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This is off topic from the month 7 discussion but how do you recognize the mindstream? I have found the descriptions of the mindstream cryptic and esoteric. Is the mindstream visible internally? Is it located in an area? Can you feel it? If so, what does it feel like to you? The mindstream is separated from thought but the intent is to meld them. How do you know when you have done this? Thanks for any input.
…………….good question, although I’m not quite sure of where you’re coming from…….the moment by moment continuum of the aware mind isn’t something that can be localised, is it? And any associated feeling will perhaps be a function of the content (I’m not expert so would welcome commet)…………………….people use the term in varying contexts, check out Bruce’s book the Great Stillness and Wikipedia has an interesting article from a Buddhist perspective, – which mentions Dzogchen a Tibetan doctrine which isn’t a million miles away from the Taoist path.
Thanks for the reference Colin. I’ve been studying the Great Stillness and Bruce’s explanation of the mindstream. Let me see if I’m getting this right. For the Taoist water method we are using the mindstream would be more along the lines of William James’ stream of consciousness rather than a universal mindstream or “god conciousness.” In the Taoist tradition the mindstream would penetrate all six energy bodies and to meet Consciousness one’s intention needs to meld subjective thought with the mindstream. So the mindstream is not strictly subjective consciousness but also an objective thing that meditation joins subjective thought with. Somebody whack me upside the head please.
I’ve done a number of mediation seminars and a week-long retreat on it with Bruce and he’s never talked about the mind stream. One of his senior instructors said that he had included it in the book at the insistence of the editor who felt the directions should be as complete and accurate as possible. This instructor seemed to think inner dissolving could be practiced – at least at the initial levels – without really getting into the mind-stream. it’s something that has confused me, too. There seem to be so many different things in the awareness: the heart/mind, the motion of the mind, the awareness of the different energy bodies, yin/internal vs yang/external awareness, just to name a few. I’ve decided I’m just going to follow the practices and do what I can truly understand. I’ll see where that leads. I look forward to other responses.
The conception of William James is no Eastern conception, though his feeling approach having less an object goes into the no mind awareness without an object of Eastern philosophies. Continuity of consciousness also beyond death instead of an immortal soul is the more appropriate term for the East.
Taoist meditsation as I understand it has a strong connection of body and mind for being really conscious and aware. Not the abstractive intellect singling out phenomenas as object is the main focus but a rather intuitive awareness what is occuring in your sphere and outside it. So it is often difficult to tell what your mind is grasping in and around your body.
As mental action we like so much is only one body of six real emotion and feeling has to be learnt newly not to speak of the mind of the further bodies allowing to distinguish them.
Axel
………I’m 100% with you on this Matthew!
Thanks Matthew. This is very helpful. You are right, there are many different things in the awareness that can become just another distraction. Here is another one for me: how to dissolve an internal blockage by imploding it inward. I know you can over think anything, like a golf swing for instance. I’m taking your advice and following the practice.
Intuitive awareness, learning to feel and address emotions in a new way. I like that Axel. Having no object to speak of, like the Tao, which can’t be described in words.
……do you mean something along the lines of inner dissolving with some kind of additional implosive force?
Dear Ted, this topic is really diificult and demands a broad knowledge beyond the cultural for having a basis for comparison.
So being unable to put the experience into words does not mean at all that it does not have a clear message, wisdom or sense like the Western mystical experiences also. William James having by the way also a spiritual cosmic self puts it in the term sense even it is only feelable as sense felt. Later it may become clear like in focussing derived from James.
I think our main difficulty is our old distinction of sinful and lustful sensual experience and extra sensory experiences to take a parapsychological term having the real spiritual content. Though the East also has the distinction of a sinful avoidable world as ascetism it uses its sort of sensual experience for spiritual devolopment of awareness in the senses or single this consciousness out as a 6th category or skandha for taking a Buddhist term of such vipassana training of being present in the moment.
And here it meets with the taoist meditation which has to be newly learnt as a new emotional experience of the organs for taking this example. Emotion meaning the something moves is to limited in its scope and therefore false. Spinozist affects are wide enough also with unmoved parts beyond the usual up and downs of ekstatic or depressive emotions. The latter is rather easy to feel the still and quiet, relaxed and peaceful affect is rather difficult to grasp what it is.
I don`t know it yet really but got some rather puzzling and easy experience in the approach of Tarab Tulku XI. In our philosophy emotion is more the result of a stimulus arousing it and not a category of feeling in its own right what he rather clearly expounds a middles by his texts. He recommends going into the emotion for mastering and calming it by consciousness or such mental action to speculate it in the 6 body theory. For me it works.
Axel
Dear Ted, this topic is really diificult and demands a broad knowledge beyond the cultural for having a basis for comparison.
So being unable to put the experience into words does not mean at all that it does not have a clear message, wisdom or sense like the Western mystical experiences also. William James having by the way also a spiritual cosmic self puts it in the term sense even it is only feelable as sense felt. Later it may become clear like in focussing derived from James.
I think our main difficulty is our old distinction of sinful and lustful sensual experience and extra sensory experiences to take a parapsychological term having the real spiritual content. Though the East also has the distinction of a sinful avoidable world as ascetism it uses its sort of sensual experience for spiritual devolopment of awareness in the senses or single this consciousness out as a 6th category or skandha for taking a Buddhist term of such vipassana training of being present in the moment.
And here it meets with the taoist meditation which has to be newly learnt as a new emotional experience of the organs for taking this example. Emotion meaning the something moves is to limited in its scope and therefore false. Spinozist affects are wide enough also with unmoved parts beyond the usual up and downs of ekstatic or depressive emotions. The latter is rather easy to feel the still and quiet, relaxed and peaceful affect is rather difficult to grasp what it is.
I don`t know it yet really but got some rather puzzling and easy experience in the approach of Tarab Tulku XI. In our philosophy emotion is more the result of a stimulus arousing it and not a category of feeling in its own right what he rather clearly expounds a middles by his texts. He recommends going into the emotion for mastering and calming it by consciousness or such mental action to speculate it in the 6 body theory. For me it works.
Axel
Matthew – you have managed to express my thoughts exactly. The book also talks about the ‘motion of the mind’ as opposed to the ‘mindstream’…I have no clue what either of those terms mean. I’m sure they correspond to something that is right under my nose – like if you could circle something in my mind with a big red marker, I’d probably go, “Oh! THAT! So that’s it!”, but unfortunately that’s not possible. All meditation traditions seem to accumulate a very large number of words to describe various aspects or experiences, sometimes they’re just confusing. I’ll continue to wait, patiently, because it seems like one of those things you just can’t force.
A research in google books om “mndstream”
http://www.google.de/search?tbm=bks&tbo=1&q=frantzis mindstream&btnG=
clears the difficulties and Bruce`s use of William James very much.
1) The great stillness: body awareness, moving meditation & sexual … – p. 104
books.google.de
Bruce Kumar Frantzis – 2001
The growth of your presence further empowers the mindstream to follow your intent and enter the first layer of the blockage at a given point, until the blocked energy there merges with the mindstream, much as an iceberg eventually turns to liquid and turns to the sea.The yi or intent leading your chi – such a connection needs to be built up by feeling the chi for this rather quick processes- means that such liquid chi is equivalent to the flowing mindstream or streams
of consciousness. The nonmoving more spiritual forms of the Aristotelean unmoved mover – a rather tantric love couple with an unmoved male causing the female movements- calls James states of consciiosness.2) TAO of Letting Go: Meditation for Modern Living – Seite 80
books.google.de
Bruce Frantzis – 2009 –
The Inner Dissolving process works with the first seven energy bodies (see p. 76), a more complex task. The Outer Dissolving process does not require you to have a sense of the motion of the mind or the Mindstream.footnote 1 (= the stream within which the totality of the mind, both conscious and unconscious travels)The term sense is felt sense of James as later text.
As I have no working ocr further quotes are to difficult to write down.
3) The great stillness p. 112s sees occuring former events in the dissolving process as a working of the the third and fourth body and
beyonds in pure energetic forms.But this are representations leaving the question of experiencing emotions and mental bodies as such.
Axel
Bruce speaks of imploding a blockage into the space created by the inner dissolving process itself.
Thank you for your thoughtful response, Axel. This is a rich practice with many levels and on top of that it deals with the life of the mind and the science of spiritual practice which are both treated differently in the West. I find our forum discussions fascinating and always helpful. Thanks again.
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