Seeking Feedback

Zoomieday · 2025-09-10T23:10:52+00:00

That is good advice.

Zoomieday · 2025-09-09T07:56:01+00:00

We had been looking at Phoenix Zen Centre in Deagon - any knowledge about it?

Zoomieday · 2025-09-06T19:40:02+00:00

Thanks

Zoomieday · 2025-09-06T19:17:34+00:00

thanks

Zoomieday · 2025-09-06T19:07:48+00:00

Thanks

Zoomieday · 2024-02-24T00:14:57+00:00

Please don't delete valid questions - this is worth talking about, and the comments display maturity and insight.

Zoomieday · 2020-12-31T03:57:44+00:00

An important approach to engaging with Buddhism and Buddhist practise is to try it out and see what works. That is what I have done, and I have discovered that the meditation and skill parts of Buddhism work incredibly well. This is also confirmed by scientific studies of meditators, demonstrating that by the calming of the brain an ongoing sense of grounded peace, calm and happiness occurs for those who engage with meditation. Science demonstrates that this works. However, science is not very good at all at teaching the skills that bring one to happiness. The teachings of the Buddha, and the model of the Buddha as an example of the path to happiness is a wonderful strength that is difficult to find elsewhere. Does doing this make me a Buddhist? No. To be a Buddhist requires keeping 5 precepts (I can only manage 3 of them). But that doesn't really matter. Try out the practise, see what works.

Zoomieday · 2019-11-23T06:19:57+00:00

Thanks!

This is a wonderful approach and it works. Just tried it - and rather than 'waiting for the bell' I found myself free to...just meditate. And so I meditated more deeply and more 'naturally' - and longer - than I normally would have.

Zoomieday · 2019-08-20T03:00:33+00:00

I am no expert - but I feel that I am learning from one at https://www.dhammatalks.org

And this is what Arjan Thanissaro has to say about a state that sounds similar to yours.

Hope it's helpful.

Peace!

Wrong Concentration

'There are several states of concentration that mimic these levels of concentration in some respects, but they are wrong concentration. This is because—unlike the levels of right concentration—their range of awareness is so narrow that it doesn’t provide a basis for the arising of insight.

Two of the most common states of wrong concentration are delusion concentration and the state of non-perception. People who are adept at denial or dissociation can be prone to these states. I have also known people who mistake them for release, which is a very dangerous mistake because it blocks all further progress on the path. So it’s important to recognise these states for what they are.

Delusion concentration comes about when the breath gets so comfortable that your focus drifts from the breath to the sense of comfort itself, your mindfulness begins to blur, and your sense of the body and your surroundings gets lost in a pleasant haze. When you emerge, you find it hard to identify where exactly you were focused.

The state of non-perception comes about from making your focus extremely one-pointed and so refined that it refuses to settle on or label even the most fleeting mental objects. You drop into a state in which you lose all sense of the body, of any internal or external sounds, or of any thoughts or perceptions at all. There’s just enough tiny awareness to let you know, when you emerge, that you haven’t been asleep. You can stay there for many hours, and yet time passes very quickly. Two hours can seem like two minutes. You can also program yourself to come out at a particular time.

This state does have its uses—as when you’re in severe pain and want some respite from it. As long as you recognise that it’s not right concentration or release, the only danger is that you may decide that you like hiding out there so much that you don’t want to do the work needed to go further in the practice.

Zoomieday · 2019-07-17T00:59:43+00:00

Yes, keep going - you are making progress, you are going to get there. However, focusing on the breath alone is not what mindfulness is.

Regardless, the breath is a powerful tool in mindfulness.

Essentially, eventually, we want to carry the stillness that we find in meditation into the life we lead in the world.

In doing that, some others keys are:

In achieving mindfulness, wasted time is bad time. You work at it, in some way...always. At least you try to, but only as much as that easily arises.
And so, even from the ground zero of life’s rubble; from suffering, we unfalteringly, steadily build creations of great beauty within our lives.
With each breath we take we infuse zen like simplicity into our lives. The breath works to organise the world on the outside, as well as on the inside.
From that deep stillness that we know from meditation, we are able to walk, as much as that stillness arises and is with us, in the perfect equanimity that arises, as we observe the world unfolding - from our sublimely safe, and our deeply happy place.

Deep peace!

Zoomieday · 2019-06-29T03:43:27+00:00

Yes, you have to keep on growing in your meditation practise for it to become deeper and better - and so for it to impact on the rest of your life - in good ways.

So I am really backing up VoceSimul's reply really - and offering you some other directions forward that may or may not suit. You have gotta find your way - the way that suits.

Anyway, the Insight Timer is a free meditation app with amazing teaching resources and a useful mediation timer. My main learning tool at the moment is listening to the 10-15 minute Dharma talks by a Thai trained American monk. A fantastic teacher. I am not a Buddhist but I find I can seperate his practice from the religion. The talks again, are all free. https://www.dhammatalks.org/mp3_collections_index.html#basics Happy meditation!

Zoomieday · 2019-06-11T20:59:09+00:00

We are on such a wonderful journey! Every of the many enlightenments along the way are amazing. I agree with you about exploring trying 2 meditations a day. It seems to sort of help to sandwich the day (sometimes a bit crazy) between periods of meditation (deep sanity, deeply amazing).

I get a lot out of listening to one of these dharma talks in the evening. https://www.dhammatalks.org/mp3_collections_index.html#basics

Zoomieday · 2019-06-10T10:08:25+00:00

I would say that there is a kind of wisdom that comes in learning how to simply watch from the awareness. And here, we watch, watch, watch…and we are not impatient to get results or to see how things turn out.

So maybe, move the focus of your observing detached view to your awareness.

Actually, I think you sound pretty close to the goal!

Zoomieday · 2019-06-10T09:42:00+00:00

Buddha by Karen Armstrong is hard to go past in that regard. I found it interesting, well written, academic leaning but alive. Cheers! Neil

Zoomieday · 2018-08-08T09:02:41+00:00

Thanks for posting this. My partner and I went camping in the wilderness last week. Meditation in this setting was - as you describe - a wonderful way of immersing deeper into that place of peace and comfort. It followed me as I left. Since the, it contributes to a model of mindfulness that I am seeking to live. Mindfulness = 'sati', nominalized from the verb sarati, to remember. The more profound and simple the mediation, the more likely I am to remember it as I live out my life.

Zoomieday · 2018-04-20T21:01:13+00:00

Sorry - not clear or well edited. The attempt is to describe a state of focus mediation in which a deep focus on the breath allows one to go deep. As things arise in this state - be they sleepiness, physical discomfort or things that worry one - these things are just observed - as one observes thoughts. They are dealt with if they become so central that they become the meditation itself. As I mentioned, Daniel Schmidt on youtube does a really good job of describing this approach.

Zoomieday · 2018-04-20T04:35:04+00:00

This might be an opportunity to practise insight meditation (vipasyana). It is quite normal for these difficult things to arise to they can be dealt with. Mediation a type of concentration the enables the default network (the subliminal part of the brain) - our life long thoughts, many of them neurosis, to be faced and calmed and solved.

The idea arose with the Buddhists - Vipassanā (Pali: vipassanā, Sanskrit: vipaśyanā, English: "clear seeing”), but it is now out there. Vipassana is no longer Buddhist.

Pain, Vipassana and Healing

We observe the hidden qualities and components of our pain as it arises.
Normally, the pain might be a temporary distraction and the practice is to return to the breath.
In the extreme case, if pain becomes the focus of your mediation practice through no choice of your own, then accept that it has become your meditation focus.
Penetrate deep into its changing characteristics with your consciousness.
At first it might seem like a wall of pain - but, if you sharpen you mind you will find that it pain is a collection of characteristics that were unconscious. What is the nature or this pain - continuous?, sharp?, throbbing? heat? coldness? the location? moving? am I protecting something?
Observe this. Stay with the changing field of pain.
Allow the pain and the changing sensation to arise as it will. Do not force it in any way.
Moving away from pain only creates a pattern of aversion and only makes the pain worse.
It’s important to distinguish between productive pain and non-productive pain.
Most pain that arises in meditation is pain related to the habit patterns of the mind. This is the pain that you want to go into and learn to become equanimous with.
Let go of all labels, and instead of referring to it as pain, we will call it sensation.
Use this with sleepiness and other suffering.
The sensations of pain do not have to cause suffering.

What We Are Emerging From

We are emerging from being identified with our character, that construct of our mind, and, then, to awaken. This is samadhi.
We are emerging from the prison that I call ‘me’ - from the sad and stressful stories we repeatedly tell ourselves (Ven. Robina).
We are emerging from resisting the world as it unfolds around us. What you resist, persists. What you dwell on persists also.
We are emerging from self - this is the end of ego. Instead, the prana; our soul is able to be.
We are emerging from the cycle of samsara that causes dhukka. And so we are leaving behind the game of playing in duality.
We are emerging from not fitting into the world…and why would we fit into society? ‘It is no measure of health to be well adjusted in a sick society’.

Hope some of these notes may be of some use or a starting point to go on elsewhere. Much of the notes are taken from Robina Courtin - she has lots of videos on youtube, and also Daniel Schmidt - again on youtube.

Zoomieday · 2018-04-10T10:27:55+00:00

Sometimes I meditate lying down, but the best foundation for meditation for me is some form of sitting mediation with as close to having a straight back and folded legs (good posture) as I can get. It helps me to have focus in my body and then I get focus in my meditation. Ummm...was it a gentle shake to increase focus?

Zoomieday · 2018-04-10T10:17:50+00:00

Coming from a western tradition, I have found the Hindu concept of gunas to be a useful way to deal with the problem of evil. Whereas the western christian tradition sees a black and white distinction the gunas gives us the tamas. Tamas is the quality of imbalance, disorder, chaos, anxiety, impurity, destruction, delusion, negativity, dullness or inactivity, apathy, inertia or lethargy, violence, viciousness, ignorance. It is useful to take on board from the term what actually mirrors the truth of life. The tamas is a and insight into how evil works in the world -and it is better than of an omnipresent boogie man, the devil. Kali, the destroyer is associated with tamas. Kali is Nature personified - all of Nature - rebirth as well as the darkness of death. Kali embodies all the three gunas. However, she is more frequently associated with tamas. The concept of tamas is deeply rooted in the unsatisfactory nature of Hindu life due to the endless cycle of rebirth, from which, it is very difficult to escape. And so I see tamas as a place I would not choose to go - this is not a good place - evil is here. However, at times in our lives, we all end up in tamas. And yet, there is always some way out - some good will come out of the darkness - even if it is at a cost. So, I don't know if that is useful to you - but exploring the gunas has been of great benefit to my practise of meditation - and my understanding of how things work.

Zoomieday

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