Stages, Part the Third

Chris,
Perhaps you could live your life like Sid..

www.threadless.com/submission/267186/reclining_buddha

Hehe!

No, can't have television -- must... have... coffee!

img224.imageshack.us/i/happybuddhawz9.jpg/

Fear is the enemy of a lot things, but I'm finding fear to be the enemy of being willing to dive into my humanity and enjoy that. I started to practice thinking it might help diminish my fear and it turns out now that when I sense fear in myself it sets off some alarms. "Run!" is what those alarms are telling me. But now that means run toward, not run away. Jump in, and be a person. Feel that? It's your life!

At a new juncture where it's obvious that you can hide from your life using awakening. Yes, that's what I said. You can hide from your life using your own awakening.

Think about it.



Details to follow. Later.

"Fear is the enemy of a lot things, but I'm finding fear to be the enemy of being willing to dive into my humanity and enjoy that. I started to practice thinking it might help diminish my fear and it turns out now that when I sense fear in myself it sets off some alarms. "Run!" is what those alarms are telling me. But now that means run toward, not run away. Jump in, and be a person. Feel that? It's your life!

At a new juncture where it's obvious that you can hide from your life using awakening. Yes, that's what I said. You can hide from your life using your own awakening.

Think about it.-cmarti"

Listen up, yogis. This man gets it.

Following up on Chris's comments:

Everything is a double-edged sword.

Everything
is
a
double-edged
sword.

Did I mention that everything is a double-edged sword?

Awakening can be used to hide from your life. Don't do it.

Thank you for that Chris. I am still sorting out issues of expectation. No matter what I may say I still struggle with using my spirituality to stay somewhat aloof from my own life. This couple with my expectations for what awakening is being continually re-evaluated. Ow it didn't fix X---shocking haha... It wasn't designed to fix X... I think the process of learning to own your own humanity is my new practice... I don't seethis integration with reality being completed anytime soon. I have spent most of my life using spirituality as a buffer between me and my circumstances... Even though I now see the futility of that--I still have to work with my conditioning.... Don't know if that is what your on about and I don't mean to go off topic...

Everything is a double edged sword... hmmm

I'd kind of like to know how one hides from one's life after awakening. I'm sure it's damn well possible and I would like to be aware of anytime I may do so unwittingly. I don't have any intention of doing so in the future but maybe I am doing something without knowing, well, I'd like to know what to look for. It if would be nice we had some examples from you Kenneth or anyone, when you nicked yourself with that double edged sword? I'll post a thread to discuss this important topic. It's very important...it's very much where some of us in fact all of us are..how to integrate?

You may want to re-examine that nasty caffeine habit, Nick

Here's a tidbit -- you have some choices to make. You can take several different paths. One path is to stop practicing altogether. Declare victory and go live your life. I'd call that path the Relative Path. A second path would be to really get into the "stuff" that happens in practice and lose yourself in that, or to take very, very seriously the non-relative aspect of things to the exclusion of everything else. I'd call that the Absolute Path. Another path is to focus on becoming a human being in the fullest sense - to take what is now different and apply that to your life in a meaningful way.

So these three are choices folks can and do make at a certain point. Get the drift?

There's much more I have to say but I'm at work right now, and it's data publication day and the analysts are calling.

What the....?!!!?? How do you know I'm drinking coffee in Starbucks????????
I'm so not IT smart, so it's probably something to do with the IP address or somfen....

Interesting, all these paths. I haven't given myself time to think about what I'll be doing, things just seem to occur. Granted, I've only had a week of this. You've had longer and Kenneth the longest. I'm looking forward to reading all your thoughts and tidbits elaborated on, Chris!

Have a great work day!!!! Smiley Face!!

"I'd kind of like to know how one hides from one's life after awakening. I'm sure it's damn well possible and I would like to be aware of anytime I may do so unwittingly. I don't have any intention of doing so in the future but maybe I am doing something without knowing, well, I'd like to know what to look for. Can we have some examples from you Kenneth or anyone, when you nicked yourself with that double edged sword? I'll post a thread to discuss this important topic. It's very important...it's very much where some of us in fact all of us are..how to integrate!!!!!???"

I'm pretty sure I know what Chris is talking about and I hope he'll correct me where I am wrong:
FIRST -- There is your LIFE, it is all around you and it involves your relationships, interactions, responsibilities to yourself and others. It is real, it requires attention and nuturing, and IT WON'T GO AWAY. It will keep popping up demanding your creative energy. It doesn't care if you are enlightened.
HOWEVER -- one can get all into their AWAKENING and all its states and experiences and concerns and one's agenda in regards to it and use all of that to avoid their actual LIFE, and not see what is right under one's nose that truly needs one's awakened attention.

Mike Monson nails it. Again!


"How do you know I'm drinking coffee in Starbucks????????" -- Nick

Dude, the caffeine-induced angst and wild energy is literally blowing my hair back as I read your posts.


More later. Gotta go.

Hahaha, yeh it's true. I'm on a caffeine rush! I'm also out of the the lower chakra imploding stage which seems to have given me a bit of energy. I thought you just ninja-ed me and saw where I was posting from. Coincidence? Are practicing siddhis by chance? Hehe!

O.K....I'm gonna go eat something. That'll calm me down.....

At first, awakening sets up a nice little escape route from worldly concerns. In fact, the escape route never goes away. What one notices (or, at least what I notice) is how my "awakened behavior" affects others negatively. Non-awakened human beings expect a certain level of emotional connection based on vulnerability that is not very appealing to the newly awakened person. But seeing as their lack of participation causes suffering in others, the choice is simple. You have to climb back down the mountain and be fully human once again.

My idea (based on no evidence, just the way I look at things) is that awakening is only meant to make us better able to serve one's life. That is what it is for, that is what it is about.
In and of itself I don't really see the purpose (for me).

cmarti: " ... it's obvious that you can hide from your life using awakening. Yes, that's what I said. You can hide from your life using your own awakening."

Chris - how are you using the term "awakening" here?

Are you saying that a yogi can hide from his life in the pursuit of Awakening? Or are you saying that a yogi who has *completed* Awakening can hide from his life.

Please clarify. Thanks.

Michael

"My idea (based on no evidence, just the way I look at things) is that awakening is only meant to make us better able to serve one's life. That is what it is for, that is what it is about.
In and of itself I don't really see the purpose (for me)." ~Mike

That's an interesting point, Mike. And I'm glad that your having personalized the statement ("my" idea; "for me"; the way "I" look at things). I hesitate to think that there is a fixed meaning to awakening. I find that attributing meaning is something distinctly human (as far as I know), and thus an existential matter. Being an existential matter, it is a matter of choice. Ultimately, human beings decide what something "means" based on decision, whether decision is real or illusory. How we respond is how we attribute meaning.

This is where it starts to become clear that awakening is not solely a non-human, impersonal endeavor. It seems to take a great deal of time for realization to become fully embodied expressions of truth. Whether or not this part of the process ever actually completes itself, I cannot say. In this way, awakening is "Now and Not Yet," forever and always.

"cmarti: " ... it's obvious that you can hide from your life using awakening. Yes, that's what I said. You can hide from your life using your own awakening."

Chris - how are you using the term "awakening" here?

Are you saying that a yogi can hide from his life in the pursuit of Awakening? Or are you saying that a yogi who has *completed* Awakening can hide from his life.

Please clarify. Thanks.

Michael"

As regards the process of awakening, Trungpa used the metaphor of the cocoon, and sometimes he would give talks while holding one of those Chinese fans. He would pop the thing open and then close it, kind of at random as he spoke.
The point seemed to be that we repeatedly close into states of contraction--the cocoon, you could say--and open into moments of awakening. I could never talk about anything related to the post-awakening stuff, as I'm at a much lower level than that. However, the metaphor of expanding and contracting seems apt.
Ascending and descending currents might be still another way of talking about this. At a certain point, the ascender needs to descend; and vice versa. Obstinate refusal to do what is called for--that's the hiding or running away to which Chris refers?

"Are you saying that a yogi can hide from his life in the pursuit of Awakening? Or are you saying that a yogi who has *completed* Awakening can hide from his life." -- AugustLeo

Hi, Michael. Glad to see you posting here! I'm saying both, actually. In pursuing awakening and in a post-awakening sense a person can be so enamored of the absolute, the fireworks, the phenomena that accompany the path, that they can miss what's passing directly in front of them. Is it possible to miss your entire life? No, I don't think so. Is it possible to be so focused on dessert as to not fully enjoy the main course? Yes.

This isn't a huge surprise and I think some folks get what I'm saying. When we're aiming to get there, to awaken, it's really easy to lose sight of the meat of our life. I did, for sure. It's a big effort we have to make. Afterward it became clear to me that what had changed wasn't my ability to feel. That wasn't going anywhere, wasn't about to disappear, stayed as powerful and wonderful as ever. So the suffering that's relieved by awakening isn't that of the first arrow, to borrow a phrase from the Buddha. What gets relieved is the suffering of the second arrow and of the generalized "out of sync" (unsatisfactory) feelings we had before. And then we know what we are, and how we fit into the world, and with that insight we get some freedom and some choice. So my task now appears clearly to be, "How do I apply that freedom and choice in my life every day? How do I fully realize my human-ness?

I find myself being far more interested in enjoying the depth band breadth of my life now. But I see very clearly that this is a choice. I outlined three paths earlier today. I choose the one that takes me back into the marketplace, with my fellow human beings. I realized over the course of some time that I practiced to get to this very place.

And the best way for me to live, I think, is to embrace the congruence of the relative and the absolute at the same time. We have to have both, grok both, see both and appreciate both for what they are. It's possible to lean in the direction of the absolute to the detriment of the relative, and it's possible to lean toward the relative to the detriment of the absolute. These aren't iron clad, either/or, binary decisions but the leaning does make a difference as far as I can tell.

For clarity's sake, I'm not saying this is the only way. I'm saying this as my way. I'm reporting what I see and feel as I always have on this thread and its predecessors. Others can very easily disagree, and no doubt will. There is much more nuance to this than meets the eye and I can't type it all here tonight. I believe the path holds many, many, many possibilities, combinations and permutations, but I do think they all break down generally as I have outlined. That's my operating assumption for now, anyway.

And there is one ultimate understanding, but it can't be explained or described here in type, in words, or anywhere else for that matter. You really just have to be it. Yet here we are using words. Are we in the absolute, right here and now? Are we in the relative? Are we both?

Nuance

This is something from a book I've been reading a lot the last 6 months [Dragon's Play]:
"Incomplete or biased views essentially send meditation off in a different direction from ordinary life, and hinder them both. a complete view enables them to converge, and makes them easy, joyous, free, and fiercely expressive activities-- what we call 'Dragon's Play.' ... the image of the Dragon is used to represent the full functioning and basic human components, not something transcendent.
The fruit of meditation and life is to enjoy the human relationship to Nature, and we are already in that fruit. Moreover, the operation of this relationship provides the only motive power needed for all ordinary or extraordinary cultivations and demonstrations of the profundity of life.
Both ordinary and extraordinary demonstrations are entirely sufficient, so each person may choose them based on his or her interests. A good overview of our situation enables us to use various meditative technologies to travel far, if we wish. However, it also enables us to relax and appreciate remaining 'at home.'"

-- I quoted the above so extensively because it represents a deceptively simple [it almost seems so obvious that I *almost* knew it myself, somehow] answer to the question I've been asking myself, and every likely-looking source, for the last decade: given an 'awakening event' of sufficient oomph to convince me, and those around me, that some fundamental change had occurred-- now what? What IS post-awakening practice? 'This [understanding] being so, how shall we live?'
What may not be clear in the quote above, but is explained very well from the outset in the book, is that 'Nature' means ALL of the Nature of reality: human nature, the natural order of the beings and processes of the phenomenal world-- not just the scenery encountered on a hike in the woods.
For me, this is where the Daoist expression excels-- it doesn't make the hypothetical split between 'Absolute' and 'relative' that then needs to be put back together again. If I look carefully at my own experience, I don't see any tension polarizing between these two ways of looking at/ talking about my one seamless life. Like a microscope and a telescope, they complement and amplify one another.

Please post more, roomy!!!!

I have a feeling this isn't exactly what you mean, but it is so well-said, I must quote some more. It does seem VERY apropos of Chris's exploration here...
"Many books on meditative techniques are currently available, but few-- if any-- really explain what these techniques have to do with human nature and Nature. Because of that omission, they fail to provide an accurate map of where meditation can go and why, what happens along the way, what to emphasize and cultivate, who or what the cultivator really is, what to watch out for, and even what the real point of all this 'cultivation' might be.
Some traditional path literature has already been translated into Western languages, but we must question the aptness of much of it. For, it often itemizes and recommends exits from humanness, rather than providing maps into humanness. To take a common example, in perusing this literature one often reads about processes of 'progressive refinement'-- the practitioner wrestles with his or her thoughts or emotions or physical promptings, and eventually 'masters' them. The practitioner then learns to remain in states of absorptive composure undisturbed by normal thoughts or sensations of any sort, and extends the duration of these states to span hours, then days, etc.
At the end of such heroic courses in self-improvement, one supposedly transcends human limitations and mentation altogether, and enters new spheres of existence. each such sphere, in turn, corresponds to a successively more extraordinary state of awareness, which has a technical name, etc.
One can become quite familiar with such literature and lists of states of attainment, without gaining any insight at all on the basic human situation-- it's just something being left behind!
... A different sort of view is needed, not just for specialists in meditation, but for everyone. It's a matter of simple self respect.

... this is where the 'empty' circle [of the ox-herding pictures] welcomes the returning yogi back into the picture of his / her life-- the home village, the clamoring children, the little presents in the traveler's bag.

It IS a 'matter of simple self respect'-- and on the return trip from 'nowhere' that self respect doesn't exclude a single sentient being or any other part of reality.