Kenneth Folk featured in WIRED
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Chris Marti wrote: Mindfulness is a band aid being applied to the gushing arterial wound that is 21st century avarice.
Oh man... if I could fit that on a button it would be a hit at BG2013!
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Great follow up by Kenneth.
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(I had a good quote in my files somewhere, but I forget where I put it.)
It seems like Trungpa had a good method for dealing with this (maybe that's where I read it?) He would ask people "where are you?" and follow up with "where is that?" enough times.
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www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/05/busine...itate_n_3528731.html
Rupert Murdoch. Oprah. Arianna Huffington. Hedge Fund founders. Big company CEOs. It's the secret sauce!
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I would really, really like to know exactly what it is they're doing, and what it is they're getting out of it. Is it the pleasure of half an hour of access concentration, which really is quite pleasurable? Followed by the placebo effect, that is, thinking that this time spent in silence is the key to their success? Accompanied by the fact that these people have benefited from a combination of luck, intelligence, drive, ruthlessness, and stamina? In other words, meditation has almost nothing to do with it?
Edit: okay, I actually broke down and read the article. Are we just being a bunch of cranks here? Would the world be a better place with more people meditating? Are some of these people really doing good in the world? Whatever. I just need to get on with my life.
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"Are we just being a bunch of cranks here? Would the world be a better place with more people meditating? Are some of these people really doing good in the world?"
No, I don't think we're just being a bunch of cranks. Some judgment needs to be applied to this area or the real cranks and wackos subsume the language we use and can then obscure the real message of what we've been doing for years. That's not what I would prefer to see happen, although I'm no doubt near to being powerless to do much about it. At least among this community, and for anyone who manages to trip over us on the Net, we can make sure we're a little more discriminating than The Huffington Post, right?
And some of those folks in the article are no doubt doing "good" things for others in the world, so it's not all "bad." If meditation has a general tendency to do anything "good" then it's probably a "good" thing on balance that these billionaires and powerful people do it.
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10 Spiritually Transmitted Diseases
www.huffingtonpost.com/mariana-caplan-ph...-spiri_b_609248.html
5. The Spiritualized Ego: This disease occurs when the very structure of the egoic personality becomes deeply embedded with spiritual concepts and ideas. The result is an egoic structure that is "bullet-proof." When the ego becomes spiritualized, we are invulnerable to help, new input, or constructive feedback. We become impenetrable human beings and are stunted in our spiritual growth, all in the name of spirituality.
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shargrol wrote: Also on Huffington Post...
10 Spiritually Transmitted Diseases
www.huffingtonpost.com/mariana-caplan-ph...-spiri_b_609248.html
5. The Spiritualized Ego: This disease occurs when the very structure of the egoic personality becomes deeply embedded with spiritual concepts and ideas. The result is an egoic structure that is "bullet-proof." When the ego becomes spiritualized, we are invulnerable to help, new input, or constructive feedback. We become impenetrable human beings and are stunted in our spiritual growth, all in the name of spirituality.
I'm reading that book right now. Funny. See "Duane's practice" thread
tm.org wrote: Unlike other techniques, the TM technique involves no concentration, contemplation or control of your mind. It is effortless and enjoyable, and can be practiced sitting comfortably in a chair.
The TM technique allows your mind to effortlessly transcend, to settle inward to the source of thought — a natural state of pure awareness and restful alertness. This automatic self-transcending is a unique feature of the TM technique.
Does anybody know what that really means?
-- tomo
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This kind of mantra practice is not, btw "just tuning out thoughts" or something. The *relationship* to the mantra changes over time, just as the relationship to any meditation or object of devotional practice changes over time. A friend of mine who did a related practice for a while said the mantra may start as a repetition of words and focal point, but becomes like a living thing, repeating itself silently in the heart, becoming that which is all things, etc. etc. In other words, as insights arise they arise within the framework that practice offers.
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Well, even though so much of what Mariana Caplan says is astute, and I recommended her book to you-- I have to add a 'consider the source' caveat on a few things. One is that she lists the founder of Arica, Oscar Ichazo, as an example of the integrity to question his own capacity. Sounds good-- until I encountered a much darker account (in a Gurdjieff magazine) of the man, his teachings, and his "enlightenment."
The other is in a throw-away line, and comments I followed up on, in the HuffPo piece. Her "partner" is Marc Gafni. And thereby hangs another dark tale. integral-options.blogspot.com/2011/09/br...ual-impropriety.html
So, in spite of her expertise, she has been a serial apologist for some pretty questionable behavior. Caveat lecteur.
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"… she has been a serial apologist for some pretty questionable behavior."
I was wondering when that would come to light. I didn't want to be the meany.
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Kate Gowen wrote: "I'm reading that book right now. Funny. See "Duane's practice" thread "
Well, even though so much of what Mariana Caplan says is astute, and I recommended her book to you-- I have to add a 'consider the source' caveat on a few things. One is that she lists the founder of Arica, Oscar Ichazo, as an example of the integrity to question his own capacity. Sounds good-- until I encountered a much darker account (in a Gurdjieff magazine) of the man, his teachings, and his "enlightenment."
The other is in a throw-away line, and comments I followed up on, in the HuffPo piece. Her "partner" is Marc Gafni. And thereby hangs another dark tale. integral-options.blogspot.com/2011/09/br...ual-impropriety.html
So, in spite of her expertise, she has been a serial apologist for some pretty questionable behavior. Caveat lecteur.
Yeah I dig it. I don't feel like I get too wrapped up in people or what they do. Good teaching is good teaching regardless of the source, in a way I've learned some really important stuff from some pretty crappy people.
When I started getting into all this Dharma business for real I was listening to Ken McLeod Unfettered Mind podcasts and found him (IMHO) pompous and even a little obnoxious but still really gained a lot from the content of his teachings. Apparently there has been some sort of scandal with him as well. I just shrug my shoulders and pick up the gold.
shargrol wrote: There is a thing that is mentioned mostly in tibetian traditions where the restricted sense of self can even co-opt spirituality until everything is reflected back as self, even the things that could lead to freedom. It's complete demonic possession, in a certain sense.
(I had a good quote in my files somewhere, but I forget where I put it.)
It seems like Trungpa had a good method for dealing with this (maybe that's where I read it?) He would ask people "where are you?" and follow up with "where is that?" enough times.
I think it was in Cutting thru Spiritual Materialism, Trungpa explains the tantric term Rudrahood, something like a samadhi of self-preoccupation, I'm doing this, rather than completely giving oneself to the samadhi.