Seeing, Recognising & Maintaining One's Enlightening Potential

[manitou]

On 6/25/2022 at 9:27 AM, senseless virtue said:

I think we could have more discussion about referencing, quotations, and establishing credible and trustworthy sources. Branching into a separate thread perhaps?

 

 

 

And at some point, the knowledge is direct.  When that happens, why go through an interpreter?  The best knowledge we can all have is as seen through our own conditioning, in response to our own imprints.  This is where truth is ultimately experienced.  It can be known on an intellectual level by quoting others, but it is through the intermingling of that which the head has learned, and that which has been experienced in life, that the important realizations come.

 

Head knowledge is learned in a time-linear fashion.  But a sudden realization crunches time altogether, it is non-linear and non-spacial, non-dual.  It is the inner gulp of sudden realization that can be equated to a kick in the gut.  If we're all this far along on the path, we've all had those ah-ha! moments where it all comes together.  The self realization moment, the big one, makes you sweat and renders you a bit dizzy....  when you fully realize that you are the man behind the curtain.

[C T]

A model of Buddhist logic in discerning voidness, its pertinence in relation to self liberation, with a small passing refutation of Samkhya and Nyaya Vaisheshika positions. Excerpt from the Berzin Archives. 

 

(53) As it's like this, derision's improper in the direction of voidness. Therefore, without indecisively wavering, meditate, please, on voidness.

 

(54) Voidness is the opponent for the darkness of the emotional and cognitive obscurations; (so) how can someone wishing for omniscience quickly not meditate on it?

 

(55) (Cognizing) phenomena (as truly existent) gives rise to suffering: generate fear for that. But (realizing) voidness pacifies suffering: so why does fear generate for that?

 

(56) (Go ahead and) be afraid of whatever, if there were something called a "me"; but as there's nothing that is a "me," then whose fear will it be?

 

(57) Teeth, hair, or nails are not a "me"; nor am "I" bones or blood. ("I'm") neither mucous nor phlegm; and nor am "I" lymph or pus.

 

(58) "I" am not fat or sweat; nor am "I" even lungs or a liver. "I'm" not any of the other inner organs; nor am "I" feces or urine.

 

(59) Flesh or skin is not a "me"; nor am "I" temperature or energy-wind. In no way am "I" ever a bodily hole, nor are the six types of consciousness a "me."

 

(60) And if (a person) were a permanent cognizer (as Samkhya asserts, and) of a sound, the sound would be cognized all of the time. But when bereft of something it cognizes, what does it know, by means of which it could be called a cognizer?

 

(61) If it could be a cognizer without cognizing (something), then absurdly a stick would also be a cognizer. Therefore, it's certain that without something nearby that it's cognizing, it can't be a cognition.

 

(62) Suppose (you said), "It itself is then cognizing a sight." (Well,) why doesn't it also hear at that time? If (you answered), "Because the sound's not nearby," (well,) then it's no longer a cognizer of it.

 

(63) How can something having the nature of the cognizer of a sound become the cognizer of a sight? One can be labeled a father and a son, but not as his absolute nature.

 

(64) And it's like this (because) sattva, rajas, and tamas (as the absolute nature of both a sound and a sight) are neither a son, nor are they a father; (and because) that (cognizer of a sight) has never been seen with a fundamental nature connected with a cognizer of a sound.

 

(65) (Suppose you persisted,) "Like a dancer, it's still itself, but seen with another mode (of guise)." (Well then,) it wouldn't be static. And suppose (you clarified), "It's still itself, but (its fundamental nature) is in another mode." (Well then,) its oneness is one without any precedent.

 

(66) Suppose (you explained), "But its assorted modes (of guise) are not true," then describe, please, its own (innate) natural (guise). Suppose (you answered,) "It's being a cognizer." (Well then), absurdly it would follow that all persons are one.

 

(67) (Further,) what has intention and what lacks intention - those two would, in fact, become one thing, because their existence is the same. And, if individualities were contrary to fact, then what could be their shared support?

 

(68) Furthermore, something lacking intention cannot be a self, (as Nyaya-Vaisheshika asserts), because of its nature of lack of intention, just like a vase and such things. Now (suppose you claimed), "It's cognizant because of a conjunction with an intention," then it absurdly follows that (this) noncognizant (self) has perished.

 

(69) And if the self were (in fact) unchanging, what could have been done to it through (a connection with) an intention? (Moreover,) space is noncognizant and inert like that, so, it (as well) could become a self.

 

(70) Suppose (you then objected), "But, without the (true) existence of a (static) self, the connection between behavioral cause and effect would be unreasonable, since, if it perished after having done an action, then whose action would it have been?"

 

(71) (Well,) since it's established for both of us that the action and result have a different basis, and that the self hasn't an active role in this, isn't it useless to debate on this (point)?

 

(72) "Someone providing a causal (action) and conjoined with its result" - this has never been seen as an existent thing. It's in reliance on the unity of a continuum that it is taught, "(Only) the agent can be the experiencer (of the results)."

 

(73) The already-passed and the not-yet-arisen minds are not the self, since they don't exist (now). And well, if the (presently) arising mind were the self, when it perishes, there would, in fact, be no self!

 

(74) For example, when the trunk of a plantain tree is split into parts, nothing (is found); likewise, when searched for with discerning analysis, a self isn't (found as) an absolute thing.

 

(75) (Suppose) you asked, "If a limited being didn't exist, toward whom could there be compassion?" (Well,) it would be toward one who was conceptually labeled by a bewildered (mind) that had committed itself to the goal of its fruit.

 

(76) (Suppose you then asked,) "Whose fruit would it be, if there were no limited being?" (Well,) that's true. It's accepted that (the wish) is due to bewilderment; (yet,) for the sake of pacifying suffering completely, bewilderment about the fruit is not turned back.

 

(77) But because of bewilderment about the self, the cause of suffering, self-inflation, increases. (Suppose) you said, "But, there's no turning back from that." (Well,) best is meditation on the lack of an (impossible) self.

 

(78) A body is neither the feet nor the calves; nor is a body the thighs or the hips. The belly or the back is not a body; neither is a body the chest or the arms.

 

(79) The sides of the torso or the hands are not a body; nor is a body the armpits or the shoulders. The inner organs as well are not it; and neither is a body the head or also the neck. So what (alternative) could a body be here?

 

(80) If this body were located with a portion in all of these; then, although the parts are located in the parts, where is it itself located?

 

(81) And if a body itself, in its entirety, were located (everywhere), in the hands and so forth, there would be as many bodies as there were hands and so on.

 

(82) As a body's not (located) outside or inside (the parts), how could a body exist in terms of the hands and so forth (as their possessor)? As it's also not (a possessor) separate from the hands and so on, how could it possibly be (truly) existent?

 

(83) Thus, a body's not (truly) existent; but, because of bewilderment in terms of the hands and so forth, a dualistic mind arises of a body. It's like the dualistic mind that arises of a man in terms of a scarecrow, by its feature of having been set up in its shape.

 

(84) For as long as the conditions are assembled, the body (of a scarecrow) is seen as a man; likewise, for as long as there are hands and so on, a body is seen in terms of them.

 

(85) Similarly, because of its being a composite of fingers, which one could be a hand? (The same with) that (finger) as well, because of its being a composite of joints; and a joint as well, from the breakdown into its own parts;

 

(86) And a part as well, through a breakdown into particles; and that particle as well, because of directional divisions; and a directional division too, because of its being without (findable) parts, like space. Consequently, even particles don't (truly) exist.

 

(87) Therefore, what discerning (person) would be attached to a bodily form, which is like a dream? And when, like that, a body doesn't (truly) exist, then what's a male and what's a female?

[C T]

~ Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö ~

Heart Advice in a Nutshell

 

The root of all dharmas is one's own mind:

Convincing when unexamined, ingenious in its deception;

Yet, when investigated, without basis or origin;

In essence, free of coming, staying or going.

All the phenomena of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa

Are but pure or impure projections of one's own mind.

In reality, neither saṃsāra nor nirvāṇa exists.

 

Empty from the very beginning, pure from the first —

Still, this emptiness is not a nihilistic void,

For there is spontaneous presence in the nature of clear light.

Responsive pure awareness is the basis for all that unfolds.

Rigpa is beyond designation and verbalization.

From its potential saṃsāra and nirvāṇa arise in all their multiplicity.

The manifestation and the one that brings it about are not two:

In the experience of this non-duality, remain—unaltered.

[senseless virtue]

 

A beautiful prayer. Full text available at Lotsawa House website:

 

https://www.lotsawahouse.org/tibetan-masters/pema-lingpa/yeshe-tsogyals-prayer

[steve]

When they give Teachings, many teachers say that as you do practice, then gradually your thoughts start to diminish until finally there are no thoughts. This is Sutra style, it is not Dzogchen.

If you are really in your Real Nature, thoughts are continually arising, but you do not follow them. You know what you are thinking about and how thoughts are manifesting, but you are not a slave to that.

In general, when we follow after our thoughts we have problems. When we have contact with objects, just that moment is liberating. We dont need any kind of antidote or effort. Just being in that state is called Dzogchen, is called self-liberation. Why is it called self-liberation? Because we dont need something like an antidote or a method for liberating because there is nothing to liberate.

Chögyal Namkhai Norbu

The Melong - vol 64

 

Norbu Rinpoche with Tenzin Wangyal RInpoche circa 1988

 

 

[C T]

~ retreat ~ 

 

In November 2009, Bill and Susan Morgan, a couple from Boston, began what would become a four-year silent meditation retreat at the Forest Refuge, the Insight Meditation Society's centre for experienced meditators seeking longer-term retreat practice. In this series of seven videos, Bill and Susan look back on their experiences at the Forest Refuge, sharing how they came to the idea to commit to such a prolonged period of practice, the challenges they faced along the way, and several profound insights they gleaned both about themselves as individuals, and as a couple, practicing side-by-side every day, without speaking, for four years.

 

 

 

Parts 2 to 7

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1JdlIJ48nE 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQFDROVga9A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzITg-3-d5o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHytBzQx40Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRV6iOLvFPk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJW1o2zO8Ug

 

[C T]

Anatta 'NOt SELF' 

~ Chas DiCapua ~ 

 

 

[C T]

~ The Quest for the Hidden Lands & other revelations ~ Norma Levine 

 

Quote

 

The Homecoming 

 

The very first time I felt part of a family was at Sherabling in the early 80’s. I was amongst a growing number of spiritually attuned Westerners whose interest was sparked by rumours of a remote temple under construction in the jungle of Himachal Pradesh, and its extraordinarily young, welcoming Rinpoche. After a few months of coming and going, we evolved from a colourful patchwork of individualistic travellers into a small group of devotees who built retreat huts and practised meditation. I lived there for five years.

 

I still remember the joy of meeting Tai Situpa, one hand held open in a gesture of welcoming, and his genuine loving smile. The casual encounters in the courtyard made us feel like cousins come home at last after years of separation across the seas. We were never strangers in a strange land. We were extended family.

 

 

A MEETING OF MINDS

 

''I remained at Sherabling for a month and sat with Tai Situ – now my Guru – almost every day. I was part of a growing community of Westerners who were magnetized by his expansiveness, his curiosity about Western culture, his loving-kindness. He wrote lyrics, songs with titles like Cosmic Mandala, Street Buddha and Little Boy from Tibet.

 

We thought of him as our precious spiritual brother. He gave us the best rooms in the centre of the courtyard complex, within the inner sanctum of the monastery. In the late afternoon, he came into the courtyard and threw a frisbee with the young monks. At Diwali, the festival of lights marking the Hindu New Year, he lit fireworks, each explosion bursting flowers into the black autumn sky. In the early morning we saw him walk the path that led to the cement toilet and shower cubicles in a white towelling robe, his face luminous as a full moon."

 

We even talked about creating a band and touring the hotspots in Goa. We thought that our Aquarian age guru was more into music than meditation!

 

The party period of laughter, music, and picnics was an interval that lasted perhaps a year. Suddenly the 16th Karmapa was diagnosed with terminal cancer in Delhi and called his heart sons to him. It is said he instructed the Tai Situpa to become a Vajrayana guru and not a brother or familiar friend - or there would be trouble. And so commenced our training: 108,000 of each of the 4 foundation practices; followed by 108 sets of Nyung Nyes with alternate days of fasting and prostrating to purify the causes of rebirth in the lower realms. We were now on board the Vajrayana Express.

 

The unconditional love, the impartial acceptance of every flaw and nurturing of every strength radiating from a pure bodhisattva, plugged the bottomless black hole inside me, and allowed me to mature.

 

That first uninterrupted period of love and laughter in the Hidden Land of Sherabling was never to return. Grace is a one off moment in time.

 

 

 

*Norma's books are available on Amazon 

[manitou]

Thank you for that, CT - all of it.  I loved the growing simplicity of the Morgans. 

[C T]

"The most typical Tibetan account of the Vajrayāna model that presents wind as playing a key role in the functioning of the embodied mind. This Vajrayāna model involves an elaborate model of a “subtle body” featuring 72,000 channels—branching from three main channels—in which ten types of wind energy flow and where drops (Skt., bindu) or vital essences occur at key locations. The detailed account of this complex, subtle physiology need not be reiterated here, except for one important point: in its subtlest state, known as the extremely subtle mind (Tib., shin tu phra ba’i sems), consciousness is indistinguishable from its basis, the extremely subtle wind (Tib., shin tu phra ba’i rlung). In other words, to adopt a typical metaphor, the subtlest level of consciousness is nothing other than the extremely subtle energy on which it is “mounted,” and that extremely subtle energy is nothing other than the extremely subtle consciousness that is its “rider.” Thus, while the mind-body distinction can be maintained at a coarse level, that distinction falls away at the subtlest level from the perspective of Vajrayāna theory. In their own discussion of this issue in the previous volume, our authors thus say that “at the subtlest level, given that wind and consciousness exist as a single entity, no differentiation can be made between the two in terms of their reality”. Clearly, we have arrived at a nondual account of the relation between mind and body, albeit one that presumes that the only “body” left is an extremely subtle form of energy. As it turns out, that particular mind-body configuration occurs reliably only at death, and that is precisely the main target of what we might call the technology of tantra." ~ John Dunne (excerpted from wisdomexperience.org) 

 

*John Dunne holds the Distinguished Chair in Contemplative Humanities at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He received his PhD in Sanskrit and Tibetan studies from Harvard University.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 10, 2022 by C T

[C T]

.. More from John Dunne .. 

~ The Technology of Tantra

(from the book, Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics) 

 

 

THE TECHNOLOGY OF TANTRA

 

Most of our authors’ discussion of gross and subtle minds focuses on a Vajrayāna tantric model that is formulated from the perspective of what the Tibetan traditions call highest yoga tantra (Tib., bla na med pa’i rnal ’byor gyi rgyud). For this account, the main purpose of tantric practice is one that we have discussed before: the complete eradication of the fundamental ignorance that, by virtue of distorting our awareness of reality, causes suffering and prevents us from achieving the full awakening (Skt., samyaksaṃbodhi) of a buddha.

 

Recall also that removing that fundamental cognitive distortion involves cultivating the wisdom that uproots ignorance precisely because it directly cognizes the nature of reality without any such distortion. While the various Tibetan traditions differ somewhat on the details, the Vajrayāna tantric insight is that our gross level of experience contains so many distortions that systematically undoing them can take an extraordinarily long time, on the order of “three incalculable eons,” according to a traditional estimate. Yet if we can somehow experience wisdom at a subtler level of experience that acts as a foundation for the gross level of experience, that subtle level of wisdom can uproot all the gross confusions subserved by that level of consciousness. According to Vajrayāna theory, that kind of experience, which requires diving down to the subtlest levels of consciousness, enables us to achieve full awakening in “a single body, a single lifetime” (Tib., lus gcig tshe gcig).

 

That subtlest level of consciousness occurs reliably at the moment of death, so tantric technology involves reproducing the experience of death, without actually dying. From the Vajrayāna perspective, the various winds in the body must be manipulated to achieve this feat, but to achieve that level of control, practitioners must first move beyond their “ordinary perceptions and conceptions” (Tib., tha mal kyi snang zhen). This is necessary because the processes of perceiving and thinking are constituted by the fluctuations of these winds in various channels, and those fluctuations follow the deeply habituated patterns that manifest as our ordinary identities. Hence, before attempting to manipulate the winds, practitioners must first disrupt those deeply ingrained patterns, and to do so, they engage in the generation stage (Skt., utpattikrama), the first phase of practice in the Vajrayāna style discussed by our authors. By transforming their sense of identity through elaborate visualizations, recitations, and rituals, tantric practitioners transform their identities in ways that make the energy winds available for manipulation. When they reach that point, practitioners are ready for the next phase of practice, the completion stage (sampannakrama).

 

When tantric practitioners engage in the completion stage, they employ techniques to actually manipulate the winds, with the eventual goal of inducing a “dissolution” sequence said to closely resemble the process of dying. In actual death, the physical processes associated with the gross elements “dissolve” or cease to operate, and although the physical body is still present, its coarse functions such as digestion have ceased. As this process continues, only the energy winds remain functional, and as these also dissipate, conceptual and affective processes also shut down. The final stages of death involve just three progressively subtler forms of wind that are inseparable from three progressively subtler levels of consciousness. If awareness can be sustained through this process, various phenomenological appearances are said to occur, and in the final step, all that remains is an extremely subtle form of wind-mind called the clear light (Tib., ’od gsal, Skt., prabhāsvara).

 

In actual death, it is said that all of the winds dissipate, and the clear-light wind-mind that marks the end of this process must also decay; by that point, the process is long-since irreversible, and death is inevitable. In Vajrayāna practice, practitioners use techniques that induce a simulation of this process, without actually allowing it to end in death. In so doing, these practitioners learn to access what is said to be the subtlest level of conscious awareness. Ordinary persons, if they somehow could sustain awareness into the clear light, would still experience that state with the distortions that come from ignorance, but tantric practitioners are said to have the training to see that clear-light wind-mind in its true nature, thus counteracting ignorance at the very subtlest level of consciousness. In a sense, the clear-light wind-mind is the foundation for all other levels of consciousness, so counteracting ignorance at that level has a tremendous impact, potentially leading directly to buddhahood itself.

 

The clear-light state induced through tantric practice is said to be both extremely subtle and also extremely intense or even “blissful,” and these account for its tremendous potential for transformation. Nevertheless, the practice-induced clear-light state is said to be “metaphorical” (Tib., dpe’i ’od gsal) in relation to the actual clear-light wind-mind that occurs in true death.

 

For Vajrayāna practitioners, harnessing the extreme subtlety and power of the metaphorical clear-light mind to the task of uprooting ignorance is certainly part of the goal while they are alive, but inducing that state has another purpose: it prepares practitioners for death and the opportunity to bring their contemplative practice into the actual clear-light mind itself.

 

 

 

(courtesy of wisdomexperience.org) 

 

 

Edited July 10, 2022 by C T

[C T]

~ Ngak'chang Rinpoche ~ 

 

 

Q Could you talk a little more about Bardo?

 

Rinpoche: "Bardo can be misunderstood as just being the interval between successive rebirths, but Bar-do really means ‘gap’ or ‘space’. Bar means some kind of ‘flow’, ‘river’, or ‘movement’; and do means ‘island’. So it’s like a space or particular point. There are many Bardos... there is the Bardo of Death and the Bardo of Life. There is the Bardo of Visions that arise in the Death state and the Bardo of Becoming, of Dream, of Meditation. So Bardo is a very interesting concept. There is the Bardo of every day, of a particular job, a particular relationship, a particular sequence of events; everything is Bardo in that sense, in the sense of a contained experience. Like the Bardo of this interview – here in this tent. This will be followed by the Bardo of the walk to the shrine room and so on. Its like a space or field of a particular quality of experience, which is followed by space, which is followed by space. Each following space has its own unique flavour. Each space is somehow separate and discrete according to the experience of Bardo. When one really enters into Bardo then this is all there really is – it’s really just one Space – here, in this point instant, but stretching out into eternity. Bardo is essentially now. If you’re distracted... say you’ve got something on your mind... then this is not the realized experience of Bardo."

 

Q What is it then, Rinpoche?

 

Rinpoche: "It’s the Bardo of duality. The Bardo of duality wants to homogenize the individual quality of these endless appearing and disappearing Bardos into some sort of solid ground where nothing ever changes. The authentic experience of Bardo is a kind of bubble experience – it’s there, and then its gone... and there’s another one, then another one, and another one. That devolves into smaller, smaller, smaller, and smaller fields of experience until there is only Now. So... there are bubbles within those bubbles. These bubbles of experience, these Bardos, are linked by Emptiness – when you know that... it’s called Enlightenment (laughter). When it’s concept that links Bardos... this is known as Unenlightenment! So... when it’s concept that links these experiential spaces, you want to blur the Bardo experiences out so that there are no different Bardos. You want to have continuous experience rather than have discontinuous experience. This is the desire to experience continuity – but there is no continuity apart from Emptiness! That is the continuity... which is why the translation of Tantra (Gyüd in Tibetan) is ‘thread’ but, it’s Empty Thread."

[blue eyed snake]

thanks for posting these CT, it's very helpful 

lately the experience of err...things... is shifting again

 

't feels as if... ( finding words is so hard), there's no need to make words and concepts of it but the ever busy monkeymind does that nonetheless.

 

like: in my thinking mind  the large awareness, the Self was formerly exclusively energetic in nature. This has shifted to 'awareness is everything and everywhere'. Some manifestations are physical ( coarse) and others are (very) fine in nature. But all expressions of the same  awareness/consciousness.

hmm, see .... making words of it does not convey what is meant.

 

2 hours ago, C T said:

in its subtlest state, known as the extremely subtle mind (Tib., shin tu phra ba’i sems), consciousness is indistinguishable from its basis, the extremely subtle wind (Tib., shin tu phra ba’i rlung). In other words, to adopt a typical metaphor, the subtlest level of consciousness is nothing other than the extremely subtle energy on which it is “mounted,” and that extremely subtle energy is nothing other than the extremely subtle consciousness that is its “rider.” Thus, while the mind-body distinction can be maintained at a coarse level, that distinction falls away at the subtlest level

 

but this part of your post seems to convey what is now felt as lived experience. Not that I am anywhere as close to that very refined energy, hardly, still the reactive monkey mind. But the awareness that when you go that deep in the end both the physical and the very fine are expressions of the same awareness/consciousness is taking root here, as a soft, almost continuous murmur in the background.

 

( and still have not conveyed how it feels/ how its experienced. The concept is so clear to me now, but words fail me)

 

 

 

[C T]

2 hours ago, blue eyed snake said:

thanks for posting these CT, it's very helpful 

lately the experience of err...things... is shifting again

 

't feels as if... ( finding words is so hard), there's no need to make words and concepts of it but the ever busy monkeymind does that nonetheless.

 

like: in my thinking mind  the large awareness, the Self was formerly exclusively energetic in nature. This has shifted to 'awareness is everything and everywhere'. Some manifestations are physical ( coarse) and others are (very) fine in nature. But all expressions of the same  awareness/consciousness.

hmm, see .... making words of it does not convey what is meant.

 

 

but this part of your post seems to convey what is now felt as lived experience. Not that I am anywhere as close to that very refined energy, hardly, still the reactive monkey mind. But the awareness that when you go that deep in the end both the physical and the very fine are expressions of the same awareness/consciousness is taking root here, as a soft, almost continuous murmur in the background.

 

( and still have not conveyed how it feels/ how its experienced. The concept is so clear to me now, but words fail me)

 

 

 

 

Thank you, BES. Such a heartening insight into your present state, this lived experience. Can it even be labelled a state, I wonder. Perhaps more akin to a stateless state? As in, non-localised, pervasive awareness. That murmur you mentioned, which is also pervasive and without a locatable source, it may be the primordial sound that is subtly audible in complete inner silence, or total absorption into the true mind. For the experienced, this can occur even in the midst of ambient sounds or noise. 

[blue eyed snake]

On 10-7-2022 at 4:19 PM, C T said:

 

Thank you, BES. Such a heartening insight into your present state, this lived experience. Can it even be labelled a state, I wonder. Perhaps more akin to a stateless state? As in, non-localised, pervasive awareness. That murmur you mentioned, which is also pervasive and without a locatable source, it may be the primordial sound that is subtly audible in complete inner silence, or total absorption into the true mind. For the experienced, this can occur even in the midst of ambient sounds or noise. 

 

I do not know @C T and somewhat reluctant to talk, i begin to understand why my teacher told us not to share experiences. On the other hand, maybe it's time to stand on my own feet in that regard. For years this thread, your posts have been important for me. As I am largely uneducated concerning the things we talk about here, your posts were nice, readable little chunks of information from a reliable source. Sometimes cause to read a bit more a a subject. Sometimes so much buddhist terms that I skipped over. It's been very helpful for me.

 

it's not a state but an ongoing process. Non-localised, pervasive awareness sounds good but the center is still the physical body so non localized does not apply I think. ( English is hard for me). When you conceptualize something as a state you paralyze it, you take a slice out of reality, analyze it and think you've found truth. That's what science does, and for science it's good, as it should be. But it's not good when you forget that you've paralyzed your object to study it. Suppose it's one of the reasons talking about it was not encouraged. Another is that it changes, in 5 years my insight in what is happening now will be closer then it's now. Were I am now it's just a guessing game, but as long as I do not paralyze it into a frozen concept of what this means, guessing is alright. So regard this as just my two cents.

 

It's like a stream, you enter and the water will take you. Then the stream changes, it empties in a bigger stream, the change that is happening to me now may not be because of something I did but because of the stream changing... you get what I mean? Looking back I see there were other things, sort of never before recognized 'milestones'. Then when I did start some formal practice it was with a teacher who steered me deliberately away from reading and talking,  This process has gone on for decades really.

I suspect it's a sort of ripening, you cannot hasten the ripening of fruit but left alone it will ripen and then fall off the tree. When you make it a state instead of a process, you pick the apple before it's ripe.

 

the murmur is not something audible, it feels like... err, many years ago when doing practice I became aware of a bubble around me. That awareness came and went, at first only during practice in the dojo but later it spread into my regular life. That bubble was small, but decidedly bigger then the physical body, lets say I could stretch out my arms and just stay in it so to say. 't reminded me of my preschooler son who told me about bubbles he saw around people. Also remember having ideas about it that now look incorrect to me (or maybe correct for the phase I was in).

then it left, everything left me because I was so very ill for so many years.

 

Now the awareness of the bubble is back but enormously bigger, dunno how big but at a guess up to 10 meters, that just happened. But, maybe it's always been there, only the awareness was not sufficient to feel it. Like I hear some people are not very much aware of their physical body in daily life, of course that body is there but somehow they have not the ability to really feel it. Other guess is that the energy system inside of the body has cleaned up enough, that the zong mai / central channel has opened enough to make things like this happen, but somehow I doubt that. As I said, a guessing game.

 

and the awareness of that bubble is a continuous reminder (a hum in the background) of  what your beautiful  quote said, that energy and consciousness are, in their finest forms, the same.

 

On 10-7-2022 at 10:46 AM, C T said:

the subtlest level of consciousness is nothing other than the extremely subtle energy on which it is “mounted,” and that extremely subtle energy is nothing other than the extremely subtle consciousness that is its “rider.” Thus, while the mind-body distinction can be maintained at a coarse level, that distinction falls away at the subtlest level

 

at the moment it feels to me like everything, from the material world to living beings to the finest energies, it's all expression of the same vast consciousness, not only err... ensouled ( or something) by it as i thought before, but really expression.

 

on the other hand, reading about the amount of doing and energy that people put into it, the vast reservoir of knowledge in several cultures. It feels so strange that this happens to unwilling, uneducated BES who hardly did any practice.

cannot wrap my head around it and feels sort of arrogant to write about it in this way.

 

ah well, looks like I'm transforming to a luminous blob after all 

 

 

Edited July 13, 2022 by blue eyed snake

[C T]

It’s very important that we also develop this wisdom. Wisdom here means the ability to take in the darkness and transform it into light. And again as I said His Holiness the Dalai Lama is such a good example, people come to him with all their sorrows and sufferings from all over the world, from all these countries where people are suffering they come to tell him about their people suffering and you know, his heart is wide open, he listens and he weeps and they weep and they’re all sitting there having a good cry and then suddenly something occurs to him and he starts talking and within 5 minutes, 10 minutes, everybody is laughing and they all come out, big smiles on their faces feeling a big lump has been taken off and its dissolved, this is his wisdom. You see the Dalai Lama is always smiling, everybody loves His Holiness’ smile because it comes from the heart, it’s the opposite to the politicians’ smile.

~ Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

[C T]

Spoiler

 

 

https://www.lionsroar.com/the-fourteen-precepts-of-engaged-buddhism/

 

[C T]

 

[C T]

“Form do not disappear when realising emptiness”

 

Emptiness is nothing if not form, and form does not disappear when all things are seen as spaciousness, for that would imply a contradiction to the constantly emphasized premise in Mahayana Buddhism that there is no transcendental identity outside the sensual realm, the realm of ordinary consciousness.

 

To say that all things are conceived of emptiness does not imply that the visual sense ceases to function. Rather it implies that noetic spaciousness of the perceived coincides with the inherent spaciousness of the perceived. All phenomenal appearances are like a hologram where the knower and the known, “self” and “other”, become unified.

 

This leads to the great mystery of Mahamudra. This mystery can be conceived as a two-in-one Union where both unity and duality become one simultaneous and continuous peak experience.

 

The sexual analogy of lovers achieving a sense of complete oneness while still in their individual bodies is probably the best if not the only image we have that can express this paradoxical mystery.

 

(Extracts from Legends Of The Mahasiddhas by Keith Dowman)

[manitou]

On 7/20/2022 at 8:38 AM, C T said:

Emptiness is nothing if not form, and form does not disappear when all things are seen as spaciousness

 

 

I remember often that any form at all is 99.9999999999999% space, equivalent to the ratio of space contained within the spinning boundaries of an atom.  Were things not spinning, whether in the atom or a planet in the universe, there would not be the vision of a form at all.  And as it says in the DDJ, (paraphrased) the utility of an object is in its emptiness (a cup, a room, a window...)

 

In seeing the unity of all things, the 'matter' is the same for everything.  The same qualities, the same components.  It is only in the 'idea' that holds the matter into form, whether the form of a human, a tree, or a rock.  Everything is still spinning with life, although not visible to our eye.  It is nice to remember this when walking in nature.

[steve]

I saw many practitioners who spent many years in the [Dzogchen] Community, and succeeded in learning to avoid an honest look at themselves. And I'm convinced, even now that I wrote these lines, many of you have already read them and say to yourself: ′"This is not me, he is talking about another." Here is a good awareness practice to follow: once in the mind will arise a critical assessment of another person, switch up immediately and try on this judgment on yourself. Then, instead of developing your negative judgements, you can really succeed in the development of your awareness. This is one of the meanings of the symbol 'mirror'.

Chögyal Namkhai Norbu

 

 

 

 

[manitou]

On 7/22/2022 at 6:01 PM, steve said:

I saw many practitioners who spent many years in the [Dzogchen] Community, and succeeded in learning to avoid an honest look at themselves. And I'm convinced, even now that I wrote these lines, many of you have already read them and say to yourself: ′"This is not me, he is talking about another." Here is a good awareness practice to follow: once in the mind will arise a critical assessment of another person, switch up immediately and try on this judgment on yourself. Then, instead of developing your negative judgements, you can really succeed in the development of your awareness. This is one of the meanings of the symbol 'mirror'.

Chögyal Namkhai Norbu

 

 

 

 

 

 

If it wasn't in ourself, we wouldn't recognize it.

[C T]

Longchenpa ~ The Precious Treasury of the Fundamental Nature 

 

"Without a point of reference thinking “It is this,” Yogis are enveloped in an all-pervading vastness. For them phenomena are all exhausted, the ordinary mind is passed beyond. And for such Yogis what a joy this is, a joy that is a seamless state of dharmata!

 

In this, the Yogis of the past, the future, and the present time are merged with the single ultimate expanse of wisdom mind. The realization of such Yogis equals that of Buddhas and Vidyadharas.

You reach a clear conviction that awareness—self-cognizing, open, unimpeded, free of all appearance, beyond all concentrated meditation on an object, devoid of all conceptual construction—is the state wherein phenomena are all exhausted. They are all exhausted in awareness. Awareness, too, as a phenomenon, itself comes to exhaustion. 

 

“Exhaustion,” “non-exhaustion”—Yogis understand them both to be unreal. They are convinced beyond all doubt that things transcend existence, nonexistence, definition, and expression.

 

A clear conviction thus is reached that phenomena transcend all names. Such is the fundamental nature of the natural great perfection."

Edited August 2, 2022 by C T

[C T]

Furthermore... 

 

Longchenpa: "Some dumb (ignorant, egotistic) oxen these days claim to practice Ati, they say that moving thoughts are the enlightened mind. These fools are in great darkness, far from the Natural Great Perfection.

 

If they do not know how the creative power differs from that which comes from this creative power, how can they know the enlightened mind?

 

Regarding the creative power of awareness, when, in brief, the appearance of an object arises bright and clear within awareness—like a reflection in a mirror—the creative power of cognitive potency is the kind of naked, limpid knowing that does not actively cognize objects. A creative power of this kind is necessarily unceasing.

 

When the creative power arises and awareness does not move from its fundamental stratum of luminosity, the act of knowing does not stray into the object. The creative power is only spoken of from the point of view of its unceasing manifestation. In fact, creative power and awareness are not two separate things. 

 

An act of knowing that strays into the object of creative power is explained as the display of that creative power. This, on the other hand, is not self-arisen primordial wisdom, because unless it is restrained by skillful means, it will produce karma and defilement, which lead to samsara.

Moreover, this detecting and discerning act of knowing does not go beyond the samsaric state conditioned by an apprehender and an object to be apprehended." 

[C T]

The Precious Treasury of the Fundamental Nature (cont'd)

 

"The Oral Lineage says, “You know how to meditate but not to gain your freedom, how then do you differ from a god sunk in samadhi? And without sharp clarity of deep insight, even certain animals can stay in calm abiding.” 

 

If at the present time, one does not have a clear conviction—gained by maintaining a natural meditative absorption—in the empty, luminous awareness of the inner ultimate expanse, the fundamental stratum of primordial purity, the mind will continue in its ordinary courses. 

And though it may be stabilized through the practice of calm abiding, it will not gain freedom subsequently in the expanse of the primordial ground. 

 

Moreover, if one fails to achieve freedom in the expanse of the mother luminosity of the ground, then no matter how much one trains in calm abiding devoid of thoughts or in a tightly contrived meditation hidebound with attitudes of adopting and rejecting, of affirming and negating, one will achieve no more than birth in the celestial abodes of the higher realms. One will never accomplish liberation in the place of everlasting freedom. 

 

This is why right now in the present, it is important to be convinced and certain of the kind of concentration where one naturally rests in the inner pristine expanse - empty, luminous, and unobstructed."