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PHILOSOPHICAL AND MEDITATIVE ENQUIRY Cross-cultural adventures in Buddhist insight meditation Dr Marcin Fabjański

Meditative experience & philosophical investigation

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Page 1: Meditative experience & philosophical investigation

PHILOSOPHICAL AND MEDITATIVE ENQUIRY

Cross-cultural adventures in Buddhist insight meditation

Dr Marcin Fabjański

Page 2: Meditative experience & philosophical investigation

ATTUNING TO THE PROCESS OF LIFE

• Two categories of stoic techniques:

• (i) Attending to the process of thinking (prohairesis)

• (ii) Attending to the senses (prosoche)

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ATTENDING TO THE PROCESS OF THINKING

”But you ought when you are alone to call this condition by the name of tranquility and freedom, and to think yourself like to the gods; and when you are with many, you ought not to call it crowd, nor trouble, nor uneasiness, but festival and assembly, and so accept all contentedly.”

EPICTETUS

”In a joint philosophical investigation he who is defeated comes out ahead in so far as he has learnt something new.”EPICURUS

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ATTENDING TO THE PROCESS OF THINKING

• „Acquire the contemplative way of seeing how all things change into one another, and constantly attend to it, and exercise thyself about this part of philosophy. For nothing else is so much adapted to produce magnanimity.”

• MARCUS AURELIUS

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„Motions and changes are continually renewing the world, just as the

uninterrupted course of time is always renewing the infinite duration of ages. In this

flowing stream then, on which there is no abiding, what is there of the things which hurry by on which a man would set a high

price? It would be just as if a man should fall in

love with one of the sparrows which fly by, but it has already passed out of sight”.

MARCUS AURELIUS

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Daniel Goleman: ethical questions and questions about purpose come to us as gut feelings. The frontal lobe is not the author of our decisions, it is the interpreter, which translates them from the body language into the language of words and mental pictures.

The untranslated emotions and sensations in the body appear to us as wild and irrational.

The body is a part of the environment and subject to its law. The question is: can we learn the language of nature, which by neccesity is the language beyond self?

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PRICE OF IMMORTALITY

• I. Required Cryopreservation Funding Minimums: Before membership approval can be granted, Alcor requires the Member to guarantee a certain level of funding which will be paid

to Alcor upon the legal death of the Member to support Comprehensive Member Standby (CMS), in addition to the cryopreservation, long-term care, and, if it becomes possible, resuscitation of the Member. (See Cryopreservation Agreement, Section I, DUTIES OF THE MEMBER, Article 4.) Current minimum funding levels are:

• Minimum Cryopreservation Funding:

• $200,000.00 Whole Body Cryopreservation ($110,000 to the Patient Care Trust, $60,000 for cryopreservation, $30,000.00 to the CMS Fund).

$ 80,000.00 Neurocryopreservation ($25,000 to the Patient Care Trust, $30,000 for cryopreservation, $25,000.00 to the CMS Fund). Surcharges:

• $ 15,000.00 Surcharge for cases in the United Kingdom.$ 25,000.00 Surcharge for cases outside the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom.$ 25,000.00 Surcharge for cryopreservation of non-members arranged by a third party who is an Alcor Cryopreservation Member.$ 50,000.00 Surcharge for cryopreservation of non-members arranged by a third party who is not an Alcor Cryopreservation Member.

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Page 9: Meditative experience & philosophical investigation

Requirements for the Language Beyond Self

The LBS should be: (1) meaningful, (2) enriching our communicative field (provide new informations), and (3) possible to share.(4) It should modify our map of reality.

Peter Falk - Der Himmel Uber Berlin (Wings of Desire) , 1987.mp4

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Observing process of life within and outside. Learning its universal characteristic of constant flux

Acquire the contemplative way of seeing how all things change into one another, and constantly attend to it, and exercise thyself about this part of philosophy. For nothing else is so much adapted to produce magnanimity.MARCUS AURELIUS

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Questioning self as our identity by studying and exercising our co-dependence to the rest of the process of life.

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RESEARCH ON BEING IN NATURE

1. Brain gets reset: two weeks in nature gives city people new sense of calm and clarity and increases their creativity.

2. 20 minuts of tree watching decreases cortisol

level in saliva by 13.4 percent (260 people, 24

locations) – relaxation.

3. Being in woods leads to involving all senses,

which activates optimal state of learning –

intelligence.

4. One hour in the forest increases attention span

by 20 percent – concentration.

5. When injected with a strain of bacteria

Mycobacterium Vaccae (occurs in soil) mice twice

as quickly move in a maze – intelligence.

6. Tree view shortens hospitalisation – mobilization.

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SEVEN FACTORS OF AWAKENING

1. Sati - mindfulness, clarity.

2. Dhamma vicaya - investigation, intelligence,

creativity.

3. Viriya - energy, mobilization.

4. Pīti – joy.

5. Passadhi - happiness, relaxation.

6. Samādhi - concentration, calm.

7. Upekkhā – equanimity.

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COMPARISON1. Brain gets reset: two weeks in nature gives city people new

sense of samādhi and sati and increases vicaya.

2. 20 minuts of tree watching decreases cortisol level in saliva

by 13.4 percent (260 people, 24 locations) – passadhi.

3. Being in woods leads to involving all senses, which activates

optimal state of learning – vicaya.

4. One hour in the forest increases attention span by 20 percent

– samādhi.

5. When injected with a strain of bacteria Mycobacterium

Vaccae (occurs in soil) mice twice as quickly move in a maze –

vicaya.

6. Tree view shortens hospitalisation – viriya.

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QUESTIONS ARISEN

1. Is morality interwoven into fabric of life?

2. Is awakened mind less simulating the

world, or not simulating it at all?

3. Does nature reveals paticcasamuppāda?

4. Does nature fullfil the Stoic promise that

conversion (freedom from passions, lit.

return to the source) is inscribed into it?

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Learning the Language Beyond Self:

Practicing the art of conscious designing of our emotional landscape, such as Buddhist mettā practice.

Developing natural approach to meditation and mindful, investigative presence in nature. Avoiding mechanical, forceful means: instead of remaining yourself to „be mindful”, ask „how attention is present in my body?”

Studying virtues. Living by them. Finding joy in morality. Using the produced competence in communicating with others.

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A Stoic meets a Buddhist

Most conflicts are of mental character and are self-inflicted and self-sustained (by storylines). We need to find a place of peace within ourselves beyond all conflicts, thus beyond self. I call the place – “the unaffected”. This will enable cross-cultural communication.

Returning to “the unaffected” by frequent exercises in daily life. Observing conflicts and inner dialogue with “the unaffected” in background.

Forrest Gump - Run Scene.mp4

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While walking:

(1) Separate sensations from emotions,(2) Separate the preassure of gravitation from the preassure

which is an efect of spinning thughts or of heaviness of the clinging awareness,

(3) Ask yourself: what preasurre is due to gravitation and what due to the inner tension?,

(4) Activate discovering awareness, evenly distributed throughout the body,

(5) Find the unaffected, see emerging of a new reality.

Forrest Gump - Run Scene.mp4

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EARTH WATER

Retrieving the body from the self and returning it to the nature:

Getting into the range (a part of us must be a receiver). Using the four elements to dissolve the cloud of thoughts and

mental pictures.The self cannot function outside the world of compact objects.

WIND FIRE

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The ATTUNEMENT training consist of three areas: (1) Mastering thinking process and developing awareness of storylines, (2) Refreshing outer and inner perceptions by means of introspection and attuning to the sensory stimuli, (3) Philosophical enquiry into existential issues from the position of the metaphysics of process.

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The less a system (individual consciousness, organized religion, political party, etc…) is in touch with the process of life, the more it defends its personal identity; the more anxiety it contains; the more obsessive with itself it becomes.

Is a culture of attunement to the process of life possible to Europe as a philosophical foundation for its future?

The philosophy of ATTUNING TO THE PROCESS OF LIFE – observations & possibilities

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You know that you are attuned to the process of life when the sound of the falling rain drops fully satisfies your need of dramaturgy.

Storylines become meaningless.

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Dr Marcin Fabjański [email protected] www.selfoff.com/en + 48 508 748 709