Originally posted by Jamber:It seems like at the relative level, the egoistic "I" who's learning the Dharma is choosing its one-way suicidal trip to oblivion. Realization along the path will burn away every last traces of the egoistic I and all its notions about the world until at the end, neither realization nor the egoistic I remains. What's left is just the original reality as it is, but in the end, there isn't even any object of "original reality" that can be pinned down. Just a magical display of whatever there is, as it is.
Yes, very clear, thanks for sharing!
Jeff Foster:
DEALING WITH THE WORLD
Q.
What am I to make of this most consistent appearance pervading my
conscious awareness; this body, my reflection, thoughts and plans or
schemes to wrestle satisfaction out of this lifetime? How shall I
regard and relate to this appearance moment-to-moment? How do you? I
seem to be struggling with a lot of junk and the attending feelings and
sensations are unpleasant and confusing.
Thanks for your email. You ask: 'How shall I regard and relate to this appearance moment-to-moment?'
The
moment you ask that question, you've already moved away from the
present appearance of it all, and into a world of attempted
intellectual understanding. This present appearance does not need to be
escaped, transcended, understood, or even "dealt with" in any way,
because it's just an appearance. An appearance for no-one.
It's
like when you go see a movie. You know it's a movie, so you don't try
and "deal with" the appearance of the movie. The movie just happens.
Stuff comes and goes. Things change. And there's no way of knowing
what's going to happen in the movie. It's wide open and spacious and
unknowable. And it's not yours to control.
And because it's a
movie, there's the space for anything to happen. Happy scenes, sad
scenes, frightening scenes. Anything can happen in the movie, it's all
allowed. The screen on which the movie is projected is never tainted by
any of the scenes.
And finally, the screen and the movie are not
separate (and this is what the word "nonduality" points to). The
question you are really asking is "how do I deal with the movie?". But
of course, it's not yours to deal with. In other words, your life isn't
really yours at all. It's just life happening. And already it's
happening to/for no-one. It's already liberated. Right at the heart of
the apparent movie, there is already freedom. Freedom in the happy
scenes, the sad scenes, the frightening scenes. It's all already
liberated, because already "you" are just a fiction. And what we are
pointing to is the seeing of that.
This "understanding" isn't
something that comes and goes. Yes, intellectual understanding comes
and goes, but that's not what we're pointing to. What we're pointing to
does not take place in time.
Many people tell the story you are
telling - that this "seeing" seems to be there sometimes, and sometimes
there is mesmerisation with the story. Like a remembering and a
forgetting. And all the while we secretly prefer the remembering rather
than the forgetting. We prefer being "out" of the story rather than
"in" the story. This is war. This is duality. Story versus absence of
story.
The war stems from the mistaken belief/experience
(experience always reflects belief) that there is a separation between
being "in" and "out" of the story. They are not two. As long as you are
trying (even subtly) to get "out" of the story, you are fueling the
story.
Of course, within the movie, you can apparently do a lot
of things - make choices, have relationships, change your thinking,
follow a spiritual path, attempt to escape the story. But the movie is
just a movie. And nothing that you can do from within the movie can get
you out of the movie.
And so where does all that leave you?
It leaves you right here, radically so: right here with what's
happening. Breathing, heart beating, sounds happening, movement,
colour. Just the simple and obvious present appearance of it all.
You're left totally embraced by this.
Right here, right now,
this is the answer to all questions, because all questions simply
dissolve in the child-like wonder of what's happening. And in that,
questions like "how do I escape the story?" are rendered meaningless,
because it's seen that there's simply no story to escape from, and
there never was. There's just what's happening, and it's always enough,
and even the most vivid story about "your" life is just a daydream,
happening now.
And out of this, life happens. Things get done,
or not. Plans get made, or don't. It moves, or not. It speaks, or it
doesn't. You're just left here, and you get to see how the movie turns
out. And all the while, you know it's all okay, because it's just a
movie. It's the love that passes all understanding.
You ask
about how I relate to this presence appearance. Well, the answer is
that somehow, it all takes care of itself. Somehow, things get done. It
wakes in the morning, it puts on clothes, it eats when it's hungry. I
cannot relate to this appearance because I am not separate from the appearance. I have no way of separating myself from what's
happening. What's happening is myself, which is another way of saying,
that there is no person here. And yet, the character "Jeff Foster"
continues to function, to live his life, and it's such a gift. But what
falls away are the questions. Never do I ask myself how to relate to
life, because that question no longer makes any sense to me. There is
only life playing itself out, only the vastness, only nothing playing
the game of being everything.
And of course, those words don’t even touch it. It’s the intimacy that will never be put into words. Intimacy with breathing, with the heart beating, with the body, with the chair, with the table, with the trees and flowers, with everything, as it is. And it's all mine, and none of it is mine, and that apparent paradox dissolves into the absolute simplicity of what is.
Jesus said you have to lose your life to save it, and when everything is lost, when there are no longer any questions, when all the seeking falls away, you are simply left with the mystery of it all, and everything is wiped clean, and with the eyes of a child you look at the world, always for the first time, and see only love in its infinite guises.
Today I noticed that trying to remove perceived unclear thoughts and confusion has nothing to do with the unstained awareness that is already so.
As the book 'Essentials of Mahamudra' states that ordinary mind is unstained by any perceived forms, unmuddled by any existential projections, and unclouded by dullness, depression or thought.
It is not filled with the turbulence of disturbing emotions or the discursiveness of mind. Ordinary mind is uncontrived, free from such preoccupations.
It is also luminous, clear and vivid, not wrapped up in a dull, obscure state of mind or within conceptuality.
It's not altered by something else, it is just itself and there is no need to get rid of what we regard as bad or turn it into something good.
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What I noticed today is that, if we are trying to stay clear of emotions, thoughts, etc, which are manifesting, then that very attempt is contrivance and has nothing to do with our naturally clear and unstained nature.
That is why the 6th Zen Patriarch Hui-Neng wrote the poem:
Bodhi is fundamentally without any tree;
The bright mirror is also not a stand.
Fundamentally there is not a single thing—
Where could any dust be attracted?
Hui-Neng's poem was made in reply to Shen-Xiu's poem:
The body is the bodhi tree;
The mind is like a bright mirror’s stand.
Be always diligent in rubbing it—
Do not let it attract any dust.
Adyashanti gave an analogy in one of his videos someone of scrubbing a stained glass endlessly. He asks, "why are you scrubbing the stained glass for?" That person replies, "so that it's not red". 1000 years later, it's still red. Why don't you go to the other side of the glass and it's already perfectly not red? Don't put your effort in the wrong direction. Look straight into the Mind, clarify your own Mind, that is enough.
Zen has a similar famous story.
A Master saw a disciple who was very zealous in meditation.
The Master said: "Virtuous one, what is your aim in practicing Zazen (meditation)?
The disciple said: "My aim is to become a Buddha."
The the Master picked up a tile and began to polish it on a stone in front of the hermitage.
The disciple said: "What is the Master doing?"
The Master said: "I am polishing this tile to make it a mirror."
The disciple said: "How can you make a mirror by polishing a tile?"
The Master replied: "How can you make a Buddha by practicing Zazen?"
Ma-tsu was doing Zazen daily in his hut on Nan-yueh Mountain. Watching him one day, Huai-jang (Nanyue Huairang, Nangaku Ejo) 677-744, his master, thought, "He will become a great monk," and inquired:
"Worthy one, what are you trying to attain by sitting?"
Ma-tsu replied: "I am trying to become a Buddha."
Thereupon Huai-jang picked up a piece of roof tile and began grinding it on a rock in front of him.
"What are you doing, Master?" asked Ma-tsu.
"I am polishing it to make a mirror," said Huai-jang.
"How could polishing a tile make a mirror?"
"How could sitting in Zazen make a Buddha?"
Ma-tsu asked: "What should I do, then?"
Huai-jang replied: "If you were driving a cart and it didn't move, would you whip the cart or whip the ox?"
Ma-tsu made no reply.
Huai-jang continued: "Are you training yourself in Zazen? Are you striving to become a sitting Buddha? If you are training yourself in Zazen let me tell you that the substance of Zazen is neither sitting nor lying down. If you are training yourself to become a sitting Buddha, let me tell you that Buddha has no one form [such as sitting]. The Dharma, which has no fixed abode, allows of no distinctions. If you try to become a sitting Buddha, this is no less than killing the Buddha. If you cling to the sitting form you will not attain the essential truth."
i wonder perhaps it's more understandable by using "sitting in Zazen" than just using the word "Zazen" in the koan. i think Ma-tsu was too attached to the sitting form and the meaning of zazen itself can be much wider.
another interesting read:
http://www.intrex.net/chzg/pat16.htm
For Dogen, zazen practice and actualization were not separate. When Huai-jang was polishing the tile and Ma-Tsu asked "What are you doing?" Dogen commented that "Polishing a tile has been present in the Absolute," meaning that the non-dual activity of Absolute reality is "tile polishing" or practice, and this "tile polishing never ceases." Nishijima and Cross translate this line as "The doing of what is always the polishing of a tile." Dogen used interrogatives including "how" and "what" to indicate Suchness or ultimate truth. According to Dogen, practice is how we express ultimate truth or the Absolute. Again, "absolute" doesn’t mean that there is something that exists in an absolute sense. Absolute means the non-dual nature of reality; and our inability to know this is delusion, the illusion that we exist separately.
Dogen went on to say however that "tile polishing" or practice, as the natural expression of original nature, is not "mirror-making." This means that zazen is not something we do in order to produce the result of enlightenment. To practice zazen now in order to become enlightened at some future point is setting up a goal, something to attain that is separate from who we are right now. Dogen taught that practice and realization are simultaneous, that there is no realization outside our moment-to-moment practice.
"Tile polishing," or our practice, is total, complete and self-sufficient. Therefore, one who practices zazen doesn’t anticipate something down the line called enlightenment. If we do zazen now, thinking about some future enlightenment, we aren’t doing zazen. We are thinking about the future. In this practice, there isn’t room for anything else, no room for future, no room for enlightenment, no room for Buddha, or insight. There is only room for one activity: total engagement in immobile sitting, instant after instant, and this total, non-dual engagement is itself realization. There isn’t room for the two activities of total engagement and realization. Total engagement is realization. This total engagement is the activity of throwing your whole body and mind into your present activity without looking to the future for a result. Our practice, our very presence, is unique and non-repeatable, and each moment of being is complete just as it is.
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Thanks for the sharing, what you said sounds very good, especially the quote about Dogen :)
Maitripa:
Apart from letting the mind remain in its own nature,
There is no meditation through the manipulation of body and speech
There is no meditation through an antidote
For an equipose and against a nonequipose