The witnessing mind

[Anonymous]

In Bruce’s book Relaxing Into you Being before he describes the Mindstream he also mentions “the witnessing mind” or an awareness of awareness. Here he says that the mind just observes what is naturally arising without judgment.
He seems to mention that meditators must stabilize in this state of mind for a while and that the mindstream is then recognizable from this point.

Also, In his book Opening the Energy Gates pg. 247 he speaks of focusing on breathing until one day it will seem to come to a stop or go silent as well as your mind. “An eerie silence and sense of incredibly expanded and empty space will arise within your body and mind”.

As unimportant as it may or may not be for this meditation circle, I feel as though these two descriptions are very close to what I have experienced on more than a few occasions. Im wondering is this just some internal garbage my mind has created or if it means Ive experienced “the witnessing mind” and can strive to become more stable with it in my daily practice?

Thanks

Kevin

[Anonymous]

Well, Bruce has a very specific interpretation of the awareness of awareness of the heart mind by the 7th and real I body where the dirty water in a glass is cleared and settled till the real I appears,

http://books.google.de/books?id=8cU3iwsCCM4C&pg=PA324&dq=frantzis awareness of awareness&hl=de&ei=GcVkTrWRMqXT4QTJ6PS0Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=frantzis awareness of awareness&f=false

The witnessing mind is a special yoga training more on a mental disattaching level towards one pointed concentration of the yoga sutras.

http://swamij.com/witnessing.htm

But I like the tricky idea recognizing this way the mindstream in a sort of split consciousness able to observe one`s own mindstream.

Axel

[Anonymous]

Hey, Kevin. My usual disclaimer is that I am really not qualified to act as any authority on this subject, but that being said, I can give you my own opinion and experience. I have had a few episodes of reaching a settling and stillness of thought, only to have that give way to a much deeper silence still. It was a very interesting experience. I usually find myself fumbling around, trying to find a way to conceptualize my experience and find a description of it in Bruce’s books. But at some point, if there’s not an “Aha!” moment, I realized I am just going around in intellectual circles, and it’s time to give it a rest. Very rarely, an experience either repeats itself enough or becomes distinct enough for me to be able to say with confidence, “This must be what Bruce means when he talks about ___!” Aside from these, I try to put the analysing on the back burner.

Often these experiences don’t repeat themselves immediately, and I’ve learned to be patient with that. I would think that if any experience involves stillness or space, and it is not a dull or drowsy or unclear feeling, if you can encourage that experience in your subsequent practices without feeling like you’re forcing anything, then I would probably say “why not?”

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply Catherine. Its great to hear some feedback and what you say makes alot of sense, I realize that I need to try not analyze things.

With no other teachers around for me to learn from I truly have been learning purely off of text and audio in all my chi gung and meditation practice (people like you keep me stoked!)

Ive just been reading a bit of The Power of Internal Martial Arts and he talks about “the awareness of awareness” and I didnt realize it was also the heart-mind.

This leads me to another question

Does recognizing the heart-mind typically come before the mindstream as far as stages of learning go in meditation?

Much Thanks, Gratitude and Respect.

Kevin

[Anonymous]

The heart mind of love compassion and balance is a higher stage of meditation and has normally to be developed.

But it precedes in a certain way indeed the mindstream as an awareness of awareness as the organ symbol of the heart, the pheasant shows. Like a cock it alarms as the red bird as it is called also if something is not in order in the body and other organs and in itself.

Another symbolism also known in the west is the loving and powerful lion as the heart governing the other organs healing and controling them also with his energies you can emit for such purpose also over the lao gong. As techniques and massaging techniques on the more physical level in a book of Dr. Baolin Wu of the Dragon Gate sect. They see the flicking like in Dragon and Tiger Qigong as a main exercise of old Lao Tse Qigong clearing the cha
nnels and opening the heart and the mind described above.

Such higher wisdom is in Western philosophy and mental based cognition more a side stream presently but formulated by Pascal in his saying that the heart has its reasons as the higher ones compared to pure head thinking. Similar in his understanding of cognition Spinoza as a combination with love presently not belonging to this term.

The heart is part of the mindstream in the unity of all organs or elements but surveilles and precedes it as awareness of the awareness and heart mind.

Axel

[Anonymous]

This is a very interesting thread and I’m glad to see everyone’s thoughts and ideas. One thing for us to keep in mind is that Bruce has a very specific and, sometimes, unique perspective on some of these terms. He uses them in very different ways than many other traditions. One of the most obvious difference is his definition of nei gong. My first teacher was an initiate in the Dragon Gate sect and he was the real deal. Like Bruce, he speaks Chinese and studied for many years in taiwan and china. His definition of nei gong is very different than Bruce’s, though every bit as “real” in the sense of being part of a lineage of teaching. So, in terms of inner dissolving meditation, I plan to stay within Bruce’s system of definitions and practices. I suspect his definition of the mind stream might be very different than other traditions’ and I want to make sure it’s related to actual practice rather than mere theorizing (I have a tendency to get caught up in theory, a weakness of mine). Anyway, thanks to all for an interesting discussion.

[Anonymous]

A helpful discussion for me. Assists me in placing many of the things we are leaning in context and gives a better grounding to the content. Some of the things we are learning can send me off on a flight of fancy and this forum helps to keep focused on what’s real.

[Author]

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