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Noah will be in radio silence for a little while, so I'll muck up the front page in his absence. First: a new space for discussing Buddhism! And since Om asked me about "The Quantum and the Lotus" -- and since camila asked for something concrete like a text we all share, here is a brief excerpt from the book answering both queries! (and I DEFINITELY recommend it to everyone.)
Matthieu Ricard: When Buddhism states that emptiness is the ultimate nature of things, it means that the things we see around us, the phenomena of our world, lack any autonomous or permanent existence. But emptiness is not at all a void, or the absence of phenomena, as early Western commentators on Buddhism thought. Buddhism does not at all espouse any form of nihilism, or the belief in nothingness. Emptiness does not correspond to nonexistence. If you can't speak of real existence, you can't speak of nonexistence either. The Fundamental Treatise of the Perfection of Wisdom says, "Those who become fixed on emptiness are said to be incurable." Why incurable? Because while a belief in the real existence of phenomena is dissipated by meditation on emptiness, if you get attached to emptiness itself, making it an object of your belief, you fall into nihilism. The same text therefore goes on, "Consequently the wise abide neither in being nor nonbeing." (14)
introductory thoughts
this "brief excerpt" clearly contains very very much. we could spend much time discussing emptiness itself. even the first sentence is packed. what is most intriguing me at the moment is this beautiful and careful line -- what i love to refer to as the emptiness of emptiness. Ricard here explains that becoming attached to emptiness is "incurable." this is what i would most like to speak about, because it seems to me to be a wonderful exemplar of Buddhism's subtlety. however, i am not sure if everyone here feels comfortable having a conversation centered on that without a little bit more discussion of emptiness itself -- or anything else in this quote, for example.
so: there's the concrete text we now all share, and there is my particular little node of interest. we'll get there slowly :)
james is 800 years old
and a great teacher. I can already hear it in the ease and beauty of his language. I hear it in his compassion and openness and generosity that seeks dialogue and the opportunity to attune.
When he told me (private conversation) that he was applying to grad schools to study tantric buddhism, I felt a great sense of hope and happiness. A great sense of perfection in this whole she-bang, because you are here and following your heart, James, and you feel to be sitting right in your seat, which is of course a flying yogi-matt. Soaring!
I am so happy.
I see you delving devouring discovering, great beauties in the unfolding abundance of one sanskrit word, leading endlessly into greater attunement and perspective, aligning with your awareness through a keen diligence to make what you intuit and grasp also make sense with your psychological awareness.
I see you never ever again feeling isolated.
I see love entering these contemplations from both poles (intellectual desire and psychological healing) to teach and reveal through your questions, revealing themselves as not two separate spheres but as one earnest desire.
I see delight and ecstasy; I see lots of experimentation.
I bow in humble delight at your lotus feet, dear james, or whatever your name is.
two things
Help. Help. It doesn't sink in : dual and non dual. This probably isn't the first time I asked and may not be the last - but someone, help, help, try and explain again.
I spoke to Noah yesterday and he mentioned he forgot to report that he was quite out of range until sometime next week when he will be back in range for ten days before being out of range again. He and Ms, M went to our place in West Virginia, where he was awakened the other morning by two huge turkeys pecking on the bedroom window. Apparently, they gazed into each other's eyes. He's backpacking for a few days but Yeah, I'll see him at our cabin sometime this weekend. I'm heading out to turkey country and golly, if I get bored, I'll just drive those five or seven or whatever miles to the nearest Walmart and hang in the ammo section. I won't mention meditation or emptliness or anything like that for fear of one of them shot guns pointing in my direction.
EMILY, WAS THAT A TURKEY PECKING
or a pecker perking?
EMILY AND THE NONDUAL PECKER PERPETUALLY
pecking against the window of peckerless perpetuity.
Emily, picture a vaporized moment of a plant growing out of a pot and pot growing out of a plant. To the nondualist, the pot and plant are inseparable, as is the potato head that thinks it's a pothead. The reason they're inseparable is because, though they are distinct, they share the same elements, elements which, themselves are not independent of all other elements, not even the pecker that thinks it's a turkey and the turkey that pecks like a perky pecker peeking inside the purple petals.
Thich Nhat Hahn's `Heart of Understanding' is one of the most accessible and beautiful books on nondual thought.
non dual pecker
would the plant growing out the pot and the pot growing out of the plant also be inseperable from the potato smoking the pot? And then if the potato head smoking the pot exhaled and her cat inhaled would the cat the potato head also be inseperable?
EMILY, A MOST BEAUTIFUL QUESTION, THE BEAUTIFULLEST
"would the plant growing out the pot and the pot growing out of the plant also be inseperable from the potato smoking the pot? And then if the potato head smoking the pot exhaled and her cat inhaled would the cat the potato head also be inseperable?"
Though distinct, the pot might stink, causing the neighbor, who is inseparable from the smoke, to call the police, who are also inseparable from the neighbor, pot-smoking potato head and cat, who was currently on its belly sucking down some catnip. And so, in the end, the cop was rendered a pecker because the pot-smoking potato head was clever and hired James the no-longer beef jerky, who picked up that the judge was Buddhist (despite not being a Buddhist) and argued nonduality. Your honor, says James, if you notice, exhibit A, the pot growing out of the pot alleged by the neighbor, is empty. And the judge, scratching his head, had to agree.
Emptiness
"empty of a separate self, empty of a separate entity,..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYhti6fcVIk
NICO SEES THE FOREST IN THE NYTIMES
Nico, thank you! This is a lovely and simple talk by Thay on emptiness and nondual awareness. "To be means to inter-be because nothing can be by itself; the crowd and the paper inter-are." Without the earth, the tree cannot grow, without the sun, nothing can exist. Therefore, everything inter-is. The paper is made of non-paper elements and is therefore empty of a separate existence.
My (as yet unpublished) version of emptiness (from `Why Are You Really Here: Evolution, Spirit and the Art of Therapy):
From Muffins To Miracles: The Extraordinary In The Ordinary
A favorite story of mine is by Martin Buber who, in `Between Man and Man,' relates a deeply painful but ultimately transforming experience he had one day on a bus:
In my earlier years the "religious" for me was the exception. There were hours
taken out of the course of things. From somewhere or other the firm crust of
everyday was pierced. Then the reliable permanence of appearances broke
down; the attack which took place burst its law asunder. "Religious
experience" was the experience of an otherness which did not fit into the
context of life. It could begin with something customary, with consideration of
some familiar object, but which then became unexpectedly mysterious and
uncanny, finally lighting a way into the lightning-pierced darkness of the mystery
itself. But also, without any intermediate stage, time could be torn apart--first
the firm world's structure then the still firmer self-assurance flew apart and you
were delivered to fullness. The "religious" lifted you out. Over there now lay the
accustomed existence with its affairs, but here illumination and ecstasy and
rapture held, without time or sequence. Thus your own being encompassed a
life here and a life beyond, and there was no bond but the actual moment of the
transition.
The illegitimacy of such a division of the temporal life, which is streaming to
death and eternity and which only in fulfilling its temporality can be fulfilled in
face of these, was brought home to me by an everyday event, an event of
judgment, judging with that sentence from closed lips and an unmoved glance
such as the ongoing course of things loves to pronounce.
What happened was no more than that one forenoon, after a morning of
"religious" enthusiasm, I had a visit from an unknown young man, without being
there in spirit. I certainly did not fail to let the meeting be friendly, I did not treat
him any more remissly than all his contemporaries who were in the habit of
seeking me out about this time of day as an oracle that is ready to listen with
reason. I conversed attentively and openly with him--only I omitted to guess the
question which he did not put. Later, not long after, i learned from one of his
friends--he himself was no longer alive--the essential content of these questions;
I learned that he had come to me not casually, but borne by destiny, not for a
chat but for a decision. He had come to me, he had come in this hour. What
do we do when we are in despair and yet go to a man? Surely a presence by
means of which we are told that nevertheless there is meaning.
Since then I have given up the "religious" which is nothing but the exception,
extraction, exaltation, ecstasy; or it has given me up. I possess nothing but the
everyday out of which I am never taken. The mystery is no longer disclosed, it
has escaped or it has made its dwelling here where everything happens as it
happens. I know no fullness but each mortal hour's fullness of claim and
responsibility, and know who speaks and demands a response.
`Between Man and Man,' p.13-14
What happened that day on the bus I was only later to find out. In Aubrey Hobes' `Martin Buber: An Intimate Portrait,' Buber shares with the young Hobes what transpired and how it forever transformed Buber's "religious" experience:
I asked Buber at our next meeting, "What happened to the young man?" Buber
closed his eyes for a moment, as if in pain. The he said quietly, "He went. And
shortly after he took his own life. Do you see what that means? He came to
consult me at his hour of deepest need. He came to ask me whether to choose
life or death. I talked to him openly. I was sympathetic. I tried to answer his
questions. But I answered only the questions he asked me. And so I failed to
see through to the man behind the questions. And why did I fail? Because that
morning, before his visit, I had been filled with relious enthusiasm, a mystical
ecstacy, in which I felt myself one with eternity and the life beyond. Then this
man came to see me. It was an everyday event, an event of judgment. And it
`converted' me because it showed me that there could be no division between
the life here and the life beyond."
One mild and clear early summer day on my way to work, while walking down third avenue, I stopped by a bakery and bought a toasted and buttered blueberry corn muffin. It was just an ordinary day, an ordinary walk, an ordinary bakery, and an ordinary muffin that I have had many times. But, happening upon the curb, waiting for the light to change, everything stopped, or so it seemed. I looked up at the blue sky and something changed; as a matter of fact, everything changed. I felt the most intense sense of wonderment, yet the intensity was not of an intense kind; it was more of a calm elation, an elation that filled me up to the point of widening the boundaries of my embodied state. And further, expanding the boundaries of mind to where there was an immediate dissolution of separateness, from embodied self, my interpreted self in the metaphorical space of mind, and the world surround. I was one with...with anything and nothing that can be perceived, thought, or felt. And it was the most ordinary of experiences; and because it was the most ordinary of experiences, I felt joy; and the filling up was with life in all its imperfection and imagined beauty.
Yes, this was a moment, and it was the moment, where time really didn't stop, but rather ceased to exist as we tend to know it. And because time ceased, space necessarily dissolved along with it. And because the moment had permitted time and space to dissolve, the mind's innate tendency to divide healed the division, or split that ordinarily led me to see the world (myself included) as discontinuous, or boundaried. But, what was most revealing about this moment was the realization that death did not exist--that is, as we typically (and terrifyingly) experience it. Why? Because in this very moment, it was fully embedded in life, and life was now, eternal. Death dissolved.
And as I witnessed this realization, I observed the most interesting of things; that this toasted and buttered blueberry muffin wrapped in this aluminum foil and in this brown paper bag, was born out of the whole of Consciousness. That is, what was here in my hand was the most delicate and beautiful expression of life and evolution, and presented to me for only one dollar and fifty cents. That this muffin flowered out of the seed that was planted in the earth by the loving hands of someone who I have never met, but who had worked hard with sweat and weathered hands from seasons and seasons of farming; and other hands that had picked the berries that lay comfortably in the yellow flakes; berries that themselves grew from bushes planted perhaps by other hands. And these berries too come from seeds; seeds themselves that contain, as the grain, chemical properties that not only sustain life, but also have a brilliant aesthetic flavoring which appeals to the taste.
And the butter from the cows and the farmers who come together here today to share with me this most sacred gift. And the structures built to protect the cows and the farmers, and the machinery produced from the metals from within the earth from the farms all the way to the manufacturing plants and oven here in this bakery. How many hands? How many fingers? How many hearts touched this blueberry muffin that, when I get to my office, I will eat. In a flash, I felt the interconnectedness of beings and things and all and everything entering into consciousness, and of which I am part. In my wholeness I am part, and in all the inclusive part-ness that I am, I seek still the higher streams of humanity. This is evolution. This is Buber's life here and life beyond, All as One. This is Spirit; this is the "religious."
Getting there involves encountering the relationship, which in turn mirrors one's need to question, because the relationship confronts the self's polar need to conceal. Life both conceals and reveals, and this truth can only be realized through the relationship. Each time you encounter me, and I encounter you, a decision is made to turn towards revelation. And this I mean in the most ordinary of ways. The problem with most of us is that we tend to choose types of relationships where the other also needs to conceal, often due to very similar trauma wielded against the child's will to assert and emerge into his or her own voice. But, the good news is that the deeper, concealed part of us at some point chooses the question over the pain of concealment. It might be now, it might be later, but it will be.
The choice of therapy is the choice of revelation, and this is the essence of the book. Therapy in this sense is evolution's push, in the form of the individual soul, to transcend the concealment. Thus, the question, "Why are you really here?" The muffin parable is an illustration of how one's spirituality is closer than what we would ordinary think. Because spirituality is, as Abraham Heschel and Martin Buber would agree, within the world. Spirituality is confronting reality and yet asking the tougher questions, such as, how shall I live? Who am I in this world? Why do I conceal? How do I conceal?
The parable also speaks to paradox, because to find the supreme interconnectedness that I experienced that day requires a turning inward to the interior spaces of the self. Yes, the vehicle is the relationship, but the relationship is more of a kick-start for the individual's deeper inquiry into self. In the deeper (and most certainly, deepest) layers of self there lies the flower flowering out of the seed of itself. And this flower is not defined by other flowers, it is recognized for its own unique qualities. When compared it becomes self-hating, because the comparison itself reflects and spurs competitiveness and envy, which are merely metaphors for divisiveness.
This is where most of the therapeutic spends its time, in the ministering to the self, in the play space of mind. Inch by inch, row by row, we're gonna make this garden grow....
I always suspected that the truly religious has no face. It has no name, no ideology, and no image.
Mr. Muffin
Om, this post of yours of great. It is great in that it conveys many beautiful thoughts and truths, and it is great also in the way that it is greatly packed with so many ideas it gets a little tough to transition from one to the other.
Since last week I have been searching for the right way to convey my ideas without sounding too critical and negative. So here are some points that popped into my head as I read your post.
1) Buber wrote, "What do we do when we are in despair and yet go to a man? Surely a presence by means of which we are told that nevertheless there is meaning." What does this mean? Is it a question on how to deal with emotional pain and how to form a relationship that can heal it?
2) On your writing, you transition from ideas so quickly that it is jarring at times. I agree with what you say, but the leaps of thought leave me looking for more explanations. For example, you write,
And the butter from the cows and the farmers who come together here today to share with me this most sacred gift. And the structures built to protect the cows and the farmers, and the machinery produced from the metals from within the earth from the farms all the way to the manufacturing plants and oven here in this bakery. How many hands? How many fingers? How many hearts touched this blueberry muffin that, when I get to my office, I will eat. In a flash, I felt the interconnectedness of beings and things and all and everything entering into consciousness, and of which I am part. In my wholeness I am part, and in all the inclusive part-ness that I am, I seek still the higher streams of humanity. This is evolution. This is Buber's life here and life beyond, All as One. This is Spirit; this is the "religious."
And you follow it with this paragraph,
Getting there involves encountering the relationship, which in turn mirrors one's need to question, because the relationship confronts the self's polar need to conceal. Life both conceals and reveals, and this truth can only be realized through the relationship. Each time you encounter me, and I encounter you, a decision is made to turn towards revelation. And this I mean in the most ordinary of ways. The problem with most of us is that we tend to choose types of relationships where the other also needs to conceal, often due to very similar trauma wielded against the child's will to assert and emerge into his or her own voice. But, the good news is that the deeper, concealed part of us at some point chooses the question over the pain of concealment. It might be now, it might be later, but it will be.
The beginning of this paragraph, "Getting there," begs the question of where exactly is there? And you go on to introduce "relationship" as a "mirror" to "one's need to question, because the relationship confronts the self's polar need to conceal." This is a packed statement. It would really help to have a transitional paragraph, or chapter, explaining relationship, needs, and self's polar need to conceal. All are complex ideas that require more development if the reader is going to be able to transition from one stepping stone to the next without slipping and falling in the water. But maybe that is your aim. This is a loaded paragraph, and maybe it is only the introduction to your larger work where you go on to explain it better. I don't know? Is it?
FROM NICO TO MIRACLES
Nico, I very much appreciate your reading of `From Muffins to Miracles.’ Before addressing this first question, it would be helpful to read the entire paragraph from which you quote. Buber, who is now in great pain over missing (sin means “to miss the mark”) a young man’s despair basically because he had been focusing on the “otherworldly,” what he calls ““religious” enthusiasm,” reflects back on that day the young man suicided. Buber felt that he missed the concealed message of the young man: “I omitted to guess the question which he did not put.” Regarding your question, Nico, Buber is explaining how many people had come to seek guidance from him, particularly when struggling with existential issues. He explains:
Do you see what that means? He came to
consult me at his hour of deepest need. He came to ask me whether to choose
life or death. I talked to him openly. I was sympathetic. I tried to answer his
questions. But I answered only the questions he asked me. And so I failed to
see through to the man behind the questions. And why did I fail? Because that
morning, before his visit, I had been filled with religious enthusiasm, a mystical
ecstasy, in which I felt myself one with eternity and the life beyond. Then this
man came to see me. It was an everyday event, an event of judgment. And it
`converted' me because it showed me that there could be no division between
the life here and the life beyond.
As I read over the paragraphs again, I see clearly what you are referring to. My point in quoting Buber was in large part 1) to emphasize the necessity of relationship in cultivating spiritual awareness, and 2) that the spiritual Buber speaks of (the “life beyond”) can found in the “everyday event”; indeed, there is “no division between the life here and the life beyond." This perspective, spoken by a Jewish mystic, is part of a larger wisdom tradition, what Aldous Huxley calls the “perennial philosophy.” This idea of no division is the theistic version of emptiness and the famous phrase from the Buddhist `Heart Sutra”:
Here, Sariputra, form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.
In his `Precious Garland,’ Nagarjuna recasts the same formulation as:
A person is not earth, not water,
Not fire, not wind, not space,
Not consciousness, and not all of them.
What person is there other than these?
This was a transformative moment in Buber’s life and, I would even say, he had a flash of nondual realization: ”And it `converted' me because it showed me that there could be no division between the life here and the life beyond."
When I originally came across these passages of Buber in my early twenties, I had not yet familiarized myself with nondual awareness as expressed in Advaita or Buddhist philosophy, but it was still very powerful. By the time I wrote `From Muffins to Miracles,’ the realization of emptiness was already guiding me for quite a while. In a way, my structuring the text in the way I did recapitulated the way I had structured the entire book: as an evolutionary process towards higher levels of awareness. The therapeutic relationship and process clearly demarcate that trajectory.
And so, “getting there” refers to just that realization: “ In a flash, I felt the interconnectedness of beings and things and all and everything entering into consciousness, and of which I am part. In my wholeness I am part, and in all the inclusive part-ness that I am, I seek still the higher streams of humanity. This is evolution. This is Buber's life here and life beyond, All as One. This is Spirit; this is the "religious."”
Nico, you say, “And you go on to introduce "relationship" as a "mirror" to "one's need to question, because the relationship confronts the self's polar need to conceal….This is a loaded paragraph, and maybe it is only the introduction to your larger work where you go on to explain it better. This is a packed statement. It would really help to have a transitional paragraph, or chapter, explaining relationship, needs, and self's polar need to conceal. All are complex ideas that require more development if the reader is going to be able to transition from one stepping stone to the next without slipping and falling in the water. But maybe that is your aim. I don't know? Is it?”
This is a great point and I will say that many of the complex ideas are explained throughout the book. This excerpt from a chapter likely needs a reading of prior chapters in order to make the ideas easier to understand. Regarding the relationship as mirror and the self’s need to conceal, the idea of mirror is a perfect metaphor for reflection and revelation. And, in a more literal sense, the relationship, as it moves into a more intimate space, necessarily draws out in each partner aspects of the personality that have remained hidden as a result of the unconscious motivation for self-preservation. Let’s say, for example, residing within my personality structure is the tendency to avoid and withdraw, which, in turn, reveals an underlying fear and distrust based on certain beliefs that attachment and closeness to another human being lead to abandonment. The fear-based structure of the personality will attempt to undermine intimacy and the relationship will mirror that dynamic. Now, whether the individual is self-aware enough to work through that dynamic is another story. But, indeed, the relationship, if it is to go deeper, will invariably draw out what is concealed. As the adage goes, If you do not draw out what is within, what is within will destroy you; if your draw out what is within, what is within will save you.”
Om, thanks for clearing
Om, thanks for clearing things up for me. I understand much better now. Only one thought now jumps out in my mind. And that is how was Buber supposed to intuit what the young man was really asking if the young man did not ask it?
I mean, isn't that part of the relationship, making it clear to the other person what your needs are? In a sense, Buber is taking responsibility for what the young man did not ask, therefore he couldn't really know what it was the young man really wanted to know. How do we know Buber didn't create this narrative to better project his intense personal experience?
NICO AND THE ART OF QUESTIONING
Nico, thanks again. This is such a great and very important question. In fact, in some ways, it is at the heart of Buber's thinking. You say, "Only one thought now jumps out in my mind. And that is how was Buber supposed to intuit what the young man was really asking if the young man did not ask it?"
Buber intimates the deeper meaning
" He came to consult me at his hour of deepest need. He came to ask me whether to choose life or death. I talked to him openly. I was sympathetic. I tried to answer his questions....I conversed attentively and openly with him--only I omitted to guess the question which he did not put forth.... But I answered only the questions he asked me. And so I failed to see through to the man behind the questions. And why did I fail? Because that morning, before his visit, I had been filled with relious enthusiasm, a mystical ecstacy, in which I felt myself one with eternity and the life beyond."
Buber here is speaking to a way of knowing other than superficial listening, namely, that of intuitive listening. This is the listening of a highly empathic mind, one in which "the man behind the questions" is felt with a knowing transparent and unobstructed by afflictive thoughts and emotions. When the mind is clear, the listening is clear and goes within and beyond the words that are spoken. Words are only superficial symbols which indicate part of what the speaker means; but, as Buber points out, "the question which he did not put forth" is that which is concealed, and the empathic listener intuits through the immediate but subtle process of experiencing the whole being before her.
As an experiment, observe yourself listening to someone as you experience varying degrees of internal and external distractions. Now, listen when the mind is still and open. In the stillness and openness, you will behold in front of you a whole, living being. In the stillness, you will recognize him, you will feel his meanings. The relationship itself will reveal what heretofore was concealed.
Om, I agree that Buber was
Om, I agree that Buber was probably correct in feeling the question that was never asked. I guess this would be a matter of faith then.
NICO AND FAITH
Nico, you are on the money again. Faith is both the heart and truth of the matter. Faith is that knowing which is only clear, only light, only compassion. Buber's ironic empathic failure on that day was a result of his losing touch with the form (psychological) part of the emptiness (Form is emptiness, emptiness is form), which is the world of ignorance and suffering from which this young man presented himself. Buber was still partially in a "trance" and likely didn't want to return, the reason part of which was Buber not fully realizing that his blissful state was not the highest level of awareness after all. The good news is that, from that moment (he called it a "conversion") he became transformed and realized nondual awareness, which as he framed it, there is "no division between the life here and the life beyond."
Depending on the level of awareness, empathy is the recognition of the total other, body/mind/spirit. If I am not viewing you from a higher spiritual level of awareness because of my not yet achieving that awareness, I will not be able to empathically attune to that aspect of your consciousness. If I have not developed psychological awareness (what we call self-awareness), I will not be able to understand you on that level either. Empathy itself is a developmental task commensurate with one's overall psychological and spiritual development.
hemptiness
Thank you, Nico! this is delicious and beautiful. i enjoyed smiling with everyone at the beginning, and the video itself is great. yay Thay!
You're welcome, James. I
You're welcome, James. I realize that for me it is easier to listen to discussions about thick ideas than to read about them. Not sure why? Too much tv, maybe. Too much of a slow reader? Or whatever?
not to mention the
not to mention the difference between Thay's and Om's styles!
JAMES, REGARDING MY STYLE
this is why Thay communicates with everyone while I merely talk to myself. The difference, of course, being that I am in a dream and Thay is in the Real. On the positive side, Thay never gets to be called "infinitely annoying."
Also, Thay gets to call his home `Plum Village,' I had to call mine `Flushing.' karma, man, karma.
Om, you can always eat the
Om, you can always eat the Plum and then Flush it down the toilet!
Please call me by my true name
Well, you can make up a new name for where you live too. How about Omville? Om on the Range? or Iris Hall?
In the meantime, here is poem from Thay. At the retreat, he told the story of this girl who was one of the refugees he helped during the Vietnam War, and he wrote this poem about what happened.
Please Call Me by My True Names
CAMILA, ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL POEM BY THAY
Thank you. Anyone familiar with Thay's poems will quickly become aware of the theme of emptiness in its infinite forms. We might call his entire ouevre `1,000 Ways of Looking at Emptiness.' By the way, "Omville" sounds very nice; I'll rename it as I'm flushing the old one away. Wait a minute, I did that many lifetimes ago, when I clicked my heels 3 times and chanted, "There's no place like Om, there's no place like Om, there's no place like Om... Mani Padme Hum."
quotation
"My friend asked me what I think about Flushing, Queens. I said: That's a great idea!"
Queens James
I like Queens, James.
uh oh
queens boy fight!
:P i like Queens, too.
:P i like Queens, too. that's a joke one of my high school teachers used to tell us more frequently than necessary.
I LIKE QUEENS, TOO
as far as sewage plants go.
Sewage or not, we are all
Sewage or not, we are all the same molecules!
HEY NICO, CALM DOWN NOW
I think you read my post too figuratively: I said "as far as sewage plants go." Well, if you go to the end of Queens to Garbage... I mean... College Point, there's a sewage plant ;)
ACTIONS, THERAPEUTIC CHANGE AND THE SPIRITUAL QUEST
Because one acts, one suffers. Nagarjuna says in his `Examination of the Twelve Links (Limbs),’
Wrapped in the darkness of ignorance,
One performs the three kinds of actions
Which as dispositions impel one
To continue to future existences.
Buddhism distinguishes three kinds of acts: physical, verbal and mental. All actions have immediate psychological consequences; first and foremost, they give rise to new karmic formations or, as Nagarjuna refers to them, dispositions. A disposition is an inclination or an action existing in a potential form: an attitude of mind; an acquired habit or a preparation, a state of readiness, or a tendency to act in a specified way. Importantly, when actualized, dispositions lead to a variety of new consequences. And so, acts have consequences and consequences in turn create new conditions and causes from which new consequences are continuously created. If we look at the presentation of the twelve links, dispositions are dependent on “the darkness of ignorance” to arise and in turn consciousness itself is a consequence of dispositions. Consciousness is the molded aspect of dispositions, the karmic formations of previous actions.
The goal, of course, is to transform negative karmic formations into positive virtues. This is accomplished by aligning the three forms of actions – physical, verbal, mental – in order to bring about a future existence which leads to realization and enlightenment. The methodology or practice begins with intention (to heal and grow) and mindfulness (staying aware of mind’s tendency to perpetuate distorted and unhealthy patterns of perception and conception) and requires discipline and commitment. The old patterns can be controlled vis-à-vis philosophical/psychological reflection, meditation and through assiduous practices of compassion. The combination of reflection or introspection and practices are critical to avoid pathological accommodation. The aim is, simply, to change our minds; that is, to change the way we perceive, think and act. The measure of success is the evaluation of consequences of our actions.
There is no doubt that change will not occur without wisdom, as a contextualized understanding of the ultimate nature of reality. This is what guides us, irrespective of what religious or spiritual system we ascribe to, for all wisdom traditions speak of the ultimate nature of reality as empty of inherent existence.
An example of this can be found in a friend of mine who suffers from anger. I say suffers from anger because, ultimately, his anger leaves him isolated. Isolation is the nemesis of life. My friend’s anger can be found in his actions – the way he lives, the way he speaks and the way he thinks. His lifestyle, for example, tends to be an isolated lifestyle devoid of community, friendships and intimacy, and his activities revolve around superficial or addictive pursuits, most of which obscure deeper reflection and introspection. In his language one will find non-reflective conversations, blaming others, judgments and resentment. The third action, thinking, actually creates the first two actions – physical and verbal -- as byproducts. My friend’s thinking is marked by a great difficulty seeing his life as a web of interconnected relations streaming from erroneous beliefs and unhealthy relational patterns. He does get this intellectually or conceptually but has as yet been able to emotionally integrate the meaning of this vast web of distorted ruptures, which resulted in his current psychologically distressed state of mind. My parents did this to me, my parents did that to me; I’m stuck because I’m damaged and am too fearful of relationships; I can’t seem to take the steps I need to take to make myself happy, etc. And all of these things are true, or I should say, partially true because in the end they are based on erroneous perceptions and conceptions regarding what he believes to be real. What he has difficulty realizing is that his current views are based on both memories (previous events which no longer exist) and his constantly perpetuating negative consequences as a result of his negative views and behaviors. It’s a perpetually self-created solipsistic mine field of negativity and suffering. Although Nagarjuna, the second century Buddhist philosopher, likely did not have my friend in mind in his phenomenology, the fundamental wisdom of the Middle Way as promulgated by Nagarjuna, most efficiently presents the deepest understanding of my friend’s mind from philosophical and psychological perspectives. And, most important, this understanding has the therapeutic resources in its wisdom to free my friend up from the suffering he has become so inured by and identified with. When I look at my friend’s psychology from this view, I find a remarkable opportunity to help me cultivate compassion for all beings without exception. My friend is all beings. My friend’s freedom from suffering is the freedom of all beings, without exception.
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Buddism
James, Thanks for engaging this conversation. I'm looking forward to it.
THE BENIGN THICH NHAT HANH ON EMPTINESS
I
Since Camila is a Thich Nhat Hanh fan, I thought I’d introduce emptiness from his formulation in his delicious little jewel of a book, `The Heart of Understanding.’ Thay (as he’s called) explains “empty” with the question: empty of what? And the answer is empty of a separate self, or a thing cannot exist by itself alone. Nothing can exist separately of everything else. Every thing co-exists with other things and are indeed dependent upon other things for their existence. Thay uses the example of the body:
“In our bodies we have lungs, heart, kidneys, stomach and blood. None of these things can exist independently. They can only co-exist with the others. Your lungs and your blood are two things, but neither can exist separately. The lungs take in air and enrich the blood and, in turn, the blood nourishes the lungs. Without the blood the lungs cannot be alive, and without the lungs, the blood cannot be cleansed. Lungs and blood inter-are. The same is true with kidneys and blood, kidneys and stomach, lungs and heart, blood and heart and so on.”
The word “inter-being” was I believed coined by Thay and poetically refers to interconnectedness, or emptiness (Thay is also a brilliant poet). James quotes Matthieu Ricard’s definition of emptiness: “When Buddhism states that emptiness is the ultimate nature of things, it means that the things we see around us, the phenomena of our world, lack any autonomous or permanent existence.” This is the simplest and most common formulation you will find on emptiness. And, as James points out, the key to this understanding undermines any notion of nihilism, the philosophical position which argues that existence is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. Objects do exist, but because of the 5-sensory limitation of mind and its tendency to distort perception, the way we ostensibly see and interpret objects (phenomena) just doesn’t reflect their true nature, which is, one more time, empty of independent, permanent existence.
II
“what is most intriguing me at the moment is this beautiful and careful line –["Those who become fixed on emptiness are said to be incurable."] what i love to refer to as the emptiness of emptiness. Ricard here explains that becoming attached to emptiness is "incurable." this is what i would most like to speak about, because it seems to me to be a wonderful exemplar of Buddhism's subtlety.”
This line from `The Fundamental Treatise of the Perfection of Wisdom,’ in my mind, speaks to the true moment in time when Hinduism culminated into Buddhism. The brilliant logic Buddhist philosophy made it explicitly clear that “If you can't speak of real existence, you can't speak of nonexistence either.” Emptiness is form; emptiness is nothing other than form. And if we bring a bit of integral, modern day thinking into play, we can say, emptiness transcends but includes form. This is the formulation stated as the evolution of consciousness.
So, the question we must ask is, what does the wisdom of emptiness have to do with our lives and how we live them? My dog takes a dump and I now realize that this dump is empty of independent, permanent existence. So what? Don’t I still suffer?
which reminds me
i never posted that excerpt from Thay's poem:
OM AND THE WISDOM OF EMPTY DOODY
Om, I'd like to address your question on the significance of the cognizance of emptiness as it relates to our lives. A friend of mine was talking about how she used to judge others and how it only temporarily seemed to empower her. She realized that the judgment was an attempt to control the other as well as projecting into the other the deficits she herself had felt defined her. As I was listening to her speak, I realized that if we understood the ultimate nature of reality as empty of independent, permanent existence, it would follow that the way we treat others is in fact inseparable from the way we treat ourselves. If we understood that the ultimate aim of life is to be happy, the only way to achieve happiness is to fully understand the ultimate nature of reality, which is empty of independent, permanent existence. If we understood that afflictive emotions reflect the failure to understand the ultimate nature of reality, we would better aim at achieving this understanding which, in turn, would lead to happiness. Happiness and understanding the ultimate nature of reality go together because understanding the ultimate nature of reality results in dissolving the attachments to independent, permanent existence, which causes suffering. This means that causing you to suffer causes me to suffer, because all phenomena, including you and I, are interdependent, and I don’t want to suffer because I want to be happy. I want to be so happy that I’ll do everything I can to be happy, including sitting meditation, because meditation is the ultimate path to understanding the ultimate nature of reality, which is empty of independent, permanent existence. True happiness is the realization that nothing exists independently, especially and not especially, the self, which when released from its isolated identity, becomes released from suffering; and, the release from suffering, along with the understanding of the ultimate nature of reality, which is empty of independent, permanent existence, results in true compassion, which is the desire to alleviate suffering in all beings. Compassion is the result of the wisdom of emptiness and the desire to create joy, which is love. This is because the wisdom of emptiness reveals the insight that you and I are interdependent and of one fused interconnectedness, and that realization, along with the desire to be happy, results in me wanting to alleviate suffering in you as I watch you alleviating suffering in me because I’m alleviating suffering in you. And so, I sit and cultivate compassion for all beings without exception, because in the end I want to be happy in my wisdom as I alleviate suffering in all beings.
om's abbundant emptiness
The gentle spring rain permeates the soil of my soul.
A seed that has lain deeply in the earth for many years just smiles.
THE FINER FEATURES OF EMPATHY
I’m so proud of my friend. He is mastering the finer features of empathy. We tend to talk about empathy and compassion in such general terms that it might be difficult to apply empathic responses to concrete situations. So here’s a situation that reflects the nuts and bolts of empathic relating.
My friend was sitting with his girlfriend after a long day at work. He was sharing some deep thoughts as he usually does and was feeling increasingly sad as he opened up some memories about a loss he had in a previous relationship. It was a painful loss and he started crying. His girlfriend, as light as she is deep, held his head in her hands and looked into his eyes. He was so appreciative of her desire to connect with him but felt this other need to just go further in and open up a more private space of grief. Not that he wanted her to go; in fact, he wanted to simultaneously be alone and with her. Now, that’s asking a lot of another person and requires a deep empathy to understand the complexity of that need. Part of the reason why he wanted to go in alone was that he was so used to with previous lovers responding for both sides of the relationship. He just wanted the freedom to open up to his pain with his girlfriend bearing witness. And, as he told me, she tried and it was beautiful. But, she had difficulty holding or at least understanding it and experienced him as withdrawing. Not because he was but because that is what she knew and expected. He knew she felt this way because when she went to bed, she kept her underclothes on (they usually sleep naked, he said). But, he didn’t want to say anything; he didn’t want to repeat an old familiar pattern.
In the morning, as he woke, he pointed out that she went to sleep with her clothes on. At first she said she was cold but he knew better. So, he pushed. She then told him she felt disconnected and alone the night before because, after he sat, cried and shared with her, he sat alone for a while engaged in another activity. She found it strange that he could have such a deep, emotional experience and then engage in another activity. She thought he was withdrawing. But, he didn’t and he explained how and why he didn’t and reminded her that he wasn’t her father who always withdrew from her. And they sat and processed more and she was awed by how her boyfriend picked up this subtle behavior of leaving her clothes on and helped her identify and old pattern of hers: expecting and interpreting certain behaviors as withdrawing and then withdrawing in turn out of fear (wearing her underclothes to bed was a form of withdrawal).
As he pointed out to me, this was new for both of them, staying open to old thought and behavior patterns and changing a repeated relationship into a needed relationship. I pointed out to my friend that these corrective interactions over the course of the evening and morning reflect the finer features of empathy, which are empathic responses to potential ruptures in intimacy. What stood out most for me were not only the openness and honesty between the lovers but the mindfulness, intention, attention, focus, discernment, aspiration, appreciation and wisdom that are all necessary for empathic relating itself to be fully realized.
I can't see me loving no body but You
I remember Douglas Brooks, scholar of indian philosophy and of buddhism, saying once that at about the same time Buddhism broke off from hinduism, so did the tantric non-dualist schools. The difference in their understandings are subtle though through their approach (and really, linguistically) they seem to express themselves in markedly different ways. Where the Buddhists speak of "emptiness" the Tantrics (the one's Douglas teaches) speak of abundance and secreting. A good buddhist will recognize that in the word abundance one might imagine "abundance of what?" just like someone might ask "emptiness of what?" But I believe, from the little I've gleaned of this Tantric shtuff, that abundance is a way of regarding an endless infinitude and that the idea of "secreting" is crucial to this understanding. Because it regards form (in any way we play with it, cum thought, idea, sensation-thought) as impermanent but not insignificant, that behind what is recognized there is always more. It acknowledges a fundamental relationship which cannot be erased by mind, so that, whenever we fixate on any idea, such as "emptiness" or "abundance" we will always find Other, more, beyond that, and beyond that more taste (relationship).
One of the main teachings in Douglas' lineage (I've just introduced that he teaches also from a lineage, which should be understood as particular and rich in teachings and so not simply a general "tantric" one) is that teaching is always now, the relationship and the conversation are always available to us now, and it is highly de-centralized on any one teacher or any one guru. He shifts people's focus from thinking that there is something to "Get" outside of what we are participating in, rather that we need only engage in the reflection of participation and understand it's nature. So his teachings are really a language for understanding relationship and participation. I find them highly empowering, though I find his .. I wont say "abhorance" (also because I cannot spell it).. but his strong dislike of Buddhism to be an intriguing question for me. I think it is because of the tendency in buddhism to fixate on the "emptiness" factor, or even on the suffering factor, (getting stuck in a concept) or perhaps it is because of the ways in which he identifies in buddhism (perhaps wrongly.. though his mind is so deeply considered around these subjects, I cannot really say) a desire to leave the world and not recognize it as ALREADY wherever one would wish to go or transcend away from. You are ALREADY free, he always says. There is no freedom to attain, just more perspective of what is the nature of this.
I know from my own simple studies of Buddhism and my intuitions, that there is more compatibility between the two teachings. I know because i experience this. For example, I know that there is no "world" in buddhism anyway so that to seek to transcend it would be a false ideal (and this is part of the teaching of buddhism). I am a bit perplexed as to Douglas' dislike for Buddhism but this perplexity urges my desire to understand his perspective which, interestingly, only encourages that we do seek.
I think of Douglas' teachings as "positivistic" in that there is an acknowledgment that there is a something that we relate to: it keeps that triad of relationship always at the center, and at the center of that unity in the triad there is not emptiness but always more... because there is recognition of unity which is itself another triad. Now, this could be a fancy definition of "emptiness" especially since there is no end in a "thing" or "state."
I think of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj saying "I am beyond even that" even that triad even that consciousness, that recognition. He blasts out of the form-recognition/witness relationship - into something totally beyond. And it only confirms unity and the promise, as he says, that there must be a nothing if there is a something and he is beyond nothing and anything. "Awareness is your true nature" he says, "beyond consciousness of a this or that, beyond witness" and I'm being lazy quoting because I'm making this up from memory but that's the gist.
I asked once what the word for "emptiness" was in our tradition and a teacher (a student of Douglas) told me "Shunya: the space that holds the space."
I like the teachings of impermanence (and no inherent existence) and of relationship. So happy together!
Don't shunya me!
thank you Caterina for such a great description and exploration of the similarities and differences of these schools of thought, which so perplex me. In the words of James, I am diggin it.
James and Om evoked Thich Nhat Hanh, who I had a pretty profound experience with on a 5 day retreat this past Fall (with 800 other people). Even this yoga teacher I mentioned in a previous post, who has said some disparaging things about buddhism, and kind of grimaced oh so slightly when I told him I was going on the retreat (instead of his own retreat, which might have stung, I'm not sure), has told told me that he noticed a marked difference in my practice since. He said my savasana (deep relaxation pose) has shifted dramatically. I guess I used to be a lot more restless and now I can really sink into it. not sure if that is just a coincidence (but there are no coincidences, right Om?). At any rate, I find Thay very accessible and the simplicity of his images really help me take the philosophy to heart. I also resonate deeply with his committment to social change. He seriously challenged the buddhist leadership in his country around the issue of taking action during the Vietnam War instead of renunciating and paid a heavy price for it. One of the sisters who has been with him since the beginning, Chan Khong, who I also met at the retreat and fell in love with, wrote a book about their experience called Learning True Love, How I Learned and Practiced Social Change in Vietnam. I highly recommend it.
I just opened my copy of Thay's The Heart of Understanding, Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra and on the page I had marked for some reason I don't remember it said in his gorgeously simple prose:
The French Scientists Lavoisier said, "Nothing is created, and nothing is destroyed." This is exactly the same as the Heart Sutra. Even the best contemporary scientists cannot reduce something as small as a speck of dust or an electron to nothingness. One form of energy can only become another form of energy. Something can never become nothing, and this includes a speck of dust. Usually we say humans come from dust and we are going back to dust, and this does not sound very joyful. We don't want to return to dust. There is a discrimination here that humans are very valuable, and that dust has no value at all. But the scientists do not even know what a speck of dust is! It is still a mystery. Imagine one atom of that speck of dust, with electrons traveling around the nucleus at 180,000 miles per second. It is very exciting. To return to a speck of dust will be quite an exciting adventure.
CATERINA AND ULTIMATELY ILLUSORY DISTINCTIONS
“The difference in their understandings (Hinduism and Buddhism) are subtle though, through their approach (and really, linguistically), they seem to express themselves in markedly different ways. Where the Buddhists speak of "emptiness," the Tantrics (the one's Douglas teaches) speak of abundance and secreting.”
As much as I love Buddhism, I am IN Love with Advaita Vedanta. Advaita (nondual—the identity of Self (Atman) and the Whole (Brahman)) Vedānta (literally, end or the goal of the Vedas) is the devotional aspect of nondual awareness, while Buddhism is the wisdom aspect of nondual awareness. From my limited understanding, Advaita Vedanta, which is the consolidated principles of the Indian philosopher, Shankara, uses, as its key source texts, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras. It has a rich historical, narratological and ceremonial quality which relies very heavily on the devotional practices of students in relation to their gurus, or teachers. For me, it is very romantic and dripping in desire. Buddhist philosophy has a dryer quality to it as it relies greatly on logic principles to reveal its deep wisdom.
I wanted to make this distinction, not because it is correct, but because it is true for me, a non-scholar who is deeply aligned with both lineages of thought. I think this is true because my disposition and preferences are strongly both emotional (which include sensorial, eg, tactile and kinesthetic) and intellectual. My intellectual needs are my emotional needs and, inversely, I relate to abstract thought emotionally. What coheres both of these aspects of consciousness is my intuition, that way of knowing (epistemology) which immediately finds the patterns that connect the parts to the whole (see my poem `King of Dots’). I call intuition the flash of knowing.
My intuition tells me, for example, that perception and conception can only reveal limited categorical knowledge of reality and truth because there is no rational way to understand the mystical realization of Pure Awareness, which is the union of emptiness and cognizance, what Dzogchen teaching in Buddhism calls Rigpa. Franklin Merrell-Wolff, whose teachings I have shared and whom I consider a teacher, was a follower of Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta, and who realized a third fundamental way of knowing, which he called “introception.” Introception, when activated, “provides immediate, categorical knowledge that transcends the subject-object distinction, i.e., it is not a relational knowledge of something by something else, but a knowledge through identity in which there is only knowledge itself that includes and transcends both knower and known.”
When I experience Advaita Vedanta, I feel more of the relational elements unlayering through the sublative process (which we have discussed here); with Buddhism, I think my way through the logical formulations which, in the end, necessarily include the relational and use sublation as its logical method. But, the formulation, “if you can’t speak of real existence, you can’t speak of non-existence either”, has a different linguistic feel to it. It is the language of logic and so will find it’s way to understanding differently than the devotional, more poetic form of tantra or Advaita Vedanta, at least this is my experience.
clarification
a small one.
I asked one of Douglas' students tonight why Douglas didn't like Buddhism and he said he did. I guess we don't need to emphasize too strongly the distinctions between this or that, you know. It's not really happening.
the learnéd
(re: Douglas liking Buddhism, after all): even so, i will say that i don't believe being a scholar of Buddhism (or many other fields of study, really) necessitates a sufficient understanding of it. i don't know Douglas, so i don't have much to say about him, but that just seemed an important note. it's tempting to just trust someone's word on something because they've studied it -- in many cases this is appropriate, but with philosophy and religion i've found that it is frequently more useful and more fun to take a stand and argue, seek further understanding on my own, than to just take someone's word on it. for example, i was in a class on indian and tibetan philosophy, and my teacher was himself a buddhist -- an ex-monk, in fact -- and yet when most of the class found this notion of the "emptiness of emptiness" confusing, he just let the ball drop and said something like, "yeah, it doesn't make much sense." what a wimp! i stood up for Nagarjuna, but to no avail, once the prof said it was lame, the class was eager to let the uncomfortable and difficult phrase DROP.
JAMES IS A WIMP
buster LOL! Your teacher reminds me of my favorite actor.
NAGARJUJAMES
IN Stanza 71 of his 70 Stanzas, Nagarjuna says,
“It is known in the way of the world that “this arises in dependence on that.” Such statements are not refuted. But whatsoever arises dependently does not exist inherently, and how can that non-inherent existence itself have inherent existence? In fact, that non-inherent existence must definitely not exist inherently.”
Dependent origination, which is Buddhism’s term for interdependence or co-emergence, has a double meaning: that things DO exist, just not on their own; and that things (phenomena) DO NOT have their own cause, not even emptiness itself.
The terms interdependence, interconnectedness, or Thay’s interbeing are all synonymous and explain impermanence and emptiness. They also explain the difference between what is real (ultimate reality) and what exists. We designate what exists by mental constructs; that is, investing phenomena with a distinct reality, as designated by names and conventions. The objects we make contact with have true existence, but that true existence slips into the background of our constructs and, as a result, are incorrectly conceived or interpreted as autonomous. With further investigation (analysis), however, it is impossible to find independent reality because there are a myriad of causes and conditions that produce all objects, both mental and physical.
This is most important, and to address Om’s question again regarding, the usefulness of this investigation, this understanding of reality allows us to apprehend and comprehend the results of our actions and organize our reality in ways that create joyful and loving relationships. Global warming, for example, is the most pressing, the most profound and grave result of the failure to understand the true nature of reality, which is empty of independent and permanent existence. On the psychological levels of self and relationship, this understanding organizes and coheres self and relationship in such ways as to promote and foster compassion and empathy, factors which result in happiness.
My love of the psychoanalytic, because it too investigates the unreliability of self-narratives and beliefs based on early childhood trauma and ruptured relationships across the life process, brings together my love and language and philosophy to heal the split between dual categories of mind, such as, body/ mind, mind/spirit, self/other, and all other mental constructs engendering difference, which is the cause of suffering.
OM, THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED CONVERSATION
on Buddhism, especially how you integrate Buddhist thinking with psychoanalysis and, by extension, the therapeutic. I now better understand what you mean by the "compatibility" of these ostensibly diverse traditions of thinking. For me the term that bridges the two fields of inquiry is phenomenology, the study of how a person experiences states of consciousness. I have found that psychoanalytic inquiry is a beautifully self-contained dharma, but because of its circumspection regarding what Franklin Merrell-Wolff formulates as “immediate, categorical knowledge that transcends the subject-object distinction,” namely introception, it greatly limits its ability to gain a more complete understanding of the human being. This is, in my opinion, a very serious matter. And the reason for this limitation is that there is no rational way to understand the transpersonal or subtle levels of mystical realization (psychoanalytic inquiry works with perception and conception, both of which can only reveal limited categorical knowledge of reality and truth.
But back to your Nagarjuna quote, stanza 71. it’s worth quoting again:
“It is known in the way of the world that “this arises in dependence on that.” Such statements are not refuted. But whatsoever arises dependently does not exist inherently, and how can that non-inherent existence itself have inherent existence? In fact, that non-inherent existence must definitely not exist inherently.”
If I understand him correctly, this formulation argues that causality, or dependent arising (dependent origination) is without inherent existence. Nor does non-inherent existence itself have independent existence. This is the emptiness of emptiness, which refutes the claim against Buddhism of nihilism, or eternalism.
What I think teachers fail to point out regarding the emptiness of emptiness is the role conceptualization itself plays in the formulation and meaning of this proposition. Unless one can have direct experience of nondual awareness, the formulation will never really work out because the method you are using to understand emptiness (namely, language) is itself rooted in duality. The truth of the matter is that emptiness has NO meaning, it is superordinate to meaning. It just is. This is why emptiness is empty, because it is beyond conceptualization. Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha.
Om, i must admit i have not
Om, i must admit i have not been able to get into this buddhist thread of conversation. one, i am just not too interested in it at the moments, which in turn leads me to be impatient with the long posts and thick thoughts. i am trying, though, i am trying.
Om
Pretend I am a third grader or let's say 6th or even 7th. I want to understand what you just said about: I have found that psychoanalytic inquiry is a beautifully self-contained dharma, but because of its circumspection regarding what Franklin Merrell-Wolff formulates as “immediate, categorical knowledge that transcends the subject-object distinction,” namely introception, it greatly limits its ability to gain a more complete understanding of the human being. This is, in my opinion, a very serious matter. And the reason for this limitation is that there is no rational way to understand the transpersonal or subtle levels of mystical realization (psychoanalytic inquiry works with perception and conception, both of which can only reveal limited categorical knowledge of reality and truth.
Can you break it down?
EMILY, YOU'RE REALLY WORKING ME TONIGHT
I'll pretend you're a third grader.
Emily. Mrs. Crabtree, will you please explain how psychoanalytic inquiry is a beautifully self-contained dharma, but because of its circumspection regarding what Franklin Merrell-Wolff formulates as “immediate, categorical knowledge that transcends the subject-object distinction,” namely introception, it greatly limits its ability to gain a more complete understanding of the human being. This is, in my opinion, a very serious matter.
Mrs. Crabtree. Emily, you little precocious bitch. How dare you come into my classroom making me look stupid. Last week you came in asking me to kick the bucket and I broke my goddamn foot. Now, you're asking about psychoanalytic theory. Did I not tell you I'm going to wash your mouth out with soap and send you to the principal who will call your mother who will cut all your hair off and send you to an orphanage where the milk is spoiled? Categorical knowledge? I'll give you categorical knowledge. You're a little slut. How's that.
James, if I told you once, I told you a million times, put that Mass Spectrometer away before I take it away. And Nico, stop pulling Camila's hair. And Caterina, leave those boys alone and come to the front of the room and report on your dog, Daisy.
Mrs. Crabtree
Is it because you have your period that you don't fully understand me?
EMILY, HERE'S MS. CRABTREE
Here is Ms. Crabtree at her best. Watch how she kicks the bucket and throws Jack a real peck.
EMPTINESS AND THE PERFECT COGNITION: CONTINUATION ON EMPTINESS
Om, I must admit, referring to psychoanalytic inquiry as a dharma is a bit strange but I think I’m getting your point. You persistently attempt to integrate these two disciplines (Buddhist philosophy/psychoanalytic theory). This feels to me as an alignment, the perspective of which considers Buddhism, or more specifically, Buddhist philosophy, as a therapeutic enterprise; and, conversely, psychoanalysis as a potential vehicle for spiritual development. The key to this perspective is that, though you say psychological and spiritual development represent two separate lines of development, they are in fact, necessarily overlapping and even converge at higher levels of awareness. Is this correct?
And so, if this integrated perspective-- let’s call it Integral (to align it further with ken Wilber’s model, which you seem influenced by) – represents a therapeutic model of inquiry, we might consider, for example, Buddhism’s aim as therapeutic and psychoanalysis’s inquiry as a science of mind or consciousness (which means it expands and extends its field of inquiry). This indeed makes perfect sense to me, particularly because your model views the human being from a higher, more inclusive perspective (mind and spirit), the end result of which is a more integrated human being, not merely a better-adjusted individual who could adapt to her environment. Your goal seems to be higher, to help individuals actually change their environments vis-à-vis changing their minds, so to speak. The change, of course, is an ethical one because its focus is on compassion (defined as the desire to alleviate suffering in all beings), as well as wisdom (defined as understanding the ultimate nature of reality), and includes all beings, without exception, as you say. You also emphasize that compassion, and its more strictly psychological equivalent), is a compassion that begins with self and so, in truth, never separates self and other (which makes it nondual in theory and practice).
Okay, that’s the big picture. But, I want to address emptiness again, because emptiness seems to be the underlying ground of all inquiry and practice. In one of your last posts, you say
“Global warming, for example, is the most pressing, the most profound and grave result of the failure to understand the true nature of reality, which is empty of independent and permanent existence. On the psychological levels of self and relationship, this understanding organizes and coheres self and relationship in such ways as to promote and foster compassion and empathy, factors which result in happiness.”
Please help me understand this better. You seem to be saying that psychoanalytic inquiry does not go far enough because it underemphasizes cognition in its practice. What I like about your thinking is that cognition and emotional functioning are, shall I say, co-emphasized. You say that emotions represent the glue of thought, that is, that emotions cohere thought products in a way that makes them appear solid (you use the term “reification”) --independent and permanent-- which creates and sustains thought patterns in the form of beliefs. Obviously, beliefs shape relationships and inversely, relationships shape the thoughts of individuals, particularly the developing child. Ruptures in the parent/child dyad are what create suffering from a relational perspective. But, as I said, you proffer an added dimension from which to help in understanding the relationship. You also focus on the self as an open system, the relationship of which being the self’s mirror as it seeks psychological health and spiritual realization (this you refer to as `I AM’ in reference to your teacher, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj).
From my reading of Nagarjuna, it all begins in cognition. And that’s where you want to take psychoanalysis. Along with the reconstructive map of how I got to be where I am, sitting in this shrink’s office trying to figure myself out, you include the station (fundamental cognition) from which the individual mind emerges in its world passage. And, as you say, the beginning is the end, because the understanding of erroneous cognitions as the cause of suffering requires the practice of mindfully observing each moment of consciousness. Why? Because phenomena are impermanent and change from moment to moment, so that each moment of perceptual cognition of an object must be considered the first moment of perceptual cognition. For example, your partner’s action has different meaning from moment to moment necessarily because in each moment your partner has a different experience based on a new set of conditions and causes. And so, his interactions with you will shift in perception and meaning over the course of even a brief period. Yes, there is a sense of continuity that creates a sense of order but my point is that the Buddhist practice of mindfulness at its most developed is exactly this. The more mindful you become, the healthier you will be and feel.
And so, it is the understanding of how cognition works that I would like you to further address.
Om Mani Padme Hum
RESPONSE TO OM ON COGNITION AND EMPTINESS
Om, thanks for this morning’s response to my mixed therapeutic model of Buddhism and psychoanalysis. I understand that this is not the venue to go too deeply into the model but thought the bloggers would find an overview interesting, especially since a few have shared their therapeutic experiences and might relate to it as a practice.
With that said, I realize that the exploration of cognition as the train coming out of the station isn't particularly interesting, but it is the groundwork for understanding emptiness, the principle of phenomena having no inherent existence. Why? Because when we discover how the human subject who is making contact with phenomena erroneously perceives and conceptualizes the objects of cognition (cognition is mental consciousness), we can identify the origin of ignorance. Ignorance is the failure to understand the ultimate nature of reality, which is defined as, empty of independent, permanent existence. If we look at this from a psychological perspective, we can immediately realize how self and relationship become distorted and belief systems established as replacements for relating and even thinking. We can define thinking as the mental process which analyzes and synthesizes information. Thinking is open and changing; beliefs are closed and relatively immutable.
As David Ross Komito points out in `Nagarjuna’s “Seventy Stanzas”,’ in Buddhist teachings erroneous, distorted cognitions are why activities in the world lead to suffering and not peace. I won’t go into the more technical aspects of cognition, but I will say that the development of skillful means through meditation to discerning between valid and erroneous cognitions leads one to directly experience and non-conceptually cognize the lack of selfhood in beings, what is called no-self. In the therapeutic process, the preparation is made for this more advanced spiritual endeavor by, paradoxically, strengthening one’s sense of self in order to develop the skillful means of correct or valid cognitions. This long analytic process, interestingly enough, challenges long-held erroneous beliefs and emotionally-bound loyalties to both familial and cultural systems in the form of mental constructs. Depression, anxiety, relationship issues, personality disorders, etc. all have their roots in erroneous cognitions and are complexly strengthened by memories. This is why a reconstructive analysis of one’s developmental history, which includes dream work and associations, is the keystone to unraveling the mental layers of the constructs. I know it sounds terribly boring but the process itself is nothing less than exquisite. And then add on the spiritual practice of cultivating higher levels of awareness-- through meditation and further guided analysis-- and watching the self drop out, is like a snowy egret lifting off into a blue sky.
And so, when we speak of healing (to make whole), we mean two things: integrating the fractured self; and developing an awareness that cognizes emptiness, which is the highest form of integration.
allow me to introduce Om's biggest fan: Om
hey Om. so i just thought i'd point out that this isn't quite how i pictured this thread going. i'm not expressing any sort of trouble with that, just pointing out that what i originally intended hasn't come about. i like these posts of yours a lot for a wide range of reasons, and i definitely recommend them to anyone who may have skipped them if they appear to be much too much. i also imagine they'll be good references for not only this thread, but further threads. hang on to these.
at the same time, i'd like to address the rest of the bloggers, since only Om seems to be addressing Om and the other bloggers seem to be doing only a little bit of talking otherwise.
Emily asked about dual/nondual, which Om spoke about. but i'm just wondering: Emily, are you feeling any more well grounded in these terms? if you are, then terrific. if not -- we can try to tackle that. either way, is anyone else struggling with these terms?
how about other terms. Nico, for example, said he's not having an easy time getting into this thread (thankfully this didn't stop him from linking a wonderful talk of Thay's on interbeing). well lay it on me, Nico. is there something you can say in particular that makes it tough? do you always struggle with Buddhism, or are there other trains of thought here that you tend to shy away from?
Megan, you asked for a slower pace. a slow pace is why i began this thread by asking what interests or troubles everyone here. Om's posts are meant for everyone, and i believe everyone can understand and relate to them; i find them quite stimulating and challenging... they also work in a way that is perfectly suited for these sorts of investigations, namely dialogue. this is one of the main reasons 'The Quantum and the Lotus" works so well (as well as Mindwalk, etc). it's so wonderfully appropriate, too. but perhaps it's not easy to get into these posts of Om's at first. that's cool --- can we narrow down a few speed bumps, or even just one, that seem to limit entering into them? if not, that's cool, too. we'll try and get a clearer fix on it as a group.
of course, it's possible that everyone is just enjoying the ride on Om's wave of dharma, in which case -- this post is extraneous :)
----
i think perhaps the most important move for us to make -- which Om makes in these posts -- is to recognize the everyday application of, for example, interdependence. i could certainly explain these sorts of concepts in abstract philosophical terms, but as Matthiew Ricard also reminds in The Quantum and the Lotus, the point of all this investigation is not to accumulate knowledge and just continue living the same old way. rather the goal of attaining wisdom (which one of the Om's defines as "understanding the ultimate nature of reality") is that we may then radically alter the way we live our lives.
OM'S BIGGEST FAN
LOL!! James, this is so true and reminds me of this quote from a favorite Woody Allen film of mine, Manhattan:
Yale: You are so self-righteous, you know. I mean we're just people. We're just human beings, you know? You think you're God.
Isaac Davis: I... I gotta model myself after someone.
JAMES IS THREADING HIS SHOO-TRAS
James, I love the word "thread." It reminds me very much of tantra, which means to weave and speaks to the practices of appropriating and channeling divine energy. If you want to read an unusual but very cool book on Buddhist Tantric practice – Vajrayana, Tantric or Secret path, as it is called – pick up Geshe Kelsang Gyatso’s `Tantric Grounds and Paths.’ Gyatso says that “Buddha revealed two paths: the common path and the uncommon path.” Here, path refers to an internal path or spiritual realization that leads us to liberation from suffering, or permanent inner peace. The uncommon path is the Vajrayana path…. The Vajrayana path is like a vehicle that takes us directly to our final destination.” The Tantric path, according to Gyatso, comprises “the rarest and most precious of Buddha’s teachings.” From my limited understanding, it seems that the common path of reciting sutras is practiced by the “gross mind,” the mind of dualistic, conventional awareness. This is because the Sutra teachings “do not explain how to recognize the subtle minds… of near-attainment… and the subtle dualistic appearances associated with them. In general, dualistic appearance is the appearance to a mind of both its object and inherent existence…. A direct realization of emptiness with a gross mind does not have the power to overcome the subtle dualistic appearances…. The only way to abandon these subtle dualistic appearances is to realize emptiness directly with a very subtle mind of clear light.” This is the teachings of Tantra, which present methods for overcoming the very subtle obstructions to omniscience.
Interestingly, these paths represent the formal and, I would say, the religious forms and rituals of Buddhism, which make them less appealing to me. However, I very much appreciate their intention as yogas to realization. Reading them closely and without judgment or skepticism allows the transmissions to generate some very high vibes and deep wisdom. “Mantra means mind protection,” Gyatso says. “Through the power of practicing Secret Mantra, our mind is protected from ordinary appearances and ordinary conceptions.” Notice the connection here with my post on cognition. This book, for example, brings together the philosophical and the religious practices of Buddhism. I personally use the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum and have found it not only sweet and invigorating, but also deeply comforting. I completely get this meaning of “mind protection.” That is exactly how it feels. It’s as if all the Buddhas and Boddhisatva’s of time immemorial visit me through my meditation to guide me down this rare path of realization. In Tulum this was especially felt.
James, thanks for taking
James, thanks for taking interest in our, my, involvement in this discussion. I have pondered why it is so hard for me to get into the Bhuddist thread and I thinking I have the biggest problem with it when I don't see an immediate practical application to the thoughts. For example, if we are talking randomly about interconnectedness and I don't feel it, then my mind can't feel the empathy for it. If, on the other hand, I am walking the street of Sand Francisco at night and I see a homeless woman sitting on the sidewalk with all her belongings on cardboard and then I feel this incredible compassion to her, an incredible connection to her suffering and her state of mind, then I can feel the connection to her. Then I think to the possibility that we all came from this one point that containned all matter and molecules (big bang), and that we and all things are just floating in this sea of interconnected matter. Then at that practical moment I can see the forest and the tress, sort of, and my mind greedily grasps and develops these thoughts. I want to feel the thoughts in my every day life. Then I can relate to them and extract the meanings of them.
i am buddha
i realized today while standing (because, as Om so gratuitously reminds ;) -- i haven't been sitting lately) in my bathroom, that i am buddha. well, not buddha -- i'm not the reincarnation of gautama buddha, or anything like that. what a silly reincarnation that'd be. just that, well, i'll tell you my very brief experience and leave it at that.
i blew my nose, and maybe it was just the yoga from last night, but either way, i felt my whole body-mind complex working in unison to thrust the boogers and snot from out of my nasal cavity. even my toes were taking part in this action, and i thought instantly about all of the times i have sneezed, the way all of my attention and intention and energy goes into finding, holding, and releasing that sneeze; and the delight i always feel as i stand or sit in stillness, my palms held together in front of my face, and i bask in the afterglow. and then i was just taking a shower, and as i turned off the water and began to wring it from out of my hair, i paused, and breathed. i looked down at my thighs and laughed. i looked at my belly and laughed. i looked at my arms and laughed. i could feel my heart pumping and my lungs in and out... i could feel my body all working in unison -- all of these various functions and movements necessary for this one tiny little everything: my short, quiet laugh. i watched my body respond to my laughter, and felt my face brighten a little bit.
so, i have to sit. i know. i actually love sitting, once i get into it. it's the first few times that i don't like. so i've been putting that off. i don't think any of us are terribly worried about me, though; so in the meantime i'll just keep laughing, sneezing, and blowing my nose.
bless you james
sounds like a great sneeze!
I'm so glad you have become a nomad! Once you start dreaming of us, you are officially one of us.
WHEN I BLOW MY NOSE
you can hear Coltrane's `Giant Steps.' When I sneeze, that little butterfly on the other side of the world says, bless you.
achoo!
whoops! i've still got a way to go until all of my sneezes are so wonderful. i just had a bit of a messy time. see, i always want to sneeze with all of me, but just now that desire came at a huge cost... i had a lot of food in my mouth, and when i sneezed i began to spit it all over the place. then i cut my sneeze in half in a vain attempt to shut my mouth before sputtering out all the bits and pieces of rice and beans tucked away in all the corners of my mouth.
but i must be onto something, because i'm told it's gotta be messy.
James, I wish I could
James, I wish I could experience the same when I blow my nose. So radical.
slow down
You guys think and write too fast... I can't keep up!
Megan, neither can I, so I
Megan, neither can I, so I make it up as I go along. Try it. It works.
SO, NICO, WHAT'S NEW ON THIS BEAUTIFUL FRIDAY NIGHT?
How's that Chilean red pepper? I like James' questions for you: "is there something you can say in particular that makes it tough? do you always struggle with Buddhism, or are there other trains of thought here that you tend to shy away from?"
Om and James, let get over a
Om and James, let me get over a hangover before I can honestly answer this one. Last night I had 2 margaritas that got me drunk. I thought I was stronger than that. Can't drink like I used to.
Nico, two asprin and some summer rain
Hey Nico, Over that hangover yet? Two asprin and some summer rain should do it. ;)
Megan, i went on a bicycle
Megan, i went on a bicycle ride the next morning. i wobbled a bit in the beginning but came into my own as the ride went along. felt much better after. thanks for asking and caring.
i have to say, coming to work the last couple of days has been really hard. the weather has been gorgeous and the breeze running through my apartment has made it very comfortable and joyous. i often think of how you said you like the summer and enjoy being outside. i imagine this weather must be great for you too.
Om?
I am a little bit confused and I am catching up on the last few days posts. Was there a post between OM, THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED CONVERSATION and EMPTINESS AND THE PERFECT COGNITION: CONTINUATION ON EMPTINESS that you are referencing in this paragraph?
“You say that emotions represent the glue of thought, that is, that emotions cohere thought products in a way that makes them appear solid (you use the term “reification”) --independent and permanent-- which creates and sustains thought patterns in the form of beliefs. Obviously, beliefs shape relationships and inversely, relationships shape the thoughts of individuals, particularly the developing child. Ruptures in the parent/child dyad are what create suffering from a relational perspective. But, as I said, you proffer an added dimension from which to help in understanding the relationship. You also focus on the self as an open system, the relationship of which being the self’s mirror as it seeks psychological health and spiritual realization (this you refer to as `I AM’ in reference to your teacher, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj).”
Don’t get me wrong, I am enjoying your dialect approach to this topic, especially since I am not ready to jump in, but I think I’ve missed a post between these two.
MEGAN, IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
Thanks for asking. I wrote a total of 9 posts, 8 of which are strictly part of James' thread on Buddhism; the other, THE FINER FEATURES OF EMPATHY, I strongly recommend, too, and discusses an issue James has been particularly interested in. here's the list chronologically:
THE BENIGN THICH NHAT HANH ON EMPTINESS
OM AND THE WISDOM OF EMPTY DOODY
OM, THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED CONVERSATION
NICO SEES THE FOREST IN THE NYTIMES (My version of emptiness)
NAGARJUJAMES
RESPONSE TO OM ON COGNITION AND EMPTINESS
EMPTINESS AND THE PERFECT COGNITION: CONTINUATION ON EMPTINESS
JAMES IS THREADING HIS SHOO-TRAS
THE FINER FEATURES OF EMPATHY
Empty is Full
Traditionally I have been taught to look at empty as something that is void, empty of contents or missing substance. For example in the concrete: an empty glass; or the abstract: an empty promise.
It seems to be a strange word to use to mean inter-being. And the way in which Thay, James and Om explain emptiness to mean : recognizing the interconnection/inter-being of all phenomena; something that exists or co-exists as a result of an accumulation of other phenomena that is not themselves independent and are thus connected to all other phenomena. This is something that is full- full of unlimited connections and richness and in being full would not mean what empty has ever meant to me. (Void, without substance.)
When I look at this different perspective and definition of empty, “empty of a separate existence”, then emptiness makes sense. It just might take a little while to recall this definition of empty when reading these passages as habitually, at least in my mind, I think of the definition/version of empty as I have always understood it and lose the intent of the passage.
MEGAN
beautifully said. Thank you. This includes the idea of a nondual, or literally, not two, or separate existence. It always beffled me how so many people, including scholars and philosophers (Nietzsche, for example) interpreted emptiness as nihilism, that is, denying existence.
oh hey!
thank you, Megan! this is quite beautiful. and you totally got it. and i totally get the trouble with the word emptiness. it's funny because a different (though less-used) translation of the same word is "voidness," which is even more dangerous!
Om & James: dualistic and non-dual
Om, First of all, thank you for listing out your posts in order. There is some very rich content in here and I'd like to read it a few more times and discuss more as we go. I had missed a post, the NICO SEES THE FOREST IN THE NYTIMES the first time around. Once I went back and read it your EMPTINESS AND THE PERFECT COGNITION: CONTINUATION ON EMPTINESS post made a lot more sense.
James, Thanks for circling back to help us identify what is keeping us from fully grasping these ideas. I think I need to better understand dualist before I can try to understand non-dual.
Are you and Om saying that dualist means that one believes that they are a separate and independent being from the phenomena of the world around them and that nondual is recognizing your relationship to the phenomena and thus your inherent emptiness and inter-being with all phenomena?
Or is dualist just a way that most understand the world and you cannot fully understand non-dual relationship until you have a deeper understanding of your own self?
i challenge you to a dual
Om is going to have to help me out here, but one helpful distinction i'll make is between nondualism and monism. hopefully this won't confuse matters more.
Om will have to corroborate this, but i believe you've got the right idea about dualism, with regard to the belief in separate existence: self and other are separate and distinct. we are sort of immersed at all times in dualistic thinking. we see things in terms of mind/body, body/spirit, self/world, good/evil, up/down... dual means two; and i believe a helpful word to use for this discussion is 'entity.' an entity is something with separate/independent/distinct existence.
(so: question for Om-- assuming i've got this mapped out decently (and please offer another map even if i have) Advaita Vedanta is nondualist, or monist? Brahman is ONE, after all. i've always struggled between whether Advaita is akin to Spinoza, or if it is, in fact (as its name implies), nondualist.)
and to Megan: definitely wait for Om to post before responding. i think my map might just make things more confusing, but hopefully a few terms herein will help move the discussion forward. i personally am in no rush to get beyond the terms dualism/nondualism. i think they're plenty exciting !
TO DUAL OR NONDUAL
James and Megan, great discussion. From my reading, monist and nondual perspectives are often interchangeable (e.g., Advaita will be referred to as both nondual and monist), but I think there is an ostensibly subtle but significant difference, and James pointed it out. The monist will express nondualism all the way up to the top until, for some psychological (rather than logical) reason, a divine entity (e.g., God, Brahman) is presented that seems to be running the show. Western philosophers more easily fall into this trap because of the political power Christianity and, specifically, the Catholic Church has had over worldviews (though I strongly suspect that these philosophers were either overtly or covertly coerced-- fear is the most powerful manipulator).
It’s as if, if we don’t attribute a divine order in the form of a Supreme Power, everything will fall apart and life will be rendered utterly meaningless. Who is at the helm? Life is utterly absurd without supreme purpose and design. These thoughts seem to be what continues to drive this monist view. On the other hand, if by monist we mean nondual all the way up to the top (which is illusory anyway, since there is no top or bottom outside of conceptualization), then monist and nondual remain synonymous. I recall in the three-day teacher with the Dalai Lama, the philosopher, Thubten Jinpa, the Dalai Lama’s translator used the term “fused” instead of “One” the describe the ultimate nature of reality. This is beautiful because fusion never breaks the infinite links and privileges one aspect of consciousness over another. Yes, there is a hierarchy in terms of levels of awareness but not in terms of conditions and causes. There is not one thing that causes everything else. This I think is the bottom line for Buddhism and nondual thought.
MORNINGS WITH OM: SEEKING MYSELF IN THE NONDUAL
I’ve awakened to my voice: I’m grateful to be alive so that I can cultivate compassion for all beings without exception. And now it’s 7AM; it’s been around an hour since I’ve texted my friend with the message, “Please sit with me.” We sit together every morning and then I receive a text saying, for example, Page 147 please. That was this morning’s text, which I will leave on her voice message. What she means is page 147 of ‘I AM That,’ by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, whose Niasarga (natural) Yoga is commensurate with the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta. Its injunction is simple: penetrate the mind and recognize not this or that, here or there, then or now, but just “timeless being,” what Buddhism calls Pure Awareness, the highest cognizance from which to truly understand the ultimate nature of reality, which is empty of inherent existence.
I chose this particular page because you can see the play between nondual and monistic perspectives, both within the advaitic mind. however, in its deepest transmission, monist or nondual are irrelevant. In fact, change the words around and I could be reading Nagarjuna.
From the chapter `Mind is Restlessness Itself,’ the advaitic essence comes through as the questioner asks: In the ultimate state there can be no happiness?
Maharaj responds: Nor sorrow. Only freedom. Happiness depends on something or other and can be lost; freedom from everything depends on nothing and cannot be lost. Freedom from sorrow has no cause and, therefore, cannot be destroyed. Realize that freedom.
Q: Am I not born to suffer as a result of my path? Is freedom possible at all? Was I born of my own will? Am I not just a creature?
M: What is birth and death but the beginning and ending of a stream of events in consciousness? Because of the idea of separation and limitation they are painful. Momentary relief from pain we call pleasure – and we build castles in the air hoping for endless pleasure which we call happiness. It is all misunderstanding and misuse. Wake up, go beyond, live really.
Q: My knowledge is limited, my power negligible.
M: Being the source of both, the self is beyond both knowledge and power. The observable is in the mind. The nature of the self is pure awareness, pure witnessing, unaffected by the presence or absence of knowledge or liking.
Have your being outside this body of birth and death and all your problems will be solved. They exist because you believe yourself to be born to die. Undeceive yourself and be free. You are not a person.
---------------------------------------------
This last sentence is most important: “You are not a person.” What Nisargadatta means is that you are only a person in name; person is the mental construct you designate for the psychophysical aggregates, one of the 12 limbs that represent an interconnected complex of the human being. Importantly, though elaborated separately, the 12 limbs of the human complex cannot be properly understood if viewed as separate entities, for they represent features of a complete field. And so, the person is the fourth limb, which is called, name and form. Name identifies consciousness and its various aspects while form identifies matter and its various aspects. The aggregates of perception, feelings, karmic formations and consciousness are included under “name.”
When viewed in this way, the ultimate nature of reality is revealed: that everything in the universe is interconnected through the web (“fusion”) of cause and effect so that the whole and the parts are mutually interdependent. The character and condition of entities at any given time are intimately connected with the character and condition of all other entities that ONLY superficially may appear to be unconnected or unrelated.
EMPTINESS, INTERDEPENDENCE AND THE 12 LIMBS OF DEPENDENT ORIGINA
EMPTINESS, INTERDEPENDENCE AND THE 12 LIMBS OF DEPENDENT ORIGINATION
If you think about it, it is interdependence that allows reality to appear. This is true because, if things existed independently, nothing could act on anything else, or be acted on itself. For the world to appear, interdependence is necessary. Everything is dependent on everything else.
This co-emergence or co-arising is translated as dependent origination. Perhaps a bit bulky at first, it seems to me perfect for what actually occurs. “This arises because that is; this, having been produced, produces that.” The word depend is most important here; it does not refer to a causal chain in the way energy causes one ball to move when hit by another. It would be wrong to say that this caused that when we speak of dependent origination. What is more accurate is: the existence of this is a prerequisite for the existence of that. Instead of cause, I would say dependent on. Feeling, for example, arises in dependence on contact and contact arises in dependence on a sense field; the sense field arises in dependence on name and form (the human subject), etc.
“A human being's existence in any given moment is dependent on the condition of everything else in the world (and indeed the universe) at that moment but, conversely, the condition of everything in the world in that moment depend in an equally significant way on the character and condition of that human being.”
Matthieu Ricard says, “Any given thing in our world can appear only because it’s connected, conditioned and in turn conditioning, co-present and cooperating in constant transformation [impermanence]. Their way of “being” is simply in relation to one another, never in and of themselves. We tend to cling to the notion that “things” must precede relationships. This is not the case here. The characteristics of phenomena are defined only through relationships.” P. 63 `Quantum…’ (italics mine)
I’d like to state again how this cosmology (The study of the universe as a whole, of the contents, structure, and evolution of the universe from the beginning of time to the future.) is particularly important to me. From this cosmology, we come to the phenomenology and psychology of human existence and enlightenment. Enlightenment can be defined as the consummate inner wisdom united with infinite compassion, otherwise known as Buddhahood. It is a perfect understanding of the nature of mind and phenomena. According to David Ross Komito, “Nagarjuna’s formulation of the enlightenment experience is a progressive unfoldment of a single truth about existence, that is, causality and all its implications:”
When this is present, that comes to be; from the
Arising of this, that arises. When this is absent, that
Does not come to be, on the cessation of this, that
Ceases.
II
From Komiko’s Nagarjuna’s Seventy Stanzas.’ According to Nagarjuna, once we understand this basic tenet, we then come to the “twelve limbs of dependent origination.” The twelve limb formulation is compelling in that it templates exquisitely with my understanding of psychoanalytic phenomenology. The twelve limbs are as follows:
1. Ignorance
2. Karmic formations
3. Consciousness
4. Name and form
5. Six sense fields
6. Contact
7. Feelings
8. Craving
9. Grasping
10. Becoming
11. Birth
12. Death, grief, suffering
`These twelve limbs represent an interconnected complex of the human being, and so we might call it the “human complex.” Importantly, though elaborated separately, they cannot be properly understood if viewed as separate entities, for they represent features of a complete field. Further, it might be considered a closed circle in that every limb depends upon the previous eleven, so ignorance depends on death just as death depends on ignorance! The twelve limbs are often described as a wheel with the limbs comprising the rim and the three poisons-- delusion (ignorance), attraction (desire), revulsion (hatred)—forming the hub of the wheel. As we know, this is samsara. Nirvana is the cessation of the wheel turning. Nirvana literally means to blow out and suggests dismantling the wheel.
Another way to formulate the twelve limbs is that it represents a dynamic description of the relations between motivation, habits, actions and consequences (Importantly here, motivation is the least developed part of the system outside the explanation of its dependence on the global forces of ignorance, desire, and hatred. Here psychoanalysis provides a critical link for understanding the motivational dynamics involved in human suffering, particularly in relation to the individual self and relationship).
Ignorance. Ignorance is the unknowing or erroneous belief in the ultimate nature or ontological status of phenomena. Ignorance depends on the experiences of a multiplicity of lives and thus depends on birth and death. In fact, it is the pleasures and sufferings which leave the most profound traces of karmic formations on consciousness.
Karmic formations. Karmic formations are the traces left by previous actions (karma) and give form to consciousness. These formations arise in dependence on the first limb, ignorance. Because of previous experience people interpret things and react to them in the contexts of desires and aversions. This distorted perception and conception (interpretation) is habitual, thus the “consciousness which arises in dependence on karmic formations is fundamentally distorted by ignorance.
Consciousness. Consciousness depends on the second limb, karmic formations, or dispositions. Consciousness is here considered in the abstract without the molding effect of karmic formations. There are basically three ontological levels of consciousness: Gross consciousness is associated with the activity of the brain; subtle consciousness, what the twelve limbs refers to as the third limb, is the capacity (awareness which is clear and knowing) to know itself, investigate its own nature, and exert free will; extremely subtle consciousness (Pure Awareness) is “fundamental luminosity of mind.”
From an epistemological perspective the psychophysical organism (name and form), the embodied self of consciousness who cognizes, has five types of material sense cognition and one type of nonmaterial mental sense cognition (mental consciousness); these are the skandhas of the fourth limb. Though we can say there are six types of consciousness, there is really only one fundamental consciousness (the Pure Awareness of Rigpa). But, as consciousness always arises and ceases moment by moment in conjunction with a sense organ, and is molded by habits and secondary mental factors (consciousness itself being the first), such as, attention, it is usually referred to as a certain type of “consciousness.”
Name and form. This represents the psychophysical entity called person. Name identifies consciousness and its various aspects while form identifies matter and its various aspects. The aggregates (skandhas) of perception, feelings, karmic formations and consciousness are included under “name.” Actual perception occurs when there is contact (sixth limb) between a sense organ, an object in its field and consciousness (third limb).
Name and form originate in dependence on the third limb, consciousness. From one perspective no body (form) could exist without consciousness. Further, consciousness is never devoid of the influences of previous experience. These experiences leaves traces in memory which mold consciousness.
Six sense fields. These are the gateways in which consciousness operates, and are the fields eye, nose, taste, touch and mind.
Mind is considered an organ whose objects are concepts, mental images and other sense consciousnesses (e.g., the concept “me”).
Contact. This is the coming together of an object of perception, a sense organ, and consciousness (e.g., a rose, an eye and visual consciousness).
Feelings. According to Nagarjuna, there are six classes of feelings, in accordance with the sense organ upon which the feeling depends. Depend here refers to a prerequisite, for example, the existence of matter is a prerequisite for the existence of a sense organ, which is a prerequisite for a visual field. Thus, the occurrence of contact between an eye, an object and visual consciousness is a prerequisite for the occurrence of a feeling of pleasure in regards to a pleasing sight.
Importantly, we’re not speaking of causality in the Western sense (though it is included) where forces effect things in some mechanistic way. This causality is dependent origination, which refers to a co-arising, an inseparable interconnection of phenomena the co-dependence of which results in appearance.
The phenomenon of feeling arises in dependence on the phenomenon of contact. That the phenomenon of contact arises in the dependence on the phenomenon of a sense field, and that the phenomenon of a sense field depends on the phenomenon of name and form, the psychophysical being.
Craving. Craving arises in dependence on contact and grasping arises in dependence on craving. We crave pleasant sense experiences and grasp after their continuation, while we crave the cessation of pain and grasp after its cessation. This cycle of grasping after the transitory is the nature of our existence; it is the limb of becoming.
Becoming. Becoming depends on craving for sense objects and the pleasures or pains associated with them, especially the grasping after objects and feelings associated with the notion of “I.” I is the concept which is the object of the sense organ known as “mind.”
Birth. Here is perhaps the most radical thought of Buddhism, that is, the continuum of life in a beginningless series, which depends on our firmly grasping after the continued existence of “I” with its associated sense experiences so that upon cessation of one particular life we obtain another. Thus birth occurs in dependence upon becoming, and in dependence on birth is death.
Death, grief, suffering.’
EMPTINESS AND THINKING THERAPEUTICALLY
Why does the Buddhist thinker (even if she is not a Buddhist) often speak of “examining the nature of” things? Why does rational analysis have such an important function in cultivating compassion, a strong emotional affect ostensibly unrelated to reason or analysis? The answer is simply: understanding. Understanding plays such a critical role in developing a compassionate, ethical mind because the Buddhist thinker knows the complexity of human nature and how distortion or misunderstanding easily leads to anger and violence. For this reason, the approach to understanding a specific area of concern is to classify and subdivide (sublate) phenomena into different classes and categories. The primary objective is to increase self-awareness and compassion vis-à-vis cultivating wisdom. Wisdom can be defined as understanding the ultimate nature of reality, which is empty of independent permanent existence.
The process is much like a therapeutic analytic process. You begin by defining terms, so as to understand what is meant by the term. Because relationship is both the ground and vehicle for healing, shared meaning is most important. Next, specific questions are posed to enhance or extend the classification to determine the implications of what is being defined across various relational or self experiences. And then, we need to know the causes and conditions that give rise to what it is we are defining. And what are the responses and what effects do these experiences have on others? The point is that we delve into the nature of this or that in order to truly understand it.
Speaking of real names
One more silly question. Is Thich Nhat Hanh the same person as Thay? I think so since it looks like you are all using them interchangeably, but I just want to be sure.
names
That's not so silly! Yeah, Thay is sort of a loving title/nickname Thich Nhat Hanh's students use for him; and though I have never met him or gone on a retreat with him, I still consider him a teacher and feel very warmly about him.
oh yeah!
Thanks for the clarification. It is great that his students feel so warmly to give him a loving title/nickname; that speaks volumes of his effect on them.
It's exciting to understand this meaning of emptiness and now I am almost close to understanding nondual. Your map makes a lot of sense to me, I'll refrain from further comments till we hear Om's half of the dual.
fraction of time
You were only there for a fraction of time, in that fraction of time a million clouds passed over your heart and together we dreamt of a future, a future filled of unlimited possibilities.
You were only there for a fraction of time, in that fraction of time you taught me how to dissolve my past and look only to our future.
You were only there for a fraction of a time, from the bottom of this sea, a sea of tears and grief and love and pain. I can hear your cry. I can see your eyes, the cool grey of the sky and the warm blue of these waters. I can feel your breath and feel your heart beating as one with mine, if only for a fraction of time.
thanks om
Thanks for posting more Om, I'm looking forward to reading on the train tomorrow morning. I can't now, I am sleepy as I only just came home from work. I am regretting telling everyone to slow down now. Where did you all go? Come back my friends, there is nothing better than coming home from work to your wonderful words.
Caterina's Maha year
Rounding out our June birthday line up, today is Caterina's turn!
Being a person in love with numbers and symbols, I'm sure she's diggin the symmetry and roundness of this year's 33 (I hope you don't mind me giving away your age). This is also supposedly the age that Jesus was when he was resurrected and also when the Buddha became enlightened.
No pressure for such significant transformation, especially since, as we have noted here, it's not about attainment and we are all already enlightened. you are already in a constant state of evolution and rebirth. May this year bring you more of the same, and much peace, love and happiness.
I love you.
Caterina
May your day be filled with love. May this coming year and all coming years be filled with wonder. I am sending you the passion flower bud on my vine, the sweet falls of my tiny waterfall into the pond, and the first sighting on the frog on this beautiful day in DC. Over the weekend in West VA I saw a box turtle sitting on the side of the road, and a fresh, sweet, bunny hopping outside my window. I send the wonder of them to the wonder of you. Lots of love.
blessings abound
to all!
Thank you for these sweet birthday blessings!
Bunny Rabbit!!
I love rabbits.
And spiders. And sages.
And numbers.
Thank you. :)
Caterina
ha-pppy birthdayy! for you and everyone, and in the spirit of Nisargadatta and what camila shared with you and everyone, here is a parable spoken by Rajneesh in The Pathless Path:
----
I have come across a very beautiful parable. The parable is by Ken Reed. Listen to it very attentively and meditate over it.
Once there lived a very wise and venerable sage. From one end of the land to the other, learned men began to hear of the old sage and soon many sought the visage of his wisdom. But silent remained the sage to all who came with questions. Instead, with his bamboo staff he drew upon the ground these words:
Or sometimes he would write:
Or sometimes:
But those who visited seemed not satisfied with these answers. They were too cryptic and there was no guidance given -- no map delivered. And they could not understand why the sage refused to answer them directly. And why? Surely he knew the answers, but why did he choose to scratch in the sand such babblings? The other sages gave advice and prescribed paths, and talked of austerities to be observed, why not this one? The sermon he gave could not be heard by the ear, or for that matter seen by the eye.
He was a real mystic. He was not an ascetic, he had no exercise to give to you, but only understanding -- a silent understanding, a transmission beyond scriptures.
Yet it is written that during the feast of the Christ a young man appeared. No staff bore he, nor scrolls of wisdom, nor were there questions at his tongue. Only, in his eyes there was purpose and great passion. Straight on to the sage strode he. Neither sitting, stopping, nor prostrating himself as others had done, he gazed upon that ancient and tranquil face without word. And soon, to the amazement of the others he took the staff from the hand of the sage and drew upon the dusty earth these words:
Patiently the sage took back his staff and scratched beneath the young man's ply:
To which the young pilgrim countered:
The silent sage contemplated the face of the young pilgrim for some time and then he drew upon the ground these words:
A roar of laughter went up from those who had gathered, and the sage erased what he had written and wrote again:
Eager eyes watched the staff change hands:
Observing the pilgrim closely, the sage took the staff, rose to his feet, extended his right foot, tapped it three times, then became as still as the breaths of those who watched. Whereupon the young visitor broke his silence and asked 'Why did you do that?'
The sage quickly scratched:
Back and forth the staff continued until the frustrated pilgrim cried back with the point of the staff:
The sage quickly scratched again:
And, with that, the old sage swiftly raised his staff and thrust it down upon the head of the seeker, sending him into a deeply blissful trance. Days passed. And in those days the young pilgrim truly began to savour the sweetness of the great sage, as he sat surrendered before him. Not once did he question in the presence, and a fathomless love grew between them. But on the third day, the sage broke his long years of silence. 'So you have come at last!' the hoarse voice came.
The young man replied not, but looked deeply into the sage's eyes for some time, then taking once again the staff from the old bony hands, wrote:
Nothing else is there to be done. You have forgotten who you are. The only thing that has to be done is that you have to remember who you are. Forgetfulness is the world, remembrance is God. To forget is to be lost. To remember is to be back home.
James
The parable is stunning. Thank your for sharing it. I am smiling and smiling.
It is hard for me to catch up here after being away for only a few days. But I read everything and thank you and everyone for what you share. This space holds reminders for me, guides me, and helps me greet the day with compassion. Had anyone told me when I was younger that I would greet my life as I am now, I would not have believed them, although I dreamt that maybe - maybe it was possible. Always, nudging me in my saddest times and the times when I was so seriously risked my life playing my version of Russian Roulette, was a desire to understand and connect to something greater than myself where I would also strenghten the greatness that there is ( in all of us) within. Such a long, winding road. But today, breathing in this clear, dry air, sensing my friends and family all around - there is nothing more that I want except this moment.
I missed Strider this past weekend in West Virginia. It was a place that he loved and where I had the greatest attention for him. We were always in the field or on a trail, walking or splashing in the creek. His coat would shine in the light and he was always ready for the next walk. I didn't take his ashes this time. I am just not ready. Letting go, is a process for me. But even that, I cherish.
FOR CATERINA, HAPPY BIRTHDAY
SPIDER LIES
Sometimes I see the world through a spider's eyes,
my inner view clouded by the dark side
of things, the enemies and prey waiting
beneath the leaves in fall, or rocks in spring.
Sometimes I lie the way a spider lies,
still but uncomfortable on the inside
of my being, the clouds above me waiting
to flood the beds of plants where everything
I have ever spun is destroyed, or dies.
But I still have time, for while the outside
is gray I will climb the sun's last ray singing
and dance in my spinneret of life.
arachnaphobia
I love this poem, Om, despite the fact that I have a morbid fear of spiders. I can still appreciate their focused, solitary contemplation and ability to get what they want with such conviction and exactitude, not to mention the incredible seductive beauty of the webs they weave.
They have become a measure of my anxiety, for I am more susceptible to the paralyzing fear they evoke in me when I am feeling insecure or afraid. When I feel more grounded, I'm not as affected.
CAMILA, YOU ARE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL RACK
and no more a shadow of your former shelf. Thank you for reading and responding to my poem. The word "lie" is such a twicky fella with its double meaning. And I ask, how does a spider lie? Does she lay? Wait? Repose? Recline? Prostrate? Remain? Sprawl? Or does she prevaricate? Fib? Tergiversate? Misrepresent? Falsify? I just don't know. Sometimes my inner view is clouded by all those racks.
Om, I'll give you a rack
When I was a little girl, probably around 9, my friend Tracy (who I saw this weekend) convinced me to watch "Attack of the Killer Tarantulas" with her one Sunday afternoon when nothing else was on. Reluctantly, despite my fears, I watched it with her (in between hiding under the blanket and running out of the room), and therein began my phobia. I made my father check every corner of my bed before I went to sleep to make sure there weren't any tarantulas lurking and I started sleeping in my sleeping bag to make sure they couldn't get under the covers. It didn't matter that my father told me that tarantulas don't live in this region, I had seen one at the pet store and was convinced it could have escaped and made its way to my house a few miles away.
This makes me realize that fear is not rational. Was this a way for me to get my dad to spend a few extra minutes tucking me in? Was I afraid of something else going on, in my family? or in my own development and separation from my family?
Now I can see other fears that I have as an adult (of intimacy, abandonment, exposure) and understand that they are all created by my mind, make-believe tarantulas (who don't weave webs, but attack from their holes in the ground) and are old enemies that I don't feel like fighting anymore. Instead, if I can fill my heart with love and compassion, those spiders, like Charlotte, can become my friends and my guides.
I ESPIED HER, CAMILA THAT GROWING HEART
Camila, my Thay girl, I love how your stories are always empty. Empty of what? Empty of isolated events and feelings. You never fail to make those connections, even with itsy-bitsy spiders and absent fathers. My childhood experience was very little but a constant state of anxiety and fear. I would hide in closets and wear gloves in the summertime, pee in my bed until I was 11 or 12, and have nightmares it seemed daily. Thousands of eyes staring at me. What happened to that anxiety and fear?
When children are fearful of insects, it usually indicates an intense anxiety around loss and separation. It’s as if the insects are infiltrating us and crawling all over our nerve centers. These are the beginning projections of intense affects, including anger towards our parents. And we feel helpless to our emotions in the same way we feel powerless in the world. There is also a lurking and looming depression following long term anxiety, which culminates in adolescence, what feels like the psychotic stage of development.
Our anxieties notwithstanding, insects are beautiful creatures with exquisitely complex structures and behaviors. Here’s a poem I wrote about cicadas, those insects buckling their timbals to click the summer nights away. Cicadas have a 17 year life cycle. They spend most of their lives underground as nymphs, sucking on the juice of roots, until they emerge and ascend the tree bark.
Cicada Song
Seventeen years
I have waited
I am birth
and rebirth
begetting
myself
three times
as I drop from
my mother
into the heart
of ground
into the thick
teat
of plant root
to re-emerge
to the bark
to the leaf
of tree
to the split of skin
burgeoning
out of myself
a nymph
a soul
and tymbals
ripening
like fruit
resonating
in drone
and hum
until leaves
redden
then fall
Fears
I used to have obsessive thoughts. They tormented me. It felt like the an endless stream - the stock market prices going round and round on Wall street, one after another, only what I saw, what I heard was shouting about sad and dangerous things.. I saw people getting killed. I saw people I loved getting run over by a car. Throughout the day my mind would be overwhelmed by the scariest thoughts. Even in my happiest moments, in play, at camp, the thoughts would appear and completely drag me into a different state of being.
That tape recording ceased. Slowly, over the years with hard work, I got control over my mind and learned how to turn the recording off. I am not plagued by these thoughts and subsequent feelings. But I have noticed more and more in recent weeks as I am more and more settled in a calm space, how they try to slip in the back door. I am aware that when I hear the news - which I listen to very rarely these days - and I hear a story about a fire or murder, my mind instantly begins to place someone I love in the story. I catch myself and say, " wrong thought," and let it go. What is new is the awareness how the things going on around me can insinuate themselves in my mind very quickly if I do not stay centered. I
That kind of thinking was passed down by my mother and probably by hers. Fear is projected onto the future. I can not take a vacation without hearing her words when I return, " Thank God, you are home," as if I had been sent off to war.
AS IF I HAD BEEN SENT OFF TO WAR
This is great, Em. My father was plagued with these fears as a result of the war. As I began, through my own analysis, to see him more and more as a human being (and even a hero, as I read his war record) with severe post trauma, I would imagine myself in his experience. Of course, he dies when I was 12, so my imagination would have to do.
memorial at pinelawn cemetery
you have remained hidden to the world
passing through a shadow
you are now but a stone among many.
voiceless, you climb the stairs
late at night, stumble
only the creaks reveal your name.
you were the one who came home from war
carrying his own box.
the armies did you in.
how we forget
your young blue medic eyes
pierced by the strewn and mutilated bodies.
who could have prepared you?
you couldn't stop the rush of fire
bullets swarming inside your head
an occasional blast--
a young wife and kids the enemy
infiltrating your lines.
i have tried to understand
your battles
the feverish rise of wind
the blaze spreading
the frailty of your mind
hope burned out of your blue eyes.
tonight the moon pierces the sky
high above the field
where your bones lie
your ghost but snow.
been Silent
I have been very silent of late. Every so often I seem to bend inward and have no words to share. I am not sure what it is, why now, and not tomorrow. I think I am just getting accustomed to a consistently happier mood that seemes to be with me as I move through my life. I am spending time getting to know myself anew. My difficult clients have become a source of strength, a way for me to stay in touch with kindness and look at them with caring eyes - seeing what it is that pushes them to their worries, frustrattions and even bad behavior. I let them know by how I treat them that I don't expect anything less. It is amazing how consistent kindness gradually lets them loosen their own anger. I am working on my novel - a lovely, but very slow process of discovery. I have a character who has set out on a journey to find a way back to herself.. The more I practice, the more I read, the deeper her journey moves. I am also thinking about the workshop/retreat I am going to in July. It will be intense, a look at death and dying, and in some ways I need to focus now in order to be able to drop down without a fight while I am there. It is a subject matter that touches at my core feelings, fears, and anxieties.
it's hot and humid again. Watermelon days. Here, in the south, we slow to a crawl, sit on the front porches and talk weather. The Supreme Court voted down DC's ban on guns.... so I may just go out and buy me a couple, just in case Arnold misbehaves. Only kidding. I want to shoot rats and roaches.
Hey, Em, good to see you
Hey, Em, good to see you back on the block with your shotgun. I missed you and your cast of characters. I thought you had taken the end of the blog seriously. Lucky for me, I was wrong.
thanks Nico
Yup - I am here. Mr. Plumbean is here, although asleep. He's been outside in his cage, hanging with the big guys. I take my spray bottle and let him think he's in the rain forest. I have been reading all your post and your questions.
How's your mood? How's your heart?
Em, I have been in a stable
Em, I have been in a stable mood, trying to stay present in my relationships. It is hard to constant express what I am feeling, and sometimes I don't express and fall away into a trap. But I am much better at getting out of them.
Haven't been able to write much of my stories lately, so I think it great you are making progress with your's. All the same, good to see you.
THE SOUND OF SILENT EMILY
I always love to hear your voice, Emily. The blog is feels so empty when you're gone. But, empty of what? as Thay would say. I guess I would say, empty of non-Emily elements. Of a separate existence. So, I guess, when when you're gone you're not really gone, you're just absent. And you seem to be playing in a very beautiful vibe, the sound of silence. And a consistently happier mood and in touch with kindness. There it is. That makes me very happy.
And I'm happy to still see Arnold here, too. Ihaven't gotten to your video, Arnold, but I soon will. Thank you.
Following is from Thay's talk on emptiness in his own unique simple but profound language.
Emptiness is not a philosophy, a description of reality. Emptiness is a practice. Emptiness does not mean non-being, non-existence. There’s a big difference between non-existence and emptiness. Suppose we look at the glass. It is empty. The glass is empty, but the glass is not non-existent, right? In order to be empty, you have to be there. That is one thing you can learn--emptiness is not non-existence. The second thing is that when we say the glass is empty, you have to ask, “Empty of what?” It’s not empty of air. It is empty of tea, but it is full of air. So the intelligent question to ask is, “Empty of what?” The first answer may be: empty of a separate existence, empty of a separate self.
This is the simplest description in the Buddhist scriptures about emptiness, about interbeing: this is, because that is. As practitioners, we don’t just speak of emptiness as a teaching philosophy. We have to transform emptiness into a complete practice.
no kidding (re Emily)
it will be the OK Corral at our house... for those rats and roaches
have a good weekend
I am so very grateful to come home every day to these precious words. Thank you for sharing how you are doing, I’ve been a bit busy with a product launch and I am heading off to some solitary time with just the ocean and me. But I’ll be back in a few days.
I am getting stronger and finding myself more everyday. I really feel very grounded and full of energy even when I am worn out it is a different feeling than before. I am learning to be patient and let myself truly feel and experience all of my feelings of anger, worry, love and grief. And I am having a lot of fun exploring some new life choices. I feel confident and fulfilled and scared to death all at the same time.
I celebrated my first wedding anniversary this week and my husband said to me, “We have really grown so much as individuals and together this year.” and the great thing about that is that he is right it has really been an awesome adventure together and learning compassion and so much awareness has let me give so much more to him than I could have before and allowed me to step back and let him wiggle himself out of his own thoughts and patterns. I am sure it only gets more interesting as time goes on, but at least I’ll have his never ending sense of humor to keep me young.
Enjoy your weekend friends.
Megan
your solitary time with the ocean sounds quite beautiful. i like spending time with the ocean, breathing in that air... i find this post so exciting, and yet so calming at the same time. i guess the process can be like that, huh? it gets more and more exciting, and just gets more and more difficult, and yet with confidence there is a calmness, too, and a readiness to take on those greater challenges. i just re-read your post "fraction of time" and would love to some time go into that with you. as i wrote in my previous post, i'll be leaving the country on tuesday, but perhaps we can begin to move into it anyway, even if slowly. in that post, too, i can feel some excitement, some calm, and there are also other things there, though i'm not quite sure what they are. there's such warmth, and there is also a tension-- and that phrase, "fraction of time"...
thanks as always for sharing. i hope your weekend is as lovely as it seems it will be.
On a more serious note
While James is off in Nepal and Megan is at the sea and everyone is feeling calm and growing, I think that Arnold should open a gun shop. This a rare opportunity for a new business venture in the city and who else, but Arnold, should jump in and get started. It doesn't matter that he doesn't know a thing about guns - all he needs to do is ask people what they are going to shoot, what size, and just pick according to size. Maybe even sell door to door. All of this passed through my mind as I sat calmly on my cushion. We can call the business Arnold and Son.
And knives too? The big
And knives too? The big ones, like Rambo used.
James, safe travels
Hey James, My solitary time with the ocean was very nice. Although I still felt a tang of tension and had only just began to dissolve it, as I had to get back into the city. I feel like a child lately. I can just sit in the sand and draw circles and flowers and sailboats and watch the not yet touched packed smooth sand transform from my hand, stick, stone or shell. I get lost in the lines making more and more of a pattern until the there is no more room for lines between the hills and canals of sand. I then rough up all the sand until it is one nice pile of cookie dough texture and re-smooth it out again. I found myself doing this a lot and then lying down and falling straight asleep. I woke twice to the tide slowly creeping in just a few inches from my feet. At one point the fog had rolled in and the cool ocean mist was playing with the hot humid fog in such a mysterious way. I decided to take a walk since I was getting hot and as I headed towards the shore I was drawn into a small pool of water that was not so surprisingly ice cold. The feeling of freezing feet and hot torso was a so close to how I was feeling as the coldness of the water made its way up my body to cool the rest of me, I thought this is how my mind and soul is feeling. One trying to find peace and dissolve the other putting up a good fight and reminding me of all the worries. I walked along the beach and was caught up romanticizing over how surreal it felt to be deep enough within the fog to feel alone and secluded and sheltered from the view of the other beachcombers. I stretched out and lifted my arms in the air and just stood there for a few moments. I twirled around and around and bent down and drew fresh circles around myself on the ground. I sat again and just lost myself in drawing in the sand. When a few people walked by I didn’t look up feeling a little ashamed that I looked like a child or crazy person, but mostly not caring what anyone thought just lost in the stick moving the sand in my hand.
You are right even with the calmness and confidence it gets harder and harder. I am in this irresponsible, sort and feel by myself mode, yet I really need to hear that it is all going to be okay sometimes.
In the morning one of the woman on the dock came to the boat and asked me to blow dry her hair. She has rheumatoid arthritis and cannot lift her arms. At first I was worried that I am not all that good at hair and she would be disappointed in how it looked but then I realized she just wants to feel clean and good. So I went over and massaged her head like they do in the salon and took a long time to dry a very little bit of hair. The look of peace and comfort on her face as I dried her hair made me feel so good about taking the time to do her the favor and grateful that as a child I had a entire dock of extended family that have each taught me so much and brought such a unique set of experiences and outlooks to my life.
"fraction of time"...
I know you are leaving tomorrow so I am afraid to lay too much out there and start too much of a conversation on this one. I’ve written it a few times but can’t figure out how to dance around the subject without sharing my direct experience. I have been dealing with a great loss and some surprisingly strong grief surrounding a miscarriage I had in late May. Maybe it is because I am learning a new way to experience my feelings and so for the first time I am actually fully grieving or just that I had so much hope and dreams and it hurt to watch them wash away. Either way I have been pretty draught over it. I went to see a movie and where one of the characters had a baby I found myself crying in the theatre. After the movie I didn’t really want to sit still or go home so I just walked. I was thinking if I can only articulate how this little amount of time that I had this experience was only a fraction of my life and yet the impact of that small amount of time will change the way I look at everything forever. In a few small weeks I dreamt of so many possibilities and in moments it all just vanished. I am still surprised of the power of processing through writing when I came home from my walk I just sat down and starting typing. I sent my writing to Om to ask him to help me format it in proper poem format and he said, that he wouldn’t touch it. And I love what he has said about fraction of time (Om, I hope you don’t mind me sharing this here)
“I wouldn't touch it. This "fraction of a time" brings the poem to a very high spiritual space, because time itself is the key to life, death and transcendence (that is, stepping outside of time, which you are doing with the poem).”
You are very perspective in your looking into my post fraction of a time. There was a lot of warmth and love and caring and pain and grief and lose and still so much tension. I’ll find my way; I always do with this and everything else that is challenging my old beliefs. With time I am more confident and stronger and can slowly move through it all.
I am really excited for the journey you are about to take. I’ll be thinking about you while you are gone. I would like to borrow Emily’s shrinking/invisible machine so I can jump in the other back pocket. I can’t wait to hear all about your experiences and outlook while on your journey and when you are back. If you feel overwhelmed just sit and breathe and know we are all out here thinking about you. Safe travels my friend…
thank you.
oh megan, this is such a treat for me, especially just after reading your post about having difficulty finding anything to say~!
what you've shared here and in your poem, "fraction of time," is a very brave thing to share. you're right that i'm heading off (and i will take your words and everyone else's with me dearly) and so can't go in too deep just this moment, but i'm so overjoyed that you are so willing to go with us into this experience of yours... though i was the one who asked for it, i'm sure others here will lovingly continue the dialogue with you. so i cannot give a proper response just now (it'll be a few days, but i don't expect it to be very long) other than to say thank you, and wow. there is surely a lot of pain, and the difficulty of loss, as you say, and of course there is also the warmth and love and caring coming from other for you, but most wonderfully from yourself. thanks one final time for sharing this, i can't imagine it was a terribly easy thing to do. and i very much agree with what Om said.
(by the way, have you read this poem of Om's, and all the responses?)
megan
to echo James, I just want to say that it is courageous to share what you are going through and feeling here. It seems like, in our culture, women (and men) are not given the space and freedom to really mourn the loss of an unborn child. It feels like you're not supposed to talk about it, that it's this private, even shameful thing, that is best kept to yourself. I'm sure there is a desire to keep the experience close to yourself and a need to go inside as well, I don't mean to discount that either. I just find it curious that, as a society, we don't allow people to grieve openly about this type of loss.
While I have not been there myself, in the same way, I have had many friends and family members go through this experience and it has been difficult for all of them in different ways. It seems to bring up a lot of stuff, as you mention, that is good to look at, hold and honor and, hopefully, dissolve.
I myself have chosen to terminate two pregnancies. Despite the fact that these were choices that I made for myself (not decisions made for me by the universe or some outside force), and still feel today that it was the right thing to do in those moments in my life, I still experience them as loss. I did chose to share what was happening with my community around me in both those instances and recieved a great outpouring of support. However, I also felt that for some people, it was too much, too heavy to hold, and that they would rather me deal with it on my own. I'm sharing this here now, because I want you to know that I am here, and if you feel like sharing more, this is a pretty amazing group of people to do it with.
The beach is a pretty amazing place to heal as well. I loved your story about blow drying that woman's hair. It sounded like a scene from a Toni Morrison novel or something. The laying on of hands, woman to woman, the younger and older generations passing over.
Camila
Thank you for your kind and warm words of encouragement. I was having a bit of a tantrum this morning some old thought patterns and beating myself up for disclosing my loss. I was feeling ashamed for doing so. And took it all out on my poor husband and fought with him about anything I could think of this morning. You are so on the money when you say that you are expected not to talk about it and not to feel it as a true loss. Even some people who love me dearly have given me the, “well you really work too much and shouldn’t have been flying around the world speech.” I beat myself up a lot cause I feel like I should be over it already and I keep coming up with lots of excuses why it is too soon to start trying again. This is a pretty amazing group and I think by sharing more I will be able to truly move on and let go and maybe even give myself permission to continue to dream and try again.
fuck 'em Megan.
there's no amount of time that one should be "over" something. you let go, when you are ready and that's it. It will probably come in stages anyway. I also don't buy into the flying around the world being the cause, since I know plenty of women who have lost babies when they have been excessively careful and treating themselves like glass. you never know. sometimes mother nature decides that it is not a viable pregnancy, for one reason or the other, and saves you the horror of going full term and delivering stillborn or worse. I think that's a better way to look at it. It's very common and not your fault.
I'm glad that my post hit home for you, I wasn't sure if you would think I was overreaching or putting feelings onto you that you weren't having.
keep on sharing. that's what we are all here for, no?
Megan
Megan,
I want to say thank you for sharing something so deep and personal. I have only been catching up – meaning, reading carefully and deeply, and so apologize for not talking to you sooner. Your experience reminded me of something my mother has often talked about. She runs a Compassionate Friends group in Baltimore for people who have lost children. She had always said how difficult it is for women who have had miscarriages to find a place to share and mourn their loss which is as deep and real as any loss. Most people simply do not understand and think life should just go on as usual. I don’t think it matters how much time you have with a child – fifty years, twelve years, or only time with it in the womb. It carries with it all the profound loss of any parent – the loss of a future we envisioned. The loss of all the potential, of love, of dreams, of possibilities.
Mourning is a process. I think one must just enter into the darkness without any knowledge of when emergence will come. It can not be controlled or ordered, just felt and lived for as long as it takes. Although I do not practice Judaism, there are things about some of the rituals and thoughts that I love. I especially love the idea that the first phase of mourning it a year long. It is a journey without any shortcuts. I have seen in my life and in my work that those who urge you to reach a destination before you are ready are only revealing their own pain and discomfort with the fact of loss.
There is a saying that I also love: Whoever sees a mourner within thirty days should comfort him, but not ask how he is feeling. After thirty days, but within twelve months, he should ask how he is and then comfort him. After twelve months he could comfort him and then ask how he is feeling.
So thank you for sharing how you were feeling. I am just sitting with you. And I will continue to do so for as long as you like.
Emily
Emily, Thank you so very much for this, your understanding of my loss is better than mine. It is the loss of the dreams I had imagined that are the most painful. You help me to put it in all into the right perspective. I will try and just let this process be. The group your mom put together sounds beautiful.
I was able to push myself to go to yoga this afternoon and I am so glad I went. I ended up with one of the instructors who was very caring and she guided me along as I had forgotten a few moves and had to be slightly adjusted as we went along. It was just the nurturing I needed to not feel embarrassed that my body cannot really stretch as far as it used to. It gave me a very heavy head so I am going to go to bed early.
Megan, I printed out your
Megan, I printed out your post from last monday and read it over the weekend. on paper, i could appreciate the beautiful form and style of your first paragraph intermingled with the pain of the loss you are dealing with.
while i can't begin to imagine the loss of a miscarriage, i know the beautiful words you write about it will bring you comfort and soothe your aches.
hey all
hey guys. it's been a busy week in the best of ways. sorry i haven't been around much. i'm leaving on tuesday for Nepal -- i'll be there from july 1st until august 10th, when i fly back this way. i will have the internet in Nepal, at the very least once a week i'll head to the city and find an internet café to see how everyone is doing. it's possible i'll be online even more frequently, but i can't be certain.
anyway, i will spend a little more time on the blog before i leave (i've been reading everything!!) and tell you all how i'm doing and share a little bit more about buddhism and nondual fun! july should be a fun time for the blog, whether it is very busy or not so busy. i'm very much looking forward to posting a photo on the blog of the monastery i'll be at while in Nepal, and sharing with you all what stories and adventures i find myself in.
in the meantime-- i've got a few more days!! this isn't a salutation just yet :):)
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