Charlotte Joko Beck 466 words, 21K views, 8 comments
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On Jun 17, 2009iJourney Content Editor wrote :
Experiencing nonverbally is powerful. I remember one instance when I was meditating through a painful experience. I was just watching it and it felt like what Joko Beck describes here as walking on that edge. Though certainly not with full equanimity, it was nonetheless experiencing the situation mostly nonverbally. Out of untrained instinct, I remember moving away from the pain (i.e. away from the razor’s edge), and immediately, the experience became verbal. It was almost as if I couldn’t verbalize while being on that edge.
An interesting quote I've heard says, “Pleasure puts you to sleep. Pain wakes you up. If you don’t want to suffer, don’t go to sleep.” That makes sense to me, but this only relates to the “pain” side of the coin: I think it is valuable to explore walking on the razor’s edge when you are experiencing the other side, “pleasure.” And to me, walking on that edge in that way is even more important, and it seems like the same pointers given in this thought apply to the domain of pleasurable states: pure, nonverbal experiencing, at the present-moment, non-dual edge of being.
On Jun 17, 2009 iJourney Content Editor wrote :
Experiencing nonverbally is powerful. I remember one instance when I was meditating through a painful experience. I was just watching it and it felt like what Joko Beck describes here as walking on that edge. Though certainly not with full equanimity, it was nonetheless experiencing the situation mostly nonverbally. Out of untrained instinct, I remember moving away from the pain (i.e. away from the razor’s edge), and immediately, the experience became verbal. It was almost as if I couldn’t verbalize while being on that edge.
An interesting quote I've heard says, “Pleasure puts you to sleep. Pain wakes you up. If you don’t want to suffer, don’t go to sleep.” That makes sense to me, but this only relates to the “pain” side of the coin: I think it is valuable to explore walking on the razor’s edge when you are experiencing the other side, “pleasure.” And to me, walking on that edge in that way is even more important, and it seems like the same pointers given in this thought apply to the domain of pleasurable states: pure, nonverbal experiencing, at the present-moment, non-dual edge of being.