditions to sprout. A moral person can become immoral; and a bad person can become good. Beings can turn, sometimes quite suddenly. Angels can become devils, and devils can become angels.

There's a story in the Buddhist suttas which is a dramatic example of the way people can change suddenly when dormant karma becomes activated. (The story can be read here: Angulimala: A murderer's road to sainthood ) Angulimala went from a peace-loving model student, to a serial killer who tried to make the Buddha his 1000th victim, but after his encounter with the Buddha he became his disciple, and after a period of training Angulimala became a fully enlightened being that wouldn't harm a fly.

This story shows the fluidity of self, that nothing is set in stone, things arise and cease due to the causes and conditions that shape them. This knowledge can bring hope, because it means that we are not completely powerless, we can put in the right conditions to activate the wholesome tendencies of the mind and use those to put a stop to the unwholesome tendencies for good. When the mind is no longer clouded by greed, hatred, and delusion, it naturally becomes light and free, luminous like the moon coming out from behind the clouds.

The self is not what we think, whatever we identify with, that is not the self. The self is not a static entity. It is changing. Each mind moment a new moment of becoming. What went before has gone. We try to make the nice moments last, relive them, preserve them, but looking at a photograph is not the same, there's a kind of sadness with photographs, you see something that has passed, has changed, a moment that no longer exists. If you were to stitch photographs of your life together you would see the way we change from one self to another. We are a flow of energy. What we identify with changes. Our passions change. Everything changes. Even if you preserve a moment, and keep trying to relive the pleasant feelings associated with it, eventually it becomes tiring, one gets bored, this can happen with music, movies, books, video games, relationships, drugs. Our senses grow jaded, and our interests and personalities change, and what once excited us we no longer find interesting. This too is change.

I am a different person than I was when I first sat down to write this, and that moment has now gone, it no longer exists.

We die in every moment. Each tick of the clock is a new self.

Time is change.

There's something exhilarating about knowing that, it feels freeing when one can flow from one moment to the next without clinging to anything. In our day to day life, we do not realise how the sense of self with its identifying, its cares, woes, wants, and resentments weighs us down, we carry this stuff around with us like a concrete block that just gets heavier and heavier to carry, the story of self is tiring and burdensome; but when one lets go of the story. One feels lighter, freer and happier. Time feels different then.

 


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Rising flowing

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photo of a painting

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1340481102/rising-flowing


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New blog post

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Wednesday, 27 Oct 2021, 15:43


Leaves leave shadows  

through dusty stained glass

musical rhythms make the

static shadows dance.

Mind and outer

a unified flow

timeless

empty 

I don't

know.


Permalink 1 comment (latest comment by Gill Burrell, Friday, 8 Oct 2021, 07:10)
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