Meditatio,divination and dream interpretation

[sergio]

I just found this one in Steve Marshall's site:
http://chaocenter.rice.edu/uploadedFiles/Chao_Center/Yijing/C.%20Meditation,%20Divination%20and%20Dream%20Inte rpretation.pdf
Sergio

[sparhawk]

Yup, it is very new. Good stuff.

[sergio]

I like this article.I found specially interesting .and sort of delightfully amusing .the comparison between the koan and the I Ching judgements.Although I think I read that somewhere else before this time it really dawn on me YKWIM?
SERGIO

[sergio]

Yeah,me too...but the dream stuff seems to be be a little odd of an addition,wouldn't you say?IMHO .
Sergio

[sergio]

Yeah,I agree,Why not palmistry then.
Anyway,in a positive note the koan comparison was really good and it made me look into them once again-I had already discarded them as useless devices(I guess that post from Bradford in the "see the great man"thread puts me in the right place.
My favorite "-Can you pacify my mind?"
Bodidharma:"bring me your mind and I'll pacify it for you"
"_I tried but could not find it"
Bodidharma:"-I am done pacifying your mind"
Sergio

[sergio]

THE KOAN PART 2
Yesterday I cast the I Ching about a certain situation and it gave me a totally uncomprehensible and unrelated (to me)answer.As I was reading it dawn on me"-here is the koan...".
Funny how things work when you are paying attention.
Sergio

[sergio]

As a way of showing me how full of myself I could be in the last few days the theme of dreams has been popping up in many different manifestations forcing me to consider it in depht.From watching t.v. and constantly been bombarded by documentaries about dreams,references in t.v series,even adds the message was clear:reconsider.The final straw was a dream(s) of my own!This was particularly strange since I never have dreams or ,better,I can never remember my dreams.
Could it be that dreams and koans and all those instances that the I Ching throws us a curved ball act in the same way in us,namely to suspend our logical mind and apprehend reality-our reality-in a more
instinctive way without the need of always wanting a rational explanation to everything?
Sergio

[sooo]

I've personally found the IC to be playful when I venture off the path of pure reason to areas imagined and incomplete. But it's a balance of the two; a beautiful mystery that something is both created and observed in the same mind or field.

Try surprising yourself in a dream. Try Not surprising yourself in a dream. Neither can be done. Consciousness is the surprise.

As for what objects it uses to tap our noggin to wake us up, it could be from anywhere during waking: TV, your pet, a friend or foe, the moon.... the mind picks up way more than it lets on. But when it's time to knock, it can use any image from anything gathered to convey a personal message, cryptically, literally, or both.

[sooo]

Funny how things work when you are paying attention.


:bows:

[peter2610]

Could it be that dreams and koans and all those instances that the I Ching throws us a curved ball act in the same way in us,namely to suspend our logical mind and apprehend reality-our reality-in a more instinctive way without the need of always wanting a rational explanation to everything?

Yup, that's about it. The purpose of koans is to break down conditioned rational processes and allow original mind to emerge. In Taoism it's described as removing the false energy of discriminatory consciousness.

Interestingly, I believe one of the Native American tribes had a spiritual practice in which the initiate would do everything backwards for a number of days. That would include literally walking backwards, riding backwards, reversing sleeping/waking patterns etc. living apart from society, without a break, day after day. This was aiming at exactly the same process as koan meditation, though, of course, in a completely different cultural context. I think it might have been the Lakota tribe, but I'd be grateful if anyone could confirm/correct me on this.

The social isolation and period of non-conformity described by Jung as integral to individuation is, likewise, a part of the same process - the removal of conditioned habituation.