- Jan 6, 2004
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Yuo hippie!
I've always been interested in Zen. Kerouac, Ken Wilber, Hesse, etc. got me interested in it, but it's always been just a passing interest other than something that I've drawn into my life. The concepts of Being and Oneness always seemed to make sense to me; it's beyond simple binaries of good and evil. Conceptually it's engaging stuff. But I've never lived the life.
Lately I've been obsessed with time, or more specificially the idea of the present moment. The more and more I deliberate on it, how the past is no more, events are continually dying and the future is invisible. We're always looking back or forward. Where is the moment? What is the "present"? If all I have to go on in life is a shoddy memory and dim fantasies about the future, how can I exist in the now? When I listen to music and hear a beautiful harmony, it is not long before the notes have changed into other patterns and the sublime moment is lost. On a CD, though, one can always re-start the track. And the the process of destruction begins and ends as quickly as before. But you can't do that in life. Memory is a funeral. One can't go back. Or forward. We exist in an infintesimal space, with the past and future expanding away in both directions. The beautiful harmonies end too soon; love is transitory; nothing lasts beyond the exact present. If time is simultaneous, if all past and present and future all exist in the same moment, then things would be solved. But knowing this doesn't mean that I still don't see time as linear.
To say the least, this has been bothering me quite a bit here in the last few months. Not botheing as in "sometimes I sit around and think about this stuff when I'm bored" but all day, every day. It feels as though my life has either slowed to a halt or has begun to spin so fast that I don't notice the scenery. Sometimes I think I'm going crazy, and thinking about going crazy is almost enough to drive me crazy. Things have definitely gotten strange for me. And I'm not even on drugs (other than some pot now and then).
So I've decided to start meditating. I did it today for about 30 minutes, trying to become calm as possible, to destroy the past and future in my mind, to become AWARE of myself as existing in the moment, in myself, who, in turn, comprises the universe. If inner light be more than a fiction, I hope to find it. I felt a bit less harried afterwards, a little more composed and content. I don't know if it will be enough to help my shattering outlook on the world, but maybe I can find enough peace to exist with some sort of contentment.
Damn, that was long. Anyway, have any of you experienced any heightened awareness from meditation? What should I be concentrating on in particular when I do it? Are some ways better than others? Do any of you have strange problems with existence?
PS: I am dead serious about all of this. The Zen thing is NOT some fad I'm latching myself onto. I have to make some sort of sense of the world and my own relation to it. I can find eternity in art. Now I need to experience it in my own life, at every single moment.
I've always been interested in Zen. Kerouac, Ken Wilber, Hesse, etc. got me interested in it, but it's always been just a passing interest other than something that I've drawn into my life. The concepts of Being and Oneness always seemed to make sense to me; it's beyond simple binaries of good and evil. Conceptually it's engaging stuff. But I've never lived the life.
Lately I've been obsessed with time, or more specificially the idea of the present moment. The more and more I deliberate on it, how the past is no more, events are continually dying and the future is invisible. We're always looking back or forward. Where is the moment? What is the "present"? If all I have to go on in life is a shoddy memory and dim fantasies about the future, how can I exist in the now? When I listen to music and hear a beautiful harmony, it is not long before the notes have changed into other patterns and the sublime moment is lost. On a CD, though, one can always re-start the track. And the the process of destruction begins and ends as quickly as before. But you can't do that in life. Memory is a funeral. One can't go back. Or forward. We exist in an infintesimal space, with the past and future expanding away in both directions. The beautiful harmonies end too soon; love is transitory; nothing lasts beyond the exact present. If time is simultaneous, if all past and present and future all exist in the same moment, then things would be solved. But knowing this doesn't mean that I still don't see time as linear.
To say the least, this has been bothering me quite a bit here in the last few months. Not botheing as in "sometimes I sit around and think about this stuff when I'm bored" but all day, every day. It feels as though my life has either slowed to a halt or has begun to spin so fast that I don't notice the scenery. Sometimes I think I'm going crazy, and thinking about going crazy is almost enough to drive me crazy. Things have definitely gotten strange for me. And I'm not even on drugs (other than some pot now and then).
So I've decided to start meditating. I did it today for about 30 minutes, trying to become calm as possible, to destroy the past and future in my mind, to become AWARE of myself as existing in the moment, in myself, who, in turn, comprises the universe. If inner light be more than a fiction, I hope to find it. I felt a bit less harried afterwards, a little more composed and content. I don't know if it will be enough to help my shattering outlook on the world, but maybe I can find enough peace to exist with some sort of contentment.
Damn, that was long. Anyway, have any of you experienced any heightened awareness from meditation? What should I be concentrating on in particular when I do it? Are some ways better than others? Do any of you have strange problems with existence?
PS: I am dead serious about all of this. The Zen thing is NOT some fad I'm latching myself onto. I have to make some sort of sense of the world and my own relation to it. I can find eternity in art. Now I need to experience it in my own life, at every single moment.
