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is that all there is?
mindfulness scenario 1
i am keenly aware of what i perceive here/now with my five senses and mind (mental formations).
mindfulness scenario 2
i feel deeply connected to a vast shimmering all-inclusive presence.
in my experiences of mindfulness, on and off the cushion, scenario 1 often feels incomplete, a diversion, like looking at shadows. scenario 2 feels complete, like being the real thing.
i yearn for the direct connection with __________ (Truth, emptiness, pure awareness, etc.) that scenario 2 provides. yet, afaik, buddhism advocates the practice of scenario 1.
confused: help! :-)
thanks,
rachMiel
i am keenly aware of what i perceive here/now with my five senses and mind (mental formations).
mindfulness scenario 2
i feel deeply connected to a vast shimmering all-inclusive presence.
in my experiences of mindfulness, on and off the cushion, scenario 1 often feels incomplete, a diversion, like looking at shadows. scenario 2 feels complete, like being the real thing.
i yearn for the direct connection with __________ (Truth, emptiness, pure awareness, etc.) that scenario 2 provides. yet, afaik, buddhism advocates the practice of scenario 1.
confused: help! :-)
thanks,
rachMiel
0
Comments
if i were convinced that 1 leads to 2 i'd probably embrace 1 and let 2 come when its time was right.
does Buddhism teach us that 1 leads to 2?
(often) guilty as charged. ;-)
I like to think so. Just don't grasp at it or strive for it.
Some Buddhisms do and some don't. Some offer it and others deny its value. Some see it as a goal, others as an impediment. Some see a long path, others a sudden arrival.
Not much use, I know, but you did ask.
RLS said that it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive - he was right and wrong: you can arrive hopefully too. It took Ananda decades to 'wake up', decades he spent serving Gotama and hearing his words, other followers 'got it' at a single word.
The truth is that no one can walk your path for you, although you can get directions along the way.
Yes, for normal people. Some may be lucky enough to experience #2 sooner than others, but that's a handful of people over thousands of years.
With all due respect to Sherab Dorje, rachMiel, this is an opinion which lacks evidence.
Whether you are experiencing BOREDOM
OR
EXCITEMENT :cheer:
Either way it is OCS. The practice is to open to whatever is in your awareness. Rather than to grasp as an 'excitement' experience. But OCS is all pervading awareness. Indestructible. In heaven and in hell.
I think pursing #2 will lead you to the god realms... You should try to practice buddhism instead, because the god realms are impermanent and then you go to uncertain birth.
These experiences are nothing special. Everybody who practices up to a certain point experiences them. The risk is in getting attached to them, thinking they are the point of the practice.
When inhaling & exhaling long, one notices and is fully aware of just that..
When inhaling & exhaling short, one notices & is fully aware of just that..
One trains: I will breathe in-&-out clearly comprehending the entire body.
One trains: I will breathe in-&-out calming the breath & all bodily activity.
When walking, one notices and clearly comprehends, that one is walking.
When standing, one notices and clearly comprehends, that one is standing.
When sitting, one notices & clearly comprehends, that one is sitting down.
When lying down, one notices & clearly comprehends, that one is lying.
Going forward one notices & clearly comprehends, this going forward.
When returning one notices and clearly comprehends, this returning.
When looking in front or back, one notices, & is clearly aware of that.
When bending or stretching, when lifting or carrying, when eating or
drinking, chewing or tasting, one is aware of and comprehends just that.
When passing excrement or urine one clearly comprehends exactly that.
While falling asleep and waking up, when speaking or keeping silence,
one notices, knows and understands exactly that & clearly comprehends,
that this is, what one is doing just right here and exactly now...
Continuous awareness of purpose, suitability, domain and nature of one's
current behavior, whether mental, verbal or bodily is Right Awareness
and clear comprehension...
I agree, mindfulness is one path of the path, it is not the only and meaninglessness without the others, eg the moral and contemplative.
This was my point. Because there is no agreement between the writers and teachers, I am quite careful. Reading Dudjom Lingpa's Nang-jang, whilst it is often beyond me, suggests that there is what Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche calls "the swift path of sheer lucidity... the inherently and fundamentally unconditioned nature of mind itself". Whether this is what rachMiel means by 'scenario 2' or not would be a matter for others to assess - and, I suggest, almost impossible across the Net.
He gives instructions, but also warns that they are not the goal and they can be a trap as they are wonderful experiences that people often get addicted to. On the upside he says that they offer a glimpse of enlightenment so they remove all doubts that enlightenment is possible once they are experienced.
I really respect your willingness to practice.
If its "all-inclusive" what are "you" that feels its "presence"
I believe your talking about unity. But i remember that in the book Three Pillars of Zen it is said in one of the main Zazen lectures that some of the things that comeup during practice are like ghosts or phantasms. Though they may seem enlightening they are defenses of the self from being found out and maintain the subject-object duality. They say just to let these things pass. I can't remember the word for them, I'll check when i get home and update.
The way I read your question I hear a hunger for that "vast shimmering all-inclusive presence." I have that, too.
I agree with you that buddhism advocates the practice of your "Mindfulness scenario 1". It teaches us to be mindful and aware of what is happening right now. (I suppose being aware of that yearning for the "shimmering" could even be an object of awareness).
I understand buddhism as seeking to help us live with what is. We want to clearly see what is, directly, and not imagine what is not and somehow by a force of mind try and manifest that.
Have you read the Nibbana Sutta? Udana 8.3 http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.8.03.than.html
Here is the pith of it:
I wonder if it's a subtractive process, perhaps by becoming clearly aware of why what appears is not solid, impermanent, devoid of self, unsatisfactory, etc., we begin to see what our fixation on phenomena is obscuring.
Very interesting question, thank you for bringing it to the forum.
_ _ /|\ _ _
Namkha
to see the reality through wisdom
To be free of the need to experience pleasant experiences, and to get away from unpleasant ones, in order to be satisfied and complete.
If you really look into the cause of why 1 is incomplete, I think you will find that the cause of 1 being incomplete, is nothing other than the yearning for 2. If the yearning for 2 were to fall away, 1, or any other number for that matter, would then be complete.
Now here's what they say once you've established pot, then start to see its non inherent reality. it contains nothing intrinsicly potlike, its black but also a cat is black so black isn't an Inherent attribute to "pot". This is the form. once we have broken down the pot to its component parts. we see even the smallest partless particles are even "empty" this means that they have no intrinsic core. Yet its important to realize that even though there is no inherent "pot" there is a conventional thing everyone sees called pot.
This is the difference ( in a very general way) between samsara and nirvana
These two terms are called "two truths" conventional and ultimate, respectively.
What your yearning for in #2 is the absence of #1. However #2 is not seperate from #1. This is what the Prajna Paramita Teachings are about.
Once #2 is seen as a non dualistic view. #1 will be like a reflection of the moon on the water as #2 is the moon.
Hope this helps.
rachMiel,
Do you know the Ten Ox-Herding pictures?
http://www.buddhanet.net/oxherd1.htm
a great illustration of the (yo-yo) path to ____________ . :-)
how, as you see it, does this apply to my original question: why, if sensory/mental perceptions are illusions (shadows), should one pay attention to them?
thanks!
Is that sometimes portrayed with elephants? I think I've seen that one recently...
This is confusing to me? Will you explain what you mean
The Ox Herding pictures are one of my essential "guide books" on this journey. For me they tell the story much better than in words, despite the fact that many teachers, including Suzuki, have written commentaries. Although they are put in a sequence, there came a moment when I realised that we do not always follow the sequence: we may find ourselves in one picture or another, apparently at random. By standing back I understood that I am in each picture all the time and that one or other will be 'foreground' from time to time.
It is hard to find precise words for what I mean but one way that I now look at them, after a couple of decades of using them is to consider them as a whole, a gestalt, and that there are 10x9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2 different ways to read them. They remind me that there is a point in the search when there is no ox, no whip, no rider, nor any observer 'standing back'. They also remind me that, after that (in one sequence) there is a return to the town square, arms hanging loose and hands empty.
The point is that we can sit for hours and hours, listening and reading and studying and asking questions in order to get some advice and directions but, in the end, the journey that we are on is ours and, as such, a unique experience which cannot be undertaken for us. We have to find our own way through the tangle of our moment by moment experiences.
Because I love the allusive, poetry, story and music, as aids along the way (far more than all the heavy, serious stuff), I found part of the key to understanding the pictures in two places.
The first is T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, particularly the fourth, Little Gidding. Here are a couple of extracts:
" If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. "
and my favourite:
"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one."
Eliot puts a Greek quotation from Herakleitos, the mysterious pre-Socratic philosopher, at the start:
" The way upward and the way downward are the same."
I also find that Bach's Brandenburgs help me to sit more lightly to my experiences, particularly in the dark times.
The other thing that has helped me is a story:
There was once, in the days of a wicked Caliph, a humble tinsmith who, through no fault of his own, was thrown into prison with no hope of release. His wife, who loved him dearly, seduced the head jailer and managed to se the key to the cell in which her husband lay but she was unable to make a duplicate. Instead, she wove the pattern of the key into a prayer-mat and, because the jailer was enchanted by her, her husband was allowed to use it. She also managed to get a tin plate, a mug and eating utensils to him.
Day after day, as the muezzin called the faithful to prayer, the poor tinsmith more bow down on his carpet, the pattern always in his eye until he knew it by heart. From the pattern in his mind and using the metal of his plate, cup and eating knife he made himself the key and, one day, walked free, back to his loving and resourceful wife.
Taman shud. (*)
(*) "The End". The last words of FitzGerald's translation of Omar Khayyam, another of my guidebooks)