Stages, Part the Third

Just so.

Thanks, Kate.

So -- absolute, relative, or both? The way I see it they are all manifestations of one true reality. Sometimes we experience this as relative, sometimes as absolute, sometimes we can see both. When I talked about this yesterday I was making an implicit assumption that this deep, multifaceted version is what folks would take away from what I said. My bad.

So about choice -- you have a choice of which facets of this one mysterious reality to pay attention to. You don't have a choice to participate in the reality at all (if a bell rings in your presence you will hear it). You can, however, choose to pay more attention to the relative, or to the absolute. I'm not presenting a binary, bifurcated universe - it's all one big, beautiful, non-dual thing. We, as participants with limited perception, get to struggle with how to view it and how to live with our choices.

Just to clarify...

Think blind men and an elephant

Kenneth, I do think I sense a new and different kind of cycle. I'm not going to describe it because I'm not quite sure of the details, the lay of the land. Like everything else, this changes over time (duh!) and appears, at least for now, to have a repeat - thus my use of the term "cycle." Otherwise, things are very, very calm and mellow in a way that feels deeper and more existential than anything I can recall feeling in the past.

More later, as usual.

I've been out of circulation for a while and I've thus been reading through the comments here with a "new" eye. So I want to say this after seeing how focused people seem to get on these things --- the fireworks are just a side show. The fireworks are just a side show.

The fireworks are just a sideshow!

There.

I said it and that's all I came here to do today. Back to work, and...

Bye for now.

"Parting seas and raining bliss are just those things people crave. But they are simply more experiences, although more dramatic and exciting than the norm. Awakening is indifferent to them."

-- Gozen

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"Parting seas and raining bliss are just those things people crave. But they are simply more experiences, although more dramatic and exciting than the norm. Awakening is indifferent to them."

-- Gozen

"

Yes.
Any awakening that was fascinated by fabulous experiences is not one I'd want.

Edited a million times

Hey Chris,

My back healed. Thanks for the metta

I am discovering one of the possible side effects of getting rid of insight disease is the seemingly "meh!" nature of the mind now. It ireally seems to be indifferent to everything that I seem to experience in my head and body, heaven AND hellish elements. It's taking some getting use to. I seem to not have much in the way of desire arise to explore. I might state I want to. But the thought then disappears and I find that a week has passed and I haven't even thought about doing any of the "fireworks".. Wink! Wink! The Harry Potter/Indiana Jones wannabe in me wants to do it, but the rest of "me" doesn't seem to care and is too busy dealing with normalish life stuff. So far, I can't seem to hide from life (Not that I am looking to hide!!) But I liked to play x-box 360. Sometimes I let it become an escape. I'd love to replace this pasttime with astral projection. Seems like a better trade. Like Alex said, it's better than watching tv. You can hide from life through any activity. In fact most people do things in life, like go to bars, see a movie to temporarily hide from life. You just have to realise when it may be effecting your life in a negative way. Like when my fiancee would give me the evil eye when I was immersed in some "shooter". (Yes, i admit it. I am still a teenager at heart!!!) BUT if we are talking people still pre-path or pre-awakening, then forget about the fireworks! Get some stability first!!!

P.S. I would use astral projection to help out the devas if I could get some drive going...meh!.

"So what makes a professional in all this?"

Nick, I think those who do the fireworks to the exclusion of a real awakening are not professionals but children, at least in a figurative sort of way. I think the real issue is how we live our actual life among our fellow human beings. That's a huge challenge that could keep us busy for many lifetimes. If we flee that challenge by escaping into some zombie-like state or run away by getting caught up in the fireworks then we can't do anything for anyone else.

BTW - you keep editing as I'm trying to reply to you so I'm sure it's going to look like I'm replying to someone else, or to something you didn't say but did and deleted, or that I ignored stuff you said after I typed my reply.. Do you think you could not do that out of courtesy? I don't have time to hang out 'til you're finally done so I'm going to aim at the moving target and pray

Sorry Chris,

I seem to be going through a heavy dark night and it's influencing my thought patterns. I edited it over 5 times. Oof! I was hoping you were still working so the editing wouldn't be a noticed. Sorry once again. No more editing needed.

This message was edited for spelling hahah!

If you own an iPhone this may be just what you need:

www.tuaw.com/2010/07/26/time-journal-you...ons-with-equanimity/

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If you own an iPhone this may be just what you need:

www.tuaw.com/2010/07/26/time-journal-you...ons-with-equanimity/


"

Chris, I was all ready to just laugh it off as some cheap-ass phony commercialization of meditation thing, but .... while I'd never use it I can actually see where the journaling part would be very useful for the kind of work a lot of people are doing here -- paying very careful attention to amount and times of sitting and then making an accurate written record of what happens each time. I imagine all the journaling and a record of when and how long one sits could be saved.

"
If you own an iPhone this may be just what you need:

www.tuaw.com/2010/07/26/time-journal-you...ons-with-equanimity/


"

You know, I don't have an iPhone, but I do use my cell phone to time my sits. If I had an iPhone, I'm sure I would probably buy the app. At $4.99, it costs less then a decent lunch.

I'm sitting more of late. This feels right, and good, and of necessity given the nature of present existence. I wake up periodically (this morning, for example) embedded in a background feeling of ill ease. This, I believe, is the result of some of the stuff life has tossed over the transom. So sitting becomes a critical bridge to truth, a necessary habit, a welcome process. If I don't sit I get antsy. If I do sit I get space.

More from my current obsession [which I quoted from on Alex's thread] "Secret of the Golden Flower"-- this could have been written just for you, I think:
"[1] As you go along practicing turning the light around, you need not give up your normal occupation. An ancient said, 'When matters come up, one should respond; when things come up, one should discern.'
[2] If you manage affairs with accurate mindfulness, then the light is not overcome by things, so it will do to repeat this formless turning around of the light time and again.
[3] If you can look back again and again into the source of mind, whatever you are doing, not sticking to any image of person or self at all, then this is 'turning the light around wherever you are.' This is the finest practice.
[4] In the early morning, if you can clear all objects from your mind and sit quietly for one or two hours, that is best. Whenever you are engaged in work or dealing with people, just use this 'looking back' technique, and there will be no interruption. If you practice in this way for two or three months, the realized ones in Heaven will surely come to attest to your experience."
-- this is the translation of the text itself, rather than Thomas Cleary's notes, as the other was. His notes ARE essential to understanding the text, though.

That is just sweet.

Here's an issue I've been thinking about a lot lately -- I'll call it "model mania." What we deal with in practice is mind stuff. It's squishy. Nebulous. Uncertain. It's hard to pin down and very difficult to describe. Yet we kind of sort of act like we know with some certitude what's going on in our practice a lot of the time. I suspect we force-fit symptoms into the models in our heads. I also think we're not always aware enough of what we're doing when we do that, which is a funny/sweet irony for a bunch of people who claim better-than-average astuteness in regard to mental phenomena.

Guilty as charged, your honor!

I've been thinking about this because what's happening in my practice is very new and different and it doesn't really seem to fit into any model I know very well... yet. But there is a model that Kenneth has suggested to me and my mind immediately started to force fit my recent experience to that model! We human beings, as is our nature, demand explanations because, I suspect, "knowing" (i.e.; thinking we know) is more comfortable than not knowing.

So I'm going to try to get comfortable with this present bout of uncertainty.

Happy Birthday Chris!!!!

What is the new model? Now I have that need "to know". Aaaaaargh! Somewhere on another thread you had the opinion of 4th path NOT being the end. I kind of agree. Things seems to be developing still within the body energetically. The mind has had small "shifts" or what appear to be shifts. Is that model a secret? Can you PM me Kenneth's idea on it?

Hope someone brought you breakfast in bed today!

Sorry, Nick. It's not a secret. I stupidly just didn't mention it - look up the Five Ranks of Tozan.

Thanks for the birthday wishes. I'm getting OLD

BTW, Nick, I do think 4th path is possibly the end of one certain process. But I really don't see any FINAL end. You know what I mean? MInd seems infinitely malleable and while there's possibly SOME kind of limit on it I suspect that limit is practically impossible to find. Or maybe it's an infinity of infinities. I'm leaving all the possibilities open and don't expect to ever have a definitive answer - see my post number 174.

Ah yes, Kenneth mentioned the probable falls from grace that will come. Thanks for the reminder. And we are all getting old....sigh....**strokes greying wavy hair**

Gonna try and edit before you reply..hehe

It seems the cycle may be for me at the moment: "Exploration, transcending, 3rd gear, riding the absolute, feeling very "enlightened" and then it will switch suddenly and I had this happen recently where all of a sudden I just felt like being normal, doing normal stuff, being a goofy idiot, NOT trying to act "enlightened", being with people without any dharma involved and then suddenly Plop! I'm wanting to transcend and research "sankharas" and wirte dharma notes on FB.......Kenneth mentioned to me that it will probably be like this. Hmmmm. So if I was to force myself to fit the maps of Tozan, I think I would forcefit myself into the falling from grace 4th stage. It's probably very cyclical.

Yes, Virginia, there is awakening but it's not what you think. Uncertainty! No real need to find the comfort of explaining the unexplainable...

Happy birthday!

You make some wonderful points - or rather, bring up some discerning questions - in comment #174. Experience is malleable. What appears is very much shaped by intention, expectation, prior learning, etc. It's like loading the brain with mapping software, so that it follows a predictable algorithm. Mind tends to shape itself to whatever model is suggested.

Upon hearing this, it would seem that the best idea is to find the simplest, most accurate model and just go with that. And yet, isn't that just uploading another operating system? Even worse, isn't not choosing any map at all yet another operating system? Etc, etc. In a very existential sense, a choice is inevitably made, because making no choice is still a choice. "No map" is still a map, as far as the mind is concerned.

This all brings up more questions than answers. I can see why the Buddha of the Pali canon chose to stick with the Four Noble Truths as the ultimate teaching. There is so much we can't know. But suffering - maybe that's something we can work with.

~Jackson