Loving bliss as friends
Friends,
I've been exploring questions and experiences of loving bliss :), partly from a nontheistically friendly perspective, and have been posting these ideas to this web page - "Loving bliss and practices to elicit this." Enjoy!
I'm curious what you think about loving bliss, and possibly to facilitate generating a conversation among friends about this. I enjoy exploring and generating practices toward these qualities of experience, so my 'love bliss letters' are an exploration in progress. Let me know what you think, and how we might or can generate qualities of loving bliss, in the ways we want, and when you want to.
While the following definition doesn't fully explain what loving bliss is for me, it does involve experiences that are deeply, gratefully harmonizing, and reciprocally appreciative and affectionate, both with a friend or friends, and alone, as well as profoundly and naturally high at the same time, and which are ongoing, biological, 'flow' experiences. What is loving bliss for you? For me, it may be, metaphorically, '... the valley of love and delight.'
One way in to explore loving bliss experientially might be to imagine what the drug Ecstasy - (MDMA - methylene_dioxy_meth_amphetamine) - might do {~> oxytocins~dopamine}, say, over a seven hour time span, and without any side effects, with friends. Another way into exploring loving bliss experientially might be to explore what gives rise to your happiness, joy or enjoyment (listening to a favorite piece of music?) in your own life, and then cultivate and 'grow' that experience profoundly, socially, and with consciousness (writing about loving bliss is a good way to begin, - print this letter, below, and add to it, for example). For me, from a nontheistically friendly perspective, in part, the word spiritual doesn't hold much meaning, - and I suspect that what some ecstatics, who may have explored loving bliss, have called 'spiritual' is solely neurophysiological, - but that symbols and language of the 'spirit' can evoke these experiences, i.e. this neurophysiology. So I prefer to explore how to cultivate these experiences first focusing on the neurophysiology, rather than the intermediary language, which I find can lead one far from these qualities of experience, and then develop lovingly blissful language, conversations and community. And when I'm not cultivating loving bliss, I like to relax into the relaxation response, which I explore often when in hot pools, silent meeting, or a bathtub.
Soaking in warm water (100 F / 38 C) deepens the relaxation response in my experience, especially when doing so is in a beautiful, natural area, communal and clothing~optional, but also in the bathtub. Besides the relaxation responses that many soaks per day might elicit (and does so especially at Harbin - the clothing-optional, pool area is very beautiful there, and these aspects help a lot - http://harbin.org), as well as Omega-3 fatty acids (1000 mg of flaxseed oil, 3-4 times a day with food), I'd love to learn of other ways you access or cultivate (this seems to me to be an important aspect, with awareness) loving bliss. Why not practice loving bliss, as you would practice a musical instrument? I've found also that thinking and writing about loving bliss can be both a flow experience, and serve to bring my awareness to these qualities of experience, thus often eliciting it. Try it :)
About meeting together: I think it might be interesting for nontheist friends to meet in a 3-D virtual world like Second Life, in addition to real life gatherings, to explore loving bliss through conversation, among other ways. Here's the Second Life download page; it's free, takes about 20 minutes to get an avatar that is anonymous (but through which you can share your identity, and we may well, in time, be able to animate and make our avatar faces like ours), and requires about 1 gigabyte of RAM. It's easy to navigate in this emerging, virtual society, and people might meet 'there' in a beautiful, virtual, hot pool area to converse. Let me know if you are interested. {For those interested in an unprogrammed, silent, Quaker meeting, one already meets in-world in Second Life on Sea Turtle Island - slurl.com/secondlife/Sea%20Turtle%20Island/197/17/27 - on Saturdays at 10 am Second Life Time / Pacific Time (1800 GMT), and Wednesdays at 1100 SLT / PT (1900 GMT)}.
I think the relative lack of exploration of how to elicit loving bliss, from a research perspective, is a fascinating societal elision, although here's one approach: Islands of Ponderosa Pines: Playing Your Mind Like a Musical Instrument vis-à-vis Loving Bliss. I also think this is therefore an opportunity to create a new language, and possibly shape an orientation to qualities of the experience of loving bliss at large, and especially among nontheistic friends. Loving bliss is wondrous.
And while 'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free, 'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be, ... (centering down - a kind of relaxation response?) ... And when we find ourselves in the place just right, It will be in the valley of love and delight (which, in reality, is Harbin Hot Springs for me), I have found I can access loving bliss on my own, neurophysiologically, often beginning with the relaxation response, then cultivating loving bliss as it emerges (it can bubble up, or music can help elicit it, for example), and then continue to receive this ongoing, biological experience, with awareness. I think other people can too.
Let's communicate together, directly or indirectly, to cultivate loving bliss, - from our bathtubs, digitally? :)
Warm regards,
Scott
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Bliss as Friends (.doc)
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You
may find this Friends' Dalton Letter is relevant to exploring loving bliss:
scottmacleod.com/daltonletter.htm