Contemplative, Meditation, Mindfulness, Spirit
Contemplative meditation involves considering or observing a particular situation, question, or idea from inside a meditative state of consciousness in order to gain insight or clarity about it. That’s distinctly different from the essence of mindfulness meditation, which involves (1) doing your best to clear your mind of the many thoughts that often slosh around like clothes in a washing machine in order to be as fully here-and-now in your sensory awareness as possible, and also (2) noticing the thoughts that do remain and arise, contemplative meditation actively guides your thinking process within a meditative state. “From inside a meditative state” means that you clear your mind of most other matters in order to gain one-pointed focus on the item you’re meditating on. Or at least to come as close to one-pointed focus on it as you can.
How do you do that? First you attain a quiet, calm focused mind. For most people that’s quite different from our usual everyday mind. If you’re in that mental state to begin with, perhaps because your surroundings take you there, you can intentionally go directly into contemplative meditation. Or perhaps your surroundings take you into that mental space and you find yourself sponteneously in contemplative meditation about some matter of concern or interest. Like, for instance, someone who’s fishing alone and finds that a good time to contemplate his or her concerns.
More often –at least for many people– contemplative meditation is a stage in a meditative session after you’ve taken yourself into a meditative state and have used one or another concentrative practice (such as described in some of these blogs) to slow your thoughts that are sloshing and whirling around in your mind. You’ve used some kind of mantra or counting practice, or perhaps some other meditative method used in a tradition you follow, to take yourself into that state of having a quiet, calm focused mind.
At that point you can choose among one of three forms of contemplative meditation: You:
- . . . may have one specific matter in mind that you’d like deeper insight into, or understanding about.
- . . . can choose either intentionally or randomly from a “menu” of subjects for contemplative meditation that past gurus, sages or others have found to have particular value as subjects for meditating.
- . . . can move into a “hybrid mindfulness” meditation in which you begin with a more or less empty mind, notice what appears in it, and let that be your subject of contemplation for as long as you find value in doing so
Whichever of those three options you choose, you follow the same basic process. Continue to maintain an awareness of your breathing (breathing in, breathing out) but without any mantra or breath-counting. If you like (especially if your mind tends to be very active or busy) you can also maintain a moving mudra, or if you need to do so in order to keep your focus, maintain visual splitting,
Then make the subject you’ve chosen your focal point. Don ‘t “try to think” about it, but simply let whatever appears in your consciousness that feels in any way related to it unfold. If there’s any kind of valuable insight in it for you, take a moment to voice-record it with your device or jot it down in the tablet that you keep next to you when you meditate. No lengthy detailed treatises — just a few words will usually suffice to remind you of something you otherwise might forget.
Whenever something not related to your subject comes into your mind, let it go and bring your attention back to your breathing and your subject, just as if you were bringing it back to a mantra or breath-counting practice.
Wait watchfully in mind-silence with your subject as your focal point. Whenever any thought that feels like it may have some value arises, follow it and stay with it. As soon as you notice that your mind has drifted off it and into something else (as sooner or later it usually will) bring it back to your subject. Continue to do this until you feel finished with it, or until the time you’ve set aside for your contemplative session is up. (I usually like to allot about 20 minutes for this, with space in my schedule to go on longer if it feels valuable.)
“Hmm,” you might say. “It sounds to me like contemplative meditation is a sort of hybrid cross among mindfulness, concentrative meditation, and ordinary thinking.”
Congratulations! You’re right. But it’s thinking from a clear, focused ground instead of thinking from the somewhat chaotic and confused ground of our usual everyday consciousness. Thinking in which key insights and realizations don’t have to compete with the waves of thoughts and ideas about a whole lot of other things, but can bubble up to the surface of your awareness as if from the depths of a still pond. That can make all the difference. I sometimes find that long-forgotten or long-suppressed items from my unconscious come up as I do this. (Be forewarned that sometimes you might remember things that you’ve forgotten because they portray you in a less-than-admirable light—but the chances are that if you do, you can handle them now, which you couldn’t when you repressed them.)
If you choose option 2 of the 3 mentioned above as starting points for your contemplative meditation session, you might find it useful to read a few brief words about the chosen subject from others who have reflected on it. With many of the items you might choose as starting points, you’ll find such reflections in one or another of the cells of Matrix Meditations.
Enjoy your new meditative adventure!
Cultures, Economics, Politics
Many who favor laws that prevent communities or counties from governing themselves and their enterprises as they see fit call themselves “Libertarian.” The word has a nice ring, doesn’t it? But most who use it have not considered the fact that it has three radically different meanings. As a result, it’s all too easy to slide back and forth among them as if they’re all the same thing. The three are:
Individual Libertarian. This means that every person is free to do as they wish as long as they’re breaking laws against physically injuring people or property –or not “shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. In a true individual libertarian regime a person can drink booze, smoke weed, fuck anybody who is willing, have total control over their own bodies and reproduction or non-reproduction, or earn their living as a sex worker. Reasonable regulation includes such items as limiting the right to drive after drinking alcohol, and requiring sex workers to have a weekly physical exam to make sure they’re not passing on diseases.
Some apologists for corporate brutality, intimidation, deception, or other misdeeds claim that really they’re doing good because philosophically they’re “libertarians.” Confusing such a viewpoint with an individual libertarian one is like a shell game in which everyone is tricked into thinking the bean is under a different shell than it really is. An individual libertarian philosophy holds that government has no business telling us how to live our lives as long as we don’t harm others people or living beings. For example, “Mr. Conservative” Barry Goldwater was a very strong advocate of women’s control over their own bodies and reproductive choices. That’s an individual libertarian position.
But a Big Business Libertarian outlook is different. It holds that a corporation or other business can or ought to be able to do as it pleases with no oversight or regulation by the community, the city, the state, or anybody else. How strange, since many who hold that view also lobby constantly for government contracts, subsidies, tax incentives, land grants, and anti-labor and union-busting laws. Many actively seek government regulations that will give them a competitive advantage or wedge of entry into some market. An attorney friend of mine who works with vampire corporations and the ultra-rich says, “Their lobbyists are like a plague of locusts. No matter how many subsidies, tax breaks, and concessions they get, every day they’re over at the state capital asking for more –and more—and more.”
The big business libertarian view holds that Wall Street, the big banks, other global corporations, and “the invisible hand of the market” will look out for ordinary people’s interests. Really?
The grain of truth in a business libertarian view (not just big business) that is that even small mom and pop businesses are too often hobbled by an excess of rules, regulations and forms to fill out that don’t help anybody anywhere. The longer a government or business exists, the more of these there tend to be. It’s useful to have periodic reviews to scrap those no longer needed, clean up the rest, and make sure they are all written in language anyone can understand.
Realistic freedom for businesses includes freedom from intimidation by other businesses as well as from unneeded busybody government interference. That’s where preventing monopolies and ensuring competition comes in. And a socially conscious business libertarian view ensures competitive bidding and no sweetheart deals like those that are so common in matters like weapons system procurement. History tells us that this is likely occur only when there is an outside overseer who enforces it.
A third variation is a Plutocratic Libertarian view. This is valuing liberty for the wealthy and powerful above all, clearing the way for them to do anything they please regardless of how greatly it impoverishes or injures others or nature’s other beings. A plutocratic libertarian system tends to give lip service to the idea that everybody is equally free, while it actually enacts all kinds of restrictions on those who happen to be poor and powerless. Such as, for instance, laws against “loitering.”
Today’s hard-right ideologues who call themselves libertarians tend to be of the second and third kinds. Very few are genuine individual libertarians. Why does this matter? Because if a corporate giant and an individual are both free to do as they please, the former usually has the resources to crush any individuals who get in the way—often using government as its tool.
The ideology that underlies big business and plutocratic perspectives is the idea that everybody will make the “best” possible decisions for themselves that they can, and that will result in the best collective outcomes. That’s true — IF the only thing we care about is making AMMAP (As Much Money As Possible) and care little or not at all about any other ethics or values. Or about who benefits much, who just a little, and who gets royally screwed..
Consider this: Most economists have pretty good jobs and make enough to live fairly well. Their personal experience has a major effect on their theories. Such as making big decisions about whether to use their available funds for a new Lincoln or a new Lexus. Then we can look at someone who is clinging to survival by the fingernails. An economist is likely to watch with detached interest as to whether that person will use his or her very limited funds for healthy organic non-GMO food instead of cheap food grown with heavy use of herbicides and pesticides, or instead goes to a dentist to get decaying teeth made bad by cheap food filled or pulled. That’s the kind of “freedom of choice” that billions of people in the world face.
Or step back and look at the international scene. Todays so-called “free markets” are, in large part, arrangements agreed on by attorneys for big business (often that’s the case even when they are negotiators serving at the behest of government) that are really not free at all. A large share of international finance and commerce, for example, is tightly regulated by global and regional bodies like the World Trade Organization. As a result, “free trade” is often trade governed by rules devised by giant multinational corporations. The corporations don’t want countries, states, or communities making any rules that interfere with their ability to do whatever they please, however harmful to people, other living beings, and ecosystems it might be. And they ask legislatures to pass laws that keep countries, states, or communities from passing regulations that stop Vampire Capitalist corporation from bleeding them dry. The only “freedom” they want is for themselves. They certainly don’t want others to see and hear their negotiations with each other, since those are almost always carried on behind closed doors with no representatives of the press of the public present. Whose liberty is that?
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© 2021 by Victor Daniels. You may distribute this wherever and however you wish so long as it’s free. Any use in a manner that directly or indirectly earns compensation requires consent of the author.
Cultures, Politics
The terms “conservative” and “liberal” often confuse and conceal more than they reveal. Odd as it may sound, often they imply the very opposite of what they actually mean in a given situation. For example, when big banks and construction companies band together with their friends in government to ram an oil pipeline through farms and ranches of families who are totally opposed to it and who want to keep their land in agriculture like it has always been, they like to call themselves “conservatives.” But actually that’s just about as radical as you can get. The farmers and ranchers who want to protect their land are the ones who want to conserve the integrity of their land as it is. The big business interests try to tar them with the label “radical” because they oppose “progress” –i.e. having their land torn up by giant earth-moving machines they don’t want there—and they call themselves “conservative” even though they want to change everything around in dramatic ways.
What’s going on there, anyway? How can people be using labels that turn everything upside down and backwards so that anybody who’s not there but just hears someone’s report about the situation can so easily end up easily deceived and befuddled about what’s happening?
Actually it’s pretty simple. Especially with the term “conservative.” Two things are happening. One is that the word is being used in three different ways.
One of these is the historic way that means what most people tend to think it means. That is, keeping and preserving what’s valuable in our past ways. Many in this group, whom I call “true conservatives,” think that our most valuable traditions involve a combination of freedom and respect. That is, each person’s freedom to determine how he or she lives his or her own life, and respect for other people’s choices about how they live theirs. Of course there’s some wiggle room in that definition, since different people have different ideas about “what’s valuable.” No label is a prefect reflection of the reality it represents. But we can do our best to make our labels as clear and accurate as we can.
A second major meaning of the word is the idea that those who have the money and power ought to be able to make the political and economic decisions about what goes on in society. In the U.S. there are quite a few “think tanks” that spend most of their time and effort trying to channel all the power to the big business and investment decisionmakers—especially through “campaign contribution” payoffs that buy the legislators’ votes. And quite a few big businesses that move in with enormous machines that so totally transform a landscape that it ends up with no resemblance at all to what it looked like previously. And that, we’re called, is “conservative.” That’s part of the way the term is usually used in the media. I call that “so-called ‘conservative.’ My logic is that a word ought to suggest what it really means—not its opposite.
Finally, in its third major meaning the word is synonomous with “right wing.” That includes the idea that some people can tell others what to do. It’s a little tricker to define precisely, but everybody knows what it is. There’s a kind of hard cold “get out of my way, asshole, or I’ll punch your fucking face in,” attitude to it. And also, “the facts are what I say they are. My opinion is what counts, so shut up and listen.” There’s a clear authoritarian bent to that, just as there is with the second meaning above. Many conservatives of the first kind above, who are the only ones I regard as true conservatives rather than “card carrying conservatives,” are quite frankly horrified by this third group. I think it makes much more sense to call the third group simply “right wing,” since almost everybody knows what that means and there’s very little misunderstanding about it. In fact, if you look at right-wing rhetoric and behavior in places like Texas and Alabama and Georgia, I think the term “cold hard right” is the best description of many in this group. In short, as often as not so-called conservative means “rule by the rich,” “rule by a powerful leader or a powerful few,” or “male dominance,” or all of the above. Sometimes the cold hard right swings a radical wrecking ball at things real conservatives value.=
In short, an accurate use of the word “conservative” is moderate, restrained, and the preservation of what’s best in our traditions.
On the other side of the increasingly hostile political great divide, so-called liberal sometimes hides such meanings as “indulgent,” “anti-traditional,” “hostile toward any authority,” “unrealistically compassionate without reason or considered thought,” “wishy-washy,” or all of the above. It ought to mean free, open-minded, tolerant and responsible.
The root of the word, however, is “to liberate.” That points us toward asking “liberate whom?” “In what ways?” “Under what circumstances?” Historically, the answer has been “to liberate those who have been oppressed. But that can be pretty tricky too. For example, President Andrew Jackson portrayed himself as a champion of the common people, but only some common people. He was the most vicious and brutal president in the nation’s history in his treatment of American Indians. The notorious “removals” such as the Trail of Tears were most intense on his watch. And there is no compelling evidence that liberals have been any better than anyone else when it comes to imperialism and war: Vietnam was Lyndon Johnson’s war, even though Nixon expanded it.
In recent years “liberal” has somewhat fallen out of style and given way to “progressive,” which usually means openheartedness and compassion balanced by reason. But there too not everything is clear, since some progressives advocated unlimited immigration while others think that leads to housing shortages that push people into homelessness on the streets. And sometimes self-styled progressives seem to advocate more regulation and government red tape than necessary in order to achieve the goals they seek.
Finally, using those kinds of global labels for ourselves and others, and especially the media’s use of them and rabble-rousing demagogues’ of all kinds of political persuasions use of them seems to be contributing to the atmosphere of political antagonism and even hatred that is causing many people’s thinking to be muddy and confused and poisoning public discourse in our time.
So what should we do instead? I’d say, to the degree that we can, forget the labels. Forget which “movement” we belong to. In most cases, realize that any variety of of self-centered “I’m better than Them Others” thinking on any side of the political spectrum tends to lead us into generalizations that are shadowlands of deception. We need to have a clear sense of what we value, be truthful with both ourselves and others (not so easy, since it’s so common to lie to ourselves in order to protect our self-images, which often include self-deception as we tell ourselves that we’re real hot stuff and ‘them others’ are bad. For the most part more precise, specific terms and designations, based on careful observation of what’s going on in this situation serve us better.
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1207 words, 1-16-21
Concentrative, Cultures, Meditation, Mindfulness
INDIA NAMES, CHINA COUNTS: OF MANTRAS AND COUNTING MEDITATIONS
Most of the effective ways to meditate include some way to maintain a focus on your breathing. Why? Because it’s a way to stay aware of what you’re thinking, feeling, sensing, and/or doing rather than being completely identified with your action or experience. And that’s part of the essence of meditation—being aware, moment by moment, of what you’re doing rather than being completely caught up in it.
The two most popular ways to stay aware of your breathing—which in turn helps you stay aware of whatever else you’re doing—are mantras and breath counting. A mantra is most effectively used when silently repeated in rhythm with your breathing. For example, silently speaking the mantra on your inhalation and noticing whatever else you’re aware of during that in-breath and then emptying both the mantra and everything else out of your mind on the outbreath.
Breath counting is similar. Count one number on the in-breath and notice whatever else you’ve become aware of (thinking, feeling, sensing, and/or doing if you’re not sitting silently while you meditate. Then empty the number and everything else out of your mind on the outbreath.
There’s more to it than just described with both mantras and breath-counting, and we’ll come back to that “other” in just a minute. But first, an adventurous little journey to India and China. In India we find that people name the days and months just as in most of the West. “Sunday, Monday (think Moon Day), Tuesday, . . . etc.” Likewise with months of the year: January, February, etc.. Just like in the rest of the Indo-European language family. Now let’s jump over to China. Those names are nowhere to be found! Instead the days and months are counted. The days of the week are called Day One, Day Two, Day Three—and so on. And the months? Well of course, they’re Month One, Month Two, Month Three—right on up to Month Twelve. (Could that constant counting in everyday conversation have something to do with why many Chinese seem to be so good at math? Or maybe it’s the other way around—that mathematical aptitude is why they count the days and months instead of naming them. All just guesses.
In Japan, just for the record, the days are named after elements rather than planets as in the West. Except Monday, which is the day of the moon there too. Tuesday is the day of fire, Wednesday of water, Thursday of wood, and Friday of—yes–gold! Saturday is the day of earth. As for the months—well, there it gets a little complicated. In modern Japanese they’re counted, just as in China. But in the old days they had names. Sometimes the old names are still used in poems and novels.
At this point your inquisitive mind probably wonders, “What about Southeast Asia, which is sort of between India and China?”
Moving your token to Thailand, you’ll find that the days of the week are named after astrological signs from India and Sanskrit. But in Vietnam, closer to China, they count them.
But if you really want everything turned on its head, in English we count the years but in China they have names for them. As the Japanese would say, “Ah, so!”
Now, back to the question, “What does all that have to do with meditation?”
The short answer is that breath counting is more popular in China and Japan while mantra meditation is more popular in India. Almost all are derived from the ancient Sanskrit language, which intriguingly enough has a far more extensive vocabulary for diverse personal qualities, states of consciousness, and “higher” states of consciousness than any contemporary language. (Does that suggest highly developed ancient civilizations, such as the “mythical” Atlantis and Lemuria? How else would such a language come into being?) A mantra has the advantage that anyone can learn it. And each mantra has some specific meaning that can influence a person’s attitude and outlook when repeated over and over again for a long period. If there’s a particular quality you want to develop, that feature of mantras can be useful. Some gurus and traditions assign mantras to those who come to them for meditation instruction—and in some cases, that’s your mantra forever! Other traditions allow people to choose their own mantra and to change it when they want to work on developing a new and different personal quality. Kooch N. Daniels and I offer a page of useful mantras in Matrix Meditations (available either in paperback or as an e-book.) If that’s not enough for you to choose from or you don’t want to shell out $13.99 for our amazing and wonderful book you can do an online search for “Sanskrit words” and you’ll find many different sites that offer such terms absolutely free! (but some—not all—will try to sell you all sorts of other things.)
It’s a little easier to maintain your mindful presence and with breath-counting than mantra meditation, but it doesn’t have the same feature of mentally reinforcing some particular quality. Nonetheless, some advanced yogic traditions in India, such as Kriya yoga, favor breath counting. There are beginning breath-counting methods that are almost as easy to do as mantra meditation and advanced methods that require great attentiveness and can develop a high degree of mental discipline.
The one thing that the most effective mantra meditations and both beginning and advanced breath counting meditations have in common is a focus on breathing. Each adds something extra to the most basic breathing meditation of all, which is to do no more than notice and sense as you breathe in and breathe out. In that most basic practice, as soon as you realize that your mind has drifted off to thinking about something—anything—else, then just bring your attention back to noticing breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, breathing out, and no more.
What can be simpler? Or easier? Sound like child’s play, doesn’t it? Why bother with anything else?
Because actually it’s incredibly difficult to keep your attention focused on your breathing and nothing else. (If you don’t believe it, try it for two minutes right now. See?) The washing machine of our mind craves to swish all the zillions of thoughts it contains back and forth and all around—and what was that about breathing? I forget. . . “
That’s why even a basic mantra or breath count with your breathing is useful. It gives you something to hang onto when the storm winds of your mind or emotions want to blow your attention away. More about each of them in exciting future blogs.
How simple or how complex a practice suits you depends on the character of your own everyday ordinary waking consciousness. Some people who have a stoic temperament find that a fairly simple and basic practice is perfect for them. Others who have more of a “monkey mind” that tends to jump all over the place find that a more complex and demanding practice does a better job of helping them focus and stay present, paradoxical as that may sound. More –much more– about both simpler and more complex ways to meditate in other blogs. (Or get them all at one time in one place in the convenient, well organized, beautifully written book mentioned above. )
In the meantime, if you do nothing else, at least tune into your sensations of breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, breathing out —like a swinging door—when you have nothing else to do!
Ciao Bello. Or Ciao Bella, as the case may be. Victor
