https://browardmeditation.org/what-is-meditation/overview/
I know I post stuff like this too much, but it just bugs me. I am not well versed in philosophy and when I tried to study it lets just say disaster followed.
A) If I’m reading your link correctly, the author is saying that meditation is looking at your life as a series of experiences, not that your mind only processes things as pictures.
B) Or perhaps the author is using the word “picture” as a metaphor for “visualize” rather than trying to think things out in words and sentences.
C) Or perhaps the phrasing is deliberately indistinct and new-age to lure you into taking the class, where they can load you up with self-improvement books and advanced classes to get more of your money.
Whichever answer is closest to the real truth, you’re overthinking it. If you want to puzzle over something worthwhile, ask yourself why a meditation center in Florida has three testimonials from people in Sweden, and another one from someone in New Jersey, and they only use first names.
It’s reasonable to say the mind is an accumulation of patterns. Not necessarily just pictures, as there are auditory components, olfactory components, etc.; and then there are the higher-level concepts such as emotions and various social constructs (including religion and… philosophy), which our minds also store as patterns.
There are claims that meditation can allow a person to examine their own patterns, and especially their own emotions, in a detached manner and adjust their reactions, etc. to improve their quality of life. (That seems to tie in with some tenets of Buddhism.) But “to know and become Truth”, that sounds like woo.
Seems like they are using the term “picture” to mean a captured experience through any/all senses.
Edit:
I missed the word “accumulation” when I was reading it, so not sure
OP, really you know you’re obsessing over this stuff. You keep trying to get answers from the people here for these weird, way out, new wavy ideas and questions. It’s never gonna satisfy you. There’s not enough time left in my life to explain your life to you. Thoughtful quiet soul searching is all you or anyone has. Try to just accept you’ll never have all the answers. No one or No quack group can give them to you. Just try to be happy. That’s really all anyone can do.
Somehow I don’t think that’s it.
I read a pamphlet and found it said that in the realm of mind you live you die and that’s it. But taking the course and meditation somehow leads to eternity and freedom, I can’t remember much.
My best guess, give how bad I am at philosophy. Is that they regard sensory experience as the false mind, and that how you were before all that is the true you. But somehow I doubt that since humans aren’t born blank slates. They also don’t say how that is false other than their say so. Lastly I scratch my head at “become” truth.
The problem with that is that I think that because I don’t have a counter to them that makes them “right” and that I must accept and live by their words.
Apparently I prize being right above all else. Unfortunately I’m also incredibly credulous and tend to get swept up in stuff like this all the time.
To put it another way I believe they are living the correct way and by not accepting their words I am living life the wrong way or living a lie.
Jeez, I hope you didn’t pay a bunch of cash for this group. It’s not helping you, if they only succeed in making you feel bad and unhappy. You may as well pay someone to stick pins under your fingernails.
That’'s certainly a problematic outlook; you could spend your life distraught at not nailing the Truth from a multitude of philosophical outlooks, the irony being that they’re largely (literally) selling the concept of contentment.
Um, anybody who uses the word “pictures” when they mean “memories” probably doesn’t have the best communication skills.
Either that, or they have The Way We Were stuck in their head.
The weird thing is that I was fine and content before any of this “truth” stuff. The big questions didn’t matter. Now it’s like “if you don’t listen you are living a lie and will suffer”.
You seem to have a questioning and inquiring mind. I think you should devote some of that questioning energy into this statement you just wrote. Where did it come from? What is it based on? Does it make sense? Is it likely to be true?
Why?
Let’s say I tell you I’ve got a magic sword, adding that you thus must accept and live by my words. Let’s also say you’re in no position to counter my claims: you can’t see whether I’ve even got a sword, so you can’t readily dispute that assertion; and you presumably can’t just declare that my sword — if I have one — is magic; and, after all, how can you counter a claim that folks have to accept and live by a guy’s words if he’s got a magic sword? So long as I insist that I’m “right” about that, where the heck can you find proof that I’m “wrong”?
So will you accept and live by my words? Or will you say, er, isn’t that silly?
I got a little lost trying to follow all of that to be honest.
I do, but it’s also fragile. As in I don’t take well when what I build my life on is challenged. I know in some logical corner that the statement I wrote doesn’t make much sense. But it’s the fear of being wrong and living a lie that overwrites all that.
I mean the link mentions a false self that must be cleansed. I don’t know how to respond to such things.
Then it’'s likely not wise to have the foundations of your well-being built on some arbitrarily selected teachings.
You have your basic animal, material existence - eat, shit, be happy, be sad, maybe reproduce, die. Any sense of self beyond that is a construct, be that human or (if you must) divine. Given the plethora of philosophy providers out there, why give credence to one which immediately undermines you from the outset?
Unless you’re living your life in a particularly destructive, dickish way, why do you need ‘cleansing’? And if you could recognise you were living in such a way you would know what needs fixing, and don’t need some spiritual charlatan’s help.
Oh, well, then, let me try again.
You said: “I think that because I don’t have a counter to them that makes them “right” and that I must accept and live by their words.”
So imagine I say “I have a magic sword, so you must accept and live by my words.” Let’s take that one by one: tell me if you can counter each claim.
CLAIM #1: I Have A Sword.
Can you “counter” that? Can you prove I don’t have a sword?
CLAIM #2: My Sword Is Magic.
Can you “counter” that? Can you dispute that my sword is magic?
CLAIM #3: You Should Live By The Words Of A Guy With A Magic Sword.
Can you “counter” that? Do you have any first-hand knowledge about a guy who has a magic sword — specifically, that he shouldn’t be heeded and obeyed?
The first one I can accept.
The second one is on them to prove. While they might have a sword I don’t know if the sword is magic.
The last one doesn’t seem to follow from the first two. But since this is referring to the claims that one is “right” about he correct way to live I don’t think the magic sword but works here.
Because according to them I am living a lie and will suffer unless I listen and follow them. According to them my way is “wrong”.
Why do you care what “they” say?
Out of the billions of “theys” in the world, how do you pick one(s) to listen to?