Hello guys.
When meditating I sometimes focus on feelings of static or blood flow in the head, skin and eyes along with breath.
Is this an accepted practice?
It's not what you focus on, it's how you focus on it.
And that much more determines how accepted it is.
So we only accept objective awareness of objects.
So focus isn't enough, because you can focus on something and still be subjective about it, still be attached to it.
You can still conceive in regards to it, proliferate or extrapolate upon it, project
give rise to projections about it.
So all of those things are perfectly valid objects of meditation.
But are you actually meditating?
Because simply focusing is not enough.
The key is what we call sati.
So it's how you understand the word sati.
If you want, I talked in a few places in my book.
I have a book now.
Isn't that funny?
How ridiculous.
I wrote a book where people helped me write a book.
Practical, what is it called?
Lessons in Practical Buddhism.
I have it on my tablet.
That's crazy.
I think I should take it down.
It's embarrassing to have a book.
People putting my book on a tablet, that's almost scary.
But yeah, I think there's some, you know, I am happy about some of the things that are in there.
Not all of it, but it's going to take more work.
But some of the things that are in there are what I wanted to say.
So some of the things in there about septi could help you, I think could really help people understand this from my point of view, from our tradition, what we mean and why we mean what we mean about the word septi, about mindfulness.
Yeah, the breath is a good example.
I think the breath, you have to be careful because, well, not exactly careful, but you have to distinguish between the conceptual breath and the reality because the breath doesn't exist.
It's not a reality.
The reality is the experience of heat, cold, pressure, acidity in the body.
All of these experiences arise and cease at a single location.
So the breath doesn't come into the body.
That's not ultimate experience.
Ultimate reality is a momentary experience at some point in the body.