As of late I have been straying from tonglen and have shifted my practice to something completely different. For those not in the know, astral projection is a specific way at looking at the concept of out of body experiences. The idea is that one can purposefully achieve an out of body experience (OBE) through meditation and lucid dreaming. I have always toyed with the idea of trying to have an OBE, but previously didn’t put much effort into the matter. Well the other day I came across this book Astral projection plain & simple and simply was unable to put it down once I started reading it. So I thought I would talk a bit about the book. As the title hints, it is a fairly straight-forward book on how to do astral projection and what to expect through astral projection. It has specific exercises for the individual to do, to not only eventually have a projection, but to hone ones skills in the astral plane. Despite its overly captivating nature and it’s simple form, I have had minimal success with the studies outlined in the book. The author has a very clear and certain idea of what the astral plane is like and what skills one would need prior to traveling in said realm. The first exercise presented to the reader is simple, yet so daunting I could see it turn most people away it involves developing the skill of seeing astral matter in an awake state of consciousness, that’s eyes open (I’ve yet to succeed in such). I do believe that the author is describing in astral projection is truly what he has and does experience. I even can believe that it is possible for one to see “astral mater” in a waking state of consciousness, but I feel like that might be an awfully big leap for the first step. I have since had more successful experiences with other material than this book, but it does seem to be a good catalyst if it eventually amounts to nothing else.

Happy Meditations,

Jake

I chose to continue with Tonglen today for my practice. I focused on one individual for the whole practice this time rather than having my focus wander where it would go. I think my meditation lasted for about half an hour and after that I drifted off to sleep. I would say the practice was equally as intense as the first time. I experienced what I would call feelings of physical and emotional bliss, a sort of warm soothing energy that became more powerful than the feedback that lets one feel specific body parts… so I had points in my meditation where I felt more like a large warm blob of energy than a human with arms and legs. The practice also made me smile a lot and made me want to laugh from time to time, mostly in reaction to the feelings of supreme happiness. I know all this sounds a bit fantastical, but I am unsure how else to describe these feelings.

Happy Meditations,

Jake

With all the talk of Tonglen I’ve been doing as of late I thought it only right to choose it for my individual practice today. I don’t have much academic knowledge of Tonglen so I used the greatness of the internet to inform me of how I might proceed. I found a short article (http://www.naljorprisondharmaservice.org/pdf/Tonglen.htm) on the Naljor Prison Dharma Service website that was extremely helpful in giving me a very direct and immediate path to follow. (I don’t want to imply I am knowlegable about Naljor Prison Dharma, I found the link through wikipedia, but I am intrigued by them… I’ll have to read a bit about them)

Following those guild lines I tried to use the visualization the suggested. Considering it was my first time practicing Tonglen I thought it would be wise to do something on the easier side of things, so I picked a single individual I care a lot for to focus on. I found it distracting to focus on a clear physical image of the person, and instead focused more conceptually on them. I did attempt to use their specific imagery of black smoke and the like, but found that it was not a detail I could maintain, and felt it better to maintain concentration on the idea rather than spend my energy correcting my lack of correct imagery. Through some of our group discussions, it has been expressed by other members that a powerful tool during meditation is the ability to watch oneself during the practice rather than use a lot of force trying to practice. For some reason that came to mind several times during my meditation, and I chose to follow that. While focusing on the suffering, pain and negative aspects the original person I had intended (and using that force to cleanse what I would think of as ego related personality traits) I found myself having compassion for the person, not despite these negative traits, but with those included. I even had a feeling of love and acceptance for these traits and their suffering (it was an odd feeling to have). These thoughts evolved quickly, and I found myself concentrating on people that I had less compassion and understand for; eventually concentrating on larger groups of people and in a more global sense. I even had a good portion of time when I found myself feeling compassion, love and acceptance for negative traits I saw in myself (which wasn’t really suggested in what I’ve read so far). I had not really intended for all of this to take place when I started the practice, and I don’t mean to imply in any way that I am some fantastically compassionate person; instead, I found that the practice seemed to build on itself naturally. Eventually the practice moved to a more relaxed state of consciousness, and I found myself spending my time just laying there letting my body breathe and observing that.

I had a wide range of feelings throughout the practice. It was difficult to let myself feel, or even conceptualize, the pain and suffering of someone else. I am a bit of a new-age weirdo, so I have a substantial amount of fear that if I accept negative energies into my body they could do damage. I did not feel that to be the case. I initially did experience a feeling of sadness, but having a place to direct these negative “energies” was extremely beneficial to me. After a time I no longer even felt that these energies or aspects of people (or the universe) we negative at all, they simply were and they were all something worthy of my compassion and love. Other feeling I had were bliss and joy. Physically speaking I had some brief moments of increased comfort and towards the end had short burst of out of body feelings, that corresponded to the idea of observing rather than participating in the practice.

If you had a chance to read the notes I wrote on our last group meeting I had mentioned that tonglen might be viewed as a more feminine practice. Although this conjecture was my own and not Ken Wilbur’s, I don’t think it was a very big leap and it was based more on concepts he presented than my own feelings. After practing this though i would say the whole masculine feminine buisness is either toltal bubkis, or Tonglen is not a good example of such.

Overall I found this practice to be quite good for me. Lately I have been struggling with getting anything out of any of my meditation, I often find I spend the entire time trying to quite my mind, never succeeding. Directly after doing Tonglen I find myself having a desire to be more humble and careful about how I speak to others, a noble side effect. I had chosen this practice because it had more structure than anything else I had been trying, and I was feeling that structure was my missing link. I intend to continue with this practice for a good while, and may do a little more research and reading on the subject.

As always, good luck in all your endeavors in meditation,

Jake

I thought I would actually take some initiative and start contributing to this blog, rather than let it sit and collect dust. So I am going to post a bit about last weeks meeting.

For anyone who is not in our group but has happened upon this blog, or maybe one of us sent you here our meetings have been fairly regular, we usually have them on Sunday nights (a pleasant way to wrap up the week -or start the new one). We like to share a meal together, have some sort of discussion’s that has to do to meditation and then have a small group meditative practice.

Dinner was a random kitchen sink stew and salad, it was quite yummy (I could be considered slightly biased on that account). Josh presented two videos featuring Ken Wilbur, as well as a short interview, to the group to facilitate some discussion. After the discussion we did 20 minutes of group meditation. We decided to continue with a very simple individualistic practice where we all do our own thing for the time period we decide. I personally think that if all else fails in this practice it at least gives everyone one time a week where we know we will try some meditation.

So… a little bit about the Ken Wilbur material and our discussion:
(You can find the clips and lots of other video, audio and written material on integral naked (http://in.integralinstitute.org/) but there is a membership fee to register and be able to access any of it, yes spirituality – at least as far as Ken Wilbur is concerned – costs money)

Video Clip: Love Until it hurts
This a clip from a question and answer secession Ken did somewhere. Answering a question, Ken talks about the difference between the path of spiritual enlightenment in regards to gender. Mr Wilbur takes the stance that the masculine approach to spirituality -or enlightenment – is to achieve a state of equanimity or stillness, while a feminine approach would be to find absolute compassion. So for example, a man might find it advantageous to stare at a wall for hours on end remaining motionless, while a woman might find a practice that lends itself to caring for others (such as tonglen) much more spiritually rewarding. His argument is that both practices aim for the same goal, which is the recognition of the divine in everything (the idea that everything is equally wondrous, and nothing is bad, or worse than something else).

So, some of the group expressed a lot of disagreement with the idea that such masculine or feminine tenancies had to be specifically linked with gender at all. Some also had trouble agreeing that these tendencies should even be viewed as masculine or feminine at all, even outside of gender roles. There were also problems with how systematically organized Ken’s theories are; although some members found this organized system helpful in describing experiences in spirituality or enlightenment, others found it too confining and unrealistic towards life’s experiences.

Video Clip: An Upper-Right Approach to Sex
(Upper right is a quadrant in Wilbur’s integral spirituality system, it is the view of a person in the 3rd person objective, or as an external object. Referring to the physical, biological aspects of an individual)
This Clip was from a different question and answer session. Again in response to someones question Ken again talks about differences between men and women. This is more about biochemistry, and he talks mainly about how men and women deal differently with the issue of sex and he gives reasons based mostly on hormones. His idea is that testosterone which is the dominant hormone in men leads to aggression, violence and egocentricity. While Estrogen and oxytosen in women leads to… well focus around a partner, and their emotional involvement. So while men might tend towards aggressive and violent behaviors and more towards sex they can redirect such feeling by say.. aggressively caring for all life.

This video caused even more disagreement in our group. In fact individuals not only expressed disagreement that men and women think or act in these ways, but the mention of this upset some and made them want to block the rest of what he had to say on the subject. It was expressed that these views are even somewhat stereotypically male, similar to the some of Freud’s views on masculine and feminine personalities, and although they might be excepted by some, they are just theories.

I don’t know what interview we listened to, it mainly talked about what integral spirituality was and Ken Wilbur’s role in publicizing it. Overall I think the videos and interview did offer a good base for discussion. I hope I didn’t leave any of the groups opinions out, maybe they will respond the this post if they wish to add anything. Of course if you aren’t in this small group I think you should feel free to discuss the topic with us (or me at least).

Happy Meditations,

Jake

Alright everyone; we need a name! How does everyone feel about acronyms? Do we need a general mission statement for our meditation/discussion group? That might help with deciding on a name. We could also make a list of types of practices we have done or can do. We could invent some practices, too. Over and out.