Re: Fwd: Re: nutshell - and choice

[Guest guest]

>> How are we suppose to determine our real self when it keeps on changing

>>every single day? Just kidding? I think!

>Good question!

>best answ i can think of - the quality of light never changes, but the

>reflections of that light are endlessly changing.

*You, Madam, are a genius.

The rigpa'i tselwang (rig.pa'i rtsal.dbang), 'Empowerment Concerning the

Energy and Creativty of Pure Awareness', the profoundest of the

empowerments given by my school, uses the light streaming through a crystal

to demonstrate the same thing. Bravo!

Coming back to the idea of choice for an instant... and of becoming vs.

being... in fact, let's deal with the latter first... According to the

schools of thought I follow, 'being' is impossible to establish, either for

a 'self' or for 'things', inasmuch as all phenomena are mutually

coproductive and conditioning. Nothing arises of itself, and all apparent

things are therefore mere imputations - names, if you like - applied to the

apparent arisings of becoming. In (yet another) nutshell, 'panta rei' -

'everything is a state of flux'. There are complex and subtle meditations

involved in this statement I'm just chucking out at you here, but, in

brief, for example...

- there is no (e.g.) car aside from its parts

- what is spoken of as a car is not identical with these parts

- nor does any car inherently posses these parts - they are entirely

incidental

- no car is there, either, that inherently depends on its parts

- nor is there any car on which the parts are inherently dependent

- nor is a car a mere collection of its parts

- nor is there a car which is simply the shape of its parts

The idea 'car' is something else again: a mere imputation of

car/voiture/wagen/motra-NESS on the parts, but - outside of the idea -

there is nothing inherent in any of these that is inherently and

essentially 'car'... Et ainsi de suite for all other phenomena, be they

subjective or objective...

Therefore, 'being' can ONLY be established as 'a constant becoming' - an

image I often use is that of space dancing space into space - the

dragon-dance of a field of infinite potentiality assuming a variety of

fleeting forms for greater or lesser instants and then moving on, back into

itself and into the nendless weave of becoming (which is the exact

translation of what 'tantra' means)...

Ho-hum!

And well you might say so!

McClure's poem puts it more succinctly:

DESPITE FASCINATION

DO NOT BE CONCERNED

that form is emptiness

and emptiness is form

IT

IS

ALL

a brown

falling leaf

no different from

anything

else

As to choice, the schools of thought I follow all concur that mind is

primordial... that it is one's awareness of things that makes them as they

are, and not otherwise... It follows logically from this that everything IS

- on one level - one's 'choice' inasmuch as that is the way in which one

has decided to see it ('Conclusions are simply where people stop examining

things'). The Tibetans go so far as to say that one's parents and the very

quality of the realm in which one exists are all 'choice'... But what is it

that chooses? What chooses is one's expectations - what Whitehead, I think

it was, called 'experientially initiated potentialities for experience'...

In other words, what you see is EXACTLY what you get. We attract the

experiences we imagine, be these 'good', 'bad' or 'indifferent'. We live

entirely within these experiences and nowhere else. That certain things

occasionally seem to burst on us out of nowhere so to speak is only and

simply a part of such 'expectation'. We actually do NOT have any proof of

an existent world beyond our own experience of it. And when we reach into

ourselves to see who is doing all this experiencing there is no-one there

at all... just the experiences... What extraordinary freedom!

No wonder we are enjoined by our very wisdom to act out wisdom as kindness,

as fellow-feeling and compassion!

What else could we possibly do?

I've put this on here before, but I'm going to put it on again. It's a

translation I did of a text by the great 19th. c. Dzogchen Master, Mi-p'am

Nampar Gyälwa, one of the more extraordinary Tibetan yogins of recent

times. Forgive me if you know all this.

The Pith Instruction on Looking Into the Mind

entitled

Molten Gold

A Guide to the Mind

called

Liquid Gold Vomited from the Stomach of a Dog

To Mañju-jñana-sattva, the Wisdom-being, Mañjushri, essence of my own mind

inseparable from the Lama, I bow down.

The root of both samsara and nirvana is the mind.

Apart from what is born of the mind, nothing whatsoever exists.

The various dances of illusory form

Are overcome when their creator, mind the magician, is brought under control.

Not understanding this is the delusory mind of the six realms,

And if you do understand, that is wisdom.

That wisdom, being in itself Buddhahood,

The quintessential Sugata-garbha resides in the heart.

HUNG OM AH HUNG

Look this way! Look at your own mind!

Wide the eyes that look at everything,

But, like a beloved child one has long known,

What is it really like, this thing I call my mind?

Today the time has come to look at it:

Turning your eyes from the manifold dharmas of the external world,

To look within is the one profound and supreme Dharma .

Although you may enter into the primordial wisdom

Where all things are wordlessly known to be illusory

And of one taste with pure awareness,

Simply by looking into this mind, you can, in a single instant and one fell

swoop,

Burst open the cavern of object-craving mind,

And perceive the quintessence of primordial wisdom.

This is why it is known as the short-cut path.

There is no need to unite the skilful means and insight of the realm of

reality and its intrinsic awareness;

The fact that reality and awareness cannot be added to or subtracted from

each other,

Is now nakedly set forth, O fortunate one! A HO

The objective realm is the creative play of mind:

Without mind, who would there be to know the objects?

What is known and mind itself are inseparable:

This coming into being of nothing as such is a magical self-manifestation.

A HO

There is nothing whereby one could lay hold of the reality of mind:

If there were, you could meditate on the presence of such a 'something'.

Similarly, if there were a (tangible) absence, you could meditate on the

'absence':

Do not split it into such opposites. A HO

That which is not two dispels the idea of duality;

That which cannot be definitely established as one, appears as a duality.

This - which cannot be conceived of even as 'this' -

Is the self-presencing of the King, Mind As Such. A HO

Even if you don't know what to meditate on,

Simply seeing it as something unattainable,

Although not as though you had thrown something away,

Is to see into the foundations of the mind.

When you allow this, too, to remain in the realm of the unattainable,

Although there is no longer the smallest atom of concrete reality,

You possess the creativity of all-illumining knowledge,

The non-duality of reality and its intrinsic awareness inseparable.

Nothing as such, yet it has no essence of nothingness.

Examined, there is nothing. Left to itself, it is clear and bright,

Though - like the moon's reflection in water- not to be caught by grasping

for it.

Void of all essence of cause, effect, stillness or movement,

The intrinsic nature of this Voidness being a self-existent radiance

Whose compassionate response is never-ending,

What arguments of being and non-being could comprehend it?

When investigating, mind is an analogy for primordial wisdom;

In understanding, it is pure awareness - primordial wisdom's self-arising -

What a miracle, this radiance of Mind-as-such!

What benefit is there in its openness and its appearing?

Who is this in which there is no duality? What is it that is to be

meditated upon?

Leave it as it is in its self-settledness.

According to their various capacities,

Individuals perceive this self-established primordial wisdom beyond

ordinary mentality,

Either gradually or instantaneously.

In it, yogic practitioners

Burn the seeds of the six realms

In the fires of the vajras of Body, Speech and Mind

That are the innate creativity of the primordial wisdom in the heart.

From them, the sun of support and strength blazes forth,

And, holding wisdom in their hands, and putting it into practice,

In a single lifetime they realise primordial Buddhahood.

SAMAYA

On the perfect occasion of the 15th. day of the 11th. month of the Iron

Horse, while doing a meditation-retreat on Pälchen Heruka, I was feeling

like an old dog with one or two teeth chewing on a bone, when suddenly this

prayer was vomited out.

A swaggering youth, glancing about,

Searches everywhere for a beautiful girl dressed in her finery,

But when he meets her - the one he has chosen as his heart's desire -

The words pour forth freely, without contrivance.

HA!

(So you see, not only SC and Alice say HA!)

Lots of love,

m