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Morning
United Kingdom
10 Posts |
 Posted - Jan 08 2015 : 11:27:31 AM
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I have been practising pure awareness meditation for a few years now, which seems to have many similarities to samyama. I can find the stillness / silence fairly easily.
However, I am not sure what it means to release a thought into the silence. Does it mean to just stop thinking it? Or to shift your focus from the vague fuzzy thought to the stillness? Or do you visualise some kind of releasing process? |
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Dogboy
USA
2242 Posts |
Posted - Jan 08 2015 : 12:28:04 PM
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Good Morning Morning, and welcome!
quote:
However, I am not sure what it means to release a thought into the silence. Does it mean to just stop thinking it? Or to shift your focus from the vague fuzzy thought to the stillness? Or do you visualise some kind of releasing process?
Yes. Yes. And yes. Deep Meditation is inward flowing, samyama is outflowing. They make a perfect couple! I like to think of the sutra as a balloon on a string. You release the string and watch it sail away. It's really that simple, no effort to it. |
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Morning
United Kingdom
10 Posts |
Posted - Jan 08 2015 : 12:42:06 PM
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Thank you!
And cheers for the response - that was pretty simple :)
I only tried samyama (ie, what I think of as a pure awareness meditation with a sutra and releasing of sutra added) for the first time yesterday, and I experienced a mini-miracle this morning. How cool is that? :) |
Edited by - Morning on Jan 08 2015 12:47:00 PM |
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Dogboy
USA
2242 Posts |
Posted - Jan 08 2015 : 3:00:06 PM
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Too cool for school  |
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1553 Posts |
Posted - Jan 09 2015 : 04:30:25 AM
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Dear Morning,
That was Dogboy styled samyama  . AYP style says you are to drop the fuzzy thought into your inner silence i.e. touch upon the word briefly at whatever fuzzy level you are at and then favour the silence. Listen for the word to come back out of the silence and touch upon it lightly again and favour the silence. That is the formal practice. If you are just releasing a thought into silence during your day, then you touch upon it, favour the silence for a minute, then carry on with whatever task you were at.
No visualization.
Good luck
Sey  |
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Morning
United Kingdom
10 Posts |
Posted - Jan 09 2015 : 06:16:09 AM
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Okay, thanks for the additional feedback Sey :)
I just find the phrasing "release into the stillness" a bit confusing.... It sounds like something different from just shifting the focus of attention to the stillness. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. |
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BlueRaincoat
United Kingdom
1731 Posts |
Posted - Jan 14 2015 : 5:17:35 PM
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I like the idea of the balloon.
Sey, don't you think we can play with the metaphor a bit and make it more to your liking?
Maybe something like:
As you release the balloon you let it fly past your eyes as you continue to watch the clear sky (inner silence). Then you release the very same balloon again (as in the inner silence world it is possible for an object to be in more than one place at the same time, or indeed to be everywhere at the same time)
OK, I'm getting carried away – this last thing about everything being everywhere isn't really necessary.
Anyone else wants to play?
And – more to the point – did you get all the clarifications you wanted Morning? |
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Morning
United Kingdom
10 Posts |
Posted - Jan 15 2015 : 02:53:52 AM
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I think the original question was answered, thanks.
I still wonder how light is light enough? And if you follow the argument that "lighter is better" to the extreme, it sort of suggests the shouldn't even be a sutra.... But that doesn't seem right either... |
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BlueRaincoat
United Kingdom
1731 Posts |
Posted - Jan 15 2015 : 07:49:12 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Morning
"lighter is better" to the extreme, it sort of suggests the shouldn't even be a sutra
You know, that precisely sums up my feelings towards samyama. Because I have not managed to get into it. I just sit there and can't find my motivation to cause any ripples in the silence. I'd rather stay is a sort of 'thy will be done' attitude than bring myself to ask for anything. Maybe it's just laziness. I though perhaps samyama might grow on me as I get more advanced. Will wait and see. |
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Morning
United Kingdom
10 Posts |
Posted - Jan 15 2015 : 07:56:16 AM
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| Well, that is effectively how I've been doing it in the 5 or 6 years before finding this site (only I didn't call it "samyama", I called it "pure awareness" - and it's typically 20-30 minutes, and then a minute or two here and there throughout the day). No sutra, just concentration on the gap. |
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BlueRaincoat
United Kingdom
1731 Posts |
Posted - Jan 15 2015 : 10:38:46 AM
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I am familiar with "pure awareness" (also from my pre-AYP practice). IMO it is a different technique than samyama, both in format and intent.
I suspect samyama has is own charm, very likely takes some practice to find it. And I haven't yet practised it for long enough myself.
I hope you make good progress with it. Good luck! |
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Jan 15 2015 : 11:05:23 AM
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Good morning, Morning! 
In the beginning, dropping the sutra is literally stop thinking the sutra, and the lightness level is also just whatever level the sutra comes up to you in that moment. This practice will change a lot in time, so just go with what is happening naturally now… don’t get too mindy with it… less mind, more space you are giving this practice to transform/adapt to you and your inner silence.
Yogani had posted a reply some time ago, that helped me understand the workings of samyama… maybe it will help you as well (if interested read the topic from the beginning as it references the Gap that you mentioned in one of your posts)…
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....D=3489#30424
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Originally posted by yogani
quote:
Originally posted by Shanti
"Getting" samyama played a big part in getting this. In Samyama tho.. we pick the word and drop it and rest in the silence and feel the silence move outwards (at least that is what I do).. in this case tho it's slightly reversed.. it is while I pick the thought (word) I stop. It almost feels like.. since I was going to bring up a thought and did not do so.. I feel like I have access to the energy that was going to be used to make that thought (maybe that is why Louis, you felt the energy in your sutra).
Hi Shanti and All:
Recall that the original instruction for picking up a sutra in samyama is to pick it up at a very faint and fuzzy level. This can also be interpreted to mean "the energy before the thought."
Few can do this in the beginning, so we go through the procedure in fairly external and clunky ways in the mind for a while. But, in time, the procedure refines, as is the case in all practices, and then we are touching those sutras before they become objects in the mind, just as you are describing. And, yes, then we have access to much more energy in practice ... and in daily activity as the habit of samyama becomes gradually more prevalent in our everyday life.
The more we are picking up pre-thought, the more powerful samyama is, and the less we are grinding on gross thinking in the body-mind. This is a natural evolution that comes with deep meditation (cultivating the witness) and samyama (cultivating action from within the witness). It can't be forced. It is an evolution in stillness. We just favor less, and less will gradually come. And, as we know, less is more.
Some might ask, what is the difference between samyama and self-inquiry?
There is an intimate relationship between the two practices for sure, and this is pointed out in the Self-Inquiry book. We could say that, in the beginning, self-inquiry is a less structured and more free-ranging practice we can do informally as we go about our business every day, assuming we have enough abiding inner silence to fuel a "relational" practice. There can be much benefit in it.
Samyama, on the other hand, is structured within our twice-daily sitting routine, and creeps out as an inner habit into daily living from there along with abiding inner silence. Perhaps in the long run there is no difference at all between samyama and self-inquiry, as we find ourselves operating more and more from within stillness. When we can experience a sutra before it forms, then we also will have the abilty to experience all thoughts and perceptions before they form, and then can allow action to flow from within stillness all the way out. Stillness in action...
Another way to look at it might be to say that deep meditation and samyama are structured methods for developing the ability to live as stillness in action, while self-inquiry is how we can exercise that growing ability in real life situations.
That is what we are talking about here in a very practical way. Beautiful!
The guru is in you.
Wish you all the best!!! 
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BlueRaincoat
United Kingdom
1731 Posts |
Posted - Jan 15 2015 : 11:52:32 AM
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Hello Shanti
That is an enlightening thread on samyama. Thank you for the link!
Nice to see you around |
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Morning
United Kingdom
10 Posts |
Posted - Jan 15 2015 : 2:10:57 PM
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Thanks both - I've got it :)
Bueraincoat - the way I was taught pure awareness meditation has a lot of similarities with what Shanti described above - looking at the space between thoughts rather than the thoughts themselves. So, that's what I've been doing. Seems extremely effective - it's sort of blowing me away at the moment :) |
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What does release mean?
