dynamic mantra generation, gratitude

[posted on 2007-11-06-0800]
07-11-5 11:45
REVIEW OF DAY
Yesterday, a lifetime ago.--After sitting, I wrote in the warm classroom.

Leaving there around noon, I went to swim.

Leaving pool around 110pm, began 7laws yoga in gym, but did not finish beyond the mantras--

Oh- on way to pool I watched SDSU women's volleyball team playing in gym.

I was moved to tears watching the coordination, complexity of what both teams were doing.

I had never seen volleyball like that.

Now that I think--it is like the rugby practicers I see on the field near the pool--

Part of the vball excitement is that , perhaps, when both teams are so good, the ball just keeps going, it doesn't stop. Watching is one long moment of single-pointed mind, with a release when the ball does hit the ground.

Now why I cry-- and not go into samadhi like Ramakrishna. . .

Even so, I did not stay long.

After terminating yoga early--

checking in with what was next--

felt it was time to create--, so could upload pics or make some changes to blog.

That's my creative feeling, I guess.

On the way I picked natal plums to eat, thinking that would be enough. But then went to eat some (alot) of leftover beans I'd saved.

That, at least, did me till this morning--and while it did not not fit in stomach, it did cause dis-ease.

I went to upload photos--my fiddling the day before helped mind find a possible way to do it here--and it worked.

So I updated the garden blog and this one.

I changed the name of this blog from already enlightened to j9k.

I posted to the food not lawns list about my garden photos.

This took till 530 or so.

Then I went outside.

Then I went to read more _Sri Ramakrishna's Divine Play_, and did this till 9pm.

[Before that though, I ordered two tires and 1 tube from performancebike.com-- $26 or so. . .
But a lot of computer fiddling.

This will let me ride an upright bike I found more. I am more likely to ride that than my recumbent for short trips.]

Then I walked across highway and found a place to sleep.

I was up at 445 or so. Did see 3 coyotes in the night.

Then I went to a playground near an elementary school and did the whole 7laws yoga.

Law of the day is giving and receiving.

Maintain breath awareness.

Cultivate gratitude.

Recognize needs.

I sat-- not optimistic, but I stayed and stayed. Deepened practice.

Then walked by school as parents and students were arriving--8am.

Then to windmill farms grocery to get flax seeds, sunflower seeds, mushrooms, and that was mostly it.

[they need to create pedestrian access to parking lot along the west entrance to lot--no sidewalk or pedestrian stripes. I walk in road. While leaving, car came close. Felt anger.]

I sat nearby and ate.

I read vision magazine and lightline mag [the light connection] as well.

I checked in with god to see if it was god's will that I keep eating.

For a while I went against god's will, but, ultimately, ate much slower and more aware than usual,

and I still have at least half of the sunflower seeds I bought left--though I expected when I bought them I would eat them all.

Even though I repeatedly wanted to eat more later on, I did not.

Now, it is clear, even so, I did eat a bit too much.

This is how it works:

I eat, and get on [stuck on] that feeling.

Then I tend to like the re-eating feeling-- which, generally, means I ate too much.

Eventually the re-eating feeling is no longer desired, and is disruptive, so I either spit out the excess food when it comes up, perhaps saving it for later use in different ways.

Or I have to keep reswallowing it.

The food coming up/ being reswallowed is where dental/gum health is hurt.

--So that's the full story, or at least the most of it I've gotten out in one place.

12:11
So, I was reading, not eating any more--it was not god's will--

it was not really god's will that I read, but I was.

Whiffs of cigarette smoke got me to be on my way across the highway.

I came here, and finished reading the lightline.

It's "The Light Connection."

Now, there were many good things to read in these magazines, which once I wrote off as not my thing/too new agey.

I also found that someone has got the Sri Ramakrishna book--

!!!!

Aurobindo is still here. I bet Yogananda is too.

MINDFULNESS, MINDLESSNESS

Mindless moments--eating the beans for lunch.

Mindful: eating the sunflower seeds for breakfast, and continuing to check in to see if it was god's will to eat more.

And other moments.

INSIGHTS

--12:20
During meditation I got to revising:

this is not? My background quality-->

Am I aware of ground?--

Thought of doing something like that for "An ethics that works"--

But then I quit that-- it was messing in thought-- and not sitting. . . Not being aware of ground or the gap or whatever it is I'm getting at.

--

I was doing well getting into the gap--

and liking it.

Then came up with a new game--

"Dynamic Mantra Generation"

When the gap is broken--, when thought, image, sensation draws attention--

use that as mantra until I realize attention has shifted again-- then use new focus as mantra. . .

I tried to play just now. . .

But got into a sort of no thought focus, and when did notice sensation, did not want to make that my mantra--

Another thing came up that I wrote down:

In a book at the local public library here which I found while browsing on one of those days long ago when I first started writing here, I believe,

_The book of highs_

I think is the title,

There are some memorable "highs" listed.

One had to do with "reciting the gettysburg address backwards while singing 'america', while counting backwards by twos from 100, all silently,"

Something along those lines--

As I was skimming, and reading the instructions alone had already overloaded my mind, I quickly left it.

But remembering it later has got me thinking of /wondering how much the mind could have going on at once. . .

Feynman and friends (the physicist) also played some games like this--

one trick they used was to visualize a tickertape with the numbers going by while also working on other mental tasks.

---

"This is our ground.
Am I aware of our ground?"

--

INSIGHTS (starting again)

[adding another here:
small breaks in morality do come back in meditation: a lie to grandma did come back. Instead of answering with the truth, though, for which she would harangue, may just not answer. She harangued me anyway--not believing or that being her intermediate goal--her real goal probably being to have meaningful communication with someone.

I spent a nickel to buy two brazil nuts today--from bulk--in order to keep up the small morality end of things. I first thought that foolish and was planning not to pay for those two. I respect that others can steal from corporations and feel that's ethical--but unless for me it came from soul, it will give mind one other thing to briefly distract me from soul with.]

The "asking if it is god's will" thing came from reading Ramakrishna last night.

In one story, a playwright/actor devotee [Girish] was getting instruction, but he was not committing to each progressively less demanding instruction Ramakrishna was giving.

This guy was so wrapped up in worldly attachments he feared making any commitment--and did not want to make a commitment he would break to RK.

RK then said, "Well, then, give me your power of attorney."

In effect: don't worry about a thing--give me complete responsibility for you.

The devotee, so so relieved, did this.

But as a result, he ended up thinking of RK in his every action--

"Is what I do now in RK's will?" and so on.

---

Another happening-- in reading vision mag--& the light connection--

and considering the 7laws law of the day, giving and receiving--

it was odd how (or natural) how tailored my reading should seem to that law. . .

First I focused on food-related stuff-- by writer(s) I met through Food Not Lawns--

Jennifer Jo wrote about:

One World, everybody eats

a restaurant/cafe now operating via gift economy.

--somewhere in there, too, I read about a black woman who moved from forgiveness and acceptance to:

gratitude every day, every hour--leaving no room for anything else except love--

and that was why people thought she was 70, not 92.

Remember one of the activating principles of the day--Cultivate Gratitude.

And I practiced this while walking back across the highway--an easy time not to be feeling love. (making self older in the result)

A new urban-buddhist discipline:

Walking meditation back and forth across the highway overpass, stopping to wait for and to cross with the traffic signals at the ends. . .

Forced humility in face of the cars--

and accept it all--and the breathing of exhaust--and the sound of cars, trucks revving--

--Wow--

Not anything I would want to do though.--doubt it is god's will--not caring for the walkers' individual bodies at least. . . [unless they wore respirators?--imagine monks in robes wearing respirators walking back and forth across the overpass, stopping at the traffic signals, then crossing, then turning around, going back]

--

So I practiced feeling gratitude--

that I could walk--

that there was so much material wealth around--

(don't know that I mustered much more)


12:48

Now, writing here is getting a bit drawn out--

long to write--and if anyone reads this--I imagine a bit tedious for them--

But that gratitude practice,

and that "If god wills it" approach to eating,

are examples of what gets reinforced/cemented by taking the time to stop, to reflect back like this.

--
I would have let the bicycle tire buying and related computer fiddling slip if it weren't for this.

Also, I believe Steiner in _Knowledge of Higher Worlds and Its Attainment_ recommends reflection like this-- to develop independence and freedom of thought, perhaps.

--

Now I'll just list things from the vision mag and the light connection reading that maybe someday I'll follow up if I'm in a seeking mood.

Westernmysticism.org

vishwananda.us
optimumhealth.org
animacenter.org
peace pies - in San Diego or try google

_Bragg healthy Lifestyle_ book

snowgoose.org

ecocreation.us

theunitycenter.net
Michael Bernard Beckwith

snatamkaur.com (she's a typical example of what would make me put down these mags--my bias against a white-turbaned, jeweled, blissed-out looking white woman, selling concert tickets-- a peace concert, but now--I take the time to take a closer look--that, and she's at USD--one of the venues--and she had great things to say in an interview, included in the mag, and the concert is part of the "Department of Peace" effort--supported by steve hays--the light line publisher, and Jennifer Jo)

albrite.com-- re gum health-- probably not a help--was an ad-- but I made a note. Water piks I value, but one I got recently clogged , and an older one ,that I use, spurts water at me from the hose.


Russphelps.com - one of the writers

onenessmovement.org

deekshagrace.com


--

So this here encourages a bit of babble.

Web browsing.

--if ask and god wills it.

Am I
caring for our body, mind, ground?

13:02

PLAN

Will return to grandma ann's house this afternoon. Cook something, I bet.

I got a bunch of brussel sprouts. . .

Will read a bit.

May post this--may get on inet to see something about tire order.

---

May try to get _SRK's divine play_ so I could check it out and not miss it.

Will I weights, swim?

--

INTENTION

Now focusing on small, base virtue of learning to eat mindfully, amounts that will stay in stomach.

This is aided by sitting and by doing the 7 laws yoga--

And by cultivating that connection with a different level of joy, being focus--

represented by ramakrishna's samadhi,
by Aurobindo's Soul.

Rather than the focus on the sense joy of a full stomach and on the pleasure of chewing, swallowing.

Succeeding there reduced the disruption, limitation overeating has been giving me.

Succeeding means more freedom of thought and attention,

more "transparency to the divine"

More guiding from "soul"

---

Practicing constant gratitude--

protects me--

---

All this can enable larger virtue.

13:12

what that would be?

peace,
Colin