A Light in the Dark

The following from Ken McLeod: Pointing out mind nature in the tradition of old sages . Still not quite clear on how to turn this into a practice but it resonates strongly with me. The "knowing" has always been difficult for me to find. I think I'm looking for more than is there.

Looking sorta kills it, doesn't it.

Or, as said in another article on that site:

"Time and time again, we are told that we are buddha, that
the buddha qualities are present now, but that we just don’t know it.
The problem, for many of us, is that this knowing is not a form of
knowing that we are used to. We need tools and methods to dismantle the
emotional blocks, the habitual patterns, the worries, concerns,
expectations, and hopes that keep us from trusting and knowing what we
are.
Through consistent effort, we can come to the point
that we can “hear” that silence all the time. This is the groundless
nature of being. And this form of knowing is not something intellectual
or conceptual."

http://www.unfetteredmind.org/buddha-nature

That's a great website!

Looking sorta kills it, doesn't it.

-ona

Yes and no... I used to be able to connect to "the knowing" by connecting to "the one who knows" the feeling of someone looking through my eyes. Now that feeling is mostly gone so it becomes harder to do so. When I do the same kind of mental twist that it took to connect to the one who knows, things now become more immediate. It's as if the distance between subject and object has dropped. It's hard to describe because it's a subtle shift but it definitely is different from my normal mode of perception.

A couple of related links:

http://www.unfetteredmind.org/cutting-through - a pointing out poem?

http://www.unfetteredmind.org/retreat-teachings-mahamudra-8 - hour long talk with some good pointing out instructions to knowing the resting mind or resting in the knowing mind. I find this similar to Kenneth's ships in the harbor practice.

The poem is interesting to me right now.

I am also in the process of re-reading two years worth of practice notes, which is reminding me of how often one sees and re-sees and re-sees, realizes, and re-realizes and re-realizes.

Sometimes there is "just this" in such an indescribable way that that poem comes pretty close to describing. And in a way there is always "just this."

But then, like yesterday I might wake up with anxiety in the morning and run through a sort of playlist over the next hours:

"this also is God's manifestation" being with everything just as it is, including whatever flickers of physical and mental activity I am labeling "anxiety"

"who is experiencing anxiety?" no one, of course. it is just sensations arising and passing away. and yet there is a desire to reject those sensations. "who wants to do something?" no one, of course. and yet there is a rejection of that idea, a frustration. "who is experiencing that?" and so on. sometimes this is useful, sometimes it feels like a circular argument

"what is true right now?" just this. just what the poem described. in this exact moment of now, the anxiety cannot be perceived

and so on

it seems so many practices are deeply useful over and over and over, depending on the moment, depending on the day

This old note I'd pasted in my journals also seems relevant (again and again), especially as regards that being in the very moment of now:

"Many things come up and distract us when we practice zazen: our preconceptions, ideas, karma, heredity, personality and many other things. So we have to take care of them continually, not with hatred, but by patting them on the head without being too interested in them. Just pat them on the head. But if I pat my head and say "good boy," that is not the real practice of patting the head that I am talking about. When I think, "good boy," that idea of good boy is coming from an idea of "bad boy" I had in the past. If you see things this way, you are creating ideas, discriminating between the previous moment, present moment and next moment. We usually think that time moves from the past, through the present, to the future. But time cannot be seen as just time. Time must be seen as time and also simultaneously as space. You cannot separate them. In space, time has no before as a previous moment, or after as a following moment, there is only right now, right here, blooming and extending into the whole universe. You must be in time; you must be at the moment where you cannot think about a previous moment or a following moment. That moment is a great opportunity. That is the moment you are you as you really are, prior to the germination of thinking.

If you become a dancer, how can you do this? How can you pat the head of your karma, your heredity, your customs and habits, or your personality? To pat their head means to just practice continually, just become empty and flexible, and just dance. Then this emptiness makes your life alive in the universe. You are ready to dive into the pool. Practice is simultaneously blooming your flower right now, right here. That's why practice is not merely practice apart from enlightenment—practice is enlightenment itself."

It's from the very last part of this article: http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1627