awouldbehipster's practice notes

Jackson - I don't often participate in or comment on others' posts. Yet there is a prompting, perhaps to learn something.

"I've been noticing that I have a tendency to attempt to escape into the Ultimate instead of participating in the relative. -Jackson"
Assuming you equate Ultimate with Absolute, how can that be something you escape into? It's what you are.

Love, Michael

"

Jackson - I don't often participate in or comment on others' posts. Yet there is a prompting, perhaps to learn something.

"I've been noticing that I have a tendency to attempt to escape into the Ultimate instead of participating in the relative. -Jackson"
Assuming you equate Ultimate with Absolute, how can that be something you escape into? It's what you are.

Love, Michael
"

Hi Michael,

Good question. And yes, the Ultimate/Absolute is in fact who/what I am. But, there is also this pattern of mind and manner called "Jackson" who continues even beyond this realization. Learning to be both is difficult, but I think it's worth it. As Jack Kornfield says, we need to remember both our Buddha Nature AND our address, social security number, our partner's birthday, etc.

Or, as my friend Hokai Sobol posted once at the old Dharma Overground; "Awakening to primordial awareness seems like a good starting point, and finding out that this awareness was never about staying out of the game is the realization."

Prior to realization, life is not a game.

After realization, relative existence and all it's glory and horror is understood to be a game or a drama. But the drama continues, and so does awareness. There really is no "out".

I'm all for staying in the game, for better or for worse. I would like to think that this is what the Buddha meant when he said he taught the Middle Path. But even though I'm all for it, I still tend to withdraw into a thousand foot perspective when I should be getting my hands dirty in the earth below, because it's safer up there.

As Nisargadatta put it, "Love says 'I am everything'. Wisdom says 'I am nothing'. Between the two,
my life flows." I'm discovering this balance, though it has yet to become second nature.

Hi, Jackson.

I'm stopping by just to say one thing about your recent comments about heart: Heart is the key, the core, the all, the everything. Living a genuine life, recognizing genuineness, seeing, feeling, living and being the truth that defines the entire universe is, as far as I'm concerned, the ultimate practice.

"The best time for [becoming familiar with the nature of your own mind] is early in the morning, just after waking up, but before all your sense faculties have become active. Your eyes are not yet open. Look at, or within, consciousness itself. This is a good opportunity to experience the clear light nature of the mind. Do not let your mind think on what has happened in the past, nor let it chase after things that might happen in the future; rather, leave the mind vivid, without any constructions, just as it is. In the space between old and new ideas, discover the natural, unfabricated, luminous and knowing nature of the mind unaffected by thought. When you remain this way, you understand that the mind is like a mirror, reflecting any object, any conception, and that the mind has a nature of mere luminosity and knowing, of mere experience."

From "How To Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life" by His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama ( bit.ly/b4j2Wg ).

Very nice. Reminiscent of Ramana Maharshi's instruction regarding the 'Transitional I', aka the 'Pure I', the 'I' between sleep and waking.

The DL doesn't have kids yelling "Mummy, Daddy, where are my clothes" first thing in the morning. Talk about jumpstarting your day...

"
Hi, Jackson.

I'm stopping by just to say one thing about your recent comments about heart: Heart is the key, the core, the all, the everything. Living a genuine life, recognizing genuineness, seeing, feeling, living and being the truth that defines the entire universe is, as far as I'm concerned, the ultimate practice.

"

I can sit and have some insight into no self or impermanence in a way that makes me feel light and peaceful. Then, I can open my eyes and go out into the world and into the workplace and be immediately anxious, resentful, stressed, etc. about something that is happening to ME.
However, if I feel those difficult feelings, really feel them, see them from beginnig to end with acceptance I can get insights into the relative that can bring a real peace.

I know I've been quote-happy lately, but here's another one...

"Anything you do for the sake of enlightenment takes you nearer. Anything you do without remembering enlightenment puts you off. But why complicate? Just know that you are above and beyond all things and thoughts. What you want to be, you are it already. Just keep it in mind." ~Nisargadatta Maharaj

The Truth is apparent when the story of 'me' comes to a halt.

When the seeker arises, therein lies delusion. Take the seeker as object. Watch as the seeker dissolves. What remains? Dwell as That.

My meditation sessions have lately consisted of one process only. Relaxing into a state of Witnessing, locating any 'I'-thought that remains, enquiring into it, experiencing its dissolution into pure awareness, resting as That. The 'I'-thought returns, and the process repeats itself.

It's becoming clear that in order to reach the Reality beyond the 'I'-thought, one must go through the 'I'-thought. There isn't a way of bypassing it. Trying to stop thought or block thought by force results in stiffness, numbness, blankness, or blah-ness. Passing through the delusion into Truth, realization brings a sense of aliveness. There is nothing depressing about a true experience of Emptiness, brought on by passing through delusion as opposed to philosophizing in the dream state.

Nirvana by way of Samara.

"My meditation sessions have lately consisted of one process only. Relaxing into a state of Witnessing, locating any 'I'-thought that remains, enquiring into it, experiencing its dissolution into pure awareness, resting as That. The 'I'-thought returns, and the process repeats itself.

It's becoming clear that in order to reach the Reality beyond the 'I'-thought, one must go through the 'I'-thought. There isn't a way of bypassing it. Trying to stop thought or block thought by force results in stiffness, numbness, blankness, or blah-ness. Passing through the delusion into Truth, realization brings a sense of aliveness. There is nothing depressing about a true experience of Emptiness, brought on by passing through delusion as opposed to philosophizing in the dream state.

Nirvana by way of Samara."

Jackson,

This post is a treasure! Thank you. It exactly describes my practice at this point in time.

I could not have described this as well as you have. As you've said, it seems we're flying through the same skies.

"Nirvana by way of Samsara." Yes!

Thank you so much.

Michael

"Jackson,

This post is a treasure! Thank you. It exactly describes my practice at this point in time.

I could not have described this as well as you have. As you've said, it seems we're flying through the same skies.

"Nirvana by way of Samsara." Yes!

Thank you so much.

Michael "

The pleasure is all mine! I am truly amazed by the synchronicity of it all.

"The Truth is apparent when the story of 'me' comes to a halt.

When the seeker arises, therein lies delusion. Take the seeker as object. Watch as the seeker dissolves. What remains? Dwell as That."

: ) Yes!

I'm aware of a subtle sense of wanting to be more than That, and I do all manner of things to try and add on, which of course are pathetic as "additions onto" reality, but perfectly beautiful as expressions of reality. How odd and sad and thrilling and banal.

The Ground of Being... Groundless.

The One True Form... Formless.

You cannot grasp or cling to your True Nature anymore than you can pull yourself up by your boot straps.

The many and the One; both are true and neither are true, as both are realized from a given perspective. Your True Nature is not a perspective, so there is no fixed position to be had.

I've quoted this before, but here it is again: "The buddha way is, basically, leaping clear of the many and the one." ~Dogen

Practice well,
~Jackson

"



"

Thanks Chris. I appreciate your encouragement, which usually comes in the form of a smiling emoticon

You don't have to try to be who you are. You can only try to become what you think you are not.

Yes, there may be obscurations born of misunderstanding. But these will all be removed in due time as you allow yourself to be who you are.

The Zen master Bankei used to advise people thus - "Don't get born!"

Take a moment to stop buying into the story of the self. What remains?

Practice has been revealing more an more that there is no fixed position. Clinging to this or that, even those transcendent perspectives, is yet another obstacle to overcome. To tread this path, we inevitably come to a place where we trade in certainty for ambiguity - as we were ever really certain to begin with.

Alan Watts often taught that faith is trusting one's self to the water. If one attempts to cling to the water, they will likely sink and drown. But if one let's go and trust the water, they can float. We are already intermixed within the flow of things. Better to let go into it than turn it into a game of tug-o-war. If we choose the latter, we'll most certainly get rope burn - so to speak.

"Practice has been revealing more an more that there is no fixed position. Clinging to this or that, even those transcendent perspectives, is yet another obstacle to overcome. To tread this path, we inevitably come to a place where we trade in certainty for ambiguity - as we were ever really certain to begin with.

Alan Watts often taught that faith is trusting one's self to the water. If one attempts to cling to the water, they will likely sink and drown. But if one let's go and trust the water, they can float. We are already intermixed within the flow of things. Better to let go into it than turn it into a game of tug-o-war. If we choose the latter, we'll most certainly get rope burn - so to speak."

There would have to be some fixed entity to provide a fixed position, right?

"There would have to be some fixed entity to provide a fixed position, right? "

You could say that

"You could say that "

The strong need for a fixed position coupled with the reality that there can never be one is part of what makes up dukkha. I know it has made me pretty uncomfortable.

"The strong need for a fixed position coupled with the reality that there can never be one is part of what makes up dukkha. I know it has made me pretty uncomfortable. "

Hey, that's funny! I've also noticed this, and it's made MY 'me' pretty uncomfortable, too!

I guess I'm not the only one with an uncomfortable me. ; )

"Hey, that's funny! I've also noticed this, and it's made MY 'me' pretty uncomfortable, too!

I guess I'm not the only one with an uncomfortable me. ; )"

I've heard Adyashanti teach that what spiritual teachers refer to as "ego" (which can be quite different from what Western Psychologists refer to as ego) is the mental activity of resistance or grasping. So yeah, a good look at the "me" reveals just how painful the delusion of isolated existence is!

Why are you unhappy?
Because 99.9 percent
Of everything you think
And of everything you do,
Is for yourself -
And there isn't one.

(from "Ask the Awakened" by Wei Wu Wei)

Lately, especially this morning, it is becoming less and less possible to believe the message that arising thoughts are attempting to convey. As the Buddha says in verse 1 of the Dhammapada...

"Mind is the forerunner of all things. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-made. Speak or act with an impure mind and suffering will surely follow, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the cart."

Never has this been more clear. Sense phenomena does not dictate how the mind (thoughts - not the brain) will respond. Thoughts are just as insubstantial as a sand castle or a house of cards. Just like the seasons, they come and go without any prompting. As we continually notice this, their influence weakens, as does the intensity of our suffering.