Not a Stage

"
So is it dogma, or not dogma?

"

yes, absolutely. to both, needless to say

How do you know that, Jake?

r.e. view: any view in the sense of a referential interprative framework could be held in either a pragmatic or dogmatic way. But the "view" of nonduality is also non-conceptual, beyond experience and concepts, that in which concepts and experiences arise and pass-- including viewpoints as referential frameworks. This non-conceptual view can't be held in any way, pragmatically or dogmatically.

"This non-conceptual view can't be held in any way, pragmatically or dogmatically."

Yes. And so, how do you know that, Jake?

BTW - my point is this -- I think you know that non-conceptual being-ness from actually being that or from having that experience.

Yes-- and this is the infinitesimal point at which we take 'one step from the top of the 100-foot pole' and declare that we Know, and that 'how?' doesn't enter into it.

Thus come, without any room for dogma.

"Yes-- and this is the infinitesimal point at which we take 'one step from the top of the 100-foot pole' and declare that we Know, and that 'how?' doesn't enter into it."-Roomy

I'm not sure I am understanding you. Are you advocating the declaration? I would say that the declaration "I know" is in and of itself a universe of suffering. This can be experienced directly, in this moment; the tendency of the mind to clamp down, plant a flag, draw a conclusion, is the final gatekeeper.

There was an experience or being-ness that happened. From that in one sense I "knew" something that before was not apparent. It was not a choice or a decision I made. It was something that became obvious, a sort of realization. It changed my view. My view, thus informed, is a time-bound "know" kind of thing. Being or experiencing that timeless being-ness, awareness seeing awareness, doesn't appear to me to be the same kind of thing at all. It just is as it is, not time-bound, not a concept.

"
"This non-conceptual view can't be held in any way, pragmatically or dogmatically."

Yes. And so, how do you know that, Jake?

"

sorry, I was entering my post 27 before I saw your post 26
I guess the short answer is I *don't* know that, in any typically meaningful sense of the words "I" and "know". In a real sense, the experience or assumption of an "er", such as a "know-er", is part of a conceptual view or framework that helps make sense of experience. In developmental psychology there is the notion of "object constancy" Chris. A child learns to impute the "actual existence" "out there" of objects beyond the immediate flux of sense data, the myriad disparate impressions. In achieving this developmental milestone, the activity of imputing permanent objects behind the flux of impressions must seem dogmatically true. Later in development, the sense of self or observer begins to stabilize through exactly the same sort of process. A referential construct which is basically pragmatic is held dogmatically because if it weren't, at least at first, it wouldn't serve its developmental purpose.
The referential framework "Jake" is invaluable for getting on in life, and actually is more useful the less dogmatically it is held, the more it is explicitly seen as a pragmatic construct for getting on in life. As to "who" sees that it is merely such a construct, or "what" the non-conceptual space in which all conditioned experiences arise IS, and thus "how" it can be "known", those questions if taken seriously seem to be category errors. I certainly don't know what the answers might be or whether there are any; my sense is that once there's a "me" seriously asking those questions that's a good sign I should just relax and rest in that openness, to relax into its completely satisfying saturation of my whole experience.

con't (and yes, again I failed to notice everyone posting between your post and mine. Jeebus, Jake, hit refresh already.)

We often use the term "recognition" to refer to a "conditioned experience of the absolute" or what have you, but I think that's a really poor pragmatic term as this openness is not something which is experienced, therefore no memory can be formed of it. We seem to "enter" the natural state for a while, and then "leave" it. It feels like we have forgotten something important, like something profound and simple and obvious has become a mere memory of a fleeting experience. But what actually happens seems to me is that we "lose" it when we try to remember it; the act of trying to remember or hold it is what constitutes distraction from it. Then we try to turn the particular constellation of thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions which were arising while we rested into a referential framework with which to re-recognize the natural state, which is pretty frustrating. I prefer the term "appreciation" which implies a conditioned experience occurring completely in real-time to the term "recognition" which by definition happens after the fact and is kind of misleading in this context. And "knowledge" seems to generally mean a higher order structure composed of multiple connected memories, as in "I know the capital of the U.S. is Washington D.C." So that's why I say I have no idea what you mean by that, unless you are using "know" in the sense I just used "appreciate".

con't
So instead of "doing" something, we can just relax completely in the here and now, and rest in appreciation of our natural state. Reality is already shining brightly. When we again seem to contract out of resting into a more time-bound state, we can accept that as part of the natural oscillation of our existence and rather than try to "know" "how" to rest, just go about our business until the next time it naturally arises to relax completely in the natural state.
If we'd like to increase our opportunities for resting completely in the natural state, we can engage in one of the myriad systems of practice which have evolved to that very purpose, particularly within Chan, Mahamudra, Dzogchen, Taoism, and I am sure other practice systems which have been used to maximize our opportunites to completely cut loose in the natural state. That's the sort of thing I like to do, anyway. More like how do "I" get out of my own way skillfully so that IT can have me. I never have it, Chris, nor do i know anything about it. I can spout a lot of words which are more or less pragmatic pointers and describe practices which themselves are just skillful means. I could also deconstruct other people's referential constructs, or my own, as a skillful means. But personally I find a simple Tibetan style shamatha/vipassana training regimen the most personally effective way of maximizing opportunities to rest in true nature via learning just what I can do without, such as the belief that "Jake" is the practitioner, and through practice will "know" and "get" things. Honestly right now I experience practice as an opportunity to drop that fictional approach to reality and simply maximize the opportunities to rest.

"
There was an experience or being-ness that happened....

"

Ah yes, very nice articulation! And as for Kate and Kenneth's exchange in posts 30-31, I think the point Kenneth is that it really doesn't matter what you do or don't declare. We just know. Saying so doesn't take that away, unless in saying so we are putting more weight on our description than on the simplicity of being that gnosis, reality being itself-knowing-itself-being wholeness. This has nothing to do with planting flags. Planting flags would, in this context I think, be like reifying some particular description into a "how". "How" "I" "know" "it". NO nononono. Just use the words to describe and point and especially to point to the natural state and describe practices for increasing the opportunities to rest. No need to really believe that there's a mechanistic "how" in that. There are more or less skillful means of maximizing opportunities to rest. However, each moment is in the real sense the perfect opportunity. I have discovered this resting emerging in moments of deep suffering just as often as in a calm mellow sitting practice. No "how", just "is". And the "is" is its own gnosis, knowing-by-being, and requires no "knowing about" although there does seem to be a decreasing tendency to believe thoughts and descriptions in proportion to the confidence gained in the omnipresent opportunity for resting as gnosis. Thus more resting = a change in the way we hold conceptual, time bound views, and possibly a change in their content. But certainly a lessening of the tendency to "believe" them, replaced by a felt sense of "make believe" or playfully holding, not painfully grasping.

I hypothesize that this process of decreasing "belief" in thoughts and increasing confidence in clear light can very well reach a point of non-retrogressive awakening, in which the individual body mind in time and space crosses a line beyond which the old style of self-referencing is seen through and the natural state becomes the new "baseline" with provisional personalities coming and going in that space in spontaneous response to the environment. So I suspect that the at least 1500 year tradition of yogis, siddhas, and dzogchenpas who employ this sort of training were doing just that!

There is a state I am familiar with (I dont' dare say it is a state I know) that is nice. That I like. In that state I am NOT practicing, in that state I know nothing about dharma -- in fact in that state dharma and practicing and all that crap never existed or hasn't existed yet.
It is my favorite.

I'm not sure if when I'm there I'm actually even appreciating it at all or if the appreciation that comes actually knocks me out of that state and starts the suffering once again.

nice, Mike! We all need our own code-words that help us articulate these things if we are going to chat about them with each other. "Appreciation" is just mine I like it cuz it points to real-time, but--- who cares! Good thing you didn't say "know" though. LOL

www.tricycle.com/essay/into-emptiness-a-...s-death?offer=dharma

www.tricycle.com/special-section/erotic-...ptiness?offer=dharma

That was poignant and a very nice read, Mike. Thank you.

Edit - the second link that you added after posting the first is nice, too.

"
That was poignant and a very nice read, Mike. Thank you.

"

sometimes, some things are well captured in essay form with stories and antecdotes,

"into-emptiness-a-mothers-death"
Wow, that hits home right now. How beautiful and sad--

""into-emptiness-a-mothers-death"
Wow, that hits home right now. How beautiful and sad--"

My mother died of a massive stroke/heart attack in a hosptial way far away in Monroe, Louisiana. My father and sister and niece were in the hosptial room when she died. My dad called and told me she was "gone." A minute later my niece (who was very very close to my mother) called me back to assure me that my mother hadn't died and that my father was mistaken. I knew she was wrong and in massive denial but I don't remember what I said to her.
For a long time I kept a message that my mother had left on my cell phone on the morning of the day she died. She was completely lucid, and told me it was okay to leave my marriage if that was what I needed to do (I hadn't told her that I was even considering such a thing).
Just thought I'd share ......

Mmm, what a teacher-- old age, sickness and death. I can't quite relate to the stories of the Arhats standing around the body of Shakyamuni saying "all conditioned things are impermenent, that which comes together in time dissolves in time". I like "in the grief, just the grieving; in the anger, just the anger; in the sadness, just the sadness..."

"Next the understanding of emptiness becomes 'Oh, I'm not like that tree; I am that tree. I'm not like that girl; I am that girl.' The erotic falling-in-love quality comes from noticing that I'm not outside the world any more, watching'”instead I am the world unfolding'”the eager dog, the drought in Australia, the homeless person in Santa Monica who offers me some excellent chocolate cake."
-- this is the kind of 'Knowing' I was talking about. Sometimes, in my own complicated private joke-but-not-really, I think of it as 'carnal knowledge.'

[John Tarrant is a lovely and wise man, who teaches up my way. He has a blog: zenosaurus.blogspot.com/ ]

A beautiful article telecaster. Thanks.

I recently had the opportunity to ask Roger Walsh a question; the question isn't so important, but his answer was great. He basically said that what I wanted to know what a "wisdom question" not a "knowledge question." A knowledge question can be asked once and you get an answer. A wisdom question must be asked over and over in a given moment and the answer could be different each time.

It seems to me that the question of "knowing" vs. "not knowing" is a wisdom question. In any moment you might get a different answer. Depends on what's happening.

In my experience, thinking one knows is painful, I agree. But it is also quite painful to watch others suffer when you could offer an "answer." This seems like an inescapable 2nd person reality, the wish to alleviate suffering. And isn't that the problem with mushroom culture--no one has an answer and everyone is just forever failing to wake up?

Following this, I think the "wisdom answer" (usually, though not always) among already-arrived spiritual types is that it is much better not to know. Internal silence is best. But the answer to the question (usually, though not always) where most average people are concerned it is much better to say one knows, as that pulls ordinary people along and up the ladder.

Now I'm going to try and forget that I think I know this

My wisdom answer is this website, Mark. I tell everything I know, all the time, to whoever will listen. For those advanced enough to hear it, here is my instruction: give over what you think you know in return for freedom from suffering in this moment. For those not ready to hear this, I joyfully offer comprehensive training in developmental meditation. This is the three speed transmission.