Stages on the Way, Part II

Timelessness: because there is only this. Right here and right now. This just is. It appears with no end and no beginning. End and beginning are concepts of mind, and in non-dual awareness there are no concepts. This occurs the first time and every time I experience non-dual awareness. It is an awareness of just this. It's what I have been calling "is" here on this thread. LIke I said before, to say there is no manifest world is, I believe, a sneaky form of attachment. To say there is no such thing as the unconditioned is, I think, a sneaky form of attachment. Both are required. Both are true. Attach to nothing.

That's the best I can do, Gary. I know it sounds contradictory and weird. That's what happens when I try to shoehorn that which is not a concept into concepts to communicate it. If I were in front of you and you asked me "How have you concluded the manifest world is timeless?" I'd just poke you in the chest or tap you on the top of your head. I can't explain it. I can only point.

"Timelessness: because there is only this. Right here and right now. This just is. It appears with no end and no beginning. End and beginning are concepts of mind, and in non-dual awareness there are no concepts. This occurs the first time and every time I experience non-dual awareness. It is an awareness of just this. It's what I have been calling "is" here on this thread. LIke I said before, to say there is no manifest world is, I believe, a sneaky form of attachment. To say there is no such thing as the unconditioned is, I think, a sneaky form of attachment. Both are required. Both are true. Attach to nothing.

That's the best I can do, Gary. I know it sounds contradictory and weird. That's what happens when I try to shoehorn that which is not a concept into concepts to communicate it. If I were in front of you and you asked me "How have you concluded the manifest world is timeless?" I'd just poke you in the chest or tap you on the top of your head. I can't explain it. I can only point.-cmarti"

Wonderful! Thanks, Chris.

"
Timelessness: because there is only this. Right here and right now. This just is. It appears with no end and no beginning. End and beginning are concepts of mind, and in non-dual awareness there are no concepts. This occurs the first time and every time I experience non-dual awareness. It is an awareness of just this. It's what I have been calling "is" here on this thread. LIke I said before, to say there is no manifest world is, I believe, a sneaky form of attachment. To say there is no such thing as the unconditioned is, I think, a sneaky form of attachment. Both are required. Both are true. Attach to nothing.

That's the best I can do, Gary. I know it sounds contradictory and weird. That's what happens when I try to shoehorn that which is not a concept into concepts to communicate it. If I were in front of you and you asked me "How have you concluded the manifest world is timeless?" I'd just poke you in the chest or tap you on the top of your head. I can't explain it. I can only point.

"

As said earlier, the manifest world is that which is perceived by the senses or conceptual mind. That to which you are pointing to being timeless, is not perceived by the senses or conceptual mind and therefore the unmanifest.

Anyway to summarize my original point which may have been lost in the discussion, the manifest world can only be compounded and the unborn or unconditioned only be recognized (and this statement about the unborn compounds and therefore is a pointer). We dig around in the manifest only to recognize it is all the same, it is all born and it all dies AND THAT THE UNBORN BE RECOGNIZED. In practice all detailed investigation of the manifest world should be to this end.

cont.

With this as the context I would like to repeat Gozen's statement.

"When anything arises, test it to see if it is conditioned by looking for the Three Characteristics. All "things" can be looked at and dismissed in this manner. When "what is not a thing" is recognized -- when
Awareness is without concern for objects -- then you will know the Unconditioned." Gozen

Okay, Gary.

Oh crap, I have to be honest and true to what I see:

Any object is only an object, a separate thing distinct from you (the subject), because your conceptual/dualistic mind makes it appear that way. I love Gozen's quote, too, but what it points to is exactly what I have been saying -- the timeless nature of non-dual awareness. Timeless. Not impermanent. Not subject to the three characteristics. Gozen was talking about non-dual awareness, not the universe - which we experience as both dual and non-dual, and we cannot say one is true and the other not true, as to do that causes untruth. Neither is true by itself. This came up because of my desire to eliminate all semblance of attachment, overt and sneaky, simple and complicated. That is what I mean to do. I believe that attaching to one view of the universe to the exclusion of the other in is a sneaky form of attachment. That's all.

So, when we abide in non-dual awareness it isn't the universe that disappears (dies), what disappears is the mind's separation of subject and object. What dies is duality -- the I/me/mine and the idea/concept/construct that anything is or can be separated from anything else.

Gary, I don't want to have to keep disagreeing with you here. I really don't want to argue this point because to me just isn't arguable. However, if you want to continue to talk about this let's please do so on another thread since this is my practice journal, okay?

Thanks, and Peace

Chris,

I am not wanting to use Gozens statement to support a view in an argument. although I can see now it might appear this way with what has been said in your last thread. Until then his statement was distinct from the finer points we discussed.

In saying "The whole manifest world was born and must die and we want to hold on to it.", I am referring to surrendering to its impermanent nature, not that we should enter a state without it. I thought this was self evident as later it was in contrast to my using the word "unborn". So we are in agreement with all you have said in the last thread.

Back to your thread, if I ahd known how long this discussion would go I would not have hijacked it.

It's okay. We should just carry on in another place.

Brad Warner. I listened to a recent podcast from the Dharma Field Zen Center that featured Brad Warner. I always thought he was kind of a weird dude. I was wrong. I think he gets it and, as evidence, the title of his very first book: "Sit Down and Shut Up!"

I also listened to an older podcast by Christopher Titmuss, in which he very carefully and thoughtfully makes the case that a laser-like focus on vipassana meditation, to the exclusion of noticing other things in our practice, can cause us to miss something very, very important. That podcast can be found on Dharamseed.com and it's called "Liberation and Enlightenment."

So, to tie those two things together, I think you can easily not practice enough, and by practice I mean meditation, not thinking about practice, reading about practice or talking about practice. By contrast, you can practice too much or, better said, you can get too focused on certain elements of your practice to the potentially harmful exclusion of other important things.

Finally, to tie this message to the last several on this thread, I think it's critical to pay attention to what I would call our "meta practice," by which I mean the way we approach our practice. As in all things, there seems to be a middle way. That, I think, is a theme from the Buddha we should pay attention to.

Bye for now.

Chris, I've been following Brad Warner for a while now. I've read his books and follow his blog and have heard lectures. Correction, his first book was "Hardcore Zen." "Sit Down" -- a study of Dogen's teaching -- was the second.
My impression is that he is the real deal as far as Soto Zen goes. But, he IS also a weird dude, which is good, I think, because he helps to shatter the models for enlightened behavior which is great. Thus, there are a lot of things he says and does that I don't agree with or that just seem odd and wrong but he is always AUTHENTIC.
Obviously I may not really know what you are talking about in this post, but -- what I've been seeing and thinking about a lot lately is how myself and many others can seem so into practicing so that they can get certain results from their practice or master certain states and be very focused on that. Nothing wrong with that really but it's like one is in a huge field and and in front of you are several doors. The doors look fascinating and beckoning. You can open any of the doors and go in and have interesting, wonderful experiences. Or, you could walk around the doors and enter this huge vast empty space that contains nothing but a joy that makes what is behind the doors look so small and clunky.

"what I've been seeing and thinking about a lot lately is how myself and many others can seem so into practicing so that they can get certain results from their practice or master certain states and be very focused on that. Nothing wrong with that really but it's like one is in a huge field and and in front of you are several doors. The doors look fascinating and beckoning. You can open any of the doors and go in and have interesting, wonderful experiences. Or, you could walk around the doors and enter this huge vast empty space that contains nothing but a joy that makes what is behind the doors look so small and clunky. "

Hi Mike,

I'm picking up what you're laying down here

I think what you're describing here is a kind of developmental process. When we first start to practice, it's actually quite helpful to become fascinated with the states, stages, and so forth because it causes these skills to get developed. After a while, though, it is only natural to expand one's horizons to include areas of experiences which were previously overlooked.

So, I think what you're describing is a landmark in spiritual maturity - one of many. It is yet another step in the right direction, and it arises naturally in its own time. This is all continuing to open up for me as well, and I'm glad that it's an experience we share.

~Jackson

"Or, you could walk around the doors and enter this huge vast empty space that contains nothing but a joy that makes what is behind the doors look so small and clunky.
"

I relate to the "walking behind the doors" as an insight or a realization. Opening and closing doors are experiences that we can get weary of and therefore it can cause us to loose interest, and when we loose interest we are more likely to walk behind the doors and be blown away. An insight can be like the we look at the doors where there were no walls, we were just captivated by doors! The walls or that which to which we think were bound did not exist and we knew it, we just did not believe it.

[edit] - for clarity

"Hi Mike,

I'm picking up what you're laying down here

I think what you're describing here is a kind of developmental process. When we first start to practice, it's actually quite helpful to become fascinated with the states, stages, and so forth because it causes these skills to get developed. After a while, though, it is only natural to expand one's horizons to include areas of experiences which were previously overlooked.

So, I think what you're describing is a landmark in spiritual maturity - one of many. It is yet another step in the right direction, and it arises naturally in its own time. This is all continuing to open up for me as well, and I'm glad that it's an experience we share.

~Jackson"

That sounds right, Jackson.

Led Zeppelin.

Authentic.

Without the realization that comes with deep practice some of the crap we live with would be, frankly, intolerable. Practice widens and clears the vision. Practice pulls away the veils, sharpens the perception, objectifies the world and the people around us. Practice provides us with an ability to see what is authentic and what is BS. Practice allows us to address the problems we face with a level of objectivity, honesty and directness that is otherwise unattainable. These things come not from the parts of practice that focus on the mind but from the practice that focuses on the heart. Your mind can see, hear, touch, taste, feel and think, but your mind simply cannot know TRUTH in a way that is even close to what your heart can do.

One more reason to practice.

I've been busy lately. I've used this busy-ness as an excuse not to sit as regularly as I used to. I also found it tempting to think I don't need to practice as much, for several reasons (more on that in another post). Those two things are a seriously bad idea even when considered separately, let alone combined into some kind of bad karma cocktail. I've learned a lot during this period, so maybe it wasn't all that bad for just a short time, assuming I can learn from it. The most important lesson is not to drop a very regular sitting schedule. By not sitting regularly I could feel myself slowly, slowly, slowly sinking back into an old perspective, a smaller perspective, a closed perspective.... and that's what we call ignorance. I don't recommend it.

On vacation one gets a cleaner, less hectic view of things. It occurred to me last night that there is a very interesting set of parallels between Kenneth's 20 strata of mind/3 speed transmission and the layers of the subject/object duality/non-duality. I've always been fascinated by the subject/object experiences we observe as we encounter and traverse various parts of meditation practice. I'll post more later but I want to leave this as a reminder to me to do that

"I'll post more later but I want to leave this as a reminder to me to do that

"

Looking forward to it!

Someone just asked me about an old comment I made here. The question was about what we were at one time calling "rigpa," and how did I practice that? Well.... I don't have a very good answer, if I have an answer at all. I had to tell them this: it just happened. I don't know that I did anything that could be called "practice" that brought it on. I was sitting on a plane somewhere over the U.S. just listening to some music and the universe just decided to reveal itself. I posted about that very moment on the old Dharma Overground message boards because I took notes on my iPhone shortly after the thing occurred. This thing, the universe revealing itself, changed everything about my practice and my life.

So, what is it and how do you practice it? I don't really quite know. It reveals itself if I just let go, fully, radically and completely let go of everything. But that's like having a muscle I didn't have before, and using it appears to me to be instinctual and cannot be explained as a process with a bunch of steps to follow. It just is. Timeless, locationless, me-less knowing.

I've seen really good explanations of it but they tend to sound like gibberish to most people. Dogen is, to my taste, the best at describing it, so I suggest a reading of the book "Moon in a Dewdrop."

I'm at a loss for words when people ask about this. It's very humbling and that's usually a good thing.

"
I'm at a loss for words when people ask about this. It's very humbling and that's usually a good thing.

"

Hey Chris,

I am also finding that only recently in the past number of days, I am starting to have experiences of just ¨letting go¨ of evrything, of the technique, of ¨me¨, of any hold the mind has on something and letting it be. Suffice to say, I think i am starting to get an idea about what you guys all driving in 3rd gear are talking about. It is very unexplainable in a way. At least the moments of ¨letting go¨ for me. They seem extremely potent when I am outside , the sky is clear , sunn and with eyes open, I just let everything go and ....aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

I think having strong concentration helps with the letting go for me. ...At times when I am in the Witness state, i just ¨let go¨ and it fades away to reveal an endless open space and it actually made me chuckle to myself the first time I did it . I ams till kind of trying to work out if it is what you mean by rigpa. All the same it certainly makes sense why a lot of people are praising it as the place to be.

Rigpa isn't the word I'd prefer to use, Nikolai. I think western terminology is better here because it has less baggage. I like "the simplest thing." Or, as I keep saying, "is."

IS says it all for me

At some point mediation morphed or phase shifted into a different mode altogether. It'svery quiet. I've been working on bringing this peace into my life at work. Not easy. Not happening as well as I'd like. Fear. Jealousy. Anger. That stuff just happens in the working world. The key is to hold it all in the same huge container that holds the entire universe. That's the container I use while I sit. Everything happens inside of that, but that awareness shrinks into the old tangled, shriveled up heap of crap, simply out of habit.

I see no end to practice. I will have to practice forever because I will forever have fear, anger, jealousy, and all that other junk spouting up in awareness. That stream has no end. The peace comes in the understanding of what it is, in the size of the container that holds it and in how much it is believed. Stream of consciousness? Ha! Stream of nonsense and diatribe. If you supress it, you lose. If you fight it, you lose. If you engage with it, you lose. Its true nature is that of the clouds, the flowers, the grass, the clothes I'm wearing, the cars passing by the window where I now sit, the dog sighing in the background.

I must learn to bring that to work with me.

"
At some point mediation morphed or phase shifted into a different mode altogether. It'svery quiet. I've been working on bringing this peace into my life at work. Not easy. Not happening as well as I'd like. Fear. Jealousy. Anger. That stuff just happens in the working world. The key is to hold it all in the same huge container that holds the entire universe. That's the container I use while I sit. Everything happens inside of that, but that awareness shrinks into the old tangled, shriveled up heap of crap, simply out of habit.

I see no end to practice. I will have to practice forever because I will forever have fear, anger, jealousy, and all that other junk spouting up in awareness. That stream has no end. The peace comes in the understanding of what it is, in the size of the container that holds it and in how much it is believed. Stream of consciousness? Ha! Stream of nonsense and diatribe. If you supress it, you lose. If you fight it, you lose. If you engage with it, you lose. Its true nature is that of the clouds, the flowers, the grass, the clothes I'm wearing, the cars passing by the window where I now sit, the dog sighing in the background.

I must learn to bring that to work with me.

"

Wow. Beautiful. True. Authentic.

Wonderful. Thank you!

"I see no end to practice. I will have to practice forever because I will forever have fear, anger, jealousy, and all that other junk spouting up in awareness. That stream has no end. The peace comes in the understanding of what it is, in the size of the container that holds it and in how much it is believed. Stream of consciousness? Ha! Stream of nonsense and diatribe. If you supress it, you lose. If you fight it, you lose. If you engage with it, you lose. Its true nature is that of the clouds, the flowers, the grass, the clothes I'm wearing, the cars passing by the window where I now sit, the dog sighing in the background."

Chris-- how about this scenario: this is the initiation of actual practice, the 'practice' of enlightened living. The practice(s) that one does to get here are like 'tuning up' the instrument of mind and body, understanding and capacity.
It's a delicate and crucial juncture: as you have noticed-- trying to manipulate things in any way is a losing proposition. You soon sense that you've put WAY too much 'English' on them and they ricochet into chaos, taking your emotions with them. I guess that's why this is the point that there is a lot said about 'surrender.' 'Faith in mind' is my own preferred term-- a kind of relaxed, non-assertive confidence in one's relationship to ALL phenomena.
My own experience is that-- sometimes in visible 'leaps forward', sometimes in a long, almost imperceptible arc-- the 'bad', troublemaking impulses that we all have become habituated to, DO become more transparent and ghostly, rendered more or less void of force. And when I experience this in a situation that's REALLY been challenging-- at work, since all my kids have left the nest and my cat is Enlightened-- that's pretty mind-blowing. And humbling, because I can see that it has always been possible.