Hi my name is Jennee Jay and I have started this fundraiser to help bring my friend Kazandra home. Due to unforeseen circumstances she is stranded in Hawaii with no way to get back to Canada. The devastation in Hawaii is real and it breaks my heart to know she’s stranded there.
So please if you can at least share this post or donate if you have the means to every contribution is greatly appreciated and every little bit helps.
There's now a fundraiser to "help bring my friend Kazandra home. Due to unforeseen circumstances she is stranded in Hawaii with no way to get back to Canada." https://t.co/dMyyrzE4fs I sat down with Kazandra last year about solutions https://t.co/tqMLFeVANk
Perhaps too hot for Youtube and regular podcast outlets, I chat with Kazandra, where we touch briefly on some of the underbellies and undercurrents of humanity’s challenges in order to acknowledge this pain then shifting and placing the main focus and energy on the potentially best and more novel ways, means and methods to solve and dissolve them in the following areas and more:
economy
communities and living
food
environment
health care (systems)
government(s)
various levels of the correctional and justice systems
In this fourth installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion, we planed to, and did look quite a bit at “…Christmas, family, tense conversations, New Year, alcohol, partying – and how they relate to meditation and ethics.”
Amongst other topics we also look at right (or wise, skillful or whole) effort, whole speech, whole livelihood and some who are calling off holidays around this time of year altogether.
*There’s naturally an ongoing open call for meditation (related) questions for the (roughly) monthly “Meditation Q & A” either by the various social media means listed; integratingpresence[at]protonmail.com or Wisdom App to type/ask live.*
Background
Regular, current and past visitors to Integrating Presence may recall the monthly series “Ask Us Anything” I did with Denny K Miu from August 2020 until January 2022 — partially including and continuing on with Lydia Grace as co-host for awhile until March 2022.
For a fewmonthsthereafter I did various Insight Timer live events exploring potential new directions and/or a continuation of the Ask Us Anything format while weaving in other related teachings to these events.
Then, after chats with meditation coach Wendy Nash, it became clear to start a new collaboration similar to “Ask Us Anything” simply and clearly called “Meditation Q & A” especially due to the original intent of the Ask Us Anything’s being “discussions about meditation and related topics.”
[December 4, 2022 Update: Originally published November 11th, 2022 it’s being republished with a new date due to recent podcast publishing challenges and requirements]
I pitched the October 30th, 2022 Insight Timer live event Practical Purity thus:
What’s the importance of true purity? How can we view purity and what can we realistically think, say and do to increase the purity rate from day to day in our everyday mundane lives?
1. freedom from adulteration or contamination 2. freedom from immorality, especially of a sexual nature
a Dictionary definition of purity
Some notes:
mind, emotions, body
optimal energy, perhaps some qualities like:
Balance
Stamina
Tranquility
Lightness
Softness
Flexibility
Uprightness/Authentic/Truthfulness
Proficiency
Puritan origins
Hellfire Club
How can this be transformed?
sex, sexual activity/energy
waking up in the middle of being emotionally entangled
(living) environment inside and out: cleaning, tidying, energetic hygiene
4 nutriments:
food
sense-impressions
volitional thought
consciousness
If fear based driver (activity) then energy will be fear based
‘setting the intention to increase purity and then being able to have the will power and desire to make the necessary changes, as hard as those may be’
Stargates are dual spiral pairs of electromagnetic fields that naturally exist inside planets and suns. The stargate pairs are configured in gender principle with a white hole and black hole pairing that intersects in their electromagnetic spiral in the direct center point where there is a crystal key or seal. The crystal key in the center holds the fire letters, key codes and intelligence for that dimensional spectrum and is what activates the electromagnetic spin in the stargate or portal system. When the stargate pairs activate, the crystal transmits dimensional intelligence and genetic codes and the white hole and black hole merge together to form an interdimensional counter rotating field, which opens into a passage doorway. This center point would be comparable to the inner still point existing inside the human lightbody. In the stargate system, the white hole and black hole merge into a counter rotational spinning field where its center becomes a still point or form constant that is generating the transtime portal.
Stargates are the natural mechanics of how the planetary grid steps down the solar plasma intelligence, higher frequency energies and electromagnetic wave spectrums transmitting from the Source field into the Sun, which is then directed throughout the many Stargates. The Stargates transmit an energetic spectrum of frequencies, moving from the higher to lower dimensions, in order to reach the matter fields and circulate them throughout the planetary grid network. Stargates create spirals of these energies, which are designed on a frequency scale . . .
“are from the God worlds that serve to stabilize the planetary merkaba shields under great duress, were placed during the crisis intervention that began the Guardian Christos mission of Ascension Plan B”:
1D Atlantic Ocean off coast of Sierra Leone, Africa 2D Atlantic west of Conakry, Guinea, West Africa 3D Atlantic east of Amapa, northeast Brazil 4D Algerian border, southwest of Ghat 5D Mid-Atlantic Ocean, Bermuda 6D Machu Picchu, Peru 7D Bay of Biscay, Spain 8D Aral Sea, Kazakhstan 9D Sardinia, Italy 10D Kashmir, Tibet 11D East Iran 12D Xian, China
(stepped down to support base 6 blue ray harmonics designed to support the mass Indigo population):
1D Adare, Ireland 2D Stonehenge, England 3D Seattle, Wash, US 4D Manhattan Island, US 5D Bali, South Pacific 6D Uluru (Ayers Rock), Australia 7D Phoenix, Arizona US 8D Atlantic Ocean, SW of Bermuda 9D Antarctica 10D Baghdad, Iraq 11D Newgrange Ireland 12D Cornwall, UK
1 Malibu beach, Malibu California 2 Belize City, Belize, Central America 3 Goa ,India (1mile of SE coast) 4 Staten Island, NYC, New York 5 SE Tuscany, 7 Miles of Castaglione, Italy) 6 Fiji , South Pacific Ocean 7 Andaman Sea (7miles W of coast Tavoy) 8 Auckland City, North Island, N-Zealand 9 Lake Superior, Canada (2miles of coast Thunder Bay) 10 Hatshepsut Temple, Egypt 11 Epsom Downs, Surrey United Kingdom 12 Cork, Ireland
1D Stargate Sedona, Arizona 35° N, 111.8° W 1D Inner gate Cyprus 35.1264° N, 33.4299° E 2D Stargate Temple Mount 31.7781° N, 35.2360° E 2D Stargate Sarasota, Florida 27.3364° N, 82.5307° W – FPM [“the main access star gate of Sarasota is the controller of all of the other planetary star gates.”] 2D Inner gate Easter Island, Chile (Grual-Grail Point) 3D Stargate Bermuda Triangle 25° N, 71° W 3D Inner gate Johannesburg, South Africa 26.2041° S, 28.0473° E 4D Stargate Giza, Egypt 29.9753º N 31.1376º E 4D Inner gate Central Mexico, Aguascalientes 21.8853ºN, 102.2916º W 5D Stargate Machu Picchu 13.1631º S, 72.545º W 5D Inner Gate Vatican City 41.9029º N, 12.4534º E 6D Stargate Caucasus Mountains at Russia & Georgia border 42.639ºN, 44.155ºE 6D Inner gate Thar Desert at India & Pakistani border 27.47ºN, 70.6ºE 7D Stargate Lake Titicaca 15.9254º S, 69.3354º W 7D Inner gate Ionian Islands, city of Gaios on Paxos 39.2ºN, 20.18333º E 8D Stargate Xian, China 34.3416º N, 108.9398º E 8D Inner gate Lop Nur, border Tibet/China 40.1666º N, 90.5833º E 9D Stargate Tibet Autonomous Region, Bam Co Lake 31.25277778º N, 90.57861111º E 9D Inner gate Valley of the White Horse, Westbury England 51.26361111º N, 2.14694444ºW 10D Stargate Abadan, Iran 30.3ºN, 48.3º E 10D Inner gate Basrah, Iraq 30.5081ºN, 47.7835º E 11D Stargate Vale of Pewsey, Amesbury, Wiltshire, UK (Stonehenge) 51.1679º N, 1.763º W 11D Inner gate Ireland’s Eye, Irish Sea 53.404608º N, 6.063344º W 11D Inner gate St. Ives Bay, Cornwall, UK 50.211º N, 5.48º W (Grual-Grail Point) 12D Stargate Monsegur, southern France 44.65º N, 0.0803º E 12D Inner gate Kauai 22.16444º N, 159.65722º W
[12/10/2022 UPDATE: This post was originally published 1/23/2022. I recently discovered that at that time I did not include the audio file here for the podcast so I had to change the blog post publishing date in order for WordPress to push this out as a new podcast.]
Five short excerpts of some questions I asked from the 8/11/2021 Ajahn Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhuzoom event with Mid-America Buddhist Association about potential paradox with the Cetana Sutta; advice for preserving and/or unifying various Buddhist schools & lineages; strategies for fear of annihilation; on effort involved with vittaka & the relationship with vicara; and if there’s “Right Jhana” and the Buddha’s instructions for Jhana
The questions individually:
About the potential paradox of some suttas instructing various uses of will with the refrain of “no need for an act of will” in the Cetana Sutta: An Act of Will:
2. About pros and cons for both maintaining individual Buddhist schools and lineages and for unifying them:
3. I wonder about how to deal with fear of annihilation even if cognitively knowing this is an extreme:
4. I stumble with my question that I wrote before hand but didn’t read verbatim: How does effort for vitakka wax & wane? How does vitakka turn into, or allow, or go along with vicāra?
On effort involved with vittaka & the relationship with vicara:
5. On if there is a “Right Jhana” mentioned in the suttas and if the Buddha ever gave specific instructions for achieving Jhana:
Before recording this third installment of this ongoing live series inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion Wendy said, and I agreed, unless there are live questions we perhaps ought to chat about “how to practice with ambiguity, uncomfortable truths, people we love but don’t like their ways or words, navigating guilt, shame, humiliation, privilege. . . The problem of wanting to be good, right, ethical, when these are all one side of the coin, how to include the crappy stuff without avoiding it or being overwhelmed. How to rise to the challenge rather than rise above it to avoid the challenge.”
I replied, “the only thing amongst what you’ve mentioned I see and feel has been mostly hijacked for political purposes on both sides is “privilege” so while I can still obviously address, this comes as low preference. All the others are all engines go with preferences weighted to meditative contexts.”
We talk about some of what Wendy laid out prior along with live questions about the two truths teaching and if playing saxophone can be meditation. Amongst many angles of approaching our primary topics of (real life) ambiguity and uncomfortable truths, we also touch on flow state(s) as well as the importance of delivery, tone and body language when communicating.
*There’s naturally an ongoing open call for meditation (related) questions for the (roughly) monthly “Meditation Q & A” either by the various social media means listed; integratingpresence[at]protonmail.com or just showing up on Insight Timer live or Wisdom App to type/ask live.*
Regular, current and past visitors to Integrating Presence may recall the monthly series “Ask Us Anything” I did with Denny K Miu from August 2020 until January 2022 — partially including and continuing on with Lydia Grace as co-host for awhile until March 2022.
For a fewmonthsthereafter I did various Insight Timer live events exploring potential new directions and/or a continuation of the Ask Us Anything format while weaving in other related teachings to these events.
Then, after chats with meditation coach Wendy Nash, it became clear to start a new collaboration similar to “Ask Us Anything” simply and clearly called “Meditation Q & A” especially due to the original intent of the Ask Us Anything’s being “discussions about meditation and related topics.”
We did not start with brief instructions along with a discussion beforehand as I mentioned on this blog post earlier, but we did hold a discussion afterwards even though it’s not on the recording.
The recording starts off with a body scan then we get into awareness practices of mindfulness of body, feeling, mind, mind objects, and awareness itself followed by the sublime abidings of loving-kindness, compassion, vicarious joy and equanimity.
And for completeness sake, for a description, I edited in a starting mediation bell as well as doing significant noise removal, loudness normalization and equalization.
Although it is now somewhat listenable, it still leaves a lot to be desired. For reference, one can hear the unedited persistent hiss of background noise after the ending bell, but that’s only one version of it as it changed significantly a few times as these noises can when recording live in a public space not specifically designed for audio.
Anyway what I guess I’m getting at is if any professional audio engineers would like to donate their time and expertise to cleaning up the audio please reach out at integratingpresence [at] protonmail [dot] com and I’ll send the source file.
Overall though the meditation was well received in real life and on Insight Timer live. I have even been invited back right away even though I may not return to do so for quite awhile due to other positive life circumstances.
Audio: An Integrating Presence Meditation: Awareness And Sublime Abidings — December 15, 2022, At Rootbound
‘Let none deceive another, or despise any being in any state.’
from the metta sutta
Does this line in the metta Sutta — ‘Let none deceive another, or despise any being in any state.’ — mean action should be taken (to prevent deception)? If so, how and to what extent? (Deception often happens as protection or retribution, btw)
To further muddy the waters even some truthful statements can mislead, or can at least contribute to being misleading. Further, being (partially) truthful in certain ways, and in certain contexts — like combining misinformation and/or omitting other truths — can even shroud, coverup and/or obscure other truthfulness.
And what ought to be done if witnessing some being fooled without the conscious intent to fool? Here’s an possible example: someone’s zoom background image looking like it might be the actual real life background of what’s behind one in relation to one’s camera but it’s actually a custom chosen zoom background without any conscious awareness of potential deception. Or, I’ve been in the woods on zoom before and someone asked if I was using a zoom background image and I said no, and moved around to show it wasn’t.
I’ve also asked a few I suspected of being fools, “how do you deal with fools?” Is this a wise approach since I was ambiguous to whether or not I was accusing them of being a fool? It may have been more clear that I was trying to find this out though and/or glean wisdom from them.
Two zoom videos spliced together, largely unedited. The hemming and hawing about unfavorable conditions in the podcast audio version is edited out to save listeners time
In the second installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion we primarily address what meditation actually is while spiraling up, around and back on this topic to also include:
Examples of what is and isn’t meditation
Mind training
Intention
Stop being aware exercise
Consciousness
Awareness
Focus
Familiarity with the mind
Heart qualities
Wisdom
Aspiration
Development
Self-help
Addressing ego’s yearning for control
Vipassana
Investigation and inquiry
Samatha
Con-CENTration
Stillness in the eye of the storm vs excluding
Western notion of concentration being tight with a lot of effort
Jhana
Mind spaciousness
Pros and Cons of goals and attainments
Wendy’s practicing with viewing and responding to retreat organizers canceling and not returning all the deposit
Ego:
Positive ego
Negative ego
Superior ego
Inferier ego
Spiritual ego
Responses to the statement “Emotions are thoughts” in Wendy’s discussions with a meditator:
Dogs crying tears of joys for their owners after long separation
*There’s naturally an ongoing open call for meditation (related) questions for the (roughly) monthly “Meditation Q & A” either by the various social media means listed on the site; integratingpresence[at]protonmail.com or just showing up on Insight Timer live or Wisdom App to type/ask live. It’s cliché but there really are no dumb questions.*
Meditation Q & A Series Background
Regular, current and past visitors to Integrating Presence may recall the monthly series “Ask Us Anything” I did with Denny K Miu from August 2020 until January 2022 — partially including and continuing on with Lydia Grace as co-host for awhile until March 2022.
For a fewmonthsthereafter I did various Insight Timer live events exploring potential new directions and/or a continuation of the Ask Us Anything format while weaving in other related teachings to these events.
Then, after chats with meditation coach Wendy Nash, it became clear to start a new collaboration similar to “Ask Us Anything” simply and clearly called “Meditation Q & A” especially due to the original intent of the Ask Us Anything’s being “discussions about meditation and related topics.”
