"Historians of consciousness direct their attention mainly to the points at which the vital shifts in sprituality are taking place.

The " inert mass," the stabilizing " ballast" of which cultural systems mostly consist, is generally beyond the scope of their concern,

except as the spheres which the vital shifts, originating elsewhere, influence—

or as the source of mechanisms of suppression or containment of these vital shifts."

"History of consciousness

describe the shifts in coordinates of orientation toward the self, nature, society, and the transcendent

and the forms of organization of knowledge itself—evident in particular assemblies of text.

The crucial issue is vital shifts in what secularists are capable of recognizing as spirituality.

This becomes the crucial issue when a taken-for-granted sense of self, nature, society, and the transcendent is lacking and seriously missed."

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi

The unity which is the establishment of
the characteristic of decay.

letting go.

Freud spoke of the death wish, one as strong as the will to live.

if nature had not inscribed us with the fear of death as well,

i wonder if there'd be any living beings at all.

life: now, balanced between being and non being.

around 1st C. BCE:
unconscious energies emerge, enlighten Homo sapiens consciousness.

some people said that mainstream Buddhism doesn’t go far enough.

believed that people need to not just liberate themselves from suffering but also liberate others and become Buddhas too.

the bodhisattva ideal
a person who wants to become a Buddha by setting out on the great way:

motivated by greater compassion than the Hinayana way

aiming for a complete understanding of reality and greater wisdom."

good night everyone 🙏🏻✌🏽🖖

some moss knitting patterns on my stairway.

and a rorschach cloudscape in the morning.

here's an indication of the exercise and direct knowledge involved.⬇️

WORD:

"breathing as a subject of meditation is difficult, difficult to develop

It is no trivial matter, nor can it be cultivated by trivial persons.

In proportion as continued attention is given to it, it becomes more peaceful and more subtle;

therefore, strong mindfulness and understanding are needed here.

For, as in doing needlework on a piece of fine cloth it is necessary that the needle should be fine, too,

and the instrument for boring the needle’s eye still finer."

"when the meditation subject is connected with counting, it is with the help of that very counting that the mind becomes one-pointed,

just as a boat in a swift current is steadied with the help of a rudder.

When he counts quickly (early), the meditation subject becomes apparent to him as an uninterrupted process.

Then, knowing that it proceeds without interruption, without discerning the breath either inside or outside (the body), he can count quickly in the way already described."cont ⬇️

"In one who goes beyond ten, consciousness comes to depend on the number (instead of the breath).

The mind of one who breaks the series vacillates, and he wonders, “Has the subject of meditation reached completion or not?” Therefore he should count, avoiding these faults."

details:
"a beginner should first give attention to this meditation subject by counting.

And when counting he should not stop short of five nor go beyond ten, neither should he make any break in the series (such as counting “one, three, five.

In one who stops short of five, consciousness, being arisen in a confined space, is restless like a herd of cattle shut in a pen."
⬇️continue

"Herein, “he trains himself” (means) he strives, endeavours thus. The restraint of one so become is here the training of higher virtuous conduct;

the concentration of one so become is the training of higher consciousness;

the understanding of one so become is the training of higher understanding.

So he trains in, cultivates, develops, repeatedly practises these three courses of training in that object, by means of that mindfulness,

by means of that bringing to mind."

it was partly overcast here for the eclipse, but there were moments, like at full cover, almost complete total here.

animals were more blasé than i anticipated, perhaps because it was only about 98%, not total, but i was surprised.

a sutra on mindfulness of breath.

available free on internetarchive.com

re: the black squirrel head left under the bird feeders.

i consulted my possum rehabber friend, who consulted an expert raccoon rehabber, who said definitely NOT a raccoon, because they leave the skin behind. there was none, thankfully, the head was enough 🫣

they said that cats are notorious for leaving the heads behind, can't crunch them. so i'm thinking they're probably right, it's likely it was the new Maine coon in the neighbourhood. first time for a squirrel head, hopefully the last.

"The Sabbath is Saturday, Saturn's Day. Al- bumasar 1 testifies that Saturn is the star of Israel.

In medieval astrology Saturn was believed to be the abode of the devil.

Both Saturn and Ialdabaoth, the demiurge and highest archon, have lion's faces.

Origen elicits from the diagram of Celsus that Michael, the first angel of the Creator, has "the shape of a lion."

"the fish symbol, in the Near and Middle East especially, has a long and colourful prehistory,

from the Babylonian fish-god Oannes and his priests who clothed themselves in fish-skins,

to the sacred fish-meals in the cult of the Phoenician goddess Derceto-Atargatis and the obscurities of the Abercius inscription.

T h e symbol ranges from the redeemer- fish of Manu in farthest India to the Eucharistie fish-feast cele­brated by the "Thracian riders" in the Roman Empire."

@TheDevil
given your history, perhaps you know this already.
"in the hermeneutic writings of the Church Fathers,

Christ has a number of sym­bols or "allegories" in common with the devil. Of these I would mention the lion, snake (colluder, 'viper'), bird (devil = nocturna avis), raven (Christ = nycticorax, 'night-heron'), eagle, and fish.

Lucifer, the Morning Star, means Christ as well as the devil. Apart from the snake, the fish is one of the oldest allegories."

"Only the "complete" per­son knows how unbearable man is to himself.

So far as I can see, no relevant objection could be raised from the Christian point of view against anyone accepting the task of individuation imposed on us by nature, and the recognition of our whole­ness as a binding personal commitment.

If done consciously and intentionally, one avoids all the unhappy consequences of repressed individuation.

one need not find it "happening" to one against one's will.".

"Paradox is a characteristic of all transcendental situations

because it alone gives adequate expression to their indescribable nature.

Whenever the archetype of the self predominates, the in­evitable psychological consequence is a state of conflict vividly exemplified by the Christian symbol of crucifixion—

that acute state of unredeemedness which comes to an end only with the words consummatum est."

"The Christ is the perfect man who is crucified. One could hardly think of a truer picture of the goal of ethical endeavour.

Like the related ideas of atman and tao in the East, the idea of the self is at least in part a product of cognition, grounded
neither on faith nor on metaphysical speculation

but on the experience that under certain conditions the unconscious spon­taneously brings forth an archetypal symbol of wholeness."