experiencing reality
A while ago i was trying to meditate like i do sometimes do, not doing a good job concentrating. Near the end of my 30-min session, i had a feeling that was different. Sitting there, i got a vivid feeling i don't think i can describe (though i'll try). While earlier my mind had been thinking about this or that aspect of pop culture and/or sex, at the moment in question i felt what i then thought to myself was a feeling of actually being where i was. It was like, "This is me, this is my life, this is where i am and nowhere else."
It was a number of days ago -- maybe almost a week -- so how i described the experience to myself at the time is a little fuzzy (and of course, i was not "being here now" enough to avoid discursive thought about my being there then).
This was not a happy feeling. It was kind of scary. A couple minutes later, i ended my meditation session like i planned. Looking back over the past week, it seems -- although i did not think this at the time -- that a part of my experience was the realization in a direct way of my own morality.
Later, i was not mediating -- just thinking about my experience earlier that week. I don't know if i had another experience or if i just had another idea about my first experience. At any rate, i was thinking about being here now and experiencing reality and being mindful, and i believe i may have gotten a slight feeling (less vivid than last time) that the things around me were real.
I seem to remember that my first (only?) experience focused (or i focused) more on the reality of myself as opposed to the illusions of the things in my head, the songs i make up, etc. That is, the reality of myself as a 23-year-old man-child, and as someone who's going to die and (perhaps) how at any moment i'm vulnerable to pain or misfortune (although that last part may have been reading into my memory after the event).
The second time (or reappraisal of the first) gave me the idea that not only me but the world around me was truly real. The idea had to do with no-self and the idea that none of us selves exist separate from the universe. It occurred to me -- purely intellectually, not mystically -- that my being here, where i am in this real world, is a major determinant of who i am. I cannot be who i am without the context i'm in. I think i may have felt some of that in my meditation experience earlier, in terms of realizing that i was a 23-year-old man-child there in my room in Wooster, Ohio specifically, but then again, it might just be all that Foucault i've read this semester. (my impressionable mind! Gasp!)
It was a number of days ago -- maybe almost a week -- so how i described the experience to myself at the time is a little fuzzy (and of course, i was not "being here now" enough to avoid discursive thought about my being there then).
This was not a happy feeling. It was kind of scary. A couple minutes later, i ended my meditation session like i planned. Looking back over the past week, it seems -- although i did not think this at the time -- that a part of my experience was the realization in a direct way of my own morality.
Later, i was not mediating -- just thinking about my experience earlier that week. I don't know if i had another experience or if i just had another idea about my first experience. At any rate, i was thinking about being here now and experiencing reality and being mindful, and i believe i may have gotten a slight feeling (less vivid than last time) that the things around me were real.
I seem to remember that my first (only?) experience focused (or i focused) more on the reality of myself as opposed to the illusions of the things in my head, the songs i make up, etc. That is, the reality of myself as a 23-year-old man-child, and as someone who's going to die and (perhaps) how at any moment i'm vulnerable to pain or misfortune (although that last part may have been reading into my memory after the event).
The second time (or reappraisal of the first) gave me the idea that not only me but the world around me was truly real. The idea had to do with no-self and the idea that none of us selves exist separate from the universe. It occurred to me -- purely intellectually, not mystically -- that my being here, where i am in this real world, is a major determinant of who i am. I cannot be who i am without the context i'm in. I think i may have felt some of that in my meditation experience earlier, in terms of realizing that i was a 23-year-old man-child there in my room in Wooster, Ohio specifically, but then again, it might just be all that Foucault i've read this semester. (my impressionable mind! Gasp!)
posted by jlhart7 at 12:32 PM
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