Playing bass, particularly as poorly as I do, is a great lesson in the movement from cessation of automatic objectivization to direct non-volitional apperception, which is actually a movement from ignorance to enlightenment. As a novice I am bound to objectify what I play as "song," sequences of notes, fingering of strings--thoughts precipitating actions--and to stamp them into muscle memory for future replication. In a broader sense, this is how we navigate our lives, lost in thought, absorbing survival tactics, ever novices plodding through endless sequences of success and failure and ceaseless conditioning until eventually the machine gives up the ghost. But now and then I catch a glimpse of real bass-playin.' The song dies but melody and rhythm linger and something plays on, not me, but something using these fingers and these strings effortlessly and precisely as if plucking the tune out of the ether. Athletes refer to something like this as "being in the zone." I call it samadhi in action. Word geeks like WWW might call it direct non-volitional apperceiving. Any way you put it, it is "always on" for those who would step out of the way: "That is why only the action of non-action, the practice of non-practice, unmotivated non-volitional functioning, can lead to that recognition of awakening, and why any kind of action, practice or intentional procedure is an insurmountable barrier to such awakening." (WWW) If this were taught as a basic life skill in schools throughout the world, humanity would be saved. Does this mean I should quit practicing bass? Hell no, no more than I have quit meditation. Nowadays, beautifully, meditation arises in walking, driving, working, whatever, and this is certainly residue of time spent in practice. Nowadays it's snowballing, and the snowman is definitely softening in the sun of awareness.
The Cartesian tenet, "I think, therefore I am," casts the silhouette of a shadow as reality. Some day a Copernicus of spirit will disavow this nonsense as just another earth-centric notion born of human narcissism
When asked, "what is Buddhamind?" Bodhidharma put it like this: "It is your (only) mind. When you apperceive it subjectively it can be called Suchness. When you apperceive its immutability it can be called Dharmakaya. It is not any thing, so it may be called Liberation. Its functioning is imperceptible, undisturbed by any object, so it may be called pure Tao. Never born, it can never die, so it may be equated with Nirvana."
And that's the way it is, but because of ignorance it needs a messenger for every age. I would say that of late Eckhart Tolle dumbs it down enough for many of us, and for me Nisargadatta Maharaj is the most enjoyable, although some grounding in eastern philosophy can help with him, and then there is Wei Wu Wei: as direct a presentation as nails on a chalkboard.
The Cartesian tenet, "I think, therefore I am," casts the silhouette of a shadow as reality. Some day a Copernicus of spirit will disavow this nonsense as just another earth-centric notion born of human narcissism
When asked, "what is Buddhamind?" Bodhidharma put it like this: "It is your (only) mind. When you apperceive it subjectively it can be called Suchness. When you apperceive its immutability it can be called Dharmakaya. It is not any thing, so it may be called Liberation. Its functioning is imperceptible, undisturbed by any object, so it may be called pure Tao. Never born, it can never die, so it may be equated with Nirvana."
And that's the way it is, but because of ignorance it needs a messenger for every age. I would say that of late Eckhart Tolle dumbs it down enough for many of us, and for me Nisargadatta Maharaj is the most enjoyable, although some grounding in eastern philosophy can help with him, and then there is Wei Wu Wei: as direct a presentation as nails on a chalkboard.
No comments:
Post a Comment