An apology to Nikolai

I wanted to send a public apology to Nikolai for the abrasive stance that I have often taken lately against his view and path. I realized that I have really been fighting against my own projection of a perfectionist ideal of enlightenment. I spent most of my adolescent and adult life seeking idealistic perfection and now that I have realized the emptiness of this present experience, my conceptual mind has been projecting and attacking wherever it catches a whiff of this old tendency.

So Nikolai, I am sorry and I want to thank you for showing a possible way in which awakening can unfold.

"I wanted to send a public apology to Nikolai for the abrasive stance that I have often taken lately against his view and path. I realized that I have really been fighting against my own projection of a perfectionist ideal of enlightenment. I spent most of my adolescent and adult life seeking idealistic perfection and now that I have realized the emptiness of this present experience, my conceptual mind has been projecting and attacking wherever it catches a whiff of this old tendency.

So Nikolai, I am sorry and I want to thank you for showing a possible way in which awakening can unfold."

Hi Justine,

I had no idea there was an 'abrasive stance' being taken against what I have said to even warrant an apology. I therefore did not have any expectations of one. But thanks anyway. If it helps you on your own path, good for you, though a PM would have sufficed.

Also, I have never termed nor thought of what I consider possible practice-wise to be 'a perfectionist ideal', but rather quite simply the knowing of 'stress', knowing its cause, how it manifests and the results of its compounding and knowing its cessation. The notion of 'stress' may differ from person to person and may be what leads one to consider 'perfectionist ideal' as a descriptive term of what I've said, but I prefer to consider it as simply a very pragmatic and honest understanding of what stress is and how it manifests and ceases in one's own experience.

"Stress should be known. The cause by which stress comes into play should be known. The diversity in stress should be known. The result of stress should be known. The cessation of stress should be known. The path of practice for the cessation of stress should be known." Nibbedhika Sutta

Related reading material: New Thanissaro book on mindfulness: www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/rig...ndfulness_120810.pdf

" Now I have realized the emptiness of this present experience, my conceptual mind has been projecting and attacking wherever it catches a whiff of this old tendency.

"

Also the slightly contradictory nature of the quote above may be rich and fertile soil for further investigations (or perhaps 'further realisation' is a more conducive term) into 'emptiness'. But perhaps one area that I would perhaps diverge in concerning interpretations, objectives and expectations is that 'realising emptiness' would lead to the actual cessation of a 'conceptual mind projecting and attacking'. Not its continuation. Again, possible diverging expectations and objectives concerning notions utilised on a 'path'. Oh, how different these strokes are, for us different folks. Notions of 'stress', 'cessation', 'progress', 'objective', 'emptiness', 'realising emptiness', 'path', 'view', 'mindfulness' all may differ slightly or very and may be at the heart of any 'abrasive stances'......se la vie.

I now understand that you were not talking about a perfectionist ideal, I was simply projecting that.

I decided to make the apology public to inform others that my responses to you were coming from this place of projection and should have been viewed in that light.

The contradictory nature of my statement is experienced - leaning into it feels natural right now.

"Also the slightly contradictory nature of the quote above may be rich and fertile soil for further investigations (or perhaps 'further realisation' is a more conducive term) into 'emptiness'. But perhaps one area that I would perhaps diverge in concerning interpretations, objectives and expectations is that 'realising emptiness' would lead to the actual cessation of a 'conceptual mind projecting and attacking'. Not its continuation. Again, possible diverging expectations and objectives concerning notions utilised on a 'path'. Oh, how different these strokes are, for us different folks. Notions of 'stress', 'cessation', 'progress', 'objective', 'emptiness', 'realising emptiness', 'path', 'view', 'mindfulness' all may differ slightly or very and may be at the heart of any 'abrasive stances'......se la vie.

"

At first, when emptiness is discerned briefly, it then is possessed again and again many times. When possession of emptiness is present, projections similar to what Justin mentions happen to me all the time.

The nature of these projections, at least in my experience, tend to notice immediately what "everyone is doing wrong", whether thats true or not. The tendency of course is unwholesome perfectionism.

Im currently cultivating the state in which its ok to have no floor, house, handles or any type of reference, since I have found that without those conditions, perfectionism finds no support. The result is "ok-ness" with everything, and true patience.

I'm going to second Justin. Looked at carefully I can see that almost all my views come from projections and through filters of experience, and that those projections and filters have tainted my view over the years. Listening to Daniel Ingram in person last week wax poetic about the unbelievable variety of experience we see in meditation practitioners of all kinds made me think about this more, and more deeply. I'm not sure if the genesis of you comment was the same, Justin, but that's mine.

Here's to having a far more open mind and accommodating vision in the future....

" When possession of emptiness is present, projections similar to what Justin mentions happen to me all the time.

The nature of these projections, at least in my experience, tend to notice immediately what "everyone is doing wrong", whether thats true or not. "

Wow! I must be possessing a whole lotta emptiness!

Chris,

I think the genesis of my comment was probably having dinner with everyone in that basement joint and looking around the table and realizing just how different everyone's personality was.

No one was the stoic zen master or the blissed out Ramana, it was just a bunch of unique personalities, opinions, and habits freely and authentically manifesting in that moment.

Basically a similar genesis

The vastness of possible brain changes seems to be quite vast.

One gets what their approach, technique, lifestyle, coupled with intent or no intent, view or no view and maybe a bit of random or 'right place at the right time' brain weirdness optimises for, setting up the conditions for a unique to that person's 'path' brain flip?

Even with other yogis who may have employed similar approaches and techniques but slightly tweaked to suit their own contexts and with a base that differs, we may not be practicing in the very exact same way. And thus the results seem to be similar but slightly different in some areas. Perhaps past abilities/accesses/cultivations/pliancy and malleability of mind and differing levels or perhaps a lack thereof may come into play as well.

So many conditioning factors leading to baseline shifts with only certain aspects of the entire field of experience being experienced differently and maybe other parts similar. I do not think we are all always setting up the very same conditioning factors for the very exact same result. I think this may apply to all baseline shifts, from whatever you might be terming '1st path' all the way to whatever lies beyond that.

We all have our differing strengths, powers, spells, dragon-slaying abilities, horse blindered horses to ride. The road into Mordor might actually be many roads into different areas of Mordor. One does not simply walk into Mordor and find others ending up in the same place. Perhaps, one must plan to have the most conducive of certain weapons and spells to get to exactly the part of Mordor one wishes to get to.

Overboard,

Fírín the Foresaken

wownamegenerator.com/

Oh, I'm curious as to what was discussed here. sounds like an interesting conversation.

Justin's discussion on aesthetics and views of the path

www.flickr.com/photos/84929741@N04/78027...t-72157631113839648/

The only thing notable that I can remember is that the conversation revolved around core values and one guy wondered aloud if human values were as diverse and divergent as people or whether there was some sort of intrinsic convergence.