Sleeping

[Unseen_Abilities]

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Edited January 31, 2014 by Unseen_Abilities

[johndoe2012]

Yes,

 

Very important to get the right amount of sleep.

 

I take extra b vitamin and magnesium citrate and it calms down the brain so I can sleep.

[ThisLife]

T.S.

What you have been writing about recently on several threads reminds me of situations that used to unfold every summer at the "festivals" which were held twice a year by the Buddhist group I was part of for such a large part of my life. Teachings were given by the head lama and the faithful followers would gather for a two week program aimed at intense spiritual development. Many people came , at often great expense, from all over the world. There was a tremendous energy of dedication and intense longing for accelerated "self development". In other words, everyone wanting to be something other than, whatever they were.

Since most of the teachings were about tantric paths, there would be this intense energy of several thousand people meditating together, focussing their minds on trying to bring their inner energy up into the central channel, (whatever that feels like I have no idea).

There is a tremendous energy-amplification that comes from being part of a mass of people sharing a common mind,... (in this case, the strongly focussed wish to be something other than what we are). We can see common examples of the phenomenal power one is playing with here through the well-known newspaper and television coverage given to the mob madness which raged for days out of control when parts of London were ransacked by mobs of youths a few years ago. Or in Los Angeles a few years before that.

Anyway, every year at different intervals, there would be ambulances called, or telephone calls made to parents, to take away various individuals who had basically fried their circuitry, (in layman's terms),... striving to change themself into something else.

Of course, the Buddhist organisation hushed it all up and continued to downplay any risks by couching this whole process of intense wishing for 'self-improvement' in beautiful, uplifting terms like spiritual development, Buddha mind, virtuous activity, the Bodhisattva ideal, purification etc., etc.

But looking back on those experiences, and those poor sods who generally were never heard from or spoken of again,... I see them all as casualties inherent in the act of rejecting who one is, and of striving relentlessly to be something else. To me, it now looks like striving for, (and in the case of those less robust unfortunates),... achieving,.... schizophrenia.

For what it's worth, my suggestion for sleep disruption and the other problems you wrote of in a different thread, would be to lay off this striving to be something other than you are. Try just letting whatever is there "be" for a while. Give yourself a rest from all this self-loathing. And use the time you've saved from such practices to go out and do some physical labour that actually benefits other beings, as well as yourself.

The example that comes to my mind that has personally brought me the greatest happiness, (and best sleep), is working with a group of volunteers on projects to improve the environment. Path building, dry stone wall repairs, removing invasive plant species from areas of natural beauty. Stuff like that.

There's a really subtle simplicity and fulfilment that comes from being part of a group of volunteers doing physical labour for some easily visualized goal. Particularly one that helps other people instead of just the usual selfishness of desire for self-improvement, (in whatever spiritual language you want to tart that great deceiver up in.)

Just my thoughts. I've never been a successful spiritual practitioner. I've simply had the advantage of living inside a movement for many years where I got a fly-on-the-wall's view of all the casualties, the hypocrisy, and the truckloads of self-centred wishful thinking being widely accepted as 'reality'.

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Edited January 13, 2014 by ThisLife

[Unseen_Abilities]

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Edited January 31, 2014 by Unseen_Abilities

[Unseen_Abilities]

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Edited January 31, 2014 by Unseen_Abilities

[Unseen_Abilities]

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Edited January 31, 2014 by Unseen_Abilities

[ThisLife]

Thanks for the affirmation, T.S. I worried for quite a long while last night that I'd really over-stepped the mark making comments and seeming judgements like I did, without knowing one single thing about your life or situation. It seemed like I was falling into the common trap inherent in communicating by means of a machine with people we'll never know. It's so easy to imagine that these computer chairs we sit in and the extraordinary power of these machines,.... in some never-examined way, actually confers 'wisdom' to whatever ideas we happen to trot out with here.

Despite your kindness in not pointing out my obvious lack of any knowledge whatsoever on your situation,... I still feel I was out of order putting what I said the way I did.

 

I guess, looking at the positive side of communicating by computers,... it does let us say things we probably never otherwise would. It does allow a frankness between people for exactly the same reason it separates us - we have no idea of who each other is, or will ever know.

 

In using pushy and ungrounded assumptions the way I did in my reply to your honest statement about the difficulties you are finding in your own life, I know that the unwarranted force behind what I said was in fact transferred from my failure to cope well with my own unresolved problems. Primarily, my still smouldering feelings of resentment (bordering-on-hatred), at what I interpreted as a hypocritical rejection by the Buddhist community of myself and everything I had contributed to their community, for so many years. Every morning,... a full five years on from when we decided to go our separate ways,.... some of my first thoughts after awakening are still a return of those angry feelings of resentment at those fucking religious hypocrites.

 

So, please rest assured, there is one thing which unites us all here on this forum,... we've all got problems that we're struggling, (with varying degrees of success), to deal with. These computer chairs don't offer us a view separate from life. The way I try to picture it may look perhaps a bit overly imaginative, but life seems to me something like this : all this comfortable furniture and ourselves as occupants are actually being carried along like we're perched on infinitesmally tiny woodchips afloat on a river of Tao so vast that we're not usually even aware that everything is flowing.

 

So, in the middle of this world of ceaseless flow, I now feel that what I should have said was simply this, "Hello. I see you there. It's nice to share this moment in our journey with you."

 

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Edited January 13, 2014 by ThisLife

[Unseen_Abilities]

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Edited January 31, 2014 by Unseen_Abilities