Black Magic Mind Training and You

The topic is less insane than the title shows, but eh...I wanted an entertaining title that got the general idea down.

So...mind training. This is a thing. Many people have their own ideas about it and how to do and a significant portion of quite a few religions is focused on such things.

So now I must ask...What do you think of the concept in general? And about specific methods? What methods do you yourself use if you do?

Also please for the love of god do not turn this into a debate. Make it a sharing of ideas and what you do. Structured argument isn't what I am interested in at the moment.

So if you have missed my constant shouting of "HAY I AM BUDDHIST DONATE YOUR LIFE TO HOTEI TODAY AND GET FREE BUTTER" I am Buddhist. A Theravadan of a school very similar to Thai Forest (or perhaps it is Thai Forest. It is by far the most popular Thai school in the West) to be painfully specific about matters. We've got two main methods which are the two types of meditation. Vipassana and Samatha.

Samatha is called concentration meditation in English and it is by far the most commonly practiced form. Its purposes are three fold. The first is the therapeutic calming thing. Meditation is believed to be very good for calming yourself and learning how exactly to calm yourself down in stressful situations. Along with other unverified health benefit claims that I put little stock into. Because of this Samatha is a thing for therapy. The next purpose is building concentration. The ability to focus on some object or idea or task without being pulled away by all the distracting crap around you. This ability is considered vital to Vipassana since Vipassana is the art of sitting on your ass and thinking about how life works. The third purpose is the build awareness. You don't block out the world. You remain aware of it and you note things that happen. You just don't let distractions get the best of you and learn to tame the monkey mind.

Vipassana has a different purpose that one can see in its English name. Insight meditation. How this works I have absolutely no idea. It seems that everyone has their own idea on how exactly one gains insight and wisdom from this. One person may it is by meditating on the five aggregates and someone else will say something completely different and this isn't getting into whether or not we are being impossibly strict on how exactly you're supposed to be sitting and breathing and dear god I've gone cross eyed. What I can make out is that any form of Vipassana involves deep and focused contemplation on something in search for understanding of how exactly the thing and life as a whole works. You are to then use this fancy wisdom stuff you have and apply it to your life and being a good person which means being an active and helpful dude who doesn't lie or treat people like shit. One who sees the flaws and beauty in everything and has some sort of awesome detached state of mind that somehow also isn't completely detached from reality.

And then we have Koans which I don't quite understand very well, but then I know very little about Zen, Soto, and Rinzai.

Another thing I like to do is use nonsense logic when talking to people. The thing sounds completely stupid to me and others, but the purpose is to throw eggs at you during your routine walk and see how you solve this bizarre problem. A sort of wake up call and attempt to see what solutions you can think of using dream logic. To get you to always think outside the box even when that out of the boxness is complete bullshit. A fluid mind is a good mind (though only if also properly kept in check). That and personal amusement because things that run on bizarre logic or illogic are amusing things to ponder.

Sorry, what does this have to do with black magic?

Absolutely nothing. I already said I only picked the title because I liked the sound of it and it mentioned "MIND TRAINING AND YOU".

Well, it's probably as valid as psychochemical enhancements.

> What do you think of the concept in general? And about specific methods? What methods do you yourself use if you do?

Assuming it could be done en masse and cheaply, the concept is very interesting. it could enhance human capability enormously. The method actually not important, i don't mind using hipnosys while drugged if i could have photographic memory at need or never have to be panicked on danger.

Anders Sandberg have some idea about this :

• Mental Tech = http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/InfoWar/mental.html
• Psychodesign = http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/Game/BigIdeas/psychodesign.html

while I'm fairly skeptical about anything vaguely 'new agely'. I think that we have more control over a lot of 'involutivity' bodily actions than western physicians give us credit for -My girlfriend for example was able to improve her eye sight with some simple exercises- it's just a matter of having knowledge and self discipline.

edited 22nd May '11 9:36:17 PM by joeyjojo

^ I think it's called "psychosomatic" or somesuch.

Also, was expecting this to be about actual Black Magic. /is disappoint

Interesting

New research shows that musicians’ brains are highly developed in a way that makes the musicians alert, interested in learning, disposed to see the whole picture, calm, and playful. The same traits have previously been found among world-class athletes, top-level managers, and individuals who practice transcendental meditation.

http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/05/18/do-musicians-have-better-brains/

You have just learned a valuable lesson about why you shouldn't care and work towards selling your soul to Hotei, mellon! Expectations can lead to disappointment therefore LET HOTEI EAT YOU.

I've been taught "meditation" in terms of completely clearing my mind of thoughts. In the moment, I feel no emotion other than a vague calm—it's like what I imagine it would be like to be a statue, or a piece of furniture. When I come back to myself, I tend to be scared shitless of the Loss of Identity involved. I only do it when I'm exhausted but for whatever reason can't sleep, since it can substitute (badly) for rest.

(I should mention that I learned this in a Nature Study class. The teachers were kinda hippies, and they were surprisingly well-read about local Native American tribes, but I don't think they had much knowledge of Buddhism.)

edited 22nd May '11 10:17:12 PM by feotakahari

I've never really been scared by the loss of identity and the becoming as close to as the simply is as you can manage when coming out of it. I like that I have no other emotion than that vague calm. That is Nibbana and I find it to be a nice state of mind...Though the trick to reaching it truly is apparently not wanting it. Which is the ultimate paradox of Buddhism. To be truly Enlightened you must not want it in the slightest and must simply be.

I would have issues with focusing on my breaths though because over time your breathing tends to become very slow and light during meditation which would often led to me going "OMG I AM NOT BREATHING AND I AM GOING TO DIE" followed by a rather deep breath. I only just recently noticed that I've overcome that problem...I am not sure when it stopped being an issue but it has so yay.

My other common focus point in meditation is the ticking of a clock. I either count it as "One, two" or say mentally "Tick, tock".

I like this one point that I reach when I become completely aware of what I am going to do next. So I will simultaneously be thinking "I am counting my fifth breath" and "I am intending to count my sixth breath". For whatever reason I find this to be very interesting.

As it is I am finding that I am growing better at reaching my calm point and remaining within that calm point. It's a vague calm where I feel detached from my body and just sort of...there.

^Oooh. They were? Huh.

edited 22nd May '11 10:25:21 PM by Aondeug

I know you can force youself to completely change the way you think.
You can also completely change the way your brain processes information.
The problem is that it needs upheld repetition for roughly 1-2 weeks to start sticking. After it starts sticking it has become the new default.
The only thing I ever did was to change how I focus. I basically attempted to go from "can focus to" and moves to "permanent focus", and I would say i failed at my goal. Regardless, I did succed on changing my perception of the world with it.
I noticed after changing I had no idea on how to reverse the effect, and thus it stuck.
Mind you: The effect is minor, just a small change related to how I focus.
But I could do something like it on a larger scale, like how I read my muscles, or anything really. I think.... The problem is to repeat it constantly, and it gets harder the less physical it gets.

I've been messing a little with memory tricks and fast calculation in the past, and I might take it up again in the future.

I am not very good yet; but in any case, these are basically just party tricks, nothing more.

Other than that... well, I work with (some kinds of) nonstandard logics. It's a fun topic, and you have to learn to think in rather oblique ways in order to do it correctly, but it's nothing magical or "spiritual".

Although some times it takes me a little to switch my mode of thinking from these logics to the classical one — I mean, "(A or A) is equivalent to A"? What? Why should that even be true?

edited 23rd May '11 1:06:44 AM by Carciofus

I've been using a variation of the Bensen Relaxation Technique for years. I've combined it with a little bit of yoga and some techniques out of some Zen books I've read. Koans are fascinating.

Awhhh, I thought this would be a Charlie Sheen thread.

Ah yoga...Yoga is fun. We have it at the wat sometimes if someone is around to lead a small session so that we can have physical training along with our mental one. The women in charge of this aren't always around though. DR. METTA. MS. NANCY. I MISS YOU AND YOUR YOGA THAT KILLS ME.