SHACK 4054 THE NET

Courtesy Classical Conditioning

 The above image is a classical conditioning re Ivan Pavlov. Humans get similar and then conceptual conditioning, the signals and flavours to the senses vary from animals to humans.

Through  many Zen and self growth one can come to see this conditioning and then one 'feel see' it it is like a net as below;

Courtesy Research Net

  Imagine the mind being filled with the dots at every intersection and these can be  cross-referenced and brought together to form sequences of thoughts and beliefs and this is the net of conditioning. The gaps is awareness and this is the light, the net the lampshade and dots are the inculcations.

Imagine you are laying on this net made of fragile material and can rupture and so you may fall into the unknown and this might be scary, so you might spend energy frantically or a deliberate slow methodical way to strengthen the net mainly by adding more dots. Then an awakening as to the nature of this net begins to dawn and the fear increases what is there below or whatever. I have no security, no reality without the net.

The fear maybe I fall into oblivion or a hard fall and kill myself, since this a mind thing I will get senile, be a mumbling mess, a madman, or just some sort of hellish mind trap or I might have nightmare of constantly falling and nowhere to land and this repeats as well as some other reoccurring dream or anxiety syndrome.

Then having awakened to the feeling experienced in mediation or some other means of the absence of dots that is thoughts and so on and not fallen asleep and one acquaints oneself as to the gaps and they are quiet, calm a world apart so it may seem and the net is used as resource for everyday living and facilities, then one may not be afraid to drop through even knowing there is no safety net and one just keeps on falling, but not falling, nor floating just residing in that space until returning to the net for such is the nature of humans until demise and who knows what then, desiring the net of conditioning or being the awareness of awareness.

Really there never has been a safety net from the time of being for the nature of the Dao / Tao, the Do, the way less way, is impermanence and transience.  

SHACK aka GEOFF

SHACK 4053 PETARD

Courtesy  54% off

When one puts all of their eggs in one basket as the old adage goes then there is a situation of no recovery if they all get broken. The psychological aspect of putting one's beliefs as circumspect and is advised.  The fact of inculcation and the cemented one way street that may follow leads one to agonise when it backfires and one realises 'I was hoisted by my own petard'.

One can get so deranged by the trap of inculcation and not realising that one was inculcated, conditioned and one is and was conned by someone else's ideas and it might be at an earlier age and when one was innocent and naïve that anger and resentment ensue and in many cases some mental derangement and perhaps a Don Quixote syndrome and every body becomes the windmill. 

 

Courtesy Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra   

When we awaken to the conditioning, the brain washing we were exposed too, even though it may have been lovingly administered and passed on from generations by well meaning folk it never the less can put many of us in a straight jacket and self imprisonment, we may have felt this is the only way after all generations have done this, and this is my path and my parents and peers all were loving and kind accept a few times I strayed from the tradition and life style. I knew nothing and accepted it hook line and sinker. I was fine until I challenged the tradition, my gradual questioning came about in many ways, I was told that questioning the beliefs of ages was not on, this is the only way.

Courtesy sbe.org.gr

I was born free but was born into a Jewish family and brought up as a Jew. Because of the war years many woman and children were evacuated out of London to avoid death and destruction, so my Jewish upbringing was sparse. When we came back to London I was not au fait with Hebrew and it was near my barmitzva (an initiation) at 13 yrs of age so I was sent to a Chasidic school and was exposed to radical inculcation to say the least. I was told that we were the chosen race and everyone else were worms and heathens. I had to follow the ten commandments and if broken I will be severely punished by God. Then after barmitzva (girls had bus mitzvah at sixteen) if remembered another 110 commandments were added and if broken one would go to hell after death and be punished during this life as well. Mind you other religions and faith have their fears instilled into them and guilt.

I then studied the five books of Moses, The Torah / Chumash and to my consternation I was shocked, the animal sacrifices, the killing and genocide and when I questioned this I was told God had his reasons and when the Messiah came he would tell us all of this and explain it. Other faiths have their versions and the guilt and shame is evident if you research them, I can only relay my experiences.

Fortunately for me in this Chassidic school we had Hebrew in the morning and English non Jewish teachers in the afternoon one of them was Judo ka named Frank W Nash and he got me into the Budokwai as it was then in Lower Grosvenor Place Victoria and I was so young I went into the ladies section and first teacher was Irene Donahue a police women this would have been in 1952 (also Arsenal interest as a junior back article) then the Budokwai moved to Gilston Road Kensington in 1957. My first Sensei was Gunji Koizumi 8th Dan and Frank Nash 5th Dan and Sensei Koizumi named our little club Shindokwai which we ran in Stamford Hill, in back articles I relate how my spiritual Sensei met me and gave me a Koan, he was a head monk of some sorts one of the Yamabushi dojos.

By subscribing to my own made beliefs as a means to find security and a steady base, a reality and then collapsing as the realisation came 'they are just homemade inculcations' constantly exposed me to realise I was self imprisoning and repeatedly 'hoisted by my own petard'.

My exposure to Zen, meditation and Judo, Aikido, Kendo contrasted greatly to Chassidic and old Testament values and I left the religion much to the distress of family. The the shattering of my mind with the Koan, the NDE and then inculcation, Nowhere to hang my Hat, The Empty Atom and so on, the workshop presentations, forensics led to the dissolving or at least to sense of the core deep embedded issues and so much more in back issues and and articles. Still there are distant echoes that try to pull me back and raise shady subtle doubts but the quietness and less impact of fear and anxiousness are producing 'slaughtered by silence', what was being slaughtered, I know not, but it is a relief. 

SHACK aka GEOFF

SHACK 4052 GRIP and SLIDE

 

Courtesy   Rope and knots

This is about perceived reality. Some say there is no such thing as reality as an incontrovertible fact and science may be able to prove that such as the empty atom and in Buddhism everything is impermanent and transient and so on.  

From an existentialistic point of view we are supposed to form our own philosophies, life styles and spiritual religious, political and our affiliations yet as previous articles have alluded we base many of our ideas and beliefs on inculcation, conditioning and plain brain washing.

When we take on board that we are brain washed to a certain extent then we can wonder who are we when that element of inculcation is removed or seen through as 'I have been taught most of who I am so who is the real me', this can mean our beliefs our central core of our being can be the 'reality' which can be for the rest life and exposure to to other inculcations can be a challenge and in some instances a dire threat and lead to severe outcomes.

This can lead to a an entrenched grip on this as 'my reality my existence my life' should one realise this and shy away from exploring it further then ones reality becomes so fixed and sure becomes shaky and the foundation becomes vulnerable and a cover up, excuses follow to shore up the cracks that may occur, many use distraction as wall paper over the solid wall of decor which one is familiar with and so a feeling of safe in the familiar and so the reality of the norm established.

However, perhaps the cracks widen and a mild discomfort follows and one's curiosity is piqued and it causes an energy from within and says ' who am I' and the grip on a former reality begins to weaken and the first signs of the slide may begin.

For me when this happened through a Koan it was a shift and I have relayed this in previous articles, a shift without any explanation or meaning, it was Zen Blast as it were. However this did not match the work I was employed in and a sort of duality arose and I was in a sort of limbo, half in a freedom of a sort and half in the world, to make a living, relationships that differed from my own world view or rather the lack of it, the shallow use of hoarding, success and other worldly achievements, I was a world ethos failure, non ambitious because I could see the impermanence and transience and did not understand why and my NDE stuff on top of it. So I went through the grip and slide process just like mountaineers do only mentally and psychologically. 

At times like Van Gogh doubting my sanity as I yoyoed between desperately hanging on to my worldly life and its paradigms and my friends and family expectations of me and my feeling of freedom of something growing in me. This growing was not accumulation it was shedding becoming empty, which took me back to the Koan. Dare I trust this no thought emptiness I was feeling, no my intellect and logic, my academic scientific mind must know, understand pick it to pieces, I must know by reason and logic that when I could understand I was safe, I knew, I knew and as long as I had that feeling I was safe. 

 It turned out with the worlds affairs especially for the worlds population a virus with lockdowns turned the world's norm upside down and some tried to rebrand the world to the Eugenics, technocracy and New World Order and many could not cope with the change and mental illness now abounds. What of my former beliefs they cry, wars and atrocities, assassinations the atrocities of broken cities, ruins and displaced peoples brought about a subtle often ignored unrest, a silent nagging anxiousness which many took the digital media network for relief and distraction. Who are we when our familiar society and its ethics, morals and standards are dissolving with foreign people flooding our shores and values with crime rates and suicides soaring and prisons over populated and letting prisoners go and so committing the crimes they were sent down for again, a world in chaos, many ignoring it, until their taxes and hand outs dry out, the super rich ignoring the plight of the homeless and women and child massacres, politicians fraught with world economics and wars that threaten atomic centrosphere.  

It hit me and then I realised the empty mind bit was for me the solution or was it. I had faced the shock psychologically with articles 'Nowhere to hang my hat' I had come to 'no mind empty atom' many years back with no mind through the Koan and in science with the empty atom. So it is easy isn't to let go the lock downs suited me, although it took me a while to realise what they were up to with my findings in my blog www.geoffreed.com and the anger I felt that the authorities could stoop so low to do this and the corruption thereof and many making millions of our false lock downs, vaccine damage.

Then came the slide good and proper as they say; I gradually started to feel it's OK to do absolutely nothing and strange lethargy came about aided by a left leg problem, suddenly my eating habits changed, my stalwarts started going, my sleep patterns, I gave up rituals and disciplines, I felt them ludicrous in some instances, I was aware of 'my' awareness. I did not have to meditate to be aware of awareness, I sense it is me, I am awareness and I don't have an explanation or description of it, it is not tangible as it were. I do not have do anything to be aware of awareness. By the way it is OK to have thoughts drift through a naturally empty mind they seem floaty and high in the sky so to speak letting them go the awareness will bring the important ones to mind.

I am not afraid of losing my 'beliefs, former theories, ideas, life styles' I am losing my inculcations, a few of them stick to the side of the pan and I kept saying to friends I have never been in this space before and yet I have, I did not want to trust the instinct I do not know and I don't want to find a reason, I found the reason came spontaneously and not by the old logical, academic intellectually think things through, albeit some things do have to be thought through incorporating every day ordering of food, cleaning the flat, paying bills.

The slide is now like a helter skelter and I still don't why and it's Ok not to know that I know 'I know I don't know but when I need to know I will know' Big Head.

I am not enlightened I am just a do not know much. Yes I write what I feel and it feels alright for now and there is only the now.

SHACK aka GEOFF

SHACK 4051 STARRY NIGHT

Courtesy Mo Ma  The Museum of Modern Art

 Vincent Van Gogh the great Dutch artist it is said he painted this oil painting that many feel it portrayed his mental state particularly his depression and the song and lyrics sung by Don Mclean seem to be so apt.

This beautiful rendition lyrics and sung by Don Mclean touched me deep inside the first time I heard it years ago. When I was a child I felt the depression of my sweet dearest Mother and the frustration of My handsome father so addicted to gambling and the straining of father hood he wanted so to love and did not how. The anger and hate of my dearest late brother at my Dad until both their dying days. How my Mum suffered with various treatment to break the cycle of depression and suicidal thoughts in the end she had a thymus cancer I felt of a truly broken heart. How my mother worked to keep me and fed me, oh God what do people do to one another?

Then in forensics I saw the pitiful cries of victims of crime, rape, murder, torture, imprisonment, wrongful imprisonment and the harsh justice of law and the afterwards mental presentations of the after effects of scars physical and mental of the aforesaid events.

I then decided to investigate all of the above and took to psychotherapy with and of course went through the course and came out as a psychotherapist but this not seem to be the answer to my patients at first. I found that my Sensei and Sifu were Shamans and their philosophies coupled with meditation and Koan and Shifts brought me to an understanding of an intuitive awareness and coupling the two of therapy with the ancient arts began to see some success, not for me but for them. This brought me to present workshops (670 in various countries, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Canada, Spain, and of course UK and seen some 3000clients over 36 years) I worked at Forensics and did these in my annual leave, in the evenings and weekends, I did not charge fees as such just donations to cover my travelling expenses and keep, I kept out of the limelight of the big names at the time and some said I stole their clientele and I was banned from large exhibitions, it was said I worked for nothing and took their profits.

During this time I got to feel so much of my clients / patients ( I was not a working therapist as such, so client and patients did not seem to fit my title as it were).  I also did healing that was an aside as it were, however I got to see and feel all types of depression, anger, hopelessness, those shattered by broken homes, abuse, returning after war and so on fortunately for me I was able to shift negativity out of me. Yet a few stains were there and I knew I had to stop all of this, not only therapy, but travelling the air flights, the ships, car journeys hours of listening and talking being there as I had a phone in sessions after all workshops to 'mop up the residue that could surface'  I did not listen to my body and mind for several years and then it came two suspected life threatening cancers and through herbs and healing, meditation was the foremost healing agent got through both this was end 1999 and moved to where I am now in 2002 and started doing the internet with blogs in 2005 and just saw a few desperate folk here and there with therapy, now of course nothing but 'me ' time as it were.

My Starry Starry night is beautiful. I feel as though I am going out like a star ship, slowly, nonchalantly, leisurely going deep into the Milky Way, stars parting as I approach and  feeling as though I am touched by Star Dust, a perfume of exotic nuances, I hear and not hear, I sense singing, a divine chant which is eerily and yet not scarily presented an ancient melody I have always known from times beyond the Earth and the Universe. The sense of I is not me as I sit here typing this it is a disembodied awareness not person or local just a sea of awareness which The Universe shares with everything there is not singleness it is a seamless awareness of the Universe before it became dual. 

Now I understand dear Mother, dear Father, dear Brother, dear all and everyone and of course dear Vincent that we all seek that Divine Presence and in my view we are not really satisfied completely until we we are one with it and we often do know that is what we seek.

SHACK aka GEOFF

SHACK 4050 ALIVENESS

 

Courtesy Self Awareness

Going to the image above I feel the piece of the puzzle in the hand is the crux and crucial factor. I feel there is a consciousness of awareness that is not physical. When I am still I feel my 'mind' as it were, empty, bright, alive and it is not related to bodily factors.  

I feel my aliveness without thought or body, I am in that moment aware of my awareness, it is not describable, its a feeling and any attempt to grasp it, dispels that feeling, I realise that this awareness is there all the time even in the busy mind stream, somehow I know, not with reminders or mantras or positive statements ' I am that'. 

Then the thinking intellectual logical mind that inquisitive entity that wants to know and that is alright as long as that mind wants to be the rock of understanding and security and says' unless I know and understand I feel not complete and uneasy as I sense there is something impermanent in the shifting sands of the intellect'.  

It seems that this awareness of awareness being aware of Itself has no logical intellectual academic faculty and yet when it is experienced brings complete assurance and security  without promise or proof it just knows, it intuitively knows and understands without proof or without the need for convincing Itself,  it is self assured.

The the ego feels envious and gathers more analysis, explanations in order not to be usurped  for in truth the ego feels it is a collection of experiences, thoughts, beliefs and impermanent transitory data and it can shift and conjugate, reconfigure and compute any of its data in order to suit the situation. 

It is when the ego computations, the conniving and scheming get boring or do not have use, or one realises that one has been conditioned, brain washed and under mild or severe inculcation and that the awareness is there as the background the canvas and emptiness that creation came about and that one can then come to this sort of statement; the ego has no real foundation or base, it shifts with circumstances and cannot be relied on entirely, the awareness of the awareness really seems to be the rock and yet is not tangible as the ego substances and manifestation of its data juggling so the question remains?

Am I the Awareness that simple or has the ego manifested this feeling to ensure it survives by subterfuge, by the magicians sleight of hand so to speak and all this feeling of self awareness another cunning snare by a really fierce and powerful foe? 

SHACK aka GEOFF

SHACK 4049 TURN

 

Courtesy Inspirational Mind

To whom shall I turn too

when

The world is dark and naked

To whom shall I turn too

when

All seems lost and forlorn

To whom shall I turn too

when

Nature is bare and barren

To whom shall I turn too

when

People flee and cry out in desperation

and anguish, hungry, naked and starved

and it seems even God has not heard their

pitiful crying and desperation

To whom shall I turn too

when

The waves break over the villages

and the winds tear up our homes

and we are drowned by the waters of Life.

Where have the angels gone, the Knights in Shinning White Armour have ridden off and I gaze in

desperation for a a little basic comfort for a

morsel of food and clean water.

And yet when we accept the desolation and horror that awaits perhaps in our minds I find a quiet spot. A place of no foundation or structure and although my body wastes and is dying I somehow know that all is well

and

when the last embers of the fire of Earthly Life leave me I go to a far and yet near Life where the burdens of the flesh are no longer there.

SHACK aka GEOFF

SHACK 4048 CHAOS AND IMPERMANENCE

 

Courtesy  Natural Law of the Universe 1

The chaos of everything at times seems to be overbearing and we may seek to find a way out of it. Of course when it is war and attrition it is different to the chaos of the mind which at times gets stuck in a groove, a familiar sequence of events and sequences and one can stagnate with the same old same old and trying to select a new way, running through scenarios, searching in imagery and fantasy for a new way (reminding me of 'Nowhere to hang my Hat and all of that inculcation series of SHACKS) if we can stick it out and keep saying as I have recently ' I have never been in this space before and all the solutions and reasons why I am in it' and finally let it all go, with 'I DON'T KNOW' and the friends who tried this and that 'snap out of it, it's planetary alignments, you need flight fight reset, this vitamin will do the trick, be a Shaman and take the course, its a free seminar, webinar. Then it al drops away and there is nothing, no solution, wait patiently at the door even not doing that. I am trapped and surrounded by the prison of my old theories and lifestyle. Just let it be, the snake shedding its skin does this naturally, it maybe uncomfortable and feel vulnerable but it is the 'Dao / Tao the way of DO' THIS IS INDEED the Universe offering natural change which to the human mind may seem like chaos.  

Courtesy  BUDDHIST TAKE 2

In my workshop presentations I used to have an ice cube and if possible the participants as well and ask them to stop it melting in their open hand. The ice cub could be one's life style, occupation, beliefs. our bodies and so on and see how e could feel them go or remain empty if endeavouring to replace the cube with a makeover, a cosmetic job or reinvent the wheel anything to preserve the past, the past the storage tool of karma, the future so often the reinvention or modification of the past and seemingly new and fresh or is it?

So impermanence like chaos or some think chaos causes impermanence and visa versa, both however bring about change, they are disrupters of the known and even nature with its upheavals brings about the removal stagnation and ruts that bind itself to stagnation, and frees renewal and freedom. 

道   DO 

      when Sensei taught Judo he taught the ' Mushin is the “mind without mind,” a mental state where you don't feel preoccupied by anything and instead remain open to everything. Martial arts students learn that when you let your mind go quiet, you avoid making assumptions about the situation or trying to force a specific outcome.  At first one tries to repress the mind, think of nothing ands all sorts of strategies, Sensei used shouts, slaps to break the conditioned mind, it worked for me until I got into 'work', relationships and the world at large and Sensei went home to Japan. Then gradually through meditation doing and presenting workshops being a psychotherapist and seeing the horrors of forensics, then into quantum stuff the lessons on the DO came to me by 'wear and tear' and the old adage by Sensei 'At first a hill is a hill, then it becomes something else, then it becomes a hill again' and the Ten Ox herding pictures and process. Looking at the Sun and the adage ' Glorious Sun why are you setting, only to rise again' is it possible to break these cycles? only if one realises that your human body and mind are impermanent and enjoy these things of Earth without getting overly attached and releasing them without qualms, not psychologically saying 'ah well all things have to come to an end---big sigh' but to feel deeply it is not even there, the pond is still not even a ripple. This is the lesson of Life, nothing to stand on, rely on or grasp and yet a free happy mind-----NATURALLY. This is what Chaos and Impermanence offer, a gift from the Universe.

   

   

Courtesy Synonyms 

Prigogine's system of dissipative systems says a lot about the above as well.

SHACK aka GEOFF

The Universe came out of no-mind, space the womb of creation, then in life synchronicities seem to come from out of nowhere and nowhere is everywhere and has no form. The AH HA bursts forth like the 'big bang' an inspired event beyond time and space, this is the mysterious way of Life, the DO and Tao. Those that wait quietly and without fret shall reap that what is there apportioned lot. SHACK

SHACK 4047 KARMA OR CALMER?

Courtesy Dreamtime 1

 This article may cause consternation for I feel Karma is in a way non existent. OK so what follows may challenge intellectual and ego logic, perhaps some of it is, again one must decide and feel the context before blowing in a fit of anger or a challenging the intellect and who does this smart ass think he is challenging years of tradition and disciplines, away with you sir and repent. Oh dear me.

Courtesy Pinterest 2

Many articles back I wrote about this and a brief synopsis will follow; I wrote about inculcation which is defined as 'the instilling of knowledge or values in someone, usually by repetition. To inculcate is to instil or impress an idea on someone, so inculcation is the process of instilling or impressing ideas. A lot of teaching is a form of inculcation: teachers repeat information to students, hoping it will sink in'. I feel this is a form of brain washing. Should this conditioning sink right in so to speak, this becomes one's identity, belief system and can allow for some variance and become reality and a firm base and stance. That's OK until it clashes with another's reality and in extreme events cause fractured relationships and even war.

Courtesy Bridging the Gap 3

    Then perhaps one day it may first begin as a bubble and then become a bit more of a compulsive itch about life and the origins of life then it explodes into a realisation and to a shock 'everything I know and am I've been taught, I didn't even choose my name or religion or lifestyle, I am a clone more or less, I am second hand clothing' and what's more I have inherited the time line and karma of many generations, I carry the burden on my back and what's more I realise most of us have been cloned like this and I can try another religion lifestyle and yet they are always someone else's ideas. I am OK with anybody who wants to be in the karma passed down to them by the timeline of family, tradition and lifestyle, politic or dogma as long as they do not want to proselyte me or call me a heathen even so what does it all mean, they are not talking from sense they like me are talking from their identifying reality.

Courtesy ImgFlip  4

Then one can come the realisation if we are all inculcated then who are we when the brain washing is removed and is there a personality left to identify with and realising not to blame our parents or anyone else, this is not past and it takes a time to live with the withdrawal symptoms and not rely on one's past and conditioning and react like a programmed robot. Up till this point we have a plan, an implant of ideas and we elaborate enhance our brain washing it still has the fundamental rituals and gambits and we are often enticed to find a stable foundation and a program a stratagem to convince ourselves that we will form an identity a formal core which is 'me or 'I' and find a hook to hang my hat. Then we may start our own brand of karma and time line which we think is original yet is but a mixture and borrowed from other time lines and karmic influences.

Yes realising this can lead to an identity crisis, the crisis of no identity through the realisation that all identities were brought about by cloning and inherited inculcations and a mind that realises all is but taught thought from generations and all brain washing are repeated pounding and repetitions of dominating control mechanisms all suited to the era and religion, culture and ethos at the time of one's birth and carried on with little alteration to death.  Some would say better the karma and time line than no identity. Some imagine that no identity is depressing, boring, stagnant however should one relinquish the perceived starkness of no identity and really truly have a deep visceral or enlightening touch of it, not a blank supressed mind filled with a mantra or such like, not a trance or hypnotic  frequency of such like not sleep, day dream but a beautiful free emptiness of quiet dynamic tranquillity.

Courtesy Deepak Chopra  5

  

This all depends on which way you meditate; there is meditation and meditation, this is another article, however whatever leads you to the stateless state if there is such a domain and there is natural freedom and bliss then one is thoughtless. This is the path to going beyond, behind, underneath or anything, in fact there is no anything and karma and timelines no longer exist.

All thinking is a result of the beliefs, concepts and inculcative inputs and stored in a box named ego or rather a containment energy field. Thinking is a reaction to the past.  

Perhaps we can say that Karma is the result of brainwashing repeated down generations and supposed new ideologies usually a rehash of the past ones, so recognising that brainwashing covers the Spirit, the consciousness of SELF, the Divine and so realising this is the first step, then may follow should I realise this profoundly, I may realise I have no foundation or reality as beforehand even loss of an actual identity, then this may cause anxiety and concern and perhaps returning to some exotic or appealing ideal or cult and so on, then perhaps one is piqued and then slowly relaxes and accepts bit by bit as it were, the need for an identity as such and even tries to make no identity an identity and is not entirely ready to relinquish one's personality and sense of ego self entirely and should one go the whole hog one may find a resounding peace and it maybe clear the Karmic timelines and accrue very little karma until demise.

SHACK aka GEOFF