Re: Desperately...To: Cloudhand

[Guest guest]

> Coming back to the question - how is it we can't do what we know

> we should do?

> Because it's not supple enough yet, because it still has fixed

goals

> and intentions which may not be the actual goals and intentions

> the action itself is supposed to invoke.

> This does not mean we cannot improve upon our activity. Letting go

> of delusory mental goals, there is the very being of Buddha as

> such. When deluded, we follow after the unnecessary; when no

> longer deluded, we return to what is real.

> All the best,

> m

Mike,

Thank You. Since recieving your answer, I went back to reading and

found this:

One must give up the retrospective longing which only wants to

resuscitate the torpid bliss and effortlessness of childhood.[The

Sacrifice, " CW 5, par. 643.]

(This next one was from Collective works also.)

" the unconscious manifests through the opposite attitude and the less

developed functions. In the extravert, the unconscious has a

subjective coloring and an egocentric bias; in the introvert, it can

appear as a compulsive tie to persons and things in the outside

world. "

Being an introvert, I found this rather informative.

So if i am understanding you correctly, (I'm not sure so if i'm wrong

you'll tell me?) In order to progress, one has to let go of the

delusory goal, object.

First one has to figure out what is delusory and what is actual?

Does intuition come into play here or just more searching?

In letting go, we can progress on to the actual goal and intention,

thus finding balance, allowing us to get back to " normal " ?

Seeker......who likes the rain, (and thunder and lightning)

[Guest guest]

Seeker,

I gave a talk at a yoga retreat once called 'Finders, Seekers, Loser,

Weepers'... cummings wrote a poem

seeker of truth

seek no path.

paths lead where

truth is here

which more or less sums up my thesis: seekers seek; finders find;

losers lose... It's a question of rectfying the question, if you will...

No question, no answer; somebody else's question, somebody

else's answer; unreal question, unreal answer... right question,

right answer.

Questions you have, but there are also questions that can be used

to cut beneath questions and get at the real meat of the thing -

questions such as 'what is it that's dragging this body around

here?', or - even more intimately - 'what is it that's reading this?',

'what is it that's wondering?'...

The more you push such questions (gently but consistently), the

more you will find nothing at all. Do not be taken in by *any*

'answers'... What you are looking for is family treasure; family

treasure does not come in the front gate. The answers are not

'there', they're 'here', they're not something you can learn but rather

something that slowly begins to awaken from within *you* - YOUR

answer, YOUR understanding, YOUR realisation... Your letting go.

The great teachers of Dzogchen, Mahamudra and Zen, also of

Taoism and of Sufism, all seem to agree: it is not things that bind

you, but your binding yourself to them - your attachment, be it ever

so subtle.

When one let's go of that tight fist of grasping, oddly enough,

freedom and happiness are right there in the last place you ever

thought to look for them.

Here are a couple of interesting exercises: Clench your fist as tight

as you can - tighter - and hold it that way for a couple of seconds

until your muscles begin to scream their protest. Then... very

slowly and gently... let go...

What do you feel?

The heart is that clenched almost all the time. When one lets go in

the heart, for example by taking a deep breath and then letting it go

forcefully, at the same time making an opening and giving gesture

from the heart, everything else relaxes around it... until it clenches

up again...

So what to do?

When you notice, let go again. And let go. And let go. Over time

you will probably begin to like the sensation of letting go more than

the one of being clenched up and, very slowly, will come to rest in

a more open position.

The more you watch your mind, the more you discover that there

really *is* no such thing as mind that you can point to and say:

'This is it. This is my mind'

Mind is like the wind - sometimes a gentle breeze, sometimes a

raging hurricane, sometimes a heavy stillness, sometimes a fresh

wakefulness. It has no home, no state, no right way - it is deep and

shallow, bright and turgid, vast and minuscule... anything you want

to say about it will always include its opposite because mind just

is like that... always arising, always appearing as this and that,

and never anything in itself... always becoming, but never

becoming anything as such...

There's a Zen story I've quoted recently, and I hope not here...

Guy comes to a Zen Master and tells him he has a problem - He

has this terrible temper he can do absolutely nothing about.

'That's interesting,' says the Roshi. 'Let's have a look at it.'

'What? - You mean just *show* you, like that?' says the guy.

'Yeah,' says the Roshi. 'It is YOURS isn't it?'

'Sure, but it doesn't work like that,' says our man. 'I can't just pull it

out and show you. It has to be caused.'

'Can you show me tomorrow?' asks the Roshi.

'No,' says the guy, wondering if the old master's not a touch doo-

lally.

'In that case, my friend, I would say to you that what you think

you've got there is not a part of your fundamental nature at all.

Maybe you should go home and think about that...'

As long as there's an attachment to self and other there is duality

within the mind - the mind thrives on duality and there is always the

unconscious opposite hiding within all of its conscious activities.

The moment there is the present pico-second - femto-second, even

- (ten to the minus eighteenth - that is to say a million million

millionth - of a second) - the infinity of all past and future and all

other possible dimensions is already established. The moment

there is the merest mote of the most infinitessimal quantum

particle of matter, not only will it have a centre but it will also have

a front, a back, a top, bottom, left, right and all other concevable

direction both within it and expanding from it... The entire ocean,

they say, is in each and every wave, but that's not even the half of

it - the entire universe is in each and every atomic particle of each

and every droplet in each and every wave. How could it possibly be

anything else.

Let go means just that: let go. It's alright. It's all right. Even the bits

we get (sometimes hideously) wrong.

Goal-orientedness will always be circumscribed by the capacity

and intentionality of the person involved in it. When the lights have

failed, I do not necessarily realise that the match-box I'm looking

for is also a potential musical instrument - even if I have already

had this idea at some other time.

Alice said, the other day, celebrate, don't cerebrate... It's not with

the understanding that we are finally going to understand.

I love these quotes you have found here:

> One must give up the retrospective longing which only wants to

> resuscitate the torpid bliss and effortlessness of childhood.[The

> Sacrifice, " CW 5, par. 643.]

*I'm not sure that 'give up' is the word... One needs to think in

terms of path and goal in order to get anywhere, but the important

thing is not to lose sight of where we're actually going (which is

here) - the fact that the ground - (our capacity for pure awareness),

the path - (what is necessary to refining away the obscurations of

karmically created dispositions and of primitive beliefs concerning

the nature of reality), and the goal (the blossoming or awakening of

our natural disposition and capacity for pure awareness, maybe - I

don't know how to describe it!) are all one and the same thing -

different facets, perhaps... or simple different names for the various

phases of the thing, but one and the same thing.

Before entering the path, rivers and mountains are just rivers

and mountains

Once the path has been entered, rivers and mountains are no

longer just rivers and mountains

But, when the path has reached fruition, once again, rivers and

mountains are just rivers and mountains

So what's the point. If you don't know it for yourself, you're just

counting the treasures of others,reciting dead words, and are no

more than the ghost in the treasure-house of the king. That kind of

wealth you will never be able to use.

> (This next one was from Collective works also.)

> " the unconscious manifests through the opposite attitude and the less

> developed functions. In the extravert, the unconscious has a

> subjective coloring and an egocentric bias; in the introvert, it can

> appear as a compulsive tie to persons and things in the outside

> world. "

> Being an introvert, I found this rather informative.

*Me, too, I'm pretty much of an introvert.

> So if i am understanding you correctly, (I'm not sure so if i'm wrong

> you'll tell me?) In order to progress, one has to let go of the

> delusory goal, object.

*Yes. And trust the process, although I will say it's useful (if not

imperative) to have skilful friends to help you (kick your ass) when

you get sidetracked or lost along the path.

> First one has to figure out what is delusory and what is actual?

Firesign Theatre once said - and never, I think, were truer words

spoken in jest - 'Everything you know is wrong'. What an amazing

insight! How could it ever be anything else? We never have the

whole picture, and even if we did have, we would distort it with our

ends-in-view. Our senses are not even capable of beginning to intuit

what is actually all around us - this miracle we call being. How

could anything we merely know be more than the merest puff of

wind in the raging tornado that is this thing called life? At best a

useful boat to help us cross; at worst, a fetter in the chain that

binds us into darkness... what is this in the face of the

'unimaginable'?

What one has to do is - in the words of the Iranian Sufis - tear off

the cloak of darkness clinging to and shrouding in a sandstorm the

body of the Man of Light... the being of light...

> Does intuition come into play here or just more searching?

*At the risk of seeming flippant, yes.

> In letting go, we can progress on to the actual goal and intention,

> thus finding balance, allowing us to get back to " normal " ?

*'Normal screwed up', 'normal ordinary' or 'normal liberated at

last'?...

Into the former, certainly, if we then try to establish our empires

anew. Into the second if that is all we seek to do. Into the third,

less certainly, perhaps, but that is always up to me and you.

> Seeker......who likes the rain, (and thunder and lightning)

*Well... sounds to me like the perfect place to start.

Sorry if this has been a bit of a rave - it's something very close to

me.

Love,

m