Pure Will

You cannot deny the most important aspect of your character - What do you do?

Most of us are blinded by passions, attachments, dreams, and recreation. And so our Willpower is crippled, our being is ataxic, we wobble around from whim to whim and occupy ourselves with pleasure. Our accomplishments are insignificant and distractions fill our mind.

What is the point of meditation? It is to focus the mind to a point, to think one single thought , day after day, without thinking of anything else, and not allow ourselves to be distracted. Day in, day out, hour after hour, minute after minute, we must think of only one thing, the task at hand. Not a single second must be wasted, only your goal occupies the mind.

As a Jedi, we must undergo death, a death of our former self. Every love,hope, and dream must be silenced. Only then can our True Will be put into motion, only then can our goals be met with immovable force. After one goal is met, switch to another, and think of nothing else but the task at hand. Then everybody will know who you are.

What's your question?

Where is the discussion part?

Sounds to me like preaching. There isn't even an argument here, just assertions. Who are you to say what is the most important aspect of our characters? Who are you to tell us what we can or cannot deny? Who are you to declare the purpose of meditation to everybody rather than only to yourself? Who are you to tell us not only that there is something wrong with our current or past selves, but also what exactly is wrong, and who are you to declare that we must change that?

Get down from that pulpit, and take an arm chair. Quit preaching. Let's talk.

I read somewhere the 'monkey mind' arises out of the 'yo-yo complex' of conditional existence - viewing things in terms of dissatisfaction v satisfaction in some context or resisting change (see Three Marks of Existence ). So it seems a common element of Eastern paths to dissolve that reliance and recast perception in some manner...... but if that yo-yo complex is an acquired state of mind, it still could be held as ones Will, but perhaps will is not limited to whether its source is 'Pure' but rather just any measure of ones commitment to focus. So to find 'Pure Will' seems to imply a measure of ones true nature in some way. Meditation then in my experience serves to bridge the gap between the subconscious and conscious minds which allow one to cast away errant processes and better engage with ones powers of perception, decision making and action - which might relate back to the TOTJO tenets of focus, knowledge and wisdom perhaps
:lol: :blink:

Gisteron wrote: What's your question?

Where is the discussion part?

Sounds to me like preaching. There isn't even an argument here, just assertions. Who are you to say what is the most important aspect of our characters? Who are you to tell us what we can or cannot deny? Who are you to declare the purpose of meditation to everybody rather than only to yourself? Who are you to tell us not only that there is something wrong with our current or past selves, but also what exactly is wrong, and who are you to declare that we must change that?

Get down from that pulpit, and take an arm chair. Quit preaching. Let's talk.

Perhaps its like when someone draws an arc - it can imply/infer a circle and therefore still has a central point, but still retains unbounded possibilities of going anywhere
:side:

Perhaps the opening post would be more suitable in a journal (perhaps it was meant to be a personal reflection?).

I'm with you, Anon. Distractions and fleeting desires occupy a great chunk of my life. Maybe it's a result of the thought process we learn as children: thinking of one thing at a time, one word leading to another in a formulaic chain. At any point that chain can be diverted and sent on a different track. The challenge can be to keep your train of thought on track, or as you say, to narrowly focus on one goal at a time.

Anon11 wrote: You cannot deny the most important aspect of your character - What do you do?

what exactly is the most important aspect of ones character?

and once that is answered, i dont understand why denying such a thing is mentioned here; are we expected to deny our characters?

is it something we just do without considering it?

does your statement imply that the distractions and passions you mention are the important aspects of ourselves or do you mean that it is our Will that is the most important aspect?
Or are you saying that the important aspect is something underneath all this which we allow to linger or stagnate because we lack the Will to pursue it with dedication?

Anon11 wrote: Most of us are blinded by passions, attachments, dreams, and recreation. And so our Willpower is crippled, our being is ataxic, we wobble around from whim to whim and occupy ourselves with pleasure. Our accomplishments are insignificant and distractions fill our mind.

are we blinded by these things? who are we?

do dreams and passions and recreations and attachments all belong in the same category?

is that what most of us do; wobble around from whim to whim?
is there room for minor wobbling within the overall pursuit of larger goals?

is something to be discarded because it is pleasurable?

who determines what is significant and what is not significant and what is the criteria for this determination?

there are several different goals which i am pursuing right now and one of them is to get better at a particular video game

this is a very difficult game to be competitive at and while i am not on the road to EVO 2016 i WOULD like to put the smash on some of the online bob and lars scrubs who think they can play simply because they use characters that have good strings and safe launchers

it doesnt impress me to simply learn two or three high damage combos and then spam safe mids all day until you land one

and character strings do not require much effort or insight to use if the strings have good mix ups, track well, and are both quick AND safe

now, this is a totally insignificant goal in societies eyes, but the difficulty of actually achieving it and the personal sense of accomplishment that i experience as i progress towards it are very significant to me

i have some other, more "worldly" goals, such as being certified in SCUBA and completing my degree

its true that if i had to choose between them, the video games would be placed last

but the video game is still pretty significant to me; ive been playing this series since 98

ive put literally thousands of hours into learning the system and the characters

i have dreams about this game

in other words, i am very much invested at a personally meaningful level

so, who is to say which of this is really MORE significant?

nothing i do will alter the strength of gravity or the ebb and flow of the tides - and even if it did, so what? does that add or subtract from the life of the sun?

and on and on with this line of thinking where the significance of one thing is mitigated by the scale of the next until we reach the point where the very word SIGNIFICANCE has no meaning

except for my personal meaning, or perhaps in certain cases we can talk of "significance" from a perspective of our collective meaning, but this would still be predicated on individual interpretation

these things are very tricky to make broad value judgements on and if it is to be done we will need to be as precise as possible with the language that we use

Anon11 wrote: What is the point of meditation? It is to focus the mind to a point, to think one single thought , day after day, without thinking of anything else, and not allow ourselves to be distracted. Day in, day out, hour after hour, minute after minute, we must think of only one thing, the task at hand. Not a single second must be wasted, only your goal occupies the mind.

the term "unbending intent" if youre not familiar with it may be a rewarding google for you
or it may not be, i dont know
also, there is an earl nightingale video on youtube called "the strangest secret in the world" and you might enjoy that if you havent already heard it

both of those references address the more metaphysical side of the idea im getting from your words

for the more immediate and quantifiable
i agree that improved concentration is A benefit of meditation

but i would respond that there could be a difference between something being THE point
and something being A point of anything

sometimes when people talk about THE TRUTH
what they are REALLY talking about is A TRUTH - one individual truth which is wholly true and accurate, but is only one degree of truth from one point of view
and should not be taken as indicative of THE TRUTH THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

so, individual truths tend to be very very much PERSONAL truths, as opposed to GENERAL truths, and its important to keep this in mind i think

Anon11 wrote: As a Jedi, we must undergo death, a death of our former self. Every love,hope, and dream must be silenced. Only then can our True Will be put into motion, only then can our goals be met with immovable force. After one goal is met, switch to another, and think of nothing else but the task at hand. Then everybody will know who you are.

I agree with what you say about the death of the self
miguel ruiz talks about the Initiation of the Dead and m scott peck says basically that in order to grow as individuals it is necessary to constantly update our "maps of the world" and that this means letting go of our previous maps - all the ideas we have about ourselves and reality and "the truth" can be described as features on our maps and for growth to happen we have to be willing to relinquish or at least update yesterdays answers in order to face todays challenges

but i do not know that it is accurate to say that our loves and hopes and dreams must all be "silenced"

im not really sure what "silenced" would actually mean here; if your loves and your hopes and your dreams are all silenced, what goal do you pursue?

do you make a distinction between the momentary distractions of day to day living, the temporary urges to eat this junk food and watch that romantic comedy, RIGHT NOW, and the more persistent desires one may have to, say earn a black belt in jiu jitsu or complete a doctorate degree?


it on youtube and encourage everyone to check it out, its worhtingale calls it "the strangest seceret in the world" and it basically amnounts to this: we are what we think about all
i would
and more, if you reduce yourself to the point of having no loves and no hopes and no dreams, who ARE you?

i enjoyed reading your post and im not saying that you are wrong
to the contrary, i think that youre on to something

so i ask these questions sincerely, because i believe they are important to developing and expressing the ideas youve put forward