I'm curious if you could point to where this comes from for you: "I think, traditionally, what I’m ‘supposed to do,’ as a meditator, now, is to make this my automatic mental reflex to the extent that I never live in stories."
I hear this a lot from meditators and teachers alike and it sounds like a misunderstanding of the very core idea of "being with what is". I notice this with all the Jhana talk lately. At the end of the day you're still prefrencing a phenomenological experience, which all experience essentially is.
I'm not saying that there isn't a gradient of more or less suffering to be had from these different states but ultimately associating meditation only with a specific flavor of experience (purer, more relaxed, clearer etc) is missing the point.
This is not directed specifically at you btw, somehow I feel like you get this (based on other stuff you've written and your use of quotation marks), this is just becoming a pervasive attitude to practice that I find concerning because it can't, by definition, be liberating.
I totally agree with you on this. There's a lot of ambient stuff here that sort of resolves into contempt for 'monkey mind' or 'the illusion of self': fetishizing perfect concentration, fetishizing purity and rejection of 'fantasy', rejection of 'negative' emotion as inherent to human life, etcetera. ACCEPT EVERYTHING
I came here to say something similar. Not that I know what I’m talking about lol, I just read a lot and meditate a lot.
In my view it’s not a choice between lenses, the identified and unidentified state are both states of experience (even if that experience is of seemingly no content). I got hung up on the idea of “The Observer” for a long time which draws forth images of a particular entity within me and I think many people struggle with this point. It leads to fixation on moving identity around, instead of surrendering it entirely.
Zen & Dzogchen (of which I have no formal training) pushed me to see The Observer and The Observed as one inseparable, formless space. Actually allowing the two perspectives to dissolve is rarely persistent for me, but it does happen. Sasha seems to have a good grip on this tbh, maybe better than me, being able to express your personality while not being anyone-in-particular is the same delicate balance as immersing yourself in narrative and conceptual thought without forgetting your “true nature”.
In short, I believe you can super impose these states without them being incompatible, even if that seems nonsensical from a rational perspective.
I'm curious if you could point to where this comes from for you: "I think, traditionally, what I’m ‘supposed to do,’ as a meditator, now, is to make this my automatic mental reflex to the extent that I never live in stories."
I hear this a lot from meditators and teachers alike and it sounds like a misunderstanding of the very core idea of "being with what is". I notice this with all the Jhana talk lately. At the end of the day you're still prefrencing a phenomenological experience, which all experience essentially is.
I'm not saying that there isn't a gradient of more or less suffering to be had from these different states but ultimately associating meditation only with a specific flavor of experience (purer, more relaxed, clearer etc) is missing the point.
This is not directed specifically at you btw, somehow I feel like you get this (based on other stuff you've written and your use of quotation marks), this is just becoming a pervasive attitude to practice that I find concerning because it can't, by definition, be liberating.
I totally agree with you on this. There's a lot of ambient stuff here that sort of resolves into contempt for 'monkey mind' or 'the illusion of self': fetishizing perfect concentration, fetishizing purity and rejection of 'fantasy', rejection of 'negative' emotion as inherent to human life, etcetera. ACCEPT EVERYTHING
I came here to say something similar. Not that I know what I’m talking about lol, I just read a lot and meditate a lot.
In my view it’s not a choice between lenses, the identified and unidentified state are both states of experience (even if that experience is of seemingly no content). I got hung up on the idea of “The Observer” for a long time which draws forth images of a particular entity within me and I think many people struggle with this point. It leads to fixation on moving identity around, instead of surrendering it entirely.
Zen & Dzogchen (of which I have no formal training) pushed me to see The Observer and The Observed as one inseparable, formless space. Actually allowing the two perspectives to dissolve is rarely persistent for me, but it does happen. Sasha seems to have a good grip on this tbh, maybe better than me, being able to express your personality while not being anyone-in-particular is the same delicate balance as immersing yourself in narrative and conceptual thought without forgetting your “true nature”.
In short, I believe you can super impose these states without them being incompatible, even if that seems nonsensical from a rational perspective.
y