Something is missing...

[disgracian]

I'm sure it would work quite well once you got reasonably good at it. But at first it might be an idea to practice it when not hurtling around at high speeds encased in a ton of metal.

 

I tend to apply this sort of practice when jogging. It helps me to distance myself from the burning of my lungs and the aching of my muscles.

 

Cheers,

D.

[Geishawhelk]

Forgive me Disgracian, I did not wish to sound confrontational or argumentative, so I apologise if my post seemed so, or deliberately contradictory.

I fully take your point with regard to accumulating some experience, and I also understand your disquiet about "hurtling around at high speeds encased in a ton of metal." Yes, perhaps then you certainly would need to keep your eye on the road, and singularly alert! I was thinking more about the almost sedentary ritual of sitting in traffic, and progressing at a somewhat slower rate - !

Jogging is an excellent pass-time during which to meditate, and in fact, anything in which you have to pay attention on specific bodily movements is very focussing..... Tai Chi, Yoga and any form of concentrated exercise which requires commitment, is good....

 

Thanks, D, for the input and dialogue!

[disgracian]

Your post was nothing of the sort, dear fellow, so no need at all to apologise. I see your point fully now when you talk about being gridlocked in traffic. It's not something I thought about because, living in a town of about 150,000, it almost never happens. Sometimes I forget it is the norm for many people.

 

It has happened to me on occasional trips to the city, and I agree it would be an excellent opportunity for meditation, whether it be single-point focus or analytical.

 

Cheers,

D.

[quankanne]

D –

 

the only ones who have to worry are the possum and armadillo ... who ought to know better than crossing roads when there's traffic coming!

 

quank

[Chinook]

I've just bought a book by Eric Harrison (Teach yourself to meditate) and he's described this very activity as 'spot meditation' and basically it's just focusing on the here and now, being in the moment, rather than letting it blithely pass by without registering what is going on around you.

[Geishawhelk]

.....And he's probably explained it far better than I did - !!

[Chinook]

You gave a much more realistic example of driving the car though. I spend 45 minutes each way commuting to work and I do a lot of my thinking in the car and have even found myself in tears before now because sometimes it isn't productive. Getting into a mess like that driving the car is far less healthy than actually spot-meditating. So your example was more real. Harrison's was about a field with wild flowers and walking amongst them. None of those near me!

[quankanne]

sounds like Harrison is talking about contemplative meditation, where you strive to be fully aware in all that you do. i.e., we've got a cloistered monastery here in East Texas, with an order of contemplative nuns in it. Basically, their lives are centered in prayer, so everything they do is prayerful.

[riobikini]

re:

 

Chinook: " I wish I could walk into a church or a temple and 'find' religion. But my logical and scientific brain won't let me just suspend my beliefs of the material physical world around me.

 

I don't know what I'm looking for. I don't know what it is that I'm feeling.

 

I just need to ask, has anyone else felt like this..? "

 

 

 

Yes.

 

And it's assurance that you may be looking for -assurance that what you do here, how you live and what you build, create and leave behind- is worth something significant, and -as much as it is possible to do so- is rendering just the right amount of the feeling of fulfillment you need to be happy here - while at the same time, is offering a kind of expectation, promise, or hope for whatever kind of (rewarding) hereafter there might be.

 

I agree -some "packaged" religions may not be so ready with the answers you need the most at some of the most crucial times you experience in life and even some members of clergy might be more "hurt" than "help" and discourage you in asking questions, considering them "silly", non-relevant, or frivolous in nature.

 

Some persons whom you expect to be the most helpful and be in a position to have the most knowledge to answer certain pointed questions about important religious matters seem to skirt the most difficult questions.

 

Are they uncomfortable with the subject matter? And if so, why is that? (Smile) And doesn't that make it appear that such religions halt these questions because they simply have not grown to any greater perceptions, themselves, (limited by the "box" their religion came in) and have no answer or thoughts, at all, and therefore, find it easier to consider it completely "taboo"?

 

Questions about life and the quality of it, the value of it, and the impact of how we live and where we are headed -possibilities as well as what we know as "fact"- and certainly all the "why's" concerning it -can never be considered "taboo" questions, in my book.

 

In their neatly packaged form some religions (and science, too) seem to be engineered and poised to assume that very end of dead silence to many of those types of questions.

 

I, personally, try to keep in mind that it is not the laws of nature, the universe, or physics, and things similar that undergo change -but rather our perceptions of them with time.

 

We achieve higher levels of understanding of them.

 

To encounter someone who's perceptions have not changed, matured, and grown and ask them important questions that concern you is like asking a rock to engage in a meaningful, enlightening, philosophical conversation about life.

 

You'll only get what is rendered from your end -but a rock is what it is- and can be nothing more in your quest than you pursue or add nothing more than you perceive it: as a stumbling block, a "redirect", or even an inspiration of some sort for you to plunge determinedly ahead.

 

As for finding religion in a temple or church -that is exactly the place many say they "find" it.

 

I, however, am not looking for "religion" -and I suspect, neither are you.

 

(Smile)

 

As for your statement that you can suspend neither your knowledge of, or your beliefs in the physical, corporeal reality of the world in which you live -though admirable and I completely understand both your rationality with this and your unwillingness to toss away all you have learned (and agree that certain facts remain facts) -there is, I think, a way you can work with those facts, unveil them -elucidate them- and finally make use of them in the here and now even though more understanding and use for them is thought to be expanded in a "hereafter".

 

And I think it's that comfort and assurance that -ultimately- most people are after.

 

I think you have to find the courage to "open" up in front of ideas and concepts that you intelligently research, and "handpick" as you move forward, inch by inch, growing in knowledge as you go.

 

Diving headfirst into new concepts that challenge your knowledge and beliefs up to now would just scare the hell out of you or appear sad and ridiculous -and keep you clinging to your old concepts, never exploring other beliefs, ways of thinking, or even the merest possibility of looking at or acquiring new knowledge.

 

So it figures, that going to someone who practices "prepackaged" religion is a surefire way to discourage anything more revealing than you already know or have been taught when you have questions that stupefy them.

 

Chinook, there may be more ways to "find" God, or religion, or whatever sort of peace that a person thinks might make him happy and gain "settlement" with certain deeply nagging issues relevant to the meaningfulness of life, our reason for existence and our questions about our origin and whether or not there is an afterlife to be concerned about -but those topics and questions are always best handled on an individual basis, at the most personal private level, -and with the ultimate respect to the esteem with which one holds the very value of human life.

 

It is precious whether it is eternal or non-eternal.

 

Each unique life requires -even passionately drives us- to develop a sense of responsibility to care for it, expand parameters, and use it well.

 

And as naive as this sounds -I think happiness, peace, and serenity takes a place far above full understanding of anything.

 

If you are truly "on fire" to find answers -you will.

 

-Rio

[Aintayankee]

I think it is paintball. It is a reason to live in itself. Funnest junk ever invented.