Stian Gudmundsen Høiland
June 14, 2013
I'm expecting to have this "quantum leap" in perception; An event that irreversibly unties a particular perceptual knot that involves constructing reference points, especially regarding a personal, separate self.
There's an intellectual component to this, which is about temporarily holding a certain position or view in mind and by doing so *revealing* something integral to perceptual experience. What is revealed is the utter lack of reality of reference points, especially regarding a personal, separate self. In plain language, it's about clearly seeing through the delusion of "myself vs. others".
This delusion acts as a basis for many afflictive perceptual and behavioral patterns, so when the insight arises and the delusion ends, these afflictive patterns that the delusion supported/engendered/conditioned simply no longer arise.
The delusion of a separate self (I prefer to call it a/the reference point as that is closer my visceral experiences) is sustained by habitual grasping. After working with reducing that grasping, a temporary cessation of the delusion can occur — a flash of insight *made possible* by the reduction in grasping and *activated* by holding a certain position or view, as mentioned before.
But unless the soil is fertile, i.e. momentum of habitual grasping/afflictive patterns/delusion has not been sufficiently reduced, the overwhelming flood of habitual grasping rushes in, the delusion quickly re-emerges and the knot re-ties!
My approach so far has been to produce and re-produce that flash of insight, deferring the work of reducing the habitual grasping and afflictive patterns till afterwards, when the cause and basis for those patterns are extinct — a shortcut, if you will. But I'm coming to see that this might not such a good idea because the momentum of grasping seems to invalidate the insights.
_________ Afflictive patterns feed into further affliction. By cutting off these patterns, further affliction is limited, but still arise.
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______ Grasping is obscured by afflictive patterns, making it hard to work with. Grasping sustains and feeds the perceptual knot.
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___ Delusion, perceptual knot. This is the level of the flash of insight, but unless grasping has been sufficiently reduced, grasping quickly restores the perceptual knot.
What do you think about this? Especially I'm interested to know how this stacks up with the "Santa"-model, where the flash of insight is irreversible and "unseeing" the insight is deemed impossible.
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Stuffs RedTurtle and 2 others like this.
Robert Dominik What is revealed is the utter lack of reality of reference points <- Is it like having the rug pulled from under? You experience your core beliefs and positions as groundless?
I'm obviously deluded but I'll comment and share my experience because much of this that you describe seems quite familiar.
But unless the soil is fertile, i.e. momentum of habitual grasping/afflictive patterns/delusion has not been sufficiently reduced, the overwhelming flood of habitual grasping rushes in, the delusion quickly re-emerges and the knot re-ties! <-
Yeah. I know what you mean.
Additionally... don't know about you but I easily cling/become attached to the feeling of this untying you describe. I still somewhat regard this as different than usual, habitual mode of abiding and therefore tend to objectify and reify this feeling of as I would call it "transparent groundlessness of the experience". Therefore it becomes another form of sticking to selfhood and results in such experiences of untying only being peak experiences rather than total, unshakeable realisation. It is funny because this circle of untying and retying is very tiring and brings still sense of dukkha.
I become tired of this and then have these moments of "fuck this shit - this is stupid - this is just a joke, a stupid game" and then immediately clarity and presence arise and the sense of butthurt is flushed out in the toilet... but after some time there is this trying of grasping the clarity and effortlessness. There is also this fear of returning to the old habbits and being lost in them.
And so the samsaric circle goes on
Dunno how this relates to Santa. But I remember that when I was a kid after learning that there is no Santa I was still hoping that maybe there is Santa and was trying to fool myself
June 14, 2013 at 4:05am · Edited · Like · 4
Daemon Shockley Sometimes good things happen automatically. Sometimes they don't. What's stuck is an understanding of what's possible, I'd say. I'm hopeful that more good things will happen automatically as I progress further, but I assume there will always be things I have to work for. I believe that by accepting the need for work, and working to integrate my understandings into my conciousness and actions more good things will happen automatically. Training kicks in more often.
June 14, 2013 at 4:33am · Like · 1
Daemon Shockley In case its not clear.. I relate a lot to what you guys are saying. This is the attitude I try to take though. And I hope it will come more automatically with persistence
June 14, 2013 at 4:35am · Like · 2
Robert Dominik I'm hopeful that more good things will happen automatically as I progress further <- but be aware that there might be some harder moments in the future. The practice is not all good and pleasant things. In real Vippassana the awareness of senses might become so great that it is almost unbearable.
June 14, 2013 at 7:45am · Like
Daemon Shockley I'm aware
June 14, 2013 at 7:47am · Like · 1
Daemon Shockley (I started meditating after reading Daniel Ingram's MCTB and his presentation of the Progress of Insight. I'm expecting more Dark Night's ahead, at least. And of course, life has its ups and downs in any case.)
June 14, 2013 at 7:59am · Like · 1
Dhruval Patel Thannisaro bhikku has really good article called the paradox of becoming. It deals with the sort of thing you are describing.
June 14, 2013 at 10:28am · Like · 1
Albert Hong I believe a lot of issues have to do with momentum.
What is required of us is more concentration and subtly.
This bond of ignorance is like very strong magic. Its power is amazing.
In a way we need to put quality time and effort into combating and counter it.
But as stated above by Dhruval Patel suggestion. To affirm or negate ignorance is to condition more ignorance.
So really the only way out is through wisdom.
May we realize the selflessness of all things.
June 14, 2013 at 10:37am · Like · 5
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland Hey Robert.
It seems I know exactly what you're talking about. There are several posts on this group where I have had a go at describing what you are saying.
Not landing
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dharmaconnection/permalink/678024825558070/
Unlocatable, fully process
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dharmaconnection/permalink/655104824516737/
A golf swing
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dharmaconnection/permalink/648218431872043/
The sensation of emptiness
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dharmaconnection/permalink/642581945769025/
Dream objects
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dharmaconnection/permalink/611744895519397/
And several comments scattered all over...
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There's "having the rug pulled from under" and "experiencing your core beliefs and positions as groundless". Then there's surrender and "fuck this shit", where attachments are just dropped and life flows effortlessly.
For some reason, I think of what I'm describing in this current post as slightly different, though related.
And that is "severing of the center". While I have some experience in groundlessness and surrender, severing the center is very novel to me and I don't know much about it. These are some posts about it:
No center (also check out my comment here re: "returning to the old habits")
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dharmaconnection/permalink/676291692398050/
Non-local consciousness (first part of post)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dharmaconnection/permalink/662930817067471/
And of course this current post.
___
I sympathize very much with the language you use to describe your experiences. Thanks for sharing!
June 14, 2013 at 11:25pm · Edited · Like · 1
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland At the risk of de-railing the thread, here's a conversation I had with Greg at some point where we briefly discussed "the transparent groundlessness of the experience". I hope Greg doesn't mind me revealing his trade secret!
<This conversation was immediately preceded by some slightly forceful statements from me.>
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland
Aight! I see that I might be bearing down on these issues a tad too heavy for your liking. That's fine and even inspiring or rather 'reminding'
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland
I wonder; in my own experience, when I'm presented with statements like my own here ^, sometimes I see right through them and I see why they are, in a way, flawed as distinctions. They reduce into parts and the parts reduce into a field too rich to be delineated.
Is this how it is for you, too? Would you share your "process" of seeing through the slightly forceful and "solid" statements that I'm spewing here?
Of course, this is assuming you're even doing such a thing and is also conscious of it.
Greg Goode
It's like not landing, while at the same time not having to remain without sound or movement. You mentioned "radical openness." What is the relation between radical openness and making firm, literal "X is Y" statements? How does that fit together for you?
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland
"X is Y" is a lower energy signature. It's a contraction. I've seen translations of "dukkha" into "contracted space" and it's like that.
As I said, I can be reminded of this "radical openness", as happened up there ^, but being reminded does not actually "do the job" of reducing the "solid" statements or making them transparent.
It comes and goes, and I work on making it stay for longer - which is a weird way to put it, because the "staying" is about "not-staying" or "not landing".
June 14, 2013 at 11:10pm · Edited · Like
Albert Hong I believe anatta to end the centeralization of a reference point that links together phenomena.
Once that bond is broken then phenomena are free floating, distinct occurances.
Even themselves have no linking basis towards each other. Which then we find unarisen, unborn appearances.
But further yet we examine the emptiness and we create an image of emptiness.
With time sounds, smells, tastes, thoughts, colors, and sensations are seen through completely. Because the world is the appearance there is no where to land.
We must examine what we give to all of this. How all of this is constructed on the basis of assumptions.
And in a way we must believe in inherent existence. Have a solid object made so that we can refute and deconstruct it.
June 15, 2013 at 12:37am · Like · 2
Joel Rosenblum Daniel Ingram reports having awareness of the space he is in, but without center of reference... however, if you only have awareness of the space that "you" are in, is that not a clear center of reference? Else why would "you" aware that space in particular as opposed to the whole universe?
June 25 at 10:31am · Like
David Vardy There is no 'whole universe' outside of the space you're featured in, although experiencing as such isn't being in a space per say. That would be imagining what doesn't appear to be happening. Things become quite flat, simple and matter of fact when there isn't measuring going on from an imagined center.
June 25 at 1:11pm · Like · 1
Joel Rosenblum David, outside of the space who is featured in? Have you read Mae Chee Kaew?
June 25 at 1:24pm · Like
David Vardy No I haven't Joel. The space 'you' are featured in, which isn't necessarily what your experience is.
June 25 at 1:26pm · Like
David Vardy Experiencing the space doesn't necessarily translate to the idea of being in a space.
June 25 at 1:29pm · Like
Joel Rosenblum Assuming still that there is a "you"... Have you never experienced the entire universe? Buddha and sariputta talk of seeing the ten thousand world system...
June 25 at 1:29pm · Like
David Vardy No I haven't. That suggests there's a frontier, a border.
June 25 at 1:30pm · Like
Joel Rosenblum What suggests a border?
June 25 at 1:31pm · Like
David Vardy My experience stops where I see, what I hear, what I feel, etc....and what's imaginable remains unimaginable, in a manner of speaking. We can enter a discussion about all sorts of things outside of what appears to be happening but in that moment it would be what's happening.
June 25 at 1:33pm · Like · 2
Joel Rosenblum Ok so you are still stuck on a center of perception.
June 25 at 1:34pm · Like
David Vardy Perceiving as such doesn't require a center, and yet it doesn't go beyond what's happening.
June 25 at 1:37pm · Like · 1
Joel Rosenblum It does require a center if the perceiving follows this David or Daniel character wherever they go...
June 25 at 1:37pm · Like
David Vardy What's going on is quite packed, totally packed wouldn't you say.?
June 25 at 1:38pm · Like
Joel Rosenblum ?
June 25 at 1:38pm · Like
David Vardy Just because Joel appears to be there doesn't mean the first person experience includes feeling like it comes from the center of Joel. In fact, the clearer that experience appears to be the less Joel appears to be there. But it's always like that apart from imagining Joel is there.
June 25 at 1:41pm · Unlike · 3
Joel Rosenblum We are talking past each other now.
June 25 at 1:42pm · Like
David Vardy By packed I mean, each sense is operating without any holes in it. There aren't any spaces in what's seen. The scene is always completely filled. The same goes for every sense.
June 25 at 1:45pm · Unlike · 3
Soh Buddha rejected a certain kind of omniscience. Only a Buddha has omniscience, but no Buddhas have omnipotence nor the simultaneous-knowing kind of omniscience. Omnipotence (all-powerful) and simultaneous-all-knowingness is a non-Buddhist concept.
MN. 90, the Kannakatthala Sutta:
Then King Pasenadi of Kosala said to the Blessed One: “Venerable sir, I have heard this: ‘The recluse Gotama says: “There is no recluse or brahmin who is omniscient and all-seeing, who can claim to have complete knowledge and vision; that is not possible.’“Venerable sir, do those who speak thus say what has been said by the Blessed One, and not misrepresent him with what is contrary to fact? Do they explain in accordance with the Dhamma in such a way that nothing that provides a ground for censure can be legitimately deduced from their assertions?”
“Great King, those who speak thus do not say what has been said by me, but misrepresent me with what is untrue and contrary to fact.”
[...]
Then King Pasenadi of Kosala said to the Blessed One: “Venerable sir, could something else have been said by the Blessed One referring to that, and the person understood it wrongly? In what way does the Blessed One recall making that utterance?”
“I recall having actually made the utterance in this way, great king: ‘There is no recluse or brahmin who knows all, who sees all, simultaneously; that is not possible.’”
“What the Blessed One has said appears reasonable, what the Blessed One has said appears to be supported by reason: ‘There is no recluse or brahmin who knows all, who sees all, simultaneously; that is not possible.”
.........
Malcolm:
What the Buddha is saying here is that he does not assert of himself what Mahathera asserted of himself, i.e. that the Buddha constantly in a state of total knowledge of all things at all times. Buddha rejected this kind of omniscience. The kind of omniscience the Buddha has is the ability to know completely anything to which his mind is directed without effort. Not even in Mahayana is asserted that a Buddha in a state of total knowledge of all phenomena at all times.
June 25 at 3:06pm · Edited · Like · 1
David Vardy It's virtually impossible to imagine 'you are seeing from a center' when the packed nature of sensing itself is experienced. There is no distance from anything at that 'point', for lack of a better word...lol
June 25 at 1:59pm · Like
John Tan Hi David, thanks for sharing.
First there is the direct apprehension of Clarity/Awareness.
Next is recognizing the apparent separation of clarity and appearance caused by a seeming perceptual knot.
Then there is resolving of this separation and what’s left is appearances / phenomena / cognized, seen, heard, tasted, smelled and sensed
It is interesting that the resolving of the separation for your case is not by way of subsuming into an all-encompassing non-dual awareness/space; however the overcoming of the center/agent can arise (from my experience) by:
1. By a prolong training in a state of no-mind.
2. Seeing through the center that the center has always been assumed, it is extra. In reality it does not exist.
3. Seeing through that the fundamental nature of the perceptual knot itself
4. A combination of above
Do you overcome the center by any of the above or by a different approach?
June 25 at 2:45pm · Edited · Unlike · 4
David Vardy Nice to meet you John. Looking back ( I was a slow learner. This is over a thirty year period). The first insight was associated with Taoist Yoga/Meditation performing the small microcosmic orbit. I had developed a lot of Chi over the years and when that orbit opened there was a hyper aware state, one of complete calmness and clarity. A feeling where everything just dropped. It wasn't until another decade or so when I was standing in line at an ice cream stand and a little girl turned around and looked up at me. In that moment she seemed as if she didn't see me, was looking straight through me. It was huge to say the least, brought me literally to my knees. The event left me feeling as if I had a hole in my forehead for about 2 months, experiencing headlessness all along. Deconstructed were the opposites, particularly inside and outside. You could say that from that day with that girl automatic continuous deconstruction was going on henceforth. There was no getting around it, even when exhausted. It's difficult retracking in such a short space here, but subsequently there was the experience of Anatta. This was incredible in light of the fact it hadn't been spelled out to me and having left the Chan tradition well before advancing in it I was kind of at a loss, not experientially, there was no doubt there, but how to talk about it. I had pretty much been seeing from the I AM position prior to this. Prior to Anatta it was as if my backside was an infinite expansive potential, the front being purely phenomenal. This destroyed the backside. What had been imagined to be non-dual was seen not to have been the case at all. The notion of absence being on the backside was now gone. The idea of no-self prior to Anatta was really just self as Absence, but still holding onto a conceptual absence you could say. There was still a center. Experiencing Anatta in my case, coincided with seeing DO. Prior to Anatta, phenomena seemed to be hyper real, substantiated as you say? In the moment of Anatta, the packed nature of phenomena as a unitary seeing having no inherent qualities was clear. Emptiness of both sides was clear in the same moment, and fortunately continued as a heightened Samadi like experience for months after the initial introduction.
June 25 at 3:28pm · Unlike · 3
David Vardy There is a physical component to this. Here, the experience occurring with the insight coinciding with seeing the packed nature of sensing is also a packed feeling in the brain. Every space is filled. I call it the 'stuffed animal' effect. The center is squeezed out by seeing itself. It's as if by virtue of occupied receptors, the play of opposites is cancelled out, not intellectually but physically. And that which is cancelled is who you've been featured imagining yourself to be. There has been no one there but the play of opposites in a hyperactive fashion. The essence of quietude is the absence of that play.
June 25 at 3:51pm · Like
Joel Rosenblum @Soh: I never said one could be all-knowing, but rather all seeing. Buddha agreed with me that this was the state he experienced although not sure if he experienced it constantly. All seeing is not all knowing because it is like seeing the entire movie screen: you still have to focus to really see any part clearly. Also omnipotence means all-powerful...
Anyway, what do you think of my question? How can you say there is no self, no center of perception, when "your" body is always being followed? I suppose it doesn't really matter if there is a center of perception as long as the center is clearly not identified with, tho it might be subtly identified with perhaps?
June 25 at 4:28pm · Like
Soh In your model, the universe is made up of many different circles. Each circle represents an individual's experience. And within each individual circle, there is a dot or eye at the center, which represents the agent or center or perceiver of experience that sees/knows/feels the field of experience. The eye or center cannot see beyond that circle.
In actuality there is no center. In other words, the seeing/hearing/sensing/cognizing/thinking field is simply a self-cognizing sensations, perceptions, etc. The circle is a self-luminous, self-aware circle with no center or perceiver apart from perceiving/perception. There can be a perception of a center, but there is never a center of perception. Even that perception of a center is just another perception, no different from another sight or sound as part of the field of perceptions/sensations. Clear seeing (realization of anatta) will eliminate the perception of a center (after insight there can still be a trace of self but will also gradually be released with practice).
Furthermore, we have to penetrate dependent origination. This is where net of indra comes in. Each circle, each node, in the universe is a reflection of all other nodes. There is no universal self underlying all nodes, but instead, one node reflects all nodes. All nodes are manifestation of total exertion of the universe. This is also where our holographic nature can be seen. Omniscience is possible not because there is a universal Self subsuming all, but because of our interconnectedness and emptiness. Psychic phenomena happen because of the non-local nature of dependent origination.
June 25 at 5:25pm · Edited · Like · 3
David Vardy Non local nature being the key....
June 25 at 5:32pm · Unlike · 1
David Vardy The luminosity of each psychic phenomena emanates through our eyes in those who have eyes.
June 25 at 5:34pm · Like
Soh I'm not sure what you mean by 'your body is being followed'. But what I can tell you here is that the construct or sense of a body being here has dissolved... and Goenka describes this very well when he said, "...Then working with both you reach the st...See More
June 25 at 5:38pm · Like · 2
Soh Oh ok I think I get what you mean. It seems that you think (and feel) that there is an observer that follows the body around and experiences the body. Like the third-person camera view that follows around a character in a video game like GTA. This is f...See More
www.overthinkingit.com
www.overthinkingit.com
June 25 at 9:47pm · Edited · Like · 6 · Remove Preview
David Vardy There is very little elasticity in nouns especially of the subject/object variety. Prajna, although a noun here, is very much a component of sensing itself, free of any self, whether it be big S or little s.
June 26 at 12:46am · Like
John Tan Hi David,
Nice meeting you too and thanks for sharing your experiences…felt a little nostalgic after knowing your Taoist background.
Your description of the little girl’s stare is beautiful. The stare cuts through not only one’s discursive thoughts but also pierces through the living Presence (the first level of koan of one’s original face) and right into the fundamental essence of anatta. Even from your mere description, there is still the wordless transmission of headlessness that penetrates deep into one’s bone marrow and boils the blood. The stare preserves the lineage that is beyond words. Thank You.
For me, the initial insight of anatta was mainly what I have stated in scenario 2 -- seeing through the center that the center has always been assumed, it is extra. In reality it does not exist.
Up until this point of anatta, I was very much a non-conceptual advocator, less words more experience. I have heard of the word “Kong ?”(Emptinesss) numerous times but never exactly know what it truly meant. The idea of Emptiness struck me probably “2 years later when I came across the chariot analogy of the Buddhist sage Nagasena. There was an instant recognition that the analogy is precisely the insight of anatta and anatta is the real-time experiential taste of the “Emptiness” in relation to self/Self except that it is now replaced with “chariot” in the example.
The insight was huge and I began to re-examine all my experiences from the perspective of "Emptiness". This includes mind-body dropped, the impression of hereness and nowness, internal and externality, space and time...etc. Essentially a journey of deconstruction, that is, extending the same insight of anatta from the perspective of emptiness to all phenomena, aggregates, mental constructs and even to non-conceptual sensory experiences. This led to the taste of instant liberation at spot of not only the background (self) but also the cognized, seen, heard, tasted, smelled and sensed without the need to subsume either subject into object or object into subject but liberates whatever arises at spot.
The deconstruction process reveals not only the taste of freedom from freeing the energy that is sustaining the constructs (in fact tremendous energy is needed to maintain the mental constructs) but also a continuous formation of a perceptual knot that blinds us in a very subtle way and that relates to scenario 3 -- Seeing through the fundamental nature of the perceptual knot itself. Seeing the nature of perceptual knot involves in seeing clearly certain very persistent and habitual patterns that continues to shape our mode of knowing, analysis and experience like a magical spell. The perceptual knot is the habitual tendency to reify and Emptiness is the antidote for this reifying tendency.
The journey of emptying also convinces me the importance of having the right view of Emptiness even though it is only an intellectual grasped initially. Non-conceptuality has its associated diseases…lol…therefore I always advocate not falling to conceptuality and yet not ignoring conceptuality. That is, strict non-conceptuality is not necessary, only that habitual pattern of reification needs be severed. Perhaps this relates to the zen wild fox koan of not falling into cause and effect and not ignoring cause and effect. A koan that Hakuin remarked as "difficult to pass through".
Not falling, not ignoring.
A word different, a world of difference.
And the difference causes a wild fox for five hundred lifetimes!
A long post and time to return to silence.
Nice chat and happy journey David!
June 26 at 3:33am · Edited · Unlike · 9
David Vardy Thank you John. This is a real pleasure. It’s like having a first flush cup of Tung Ting after a few years of drinking Lipton. This feels similar to when Soh happened to pop up in another forum that I was in. What he said then, and continues to say, is perennially refreshing.
“This led to the taste of instant liberation at spot of not only the background (self) but the cognized, seen, heard, tasted, smelled and sensed without the need to subsume either subject into object or object into subject but liberates whatever arises at spot.”
Functioning, in the absence of clinging as it were, seems to be self-consuming much like a fire burning, the fuel being what appears to be arising. Whatever arises is consumed by the very nature of the activity itself. What we’re featured doing it seems is making ‘still lifes’ (reification) out of the flames, assumed to be living as such, but only in memory. When this functioning isn’t appearing against a background, and there can only be a conceptual background, then what pops up only survives as long as it’s noticed. If there was anyone to be continuously surprised by all this, slack jaw would probably be an ongoing problem.....lol
For many years, 23 to be exact, I worked in a small kitchen of my restaurant. We had two windows looking into the dining room including a distant view of the street in front of our restaurant. I remember to this day, the first impact of seeing people walking by in the street, disappearing stage left, disappearing stage right, appearing from stage left, appearing from stage right. What was a surprise back then, slowly became a virtual matter of fact. There just isn’t a way to create a story of what’s happening to those people, do they have lives, where do they go, what happens to them. etc. in the absence of a background. In many ways, this is just about seeing things as they arise in the absence of stories. What can’t be described is the utter simplicity of it, and in one sense, it’s the one thing that isn’t required because, in fact, that’s all that’s happening.
This then translates to our daily ‘lives’. When someone shows up who you haven’t seen for sometime you ask out of genuine curiosity how they’ve been, what’s been happening because they’ve simply been out of mind and out of sight, not asking out of mere habit.
So long as there’s reification, deconstruction is required. The nature of deconstruction can at first be tedious, but eventually it just becomes what has to happen. There’s no getting around it. When it becomes as natural as a fire burning, then we can trust that what’s happening is what’s happening and their need not be concern for outcomes, a future, a past, whatever. It’s not different from experiencing a wound heal. Patience I’ve discovered has been my best friend. Sometimes these things feel as if they can take an eternity....lol When it’s understood that the undercurrent is far stronger than whatever is appearing at the surface, we give in to the current.
June 26 at 3:43am · Edited · Unlike · 3
John Tan Hi David, I see that u r expressing what I called the +A and –A of emptying.
(+A)
When u cook, there is no self that cooks, only the activity of cooking. The hands moves, the utensils act, the water boils, the potatoes peels …here there is no room for simplicity or complications, the “kitchen” went beyond it’s own imputation and dissolved into the activity of cooking and the universe is fully engaged in this cooking.
(-A)
30 years of practice and 23 years of kitchen life is like a passing thought.
How heavy is this thought?
The whereabouts of this thought?
Tastes the nature of this thought.
It never truly arises.
June 26 at 10:43am · Unlike · 8
David Vardy Hi John - Well said. The kitchen is full of metaphors, but once beyond metaphor and measure, there's nothing quite like it. I use to refer to it as being a 'corner of a wall-less room'.
June 26 at 1:25pm · Like · 1
June 14, 2013
I'm expecting to have this "quantum leap" in perception; An event that irreversibly unties a particular perceptual knot that involves constructing reference points, especially regarding a personal, separate self.
There's an intellectual component to this, which is about temporarily holding a certain position or view in mind and by doing so *revealing* something integral to perceptual experience. What is revealed is the utter lack of reality of reference points, especially regarding a personal, separate self. In plain language, it's about clearly seeing through the delusion of "myself vs. others".
This delusion acts as a basis for many afflictive perceptual and behavioral patterns, so when the insight arises and the delusion ends, these afflictive patterns that the delusion supported/engendered/conditioned simply no longer arise.
The delusion of a separate self (I prefer to call it a/the reference point as that is closer my visceral experiences) is sustained by habitual grasping. After working with reducing that grasping, a temporary cessation of the delusion can occur — a flash of insight *made possible* by the reduction in grasping and *activated* by holding a certain position or view, as mentioned before.
But unless the soil is fertile, i.e. momentum of habitual grasping/afflictive patterns/delusion has not been sufficiently reduced, the overwhelming flood of habitual grasping rushes in, the delusion quickly re-emerges and the knot re-ties!
My approach so far has been to produce and re-produce that flash of insight, deferring the work of reducing the habitual grasping and afflictive patterns till afterwards, when the cause and basis for those patterns are extinct — a shortcut, if you will. But I'm coming to see that this might not such a good idea because the momentum of grasping seems to invalidate the insights.
_________ Afflictive patterns feed into further affliction. By cutting off these patterns, further affliction is limited, but still arise.
?
?
?
______ Grasping is obscured by afflictive patterns, making it hard to work with. Grasping sustains and feeds the perceptual knot.
?
?
?
___ Delusion, perceptual knot. This is the level of the flash of insight, but unless grasping has been sufficiently reduced, grasping quickly restores the perceptual knot.
What do you think about this? Especially I'm interested to know how this stacks up with the "Santa"-model, where the flash of insight is irreversible and "unseeing" the insight is deemed impossible.
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Stuffs RedTurtle and 2 others like this.
Robert Dominik What is revealed is the utter lack of reality of reference points <- Is it like having the rug pulled from under? You experience your core beliefs and positions as groundless?
I'm obviously deluded but I'll comment and share my experience because much of this that you describe seems quite familiar.
But unless the soil is fertile, i.e. momentum of habitual grasping/afflictive patterns/delusion has not been sufficiently reduced, the overwhelming flood of habitual grasping rushes in, the delusion quickly re-emerges and the knot re-ties! <-
Yeah. I know what you mean.
Additionally... don't know about you but I easily cling/become attached to the feeling of this untying you describe. I still somewhat regard this as different than usual, habitual mode of abiding and therefore tend to objectify and reify this feeling of as I would call it "transparent groundlessness of the experience". Therefore it becomes another form of sticking to selfhood and results in such experiences of untying only being peak experiences rather than total, unshakeable realisation. It is funny because this circle of untying and retying is very tiring and brings still sense of dukkha.
I become tired of this and then have these moments of "fuck this shit - this is stupid - this is just a joke, a stupid game" and then immediately clarity and presence arise and the sense of butthurt is flushed out in the toilet... but after some time there is this trying of grasping the clarity and effortlessness. There is also this fear of returning to the old habbits and being lost in them.
And so the samsaric circle goes on
Dunno how this relates to Santa. But I remember that when I was a kid after learning that there is no Santa I was still hoping that maybe there is Santa and was trying to fool myself
June 14, 2013 at 4:05am · Edited · Like · 4
Daemon Shockley Sometimes good things happen automatically. Sometimes they don't. What's stuck is an understanding of what's possible, I'd say. I'm hopeful that more good things will happen automatically as I progress further, but I assume there will always be things I have to work for. I believe that by accepting the need for work, and working to integrate my understandings into my conciousness and actions more good things will happen automatically. Training kicks in more often.
June 14, 2013 at 4:33am · Like · 1
Daemon Shockley In case its not clear.. I relate a lot to what you guys are saying. This is the attitude I try to take though. And I hope it will come more automatically with persistence
June 14, 2013 at 4:35am · Like · 2
Robert Dominik I'm hopeful that more good things will happen automatically as I progress further <- but be aware that there might be some harder moments in the future. The practice is not all good and pleasant things. In real Vippassana the awareness of senses might become so great that it is almost unbearable.
June 14, 2013 at 7:45am · Like
Daemon Shockley I'm aware
June 14, 2013 at 7:47am · Like · 1
Daemon Shockley (I started meditating after reading Daniel Ingram's MCTB and his presentation of the Progress of Insight. I'm expecting more Dark Night's ahead, at least. And of course, life has its ups and downs in any case.)
June 14, 2013 at 7:59am · Like · 1
Dhruval Patel Thannisaro bhikku has really good article called the paradox of becoming. It deals with the sort of thing you are describing.
June 14, 2013 at 10:28am · Like · 1
Albert Hong I believe a lot of issues have to do with momentum.
What is required of us is more concentration and subtly.
This bond of ignorance is like very strong magic. Its power is amazing.
In a way we need to put quality time and effort into combating and counter it.
But as stated above by Dhruval Patel suggestion. To affirm or negate ignorance is to condition more ignorance.
So really the only way out is through wisdom.
May we realize the selflessness of all things.
June 14, 2013 at 10:37am · Like · 5
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland Hey Robert.
It seems I know exactly what you're talking about. There are several posts on this group where I have had a go at describing what you are saying.
Not landing
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dharmaconnection/permalink/678024825558070/
Unlocatable, fully process
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dharmaconnection/permalink/655104824516737/
A golf swing
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dharmaconnection/permalink/648218431872043/
The sensation of emptiness
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dharmaconnection/permalink/642581945769025/
Dream objects
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dharmaconnection/permalink/611744895519397/
And several comments scattered all over...
___
There's "having the rug pulled from under" and "experiencing your core beliefs and positions as groundless". Then there's surrender and "fuck this shit", where attachments are just dropped and life flows effortlessly.
For some reason, I think of what I'm describing in this current post as slightly different, though related.
And that is "severing of the center". While I have some experience in groundlessness and surrender, severing the center is very novel to me and I don't know much about it. These are some posts about it:
No center (also check out my comment here re: "returning to the old habits")
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dharmaconnection/permalink/676291692398050/
Non-local consciousness (first part of post)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dharmaconnection/permalink/662930817067471/
And of course this current post.
___
I sympathize very much with the language you use to describe your experiences. Thanks for sharing!
June 14, 2013 at 11:25pm · Edited · Like · 1
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland At the risk of de-railing the thread, here's a conversation I had with Greg at some point where we briefly discussed "the transparent groundlessness of the experience". I hope Greg doesn't mind me revealing his trade secret!
<This conversation was immediately preceded by some slightly forceful statements from me.>
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland
Aight! I see that I might be bearing down on these issues a tad too heavy for your liking. That's fine and even inspiring or rather 'reminding'
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland
I wonder; in my own experience, when I'm presented with statements like my own here ^, sometimes I see right through them and I see why they are, in a way, flawed as distinctions. They reduce into parts and the parts reduce into a field too rich to be delineated.
Is this how it is for you, too? Would you share your "process" of seeing through the slightly forceful and "solid" statements that I'm spewing here?
Of course, this is assuming you're even doing such a thing and is also conscious of it.
Greg Goode
It's like not landing, while at the same time not having to remain without sound or movement. You mentioned "radical openness." What is the relation between radical openness and making firm, literal "X is Y" statements? How does that fit together for you?
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland
"X is Y" is a lower energy signature. It's a contraction. I've seen translations of "dukkha" into "contracted space" and it's like that.
As I said, I can be reminded of this "radical openness", as happened up there ^, but being reminded does not actually "do the job" of reducing the "solid" statements or making them transparent.
It comes and goes, and I work on making it stay for longer - which is a weird way to put it, because the "staying" is about "not-staying" or "not landing".
June 14, 2013 at 11:10pm · Edited · Like
Albert Hong I believe anatta to end the centeralization of a reference point that links together phenomena.
Once that bond is broken then phenomena are free floating, distinct occurances.
Even themselves have no linking basis towards each other. Which then we find unarisen, unborn appearances.
But further yet we examine the emptiness and we create an image of emptiness.
With time sounds, smells, tastes, thoughts, colors, and sensations are seen through completely. Because the world is the appearance there is no where to land.
We must examine what we give to all of this. How all of this is constructed on the basis of assumptions.
And in a way we must believe in inherent existence. Have a solid object made so that we can refute and deconstruct it.
June 15, 2013 at 12:37am · Like · 2
Joel Rosenblum Daniel Ingram reports having awareness of the space he is in, but without center of reference... however, if you only have awareness of the space that "you" are in, is that not a clear center of reference? Else why would "you" aware that space in particular as opposed to the whole universe?
June 25 at 10:31am · Like
David Vardy There is no 'whole universe' outside of the space you're featured in, although experiencing as such isn't being in a space per say. That would be imagining what doesn't appear to be happening. Things become quite flat, simple and matter of fact when there isn't measuring going on from an imagined center.
June 25 at 1:11pm · Like · 1
Joel Rosenblum David, outside of the space who is featured in? Have you read Mae Chee Kaew?
June 25 at 1:24pm · Like
David Vardy No I haven't Joel. The space 'you' are featured in, which isn't necessarily what your experience is.
June 25 at 1:26pm · Like
David Vardy Experiencing the space doesn't necessarily translate to the idea of being in a space.
June 25 at 1:29pm · Like
Joel Rosenblum Assuming still that there is a "you"... Have you never experienced the entire universe? Buddha and sariputta talk of seeing the ten thousand world system...
June 25 at 1:29pm · Like
David Vardy No I haven't. That suggests there's a frontier, a border.
June 25 at 1:30pm · Like
Joel Rosenblum What suggests a border?
June 25 at 1:31pm · Like
David Vardy My experience stops where I see, what I hear, what I feel, etc....and what's imaginable remains unimaginable, in a manner of speaking. We can enter a discussion about all sorts of things outside of what appears to be happening but in that moment it would be what's happening.
June 25 at 1:33pm · Like · 2
Joel Rosenblum Ok so you are still stuck on a center of perception.
June 25 at 1:34pm · Like
David Vardy Perceiving as such doesn't require a center, and yet it doesn't go beyond what's happening.
June 25 at 1:37pm · Like · 1
Joel Rosenblum It does require a center if the perceiving follows this David or Daniel character wherever they go...
June 25 at 1:37pm · Like
David Vardy What's going on is quite packed, totally packed wouldn't you say.?
June 25 at 1:38pm · Like
Joel Rosenblum ?
June 25 at 1:38pm · Like
David Vardy Just because Joel appears to be there doesn't mean the first person experience includes feeling like it comes from the center of Joel. In fact, the clearer that experience appears to be the less Joel appears to be there. But it's always like that apart from imagining Joel is there.
June 25 at 1:41pm · Unlike · 3
Joel Rosenblum We are talking past each other now.
June 25 at 1:42pm · Like
David Vardy By packed I mean, each sense is operating without any holes in it. There aren't any spaces in what's seen. The scene is always completely filled. The same goes for every sense.
June 25 at 1:45pm · Unlike · 3
Soh Buddha rejected a certain kind of omniscience. Only a Buddha has omniscience, but no Buddhas have omnipotence nor the simultaneous-knowing kind of omniscience. Omnipotence (all-powerful) and simultaneous-all-knowingness is a non-Buddhist concept.
MN. 90, the Kannakatthala Sutta:
Then King Pasenadi of Kosala said to the Blessed One: “Venerable sir, I have heard this: ‘The recluse Gotama says: “There is no recluse or brahmin who is omniscient and all-seeing, who can claim to have complete knowledge and vision; that is not possible.’“Venerable sir, do those who speak thus say what has been said by the Blessed One, and not misrepresent him with what is contrary to fact? Do they explain in accordance with the Dhamma in such a way that nothing that provides a ground for censure can be legitimately deduced from their assertions?”
“Great King, those who speak thus do not say what has been said by me, but misrepresent me with what is untrue and contrary to fact.”
[...]
Then King Pasenadi of Kosala said to the Blessed One: “Venerable sir, could something else have been said by the Blessed One referring to that, and the person understood it wrongly? In what way does the Blessed One recall making that utterance?”
“I recall having actually made the utterance in this way, great king: ‘There is no recluse or brahmin who knows all, who sees all, simultaneously; that is not possible.’”
“What the Blessed One has said appears reasonable, what the Blessed One has said appears to be supported by reason: ‘There is no recluse or brahmin who knows all, who sees all, simultaneously; that is not possible.”
.........
Malcolm:
What the Buddha is saying here is that he does not assert of himself what Mahathera asserted of himself, i.e. that the Buddha constantly in a state of total knowledge of all things at all times. Buddha rejected this kind of omniscience. The kind of omniscience the Buddha has is the ability to know completely anything to which his mind is directed without effort. Not even in Mahayana is asserted that a Buddha in a state of total knowledge of all phenomena at all times.
June 25 at 3:06pm · Edited · Like · 1
David Vardy It's virtually impossible to imagine 'you are seeing from a center' when the packed nature of sensing itself is experienced. There is no distance from anything at that 'point', for lack of a better word...lol
June 25 at 1:59pm · Like
John Tan Hi David, thanks for sharing.
First there is the direct apprehension of Clarity/Awareness.
Next is recognizing the apparent separation of clarity and appearance caused by a seeming perceptual knot.
Then there is resolving of this separation and what’s left is appearances / phenomena / cognized, seen, heard, tasted, smelled and sensed
It is interesting that the resolving of the separation for your case is not by way of subsuming into an all-encompassing non-dual awareness/space; however the overcoming of the center/agent can arise (from my experience) by:
1. By a prolong training in a state of no-mind.
2. Seeing through the center that the center has always been assumed, it is extra. In reality it does not exist.
3. Seeing through that the fundamental nature of the perceptual knot itself
4. A combination of above
Do you overcome the center by any of the above or by a different approach?
June 25 at 2:45pm · Edited · Unlike · 4
David Vardy Nice to meet you John. Looking back ( I was a slow learner. This is over a thirty year period). The first insight was associated with Taoist Yoga/Meditation performing the small microcosmic orbit. I had developed a lot of Chi over the years and when that orbit opened there was a hyper aware state, one of complete calmness and clarity. A feeling where everything just dropped. It wasn't until another decade or so when I was standing in line at an ice cream stand and a little girl turned around and looked up at me. In that moment she seemed as if she didn't see me, was looking straight through me. It was huge to say the least, brought me literally to my knees. The event left me feeling as if I had a hole in my forehead for about 2 months, experiencing headlessness all along. Deconstructed were the opposites, particularly inside and outside. You could say that from that day with that girl automatic continuous deconstruction was going on henceforth. There was no getting around it, even when exhausted. It's difficult retracking in such a short space here, but subsequently there was the experience of Anatta. This was incredible in light of the fact it hadn't been spelled out to me and having left the Chan tradition well before advancing in it I was kind of at a loss, not experientially, there was no doubt there, but how to talk about it. I had pretty much been seeing from the I AM position prior to this. Prior to Anatta it was as if my backside was an infinite expansive potential, the front being purely phenomenal. This destroyed the backside. What had been imagined to be non-dual was seen not to have been the case at all. The notion of absence being on the backside was now gone. The idea of no-self prior to Anatta was really just self as Absence, but still holding onto a conceptual absence you could say. There was still a center. Experiencing Anatta in my case, coincided with seeing DO. Prior to Anatta, phenomena seemed to be hyper real, substantiated as you say? In the moment of Anatta, the packed nature of phenomena as a unitary seeing having no inherent qualities was clear. Emptiness of both sides was clear in the same moment, and fortunately continued as a heightened Samadi like experience for months after the initial introduction.
June 25 at 3:28pm · Unlike · 3
David Vardy There is a physical component to this. Here, the experience occurring with the insight coinciding with seeing the packed nature of sensing is also a packed feeling in the brain. Every space is filled. I call it the 'stuffed animal' effect. The center is squeezed out by seeing itself. It's as if by virtue of occupied receptors, the play of opposites is cancelled out, not intellectually but physically. And that which is cancelled is who you've been featured imagining yourself to be. There has been no one there but the play of opposites in a hyperactive fashion. The essence of quietude is the absence of that play.
June 25 at 3:51pm · Like
Joel Rosenblum @Soh: I never said one could be all-knowing, but rather all seeing. Buddha agreed with me that this was the state he experienced although not sure if he experienced it constantly. All seeing is not all knowing because it is like seeing the entire movie screen: you still have to focus to really see any part clearly. Also omnipotence means all-powerful...
Anyway, what do you think of my question? How can you say there is no self, no center of perception, when "your" body is always being followed? I suppose it doesn't really matter if there is a center of perception as long as the center is clearly not identified with, tho it might be subtly identified with perhaps?
June 25 at 4:28pm · Like
Soh In your model, the universe is made up of many different circles. Each circle represents an individual's experience. And within each individual circle, there is a dot or eye at the center, which represents the agent or center or perceiver of experience that sees/knows/feels the field of experience. The eye or center cannot see beyond that circle.
In actuality there is no center. In other words, the seeing/hearing/sensing/cognizing/thinking field is simply a self-cognizing sensations, perceptions, etc. The circle is a self-luminous, self-aware circle with no center or perceiver apart from perceiving/perception. There can be a perception of a center, but there is never a center of perception. Even that perception of a center is just another perception, no different from another sight or sound as part of the field of perceptions/sensations. Clear seeing (realization of anatta) will eliminate the perception of a center (after insight there can still be a trace of self but will also gradually be released with practice).
Furthermore, we have to penetrate dependent origination. This is where net of indra comes in. Each circle, each node, in the universe is a reflection of all other nodes. There is no universal self underlying all nodes, but instead, one node reflects all nodes. All nodes are manifestation of total exertion of the universe. This is also where our holographic nature can be seen. Omniscience is possible not because there is a universal Self subsuming all, but because of our interconnectedness and emptiness. Psychic phenomena happen because of the non-local nature of dependent origination.
June 25 at 5:25pm · Edited · Like · 3
David Vardy Non local nature being the key....
June 25 at 5:32pm · Unlike · 1
David Vardy The luminosity of each psychic phenomena emanates through our eyes in those who have eyes.
June 25 at 5:34pm · Like
Soh I'm not sure what you mean by 'your body is being followed'. But what I can tell you here is that the construct or sense of a body being here has dissolved... and Goenka describes this very well when he said, "...Then working with both you reach the st...See More
June 25 at 5:38pm · Like · 2
Soh Oh ok I think I get what you mean. It seems that you think (and feel) that there is an observer that follows the body around and experiences the body. Like the third-person camera view that follows around a character in a video game like GTA. This is f...See More
www.overthinkingit.com
www.overthinkingit.com
June 25 at 9:47pm · Edited · Like · 6 · Remove Preview
David Vardy There is very little elasticity in nouns especially of the subject/object variety. Prajna, although a noun here, is very much a component of sensing itself, free of any self, whether it be big S or little s.
June 26 at 12:46am · Like
John Tan Hi David,
Nice meeting you too and thanks for sharing your experiences…felt a little nostalgic after knowing your Taoist background.
Your description of the little girl’s stare is beautiful. The stare cuts through not only one’s discursive thoughts but also pierces through the living Presence (the first level of koan of one’s original face) and right into the fundamental essence of anatta. Even from your mere description, there is still the wordless transmission of headlessness that penetrates deep into one’s bone marrow and boils the blood. The stare preserves the lineage that is beyond words. Thank You.
For me, the initial insight of anatta was mainly what I have stated in scenario 2 -- seeing through the center that the center has always been assumed, it is extra. In reality it does not exist.
Up until this point of anatta, I was very much a non-conceptual advocator, less words more experience. I have heard of the word “Kong ?”(Emptinesss) numerous times but never exactly know what it truly meant. The idea of Emptiness struck me probably “2 years later when I came across the chariot analogy of the Buddhist sage Nagasena. There was an instant recognition that the analogy is precisely the insight of anatta and anatta is the real-time experiential taste of the “Emptiness” in relation to self/Self except that it is now replaced with “chariot” in the example.
The insight was huge and I began to re-examine all my experiences from the perspective of "Emptiness". This includes mind-body dropped, the impression of hereness and nowness, internal and externality, space and time...etc. Essentially a journey of deconstruction, that is, extending the same insight of anatta from the perspective of emptiness to all phenomena, aggregates, mental constructs and even to non-conceptual sensory experiences. This led to the taste of instant liberation at spot of not only the background (self) but also the cognized, seen, heard, tasted, smelled and sensed without the need to subsume either subject into object or object into subject but liberates whatever arises at spot.
The deconstruction process reveals not only the taste of freedom from freeing the energy that is sustaining the constructs (in fact tremendous energy is needed to maintain the mental constructs) but also a continuous formation of a perceptual knot that blinds us in a very subtle way and that relates to scenario 3 -- Seeing through the fundamental nature of the perceptual knot itself. Seeing the nature of perceptual knot involves in seeing clearly certain very persistent and habitual patterns that continues to shape our mode of knowing, analysis and experience like a magical spell. The perceptual knot is the habitual tendency to reify and Emptiness is the antidote for this reifying tendency.
The journey of emptying also convinces me the importance of having the right view of Emptiness even though it is only an intellectual grasped initially. Non-conceptuality has its associated diseases…lol…therefore I always advocate not falling to conceptuality and yet not ignoring conceptuality. That is, strict non-conceptuality is not necessary, only that habitual pattern of reification needs be severed. Perhaps this relates to the zen wild fox koan of not falling into cause and effect and not ignoring cause and effect. A koan that Hakuin remarked as "difficult to pass through".
Not falling, not ignoring.
A word different, a world of difference.
And the difference causes a wild fox for five hundred lifetimes!
A long post and time to return to silence.
Nice chat and happy journey David!
June 26 at 3:33am · Edited · Unlike · 9
David Vardy Thank you John. This is a real pleasure. It’s like having a first flush cup of Tung Ting after a few years of drinking Lipton. This feels similar to when Soh happened to pop up in another forum that I was in. What he said then, and continues to say, is perennially refreshing.
“This led to the taste of instant liberation at spot of not only the background (self) but the cognized, seen, heard, tasted, smelled and sensed without the need to subsume either subject into object or object into subject but liberates whatever arises at spot.”
Functioning, in the absence of clinging as it were, seems to be self-consuming much like a fire burning, the fuel being what appears to be arising. Whatever arises is consumed by the very nature of the activity itself. What we’re featured doing it seems is making ‘still lifes’ (reification) out of the flames, assumed to be living as such, but only in memory. When this functioning isn’t appearing against a background, and there can only be a conceptual background, then what pops up only survives as long as it’s noticed. If there was anyone to be continuously surprised by all this, slack jaw would probably be an ongoing problem.....lol
For many years, 23 to be exact, I worked in a small kitchen of my restaurant. We had two windows looking into the dining room including a distant view of the street in front of our restaurant. I remember to this day, the first impact of seeing people walking by in the street, disappearing stage left, disappearing stage right, appearing from stage left, appearing from stage right. What was a surprise back then, slowly became a virtual matter of fact. There just isn’t a way to create a story of what’s happening to those people, do they have lives, where do they go, what happens to them. etc. in the absence of a background. In many ways, this is just about seeing things as they arise in the absence of stories. What can’t be described is the utter simplicity of it, and in one sense, it’s the one thing that isn’t required because, in fact, that’s all that’s happening.
This then translates to our daily ‘lives’. When someone shows up who you haven’t seen for sometime you ask out of genuine curiosity how they’ve been, what’s been happening because they’ve simply been out of mind and out of sight, not asking out of mere habit.
So long as there’s reification, deconstruction is required. The nature of deconstruction can at first be tedious, but eventually it just becomes what has to happen. There’s no getting around it. When it becomes as natural as a fire burning, then we can trust that what’s happening is what’s happening and their need not be concern for outcomes, a future, a past, whatever. It’s not different from experiencing a wound heal. Patience I’ve discovered has been my best friend. Sometimes these things feel as if they can take an eternity....lol When it’s understood that the undercurrent is far stronger than whatever is appearing at the surface, we give in to the current.
June 26 at 3:43am · Edited · Unlike · 3
John Tan Hi David, I see that u r expressing what I called the +A and –A of emptying.
(+A)
When u cook, there is no self that cooks, only the activity of cooking. The hands moves, the utensils act, the water boils, the potatoes peels …here there is no room for simplicity or complications, the “kitchen” went beyond it’s own imputation and dissolved into the activity of cooking and the universe is fully engaged in this cooking.
(-A)
30 years of practice and 23 years of kitchen life is like a passing thought.
How heavy is this thought?
The whereabouts of this thought?
Tastes the nature of this thought.
It never truly arises.
June 26 at 10:43am · Unlike · 8
David Vardy Hi John - Well said. The kitchen is full of metaphors, but once beyond metaphor and measure, there's nothing quite like it. I use to refer to it as being a 'corner of a wall-less room'.
June 26 at 1:25pm · Like · 1
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