"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.
No comments:
Post a Comment