Another great one! I love it when you two stun your moderators. I don't think she thought that was going to happen when she left for work that morning :)
Hi Ryan. Yes, it was clearly a surprise. That is the beauty of live shows. She is a wonderful moderator and makes all of this possible. Without her, nothing happens. stillness
Hi Gary: my practice for the past while has been simply to observe my thoughts and feelings without "grasping at anything or pushing anything away". I got this from Adyashanti. Whereas previously I would be completely sucked into and lost in blah blah thoughts, I find that when I am engaged in this practice, I remain as the witness to what is happening, and as a result the blah blah doesn't seem to have the same pulling power. Over time there seems to be less and less blah blah arising, almost as if the mechanism is slowly being starved by my not engaging with it. Overall more peaceful, happier, more present to what is happening, and more functional. So definitely feels like I'm on a productive path. If I had to put a label on my approach based on everything I have read, I would say it's in the choiceless awareness/surrender/let go category. Conversely, self inquiry seems to me to be a very active approach. I've never been able to get my head around it to do it in a way that feels effective. Is what I am doing sufficient over the long term to shut down the default mode network or should I be adding self inquiry into the mix in whatever manner I am able to? Thank you so much for all the videos and blog posts. Extremely helpful in so many ways.
Hi Trevor Mann. It depends on how far you want to go...if you want the (self-referential) thoughts to "stop", passive choiceless awareness alone won't do it. It really doesn't deconstruct all of the egos/Is/Trevors that are the root of all of those thoughts. Only by incorporating active self-inquiry and consciously letting go of all of your attachments to deconstruct the egos/Is/Trevors (there are lots of them), will that happen. As to how active it needs to be, Ramana Maharshi said "If one wants to abide in the thought-free state, a struggle is inevitable. One must fight one's way through before regaining one's original primal state. If one succeeds in the fight and reaches the goal, the enemy, namely the thoughts, will all subside in the Self and disappear entirely." A video you might have missed is "Does Mindfulness Lead to Persistent Nonduality" which discusses this active/passive comparison in detail as does the blogpost "mindfulness meditation - religious vs secular - does it work? - new research" @ happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2014/11/mindfulness-meditation-religious-vs.html. The difference between passive/mindfulness/vipassana/choiceless awareness and active self-inquiry was shown in the experienced meditator study @ Yale. This is highlighted in the Psychology Tomorrow article "The Neuroscience of Suffering - And Its End" @ psychologytomorrowmagazine.com/jeff-warren-neuroscience-suffering-end/. As you've seen the videos and blogposts, would recommend you look under "Show More" above, and use the free download link to my first book, "Happiness Beyond Thought", which will lay out the complete active process for you. If you stay only in "choiceless awareness" you're betting that the egos/Is/Trevors will just voluntarily reveal all aspects of themselves and agree to disappear/die... IME, it will never happen, particularly for some severe traumas, fears and stories that have been "locked away", perhaps in your body, for many years. you'll only get rid of them if you incorporate active self-inquiry along with "choiceless awareness". Trust this is useful. stillness
Hi Gary: Thank you for the detailed response. Makes perfect sense that if I simply wait around for subjects and issues to be randomly triggered into awareness, the process could take forever. Will view/read all the material you have suggested above and incorporate an active process right away. Hope to have more positive results to report back in the coming weeks / months. Cheers!
Brilliant! Thanks Gary. I find your ideas very clear and they've influenced my life a lot. I started looking into Byron Katie thanks to you in June and that has helped me loads. I'll check out the Sedona method too now.
Hi Alastair. Great that you are finding the work useful. The more you use Byron Katie's stuff and the Sedona method, alone, or together in a "fusion", the more powerful they become. They're covered in the blogpost "Surrendering the "I", letting go of suffering" (URL under "Show more"). The brain will learn to engage them automatically as soon as it sees a certain type of "problem" manifest, and it will disappear "Zap" almost before you can process it. Best w/your efforts. stillness and surrender
Hi Lisa. JIC, there are a lot of other resources under the "Show More" under the video. There are free book downloads, interviews, website, blogpost, etc. stillness
Thank you Gary! I have just discovered your website today :D I will definitely be going through the resources; thank you. You're doing fantastic work with these conversations and simplifying it enough for me to fully grasp the context. I'm grateful beyond words :)
5:17 this is a spontaneous awakening, right ? this surely can happen if other traditions mention it I’m sure Gary has met people who had said this to him?
Wonder how far this information will take you during life’s great tests: loss of a child or spouse, chronic excruciating pain, etc....Another point: As an artist, drawing from observation and emotion to convey experience into their art in a manner that requires the encapsulation of human passion and emotion, how would this mode of thinking foster such endeavors?
Hi Norman. In any situation, thoughts only increase perceived pain, and degrade functionality. The video "What "no thoughts" means - 3 different kinds of thoughts" goes through this in detail. stillness
Hi +Kim Jong Fun. The reason we can't "make sense of the 'i'" is because it isn't real or just one thing, but a multitude of "i"s manifesting on an ad-hoc basis. Just watch what happens throughout your day when you meet others...does the same "i" show up for every meeting, or is it constantly changing as different arrangements of others manifest? Ask "When am I?" throughout the day, as described in the video "When is the I? NOW" @ th-cam.com/video/xCa8C13lMB4/w-d-xo.html and see what you discover about the "i". When we ask "Where am I?", there is a space before the brain comes up with some answer, or another story, demonstrating that the brain can't find it either. stillness gary
Hi Gary! Is it possible to find the entire episode? If so, where can we find it? I went to the Synchcast website but I could not find the 1st episode. I've found that there will be a 2nd episode soon. I'm taking this opportunity to thank you for all the videos you have been sharing, your two books and your blog... they are very enthralling and supporting!
Hi Sabrina. The SynchCast folk sent me two chunks of Episode 1 totaling about an hour. This video came from one of those chunks; another topical video is ready. we had some audio problems in Episode 1, which is why it is chopped up. we'll see if we can put up Episode 2 in its entirety. Episode 2 will be this next Sunday @ 3:00 pm EST/12:00 pm PST. The website link is shown above in the 'Show more'. Donations only. BTW, Rich and i take nothing from those donations; they are to defray the costs of SynchCast's efforts. Great that you are finding the work useful. stillness
Great dialogue, of course, that is my mind telling me to say that. Point here is that "I am" aware of that. Thank you guys.
Hi caviper1. Great that you have found the dialogue useful. Tks for the feedback. stillness
Another great one! I love it when you two stun your moderators. I don't think she thought that was going to happen when she left for work that morning :)
Hi Ryan. Yes, it was clearly a surprise. That is the beauty of live shows. She is a wonderful moderator and makes all of this possible. Without her, nothing happens. stillness
Hi Gary: my practice for the past while has been simply to observe my thoughts and feelings without "grasping at anything or pushing anything away". I got this from Adyashanti. Whereas previously I would be completely sucked into and lost in blah blah thoughts, I find that when I am engaged in this practice, I remain as the witness to what is happening, and as a result the blah blah doesn't seem to have the same pulling power. Over time there seems to be less and less blah blah arising, almost as if the mechanism is slowly being starved by my not engaging with it. Overall more peaceful, happier, more present to what is happening, and more functional. So definitely feels like I'm on a productive path. If I had to put a label on my approach based on everything I have read, I would say it's in the choiceless awareness/surrender/let go category. Conversely, self inquiry seems to me to be a very active approach. I've never been able to get my head around it to do it in a way that feels effective. Is what I am doing sufficient over the long term to shut down the default mode network or should I be adding self inquiry into the mix in whatever manner I am able to? Thank you so much for all the videos and blog posts. Extremely helpful in so many ways.
Hi Trevor Mann.
It depends on how far you want to go...if you want the (self-referential) thoughts to "stop", passive choiceless awareness alone won't do it. It really doesn't deconstruct all of the egos/Is/Trevors that are the root of all of those thoughts.
Only by incorporating active self-inquiry and consciously letting go of all of your attachments to deconstruct the egos/Is/Trevors (there are lots of them), will that happen.
As to how active it needs to be, Ramana Maharshi said "If one wants to abide in the thought-free state, a struggle is inevitable. One must fight one's way through before regaining one's original primal state. If one succeeds in the fight and reaches the goal, the enemy, namely the thoughts, will all subside in the Self and disappear entirely."
A video you might have missed is "Does Mindfulness Lead to Persistent Nonduality" which discusses this active/passive comparison in detail as does the blogpost "mindfulness meditation - religious vs secular - does it work? - new research" @ happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2014/11/mindfulness-meditation-religious-vs.html.
The difference between passive/mindfulness/vipassana/choiceless awareness and active self-inquiry was shown in the experienced meditator study @ Yale. This is highlighted in the Psychology Tomorrow article "The Neuroscience of Suffering - And Its End" @ psychologytomorrowmagazine.com/jeff-warren-neuroscience-suffering-end/.
As you've seen the videos and blogposts, would recommend you look under "Show More" above, and use the free download link to my first book, "Happiness Beyond Thought", which will lay out the complete active process for you.
If you stay only in "choiceless awareness" you're betting that the egos/Is/Trevors will just voluntarily reveal all aspects of themselves and agree to disappear/die...
IME, it will never happen, particularly for some severe traumas, fears and stories that have been "locked away", perhaps in your body, for many years. you'll only get rid of them if you incorporate active self-inquiry along with "choiceless awareness".
Trust this is useful.
stillness
Hi Gary:
Thank you for the detailed response. Makes perfect sense that if I simply wait around for subjects and issues to be randomly triggered into awareness, the process could take forever. Will view/read all the material you have suggested above and incorporate an active process right away. Hope to have more positive results to report back in the coming weeks / months. Cheers!
Brilliant! Thanks Gary. I find your ideas very clear and they've influenced my life a lot. I started looking into Byron Katie thanks to you in June and that has helped me loads. I'll check out the Sedona method too now.
Hi Alastair. Great that you are finding the work useful. The more you use Byron Katie's stuff and the Sedona method, alone, or together in a "fusion", the more powerful they become. They're covered in the blogpost "Surrendering the "I", letting go of suffering" (URL under "Show more").
The brain will learn to engage them automatically as soon as it sees a certain type of "problem" manifest, and it will disappear "Zap" almost before you can process it. Best w/your efforts. stillness and surrender
I think it is cute how a conversation with people who don't have internal dialogue often has awkward silences.
Powerful; Thank you :)
Hi Lisa. Great that you found it useful. stillness
Hi Lisa. JIC, there are a lot of other resources under the "Show More" under the video. There are free book downloads, interviews, website, blogpost, etc. stillness
Thank you Gary! I have just discovered your website today :D I will definitely be going through the resources; thank you. You're doing fantastic work with these conversations and simplifying it enough for me to fully grasp the context. I'm grateful beyond words :)
Lisa i love ❤️ u
5:17 this is a spontaneous awakening, right ? this surely can happen if other traditions mention it I’m sure Gary has met people who had said this to him?
Sedona technique is at 6:29.
2:12 she asked what’s the difference and my man Gary said you can do both 😅
2:30 Heisenberg uncertainty principle isnt an exercise tho 😅 is myman Gary good ?
Wonder how far this information will take you during life’s great tests: loss of a child or spouse, chronic excruciating pain, etc....Another point: As an artist, drawing from observation and emotion to convey experience into their art in a manner that requires the encapsulation of human passion and emotion, how would this mode of thinking foster such endeavors?
Hi Norman. In any situation, thoughts only increase perceived pain, and degrade functionality. The video "What "no thoughts" means - 3 different kinds of thoughts" goes through this in detail. stillness
@@GaryWeber thanks Gary
Hi Norman. you're more than welcome. stillness
i understood what you said about watching thoughts but i can't make sense of the 'i'.. deconstructing it
Hi +Kim Jong Fun.
The reason we can't "make sense of the 'i'" is because it isn't real or just one thing, but a multitude of "i"s manifesting on an ad-hoc basis. Just watch what happens throughout your day when you meet others...does the same "i" show up for every meeting, or is it constantly changing as different arrangements of others manifest?
Ask "When am I?" throughout the day, as described in the video "When is the I? NOW" @ th-cam.com/video/xCa8C13lMB4/w-d-xo.html and see what you discover about the "i".
When we ask "Where am I?", there is a space before the brain comes up with some answer, or another story, demonstrating that the brain can't find it either.
stillness
gary
Hi Gary! Is it possible to find the entire episode? If so, where can we find it? I went to the Synchcast website but I could not find the 1st episode. I've found that there will be a 2nd episode soon. I'm taking this opportunity to thank you for all the videos you have been sharing, your two books and your blog... they are very enthralling and supporting!
Hi Sabrina. The SynchCast folk sent me two chunks of Episode 1 totaling about an hour. This video came from one of those chunks; another topical video is ready. we had some audio problems in Episode 1, which is why it is chopped up. we'll see if we can put up Episode 2 in its entirety. Episode 2 will be this next Sunday @ 3:00 pm EST/12:00 pm PST. The website link is shown above in the 'Show more'. Donations only. BTW, Rich and i take nothing from those donations; they are to defray the costs of SynchCast's efforts. Great that you are finding the work useful. stillness
Thank you :-)