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Underground > Temple >

The Act of Being Nothing

21:18 / 17.03.03

I will apologise in advance in case you feel this thread misplaced, my reasoning being that this touches upon the more mystical side of how we relate to the world (and I'm frightened of my shallow base of knowledge being kicked from under me in the Headshop).
Anyway, without turning this into a weblog, I'll say I'm becoming very distressed about my 'noise'. I tap and fiddle with random crap, think too much about too little, in any case I'm always doing something distracting in some form or another. I'm unsure what I'm trying to distract myself from, though I have tried clutching at straws. Perhaps I'm engaged in some petty little game of justifying my own existence at every interval, perhaps I'm trying to trick myself away from thinking or doing "a particular thing". So I wondered what would happen if I stopped rattling car keys, tapping rhythms on tables and indeed thinking.
My question is this. How would one go about being nothing?
Quite opposed to the act of doing nothing, and I certainly don't think death is a particularly productive answer. I've heard talk of certain meditative techniques concerned with "no-mind" or something along those lines, though I am sceptical.
What are your thoughts?

22:50 / 17.03.03

You're so zen you should be proud of yourself... except that would make a mask of your self...

No, serously. The empty mind is from tao/dao and the no mind is from zen budism. Bassically they are breathing/meditation thechniques where they focus on their breathing to the point they stop thinking about anything in particular. The objective is to stop the internal dialogue that mantains the ego, the mask, the personality (which relates to your "stopping the noise").

When you are nothing, you stop having an ego, then you are a Buda, an illuminated, and your essence disolves into the absolute.

I'll post more later.

23:08 / 17.03.03

The state of nothingness in meditation is one to move through, not to dwell upon eternally. Being as nothing for always is death. You can not be the Buddah and be here, though you can be the Buddah for a time and return. Meditating yourself into that state for a period of time is a clensing and refreshing experience, leaving you better equipped to deal with the noise of life once you return to activity. With practice, one develops skills at working more quietly, more efficiently, and more peacefully in their active life from working with meditation of this nature.

As for the experience itself, in a nutshell, one relaxes into trance and shuts off the internal dialog until one is not thinking. Then, as one becomes as nothing, one experiences as infinity. There is bliss, a deep peace, and a feeling of unity with all things and perfection of being. Its not easy to get to, but just trying is often enough to give you what you need. At the very least, the release of stress is quite healthy.

23:38 / 17.03.03

Problem of the "self" is that each time it wants to get, or reject, something outside itself, it'll only bump into "itself". Once this is acknowledged beyond mere speculation, and is fullly actualised, the self typically engages in desiring or rejecting activities as an end in themselves, desiring for simply desiring, and rejecting for simply rejecting, with the playfullness that characterises enlightened states, since what is perceived as being outside itself can not be obtained or rejected. Thus the saying: what you desire, you have already lost.

If you match "self" to "mind" you'll see where I was getting, I mean, at least I think so.

Nietzsch E. Coyote

08:18 / 18.03.03

I can be the numbers one through ten, over and over again. Is this progress?

12:02 / 18.03.03

"I've heard talk of certain meditative techniques concerned with "no-mind" or something along those lines, though I am sceptical." (#48)
Don't be sceptical, be a Zen Buddhist and find out what happens.

Contemplate the illusory distinction between 'self' and 'other'. There is no 'other', there is no 'self', there is only One Thing, and that thing transcends human intellect- the closest we can get to understanding something that is beyond understanding is experiencing it. When we experience it we call it 'no mind'.

It's like your ego/brain/mind keeps up a constant chatter (Castaneda calls it internal dialogue, Tim in Spaced calls it Jabba's Little Pet, you know what I mean) which drowns out something quite quiet and subtle. When you stop your brain/ego/mind and shut it up, you can experience that silence that is beyond words.

Hey I sound really pretentious don't I? Sorry, but some things are difficult to talk about without sounding Mystically Mysterious.
I fully recommend mediation, and you sound like you are looking for something that Zen Buddhist Meditation can provide. Google it and you'll get a million good sites. Good luck!

12:41 / 18.03.03

This could help

The Natural Way

12:48 / 18.03.03

To chime in quickly: the "nothing" the buddhists concern themselves with is simlar to the judaic conception of Ayin Sof. It has no attributes, but its shadow (or mirror) comprises the totality of what is and what isn't.

The state of no-mind is characterised by a feeling of emptiness, but also with an all encompassing sense of immanence (or presence). I suppose this is a great example of where the Headshop and The Magick can't intersect... but the two ,at first glance apparently contradictory positions, are recognised as the mind enters into that condition as co-dependent; and sit quietly alongside one another without jostling.

This is important: the thoughts don't stop. They simply emerge as the radiance of the essential void.

The guy who owns my Dad's place who is an imminent english buddhist, and the most gorgeous old guy you'd ever want to meet, wrote a beautiful poem about this state - sadly I can only remember one line:

"Everywhere I look the void is filled with lights."

13:39 / 18.03.03

Sounds like a famous line from Crowley - which is so famous I can't remember where it's from - where he describes his visionary experience as "nothingness, but with twinkles".

On that subject has anyone here ever experienced any conciousness of sleep - it might sound a contradiction in terms but the brain can do all sorts of weird stuff. It's an idea that crops up in Tantra - consciousness is characterised as having 3 states - wake, dreaming and deep sleep - with awareness interpenetrating the three states to varying degrees. I wonder if you can become conscious in sleep the same way you can in lucid dreaming?

13:57 / 18.03.03

Sounds like sleep paralysis...
Being conscious of being unconscious- now that would be Zen!

The Natural Way

14:14 / 18.03.03

Well, I don't think Gary's read much Crowley. A good example of how universal the state is. How essential.

16:48 / 18.03.03

Many thanks for your helpful advice. Certainly it will take some discipline to attempt meditation, but I am sure the attempt at least is not beyond me. However, the thread has left me wondering something.
This "inner-dialogue" (a far more elegant name than mine) is being treated almost like an unwanted and unnecessary part of the mind, a mental appendix as it were. I cannot help but feel that there is a chance one is throwing out the metaphorical baby with the bath water, seeking a state of no-mind. Again, I admit I am hideously under-qualified to speculate on these matters, for as Quantum said,

'the closest we can get to understanding something that is beyond understanding is experiencing it.'

Any thoughts?

The Natural Way

16:49 / 18.03.03

I'm not talking about the inner dialogue like that. At all.

17:28 / 18.03.03

I think the idea is less one of banishing the internal dialog, as it is in becomming one with it through its silence. The voice in your head is a form of seperation of self, which is what allows you to speak to yourself. Quieting it dissolves it back into the whole, and you are again as One. In this state, one still thinks as one did before, processing information, but one does so more on the unconscious level, consciously being aware of more the doing and being that the deciding to do or be.

It is more a different way to think. Both methods have their merits and places.

22:54 / 18.03.03

If it's an internal dialogue, with whom are you talking? About what are you talking? How do you sustain your reality with the internal dialogue?

10:31 / 19.03.03

Internal Dialogue is Castaneda's expression, I prefer Internal Monologue

We're not talking about cudgeling the evil brain into silence, but it chatters about crap a lot of the time. I'm not saying thought is bad, but have you tried the alternative, no-thought? try it then compare them.
Even the most enlightened Zen Monk spends most of their time thinking, it's part of the human condition- you can't throw out this baby, but you might stop it crying for a while and get a bit of rest.

The mind understands, you experience. You are not your mind.

17:03 / 19.03.03

'How do you sustain your reality with the internal dialogue? '
Ciarconn

I consider the inner-dialogue as a device that serves to reinforce the divide between the self and its perceived environment, reassuring that you are perceiving reality, and that you exist within its weave. It certainly acts to make one feel isolated. Cold bleak individualism.
If I were to try and anthropomorphise it as a separate individual, then I could not class it's behaviour as wholly negative or positive.
It leaves you prone to neurotic paranoid delusions, yet can also be the last bulwark against despair, ie "Hey, I'm still concious!".
Perhaps its a primitive form of something that could be a very useful tool if it evolved? It's difficult to control, and perhaps that's what I'm really after, a method of regulating or moderating it. An inner-dialogue for an inner-dialogue. Suffice to say it's better to treat it as a young child at this stage.

23:16 / 19.03.03

This is a computer, no?

When you say this is a computer, to whom are you telling that?

How do you know this is a computer?

Who told you?

How come this sitll is a compter?

What does computer mean?

And why are you explaining this to yourself?

17:00 / 20.03.03

"Everywhere I look the void is filled with lights."

My god, it's full of stars