Meditation » Bruno Malta Ferreira

Meditation is a process of elimination.

Sitting in meditation is a simple process of noticing what is there that you do not need, letting that go, and moving on to the next layer. Amazingly, it seems that there are infinite layers (or at least very many) and so the process never ends.

Sometimes I have a sense of getting better at the process and getting sparser in layers but that is an illusion because it may come about from noticing that the layers that are shed are subtler and subtler and yet just the next instance a huge layer comes into view and I am astounded that I hadn’t noticed it before.

Screen Shot 2015-12-12 at 12.08.11 PM I want to focus on showcasing the brain structures in relation to the brain’s Ventricular System. In this series of posts and videos I will be considering the Ventricular System to be the main central landmark of the brain and showing the various brain structures in relation to it.
Here is the Medulla Oblongata, the first brain structure one encounters when passing upward through the foramen magnum.

The more I thought about this jump that I have made from showcasing individual bones to showcasing the ventricular system the more it makes sense in terms of my larger goal of dissecting the body and presenting the relationship between bones and brain (and spirit).

You see, I had thought I would transition next to the sections of the brain that are in closest contact to a particular bone such as the Sphenoid and thus progressively work my way inwards; this is generally how brain anatomy has been taught (to me). However, the brain is an extremely complex structure not just in function but also in form. Studying brain anatomy is a huge field of research and we have still much to understand. So I feel that, as is the case with learning your way around a new city, we need to start by the main landmarks. We have the walls of the city, those are the bones, those are a key landmark now the city itself is made up of grocery stores and the city hall and the post office and the individual living houses AND running through the city is its waterway. It seems to me that it makes much more sense to give directions to someone based upon the internal landmarks rather than the city walls.

“The grocery store is 50 meters north from the 4th cistern”.
“From the main gate follow the stream south and you will first pass by the bathhouse then you will come to the city hall and afterwards you will see the church on your right”.

For when we are studying or living in the city we can quickly forget about those all-important containing walls but we never forget where the closest water-source is.

And as such I have completed the video on the Ventricular System and completely justified myself to myself as to why my innate intelligence chose to showcase the Ventricular System next.

Enjoy!

My invitation is that you watch this video and that you practice closing your eyes from time to time, maybe pausing the video at key moments, and take into your mind’s eye the image of this waterway that exists within you. Continue this practice until you have a good sense of the shape of this waterway and until you can sit in meditation posture and replay the video within your mind’s eye.
Once you have accomplished that major milestone then allow yourself to feel the sensations arising from the Ventricular System within you. For some it may be helpful to relate this system to an area of your brain that is spacious and flowing, thus feeling the flowing nature of the ventricular system.

In my next post I will expand upon the Ventricular System to highlight a few other key aspects of its shape.

Blessings.

I’ve been focusing on the ventricular system this week.

What a fascinating and beautiful system it is.

Deep within our brains. This system is sometimes discussed as being a thing in itself and sometimes referred to as the gap in between things.

So curious.

It is easiest to focus on what we can see and touch but then to focus on the spaces in between and notice that they are no less important.

3996 In meditating on the ventricular system we meditate on the spaces in between.
Some meditations are focused on the bones, feeling into the shape of your frontal bone and sensing the sensations that exist in that area. Frontal bones, temporal bones, sphenoid bones are akin to trees and sand banks. For the ventricular system we are sensing into the rivers and streams that run between those trees and those sand banks; the waters that touch one tree and then flow to the next and the next and the next.

Message-carrying waters, and cleaning waters.

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,

che la diritta via era smarrita.

Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the right path had been lost.

- Dante (of course)

In the middle is the journey. Sitting between the apparent beginning and the apparent end. And though they too carry importance, those stagnant tips of the the rope, it is in the middle that.

Making the ends transparent we peer into the middle where we get lost and lose all hope of return.

I have just posted a new video (made a year ago) when I started some explorations into showing the Beauchene representation of the skull. A Beauchene skull is also known as an Exploded Skull and it is one in which all the bones have been separated from each other. This is an amazing feat to accomplish using real bones and pins and screws and wires; much easier when using model bones.

From Craniophiles.wordpress.com https://craniophiles.wordpress.com/tag/beauchene/

I’ve been fascinated with beauchene skulls since I found out about them in 2007 or so. After making these meditation videos for several years I began to envision a meditation that would show the skull coming apart. At about the same time I was reading Eliade Mircea’s “Shamanism” and was impressed by how in some shamanic traditions the initiate dies and is taken apart, all bones separated, and then put back together again. I found this a powerful image and wanted to recreate some that through videos.

This is an initial meditation towards that goal.

Enjoy:

All right action must arise from stillness

Sitting, just sitting.

This beautiful book (the cover art is really beautiful) was handed to me by a friend and, though my wife already had a copy, we decided to keep it so I could read it and tag it all I wanted. Someone had already gone ahead and written in the book in pen (someone called Marion Woodman) so I didn’t feel as bad about adding my notes.

This book is made up of diary excerpts from a period in Woodman’s life when she was diagnosed and treated for cancer; the entries are from November 1993 to April 1995. It is now 2014, 20 years later, and Woodman is still alive.

Her dedication to life, to studying life and being fully present really comes across and is very inspirational. At one point she goes through all her photo albums and her family photo albums and burns all but a select few of the pictures in order to simplify her life to the point where there is no clutter to interfere with her ability to perceive life in all its subtleties and also her ability to exactly connect intention/visualizations to physicality.

I strongly recommend this book and I’ll now add some excerpts.

Bone is also about the stark truth of growing older. (…) What does it mean to be an elder in this culture? What are my new responsibilities? What has to be let go to make room for the transformations of energy that are ready to pour through the body-soul? I don’t want to be here if I can’t carry my own weight. As life asks new things of me, I feel I must pause, go inward, and ask, “What is my weight now? What are my new values? Who am I and not-I at this stage? Do I have the courage to live with this evolving me?”

Death present in cancer was death asking to be accepted into my life.

Ross and I went grocery shopping today. As we drove past St. Jo’s I tried to understand I was going in there tomorrow to be operated on for cancer. Dear God, it is amazing how we go about the ordinary tasks in the face of the mystery.

Mysticism must rest on crystal clear honesty, can only come after things have been stripped down to their naked reality. – Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life

This walk with Death makes me realize yet deeper that ther is no freedom without discipline–physically, emotionally, spiritually.

The anorexic takes the rage in and kills herself; the adolescent boys take it out and kill the power-crazy drunken patriarchs who are their fathers or surrogate fathers.

Repressed energy returns to haunt us in symbol and symptom.

What we [Marion and her husband Ross] are experiencing is what a Japanese martial arts master once explained to me. What you watch for in your opponent is a suki–a moment when his mind goes out of his body. If you are present, your conscious mind in your body will know instantly if his conscious mind leaves his body. He is finished once that happens. We aren’t sparring, just holding presence. We are accepting the gifts of science that can spare my life immediately; we are also focusing on spiritual and alternative medicines for the future. We’re relaxing into the blend of science and soul.

Simplifying becomes my total focus. I’m noting how anxious I become when I fail to simplify or cannot simplify because of what starts happening around me–phone, TV, letters, ad infinitum. I believe that failure to simplify could lead me back into cancer because I would lose touch with my life vibration–my tone that sustains my life force.
(…)
Anxiety is stripped away by concentrated listening and perceiving. Concentrated vision operating in all the senses is what I mean by simplifying. The more I listen to my soul, the more clearly I hear the truth of other people, of animals, birds, the universe.
(…)
I must stay in touch with whatever keeps me focused on the still point–the place of exact harmony in body and psyche. Simplify life to that point where the dance can happen–the dance between consciousness and the unconscious. So long as I constantly allow other things to interfere, I will never find the moments in each day to reach those listening points of harmony–those seeing points of perception.

You don’t even need to leave your room, just sit at your table and wait.
Don’t even wait, just listen.
Be quiet, be still, be solitary.
The world will fully offer itself to you, to be unmasked, it has no choice.
It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
- Franz Kafka

Growing up I’d imagine that adults knew more than I did, that they were, at least, certain of their words; now, as an adult myself I know this is not true. At no point do the societies I have come across make an effort to teach people how to be parents, how to be adults, how to live. I thought I could get on the train tracks, perform well in the things asked of me and find myself arriving at a place of undeniable success; now I’m off the train and looking at the school systems and how careless they are, how little value is placed on the schools by the society, how it does not prepare one for life outside of school (Life!).

I’ll argue that if we make a list of the things we are not taught we will have a good list of some of the most valuable things in life. Love, meditation, personal finances, parenthood, interpersonal communication, empathy, and slowing down. Learning to stop doing doing doing as if it were getting us to another place where we need to be in order to receive something. Learning to be still, be quiet, notice what is happening, noticing the pile of stuff that you are carrying around and that built up in your runaway busy-ness. Stop. Don’t even wait. Just listen.

Stop and become intimate with yourself.

Bruno Malta Ferreira

Meditation Elimination

The Medulla Oblongata

Meditation on the Ventricular System

The Ventricle System

Nel mezzo del cammin…

Beauchene – Part 1

Stillness

Sitting

Book Review – Bone by Marion Woodman

Learning to Stop