A return to civility. Excellent!
You raise some good points and questions.
I have nothing against Hemi-Sync or N.B., but this is not the Zen mindset, this a mental crutch, even worse, its a possible dependency. Great for accelerating learning, wrong for real progress in learning to still the mind. And it would seem to be strengthing your ego rather than freeing you.
Natural Brilliance, Mihalyi’s book on the Flow State, the spirituality of resistance mentioned above, or Anna Wise’s High Performance Mind are more what I follow now.
I have a vague familiarity with what self-actualization entails from high school sociology. I’m not sure, but I don’t think self-actualization and Natural Brilliance or living in the flow state is the same thing. Though I’m unfamiliar of the finer points of SA, I know that what I’m talking about is PURELY a state of consciousness—a brainwave profile on an EEG mind mirror. An alpha-theta dominance.
And I believe that Natural Brilliance does install what is known as the Zen Beginner’s Mind—which is only peripherally related to enlightenment. It’s essentially coming to the learning table with a clean slate, an ‘empty cup’ as they call it. You empty your mind of expectations and preconceived notions and start from the beginning, letting your intuition guide your decisions, learning from mistakes, honing your skills, essentially releasing, noticing, responding, and witnessing. Zen and the Art of Archery is a great classic on a German man who visits a Zen Monastery to learn the art and he undergoes the journey from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence over 7 years. Nice book—short and juicy.
I also have nothing against mental crutches. In fact, I love them, because they teach me how to walk faster by showing me something before my time. If I can experience something that is beyond my reach at this point in my natural development, then I can try and model or reproduce that feeling. NB employs NLP, which as far as I know, is not a crutch but a tool. Further, Binaural Beats are used to “entrain” the brainwaves. The waves effortlessly move toward the desired frequencies, and over time, have a tendency to move there naturally, on cue. I always use binaural beats as I study and notice that I don’t really need to anymore. I can just close my eyes, focus on my forehead, and take a deep breath and I’m good to go. Neither are crutches, but even if they were, I wouldn’t mind in the least as they are aiding me.
I know that in order to make the leap from the 6th bull to the 7th bull (if we can use that model), it requires something more—a leap of faith perhaps. You can’t get there with crutches like NB or BB’s. Even hemi-sync says, ‘we can take you there, but you’ve got to do the work’ or something like that.
It doesn't have to be like that, sitting in silence or standing like a tree for 20 years. This is your basic misconception, that true enlightenment will make your dreams, goals and interest in life void and require a lifetime of tedious discipline. If this is really your position, I disagree entirely.
Here is the MAIN reason why I don’t want to be liberated. That last sentence sounded rather strange.
I know that once you are liberated, you can pursue anything to the utmost. Thing is, I’ve never actual MET anyone who was truly liberated—10th bull. How many have attained this? Not ONE person in the thousands of people across the world in my tai chi lineage who has attained this level—there’ve been two in the past 50 years. How realistic a goal is this? (shouldn’t think in terms of goals, I know) How long does it take in your opinion? How close are you and how long have you been on the path? Decades, man. Years!!!
And, yes, my perception is that what is needed is SILENCE. An environment that is conducive to personal breakthrough—like a monastery, but not necessarily. There are so very many distractions all around us, I don’t have to look three feet and I see 5 things vying for my attention, saying, ‘I’m important! I’m important!’ How can I ever TRULY RELAX so totally in the midst of the myriad tensions of the western world?
IF, I could just drop everything and go to a monastery and do this thing right, I would. But the world tells me that I must do certain things in order to be successful and put food on the table.
At some point you are going to realize that you can't, as Brian, stay in the state of flow 24/7 and perpetually do the right thing based on your intuition. You won't be able to make "spirituality serve you". Then comes the existential crisis.
I STRONGLY disagree with this. Why do you say this? This doesn’t make any sense. Mihaly has proven with his weird method of pager statistics that “happiness comes from battling complexity while in an altered state of mind”. 25 years he spent gathering his data. And it’s true, people (westerners) are happiest when they’re weeding their gardens or listening to music or lost in sex or painting a model car or lost in the “process” of writing or lost in anything. “Lost” as in the ego has receded (if only temporarily). If you think of beta waves as the ego, they’ve receded and the slower, steadier alpha waves have taken their place. This experience can be measured on an EEG. NOW, why can’t you simply extend what he says, and Perpetually engage yourself in pursuing complexity? --add to that NLP and binaural beats (even as a crutch) and you’ve got yourself an entirely new mode of being.
That is what I refer to as an East/West balance. You’re not officially enlightened, because you still make distinctions, you’re still you when you stop working on the model train. And there IS certainly a difference between the ‘feeling’ of the Flow State versus actual Transcendence. But I don’t know that it is a functional one. Both states hold happiness and high performance in abundance. One is damn near impossible to attain, the other is as available as tap water.
You’re right in your guess that I’ve only solidly been into Zen and Taoism and their two modes of practice, ZaZen and Tai Chi. Why? I find that both approximate best what they try to explain. They are succinct and virtually wordless. How does Zen answer the question of ‘what is enlightenment?’ BOOM! He whacks you on the head! I found Indian stuff, even Buddhism to be far too lost in “Proper Nouns” and fanciful/mythological gilding. Further, Tai Chi is a great example of ‘in the world spirituality’, because you’re moving as you’re being mindful. I’ve dealt with kundalini and chakras before in my binaural training—mostly just had fun stimulating the energy though. I’m peripherally familiar with some Hindu concepts as well from a grand old philosopher known as Alan Watts—he brought knowledge of Taoism and Zen to the united states during the 50’s and 60’s. Great guy. He wrote a ton of books, each from a different eastern perspective. Someone once asked him why all his books seemed completely different from one another, and what they had in common.
He took his calligrapher’s pen and drew and empty circle with several lines pointing to it from all directions.
Essentially, all of these ancient disciplines and even some of the new ones are aiming at ONE thing, the unnamable. Does it really matter ‘how’ you get there? And does it matter if you’re ‘just visiting’ for practical reasons or there to stay?
