The meditative placement of attention is the contemplative perspective assumed during meditative practice. Intentions in the practice may vary, as meditation has phases, which are not necessarily sequential. However, some fundamental elements may be assumed as prevailing. Practitioners, for instance, assume stable postures that are balanced, and in accord with gravity. The postures, whether lying down, sitting, or standing provide stability, support relaxation, as well as the ability to breathe comfortably. Whether or not the eyes are left open or closed, the attention is consistently directed towards experiential awareness, inclusive of sensations, feelings, and observations. Inferences, rumination, and fantasizing are dispelled as impersonal, passing events. All events are recognized as cosmic in origin, rather than personal. The attitude is alert and radically accepting. Awareness is open, responding to perceptions impartially. These essential elements persist in varied meditative practices like heightened stillness, progressive relaxation, deep breathing and chanting.
As practice ripens, intentions evolve towards non-duality. The meditative placement of attention courts CosmicConsciousness. It may also be understood as CosmicConsciousness itself, as it elicits the same, in varying degrees. So, importantly, the meditative placement of attention is always existential in scope, no matter what phase is being practiced. Though grounded in the immediate experience, its range encompasses realities prior to birth, subsequent to birth, death, and beyond. This scope is always implicit, when addressing the meditative placement of attention. Understanding this factor provides essential orientation.
This existential range may, of course, be considered implausible, to the Western indoctrinated person, who may still maintain tendencies to organize existence as materially based, chemically determined, mechanically organized, and other than the Self. This is the dualistic world view, associated with the European Enlightenment, which has fostered a great deal of scientific breakthroughs. With good reason, the dualistic perspective is compelling, though now recognized as limited. Interestingly, quantum physics, which evolved from the sciences of the 18th and 19th centuries, has arrived at an understanding that matter is not freestanding. It is relational, born of a synthesis between the perceiver and the perceived. The doctrines of Newtonian materialism, that assume a freestanding objective field, have been overturned.
The meditative placement of attention, like the developing field of quantum physics, reaches beyond dualistic conceptions, accommodating the unfathomable. Meditation is characterized as “unknowing,” in both Eastern and Western mystical traditions. Here, unknowing does not result in frustration, but orientation. “Not this, nor that,” characterizes the Hindu teaching on the meditative placement of attention. Zen Buddhism, especially the sudden enlightenment school known as Rinzai Zen, employ unsolvable riddles (koans) to foster meditative placement. Christianity, too, has a rich, mystical tradition, based on contemplations of the Godhead, through the lens of unknowingness. These traditions do not discard conceptual knowledge, but integrate it with non-conceptual awareness, which reveals a field that is indivisible, beyond measure and description. These practices foster unprecedented realizations, that reach beyond dualistic modalities of living, opening new possibilities for ourselves, and the planet.
Cesar
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