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I have recovered from the disease of Alcoholism. I believe there is only one person really,.. everybody. And that peace of mind is everything. -So treat your neighbor as you would treat yourself, because your neighbor IS yourself. I think most of recovery is what I would call common sense, but that learning to be ordinary is a true gift very few people acquire. My ambition is to accept everything unflinchingly, with compassion, and therefore be intrinsically comfortable in my own skin, no matter what. I am comfortable being uncomfortable and am willing to go to any lengths to improve my life. I believe the Big Book was divinely inspired, and is extraordinarily powerful. Unfortunately AA's best kept secret a lot of the time. (In my opinion). I just try to do what works, no matter what it is.

Friday, September 08, 2006

Making sense of the changing mental landscape..

Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis Stanislav Grof

If you have started meditating at one of the suggested places on this blog, you may being experiencing upheavals in the mind of one sort or another. In order to make sense of these changes in the mental landscape, you will need to seek out Buddhist teachers or monastics to help you out. My stabilizers was good mediation groups and monastics. But they are not terribly accessible so you may end up having to figure some stuff out yourself, or from books.

Examples of effects of (Buddhist) meditating can be:
Increase in the mental object of doubt. Vacillating from one opposing belief to another in increasingly rapid succession.
Increased emotional awareness of the true meaning of uncertainty. You just 'feel' what the reality of uncertainty IS. (it takes a bit of getting used to!)
Feelings becoming more like a physical sensation in the body.
Increased awareness of movement of energy in the body.
Karma 'speeds up'. Bad decisions 'ripen' more quickly than usual.
Bad motives or unhealthy actions 'ripen' more quickly. Basically you can't get away with anything!
'stuff' starts coming up for air. Your past comes to 'visit' in the form of either fully felt emotional recognition or distinct uncomfortable feelings in the body.
The world and the people are more fully felt. Everything can seem more intense and overwhelming. And much more personal.
Increased dreams and more symbolic dreams.
More intense emotions.
Decrease in ambition and materialistic desire
Increase in disillusionment and the perceived emptiness of the 'secular' life.
You start to get more of a feel for things and people. This is because your sensitivity increases.
Your tolerance for bullshit and loudmouths or phonies gets very small. Its almost painful being in the same room as them.

And that's just the first things that come into my head!!
Basically meditation is very powerful, and realy moves things around in the mind.

Also A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield is very good. He was a monk.

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