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- Summary : Waking Up
Summary : Waking Up
[ NOTE: These book summaries are designed as captures for what I’ve read, and aren’t necessarily great standalone resources for those who have not read the book. Their purpose is to ensure that I capture what I learn from any given text, so as to avoid realizing years later that I have no idea what it was about or how I benefited from it. ]
The goal of meditation is to remove the concept of self
One of the main concepts is being able to observe thoughts enter into consciousness as opposed to feel yourself think them
The idea is to be able to experience consciousness as it is, and not as yourself experiencing it (i.e., without a self)
The output of this technique is to be able to separate oneself from the stress and pressure of everyday life and emotional / physical pain
This can be done by realizing that you are not experiencing it simply because you do not exist. It then just becomes another experience in the world for you to examine
Another main concept of meditation is realizing that happiness isn’t tied to things, and in fact those ties can hurt happiness. True happiness is happiness with nothing but your consciousness. Not even your thoughts. Just being.
[ NOTE: This is a crude summary as 1) it’s extremely hard to summarize meditation and consciousness, and 2) I’m a complete novice at this, so my notes might be really amateur. ]
I am taking as a primary goal of 2015 to learn how to meditate.
CREATED: SEPTEMBER 2014
[ Find my other book summaries here. ]