- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
As per the book, Taoist Sexual Meditation, I was wondering if anyone else found these energies of Guilt and Shame synonymous with Blame in their meditative travails?
Hey Cody,
Can you expound on your question some more?
If you are asking weather anyone has experianced the emotions of Guilt and thoughts of blame at the same time, I certainly have. If I’m feeling guilty about something, I can often get caught up in thoughts of “Whose fault was it? Who’s to blame? Was I in the wrong or was the other person?”
Is that the line of thought behind your question? Also, I’m curious, what page in the book has mentions of blame?
Janak
Howdy Janak,
I wouldn’t be surprised if Bruce made some mention of blame in “Taoist Sexual Meditation”, but I wasn’t conscious of this or am presently aware of any bit in it, just the little section on pages 90-91 I’m referring to about “Guilt in the West, Shame in the East”.
I feel like blame is a pretty big lynch-pin for dissolving blockages surrounding guilt and shame. That, when we get to the root of our guilt and shame, one of the first actions/reactions is to say “okay, so than who’s fault was/is it?!” and that this can be a pretty sticky and alluring trap.
In this way, I see blame as a peripheral approach to guilt and shame, as well as a fundamental part of permanently releasing guilt and shame.
Cody
Hey Cody,
Are you practicing Bruce’s Inner Dissolving meditation? Or are you referring to some other meditation system?
Janak
Janak,
I’m practicing Bruce’s Inner Dissolving as best I can, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t “supplementing” it with other meditation techniques/systems.
Cody
Okay, I wanted to clarify that before I commented on your question.
When you are inner dissolving you want to basically ignore whatever thoughts arise in your mind. They are basically irrelevant. The more time you pay attention to them, the less efficient your meditation practice will be. The less time you spend paying attention to them, the more powerful your meditation practice will be.
When these thoughts arise and distract you, just notice them. Notice that they distracted you and then return your attention to the block that you are dissolving and continue to dissolve it. It’s dissolving this energetic block that will transformation in your mind. When you are inner dissolving a blocked piece of energy, you are transforming the root cause of those thoughts in your mind. In a way, you are working on the trunk of a tree. The individual thoughts in all their varieties are just the leaves. Cut the tree trunk and all the leaves will die off and disappear.
I’ve run into this in my own mind quite often. In particular, when I’m trying to forgive someone that has wronged me. I can easily get caught up in a variety of thoughts
- Why did they did do it?
- How could they? I trusted them!
- Feelings of pain
- Anger
- Hatred
- A desire for revenge
- etc
After a while I started to notice some patterns. I could think about the events that had occured and I would go in circles. Thinking the same series of thoughts over and over again. But nothing would really change. I’d feel the same way after I did all that thinking as before I did all that thinking.
If, on the other hand, I tried to ignore my thoughts as best as I could and instead focus on dissolving the block that I had found in my body. (Often times in my heart) Then I would notice that the next day, I’d feel a little bit better. The memories would not hurt as much. It didn’t bother me as much. I didn’t have as much anger as I did before.
This was when I very concretely understood what Bruce has said many times. Namely, that “Meditation is not comtemplation”
This all only applies to Bruce’s system of Inner Dissolving. I’m not sure how things work in the other meditation traditions of the world. I imagine in some of those systems contemplation is considered meditation.
Hope this helps,
Janak
This is massively helpful; meditation is not contemplation just nails it for me.
Deeply thankful,
Cody
I woke-up today with an insight into guilt blockages; innocence.
Not that innocence isn’t true; I agree with a lot of what Bruce has to say about how most of the stuff we get that comes at us is more just what the universe throws at us in order to grow rather than something we attract, or that we choose our families (which isn’t to say I don’t love’em). But, rather, I see innocence as a compensation for addressing guilt and that innocence can just be an avoidance of guilt. Like what Bruce says about strength, if you have it you don’t feel it, I think this bodes well with the idea of innocence in light of guilt.
Just a thought.
Akin to this, I believe there is a precedent for something I see as the pride-that-hides-shame.
A pretty easy one to understand, that when you’ve done something that initiates shame, instead of dissolving/letting it go and thus being truly-proud, you make alot of noise that sounds like pride as just a diversionary-tactic to avoid the shame it causes you.
Nowadays, I feel, people are encouraged to this, a kinda splatter-shot attempt to cover all the bases; cause if it naturally dissolves you are naturally proud and therefore the culture seems warranted, yet if it doesn’t dissolve and you’re stuck with shame then your pride defends your wound and the culture again seems warranted, even if it promulgates a clinging-pattern and makes the art and pragmatics of letting-go seem esoteric or magically gleaned, and at worst, socially-dangerous and ineffectual.
Pretty effing painful way to learn!
In this sense, though, dissolving and letting-go are certainly not synonymous, as letting-go can be just part of the noise and not the process of dissolving itself, which unfortunately further makes dissolving seem esoteric and magical and the natural result it creates, letting-go, seem ill-advised or wishful-thinking based on previous experience of what the culture tends to consider as letting-go.
This is an archived forum (read only). Go to our active forum where you can post and discuss in real time.