"It is folly to expect a wounded mind to diagnose itself...." I read this in the paper today, a condemnation of the lack of treatment given a marine Iraq war vet who committed DUI manslaughter. The guy had a history of blackout drinking along with three purple hearts and a mind full of nightmares. I recall in the midst of my own lost youth how I questioned my own perception and wondered, how does a sick mind living within the confines of a distorted reality know that it is sick? Extrapolated further, how does the bulk of humanity living today in limited, conditional ignorance free itself from imprisonment of which it is not even aware? And so most of us continue on in a life of restlessness and discontent bounded by the poles of fear and desire, ever seeking surcease in the transient, futilely. It's what we know. It is confirmed by those around us, although they too wander lost without knowing so. I understand now why most of the great ones lived in an agony of compassion.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
August 27, 2011
"It is the difference between looking up at the sky from within a glass dome, and standing outside in the open air. We have to break out of the dome of ordinary mind altogether to discover and let in the fresh air of Rigpa." S.R.
Great analogy, using glass. We don't tend to notice glass, just as we remain ignorant of our limitations, of the veil of conditioning in which we operate. We think we see and experience the sky as it really is. It's all we've ever known, and most folks around us confirm this because it's all they've ever known. And then for the lucky ones, the open-minded ones, along comes the truth by way of a person or a book or intuition, and their guidance engenders a practice to clarify and eventually wear away the glass. Once our false assumptions, like the glass, are eradicated, or seen for what they are, nothing changes and everything changes. What we assumed was reality we now realize was stale and stagnant as this new perspective imbues us with the untainted fresh air of truth. Best of all, once the artificial dome is gone, the artificial "me" who created it goes too. Sky is just the place, so to speak, in which everything comes and goes. Once the dome disintegrates like Ramakrishna's jug of Ganges water, sky rushes to sky and Ganges rushes to Ganges, everything merges as if that dome/body-mind never existed. Which in truth it never did.
Great analogy, using glass. We don't tend to notice glass, just as we remain ignorant of our limitations, of the veil of conditioning in which we operate. We think we see and experience the sky as it really is. It's all we've ever known, and most folks around us confirm this because it's all they've ever known. And then for the lucky ones, the open-minded ones, along comes the truth by way of a person or a book or intuition, and their guidance engenders a practice to clarify and eventually wear away the glass. Once our false assumptions, like the glass, are eradicated, or seen for what they are, nothing changes and everything changes. What we assumed was reality we now realize was stale and stagnant as this new perspective imbues us with the untainted fresh air of truth. Best of all, once the artificial dome is gone, the artificial "me" who created it goes too. Sky is just the place, so to speak, in which everything comes and goes. Once the dome disintegrates like Ramakrishna's jug of Ganges water, sky rushes to sky and Ganges rushes to Ganges, everything merges as if that dome/body-mind never existed. Which in truth it never did.
August 24, 2011
"The nature of everything is open and naked like sky. Luminous emptiness, without center or circumference: the pure, naked Rigpa dawns." - The Tibetan Book of the Dead
The above describes very precisely what I feel or what I recognize when I turn my attention (or perhaps turn it off) toward a great wide-open without content, not even a body-mind. Yes it is like open sky, invisible and omnipresent, and yes in the absence of all obfuscation it is luminous. It is that in which everything abides and of which everything consists. It has no boundaries, big or small. But the mental grooves, the samskaras, run deep.
My task now is not to open to Rigpa - I already have - my task is to purify my recognition, to stay awake.
The above describes very precisely what I feel or what I recognize when I turn my attention (or perhaps turn it off) toward a great wide-open without content, not even a body-mind. Yes it is like open sky, invisible and omnipresent, and yes in the absence of all obfuscation it is luminous. It is that in which everything abides and of which everything consists. It has no boundaries, big or small. But the mental grooves, the samskaras, run deep.
My task now is not to open to Rigpa - I already have - my task is to purify my recognition, to stay awake.
August 23, 2011
During the final stages of dying, says S.R., "there arises a great experience of bliss, as all the thought states resulting from desire...cease to function." Notice the connection between absence of desire and bliss. He doesn't say that pain ceases and bliss ensues. He makes no mention of fear. Once the weight of desire is off it, bliss will of itself buoy to the surface. I notice more and more how haunted people are, how harried by incessant restlessness and discontent. It's painful to watch. Bliss is absence of all that tugging and pulling, all the depletion of misdirected energies. Bliss is clear and still. Every day I practice recognition of this clarity. When I am still and in it and of it, everything simply is, and the "am" in which they arise disappears like darkness at sunrise.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
August 20, 2011
"Awakening" and "liberation" are two of the closest approximations I can muster--they ring true to my experience of the past year or so. Awakening suggests opening up at last to what has always been the case, and liberation implies freedom from everything to do with the body-mind. So we awaken to the fact that we are and always have been free of the fabricated self, of the ego with its incessant demands. Its sort of like coming to AA after years of drunkenness, getting sober, and then reflecting with astonishment upon the altered and delusional life of the crazy alcoholic who is me. Not to be arrogant, but I feel deep compassion for the bulk of us who live in ignorance, everybody hustling to get whatever they can in their allotted three score and ten. No wonder we live in a climate of desire and fear run amok.
August 19, 2011
No day, no night, just the moment in black or white.
This hedge is a tangle of grey bones;
The birds flit through like fish over dead coral.
At home in ignorance, at home they dance
Upon dead bones beneath budding leaf
While the squirrels play for keeps with nipping teeth.
My tapes hiss and crackle.
Soon the machine will go
And those who made the machine will go
And those who cared about the machine will go
And my tapes will hold their peace
Like a still wind in misplaced space.
This hedge is a tangle of grey bones;
The birds flit through like fish over dead coral.
At home in ignorance, at home they dance
Upon dead bones beneath budding leaf
While the squirrels play for keeps with nipping teeth.
My tapes hiss and crackle.
Soon the machine will go
And those who made the machine will go
And those who cared about the machine will go
And my tapes will hold their peace
Like a still wind in misplaced space.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
August 16, 2011
Abandoning ourselves to a Jesus or a Buddha (Bhakti) or just abandoning our selves (Jnana) both have the same spiritual end: freedom from the false, fabricated self. One way leaves a trace of ash while the other consumes all. As I continue to read "TBLD" I am reminded here and there where Buddhism falls short for me. It boils down to using the mind to generate beneficial visualization, to "invoke" deities and mantras and such. Even wrapped in the deepest absorption, something that begins in the mind remains attached to that subtly gossamer golden chain to nowhere that always leads back to its origin: mind. Invoking anything is an act of mind and therefore a veil, no matter how filmy and fine.
If a tree fell alone in the forest, would Wallace Stevens hear it? You bet.
The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sounds of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same place
For the listener, who listens in the snow
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
If a tree fell alone in the forest, would Wallace Stevens hear it? You bet.
The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sounds of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same place
For the listener, who listens in the snow
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
August 10, 2011
Joseph Heller just nails corporate America in "Something Happened." Boss to subordinate: "I want inferior people with superior minds who feel in their bones their lives would be over if they lost their jobs with me." Gives me a kind of creepy corporate PTSD flashback, right on the nerve. No surprise after a quarter century on the Fortune 50 firing line with a company that hemorrhaged over 100,000 jobs during the last third of my career. I staggered out the door leaking mental and physical health all over the sidewalk. I don't know whether to be proud or ashamed of myself. In truth, neither. Like so many of us, I was swept up in a tide of conditioning and soon swimming with the sharks, bent on survival of myself and my family. Everything had to happen just so for that violent wave to wash me up on this very fine beach, indeed. I am a fortunate son.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
August 9, 2011
Last night I decided to explore the Advaitan world at large, so I hopped onto advaita.org and actually took part in a chatroom/lecture by Wayne "Ram Tzu" Liquorman. I was intrigued by a video of him recounting his history, some of which I identified with, but now I don't know what to think, especially given my overly cynical view of self-anointed "gurus." Poor Wayne seemed to be running a mental health clinic for awhile there, and that sort of tangent can do damage if the guru is not adept. I typed in a question about what I have been experiencing of late and he confirmed that they were genuine spiritual experiences. I asked a couple of other self-aggrandizing questions that he mercifully ignored. I had hoped for more...something, depth?...and may tune in again to get a better feel for him. I think the group had a downer effect on him. My hope was based on Liquorman's proximity to Nisargadatta by way of his guru, Ramesh Balkesar, who was an interpreter for N.M. for 3 years. Unfortunately, Balkesar has a bit of philandering and monetary baggage, internet innuendo (so it must be true), and that tends to fuel my cynicism. I've read a couple of R.B.'s books--very heady, lots of syllables, kind of N.M. with a PhD--and found them a bit dry for my oh so exquisite palate. But Liquorman is not R.B., and he does seem to have some street cred out there, so maybe I'll deign to listen in again.
Monday, August 8, 2011
August 6, 2011
Chapter 10 of "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying"--"The Innermost Essence"--is a masterpiece of enlightenment literature. The last section of it, though, "The Rainbow Body," is a bit much for this old boy born and bred in the so-called scientific age. Of course, science is just the highest form of solving crossword puzzles and by no means an end in itself. We formulate them ourselves, solve them, then move on to the next, never paying attention or tribute to the unchanging blank page on which all is written. Anyway, Christians might find that section rather interesting from the standpoint of Jesus' empty tomb. Then again, Christians aren't likely to burn their fingers handling satanic literature like TBLD.
Each night I walk about 4 miles. Each month and now each week I spend more and more of these walks in what can only be described as a samadhi or Rigpa state: the feet keep walking but I have nothing to do with them as body dissolves and mind jabbers less and less, at a distance. I can say this with certainty born of experience: in the absence of body there does remain a kind of empty radiance, and in the absence of mind a boundless freedom that could be termed bliss. I understand now why some masters were known to smile at impending death, even calling it "home."
Each night I walk about 4 miles. Each month and now each week I spend more and more of these walks in what can only be described as a samadhi or Rigpa state: the feet keep walking but I have nothing to do with them as body dissolves and mind jabbers less and less, at a distance. I can say this with certainty born of experience: in the absence of body there does remain a kind of empty radiance, and in the absence of mind a boundless freedom that could be termed bliss. I understand now why some masters were known to smile at impending death, even calling it "home."
Thursday, August 4, 2011
August 4, 2011
Dzogchen meditation uses the term "the View" to describe awakened perception. S.R. uses an analogy of living in a house atop the highest mountain in the world, towering above all else, and suddenly the walls and roof disappear: the View manifests! It was there all along. I would only add that viewer and view dissolve into viewing alone. Perhaps the body-mind drops through a trapdoor and rolls down the mountain, never to be seen again?
"The masters stress that to stabilize the View in meditation, it is essential, first of all, to accomplish this practice in a special environment of retreat, where all the favorable conditions are present; midst the distractions and busyness of the world, however much you meditate, true experience will not be born in your mind....If you are unable to continue that flow at all times and in all situations, mixing your practice with everyday life, it will not serve as a remedy when unfavorable circumstances arise, and you will be led astray into delusion by thoughts and emotions." S.R.
This bears out my own experience in retirement. The View has quickened and now exerts a subtle magnetism, ever drawing me back to it (except when the Market crashes, like today...hmmm...work to be done yet). However, had I not imposed a daily discipline of meditation and study, even a modicum of it, I would not be as ripe for progress as I find myself today. And I had a few glimpses of the View during those years of tumult, despite adverse conditions. The carrot appeared for just a few moments before it, too, faded away--long enough to shore up my faith. No matter what conditions you find yourself, at all cost start the ball rolling, now.
"The masters stress that to stabilize the View in meditation, it is essential, first of all, to accomplish this practice in a special environment of retreat, where all the favorable conditions are present; midst the distractions and busyness of the world, however much you meditate, true experience will not be born in your mind....If you are unable to continue that flow at all times and in all situations, mixing your practice with everyday life, it will not serve as a remedy when unfavorable circumstances arise, and you will be led astray into delusion by thoughts and emotions." S.R.
This bears out my own experience in retirement. The View has quickened and now exerts a subtle magnetism, ever drawing me back to it (except when the Market crashes, like today...hmmm...work to be done yet). However, had I not imposed a daily discipline of meditation and study, even a modicum of it, I would not be as ripe for progress as I find myself today. And I had a few glimpses of the View during those years of tumult, despite adverse conditions. The carrot appeared for just a few moments before it, too, faded away--long enough to shore up my faith. No matter what conditions you find yourself, at all cost start the ball rolling, now.
August 3, 2011
"The ordinary, habitual mind with its projections is extremely powerful. It keeps returning, and takes hold of us easily when we are inattentive or distracted."
"Rigpa is a state in which there is no longer any doubt: there is not really a mind to doubt. You see directly."
"Meditation is not striving, but naturally becoming assimilated into it." S.R.
Yes. I would only disagree in calling Rigpa a state, which to me implies something temporal that makes way for the next state, and the next, and so on. If anything, Rigpa is a fallback state, a constant, just as repose is a fallback from tension. Rigpa is an equivalent to Turiya in Hinduism, the fourth state beyond and within the three temporal states of waking, sleeping, and dreamless sleep. Paradoxically, it is clear of yet containing the ordinary habitual mind. Thoughts are the effulgence of Rigpa and, if recognized as such immediately, will not take hold and bear us away. Meditation quickens this recognition.
I had a dream about the cat, and now it clicks. In the dream some people had found her and held her. I recognized the white tuft on her neck and was overwhelmed with tearful joy. They handed her over and I gently placed her in a shopping cart, then found us rolling through a large school campus in search of my car. Jazzy looked up at me from the cart, smiled, and said "I love you." Then she transformed into a bird and flew off to join a flock of birds circling a large tree in an open grassy area amongst the campus buildings. She perched on a branch. I cried for her to return with deep wrenching sobs. She wouldn't come and I woke up, very sad. Today I sit here in my usual perch under the umbrella, watching the regulars, the birds flitting through the hedge amongst the feeders. And now I realize that my love for my recently deceased pets has found a new outlet, been transformed in a sense, in this daily array of cardinals, jays, finches, starlings and, yes, catbirds, and that the eye of Nature gazes back upon me and says "I love you."
"Among twenty snow mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird." Wallace Stevens
Jnana is the wrench of applied Advaita, tightening invisible screws with a tremendous absence of torque.
"Rigpa is a state in which there is no longer any doubt: there is not really a mind to doubt. You see directly."
"Meditation is not striving, but naturally becoming assimilated into it." S.R.
Yes. I would only disagree in calling Rigpa a state, which to me implies something temporal that makes way for the next state, and the next, and so on. If anything, Rigpa is a fallback state, a constant, just as repose is a fallback from tension. Rigpa is an equivalent to Turiya in Hinduism, the fourth state beyond and within the three temporal states of waking, sleeping, and dreamless sleep. Paradoxically, it is clear of yet containing the ordinary habitual mind. Thoughts are the effulgence of Rigpa and, if recognized as such immediately, will not take hold and bear us away. Meditation quickens this recognition.
I had a dream about the cat, and now it clicks. In the dream some people had found her and held her. I recognized the white tuft on her neck and was overwhelmed with tearful joy. They handed her over and I gently placed her in a shopping cart, then found us rolling through a large school campus in search of my car. Jazzy looked up at me from the cart, smiled, and said "I love you." Then she transformed into a bird and flew off to join a flock of birds circling a large tree in an open grassy area amongst the campus buildings. She perched on a branch. I cried for her to return with deep wrenching sobs. She wouldn't come and I woke up, very sad. Today I sit here in my usual perch under the umbrella, watching the regulars, the birds flitting through the hedge amongst the feeders. And now I realize that my love for my recently deceased pets has found a new outlet, been transformed in a sense, in this daily array of cardinals, jays, finches, starlings and, yes, catbirds, and that the eye of Nature gazes back upon me and says "I love you."
"Among twenty snow mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird." Wallace Stevens
Jnana is the wrench of applied Advaita, tightening invisible screws with a tremendous absence of torque.
August 2, 2011
"...the primordial wisdom, the naked union of emptiness and intrinsic awareness." S.R.
You want it put into words? There it is, distilled into half a dozen words for you. Now gnaw on that primordial bone awhile. Rend meaning from those words. Worry them until they relieve all worries and answer all questions. Emptiness is intrinsically awareness, as water is intrinsically wet. What is the fabric of thought? Consciousness. What is the fabric of consciousness? Emptiness. And what is the primordial tenet? Emptiness is form, form is emptiness. Emptiness > Awareness > Consciousness > Form. Each infuses each in a Big Bang of silence and stillness. Now drop all the cogitating and gaze at your own face without a mirror.
"This certainty of the View is what has to be deepened through glimpse after glimpse of the nature of mind, and stabilized through the continuous discipline of meditation." S.R.
This is exactly where I'm at. Now, with about a year and a half's distance from my last job, I can see how the pace of ripening has picked up. Fewer distractions and more concentration will do that for you. S.R. notes how the modern world impedes sustenance of these conditions. He says that despite this we can create our own climate for ripening by making "skillful use" of these negative hindrances. Of course, S.R. never worked for Motorola. I suppose some folks can awaken in the midst of clawing for survival in corporate America. All I could do was find time each day to meditate and perhaps read something hopeful. Now, finally, I feel that I have full rein. Even at this late date, it's a beautiful no-thing.
You want it put into words? There it is, distilled into half a dozen words for you. Now gnaw on that primordial bone awhile. Rend meaning from those words. Worry them until they relieve all worries and answer all questions. Emptiness is intrinsically awareness, as water is intrinsically wet. What is the fabric of thought? Consciousness. What is the fabric of consciousness? Emptiness. And what is the primordial tenet? Emptiness is form, form is emptiness. Emptiness > Awareness > Consciousness > Form. Each infuses each in a Big Bang of silence and stillness. Now drop all the cogitating and gaze at your own face without a mirror.
"This certainty of the View is what has to be deepened through glimpse after glimpse of the nature of mind, and stabilized through the continuous discipline of meditation." S.R.
This is exactly where I'm at. Now, with about a year and a half's distance from my last job, I can see how the pace of ripening has picked up. Fewer distractions and more concentration will do that for you. S.R. notes how the modern world impedes sustenance of these conditions. He says that despite this we can create our own climate for ripening by making "skillful use" of these negative hindrances. Of course, S.R. never worked for Motorola. I suppose some folks can awaken in the midst of clawing for survival in corporate America. All I could do was find time each day to meditate and perhaps read something hopeful. Now, finally, I feel that I have full rein. Even at this late date, it's a beautiful no-thing.
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