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- The three characteristics and my life
The three characteristics and my life
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14 years 4 months ago #2167
by Chris Marti
Replied by Chris Marti on topic The three characteristics and my life
I like that version, Kate. What's more, I grok your "many me" description of your self (the "Kate" of any given moment). what you're calling "... finer responsiveness; a sense of greater clarity; greatly refuced need to estrange myself" I'm calling peace and freedom.
It's all good.
It's all good.
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14 years 4 months ago #2168
by Chris Marti
Replied by Chris Marti on topic The three characteristics and my life
Just have to add --
At some point it becomes obvious that THIS is all we will ever have, ever get, ever have access to. Just this. Nothing more and nothing less. Learning how to see and live within this appropriately is the whole point of practice. It's the only real point of our practice whether we know it or not. It's right under our noses all the time and yet it's also the most difficult and significant re-perception we can have. I'm flabbergasted and amazed by that weird twist of our human existence on an ongoing basis.
At some point it becomes obvious that THIS is all we will ever have, ever get, ever have access to. Just this. Nothing more and nothing less. Learning how to see and live within this appropriately is the whole point of practice. It's the only real point of our practice whether we know it or not. It's right under our noses all the time and yet it's also the most difficult and significant re-perception we can have. I'm flabbergasted and amazed by that weird twist of our human existence on an ongoing basis.
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14 years 4 months ago #2169
by Dharma Comarade
Replied by Dharma Comarade on topic The three characteristics and my life
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14 years 4 months ago #2170
by Kate Gowen
Replied by Kate Gowen on topic The three characteristics and my life
Part of what prompted me to pipe up is that when I see the version of Buddhism that carries all the puritanical impedimenta of Christianity with its rejection of 'all THIS' under cover of 'disgust for samsara' and its equation of 'nirvana' with some heavenly 'higher world'-- it makes me really, really sad. Because it short-circuits the magnificent potential of Buddhism as a means of appreciating 'this precious human life.'
And it severely misunderestimates our human nature in all its vast dimensions: the trivial, the profound, the momentary, the eternal, the heavenly, the hellish, the simple, the complex.
I'm just beginning to see that they're called 'the three characteristics'-- a curiously neutral expression, no?-- not 'the three damnations' or 'the three afflictions.' My vajrayana studies prompt me to look for both ends of the polarities: so I propose-- impermanence/dynamism; unsatisfactoriness/aspiration; no self/intimacy. [No doubt someone somewhere along the line has come up with something much more profound than this off-the-top take...]
It seems a dead end to approach practice as if we can become 'enlightened' by rejecting our 'unenlightened' humanity: self-obsession functions the same whether it's the 'heads' of megalomania or the 'tails' of self-loathing: the same counterfeit coin.
That video about being wrong was the most powerful teaching I've seen in awhile: 'What does being wrong feel like? It feels like being right.'
And it severely misunderestimates our human nature in all its vast dimensions: the trivial, the profound, the momentary, the eternal, the heavenly, the hellish, the simple, the complex.
I'm just beginning to see that they're called 'the three characteristics'-- a curiously neutral expression, no?-- not 'the three damnations' or 'the three afflictions.' My vajrayana studies prompt me to look for both ends of the polarities: so I propose-- impermanence/dynamism; unsatisfactoriness/aspiration; no self/intimacy. [No doubt someone somewhere along the line has come up with something much more profound than this off-the-top take...]
It seems a dead end to approach practice as if we can become 'enlightened' by rejecting our 'unenlightened' humanity: self-obsession functions the same whether it's the 'heads' of megalomania or the 'tails' of self-loathing: the same counterfeit coin.
That video about being wrong was the most powerful teaching I've seen in awhile: 'What does being wrong feel like? It feels like being right.'
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14 years 4 months ago #2171
by Chris Marti
Replied by Chris Marti on topic The three characteristics and my life
To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever.
-- Dogen
-- Dogen
14 years 4 months ago #2172
by Tom Otvos
My take on this is that it is relatively easy to get to the point where you know, intellectually, that THIS is it. I think that I am there and have been for a while. I also get how not getting that can lead to suffering. I see that around me in the people I love, clinging to "if only...", or constantly being disappointed by others based on their expectations for how others might do this, that, or the other thing.
But the point of practice (as opposed to, say, a weekend workshop on the Power of Now), IMO, is to follow this through to its deepest conclusions, and the implications of those conclusions. Implications about how a body sees the world, sees their relationship to the world, and sees themselves (or them-no-selves). And that is hard as hell, again IMO.
-- tomo
Replied by Tom Otvos on topic The three characteristics and my life
Just have to add -- At some point it becomes obvious that THIS is all we will ever have, ever get, ever have access to. Just this. Nothing more and nothing less. Learning how to see and live within this appropriately is the whole point of practice. It's the only real point of our practice whether we know it or not. It's right under our noses all the time and yet it's also the most difficult and significant re-perception we can have. I'm flabbergasted and amazed by that weird twist of our human existence on an ongoing basis.
-cmarti
My take on this is that it is relatively easy to get to the point where you know, intellectually, that THIS is it. I think that I am there and have been for a while. I also get how not getting that can lead to suffering. I see that around me in the people I love, clinging to "if only...", or constantly being disappointed by others based on their expectations for how others might do this, that, or the other thing.
But the point of practice (as opposed to, say, a weekend workshop on the Power of Now), IMO, is to follow this through to its deepest conclusions, and the implications of those conclusions. Implications about how a body sees the world, sees their relationship to the world, and sees themselves (or them-no-selves). And that is hard as hell, again IMO.
-- tomo
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14 years 4 months ago #2173
by Chris Marti
Replied by Chris Marti on topic The three characteristics and my life
Yes, Tomo. I repeat:
"It's right under our noses all the time and yet it's also the most difficult and significant re-perception ."
"It's right under our noses all the time and yet it's also the most difficult and significant re-perception ."
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14 years 4 months ago #2174
by Kate Gowen
If Dogen had never said another word, he'd be Da Man for that pointing-out instruction alone.
Replied by Kate Gowen on topic The three characteristics and my life
To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever.
-- Dogen
-cmarti
If Dogen had never said another word, he'd be Da Man for that pointing-out instruction alone.
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14 years 4 months ago #2175
by Kate Gowen
Replied by Kate Gowen on topic The three characteristics and my life
"Every state of mind, however distressed or distressing, is linked dynamically to an
aspect of the intrinsic freedom of the non-dual play of our free elements. The Tantric
methods reveal that mind is intrinsically free (unconstrained by symbols), and that this
complete openness of mind needs to be personally disclosed rather than created. There is
no concept here in which one has to artificially re-structure oneself according to a
spiritually healthy philosophical perspective – all positivist intellectual formulations,
are based either on wishful thinking or naïve idealism rather than on direct experience.
So, although the view of our distorted emotional patterning which we are now about to
explore may be a positively creative perspective, if it remains in the realm of theory it
won’t actually be of any real use." -- Ngak'chang Rinpoche and Khandro Dechen
[see whole piece here: http://www.aroencyclopaedia.org/shared/text/e/emotions_ar_eng.php]
-- this is the investigation/orientation that underpins my remarks, above.
aspect of the intrinsic freedom of the non-dual play of our free elements. The Tantric
methods reveal that mind is intrinsically free (unconstrained by symbols), and that this
complete openness of mind needs to be personally disclosed rather than created. There is
no concept here in which one has to artificially re-structure oneself according to a
spiritually healthy philosophical perspective – all positivist intellectual formulations,
are based either on wishful thinking or naïve idealism rather than on direct experience.
So, although the view of our distorted emotional patterning which we are now about to
explore may be a positively creative perspective, if it remains in the realm of theory it
won’t actually be of any real use." -- Ngak'chang Rinpoche and Khandro Dechen
[see whole piece here: http://www.aroencyclopaedia.org/shared/text/e/emotions_ar_eng.php]
-- this is the investigation/orientation that underpins my remarks, above.