Frank's Summary

Piet, I appreciate your feedback very much. And I also think it would be nicer if the experiment was more of a community experience, for example by relation more to each other's posts. I'll respond to your Piet's comments on "taking refuge" and devotion. I agree that it would be interesting to explore how they may relate to wh. Devotion sounds quite juicy, hypothesis sounds quite dry. So what is a juicy way to work with wh.

Piet wrote: "Taking refuge is a wonderful method, but it is not based on a hypothesis but a belief. For the wh, there is a subtle difference, namely a belief that it is appropriate to work with the notion of perfection as a hypothesis." You are making a very good point here, that merely believing is not very useful and testing preferable. However I believe taking refuge can also be done in a more complete way, then just holding a belief. Yes, maybe there is a jump of faith, but the interesting thing is there is a jump. Taking refuge in the wh, taking refuge, in the that "everything is perfect" is an action, more then a just belief. I experience it as surrender. Also concretely I experience it as taking refuge in my innermost nature, which is perfect and flawless and this is how a version of wh becomes experientially concrete for me. In "everything is perfect", not only the word "perfect" but also the word "everything" raises a very interesting question. What is everything?

My innermost nature, prior to my spiritual investigations unacknowledged, is now clearly part of my conscious world, so part of "everything". The notion of everything has expanded. But more importantly, that life goes on smoothly, perfectly if you wish after surrender, surprises my cautious ego every time. Slowly my faith in the perfection of things grows through experiment. I assume wh holds, I act on it and collect evidence from how that is. Sounds reasonably scientific.

Piet wrote: "Keeping our mind open by NOT accepting either, neither believing nor disbelieving the content of the wh, this requires real courage, a lot more than we may think at first." Open mind sounds good, when it is then open, but keeping it open, means making an effort to keep it open by experimenting, and investigating is tricky. I am concerned that too much investigation can become a habit and mind trip in and of itself, in short an obstacle to the practice. It really becomes a matter of balancing efforting and non-efforting and here surrender can be a very interesting option. This week in my practice I worked with the instruction from Timothy Conway below, that I think is marvelous.

"An overall bit of wisdom I would share with anyone interested in the practice of meditation: Let God meditate you! Let the One great Power, call THIS whatever you wish (God, Buddha-Nature, Tao, Brahman, Life, Consciousness) which is already doing your life, digesting your meals, growing your cells, etc., also meditate you in sublime peace, relaxation and radiance... Enjoy!.."

Working with an intention like "Let God meditate you", or "Let God do my meditation.", instead of "me", turned out to be surprisingly liberating for my practice. I recommend it. Usually, even when my goal is to get beyond my conventional beliefs my meditator/investigator-self works overtime and that is straining and ultimately defeats the purpose. When "God" does your practice conventional time may sometimes dissolve and sometimes not. You don't know. So what? However there is deeper peace that comes from the fact when either is OK, illusion or truth. I can relax from my well known samsaric need of manipulating my experience, even if it is for a spiritual purpose. Developing trust in wh is a beautiful vehicle here.

Piet, in reading some of your posts I find that the scientific metaphors around testing an hypothesis, have, at least for me, one weakness. They play into my hyperactive scientist mind and can lack heart.

Today I had a beautiful wh experience. While being driven back from a beautiful spiritual place to my house, I fell in love with world and the people in it (for half an hour). Watching out of the car window, What a marvelous show. I felt a warmth for houses and people that reminds me of a warmth when I see a Chinese ink landscape painting with a huge landscape, and a small, small house in it. So human, so fragile, so beautiful, so lovable, and in harmony with nature out of which it comes. I also appreciated the fact that humans have limitations. Because you can't just beam the body in a second somewhere, you have the hustle and bustle with putting people on a Southern Indian bus. But if you really look at it, it's gorgeous. You have a bus driver who makes a living, people who bring sandwiches for each other on the trip. A cranky old uncle may grumble a bit. Would you want the world to be any other way? When Hollywood script writers invent their super heroes they always give them weaknesses, else simply no story could be told. At these I feel that all is well, a variant of WH, more on the juicy and heart side of things.

In conclusion I think it might be interesting to express the juicy side of wh. What about relations people and other beings? Devotion and compassion could naturally fit into this. I'd love for us to explore this interplay further.