Emptiness?

It seems to me that this Mike Monson thing is empty of self. It seems to me that the basic fundamental truth about this Mike Monson thing is that it is connected to everything. And, there is absolutely no problem to solve about being a Mike Monson thing.

Inside this Mike Monson is a brain. This brain thinks. And thinks and thinks and thinks. There is a Mike Monson body (which the brain is part of) and there are feelings and sensations going on in this body. Brain/thoughts/feelings/sensations/body -- these are all always working together.

The Mike Monson brain (and body) can create through all it's mechanisms entire worlds upon entire worlds of real-seeming yet actually imaginary realities. This is infinite. And it can be anything from loving devotional religious faith to various mental illnessess to full-on psychosis. These worlds or, images, or patterns of behavior or defense mechanisms or projections (particularly powerful things I think) can color one's experience, create moods, make things better, or cause all kinds of problems.

Now, if or when this Mike Monson thing can stop creating worlds upon worlds. Just ... stop -- the truth and ease of emptiness can arise. The fact that there is no problem with being a Mike Monson thing is clear and the fact that brain-created worlds, colors, moods are just imaginary creations can become clear as well.

All that is required for this is to learn how to look. Learning how to look is practice. All the instruction necessary to learn how to look is freely available to us all -- plus, I think once any of us decide for certain that we really want to see things clearly we will figure out how to do so.

I really wonder if awakening has anything to do with changing any entity's (Mike Monson or each of you) body or mind in any real way. It is not becoming special somehow or gaining some permenant change to one's psyche/body/mind, or attaining any special abilities. It could only be a process in which one becomes as plain and normal as humanly possible. No path (s), no layers, no stages, no attainmnets, no levels ... just nothing special, no big deal.

I like this, Mike.

Again we are faced with the question about what awakening really is. All we seem to know is that there is realization (which is what happens when we learn how to look), and there is integration/transmutation (which is what happens when spontaneous changes occur to the expression when one practices "looking"). Is there an end to the process? Personally, I sure don't think so.

IIs there an end to the process? Personally, I sure don't think so.

-awouldbehipster

The "process" though has nothing to do with the fundamental nature of Mike or Jackson, right? Isn't it just another fiction created by our wonderful brains?

Well "something" is happening, right? I don't think it's all completely illusory. I don't necessarily think that there's a purpose behind the transformation, but transformation of "something" is on going. So, the concept of "process" is fabricated, yes. But a process is at work, nonetheless (at least I think so).

Yeah I agree there's a process... seems to me we may avoid the problems you see in saying there's a process Mike if we define the process as one of letting go of our illusions/delusions rather than of acquiring insights and attainments. Does that make sense? Because as Jackson says-- there's something going on! For me the process is one of coming to terms with the apparent fact that nothing I do or don't do, feel or don't feel, or know or don't know can take from or add to this true nature. So letting go of that sense of a do-er, of my likes and dislikes, of my supposed knowledge and ignorance in the context of my practice* IS what's going on in the "process".

*Because those concepts/modes (doer, feeler, knower) seem to have some conventional validity in terms of my everyday life, even if they become less important as "reference points" as the process deepens. In other words, if "I" "do" something, "I" will experience the consequences, and do so according to "my" likes and dislikes, as far as "I" "know". the process is what adds those quotation marks to the felt-sense of those modes and allows more flexibility in how all of this is held and experienced.

I don't know for sure either.
But maybe all the stuff that happens in our brains that Mike and Jake and Jackson do as a "self" that we then look at and label as "growth" or a "process" or even "awakening" is still something extra,something added to our true nature that is essentially a fabrication and nothing more.

But, then, let's say on Monday of last week I didn't know basic math. And, then, each day I had a series of lessons and exercises and now, a week later I know how to do basic adding and subtracting. What happened in my brain during that week could be called a process, right? And, I would assert that that process did happen, that it DID take place and that there are actual physical places in my brain that hold a record of that process.

But is the awakening "process" the same as learning math? I think not but i'm not sure.

Neat example! In one essay Heidegger points out that mathesis, in ancient usage, referred not to the study of numbers, but to a form of learning. What characterizes mathesis is that it isn't the learning of entirely new information, but rather the making explicit of what is implicitly known.

Plato uses geometry as an example of such matheseis in the Meno dialogue, which includes the famous passage in which Plato demonstrates to Meno that the slave boy already knows basic geometric truths, even though he hasn't been taught them, by drawing this knowledge out in the slave boy. Plato is using this as an example of the general principle of mathesis (and thus, in the later tradition, numbers and geometry become increasingly associated with mathesis). But he's using it to demonstrate by analogy the process of what we are calling realizing true nature.

Back to Bankei, without the unborn buddha mind and its spontaneous function, we wouldn't be able to read these words or type on our keyboards or bring up the correct memories in reference to what we percieve. But there is a vast difference between a human who leaves this buddha-nature completely implicit-- even though it's the very nature which makes all experiencing possible, no matter how deluded-- and one who is "in the process" of making it explicit.

Perhaps this is because at first and for the most part it is not just implicit, but in oblivion-- eclipsed by numerous processes which although technically enabled by and part of this true nature's natural flow, feel as if they are anything but this natural flow of clarity. Most of our explicit experience is predicated on assumptions and presuppositions revolving around a solid separate self whether of pre-personal, personal or transpersonal variety.

So making true nature explicit doesn't change true nature, nor is it the acquisition of "new information" on the representational level. It isn't learning new things, it's making explicit the true nature that was implicit. This making explicit involves letting go of those assumptions and presuppositions of solid separate self and substantial phenomena. These assumptions and such seem to be linked to tensions in body and mind. So bodymind relaxing and opening and trusting is how bodymind feels true nature, which is how true nature feels itself as this bodymind. So it seems to make my brain-maps both simpler and more transparent, and bodymind more relaxed and vividly present in the environment.

So I wouldn't say this is an illusory process, it's more like a simplification and relaxation of the mechanism of the illusory processes I used to take to be "me". Sure I can take snapshots of and compare the different levels of relaxation and openness day to day and week to week, but truly that's the process of illusory selfing trying to appropriate its own deconstruction and dissolution as a new reference point for the sense of solid separate self!! (I think this is what you're getting at Mike) And that (it seems to me) is precisely what leads to transpersonal identifications/fabrications. And it's particularly insidious since the process of dissolution-decompression of the illusory ego has its ups and downs, which makes the process of trying to turn that dissolution into the new basis for ego particularly frustrating (insight disease anyone?) Isn't it?

I think that the drop-dead truth of who I am when it is seen without the creations of my brain blocking my sight -- is vast, infiinite, silent, and empty.

The creations of my brain and the stuff that changes within my brain are contained somewhere in that vastness, but that stuff is tiny in comparison. Tiny. Infitesimal.

Yeah, when you put it that way...

I think that the drop-dead truth of who I am when it is seen without the creations of my brain blocking my sight -- is vast, infiinite, silent, and empty.
The creations of my brain and the stuff that changes within my brain are contained somewhere in that vastness, but that stuff is tiny in comparison. Tiny. Infitesimal.

-michaelmonson

I think this knowledge is wonderful and it is so nice to have perspective on oneself. However, I can see how the flip side could be spiritual bypassing, you know? The relative world of my little brain can still wreak havoc if care isn't taken to be skillful.

It's helpful to me in this regard to consider that as far as others are concerned the tiny changes in my brain and their effects on my behavior are infinitely more significant than whatever wisdom I realize internally. I think this is the point of the "two benefits" doctrine of mahayana. Benefitting self and others, wisdom and compassion.

I'm just about convinced that at every single moment I have to be willing and open to feel/experience ANYTHING (especially abject pain) if I'm ever going to get real relief from suffering.

And that willingness is emptiness.