Differences between dualism and non-dualism

[ralis]

21 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

Have you seen Adventures at the Vipassana Enlightenment Factory?  Karan Vasudeva took fastidious notes on his experience, and although it wasn't a triggering event for him, the strangeness of the whole experience comes across clearly.  I've read the accounts of others being triggered by Vipassana retreats, as well.
 

 

I never went to Goenka's retreats in Massachusetts, but did meet him when I was a student at Ohio State in the early 80's. I had private instruction and continued on after I graduated in 83. The monk like atmosphere as outlined above is not my thing and completely unnecessary.

[manitou]

6 minutes ago, ralis said:

 

 

Beyond non-dual is that one doesn't have the need to eliminate at all. It transforms to light. 

 

 

That's a lovely night light you've got in there...

[manitou]

13 hours ago, old3bob said:

the "I" that always was, always is and will always remain,  the fearless and the eater of death

 

 

This.

 

There is no beginning and no end.  This stream of energy we're riding was our consciousness before we were born, and will be after we die.  When that is understood and integrated, the fear of death leaves us when in consciousness.  How often we can stay in consciousness is both a skill and a choice.  If we have a monkey mind and cannot find the stillness and clarity, then we are not able to access this.  No doubt this is why a Muslim is to pray 5 times a day; to return to consciousness over and over during the day, or at least that's the plan.

 

Once the level of understanding that is attained by people such as those on this thread, the practice then becomes one of stilling the mind and practicing operation from that locus.  It is sporadic at first.  It gets less sporadic the more one stays in the consciousness of this awareness.  It is in this frame of reference, not attained by thinking about it, that the One is realized.  We realize (self realize) just who we really Are.  No one can tell you.  You must realize it for yourself.  The self realization will bubble up, once the brain is disengaged.

 

It cannot be spoken.  It cannot be contained in a word or a thought.  It cannot be understood from a mental perspective.  It can only be experienced.  And once experienced and Practiced from then on, life gets more and more beautiful.  The beauty of Acceptance, of letting things take their course, of knowing the male yet keeping to the female - this is the reward for all the years of seeking.  It's worth every book, every lecture, every master, every rinpoche, every bit of fools gold we've tried to take for ourselves.

 

I'm new at this.  But I finally know what the 'peace that passeth all understanding' means.

[Mark Foote]

6 hours ago, stirling said:

 

I would consider these ideas:

 

If ""all things are empty of intrinsic existence and nature", who would have agency?

 

If you could witness that your agency was illusory (or that reality existed entirely WITHOUT agents/subjects) why would you imagine that other appearances in consciousness possessed agency?

 

Under what conditions would it be possible to witness the actions of another and be sure that they possess agency of their own?

 

 

 

 

No doer of the deeds is found,

No being that may reap their fruits. 

Empty phenomena roll on!

This is the only right view. - Visuddhimagga

 

 

 

The air element that courses through all the limbs and has the characteristic of moving and distending, being founded upon earth, held together by water, and maintained by fire, distends this body. And this body, being distended by the latter kind of air, does not collapse, but stands erect, and being propelled by the other (motile) air, it shows intimation, and it flexes and extends and it wriggles the hands and feet, doing so in the postures comprising walking, standing, sitting and lying down. So this mechanism of elements carries on like a magic trick…

(Ibid XI, 92)
 

The question before us is, "who... moves the hands and feet"?  Buddhaghosa gives a reply:  it’s the air element, “… and being propelled by the other (motile) air, … it wriggles the hands and feet…”.

When that stage hypnotist says, "your arm is very heavy", and the subject's arm begins to drop, who moved the arm? 

When I go to leave the house, and my feet won't go to the door, who has stuck my feet to the floor? If I force my feet to the door, have I really gone anywhere, in a spiritual sense?

 

One time Huike climbed up Few Houses Peak with Bodhidharma.  Bodhidharma asked, 'Where are we going?'  Huike said, 'Please go right ahead--that's it.'  Bodhidharma said, 'If you go right ahead, you cannot move a step.'

(Denkoroku [The Transmission of Light], Huike [Shenguang, 30], tr Thomas Cleary, Shambala p 111)
 

 

I focused on the breath, looking to be mindful of each inhalation and each exhalation all day long.  I didn't quite succeed, but at some point in the afternoon (in the panhandle in San Francisco in 1975), the motile air got me up off a chair and "wriggled" my feet to the door.  All it took was a lot of experimenting with hypnosis, a poor vegan diet for years, and desperation.  Maybe Kobun's example, too, though I was never a student.
 

 

 

Edited June 7, 2022 by Mark Foote

[Mark Foote]

38 minutes ago, ralis said:

 

I never went to Goenka's retreats in Massachusetts, but did meet him when I was a student at Ohio State in the early 80's. I had private instruction and continued on after I graduated in 83. The monk like atmosphere as outlined above is not my thing and completely unnecessary.

 

Karan did that retreat in India, I think, but within the last two decades.  I believe they're all the way he outlined now, even if that's not necessary.

[manitou]

3 hours ago, ralis said:

That is the million dollar question! Right to the heart of the matter! 
 

I have been around many heartless selfish Buddhists as well as Advaita devotees who could care less about others. 

 

 

what one sees as heartless and selfish may not be the case.  Is it possible that those folks dwell in an is-ness that accepts all conditions, seemingly good or seemingly bad?  Of course, if rudeness or obvious bad intent enters into it, there's yer sign.  It says something in the DDJ about the sage having the choice of entering the emotions and stream of the world, or dwelling above it to some degree, not reacting to the phenomena.  I think that goes back to the straw dogs reference again.  The Dao doesn't seem to care - if it cared, life would be fair.  It is not.  But the agape and unconditional love that is present to us, the grace, the constant opportunity of redemption when we get ourselves into a pickle - this love cannot be denied.

 

I don't know what it is.  Mutual attraction, maybe even gravity.  Maybe the spark between the hand of man and god on the ceiling.  But whatever it is, it is there and accessible to everyone.  

 

Maybe those selfish Buddhists and Advaita devotees haven't gotten around to their inner work yet.

[Bindi]

2 hours ago, manitou said:

 

 

Not so, Bindi.  When one is in awareness, you are One with the Whole.  When that is the case, there is no room for fear, as you are part of everything. 

 

You posted "I've always had this undercurrent of fear inside me, stemming from who knows what.  It manifests as a tendency toward anti-socialism, staying apart from people, mentally (and subtly) pushing people away.  Sometimes pretending that I don't see them, sometimes purposely turning a corner so I don't have to socially interact with them.  I realized just this morning how very subtle this is, as I was about to turn a corner before having to say good morning to someone else.  How ridiculous! Pleasant Experience doesn't have to do that any more!"

 

You explicitly state that you noticed a subtle undercurrent of fear inside you, therefore you were not "one with the whole" with “no room for fear” up to that morning. Perhaps you think you are “one with the whole” now, though practically speaking there may be and probably are other subtle undercurrents that you haven't yet noticed. 

 

Quote

This is what the DDJ talks about when it says that nothing happens to the sage.  Sometimes I wonder if this is how snake charmers do it.

 

Being in Oneness, achieving self-awareness, is not something that can be argued.  It happens when it happens.  The one thing that prevents its arising is ego and argumentation.  Things don't resonate until they do.  By you 'not buying it', as you say, you are driving your self awareness further away and firming up your spiritual conditioning, which is the very thing you want to get rid of.  You don't have to buy anything.  Just be open minded about everything.  You're so close, but you have to let the cogitation go.  You can't think your way into it.  Best to develop the beginner's mind at this point.  If you've developed the ability for no-thought at all, it will be found here.

 

Best wishes.

 

Edited June 7, 2022 by Bindi

[stirling]

15 hours ago, ralis said:

Why bother?

 

Right? Yet... here we are both posting on a bulletin board about the ineffable. I'll have my Sisyphus with a dose of irony, thanks.

[stirling]

15 hours ago, Bindi said:

When you saw your children having mental breakdowns, did you see this as somehow just illusory? Were you unmoved by the situation? 

 

Here's one them:

 

My daughter's eyes were wide and she was white as a sheet,  pounding on the dashboard of my car as I drove. It was clear to me that this was about as deep as her suffering had ever been in my presence. I calmly said, "It's alright honey, let's give this a moment to do its thing... don't resist it." I put my hand on her leg. She scrabbled at the stereo in tears trying to put some music on that might distract her from the panic and fear. She chose an album by the Rolling Stones - "Aftermath". As the music played the thought arose that it might not ever be something I could enjoy again. 

 

After 15 minutes or so she was able to begin to relax and her breathing slowed. She was sweaty... exhausted. We pulled over and hugged. 

 

During the whole thing my mind was quiet and clear. What to do or not to do was obvious. I was present with her and her pain, but at no point was it my pain. There was equanimity, and deep love and the wish to be helpful. What most don't realize is that often the most helpful thing is to "do" nothing at all, just acknowledge and be present. Empathy (as opposed to compassion in the Buddhist sense) gets in the way of being most loving and helpful. It often creates a focus on OUR suffering, rather than the suffering in the world or in someone else. My daughter, you, and everything else appear as separate entities, but also persistently have the quality of sunyata (emptiness) like everything else, including and especially "me".

 

My daughter later thanked me for being calm and supportive and just listening. 

[stirling]

15 hours ago, ralis said:

That is the million dollar question! Right to the heart of the matter! 
 

I have been around many heartless selfish Buddhists as well as Advaita devotees who could care less about others. 

 

I'm not sure where you meet your Buddhists and Advaita devotees, but this certainly isn't my experience. The ones I know are absolutely amongst the kindest people I have ever met - ESPECIALLY those that have realization.

[dwai]

1 minute ago, stirling said:

 

I'm not sure where you meet your Buddhists and Advaita devotees, but this certainly isn't my experience. The ones I know are absolutely amongst the kindest people I have ever met - ESPECIALLY those that have realization.

I echo that -- selfless service is both a major component as well as an outcome of nondual realization. One cannot do selfless service without compassion and love. When you know that you are not a limited body-mind entity, 

 

I've written a pretty lengthy article on the subject of nondual realization/awareness and love -- https://www.medhajournal.com/non-dual-awareness-is-without-attributes-but-what-about-love/

[stirling]

13 hours ago, steve said:

The dzogchen teachings say yes, though others have consistently challenged their claims in Buddhism and other traditions. Arguably there is no more effective or expeditious method, provided we have a karmic connection to the teachings and lineage.

 

In Western psychology we dredge of difficult experiences and feelings and discuss them over and over until we have a satisfying explanation and the feelings around them soften. 

 

The Vajrayana method is to get into open awareness/Dzogchen/Zazen meditation and bring them to mind when the mind is quiet and empty. Doing this until the thoughts around the experience don't really create further thoughts are feeling is the goal. It is VERY effective for issues of light to medium depth, though having a psychiatrist to work with as well is often beneficial for truly difficult, or deep-seated trauma. 

 

I recommend this method highly for working with obscurations.

[Mark Foote]

37 minutes ago, dwai said:

 

I've written a pretty lengthy article on the subject of nondual realization/awareness and love -- https://www.medhajournal.com/non-dual-awareness-is-without-attributes-but-what-about-love/

 

 

When the state and its families are confused and out of order, there are (the teachings of) loyalty and faithfulness. (Tao Te Ching, ch. 18)

 

Ain't that the truth!

[stirling]

12 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

No doer of the deeds is found,

No being that may reap their fruits. 

Empty phenomena roll on!

This is the only right view. - Visuddhimagga

 

 

 

The air element that courses through all the limbs and has the characteristic of moving and distending, being founded upon earth, held together by water, and maintained by fire, distends this body. And this body, being distended by the latter kind of air, does not collapse, but stands erect, and being propelled by the other (motile) air, it shows intimation, and it flexes and extends and it wriggles the hands and feet, doing so in the postures comprising walking, standing, sitting and lying down. So this mechanism of elements carries on like a magic trick…

(Ibid XI, 92)
 

The question before us is, "who... moves the hands and feet"?  Buddhaghosa gives a reply:  it’s the air element, “… and being propelled by the other (motile) air, … it wriggles the hands and feet…”.

When that stage hypnotist says, "your arm is very heavy", and the subject's arm begins to drop, who moved the arm? 

When I go to leave the house, and my feet won't go to the door, who has stuck my feet to the floor? If I force my feet to the door, have I really gone anywhere, in a spiritual sense?

 

One time Huike climbed up Few Houses Peak with Bodhidharma.  Bodhidharma asked, 'Where are we going?'  Huike said, 'Please go right ahead--that's it.'  Bodhidharma said, 'If you go right ahead, you cannot move a step.'

(Denkoroku [The Transmission of Light], Huike [Shenguang, 30], tr Thomas Cleary, Shambala p 111)
 

 

I focused on the breath, looking to be mindful of each inhalation and each exhalation all day long.  I didn't quite succeed, but at some point in the afternoon (in the panhandle in San Francisco in 1975), the motile air got me up off a chair and "wriggled" my feet to the door.  All it took was a lot of experimenting with hypnosis, a poor vegan diet for years, and desperation.  Maybe Kobun's example, too, though I was never a student.

 

Quote

 

"'Your question should not be phrased in this way: Where do these four great elements -- the earth property, the liquid property, the fire property, and the wind property -- cease without remainder? Instead, it should be phrased like this:

 

Where do water, earth, fire, & wind have no footing? Where are long & short, coarse & fine, fair & foul, name & form brought to an end?

 

And the answer to that is:

 

Consciousness without feature, without end, luminous all around:

 

Here water, earth, fire, & wind have no footing. Here long & short coarse & fine, fair & foul, name & form are all brought to an end.

 

With the cessation of [the activity of] consciousness each is here brought to an end.'"

 

- Kevatta (Kevaddha) Sutta, Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

 

Who moves hands and feet? Where all dualities are brought to a featureless, luminous end, nothing.

[ralis]

2 hours ago, stirling said:

 

I'm not sure where you meet your Buddhists and Advaita devotees, but this certainly isn't my experience. The ones I know are absolutely amongst the kindest people I have ever met - ESPECIALLY those that have realization.

 

It takes all kinds. Here in Santa Fe NM it is a hodgepodge of wannabes and ones claiming some sort of realization.

 

At the local Tibetan center (Stupa) on Airport Road where I was a part of way back in the late 80's there was always infighting amongst certain individuals. Kindness among the members there?  The so called highest realized individuals in the Tibetan Dharma King lineage have been accused of sexual abuses imposed on women and children. The Dalai Lama has admitted as to having knowledge of sexual abuses, for decades. I have no illusions regarding religious belief systems.

 

I have been around this for along time and have no need to wear rose colored glasses like most.

 

Gangaji and Pamela spent a lot of time here in town with the same types of individuals.

Edited June 7, 2022 by ralis

[manitou]

13 hours ago, Bindi said:

 

You posted "I've always had this undercurrent of fear inside me, stemming from who knows what.  It manifests as a tendency toward anti-socialism, staying apart from people, mentally (and subtly) pushing people away.  Sometimes pretending that I don't see them, sometimes purposely turning a corner so I don't have to socially interact with them.  I realized just this morning how very subtle this is, as I was about to turn a corner before having to say good morning to someone else.  How ridiculous! Pleasant Experience doesn't have to do that any more!"

 

You explicitly state that you noticed a subtle undercurrent of fear inside you, therefore you were not "one with the whole" with “no room for fear” up to that morning. Perhaps you think you are “one with the whole” now, though practically speaking there may be and probably are other subtle undercurrents that you haven't yet noticed. 

 

 

 

 

Yes, I did post that.  And yes, the undercurrent is in me when I am not in consciousness.  It is precisely this fear that I use as a tool to remove myself from the undercurrent, when I catch myself doing it.  Pleasant Experience is one with the whole, it is a consciousness that transcends nouns and becomes a verb instead.  It IS the experience.  It's so subtle that it's...well...ineffable, as Stirling says.  And it is not stagnant, it is dynamic.  We ride two horses - one physical, one metaphysical - and it's a very easy thing to remount the physical horse at any given moment, letting our thoughts and fears and ego lead us around by a ring in our nose.  Once the ability to jump off the physical horse onto the metaphysical horse has been developed, it becomes our choice, as it says in the DDJ.  No, I think that after the awakening, one rides the metaphysical horse once in a while throughout the day.  Then, with sincerity and great desire as our propellers, we find ourselves riding the metaphysical horse more and more often.  Maybe, if I'm lucky, I will find that I'm on the metaphysical horse most of the time.  Or even all of the time.  It is this horse that we will ride into our death, hopefully.  The one that does not fear what's next, because what's next has already happened and we're just playing catch-up.

 

Love of form and love of thought seems to be the thing that prevents rising to this level.  If one is captivated with the form of a particular dogma, knows that dogma well, and considers themselves to have expertise in that dogma, this reinforces the sense of separateness, reinforces the false self, and gratifies the ego to the point where hope may be lost.  One may need to recycle through again and again.  Many awakened people have come through dogma and finally discarded it, realizing this quagmire of seeming separation.  One who identified with Islam and transcends, becomes a Sufi.  One who identified with Christianity and transcends, develops the Christ Consciousness.  One who was entrenched in an ism of any sort has a way to transcend it and find that which we are all looking for - the answer to the question that we know not what the question even is!  All we know is that it moves us upward, it propels us through life situations and through religions and through marriages and seeking it in all Form and Forms.

 

There are two crucial components to developing and trying to maintain this state.  The first, is to do the inner work.  What I mean by that is to diminish the ego, find ways to quash it - let the other guy 'win'.  If this is too painful to even think about, then that's exactly the barricade that needs to be removed.  I was fortunate in that I had the 12 steps of recovery as a guide for the last 40 years.  Those steps are one big ego cruncher, the great equalizer.

 

The second component is to develop the ability to be without thought.  The thinking process must be transcended in order to reach this state.  We must develop the ability to turn our thoughts on and off at will.  If one hasn't been a long time meditator (and most here have been, I imagine) and learned to do this through meditative processes, there is a simple way that I have found to enter into this mindless world.  Taking a sound bath.  I've talked about it before, but maybe it bears repeating.

 

I walk the dogs a couple times a day, and sometimes I take a sound bath while walking them.  The first step is to establish awareness of the inside of the nostril - to feel the cool air in the nostril while inhaling, and then feel the warm moist air while exhaling.  That's all.  Just to notice for an extended time the difference between the two.  If thoughts start getting in the way, like a shopping list or fear of something that's about to happen, draw your attention back to the temperature differences in the nostrils.  The second component is to listen to everything, without giving preference as to whether it's a mockingbird or a leaf blower.  Listen to it all as a symphony - the leaf blower is merely a drone underlying the other sounds.  Notice the smallest things too, like the scruffy sound of your shoes hitting the pavement, the tinkle of the dog's tags.  Take it all in.  When the thoughts return, bring your focus back.

 

By doing this, you are leaving no room for thoughts.  You are totally in the moment.  There is no room to think about Buddhist structure, or whether you're right and someone else is wrong, or whether you agree or disagree.  This state, the Zen mind, the beginner's mind, is the entrance point.  It is maintaining This Mind that becomes The Practice for those of us who are willing to abandon all else, all rightness and wrongness, all good and bad, and be willing to be looked upon as a total fool......it is that length that one must become willing to go to to.  There are no alternative facts here.  All paths will end up in the same place.  Continual emphasis of one particular way as being 'the right way' has become a barricade.

 

I don't know the magic change that happens, all I know is that it does.  Once you've 'gotten' this, maybe there's a chemical change or something that has taken place.  All I know is that one is now Grounded in a way we haven't been before.  There is no more searching for anything, because the heart is at rest.  The answers come, when the problem is presented.  The answers aren't projected out into the future - they're right here and right now, and they unfold in us as the moment requires.

[stirling]

54 minutes ago, ralis said:

 

It takes all kinds. Here in Santa Fe NM it is a hodgepodge of wannabes and ones claiming some sort of realization.

 

At the local Tibetan center (Stupa) on Airport Road where I was a part of way back in the late 80's there was always infighting amongst certain individuals. Kindness among the members there?  The so called highest realized individuals in the Tibetan Dharma King lineage have been accused of sexual abuses imposed on women and children. The Dalai Lama has admitted as to having knowledge of sexual abuses, for decades. I have no illusions regarding religious belief systems.

 

I have been around this for along time and have no need to wear rose colored glasses like most.

 

Gangaji and Pamela spent a lot of time here in town with the same types of individuals.

 

Hokoji is a Soto Zen temple out in Arroyo Seco. The Abbot is Ian Forstner. He is worth meeting. He isn't putting on a show,  just a guy who builds houses and sees things as they are. It has been my great fortune to sit with him, and consult with him a number of times. There is a circle of the Trungpa chaps out there too that are certainly worth talking to. They are everywhere, really. 

 

The guys you are looking for don't usually promise you anything, and are generally kind and generous with their time. No big conferences or satsangs.

[manitou]

22 hours ago, blue eyed snake said:

 

hmm... as far as my knowledge reaches it is fear that wakes up that respons of very adequate reactions. I've been in lifethreatening situations too and when someone tries to do you in,  fear is the main motivator, at least in this body.

 

maybe you are superman of course, then thing probably are different. will make allowance for that 

 

 

This is an odd phenomena.  I think of the times in my life where my life has been threatened (or I thought so afterwards!) and as I look back, I realize that fear was not present during the occurrence - not until afterwards.  The time a big truck swayed into our motor home on the freeway, nearly colliding - the time we nearly got blown off the edge of a road by a huge wind gust coming down the mountain into Reno - the time I walked into my home to find all my belongings piled in the middle of the room and a burglar in the house - things like this, something just comes up and handles without thinking.  After the burglar emptied his pockets and left the house, my knees started shaking and I hit the ground.  I was terrified.  But not when it was happening.

[Mark Foote]

22 minutes ago, manitou said:

 

I walk the dogs a couple times a day, and sometimes I take a sound bath while walking them.  The first step is to establish awareness of the inside of the nostril - to feel the cool air in the nostril while inhaling, and then feel the warm moist air while exhaling.  That's all.  Just to notice for an extended time the difference between the two.  If thoughts start getting in the way, like a shopping list or fear of something that's about to happen, draw your attention back to the temperature differences in the nostrils.  The second component is to listen to everything, without giving preference as to whether it's a mockingbird or a leaf blower.  Listen to it all as a symphony - the leaf blower is merely a drone underlying the other sounds.  Notice the smallest things too, like the scruffy sound of your shoes hitting the pavement, the tinkle of the dog's tags.  Take it all in.  When the thoughts return, bring your focus back.

 

Puts me in mind of koun Franz's comments about the eyes:
 

I was taught we should be constantly aware of our eyes when we sit. Specifically, we should be aware of how we narrow and widen the aperture, how our field of vision gets narrower and narrower as our mind gets narrower and narrower. When you see that clearly, you also see how easily you can just open it up; the degree to which we open it up is the degree to which we’re here.

 

(“No Struggle [Zazen Yojinki, Part 6]”, by Koun Franz, from the “Nyoho Zen” site
https://nyoho.com/2018/09/15/no-struggle-zazen-yojinki-part-6/)

 

 

What is helpful to me regarding thoughts and thought is Gautama's mindfulness of the mind, which I described on this thread a ways back.  Basically, find appreciation of thought, and detach the mind.  If I can't appreciate the thought, maybe appreciate being able to think at all!  Without the appreciation, detachment is hard to find.

I will think about the temperature of my nostrils in inhalation and exhalation, now.  And sound bathing.  And twelve step!

 

 

[steve]

I’ve encountered some wonderful people at Bön retreats and some people who are in a lot of pain and looking for help. There can be some big egos and some tiny ones. Some are a bit eccentric, not unlike this community. Overall I find sanghas to be a microcosm of humanity though skewed towards people actively looking to help or improve themselves and grow. The genuine and dedicated practitioners do tend to be very open, loving, and powerful people though they also tend to be quiet and rarely in the spotlight. 
 

I suggest that what we think we know about others is more a projection of our own assumptions and expectations than anything related to who they really are (speaking here in a relative sense).

 

I also suggest that we sometimes overlook the Two Truths doctrine in our discussions about nonduality here. The absolute perspective is very real for those who have access. The relative perspective is no less real for those who do not. Both are valid and deserving of respect and acknowledgement. We have no choice but to live and work with what we can access. Highly advisable to keep an open mind as this can change at any time.

 

 

[Cobie]

1 hour ago, ralis said:

… I have no illusions regarding religious belief systems. …

Same here. Learned it in the seventies. If someone wants to have sex with you and/or take your money then it’s not a ‘teacher’,  just a con artist.
 

 

Edited June 7, 2022 by Cobie

[silent thunder]

59 minutes ago, manitou said:

a consciousness that transcends nouns and becomes a verb instead.  It IS the experience.

This

[blue eyed snake]

4 hours ago, stirling said:

What most don't realize is that often the most helpful thing is to "do" nothing at all, just acknowledge and be present.

 

yes, much this.

thank you

[blue eyed snake]

41 minutes ago, manitou said:

 

 

This is an odd phenomena.  I think of the times in my life where my life has been threatened (or I thought so afterwards!) and as I look back, I realize that fear was not present during the occurrence - not until afterwards.  The time a big truck swayed into our motor home on the freeway, nearly colliding - the time we nearly got blown off the edge of a road by a huge wind gust coming down the mountain into Reno - the time I walked into my home to find all my belongings piled in the middle of the room and a burglar in the house - things like this, something just comes up and handles without thinking.  After the burglar emptied his pockets and left the house, my knees started shaking and I hit the ground.  I was terrified.  But not when it was happening.

 

yes agree, now that I've thought on it and remembered things 

 

it can happen in several sequences and sometimes the fear ( or the decompression from it) comes  afterwards.

But even when not called fear ( or perceived as fear) something in the dangerous situation triggers our body into reaction, a reaction that often goes over and above our usual behavioral possibilities 

[Mark Foote]

2 hours ago, stirling said:

 

Who moves hands and feet? Where all dualities are brought to a featureless, luminous end, nothing.

 

 

From Rhys Davids' translation of Kevaddha Sutta:
 

'There is it that earth, water, fire, and wind,
And long and short, and fine and coarse,
Pure and impure, no footing find.
There is it that both name and form
Die out, leaving no trace behind.
When intellection ceases they all also cease.

 

(https://obo.genaud.net/dhamma-vinaya/pts/dn/dn.11.rhyt.pts.htm)

 

 

The subject matter of the sutta is described by Rhys Davids (the founder of the Pali Text Society) as follows:
 

The problem, as put by the Bhikshu to the gods, is: 'Where do the elements pass away?' The Buddha, in giving his solution, first says that that is not the right way to put the question. It ought to be: 'Where do the elements find no foothold; where does that union of qualities that make a person (nāma and rūpa) pass away?'

(ibid)

 

The experience associated with Gautama's enlightenment was the cessation of (volition in) perception and sensation (perceiving and feeling).  That seems to be the one where the "union of qualities that make a person pass away":

 

And again … a good [person], by passing quite beyond the plane of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, enters on and abides in the stopping of perception and feeling; and when [such a person] has seen by means of wisdom [their] cankers are caused to be destroyed. And… this [person] does not imagine [his or her self] to be aught or anywhere or in anything.

 

(MN III 42-45, Pali Text Society Vol III pg 92-94)

 

 

"Aught or anywhere or in anything"--the union of qualities that make a person have "passed away".

 

I'm only talking about the cessation of (volition in) in-breathing and out-breathing, the experience also described as the cessation of action of the body.  Buddhaghosa's description of the windy element, and the motile part of the windy element, accurately describes the feeling when "zazen gets up and walks around" in that cessation, at least to me.

 

Here's a description I made in my post Genjo Koan: 

 

There’s a sentence in the “Genjo Koan” where Dogen speaks about the life that fish and birds enjoy, and he says:

 

…each one realizes its limitations at every moment and each one somersaults (in complete freedom) at every place…

 

(translation by Gudo Nishijima)

 

In D. L. Bartilink, “No Special Effort”, and the “Best of Ways”, I wrote about somersaulting in place:

 

The trick is to allow for movement in where I am, even when I’m not moving.

 

The place where I am can “turn and move freely everywhere” (as another translator rendered “somersaults”), and the place where I am can also remain stationary; when the place where I am is free to move yet remains stationary, the rest of me may turn around the place where I am, instead.

 

Cheng Man-Ch’ing spoke of a saying from the classic literature of Tai-Chi, “the millstone turns, but the mind does not turn”:

 

the turning of the millstone is a metaphor for the turning of the waist. The mind not turning is the central equalibrium resulting from the sinking of ch’i to the tan-t’ien.

 

‘The millstone turns but the mind does not turn’ is an oral teaching within a family transmission. It is similar to two expressions in the T’ai-chi ch’uan classics which compare the waist to an axle or a banner. This is especially noteworthy. After learning this concept my art made rapid progress.

 

("Cheng Tzu’s Thirteen Treatises on T’ai Chi Ch’uan", Professor Cheng Man Ch’ing, tr Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo and Martin Inn, p 75, ©1985 by Juliana T. Cheng)