Meditation, Heart, Fear and Morality

Disclosure: I have been meditating on average 15 minutes a day for a year and a half. This has included increasing my sitting skills to include 2 hour meditations which have been very useful. I started to learn it 17 years ago, and while developing a good knowledge of its many techniques from a variety of teachers of different school, have never stuck to it until now. I have learned it within a Buddhist context and see Buddhism as really the manual for Meditation - the two are inseparable. Everything in Buddhism has been discovered via meditation. I was born Christian and have never seen a conflict between Jesus and Buddha. There is however an obvious conflict between Christianity and Buddhism as both groups wish to lock in their congregations and are quite jealous of each other. There are jealousies even between sects of each. These are just human frailties and I shall ignore here. But this initial disclosure digresses from the point of the post.

Meditation simply practices and strengthens concentration and mindfulness. These are distinct. Concentration is focus, as when we read a book in a quiet library or seek solitude to get on with a job. Mindfulness is awareness of what is going on in our senses. What we can hear, see, smell, taste, feel and also what thoughts we are having. When we break out of concentration and become aware of the world around and within us we will find our mindfulness extremely acute. We will Notice a lot of things. The two are intimately linked.

In the past I have focused exclusively on Concentration seeking the insights of Jhana that I once gained by Christian practice as a child. But this time I have included more Mindfulness and Compassion meditation.

Along with Mindfulness practice there is Contemplation meditation. I would classify Compassion meditation as a kind of Contemplation meditation. Here we ignore the senses of mindfulness and use our imagination to contemplate specific things. For compassion we are seeking to discover and strengthen our wish to help people in suffering. Linked to this is Loving Kindness meditation (Metta) where we seek to discover and enhance are feelings of Friendship, Support and Warmth toward all people. We begin with those we naturally love (if any, if we have become particularly hurt, withdrawn, cynical and hateful) and as we get stronger can can expand this toward neutral people and finally the people we dislike and hate (if any).

Buddhism Theory is particularly important in understanding and guiding what these meditations are doing. The theory is that we are Ignorant of our True Nature. This means we have Wrong View. Bold words for something very simple. The point is that we tend to learn how to see the world, and tend to inherit opinions about it from other people. We very rarely actually check whether we can see these things for ourself. This is especially and uniquely important when speaking about ourself. How can we learn about ourself from someone else? The obvious irony is that Buddha appears to Tell us about ourselves. But of central importance he never actually says anything exactly, he only guides us to look for ourself and that is the key point of Meditation. It is a looking at ourselves and the world properly, deeply and accurately to ensure that we see it as it is for us, not for someone else and not via some improperly understood theory from a book. Meditation is Me Time where we take good time to look at the world and ourselves carefully to just see how it Really is. When we do Compassion meditation and Metta meditation we are taking it on faith that we have these qualities in our True Nature and we are looking for them and focusing on them. The reason we cannot see them very well is that they are covered in mental dust and dirt - the analogy for ignorance. We often think and do things knowing they are not quite right but we never actually sat down and sorted it out. For example we may have always washed our clothes at setting 4 on the machine but one day we get the manual out and do a proper investigation and we see we are a bit right but there is more to know. Meditation is like being an Archaeologist digging through layers of dirt and time to uncover what we Really Are. The story doesn't end until Enlightenment however: "I" is an ongoing process of investigation and discovery. The Buddhist belief is that Siddhartha discovered his True Nature which it turns out is just One and the same as for All Beings. So Buddhist believe they are looking for their own buddha just as Siddhartha did. But how we get there is as diverse as there are beings in search so Siddhartha never built a single motorway but only highlighted a few of the bigger tributaries of a universal river. If Buddhism has one criticism of Religion it is that it is often sold to new comers as a single motor way. It doesn't take long for the new comer to realise however they are not quite like other people, don't have quite the same ideas, and even don't have quite the same God or goal. Is God a kind person, a strict person, a punishing person, a unknowable person, a person who visits the world for common people or only saints etc. And the new comer will realise their relationship with God and the Religion changes all the time also. They may go through Dark Nights of the Soul filled with doubt, and then periods of strong conviction and security. Everything is change. There is no single Motor Way but a largely unmapped journey through a single track in the mountains never before walked. Even if that path takes us away from Religion and God we are still walking the path. Buddhism recognises perhaps better than any other religion that our journey to salvation is ours not someone elses. We must walk it, and in Meditation we are taking steps on a path never before walked.

So where to begin? Concentration is the key and this is typically built by Anapanasati or Breathing Meditation. We have been breathing from the moment we were born but despite so many breaths we are almost never aware of it. Focus on the breathing, noting each in breath and then out breath and being sure that we are aware that these are happening. Usually we start by counting breaths in groups of 10 going back to 1 if we find we missed a breath when the mind wanders. Each time we bring the mind back we are growing stronger. Even now it can take 30 minutes for the mind to calm down and for me to be able to watch the stream of breathing quietly and for the most part undistracted. Locked On is the mental state of mind where we feel very calm and are inside the bubble of concentration that contains the breath. We don't feel like responding to distractions, we can go out and listen to a sound, or even change our body posture if we feel pain, but we want to come back inside the bubble and sit with our breathing. There is no suffering in this state of mind. THIS IS THE CRITICAL FIRST MIND STAGE OF CONCENTRATION. Get here often.

Once we have concentration then we can do Mindfulness to examine deeply the world and our feelings and thoughts. Or we can do Metta to clean our Hearts and enhance our feelings and relationships with people and the world. As one meditation teacher said Metta is probably the most important meditation because it includes all the others. It requires concentration to focus on the feelings of love, kindness and helpfulness but it also cleans the Heart. We can do Mindfulness and Metta at any moment in our lives, sitting meditation is just to get this process onto a strong start.

Heart has a special meaning in Buddhism. In English we force Heart into two quite separate thoughts. There is mind which is intellectual and there is heart which is emotional. But what do we call an intelligent heart? Someone who gives alcohol to an alcoholic may feel generous but they lack a deeper reflection on the situation. An Intelligent Heart is both kind and perceptive rolled into one. Enlightenment does not occur to the mind and the brain nor does it occur to the emotions and the body it occurs to the Intelligent Heart. In Meditation we removing the dirt that hides the intelligent heart so we need to both clear our Views of incorrect things and we need to clear our emotions of negativity and obstructive feelings. Metta meditation does both.

Intelligent Heart as we start to discover it has strength. It is the thing in Christianity which fights the Devil. When we stand there and we deep down know that something is wrong and we resist it, investigate it and try to throw it off. That is Intelligent Heart. The key to Intelligent Heart is the presence of wise force. When we are angry or fearful we have lots of energy but we use it very unwisely saying hurtful things to people or getting into a panic. These things achieve nothing and often make the situation worse. If we look closely they are also suffering and so are actually telling us that this is not the correct path and also pointing out which issues to examine and solve next. When we have the strength of Intelligent Heart we can see with resilience and clarity the path and we can walk through the storm that has blown up. It takes some force but it is kind and intelligent force that leads us in the right direction. I have certainly been confused out the use of force. I used to be a tutor and was always reluctant to force the children to study as I thought this would create resentment and dislike of the subjects. I wanted to encourage them and bring out their good qualities. This is half intelligent. After years I discovered there is a right time to push and I regret not pushing much more than I did. One very difficult student even said to me once when he realised that he could have done better in his exams, why didn't I push him more! Intelligent Heart uses kind force to get through struggles. Before in meditation I have called it "firmtle". When our mind is being a badly behaved child and will not focus we need to be firm with it, but we must not punish it and make it feel bad at not "meditating well". The generating of negative feelings in meditation can build up toward hating and avoiding it. Obviously if we are strong we can just meditate on those negative feelings but for beginners (like me!) they can upset the process of meditation.

There is no devil in Buddhism, or the one that is, is actually the form of our most important teacher. How else to do learn without tests? Wrong views about the world, dislikes, quarrels, hatreds, hurdles, obstacles, struggles, depressions, loss, anxiety, fears are all the tests thrown at us by the devil. Usually we will fail, but the tests are always exactly what we need to point us down the path. As we get stronger the tests often get more fierce. So being faced by what seems an unsurmountable obstacle is testament to our ambition and the strength our as yet undiscovered True Self believes we can gain.

Once we have Locked In meditation we will feel secure and we will have the mental strength to investigate deeply the tests that we have been set. There is no test that we cannot succeed at. However some may take large parts of our life to solve. But in solving them we become cleaner, purer and closer to our True Nature. What is the point of taking a test that will waste our whole life? This is thought is actually just a test. Remember "thoughts" and "questions" are also the objects of meditation just as sights, sounds, tastes, touches and feelings. It is actually Wrong View but to undo it will take a long time. Buddhism believes in reincarnation. It is a helpful thought because it points us toward understanding that we do not just get born, live and die pointlessly but are more like leaves on a river flowing with no beginning and no end, or a leaf stuck on a wheel turning round again and again. The world keeps flowing forever and without beginning (people might think Big Bang was the start, but then we think what caused Big Bang there is no initial thought or beginning). But while the world keeps flowing we come and go like leaves in this bigger picture of which we are a part. No trees no leaves, no leaves no trees. Correct View involves the slow breaking down of lots of wrong views about ourselves and our relationship with the world and gradually integrating ourselves again to see the whole process. My Intelligent Heart as I become more aware of it and it shines brighter will see clearly the Correct View. Cleaning it up is a long but fascinating path.

And finally morality. How to behave and what to do we usually copy from other people. But lots of times in life we must make our own choices from our sexual orientation to who to marry to what job to do, to where to live, what styles to wear and what pass-time we like. Much is chosen for us: our parents may push us into a particular career or way of feeling about ourselves. At some stage we need to look closely and decide. I became vegetarian, stopped smoking and am tackling recurrent anxiety are three personal choices that required and require a lot of personal investigation. Meditation obviously is the perfect method to achieve personalised moral choices. By looking closely at what is going on within ourselves, seeing suffering as the guide and with the strength of Intelligent Heart we can see a better path and a better life for our bodies and our minds.

The Illuminati & Conspiracy

Illuminati are an 18th Century European club whose goal was to improve the world. The European Enlightenment movement was in full swing then too with similar aims.

“It was not my intention to doubt that, the doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am." [G.W.]

It's interesting that George Washington decided that the Illuminati were a threat to American independence and freedom. He also saw other groups as threats to US like the Jacobians. Since its violent break from the controlling force of Britain the US has always been suspicious of private groups from Europe trying to take over the US. Even as late at 1815 Britain was fighting American Independence. The split between Commonwealth Canada and aggressively independent USA is the result of that war. The Star Spangled Banner is an old British tune with the words of a poem penned as the US withstood a British onslaught. Even as late as 1974 the US was prepared for a British attack through Canada to continue that 150 year old war. It was code named War Plan Red. This history of independence and opposing the Old World very much lives on in Conspiracy Theory and these days the principle is symolised by the Illuminati.

Ironically the New World Order can be seen as either a New "World Order" or a "New World" Order. As someone from the Old World with a Queen still in place and long traditions I see it as the "New World" Order with the US seeking to control the world. New American Century clearly had this aim. With the fall of the USSR the US saw the opportunity to take over the world and spread its values and control. Thus began the push for military supremacy (Joint Vision 2020) and expansion into regions that had previously resisted US control Afghanistan, Iran, Syria. Iraq was a stepping stone with Hussein only recently fallen out of favour. As the drive expanded Gadaffi mysteriously fell out of favour along with others. Russia remains the US main opponent. This is all "New World" Order to me.

But the recent win by Trump flying the banner of US control by Elites suggests that even in the US they are not benefiting from the "New World" Order. Perhaps indeed it is a New "World Order" that benefits neither Old World nor New World but rather an international elite class. Certainly Capitalism has generated this, and globalisations has meant that with money people now have the ability to influence all regions of the world. Obviously Russia and China are more controlling and close their borders to this Global Elite which would be why the Western News, which one can assume is owned by these Elites, hates these countries. To be powerful the first thing to do is control the media! Then you have the support of the people. Then control the banks!

 I said in a previous post that there is a mystic and religious dimension to this type of thinking. In the absence, or rejection of mass religions, the suspicious have formed their own religions. Aliens is prominent as a "other worldly" source of influence on Earth. I have clearly seen a flying saucer with friends who confirm it so I am not speculating on alien craft and aliens. I am speculating on the beliefs that surround them which are all unfounded and chosen because people like the beliefs. "Other worldly" forces then spiral up and down into angels and demons respectively and masonic and other esoteric occult rituals. Certainly all this happens. The only question is how significant it is and whether it makes any difference to our daily lives.

What is without question is that people have varying levels of power. As much in the "free" West as anywhere else in space and time. Once there were Kings and Dictators now there are Capitalists and Bankers who have more influence on our lives than even the worst dictators. But we are also always free as while people can influence us they can never tell us what to do. So in many ways all talk of Illuminatis and Conspiracy even by George Washington is rather irrelevant. The sun rises and falls regardless who is in power. Some say this is the work of God but actually even that doesn't matter. One day the sun won't rise any more and there is nothing we can do about it. Power is just a perspective on the way the world already is.