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JeroenNot all those who wander are lostNetherlandsVeteran
@Rob_V said:
Isn't conditioning the mind to enlightenment the entire point of the exercise?
Well... that depends on how you see enlightenment. I believe the Zen perspective is that no-mind is a key element, and so what the mind actually contains doesn’t matter so much.
They say we already are enlightened, but just don't see it. So, given, the fact that enlightenment happens slowly, and that changing our inner patterns is a slow process .. I think that enlightenment just might be a matter of retraining our mind.
But ask me countless lifetimes from now when I MIGHT have become enlightened! My second-favorite thing about Buddhism is that our understanding keeps on changing over time, as we discover more and more inside ourselves. Just when we think we have a "truth" pinned down and understood with intellect, we get an insight that changes it. Sort of gives us a lifelong hobby to look forward to.
I meditate as the means of withdrawing from my participation in the human condition which manifests as my identities conditioning of the mind. I am not trying to clean, modulate or replace one state of conditioning for another. I am only withdrawing my habituated support that would otherwise continue to empower my conditioning's inertia. My habituated support can normally be experienced by meditatively observing how I suppress, intensify or ignore any of my data streams as they transit through the sense gates.
Our identity normally takes the 6 continuous data streams that allow any of our interactions with the world to occur and manipulates that data flow to favor whatever storyline best supports its own fiefdom.
To the degree to which I am willing to observe and no longer participate in that habituated manipulation, is the same degree to which my identities dream production falters and some awakening from that dream becomes possible.
From what I gather, we live in a conditioned state (our default mode)...and enlightenment is a mind which is freed from conditioning ... unconditioned...
Through Dharma practice there's an attempt to uncondition the mind with the use of the conditioned state of mind...
And there it would seem lies the paradox conditioning to become unconditioned
I found that overthinking this conundrum, will tie the mind up in (k)nots...
Thus have I experienced...(on more than one ocassion )
So I now just to sit and let awareness develop and work its non-conceptual magic.. gently freeing the mind from the clutches of its charming (and at times somewhat mischievous) thoughts ...
Thus have I heard...
"Paradoxically, it takes time to become what we already are"
Through Dharma practice there's an attempt to uncondition the mind with the use of the conditioned state of mind...
And there it would seem lies the paradox conditioning to become unconditioned
I am a great believer in brainwashing without conditioner or other mind bubbles. For our threads we need less not more deter-gents aka bodhisattvas. Less soaking in non essentials.
How to clear the dirt/impediments around the rainbow body? Scrub for endless wash cycles?
Pah! Here and now. Hear and know.
@FoibleFull said:
They say we already are enlightened, but just don't see it.
0
JeroenNot all those who wander are lostNetherlandsVeteran
@Shoshin1 said:
Through Dharma practice there's an attempt to uncondition the mind with the use of the conditioned state of mind...
And there it would seem lies the paradox conditioning to become unconditioned
So each bit of dharmic conditioning could be seen as a bit of massage, ultimately allowing a larger segment of conditioned thinking to relax and drop away.
But it seems to me that once you reach a certain state of non-attachment, the rest of the state of the mind doesn’t matter so much anymore and one can try to reach a state of just being, where the mind is less relevant.
3
QuangKsantiA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The Hammer in Ontario, Canada, ehVeteran
edited December 2020
@Rob_V said:
Isn't conditioning the mind to enlightenment the entire point of the exercise?
Kind of, I think.
If nirvana is like a clear sky and our conditioning is the clouds then it is the conditioning that needs to go. How to do that without more conditioning is beyond my ken because to me, conditioning is just information being shared in a progressive way and all things, forms, concepts etcetera are conditioned.
If understood and looked into deeply, consciously and mindfully, I think conditioning is a beautiful thing.
No mud, no lotus. Without conditioning, there is no way to experience and without experience there is no waking up, no enlightenment, no sunsets, no mountains, no rivers and no fun at all really.
So I think it takes conditioning to wake up but it has to be conditioning conducive to waking up. Often times, that means first of all to take our conditioning in our own hands which is mindfulness and the art of skillful means.
@David said:
So I think it takes conditioning to wake up but it has to be conditioning conducive to waking up. Often times, that means first of all to take our conditioning in our own hands which is mindfulness and the art of skillful means.
As we listen to our clarity, others comprehension, wisdom sauces and sources so we start to taste the flavour of The Middle Way to have a banana unpeeling the Nibbana experience. So in a sense we are removing the conditioning. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/nibbana.html
@Shoshin1 response above is spot on. And reading it brings me to wonder if the question we are really asking is "Can enlightenment be conditioned into the mind?".
@Kerome said:
There is no self, is the mind just a conditioning machine?
The mind is a dependent origination.
The ultimate truth is profound and ultimate, and words cannot touch it. If we say that it is existence, then we devolve into stupidity. If we say that it is nonexistence, then such is not wisdom. Subhuti was scolded and Sariputra was criticized [for holding such views]. It is neither existence nor nonexistence; it is not both existence and nonexistence together; and it is neither nonexistence nor not-nonexistence. Words and speech are cut off, and thoughts and ideas are all extinguished. It is profound; there is nowhere wherein thoughts may lodge. It is broad and vast; all supports are sundered. We do not know how we may verbalize it, but, obliged to do so, we call it “presenting the truth.” But if the mind and speech are both cut off, and if both existence and nonexistence are abandoned, then this is the teaching of emptiness? What relationship does this have to the presentation of truth? Since both existence and nonexistence have been abandoned, how can one "abide in emptiness?" The nature of the way of the Buddhas is truly that there is nowhere wherein one can lodge. Since both existence and nonexistence have been sundered, there is nothing that can be grasped.
Venerable Gyōnen
Of all forms of disease, none is greater than that of having a body — he extinguished the body. Of all forms of torment, none is more severe than that of having a calculating mind — he erased it and submerged in the vacuous. The mind is taxed by the body; the body is burdened by the intellect. The two pull each other, turning like a wheel on the endless road of misery. It is said in a sutra, “The intellect is poison, the body is shackles. Because of them the abysmal silence of liberation remains beyond reach; they are the cause of all tribulations.” The Perfect turned his body into ashes and extinguished his intellect, he relinquished his form and discarded his reason. Within, he abandoned the stirrings of illumination; without, he put to rest the basis of misery. Transcendent, perfectly free from all existents; boundless, he became great and vacuous. Tranquil, inaudible, clear, non-manifest, mysteriously gone forever into a destination unknown.
Venerable Sengzhao
The mind can only take us so far...
How great is the great gnosis of the great sage?
Undefiled, unstained, unbound,
of gods and men, of elephants and horses,
equally of these he is the trainer and the teacher.
The zephyrs of the path he has all-permeated with aromas.
He has permeated them with the perfumes of righteousness.
Serene in wisdom, calm in feeling, with the mind in a yoga of stillness, with the will submerged, with consciousness gone, with heart tranquil [...]
It is bit like sitting but not sitting. In other word if we meditate and have an experience of meditation, we are still 'doing meditation' rather than being meditative/mindful whilst sitting.
It is a bit like Baby Yoda's Rugby advice:
“There is No Try”
@lobster said:
The enlightened mind is unconditioned. In other words it does not have qualities but its expression through us does.
Imagine a wait being taken off one mind. Now we are patient but patient is not a thing it is an expression of waiting ...
This. The Enlightened Mind, or as Dzogchen and some Zen schools put it, Original Mind, is unconditioned by definition. So no conditioning can lead us anywhere but away from it.
But...there are varieties of conditioning that act as anticonditioning. Metta Bhavana and raising Bodhicitta for example. There is a parallel with some secular therapies. No therapies lead to Enlightenment in the Buddhist sense, but some are necessary for some individuals in order for them to stop self sabotage. In the same way Metta Bhavana or similar will not lead to Enlightenment for most people, but is often a necessary step to enable us to stop blocking our own light.
"AWARENESS is fundamentally non-conceptual before thinking splits experience into subject and object...It is empty and so can contain everything, including thought...It is boundless...And amazingly, it is intrinsically KNOWING"
3
JeroenNot all those who wander are lostNetherlandsVeteran
@Choephal said:
The Enlightened Mind, or as Dzogchen and some Zen schools put it, Original Mind, is unconditioned by definition. So no conditioning can lead us anywhere but away from it.
But...there are varieties of conditioning that act as anticonditioning. Metta Bhavana and raising Bodhicitta for example.
So you would say that conditioning can help one shed preexisting conditioning, and in that way can be helpful in allowing us to reach the unconditioned? It seems to me that there are not enough practices which allow deconditioning in order to get rid of all the things we need to get rid of.
It depends on the practices. Trechko, for example in Dzogchen and as far as I understand it Zazen, are means by which we stop the process of conditioning for long enough..Conditioning is an active process. Samsara isn’t a place, it’s something that we do. Skillful means are those activities which enable us to stop Samsara-ing.🙂
There is a well worn metaphor the Zen people use. We have a thorn stuck in our flesh. Dharma is a second thorn that we use to remove the first thorn. We then throw both away.
Samasara = Nirvana?
I read that on a fortune cookie or was it all a dream...
A shooting star, a clouding of the sight, a lamp,
An illusion, a drop of dew, a bubble,
A dream, a lightning's flash, a thunder cloud— This is the way one should see the conditioned.
Short answer:
Enlightenment is not a process of conditioning.
It is a process of awakening.
Any conditioning is in and to the process or practice one utilizes.
Yes and no. One can certainly plant the seeds for the blossoming of awakening. Every action, arising out of our intentions, helps to condition future habits, experiences, and insights. So while one can’t condition what’s unconditioned, one can condition their approach to it and the possibility of or openness to its realization. Basically, per the simile of the raft, our intentions and actions are the raft which lead us to the island of the unconditioned—our actions don’t condition or create the island, but they can help lead us there.
For me right now I think is it "THE enlightenment and then it's ongoing enlightened activity"? I think without conditions there would be no realizations... and that without realizations there wouldn't be further realizations. Are realizations conditioned? If so then how could a string of conditioned realizations result in something that is non conditioned? If no then if all of the realizations are unconditional then why is there a big enlightenment at the end that is different from the earlier "waking up"?
And then what of morality and waking up? We've all had some glimpses and we all do immoral things. But what if someone is very awake but is doing terrible, stuff that most anyone would agree is terrible
You mean like the Sith or Purebloods? In essence they are hypocrites and nihilists. They are 'ignorant' and already in the hell realms. Even though the deliberate suffering imposed on others, they get perverse 'pleasure' from.
They get old and die and they cling to life with persistent denial. At best we might say they are 'Hungry Ghosts' in the desire realm.
@Jeroen said:
Since the human realm is part of the desire realm, don’t we all have intimate knowledge of it?
Indeed.
We all have predominant 'tendencies' and also insights throughout life. We also can move in a different field of experience, untainted by our past, present and future. A condition of how it is possible to be 'In the world but not of it' as some of the Gnostic Christians state it...
1
personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
edited March 1
Been playing with Chat GPT and thought to ask a question along these lines. The two points that stood out to me, and reflect my own learning.
Ontology vs. soteriology: The question mixes two angles. Ontologically (what is enlightenment?), many Buddhist traditions teach that awakening is the recognition or removal of ignorance about the true nature of mind and phenomena — it is a seeing of what already is. Soteriologically (how does one become enlightened?), awakening happens through a causal process: ethical conduct, meditation, wisdom — i.e., conditions and effort.
And then the Madhyamika understanding of emptiness and its relation to enlightenment. This is the tradition I developed my sense of Buddhism in.
Madhyamaka: Emphasizes emptiness. Enlightenment is the experiential realization that all phenomena lack inherent existence. This realization is not a “thing” that’s created; it’s a correct cognition that arises when ignorance ceases.
Practical summary: Buddhism generally resists the notion that enlightenment is an invention or addition to a self. It’s better described as the cessation of ignorance and the direct realization (revelation) of reality — a change that occurs through causes and conditions, not creation ex nihilo. The upshot for practice is the same either way: cultivate the conditions (ethics, meditation, wisdom) that allow the revealing to occur.
2
personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
Further inquiry showed that often modern psychological framing around transcendent experiences think of them as something created. My approach to living these days is drawing heavily on psychology in addition to Buddhism, so I've probably been focusing more on the "soteriological" aspects, plus I'm a practical person anyway, so what it takes to make something happen matters at least as much as the isolated, pure idea.
1
JeroenNot all those who wander are lostNetherlandsVeteran
@person said:
Buddhism generally resists the notion that enlightenment is an invention or addition to a self. It’s better described as the cessation of ignorance and the direct realization (revelation) of reality — a change that occurs through causes and conditions, not creation ex nihilo. The upshot for practice is the same either way: cultivate the conditions (ethics, meditation, wisdom) that allow the revealing to occur.
The really interesting part is the role that ‘understanding’ plays in this process. If you look at many of the sutras in the Pali Canon that describe when the Buddha’s companions reach enlightenment, it is often at the end of a sutra, when a particular piece of wisdom has been delivered, that a person who was already close just reached a final point of understanding and gains enlightenment. For example the Fire Sermon, which supposedly made many monks enlightened.
As I understand it, understanding is a process of the mind, and a lot of the other facets which are often discussed, like renunciation, letting go, and so on, are also essentially mental processes. So is enlightenment some function of the mind, or is it something more existential. I find this interesting because things like visions can be part of a mental process, like dreams. But some things we can experience on the edge of sleep can have the unmissable quality of something actually seen or viewed, something real.
The contents of the enlightenment process in the sutras are usually not described in the same detail as the Buddha’s enlightenment under the bodhi tree. The Buddha had visions of his past lives and a series of revelations which were quite spectacular, as I understand it, while for a lot of other people in the sutras it just says, “so-and-so became enlightened”.
understanding and gains enlightenment. For example the Fire Sermon, which supposedly made many monks enlightened.
I once did Lum Kungfu and three of the slogans were "learn kindness", "learn fellowship", and "learn Kungfu, but I never completed my training". You never jump in the same river twice but I don't know where that river is anymore
I relate to struggling to stay comprehending whichever way I get stretched. Not comprehending I say "wait a sec".
I found @persons understanding from multiple directions useful.
We may hear the teachings repeated. From many different directions and degrees of insight. Then something clicks and we can relax in the certainty that already is present.
In a sense we have to drop the mind clutter, clamouring for change and just be present and accepting...
As persons, we’re responsible to culture and to others, and we are constantly changing, open-ended phenomena, not isolated, self-existent phenomena. We are part of a spatial, temporal, and social complex, not standing outside of it in a dualistic relation.
Jay L. Garfield, “To Be or Not to Be”
Sometimes compassion will arise spontaneously, like the clouds parting to reveal the blue sky. At other times we may have to make a conscious effort, which is a bit more like imagining what the blue sky looks like, even when it’s obscured by clouds.
Andy Puddicombe, “10 Tips for Living More Mindfully”
Comments
Well... that depends on how you see enlightenment. I believe the Zen perspective is that no-mind is a key element, and so what the mind actually contains doesn’t matter so much.
They say we already are enlightened, but just don't see it. So, given, the fact that enlightenment happens slowly, and that changing our inner patterns is a slow process .. I think that enlightenment just might be a matter of retraining our mind.
But ask me countless lifetimes from now when I MIGHT have become enlightened! My second-favorite thing about Buddhism is that our understanding keeps on changing over time, as we discover more and more inside ourselves. Just when we think we have a "truth" pinned down and understood with intellect, we get an insight that changes it. Sort of gives us a lifelong hobby to look forward to.
One view of it.
I meditate as the means of withdrawing from my participation in the human condition which manifests as my identities conditioning of the mind. I am not trying to clean, modulate or replace one state of conditioning for another. I am only withdrawing my habituated support that would otherwise continue to empower my conditioning's inertia. My habituated support can normally be experienced by meditatively observing how I suppress, intensify or ignore any of my data streams as they transit through the sense gates.
Our identity normally takes the 6 continuous data streams that allow any of our interactions with the world to occur and manipulates that data flow to favor whatever storyline best supports its own fiefdom.
To the degree to which I am willing to observe and no longer participate in that habituated manipulation, is the same degree to which my identities dream production falters and some awakening from that dream becomes possible.
From what I gather, we live in a conditioned state (our default mode)...and enlightenment is a mind which is freed from conditioning ... unconditioned...
Through Dharma practice there's an attempt to uncondition the mind with the use of the conditioned state of mind...
And there it would seem lies the paradox conditioning to become unconditioned
I found that overthinking this conundrum, will tie the mind up in (k)nots...
Thus have I experienced...(on more than one ocassion
)
So I now just to sit and let awareness develop and work its non-conceptual magic.. gently freeing the mind from the clutches of its charming (and at times somewhat mischievous) thoughts ...
Thus have I heard...
"Paradoxically, it takes time to become what we already are"
I'm learning to be patient with impatience ....
Well said @Shoshin
I am a great believer in brainwashing without conditioner or other mind bubbles. For our threads we need less not more deter-gents aka bodhisattvas. Less soaking in non essentials.
How to clear the dirt/impediments around the rainbow body? Scrub for endless wash cycles?
Pah! Here and now. Hear and know.
So each bit of dharmic conditioning could be seen as a bit of massage, ultimately allowing a larger segment of conditioned thinking to relax and drop away.
But it seems to me that once you reach a certain state of non-attachment, the rest of the state of the mind doesn’t matter so much anymore and one can try to reach a state of just being, where the mind is less relevant.
Kind of, I think.
If nirvana is like a clear sky and our conditioning is the clouds then it is the conditioning that needs to go. How to do that without more conditioning is beyond my ken because to me, conditioning is just information being shared in a progressive way and all things, forms, concepts etcetera are conditioned.
If understood and looked into deeply, consciously and mindfully, I think conditioning is a beautiful thing.
No mud, no lotus. Without conditioning, there is no way to experience and without experience there is no waking up, no enlightenment, no sunsets, no mountains, no rivers and no fun at all really.
So I think it takes conditioning to wake up but it has to be conditioning conducive to waking up. Often times, that means first of all to take our conditioning in our own hands which is mindfulness and the art of skillful means.
As we listen to our clarity, others comprehension, wisdom sauces and sources so we start to taste the flavour of The Middle Way to have a banana unpeeling the Nibbana experience. So in a sense we are removing the conditioning.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/nibbana.html
@Shoshin1 response above is spot on. And reading it brings me to wonder if the question we are really asking is "Can enlightenment be conditioned into the mind?".
The mind is a dependent origination.
The mind can only take us so far...
Thanks @Vimalajāti
Exactly so. As well as can be said.
It is bit like sitting but not sitting. In other word if we meditate and have an experience of meditation, we are still 'doing meditation' rather than being meditative/mindful whilst sitting.
It is a bit like Baby Yoda's Rugby advice:
“There is No Try”
This. The Enlightened Mind, or as Dzogchen and some Zen schools put it, Original Mind, is unconditioned by definition. So no conditioning can lead us anywhere but away from it.
But...there are varieties of conditioning that act as anticonditioning. Metta Bhavana and raising Bodhicitta for example. There is a parallel with some secular therapies. No therapies lead to Enlightenment in the Buddhist sense, but some are necessary for some individuals in order for them to stop self sabotage. In the same way Metta Bhavana or similar will not lead to Enlightenment for most people, but is often a necessary step to enable us to stop blocking our own light.
Which reminds me of this....
"AWARENESS is fundamentally non-conceptual before thinking splits experience into subject and object...It is empty and so can contain everything, including thought...It is boundless...And amazingly, it is intrinsically KNOWING"
So you would say that conditioning can help one shed preexisting conditioning, and in that way can be helpful in allowing us to reach the unconditioned? It seems to me that there are not enough practices which allow deconditioning in order to get rid of all the things we need to get rid of.
It depends on the practices. Trechko, for example in Dzogchen and as far as I understand it Zazen, are means by which we stop the process of conditioning for long enough..Conditioning is an active process. Samsara isn’t a place, it’s something that we do. Skillful means are those activities which enable us to stop Samsara-ing.🙂
There is a well worn metaphor the Zen people use. We have a thorn stuck in our flesh. Dharma is a second thorn that we use to remove the first thorn. We then throw both away.
Holy bread/sacrament crumbs...
Samasara = Nirvana?
I read that on a fortune cookie or was it all a dream...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Sutra
Short answer:
Enlightenment is not a process of conditioning.
It is a process of awakening.
Any conditioning is in and to the process or practice one utilizes.
Yes and no. One can certainly plant the seeds for the blossoming of awakening. Every action, arising out of our intentions, helps to condition future habits, experiences, and insights. So while one can’t condition what’s unconditioned, one can condition their approach to it and the possibility of or openness to its realization. Basically, per the simile of the raft, our intentions and actions are the raft which lead us to the island of the unconditioned—our actions don’t condition or create the island, but they can help lead us there.
For me right now I think is it "THE enlightenment and then it's ongoing enlightened activity"? I think without conditions there would be no realizations... and that without realizations there wouldn't be further realizations. Are realizations conditioned? If so then how could a string of conditioned realizations result in something that is non conditioned? If no then if all of the realizations are unconditional then why is there a big enlightenment at the end that is different from the earlier "waking up"?
And then what of morality and waking up? We've all had some glimpses and we all do immoral things. But what if someone is very awake but is doing terrible, stuff that most anyone would agree is terrible
You mean like the Sith or Purebloods? In essence they are hypocrites and nihilists. They are 'ignorant' and already in the hell realms. Even though the deliberate suffering imposed on others, they get perverse 'pleasure' from.
They get old and die and they cling to life with persistent denial. At best we might say they are 'Hungry Ghosts' in the desire realm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_realm
And of course how wonderful knowledge of the desire realm would be at a job interview!
The daughterless or tongue tied
Since the human realm is part of the desire realm, don’t we all have intimate knowledge of it?
Indeed.
We all have predominant 'tendencies' and also insights throughout life. We also can move in a different field of experience, untainted by our past, present and future. A condition of how it is possible to be 'In the world but not of it' as some of the Gnostic Christians state it...
Been playing with Chat GPT and thought to ask a question along these lines. The two points that stood out to me, and reflect my own learning.
Ontology vs. soteriology: The question mixes two angles. Ontologically (what is enlightenment?), many Buddhist traditions teach that awakening is the recognition or removal of ignorance about the true nature of mind and phenomena — it is a seeing of what already is. Soteriologically (how does one become enlightened?), awakening happens through a causal process: ethical conduct, meditation, wisdom — i.e., conditions and effort.
And then the Madhyamika understanding of emptiness and its relation to enlightenment. This is the tradition I developed my sense of Buddhism in.
Madhyamaka: Emphasizes emptiness. Enlightenment is the experiential realization that all phenomena lack inherent existence. This realization is not a “thing” that’s created; it’s a correct cognition that arises when ignorance ceases.
Practical summary: Buddhism generally resists the notion that enlightenment is an invention or addition to a self. It’s better described as the cessation of ignorance and the direct realization (revelation) of reality — a change that occurs through causes and conditions, not creation ex nihilo. The upshot for practice is the same either way: cultivate the conditions (ethics, meditation, wisdom) that allow the revealing to occur.
Further inquiry showed that often modern psychological framing around transcendent experiences think of them as something created. My approach to living these days is drawing heavily on psychology in addition to Buddhism, so I've probably been focusing more on the "soteriological" aspects, plus I'm a practical person anyway, so what it takes to make something happen matters at least as much as the isolated, pure idea.
The really interesting part is the role that ‘understanding’ plays in this process. If you look at many of the sutras in the Pali Canon that describe when the Buddha’s companions reach enlightenment, it is often at the end of a sutra, when a particular piece of wisdom has been delivered, that a person who was already close just reached a final point of understanding and gains enlightenment. For example the Fire Sermon, which supposedly made many monks enlightened.
As I understand it, understanding is a process of the mind, and a lot of the other facets which are often discussed, like renunciation, letting go, and so on, are also essentially mental processes. So is enlightenment some function of the mind, or is it something more existential. I find this interesting because things like visions can be part of a mental process, like dreams. But some things we can experience on the edge of sleep can have the unmissable quality of something actually seen or viewed, something real.
The contents of the enlightenment process in the sutras are usually not described in the same detail as the Buddha’s enlightenment under the bodhi tree. The Buddha had visions of his past lives and a series of revelations which were quite spectacular, as I understand it, while for a lot of other people in the sutras it just says, “so-and-so became enlightened”.
I once did Lum Kungfu and three of the slogans were "learn kindness", "learn fellowship", and "learn Kungfu, but I never completed my training". You never jump in the same river twice but I don't know where that river is anymore
I relate to struggling to stay comprehending whichever way I get stretched. Not comprehending I say "wait a sec".
I found @persons understanding from multiple directions useful.
We may hear the teachings repeated. From many different directions and degrees of insight. Then something clicks and we can relax in the certainty that already is present.
In a sense we have to drop the mind clutter, clamouring for change and just be present and accepting...
Just sit quietening...
https://breadloafmountainzen.org/how-to-practice-just-sitting/
As persons, we’re responsible to culture and to others, and we are constantly changing, open-ended phenomena, not isolated, self-existent phenomena. We are part of a spatial, temporal, and social complex, not standing outside of it in a dualistic relation.
Jay L. Garfield, “To Be or Not to Be”
Sometimes compassion will arise spontaneously, like the clouds parting to reveal the blue sky. At other times we may have to make a conscious effort, which is a bit more like imagining what the blue sky looks like, even when it’s obscured by clouds.
Andy Puddicombe, “10 Tips for Living More Mindfully”