[Newsbot]

Title: U.S. Marines studying how meditation could make them tougher
Category: Military
Posted By: Hyack
Date: 2013-01-19 12:45:38

[andyt]

Good idea. Should help them focus in battle and reduce ptsd. But, if it gets the jarheads interested in Buddhism, they may not be quite as oorah about going into senseless wars. Also possible they'll see a conflict between this and God, Country, Corps, but otoh there have been many Christians who have learned Vipassana because unfortunatley their own tradition has mostly let it go.

[Public_Domain]

[desertdude]

So now is a Yoga mat going to be a compulsory part of a marine kit ?

[Curtman]

Meditation is how you practice concentration.

$1:

"Some people might say these are Eastern-based religious practices but this goes way beyond that," said Jeffery Bearor, the executive deputy of the Marine Corps training and education command at its headquarters in Quantico, Virginia. "This is not tied to any religious practice. This is about mental preparation to better handle stress."

[andyt]

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

Reminds me of all the psy-warfare tactics "studied" by the Americans and the Soviets...

Why?

[Public_Domain]

[kilroy]

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

Those who rule the mind, rule the world.

Mediation is a tool, It can be used to focus the mind on a variety of human endeavours. If you take a bunch of young people and teach them how to kill better through meditation, you should be careful what you ask for.

It would be betrter to teach our leaders to meditate in an effort to better understand the world around them and how we need to work out our problems without having to kill each other.

[Gunnair]

desertdude desertdude:

So now is a Yoga mat going to be a compulsory part of a marine kit ?

Bottom one is for the Marines. Army/Navy are the top two...

[andyt]

kilroy kilroy:

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

Those who rule the mind, rule the world.

Mediation is a tool, It can be used to focus the mind on a variety of human endeavours. If you take a bunch of young people and teach them how to kill better through meditation, you should be careful what you ask for.

Developing focus is only the beginning stage of mindfulness. You need focus to maintain "choiceless awareness." This develops equanimity as you watch phenomena arise and pass away, arise and pass away. Here's Shinzen Young (I've sat in his retreats) on the subject:

$1:

Whenever one brings mindfulness and equanimity to ordinary experience, an evolutionary process takes place, consisting of two aspects. One aspect is insight and the other is purification. Let's talk first about what we mean by purification. We all have within us sources of unhappiness. You notice that very quickly when you sit down to meditate. You'll feel just fine and then there will be something that will make your world less than perfect. You get sleepy, or your mind wanders, or this or that emotion comes up, negative tapes start to come up, traumatic memories appear, you feel angry, you want to jump out of your skin, you're running all sorts of fantasies, doing things to divert yourself, you're aware of inner conflicts. We are chock full of sources of unhappiness which are completely foreign to our being. It is not in the nature of consciousness to suffer. However, we have acquired certain limiting forces: cravings and aversions, painful memories, inappropriate yet habitual behavior patterns, and so forth.

When we sit down and do this practice that's all going to come up. So you don't always feel good while doing Vipassana meditation. In fact you might feel lousy. I know, having heard that, some of you may want to leave right now. You say, "I thought meditation is supposed to make a person feel great." Yes, in the long run, but an important aspect of meditation is to sit down and start working through the sources of not feeling great, whatever they may be. You literally eat your way through them, one after another, after another, after another. How? By just being mindful and having equanimity, that's all. Whatever comes up, you'll observe it and you'll do nothing. You'll be very aware and that's all.

Now that may seem trivial at best, stupid at worst. But it is actually quite powerful. Let's say that one of these blockages to happiness comes up as we meditate—a negative tape, a craving, an aversion, an inner conflict, a congealing. If we reject it and say "I don't want you," we're pushing it away. But in order to reject it we have to "touch" it, by pushing on it. If on the other hand we identify with it, buy into it and let it pull us away, then again we've "touched" it. As soon as one touches it, one recharges the energy supply of that negativity. If you try to push it away or you let it pull you, you are identifying with it, touching it. Any touch whatsoever means that this particular negativity is able to 'recharge its individual battery' as it were, from your general pool of your energy. But if we don't touch it then it has to play itself out on its own power source which is quite finite and if we continue to be alert and simply observe, eventually the intrinsic energy source of that negativity dissipates and it goes away forever. It gets worked through.

This process of "watching negativity to death" is called purification. As we work through the blockages to happiness, our intrinsic happiness—the nature of our consciousness which is effortless effulgent joy—becomes evident. If the dirt is cleaned away from the window, the sun that was always there is able to shine through. The spiritual reality which is the nature of ordinary experience is able to shine forth.

The soldiers will still kill when needed, but my guess is that they will be less likely to overstep the bounds like pissing on corpses or killing civilians, and more likely to question the validity of the war they are fighting. That's my hope anyway. Plus a lot less mentally damaged soldiers coming home.

kilroy kilroy:

It would be betrter to teach our leaders to meditate in an effort to better understand the world around them and how we need to work out our problems without having to kill each other.

Certainly couldn't hurt.

[desertdude]

Gunnair Gunnair:

desertdude desertdude:

So now is a Yoga mat going to be a compulsory part of a marine kit ?

Bottom one is for the Marines. Army/Navy are the top two...

Hmmm...are they also redoing rest of the uniform to match with the pink camo ?

[Gunnair]

[kilroy]

andyt andyt:

Developing focus is only the beginning stage of mindfulness. You need focus to maintain "choiceless awareness." This develops equanimity as you watch phenomena arise and pass away, arise and pass away. Here's Shinzen Young (I've sat in his retreats) on the subject:

$1:

Whenever one brings mindfulness and equanimity to ordinary experience, an evolutionary process takes place, consisting of two aspects. One aspect is insight and the other is purification. Let's talk first about what we mean by purification. We all have within us sources of unhappiness. You notice that very quickly when you sit down to meditate. You'll feel just fine and then there will be something that will make your world less than perfect. You get sleepy, or your mind wanders, or this or that emotion comes up, negative tapes start to come up, traumatic memories appear, you feel angry, you want to jump out of your skin, you're running all sorts of fantasies, doing things to divert yourself, you're aware of inner conflicts. We are chock full of sources of unhappiness which are completely foreign to our being. It is not in the nature of consciousness to suffer. However, we have acquired certain limiting forces: cravings and aversions, painful memories, inappropriate yet habitual behavior patterns, and so forth.

When we sit down and do this practice that's all going to come up. So you don't always feel good while doing Vipassana meditation. In fact you might feel lousy. I know, having heard that, some of you may want to leave right now. You say, "I thought meditation is supposed to make a person feel great." Yes, in the long run, but an important aspect of meditation is to sit down and start working through the sources of not feeling great, whatever they may be. You literally eat your way through them, one after another, after another, after another. How? By just being mindful and having equanimity, that's all. Whatever comes up, you'll observe it and you'll do nothing. You'll be very aware and that's all.

Now that may seem trivial at best, stupid at worst. But it is actually quite powerful. Let's say that one of these blockages to happiness comes up as we meditate—a negative tape, a craving, an aversion, an inner conflict, a congealing. If we reject it and say "I don't want you," we're pushing it away. But in order to reject it we have to "touch" it, by pushing on it. If on the other hand we identify with it, buy into it and let it pull us away, then again we've "touched" it. As soon as one touches it, one recharges the energy supply of that negativity. If you try to push it away or you let it pull you, you are identifying with it, touching it. Any touch whatsoever means that this particular negativity is able to 'recharge its individual battery' as it were, from your general pool of your energy. But if we don't touch it then it has to play itself out on its own power source which is quite finite and if we continue to be alert and simply observe, eventually the intrinsic energy source of that negativity dissipates and it goes away forever. It gets worked through.

This process of "watching negativity to death" is called purification. As we work through the blockages to happiness, our intrinsic happiness—the nature of our consciousness which is effortless effulgent joy—becomes evident. If the dirt is cleaned away from the window, the sun that was always there is able to shine through. The spiritual reality which is the nature of ordinary experience is able to shine forth.

The soldiers will still kill when needed, but my guess is that they will be less likely to overstep the bounds like pissing on corpses or killing civilians, and more likely to question the validity of the war they are fighting. That's my hope anyway. Plus a lot less mentally damaged soldiers coming home.

kilroy kilroy:

It would be betrter to teach our leaders to meditate in an effort to better understand the world around them and how we need to work out our problems without having to kill each other.

Certainly couldn't hurt.

I hope you are right in your hope, and thanks for the Shinzen Young quote. I just don't expect the marine corp master sargeants are going to be heavily emphasizing the benefits of effortless effulgent joy. There might be a drive for a more efficient program, less focussed on personal improvement...

[andyt]

kilroy kilroy:

I hope you are right in your hope, and thanks for the Shinzen Young quote. I just don't expect the marine corp master sargeants are going to be heavily emphasizing the benefits of effortless effulgent joy. There might be a drive for a more efficient program, less focussed on personal improvement...

Believe me, Buddhist teachers aren't preaching effortless effulgent joy, except as a possible outcome. Non-attachment is the goal, "cool boredom" as Suzuki Roshi called it. (As he was dying of cancer, his words were: "suffering Buddha, suffering Buddha". Basically it's a more sophisticated version of "embrace the suck."

The thing with meditation is in order to derive any benefits, you have to practice it every day and for a long time. I can't see the guys in some forward base taking time for it, and I wonder how realistic the Marines are being here, unless they do put it into the daily schedule of any soldiers who are able to do it. In meditation retreats we would get up at 0430 and basically sit until 2130 with some breaks in between. I guess if they get the soldiers to do it first thing upon rising for at least 1/2 an hour and same with last thing before bed, that would be good. At some point the idea is that you're basically meditating 24/7, just being mindful all the time. That tho, takes most people a very long time of concentrated effort.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

But is it Vipassana or is that an educated "assumption" based on the fact it's a Buddhism-inspired concept?

Not trying to be a smart-ass here, only asking because I use a couple of Eastern meditative techniques for my ethereal experiences and the meditation aspect isn't anything like that described by Shinzen Young.