doc benway

There is nothing inherently wrong with things as they are. And there is nothing wrong with our reactivity, with wanting some things to be different. Problems arise for us when we are unable to accept things as they are but are unable to change them. Certainly we are free and encouraged to do what we can to change things that need to be changed but at some point we must face challenges in our lives which cannot be remediated to our satisfaction. In the "everything is perfect" approach (eg. dzogchen), the method is to face these things as they are without platitudes, without resistance, but directly, with honesty and openness; the word often used in the teachings is to face them nakedly. My teacher uses the language of "hosting" our challenges or, more precisely, hosting the sense of self who is struggling; host with a sense of openness, inner quiet, and genuine caring. In the beginning this is done under controlled circumstances, like the quiet room on the cushion. Eventually we can bring this more alive in our day to day on demand. If we can be with uncomfortable and challenging things in this way, we find they eventually become less loud, less invasive, and we begin to feel some space and freedom even in their presence. We are no longer over-identifying with that sense of self who is resisting and suffering. This is liberation, not escape. The challenges are still there but no longer command our attention and direct our actions in a dysfunctional way. This allows us far more flexibility which comes from a more grounded, clear, and creative place. A good example that practitioners can relate to is to look at what happens when we meditate in the presence of sounds or noise. In the beginning the noise can be very distracting. Our attention is repeatedly drawn away from openness (or whatever object of meditation we may be working with) and towards the sound, leading to thoughts and feelings that interfere with our practice. If we persevere, we become more familiar and stable and we find that the noise becomes less of a disturbance. It is still there but no longer interferes with our openness, focus, and stability. Eventually, the noise can become like fuel that strengthens our meditation, transforming from obstacle to support. This is a method of facing our problems directly and nakedly, giving them the time and space they need to express themselves fully in consciousness, and the time and space they need to liberate in the spaciousness of mind. This is the opposite of bypassing, in which problems are repressed, suppressed, or ignored in favor of focusing the attention on good feelings and words. Platitudes in this context are meaningless. Problems and challenges arise for us for many reasons and they need to be seen and heard, they need the time and space to express what needs to be expressed. Equally important is that they are put in proper perspective which is the role of meditation.

You know how I know I'm not a sage, or an Emperor? I cannot treat common people as straw dogs. I think there is so much evil in the world precisely because there is so much good.

Thanks for pointing that out @Cobie Emperor would make sense in context. Using the translation sage has different implications but if we assume the sage expresses characteristics of the Dao, this translation also makes sense to me.

dragon wings thunder raising arms in defiance I care for others

Yes, the 10,000 things are also perfect. They are just as they are, nothing missing, nothing misspelled. Everything is just as it is when we open fully to it. Heaven and Earth treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs, as does the sage. All that arises is perfected in the base, but that doesn't mean it's pleasant or meets my expectations. The base has no bias, that is the job of my mind. This has absolutely nothing to do with platitudes or making anyone feel better. It's quite the opposite in fact. It means we must deal with what is, like it or not. But perhaps we'll just have to agree to disagree.

the ten thousand things like Dr. Evil's ransom a low estimate

"Everything is perfect" may be something a dzogchenpa might say and I'll address that. Some New Age types may use the expression and may not fully appreciate its meaning. Dzogchen literally means Great Perfection or Great Completion. it does not refer to everything being perfect in the sense that everyone is happy and satisfied with their lot. It has nothing to do with human judgment, opinions, pain, suffering, or preferences. It is not at all an idealistic platitude. I acknowledge that it does feel and sound that way and is easily misinterpreted. This is one reason why these teachings were kept secret for millennia and why they have always been controversial and polarizing in Buddhist monastic and lay communities. The Great Perfection or Great Completion refers to the fact that inherent in every sentient being is the primordially pure natural state which never has and never will require anything to be added or removed. It is the un-stainable, perfected essence of being that underlies all of the experiences and visions of life. We cannot do anything to create or destroy it, we cannot create or cause enlightenment. All we can do is discover it is always already present in the stillness, silence, and spaciousness of our body, speech, and mind. Whether samsara (suffering and delusion) or nirvana (liberation and freedom), all sentient experience arises, abides, and departs in the base of all without bias or exception. The base does not prefer one or another outcome or condition, all possible experience may arise whether we like it or not, whether it supports us or destroys us as sentient beings. There is similarity here to the Daoist description of the Dao treating all as straw dogs. Another similarity is that we cannot improve nor harm the Dao, similarly we cannot improve or harm the nature of our mind, hence the frequent use of the metaphor of a diamond, whose beauty and integrity we cannot enhance or detract. This is the type of perfection being indicated by the term dzogchen and when practitioners refer to innate perfection. No doubt the term is misused and misunderstood by some. At least that's my take on it, fwiw.

Better for me today.

I have a suggestion about Awakening the Luminous Mind. The first half of the book describes a core meditation practice, a lifetime practice if it speaks to you. It is very simple but not necessarily easy. My own experience was that after years of practicing other methods, the techniques described in the first part of this book generated tangible, practical results very rapidly. I recommend you spend some real, quality time with this before getting too immersed in the second half of the book which gets into Dawa Gyaltsen's teaching. Otherwise, it will be very easy for the mind to be activated and become an obstacle to deeper, non-conceptual understanding. Everything in Dawa Gyaltsen's teachings is pointing to discoveries made through the core practices with stillness, silence, and spaciousness. PS - good luck with the water heater! I had to replace mine a few years back. Of course it failed and leaked all over the basement on a Friday evening. You are correct. It is far better to not use words. I've been lucky enough to have both Daoist and Bön Buddhist teachers who emphasize practice over theory. It is the best approach for me as I tend to be too much in my head. No words can ever do justice to the nature of mind and the nature of reality. At best they are indicative and descriptive, at worst misleading. This is why the Bön teachings use so many metaphors and similes, so much poetry. The dzogchen teachings repeatedly remind us of this and refer to the nature of mind as beyond labels, ineffable, un-imputable. Nevertheless, there are times when we choose to discuss these things, whether with each other, with teachers, or students. So we do the best we can with our words. The use of "non-dual" is a reaction, some including myself would say a correction, to the the use of words like One or Oneness when describing the nature of being. When people have a direct experience of the nature of mind, it is very common is to experience a powerful, life and consciousness altering sense of being one with everything. The boundaries of our sense of self dissolve, at least temporarily, and the feeling is indescribable. These experiences are so powerful they cause substantial changes in how we view and relate to the world and to others in a long lasting manner. The tendency is to conclude that the true nature of being is One or Oneness. Without getting too much into theory and language, it is relatively easy to demonstrate, at least in Bön and Buddhist metaphysics, that One or Oneness are not an accurate description of the nature of being. For example, if the nature of mind was simply One or Oneness, then the instant one individual experiences enlightenment, all beings would be instantaneously enlightened. Clearly that is not our observation or experience. Nevertheless, there is the direct experience as well as ample basis for argument, even scientific data, that tells us we are not separate from others or from our environment in the way we appear to be, hence the genesis of the term non-dual. It indicates that while we are not separate (not dual), still we are not truly One. To make things more complicated, there are other areas in the teachings where you do find reference to unity, such as what I referred to above - thiglé nyagcig. At the end of the day, it is far more important to be exposed to the teachings and validate them through our personal practice, than to get too attached to any particular labels or concepts. I find non-dual to be a useful term but, like all of language in the realm of the boundless, it is limited.

If you are interested in Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's teachings, his later works are far more accessible. Unbounded Wholeness is a bit technical and theoretical. He recommends other books first, such as Awakening the Luminous Mind. His teachings now are all about direct experience, he avoids theoretical discussions with students. I think it is a bit misleading to think of dependent arising as a chain of occurrences. Dependent arising is another way of referring to emptiness. When we carefully examine the nature of our mind and the nature of reality in our practice or in ontological debate, we find that nothing can be shown to definitively exist in isolation from all else, including our sense of self. People and things are empty in the sense that they don't have a defined "self" that is independent and separate from other things, other beings, and their environment, hence the label dependent arising, everything is interconnected, nothing exists in isolation. Not only have yogis realized this, scientific disciplines like physics, biology, psychology, sociology, etc... have made analogous discoveries and embraced the truth of it. Whether through an analytical or practical approach, if we genuinely realize the meaning of emptiness we find it is not at all vacant or missing anything whatsoever. It is not some dark, imaginary, cold void. This is an error often encountered when the analytical mind thinks it understands emptiness. When we are quiet inside, alert, and open, not distracted in our thoughts, not indulging sensory experience, or feelings; we are not unconscious and blind, there is a spontaneous presence, a sense of awareness is there, a vividness, a knowing. So what we refer to as emptiness is not some sense of absence, it is more a fullness, filled with unlimited potential for anything to arise. This is what "unbounded wholeness" refers to, sometimes referred to in Tibetan as thiglé nyagcig (literally single sphere), referring to the non-dual nature of being. So spontaneous presence and dependent arising are indeed complimentary. Perhaps it is more accurate to say they are different characteristics, or aspects of the nature of mind, which is not different from the nature of reality in these teachings. There is a wonderful teaching that is discussed in detail in Tenzin Rinpoche's book Awakening the Luminous Mind called the Five-fold Teaching of Dawa Gyaltsen. It is a simple, five line poem that describes the relationship between our experience and the fundamental nature of existence. Vision is Mind - all life experiences are a reflection of our mind. Mind is Empty - when we look for the mind we ultimately cannot find it as independently established. Emptiness is Clear Light - when we discover the meaning of emptiness, there is a spontaneous presence there, a knowing (rigpa). Clear Light is Union - when we recognize the clear light, we find it to be the union of emptiness (space) and spontaneous presence (awareness). Union is Great Bliss - when we discover and abide in that union, we discover the spontaneous arising of empathy, of compassion, of Bodhicitta, the awakened heart. If you read this far... thanks for listening to me chatter!

My load times are very slow since yesterday.

They’re everywhere!

"Meditative insight views" could mean different things for me but hopefully I'll address your question. There are visions like webs of light, Northern lights, ripples, distortions of time and space, demons, yidams, dakinis, immortals, OBE's, seeing across distances of time and space, so many different experiences! These things do not have meaning or significance in and of themselves. They are considered, in dzogchen terms, the spontaneous display of the base, nothing aberrant about it, simply the natural arising of the 10,000 things in the openness of awareness. It is our minds that add the meaning and significance, those minds being a product of conditioning and circumstances. So our eyes play a role, our brain, atmospheric conditions, our emotions and memories, expectations, you name it; there are countless interconnected variables that give rise to our life and meditative experiences. Such experiences can elicit aversion, attachment, confusion and other reactions and come easily become obstacles when we engage with them. It is said in Bön dzogchen teachings that, and I paraphrase, 'When the sounds, lights, and rays encounter the mind of the practitioner, they are impure because they reflect the mind which has the nature of samsara. When they encounter the mind's nature (ie. the practitioner resting in the nature of mind, the non-dual state), they liberate spontaneously and remain pure, reflecting the nature of liberation.' Pure and impure in this context simply refer to whether we grasp or allow the experience of visions to spontaneously liberate, they are not judgmental in a moral sense. Then there are what I would call insights - meditative experiences that leave a lasting change in consciousness or that open us to another level of understanding or experience in our practice, in our view. These experiences can also take many different forms because there are many ways in which we are disconnected or out of touch with our deeper essence. Similarly, they only have the meaning and significance we impute on them, however they can be reliable indicators of our progress on the path so they are useful to student and teacher alike. Nevertheless, we must treat them the same as any meditative experience, in dzogchen practice that means to leave it as it is, don't engage or analyze, simply abide. These insightful meditative experiences can become even more formidable obstacles as we can be very attached to experiences that indicate spiritual growth.

The fabric of the 10,000 things is empty, otherwise there would be no opportunity for the infinite display of the 10,000 things to arise. But that emptiness is elucidated by awareness and the union of that space and awareness is the lively and energetic display we label the 10,000 things. I like the metaphor of space, awareness, and warmth that my teacher uses. We can have so many kinds of meditative or lucid experiences and visions, they are innumerable. And these visions reflect our own conditions as much, or more so, than anything else. This is one of the lessons of the dark retreat associated with dzogchen practitioners in the Bön and Nyingma traditions, as well as practices like sky and sun gazing.

Winter Rides In by Diné artist Shonto Begay. I love the details of his brush work, it reminds me a bit of van Gogh. Begay describes being influenced as a child by the sounds of his mother working a loom. The rhythm of the loom led to his staccato, broken, and layered brush strokes.

Plain speakin' - To me the metaphor means do not trust, accept, or buy into the religion of my father simply because of an accident of birth and youthful indoctrination. That is essentially what I did and encouraged my children to do. I looked at things with fresh eyes and found that the Abrahamic religions and their scriptures do not meet my moral and ethical standards so I have gone in a different direction. Capisce?

It occurs to me that if Abraham destroyed the gods of his father, adherents of the Abrahamic religions should be doing the same, if we haven't already. We need to empty our cups before they can be filled.

“In Silence, God ceases to be an object and becomes an experience.” Thomas Merton

Missing @Maddie

Karma for me is simply a manifestation of interconnectedness. Every being, every pebble, every action, every universe - all inextricably interrelated. The metaphor of Indra's Net gives a sense of how complex and pervasive it is. This is why it can be difficult to see the effects or causes of karma clearly in our relatively brief time in this life.

My present experience is that it seems irrelevant as to whether I believe in free will or not. Thoughts and feelings arise which seem to lead to actions and choices. Whether the relationship is causal or simply an inner narrative describing events and postulating agency makes little difference in my life experience.

And may I add, in addition we quite literally create everything we experience in every moment. By create I mean that things seem to be as they are because we are as we are. In other words, we see the world and others not really as they are, although that does contribute, but primarily as we are.

Funny, I just did a facepalm before my last post in another thread. Here's one that might get a few, though maybe not everyone - the nature of reality is non-dual

Any human can be subject to addiction, even those with deep spiritual insights and strong minds. Truth is, addictions stem from (lack of) genetic adaptation, from isolation, and loss of community. Labeling it as simply weak is a parochial and elitist view that treats addiction as criminal rather than the public health problem that it is. It's a very dysfunctional and counter-productive paradigm.