Something and nothing

Being open to all the possibilities is what I plan to do.

-cmarti

Not me.

I think (this is my unpopular lonely theory) that the process of awakening starts and ends with attention to what is going on. One does that well enough to have an A&P event, then manages to get through the dark night to equanimity and then pays enough attention to have fruition/cessation/stream entry and get a deep understanding of the three characteristics of human existence. Then, keeps paying enough attention to deepen one's understanding of things and keeps developing an ability to engage in enlightened activity much of the time. This can go on and on. Or it can stop at any point and one can lose their way completely. It depends on continuing to practice and on integrating what one has learned.

If one is to awaken and continue the process this is what is required and it can happen in any setting, with any techniques, any religion or no religion, no real technique.

I guess it would be cool of me to NOT poo poo the idea of perfect complete enlightenment, constant compassion, eradication of the "self sense," to remain open and undecided. I guess, but I don't understand -- I really am missing something. I think those ideas are just odd and a set up for some pretty intense and useless suffering. I certainly know that freedom from suffering is possible given certain conditions at certain times and I love that -- but I also know what it means to be an actual human and I just can't deny that knowledge.

What I want is intimacy with what is going on right now, not to strive for some perfect ideal sometime in the future.

"I certainly know that freedom from suffering is possible given certain conditions at certain times..."

In my humble experience awakening can be completely free of causes and conditions. In fact, that is actually the whole point, is it not?

-cmarti

Temporarily/intermittently or all the time?

This is maybe a key difference - I really do seem to just be looking to live fully and closely in focus with what is actually going on even if it means I am completely caught up in causes and conditions.

There is a definition of insanity that says it is "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

-cmarti

I understand the quote but I'm not sure I get your point in this context.

(if you've been to enough 12-step meetings your definition of insanity might become hearing that quote over and over again)

Can we lock it so I'll stop posting?

Mike, it slightly baffles me that you practice a spiritual practice you
don't believe in (this is not the first thread where this discussion has
come around and around). The idea of practicing Buddhism seriously
enough to have spent years in meditation and study and yet you do not
believe in awakening the way it is described by countless practitioners
over many centuries... it makes no sense.

I still think it's worth sitting with *that*: doubt, not knowing, fear
of deceit and lies, etc. It's a very interesting line of inquiry.

Mike, it slightly baffles me that you practice a spiritual practice you don't believe in (this is not the first thread where this discussion has come around and around). The idea of practicing Buddhism seriously enough to have spent years in meditation and study and yet you do not believe in awakening the way it is described by countless practitioners over many centuries... it makes no sense.
I still think it's worth sitting with *that*: doubt, not knowing, fear of deceit and lies, etc. It's a very interesting line of inquiry.

-ona

So you are saying that it makes no sense that I practice dharma while not believing in what ... exactly?

This is what I do believe:

I think (this is my unpopular lonely theory) that the process of awakening starts and ends with attention to what is going on. One does that well enough to have an A&P event, then manages to get through the dark night to equanimity and then pays enough attention to have fruition/cessation/stream entry and get a deep understanding of the three characteristics of human existence. Then, keeps paying enough attention to deepen one's understanding of things and keeps developing an ability to engage in enlightened activity much of the time. This can go on and on. Or it can stop at any point and one can lose their way completely. It depends on continuing to practice and on integrating what one has learned.



I actually don't think my point of view is all that lonely or unpopular. To say that there are no enlightened people, only enlightened activity, is pretty common, almost conservative in Soto Zen and other schools. To think that the idea of a human being forever free of a sense of self and to have perfect compassion all the time is odd is also, I think, very common among dharma practioners and not a strange point of view, really.

Norman Fischer on Dogen and enlightenment:



So this is the flavor of our practice, and it comes from Dogen's view of enlightenment and delusion. In other words, we honor both. Enlightenment and delusion are important to us. We are not here to demonize and get rid of delusion. That's not our practice. That's not our way. We honor and respect enlightenment, as well as delusion. We see these two things as intimately connected. We need them both. Both of them have their effectiveness. And it's exactly because we demonize our delusion that we want to get rid of it, and then we have problems. For Dogen, delusion is really very important. It's human to be deluded. It's the source of our beauty. It's a necessity, so we have a high respect for it. That's why we have respect for each other, not because we're looking to be perfect, but because we see that each one of us is manifesting a uniquely deluded sensibility. It's a fantastic thing!

When you think about it, this makes perfect sense. It's quite rational. If you really get attached to enlightenment, how enlightened is that? It isn't too enlightened. If somebody were enlightened, and they were really insisting on it, and if they were so enlightened that they were really loathe not be enlightened, that doesn't sound like such a great enlightenment. This is an enlightenment that you can forget. Forget enlightenment. Forget dharma. It's gone. Let go of it. There's a time to exercise our understanding and exercise our abilities in the world, and there's a time to let the world have its way with us. And this is the everyday activities of the enlightened ones.



http://www.everydayzen.org/index.php?Itemid=27&option=com_teaching&topic=Dogen+Studies&sort=title&studyguide=true&task=viewTeaching&id=text-698-192

Okay, a good night's sleep does wonders for the mind and body.
Here's the deal -- all of these practices end up in the same place. You can choose path A, path B, path C, path D, path E, or any one of a myraid paths and practices. But... they all end up in Awakeness, that being non-dual awareness. The Unborn. Consciousness without an object. Once this is seen, even if briefly, we spend the rest of our lives perfecting it. How perfect can it get? I really don't know, but I hold out the possibility (hope, actually) that it can be enduring, maybe even unending, uninterrupted. What seems to be going on in that other thread we keep referring to is a few people who came at this practice endeavor from different paths experimenting with how to perfect their experience of Awakeness.

-cmarti

http://www.inquiringmind.com/Articles/Enlightenments.html

Consider this:

"When you actually experience consciousness free of identification with
changing conditions, liberated from greed and hate, you find it
multifaceted, like a mandala or a jewel, a crystal with many sides.
Through one facet, the enlightened heart shines as luminous clarity,
through another as perfect peace, through another as boundless
compassion. Consciousness is timeless, ever-present, completely empty
and full of all things. But when a teacher or tradition emphasizes only
one of these qualities over the others, it is easy to be confused, as if
true enlightenment can be tasted in only one way."

"the first real taste, stream-entry, is followed by many more tastes as
we learn to stabilize, deepen and embody this wisdom in our own unique
life. What does it look like? The facets of enlightenment express
themselves marvelously in our teachers. Each manifests enlightenment
with his or her own flavors"

And consider this:

When teaching any subject, a teacher speaks a) from his own personal understanding and b) in a language directed at the level and capacity of the student(s) he is addressing. So what may seem (above) as "confusing" ("when a teacher or tradition emphasizes only one of these qualities...") may be exactly the teaching a particular person needs to hear, and may make no sense to another person at that time or to that same person at a different time. That doesn't make it incorrect, either.

In fact, when asked if he ever got impatient, Nisargadatta joyfully explained, “I see, hear and taste as you do, feel hunger and thirst; if lunch is not served on time, even impatience will arise. All this I perceive quite clearly, but somehow I am not in it. There is awareness of it all and a sense of immense distance. Impatience arises; hunger arises. Even when illness and death of this body arise, they have nothing to do with who I am.” This is enlightenment as a shift in identity.

Again, a teaching can be just what a student needs to hear, and neither be false nor be the entire truth.

Nisargadatta also said things like:

"Yes, l appear to hear and see and talk and act, but to me it just happens, as to you digestion or perspiration happens. The body-mind machine looks after it, but leaves me out of it. Just as you do not need to worry about growing hair, so I need not worry about words and actions. They just happen and leave me unconcerned, for in my world nothing ever goes wrong."

(which is very no-selfy to me)

and

"Awareness is primordial; it is the original state, beginningless, endless, uncaused, unsupported, without parts, without change. Consciousness is on contact, a reflection against a surface, a state of duality. There can be no consciousness without awareness, but there can be awareness without consciousness, as in deep sleep. Awareness is absolute, consciousness is relative to its content; consciousness is always of something. Consciousness is partial and changeful, awareness is total, changeless, calm and silent. And it is the common matrix of every experience."

Which are much weirder than the previous quote.

Dueling quotes:

What’s more, he recognized that he couldn’t do it alone. “I needed the connection with another human being in therapy,” Kornfield tells me from the home he shares with his wife, Liana, and their 16-year-old daughter, Caroline, near Spirit Rock Meditation Center in northern California. In his compelling new book, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry—a map of the spiritual journey based on Kornfield’s experiences, as well as those of teachers in many traditions—he elaborates: “To find myself still struggling with my emotions was hard. The therapist was essential as a compassionate witness, another being to help me face the images and fears I carried in my body, everything that I had not been able to face alone.” This understanding—that healing our emotional wounds and relationships is as much a part of spiritual development as moments of unbounded freedom and awakening—inspired him to get a doctorate in psychology and practice psychotherapy, in addition to teaching meditation.

“I don’t define the world in terms of spiritual or psychological,” he explains. “As the Buddha taught, there’s suffering, the cause of suffering, which is our fear and confusion, and the end of suffering. Sometimes meditation alone isn’t enough. For example, students often come to me with problems that surface again and again. Maybe it’s their fourteenth relationship in five years, or a pattern of feeling unworthy. Whatever it is, they discover that just sitting with their pain doesn’t transform it or bring liberation. At that point, it’s necessary to shift from the universal level to the personal level, and tell enough of the story in order to make conscious the small sense of self that perpetuates the suffering.”

When I ask him about the danger of getting lost in our storyline and reinforcing the notion of a solid self, he suggests that the question itself is specious. “It’s not so simplistic—get rid of the self and everything will be fine,” he points out. “For one thing, as Ajahn Chah taught, the concept of ‘self’ and ‘no-self’ is a false dichotomy. It would be more accurate to say that there’s unhealthy attachment and healthy attachment—which can occur in relation to experiences of emptiness as well to our notions of self.” Moreover, he adds, both self and no-self—the personal and the universal—are legitimate dimensions of our practice. One is about honoring and respecting what is unique about us, the other is about letting go.

“The heart is very trustworthy,” he says. “When something difficult comes in spiritual life, it’s because it needs our loving attention.” As far as Kornfield is concerned, it makes no difference whether we pay attention in the presence of a therapist, during meditation—or both. “The whole task of liberation is not to rid ourselves of our defenses, but to discover the purity that lies underneath. But that can only happen when we hold or touch the body of fear, the small self, with great compassion.” This is especially important for us in the West, where the emphasis on the individual has produced a society suffering from epidemic loneliness and self-hatred—afflictions that are virtually unknown in the communal Asian cultures where Buddhism first flowered.

http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1777

I suggest a rule on this thread (ETA: actually I suggest it apply across the whole forum):

If one posts a quote or a link to a quote, one must cut and paste separately the *key* sentences that made the quote most meaningful and are applicable to the conversation and say WHY they are meaningful to you and why you think they apply. *Not* paste or link to a whole page of words, and leave it to the readers to guess what was the part that made you link to it/paste it.

If you all agree, I will also do the same, guilty as charged.

Thoughts?

mmm-hmmm I like that suggestion Ona

Brilliant-- [even though, I am as guilty as anyone] how many times has Chris asked why someone posted something? 'Self-evident' all too often means 'evident to me, myself'...

So, from here on out, I resolve to do better; we're among friends-- we can be less shy about revealing our interests, understandings, preferences, criticisms, and risking our friends disagreeing! At least, I'm hoping so!

yes