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November 9, 2012 at 3:58 am #128613
AnonymousGuestIs there a point in meditation where the conscious and subconscious minds merge, or where the conscious mind has direct control over the subconscious? Or is it more like the conscious mind learns to do what the subconscious already can do?
November 10, 2012 at 6:50 pm #132739
AnonymousGuestHi Cameron, this is a very interesting question to me also.
May I ask you what you understand the subconscious to be, and what it already does?
November 10, 2012 at 8:54 pm #132740
AnonymousGuesthi cameron and everyone.
been doing the bruce meditation stuff for a while now, not saying I can really do it, but I sure do get a lot out of it. really cleared up a lot of ideas I had about what awaress is and how it functions. thx bruce, yr the man…
my experience with it is that I am now able to directly notice a lot of things, such as my emotional state, nerve buzzyness, and so on, that I would only notice indirectly before. an analogy might be noticing the rain clouds vs noticing the rain hitting your head.
it’s seems to be a progressive process of awareness opening up into everything it can be aware of, rather than being focused and contracted into one particular place.
I also notice that being aware of something is one thing, and getting something to do something is another thing. intent and awareness seem are connected, perhaps like 2 sides of a coin. that’s just my experience of it, I lose awareness when I try to do too much, and im not focused enough to get much done whan im really into just noticing.
now, there’s a lot of stuff I am at best vaguely aware of, and often totally not aware. there’s a lot out there, and a lot in there, once you start exploring awareness.
I think some people really try to control everything with their mind, (having the conscious mind exert control over the unconscious) which tends to get too tight
other people seem to try and really let go and let it flow, (allowing the unconscious to influence more). this tends to get too loose.
seems like by being aware without trying to control so much is the goldilocks point.hope this helps
richardNovember 11, 2012 at 9:15 am #132741
AnonymousGuestI’ve been looking into the ideomotor effect and hypnosis. Only really skimmed the surface but I saw this video which is quite interesting. He labels it as self hypnosis but I don’t really know if that’s accurate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rllgDllb1O8
Not entirely sure what’s going on but I’m keen to figure it out. That level of control would be good for a lot of things.
November 11, 2012 at 6:21 pm #132742
AnonymousGuestHi, Cameron. I’m not an authority in any way, but I’ve been considering the role of the mind in the energy arts and meditation.
First aspect: Bruce talks a lot about how meditation, and particularly the development of the heart/mind starts to move the awareness into the subconscious. Breath is an important access point for the subconscious as it can both be under conscious or subconscious control. The water method allows us access to the subconscious areas of the body and mind that stores emotional and mental trauma.
Second thing: the Taoist scholar Livia Kohn has written an excellent book called “Meditation Works” that looks at Taoist, Buddhist, and Hindu meditation traditions. She draws a strong parallel between meditation and hypnosis, and explores the many ways meditation works with the subconscious.
Third, there’s a lot of good science about how the brain works that can help our practice. A really good book is Rick Hanson’s “Buddha’s Brain.” Although he’s a Buddhist, he’s also a neuroscientist and i find his work really helpful in explaining a lot of what goes on during meditation.
I look forward to reading other responses.
November 12, 2012 at 12:34 am #132743
AnonymousGuestSounds interesting. I’ll see if I can grab those books at some point.
November 12, 2012 at 9:00 pm #132744
AnonymousGuestGood reply from MJN as usual. Incidentally, I studied hypnotherapy in depth some time ago. It was an unusual hybrid of Freudian psychoanalytic theory and hypnosis. I can only agree that there is an exact parallel between these two disciplines and Taosist meditation. But you have to be careful to distinguish between suggestion and the ‘hypnotic state’, and then again between the power of suggestion to induce the hypnotic state.
Anyway, to return to Cameron’s original question: Is there any sense in saying that the conscious and subconscious mind can merge? Because of course if the subconscious becomes conscious then it is no longer subconscious, and if what is conscious becomes subconscious then it is no longer conscious, and it had better do, because the subconscious is too vast.
And is it not true that what is in the mind, whether conscious or subconscious, can be reduced to complex patterns of electrical acitivity in the nervous system? And that we can become conscious of this electrical activity, or qi (my opinion), or not, and that this also can be conscious or subconscious? So the answer is not there…
At what point does a complex electrical configuration become an image or a thought? Even during a dream, if it becomes an image or a thought, is it not in fact conscious?
My clapped-out computer does not support Youtube unfortunately: what is this control that you want over the subconscious?
November 12, 2012 at 11:48 pm #132745
AnonymousGuestA guy was turning one of those old style keys in his hand seemingly without moving. He said it’s very fine muscle control.
November 13, 2012 at 5:02 pm #132746
AnonymousGuestYe, old trick. Accomplished by auto suggestion. Something covered a far greater depth in internal martial arts, though. I don’t think you have to look any further than that.
November 13, 2012 at 8:13 pm #132747
AnonymousGuest…And what the hell would that be useful for anyway?!….
December 4, 2012 at 8:03 pm #132748
AnonymousGuestCameron, sorry if I was rude, but think of bagua, for example, in it’s higher levels. It’s highest actions are performed spontaneously, and with a speed and application not possible from a conscious intent. But don’t take my word for it – that was from “The Power Of Internal Martial Arts”!
Or put it this way: if you’re already well into these energy arts, then you’re already studying something that includes all these things and more.
Once again, sorry for my rude post
December 5, 2012 at 5:55 am #132749
AnonymousGuestDon’t worry .
I can’t really do anything advanced yet. The idea was to perhaps investigate from a different angle. Since the hypnosis stuff is apparently easy enough for most people I thought it might be something interesting to play around with while working on the beginner concepts of all this Taoist stuff.
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