Center. Building mental immunity.

Or, "Centering technique v. alpha: how to be immune to fear, stress and depression"

The technique I talk about is still just half-known to me. But I need some place to gather details on it other than my wall or some private diary. I hope that someone may help me complete this technique or make it more concrete.

I ask of you to abstain of vague comments or anything that is not constructive for the matter.

Under certain conditions, I know (from experience) that it is possible to be immune to stress, fear, depression. This mental mode I call "center" and I am not the 1st one to mention it - it's in Campbell and it has some books on it. I didn't find any concrete materials yet, and I will be grateful if you point me to some.

Preliminary receipt is:

1) be at intersection of physical, emotional, rational and spiritual spheres

1.1) everyday sport

1.2) everyday meditation

1.3) road diary

2) follow a path which "has a heart"

3) concentrate deeply on target, single step of this path

4) maintain focus in face of distractions of fear/desire/hope/social

4.1) I discovered that during stress it drains me to engage into group socializing, only delicate tet-a-tet works. And now I know why. It is hard to gather a group that will combine it's light sides. More often, people combine their dark sides. It is easier. This way is born some socially-acceptable evil. It may be described as "friendly trolling", but has nothing friendly in it. Just a way of uniting fears, anger and mistrust. That is why only very rare groups can be ok to stay in during stress.

4.2) Fear and hope. There is a metaphor that along your path you go with two wolves - hope and fear. And they fight, like in Jack London's novels. And wins the one you feed better. Center mode means you have to deny fear any energy and feed only hope. That is easier said than done. Fear comes in two forms - rooted or shallow. First kind should be uprooted and it is separate and big topic. Second kind can be deflected easily when you're alone, middle toughness when socializing tet-a-tet and hard to deflect when in an "ill" kind of group, i.e. any group of persons that unite via negative emotion more than via positive.

4.3) Desire. Meditation helps to let go of it, the main tagline being "allow anything to pass", "do not interfere, just watch". This mindset helps to avoid disturbances such as compulsive habits, self-criticism, obsessions - more concretely, procrastination like tv or social networks, shopping or else poor control of finances, etc.

4.4) Love of yourself. It is defined as "accepting yourself as you are" yet doesn't presume restrictions on changing yourself.

This post is just a beginning and I hope someone can point me out to missing pieces of the puzzle of discovering this technique.

Actually, you may be making it more complicated than it has to be. You are certainly correct in that there is a way to train the self to be immune (by choice) to suffering. This is the whole of the Buddhist ideology, and in a way, the Jedi philosophy.

Mind

Body

Spirit

It's really all you need to do. Spend some time training your body each day. Some time training your mind. Some time cultivating the spirit.

If you continually add to the mix, you will create something that people cannot do. If you ask them to spend 10 minutes on the mind, body, and spirit each day, they will do it. And, if they do it.. for a long time... they will do it more every day.

All you're saying is that you've found out the 4 Noble Truths and the 8-fold path. Not that this isn't a huge discovery. I'm just saying that there is a wealth of resource about this out there for you to look into. Very exciting.

Connor L. wrote: Actually, you may be making it more complicated than it has to be.

All you're saying is that you've found out the 4 Noble Truths and the 8-fold path.

I recognize my ignorance and thank you sincerely for pointing out.

I know that I'm inventing a bicycle j-D But I think that to invent one is a good way to understand it. And rephrasing old truths may help someone.

Can you advice me some source on the matter? Or is it all in the IP?

Well, here's the thing... There's nothing wrong with reframing eternal truths. That's why they're eternal, they can be said in a lot of ways.

If you want to study the Buddha's teachings, I recommend: http://www.amazon.com/Buddhism-For-Dummies-Jonathan-Landaw/dp/111802379X/ref=pd_sim_b_7?ie=UTF8&refRID=1J376KWH333250DQH75V

I'm serious. Those books are really genius.

Then, it will give you resources to expand upon the parts of the teachings you want more of.

besides what youve mentioned above, two things i know help me to deal with both stress and fear are staying mindful of my own mortality and being very cleae and precise about what my values and ethics and hopes for myself and the world are

people get caught up in a lot of petty and really worthless confrontations becsause of how easy it is to forget that we're very nearly out of time

ive never heard of anyones last words ever being "theres plenty of time to do everything you want, dont worry about it" but ive read that crowley's last words were "sometimes i really hate myself"
which btw is when i stopped reading him

the point is
by really understanding just how close death actually is to all of us right now
we drop a ton of garbage from our thinking and we start to focus on thingsthat are genuinely meaningful to u

that eliminates much stress and fear as well as giving us a context from which we draw strength to move forward even in the presence of stress or fear

which is where clearly defining my ethics my values amd my hopes comes in to play

by already having a vision of who i am and who i am becoming and a vision of what i hope for my life and the world
bypass a ton of stress and fear and again have a context which helps me deal with them

I will read 'buddhism for dummies'.

I will meditate on the closeness of Death and if this observation can help my personal way in stress periods.

I thank you, both. MTFBWY.

the thought of this thread kept coming back to me yesterday and it occured to me to summarize "the four agreements"

an author by the name of miguel ruiz wrote a book called
The Four Agreements; a Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

the context begins with this;
during the proccess of social domestication
we were all instructed at conscious semi conscious and subconscious levels
to make certain aggreements with ourselves and within ourselves

these agreements are the foundations for what we really belive about ourselves and the word

they constitute our underlying emotional reality and affect everything we consider true
morality, love, success, power, attractiveness, and the general goodness or evilness of humanity

are all things that we belive one way or another as a result of the agreements we have made

he maintains that the average person has a collection of debilitating agreements which unconsciously define us by our shortcomings and our weaknesses

also he says that we have been spiritually poisoned during the course of our lives and that it is in keeping the debilitating agreements that we have made that we hold on to this poison and worse that we feel compelled to share it

its not really possible to just drop our old agreements, psychologically speaking this creates a void which must be filled
so he offers these four commitments as substitutes for earlier agreements
or as new agreements one can make with oneself

1) dont take anything personally
when people act stupid or mean it is because of them.
no matter what a person says or does to you, it is not about you
it is about the bad dream they are having
i personally tell myself that offensive people are like children who dont know advanced molecular biology

i cant stay mad or stay offended at a child who doesnt know advanced molecular biology
i dont let them pull me into their bad dream
all feelings of being offended constitute a bad dream
WAKE UP!

2) Make NO assumptions about anyone or anything. especially he says to apply this to people who are close to us. he says that we have a mostly unconscious expectation for the people around us to understand us. to know how we feel and think and to understsand how their words and actions will appear to us.

he says this is unfair and unrealistic expectation of each other.
do not assume that you understand exactly what people mean, and do not assume that they understand you. even and ESPECIALLY people you are close to.

also do not make assumptions about life or truth or politicians or anyone or anything. as much as possible make deliberate effort to seek out information without bias and always be open to review

3) be impeccable with your words
he says that words have a lot of power. even if you dont belive they have power you can give them power by speaking power into them, just keep telling yourself that your words have power.

words direct our thougts more than our thughts direct our words. by constantly telling ourselves something we establish that thing as true in our psyche

so impeccability of the word means
1) always speak what you know or feel to be true
2) speak love with every word. do not spread or share any more poison ever. do not poison yourself and do not poison others with the misuse of words

examples are limiting and abusive language
often times we try to sneak our poison into what we say

in fact i becamse aware when i started to exercise this agreement that at least half of the things i used to say were nothing less than the covert intention to poison myself or others
i still work to speak love and i stil see moments of less than perfection but this had made a great deal of difference in my life

4) always do your best at everything you do.
he goes to especial lengths to explain that "doing ones best" does not always mean that one must be successful at something
there are any number of reasons why one may do ones best and still come up short
also sometimes our best it really great
sometimes its really not that great

part of doing ones best is also to BE ones best. this is accomplished by commiting to the other agreements

when we live up to the previous agreements in our interactions and our relationships (including with ourselves) then doing ones best is like the star on top of the tree or the icing on top of the cake

it makes the finishing touch to the art of our lives
by making the commitment to always do ones best whatever it may be we insulate ourselves from a lot of shame or self resentment because no matter what we will be able to look back and say "evenif i was wrong and even if i failed, i sincerely did my very best and that is all anyone can be expected to do. i honored my commitment to exert myself fully"

hope this helps someone

Thank you.

I know the truth of certain techniques. But for me it is important that technique has very old roots and acknowledges them. That is why I will keep educating myself in ways of spirit and read. Otherwise, I'll be not reframing old wisdom, but producing a shortcutted version of it, shallow and subjective. To create a successful technique means to know the Giants, on shoulders of whom you build it. That means at least finishing the IP and reading several books that I was advised to read and reading main religious sources. That will take time. Than I might be capable of reframing old truths into modern way. Or mayde, somewhere along the way I'll find someone who already did it. This is something I need because otherwise I won't be strong enough a Jedi to deflect negative stuff.

Ignorance, yet knowledge. Force Guide Us.