Stages on the Way, Part II

"This is making me long for the cushion. It induces a guilty feeling and a subtle underlying anxiety."

-- lucky that the noticing 'you have always with you', eh?

Roomy, can you please elaborate? I'm not sure I understand your comment.

While most of what I experience is or can be objectified these days that doesn't mean I don't still feel those things. Practice has become a life habit, like brushing my teeth. Not brushing my teeth induces similar feelings.

I just meant that anything-- any sensation, emotion, thought-- that presents itself in daily life is grist for the mill of awareness.

Fairly early on I encountered a teaching story that made a vivid impression on me:
The guru gathered his three disciples and gave each of them a chicken, saying,'Take this chicken where no one sees, and kill it; then bring it back to me.'
The disciples were shocked, but when they saw the guru wasn't making some strange joke, they wandered off in their separate directions-- the first into deep, deep, forest, beyond the fields and even the haunts of the herb-gatherers. The second went into a windowless, disused storeroom in an abandoned house. The third went walking far down the road, looking lost in thought.
When they reconvened, the first two had their dead chickens; the third had his tucked under his arm, looking relatively placid. 'Wherever I go,' he explained, 'the chicken sees.'
I couldn't tell this story for ages without completely cracking myself up, because it was a kind of punchline to my discovery that 'consciousness'/awareness is NEVER asleep: like the chicken, wherever I go, whatever I do, 'it' SEES. At the time, it was just hilarious and obvious. After some time, the usual frame story/excuse seeped back: the 'content' of my life is too trivial, or genuinely, intractably too difficult to admit of seeing my own mode of participation... so that there is my life, in which, at some times, under some circumstances, I can practice, in those comfortingly familiar ways that I have learned. And then there is the deep, deep forest; the disused storehouse of the abandoned estate.
For all I know, other people who read that story thought it was about being a vegetarian. It wouldn't be the first time I was weird that way!

"'Wherever I go,' he explained, 'the chicken sees.'"-roomy

LOL. Awesome.

Who 'dat chicken?

Kenneth

Who dat chicken say 'Who dat chicken?' when dis chicken talk about dat chicken?

(I think I've mentioned before here that I'm VERY easily amused-- QED)

"Who dat chicken say 'Who dat chicken?' when dis chicken talk about dat chicken?

(I think I've mentioned before here that I'm VERY easily amused-- QED)"

Nobody here but us chickens.

Chicken herders, unite! (or should I say "untie"?

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/Jhana+and+%C3%91ana

Yes, indeed.

Thanks for that great story, Roomy!

I spoke to Kenneth on the phone today while wating to board a plane to Chicago from Dayton, Ohio. He asked me how the practice of not being able to practice was going. Well, I said, it actually seems to be going pretty well. What I said, and what I feel, is that the inability to practice formally is itself now an interesting practice. This busy period of time has made me focus on objectifying experience as often as possible, avoiding a return to the comfort and familiarity of the narural human inclination to take ownership of things, of other people's actions, of outcomes. Truth is, I'm developing a different set of habits. It seems that when the temptation to cocoon emotionally arises, there is now a "Whoa, Dude!" kind of thing that arises in response. It's not you. It's never you.

is

is

is

That's all there really ever.... is. Outside of time, outside of space. Mind always has it. Mind then takes it and melds it, twists it, bends it and makes it livable in order to allow for a conceptual living space we call "universe."

IS

"
is

is

is

That's all there really ever.... is. Outside of time, outside of space. Mind always has it. Mind then takes it and melds it, twists it, bends it and makes it livable in order to allow for a conceptual living space we call "universe."

IS

"

www.vincenthorn.com/2010/02/26/what-needs-no-verification/

I find myself more and more to be seeking genuineness. This applies across the board.

During this busy period when I don't have the time to practice as much as I want or should, and sometimes not practicing at all, I see the mind getting busier and busier with what I'll call crap. Maybe there's a crap threshold that meditation erects for us. Maybe adequate practice gives us a certain amount of quiet time the mind needs to calm itself, or arm itself, against its own silliness and over-activity. Whatever the cause, I perceive myself to be slowly but surely filling up with... crap.

"
I find myself more and more to be seeking genuineness. This applies across the board.

During this busy period when I don't have the time to practice as much as I want or should, and sometimes not practicing at all, I see the mind getting busier and busier with what I'll call crap. Maybe there's a crap threshold that meditation erects for us. Maybe adequate practice gives us a certain amount of quiet time the mind needs to calm itself, or arm itself, against its own silliness and over-activity. Whatever the cause, I perceive myself to be slowly but surely filling up with... crap.

"

I know what you mean. More and more I find that greater happiness comes to me from anything simple and true. Less and less do I enjoy elaboration and artifice.

So much of our social and work lives involves acting out roles to meet the expectations of others. Most of it is...what you said Chris...crap.

EDITED for spelling.

What would happen, I wonder, if one applied the not-self contemplation/enquiry to 'crap'...?

It might be fun. Like those bad-Hemingway-imitation writing competitions.

-- the chicken out standing in left field

Hey Roomy, I've actually done that. When I pay attention, even during those times when I've been practicing my little arse off, about 95% of what runs through my head is... crap.

Been practicing on the fact that one can attach to so many things it's frightening. Yes, there are all the usual suspects: sensations, sights, emotions, all the objects that abound in our experience. There are also other, less firm/more nebulous attachments, like the self. Then there's attachment to the idea that we are awareness, are some essence of something timeless and eternal, are the present moment. Well... hogwash. Real non-attachment means baseline, non-nebulous, no holds barred, no bullcrap non-attachment. Attachment to NOTHING. NO THING.

The mind is an amazingly useful tool that is prone to just make stuff up, and if it is prevented from making up the simple stuff it will immediately go after more complicated stuff or, worse, stuff that is pretending to be enlightened stuff. So look deeply and very carefully at what you're doing in your practice. Buried deep down in there you may find attachment pretending to be something else. When you believe you have uncovered it all, objectified all the stuff... then it's time to look a lot deeper and a lot harder.

My practice is about that.

Float......... and be truly free.

Thanks, once again, to Kenneth and his recenlty posted "How to Get Enlightened" commentary for the very appropriate pointing.

Peace

"
When you believe you have uncovered it all, objectified all the stuff... then it's time to look a lot deeper and a lot harder.

My practice is about that.

"

"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

Hold to nothing. The whole manifest world was born and must die and we want to hold on to it. In grasping the mainfest we believe a lie. Before us is the majesty of the whole universe and we had no part in its appearance. There is such beauty we occasionally glimpse from our hell hole, we have believe a lie.

We know we believe a lie; now may we know the truth!

I'm not sure I can sign on to the "lie/must die" part, Gary. I think that might be one of those sneaky forms of attachment. I can say with all honesty and conviction that the sense of self must die, and I've even said that right here. But I have to live in the world. I can't have just the unconditioned or just the conditioned. It's not an either/or dichotomy. Both are required of existence, aren't they? Inclusion is important, not just exclusion. My experience encompasses all of it, both objects and that which is not an object or subject to the three characteristics. There can be no attachment AT ALL, and thus we cannot attach to the unconditioned, either. That's the beauty of the MIddle Way.

Both are true. Neither is true. Attach to nothing.

Chris, I agree with what you have said, I do not know where you are getting that I wrote other than what you agree with. Please give me more detail and I will edit.

[edit] this could be an attachment you will reveal to me!

"The whole manifest world was born and must die and we want to hold on to it."

Those are the words I was reacting to.

The whole manifest world was born and must die and when we project onto the manifest, we want to hold on to it.

Is this better?

[edit] it was not my intention to pit the manifest against the unmanifest.

What do you mean by "manifest world?"

What do you mean by "manifest world?"

That which is perceived by the senses and the conceptual mind.

Okay. I don't view the manifest world as having been born or that it must die. To me, it looks timeless. Concepts like "born" and "die" don't fit the view. That said, I think we're discussing semantics because we actually seem to agree, as you said before.

I think we agree on the semantics of the word manifest. Along with others; "apparent to the senses, esp. that of sight, or to the mind; " www.yourdictionary.com/manifest

If you think the view I have expressed is incorrect, can you say more on how have you concluded the manifest world is timeless? Time seems to be, most obviously part of this existence.