|
|
Bye bye
Apr 24, 2011 21:28:02 GMT -5
Post by someNOTHING! on Apr 24, 2011 21:28:02 GMT -5
Just about everyone I'd send messages with has left. Oh poo. I'd be happy to provide more kindling and gasoline for your fire!  Here's a little sun on your face...hope you feel better soon. |
|
|
|
Bye bye
Apr 25, 2011 2:51:48 GMT -5
Post by Peter on Apr 25, 2011 2:51:48 GMT -5
Will be getting back to my journey shortly. Or perhaps you never left it? |
|
|
|
Bye bye
Apr 25, 2011 2:54:42 GMT -5
Post by enigma on Apr 25, 2011 2:54:42 GMT -5
Will be getting back to my journey shortly. Or perhaps you never left it? ;D |
|
|
|
Bye bye
Apr 25, 2011 8:14:51 GMT -5
Post by dreamerrach on Apr 25, 2011 8:14:51 GMT -5
Standardized testing all week, and I get to proctor allll week. Yipee!
Perhaps I never left it, but I certainly have been on detours lately. But then again, I've never seen detours as "off the path." If it weren't for this bothersome life, I'd be oh so very spiritual!
|
|
|
|
Bye bye
Apr 25, 2011 13:44:28 GMT -5
Post by dreamerrach on Apr 25, 2011 13:44:28 GMT -5
Just about everyone I'd send messages with has left. Oh poo. I'd be happy to provide more kindling and gasoline for your fire! Does this mean I'm gonna get a nasty PM? lol |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Bye bye
Apr 25, 2011 15:57:44 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2011 15:57:44 GMT -5
Standardized testing all week, and I get to proctor allll week. Yipee! Perhaps I never left it, but I certainly have been on detours lately. But then again, I've never seen detours as "off the path." If it weren't for this bothersome life, I'd be oh so very spiritual! this argument for standardized testing lays all the others to rest. |
|
|
|
Bye bye
Apr 25, 2011 17:05:15 GMT -5
Post by therealfake on Apr 25, 2011 17:05:15 GMT -5
I enjoyed that post, Zen. Very clear about your daughter losing her ability to see through the koans as she got older, and quite fascinating. "I've never heard of a case where the cigarette-man koan led to either a kensho experience or satori, but it is the koan that most often comes to my mind when teaching and interacting with people. People get strongly attached to their ideas, and that is what this koan deals with. How do you teach a person who says that she is interested in learning, but has a closed mind? How do you teach a person who is not asking to be taught? What is the role of a good teacher and a good student?" As I see it, taking on the formal perspective of a teacher is never a good plan. Essentially, teachers aren't needed as teaching and learning is always happening by virtue of the nature of the spontaneous unfolding of consciousness. Even the guru is playing a role in this and if there is an attachment to that role, it's not the highest Truth that is being taught. Many have an interest in sharing what has been seen, which may be an exploration, or a fascination with the 'mystery' or it may be a movement of Love or compassion, and it's all wonderful. It's okay, in this context, to play with the idea of effectiveness in communicating such things. As I may have mentioned, it's clear to me that seeing only happens when there is an open space at the boundary of the current delusion. Resistance closes that space and reinforces the delusion through various mental machinations and the one resisting wins the day because the one forming the delusion is the same one that is defending it. IOW, there is no 'space' in which it can possibly collapse. Hencely, and from a more personal perspective, there's no attempt to convince the one resisting of his/her misconceptions. Anyone who has tried to PM or email me from that argumentative position of closed resistance knows that there is no interest at all in discussing. The reason am I often so relentless on these forums is that I'm not really talking to the person I'm talking to, and have no expectation that they will see what is being talked about. The cigarette man will flick his ashes and wander off and nothing at all can be done about that, nor does anything need to be done about it. However, we learn by openly watching others from a detached perspective, and noticing something that we didn't know was in our way. I sometimes talk about it as noticing others falling into the lion trap so that we know to walk around it. If you are already in the trap, nobody can pull you out and you're going to have to dig your way out slowly, and your fingers are going to bleed, but if you see the trap then you can move on to the next one, carefully. Lemme ask an open question here; In all this Michael nonsense, has anybody noticed, realized or gained more clarity about anything that came out of the utterly failed discussions with Michael? If so, then you know why these discussions happened, and why they continue to happen with others. It's not about the cigarette man, it's about the rest of the Zen students in the room. I know that's not the answer to the koan, but I don't care about the koan. I care about the people in the room. You couldn't be more wrong about teachers not being needed, IMO... One has to be reminded about what one is practicing, or studying, when they embark on a spiritual journey. We are studying ourselves. Independently, we are studying ourselves, but that requires a means. A teacher is essential because it is impossible to study ourselves by ourselves. But as you say, you shouldn't be accepting what you learn from a teacher as some personal truth. Interacting with your teacher simply becomes a part of your everyday life and part of your incessant natural expression, or as you put it, "the spontaneous unfolding of consciousness". So to find the meaning of your life through a teacher, is to find the meaning of your 'everyday life'. But to be 'aware' of the meaning of your life, one practices moment to moment 'being-ness', IMO. |
|
|
|
Bye bye
Apr 25, 2011 19:45:59 GMT -5
Post by enigma on Apr 25, 2011 19:45:59 GMT -5
Strangely, perhaps, you are "reminding" yourself. You know the saying "When the student is ready, the teacher appears." It's not because there is a staff of teachers waiting in the wings for you to be ready, it's because that readiness is creative in this spontaneous unfolding. When you're willing to hear the bird sing, then the singing happens, but it's your readiness that makes the music, not the bird.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Bye bye
Apr 25, 2011 20:47:49 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2011 20:47:49 GMT -5
for example, i've heard just that from innumerable brilliant teachers (and just regular joes) and yet it hasn't really been heard yet.
just. doesn't. stick.
it makes complete sense yet...
perhaps the eagerness to understand it at a more profound level
or perhaps desiring fantastical bells and whistles to concurrently sound
or perhaps expecting some other mind-blowing cool experience
and it passes, another spontaneous moment clouded
while wrapped up thinking about what the spontaneous creative moment might be like when it unfolds.
and so it goes
now feeling bummed that some moment in the past has passed
awaiting some new moment in the future to shake the foundations
just waiting.
|
|
|
|
Bye bye
Apr 25, 2011 21:59:50 GMT -5
Post by enigma on Apr 25, 2011 21:59:50 GMT -5
Well, but what you're 'ready for' is always happening, it just might not be what you want to happen. Dreamer sees her illness as a detour from her focus, and yet it was a perfect reflection of that focus in some way. I don't know in what way, but it had to be because that's how it works. That's the spontaneous creative 'moment'. The perfect teacher is whatever is happening now, whether it's a guru or a bad relationship or a dis-ease or ego drama or awakening or whatever. Whatever it is, is the boundary that has most of your attention, and you're 'ready' and so it appears.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Bye bye
Apr 26, 2011 8:31:21 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2011 8:31:21 GMT -5
yes. that makes sense too. as does this and this and this...
wanting this to be different is also this
and it can be no other way
|
|
|
|
Bye bye
Apr 26, 2011 17:13:51 GMT -5
Post by dreamerrach on Apr 26, 2011 17:13:51 GMT -5
Didn't think my journey would go into SI
|
|
|
|
Bye bye
Apr 26, 2011 17:30:06 GMT -5
Post by enigma on Apr 26, 2011 17:30:06 GMT -5
Sports Illustrated?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Bye bye
Apr 26, 2011 20:09:15 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2011 20:09:15 GMT -5
Situationist Internationale Welcome to the Spectacle! "They fought against the main obstacle on the fulfillment of such superior passionate living, identified by them in advanced capitalism. Their theoretical work peaked on the highly influential book The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord. Debord argued in 1967 that spectacular features like mass media and advertising have a central role in an advanced capitalist society, which is to show a fake reality in order to mask the real capitalist degradation of human life. To overthrow such a system, the Situationist International supported the May '68 revolts, and asked the workers to occupy the factories and to run them with direct democracy, through workers' councils composed by instantly revocable delegates." "The spectacle is the unified, ever-increasing mass of image-objects and commodified experience detached from every aspect of life, fused in a common stream in which the unity of this life can no longer be reestablished.[62] Reality considered partially unfolds, in its own general unity, as a pseudo-world apart, an object of mere contemplation.[62] The specialization of images of the world is completed in the world of the autonomous image, where the liar has lied to himself.[62] The spectacle in general, as the concrete inversion of life, is the autonomous movement of the non-living.[62] "We live in a spectacular society, that is, our whole life is surrounded by an immense accumulation of spectacles. Things that were once directly lived are now lived by proxy. Once an experience is taken out of the real world it becomes a commodity. As a commodity the spectacular is developed to the detriment of the real. It becomes a substitute for experience." - Lawrence Law, Images and Everyday Life[64]" more at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist_Internationaland www.nothingness.org/SI/ |
|
|
|
Bye bye
Apr 26, 2011 20:16:45 GMT -5
Post by mamza on Apr 26, 2011 20:16:45 GMT -5
Well, but what you're 'ready for' is always happening, it just might not be what you want to happen. Dreamer sees her illness as a detour from her focus, and yet it was a perfect reflection of that focus in some way. I don't know in what way, but it had to be because that's how it works. That's the spontaneous creative 'moment'. The perfect teacher is whatever is happening now, whether it's a guru or a bad relationship or a dis-ease or ego drama or awakening or whatever. Whatever it is, is the boundary that has most of your attention, and you're 'ready' and so it appears. So then what do you do to hear the message? If what you're saying is true, I'm getting the same message every day and not once have I seen or heard it. What do I do? The past few days have shown many 'messages' to me, but they seem to be on repeat (or I'm just glued to them like everything else). I'm stuck pursuing useless, boring entertainment even though I see how obnoxious, boring, and useless it is. It's a terrible love/hate scenario that I can't get out of because 'there's nothing else to do.' |
|
