Choiceless Awareness - opening to the flow of life

[piedwagtail91]

thanks, looks like my musical horizons have just widened
mick

[JonW]

I keep meaning to put together a meditational playlist for this forum, and will do it sometime soon. See also: the book list I've been banging on about for the past nine months.
Sounds a bit mad, I know, but I've recently streamlined my extensive jazz collection onto an iPod which contains my favourite 17,435 jazz tunes. No fluffy numbers and little in the way of self-indulgent "squarkiness" (technical term). Some very beautiful, meditative stuff lies therein. No, really it does.

[Gareth]

I like to think that my musical boundaries are ppretty wide. There is just one genre of music that I have learned to avoid: jazz.

[Steve]

Great topic.

"We realise that the peace we were striving for by trying to control our experience happens when we don't need to control our experience anymore."

Yes.

Steve

[Happyogababe]

I found this post to be incredibly interesting. I am coming to the end of an eight week course (book) which has helped my practice a lot. I do find that, once I've grounded myself, I naturally progress to a period of what you describe (choiceless awareness) which can be a most profound experience.

What I like to do is a (non guided) body scan and a short loving kindness meditation and then I 'just sit' and see what comes.

Thanks for posting this

[debbieko]

There is just one genre of music that I have learned to avoid: jazz.

I'm with you on this one.

[JonW]

To talk about jazz like it's one distinct genre is frankly nuts. The term covers artists as diverse as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Bix, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Sidney Bechet, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, Miles Davis, Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Dave Brubeck...
Happy listening,
Jon

[debbieko]

You have a good point, Jon. Didn't mean to generalize.

[JonW]

Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings from the 1920's are a great entry point for people who have decided they don't like jazz. I defy anybody to remain immune to the joy of that music. Try the song Potato Head Blues for starters...
X
Jon The Jazzman

[Scooter]

I recently tried out choiceless awareness every day for about a month. I found that I enjoyed doing the meditation but the large majority of the meditation was spent watching my thoughts moving from one thing to the other. I was fine with that because that was basically the point of the meditation……to watch whatever you feel or whatever comes up. But what I really started to notice during my daily life was that I really became wrapped up in my thoughts. My thoughts sort of took over. I tried my best to just let them do their thing and not get so caught up in them but they were really taking over.

I ultimately ended up going back to other meditation techniques. I’d like to go back to choiceless awareness because I did enjoy it but perhaps it’s just not the best approach for me right now.