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Post by stardustpilgrim on Aug 29, 2016 10:22:38 GMT -5
OK, very good. I've read some stuff by CT Rinpoche, CTSM was the first, recently bought a new book, Mindfulness in Action, haven't gotten into it yet. I find him very good. I lived briefly in Colorado in 1974-75. I moved back to NC in '75, had plans to move back to Colo. (That's a long story, met a girl from Colorado Springs, where I lived, who went to the University of Colorado in Boulder, went back to visit her twice, 1978, 1979). I applied to Naropa Institute, 1975, was accepted, but all that basically fell through because of depression, long story, but all turned out good.....also long story. But I did visit an almost deserted Naropa Institute in the summer of 1978. Yes, very exceptional quote (I try to quote only very exceptional quotes  ). butofcourse!  A pipe dream of mine: attend Naropa. Maybe some day. (CTSM is my favorite) No, the people I meditate with are a majorly mixed bag. The Friday group is long-time meditators of all sorts. That's the one I'm the 'sub' for, and once as a sub I asked if each would try to put in to words why they meditate. It was fascinatingly interesting and varied. The regular Friday teacher was trained at the Barre Center of Buddhist Studies, started by Goldstein and Salzberg - so Tibetan, I think? But she never read Trungpa. I tried playing a CD of Chodron one time and one of the people said her voice was too annoying LOL. The Tuesday group is mostly brand new to meditation. Very good. However one is ~trained~ (in meditation or otherwise), you still have to discover for yourself what the training is about, you have to experience it to understand it. I think you have come very far. But what do I know?  |
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Post by quinn on Aug 29, 2016 11:16:57 GMT -5
I'm not set on the idea that what you're saying about "working with karma" means mind working with mind or ego trying to kill ego. You've clarified very well that it's not what you meant. I'm questioning whether the focus on eradicating karma can generate an internal battle of sorts, the good-guys of attention and awareness vs the bad-guys of karma. (Just had a mental picture of an old western show-down.) As I'm sure you know, ego comes in to usurp even the purest of intentions. Yes, I know precisely what you mean by this internal battle. Yes, "ego always comes in to usurp the purest of intentions". All this is very complicated, nobody much is interested, so I haven't written about it much here on ST's. Speaking shorthand, the battle is between attention captured by thoughts, feelings and bodily actions and attention disengaged from them (your previous word, a good way to put it). You are the only one who has ever gotten this distinction here, I've tried to point it out in many posts (maxdprophet said he got it, said in one post, but he didn't further elaborate, so I'm not sure). But this is basically everything. Further, briefly, everything significant in the Gurdjieff tradition is based on energy, saving energy and transforming energy. Consciousness is a form of energy. So this ~battle~ is not avoided, it's necessary and expected. Gurdjieff called this battle friction, and this friction is necessary to release energy, this energy is the samskaras, that is, the samskaras consist of stored energy (think of E = MC 2). And actually consider karma as virtually literally burned up, a transformation of energy. Colin Wilson wrote a book about Gurdjieff called The War Against Sleep. It is a battle, it is a war. But it is in a very real sense, not personal. I was taught to be impartial, to try to be impartial towards thinking, feeling and bodily doing. That is, don't put one's sense of I into what one thinks, feels or even what you do. IOW, don't say "I" to what you think, feel and bodily do. So it is not an emotional battle, it's a battle in the sense that you just continually keep coming back to this "disengaged attention". (You have to keep coming back because attention automatically goes-back-into thoughts, feelings/emotions and bodily actions, and sensations). This goes-back-into has become our default position. We are trying to make ~bare~ attention and ~bare~ awareness ( rig pa, innermost awareness) the default position, not so easy. Oh, okay. That's very interesting! Trungpa's Shambala Teachings (not sure if that's the name of the book, but that's what it is) talks a lot about courage in always facing towards 'truth'. I think that's the type of battle you're talking about. Adyashanti always has a statue next to him during talks. I forget whether it's Shiva or maybe Kali, but a deity with a sword. He picked it up one time to explain why it was there and talked about the importance of slicing through whatever is standing in our way of 'truth seeking'(my phrasing from memory - hopefully I basically got it right). Good - you got me to open up my concept of battle! |
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Post by quinn on Aug 29, 2016 11:26:30 GMT -5
butofcourse! A pipe dream of mine: attend Naropa. Maybe some day. (CTSM is my favorite) No, the people I meditate with are a majorly mixed bag. The Friday group is long-time meditators of all sorts. That's the one I'm the 'sub' for, and once as a sub I asked if each would try to put in to words why they meditate. It was fascinatingly interesting and varied. The regular Friday teacher was trained at the Barre Center of Buddhist Studies, started by Goldstein and Salzberg - so Tibetan, I think? But she never read Trungpa. I tried playing a CD of Chodron one time and one of the people said her voice was too annoying LOL. The Tuesday group is mostly brand new to meditation. Very good. However one is ~trained~ (in meditation or otherwise), you still have to discover for yourself what the training is about, you have to experience it to understand it. Ain't that the truth.  |
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Post by bluey on Sept 2, 2016 14:13:31 GMT -5
The samskaras extend back to a former life, lives even, and if one doesn't break the chain of cause and effect, the samskaras will incarnate in the future (not, of course, 'us' as Tom, Harry or Sally, IOW, cultural self/ego). Does a non-experience of nonduality wipe out the karmic residue? How would one know if it did? Is this a concern to anyone? Anybody worried that if the samskaras are not exhausted in this life they will continue in another life and thus the pain and suffering continues? What is it that exhausts the perpetuity of the samskaras? ................Now, we can take this as all theoretical nonsense, irrelevant, but then, why are you here and not out enjoying life.....on Sugar Mountain.... (It's so noisy at the fair, but all your friends are there....ain't it funny how it feels when you're finding out life's real.....You can't be twen-ty on Sugar Mountain, for you know that you'll be leaving there too soon..you're leaving there too soon..........Neil Young, written at 19). sdp Let's say we are seekers, we don't know if it's one life or many. That's the stand point for the seeker, some teachers have mentioned it some haven't. Let's say there is.... Just to create an entertaining conversation, you are talking of samskaras past impressions that shape or have a main pull in that form in its journey of experience as an apparent separate self where the direction at some point in that persons life changes, falls into a groove pushing past the conditioning of the tradition the person is born in to, is exposed to ( if we are talking of a seeker trying to find the nature of his/ her self, true nature in this case, that is). He/ she starts to think about past lives well if I was doing good actions and bad actions how do they get stored if in each of my lives I had different time lines when I bowed out of theses character roles. I must have died in old age and in my next incarnation I had the impressions of those past thought patterns that shaped my life and direction but did I die young or old in the next. If I died young where are the fruits both good and bad held.....is this why I find it hard to wake up, those non duality teachers say you are that already...nothing to do....even though we did much to be able to say from sugar mountain there's nothing to do to the ones climbing up the mountain.....in fact there's no mountain, no climb, no climber. lets have a conversation over this. Why aren't you in that place saying the same? What exhausts the samskaras. I've only heard of one student around the Buddha who sat closed his eyes and understood the emptiness the nothingness of the Buddha, tradition tells of a man with little book knowledge, a simple man, very ordinary for his times...... Was blown out like a candle (a better meaning to nirvana) Became a Buddha....some say if you can't fall into the silence around a teacher of nothingness just sitting staring in to the eyes on a one to one level does much in that way. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 4, 2016 8:02:41 GMT -5
The samskaras extend back to a former life, lives even, and if one doesn't break the chain of cause and effect, the samskaras will incarnate in the future (not, of course, 'us' as Tom, Harry or Sally, IOW, cultural self/ego). Does a non-experience of nonduality wipe out the karmic residue? How would one know if it did? Is this a concern to anyone? Anybody worried that if the samskaras are not exhausted in this life they will continue in another life and thus the pain and suffering continues? What is it that exhausts the perpetuity of the samskaras? ................Now, we can take this as all theoretical nonsense, irrelevant, but then, why are you here and not out enjoying life.....on Sugar Mountain.... (It's so noisy at the fair, but all your friends are there....ain't it funny how it feels when you're finding out life's real.....You can't be twen-ty on Sugar Mountain, for you know that you'll be leaving there too soon..you're leaving there too soon..........Neil Young, written at 19). sdp Let's say we are seekers, we don't know if it's one life or many. That's the stand point for the seeker, some teachers have mentioned it some haven't. Let's say there is.... Just to create an entertaining conversation, you are talking of samskaras past impressions that shape or have a main pull in that form in its journey of experience as an apparent separate self where the direction at some point in that persons life changes, falls into a groove pushing past the conditioning of the tradition the person is born in to, is exposed to ( if we are talking of a seeker trying to find the nature of his/ her self, true nature in this case, that is). He/ she starts to think about past lives well if I was doing good actions and bad actions how do they get stored if in each of my lives I had different time lines when I bowed out of theses character roles. I must have died in old age and in my next incarnation I had the impressions of those past thought patterns that shaped my life and direction but did I die young or old in the next. If I died young where are the fruits both good and bad held.....is this why I find it hard to wake up, those non duality teachers say you are that already...nothing to do....even though we did much to be able to say from sugar mountain there's nothing to do to the ones climbing up the mountain.....in fact there's no mountain, no climb, no climber. lets have a conversation over this. Why aren't you in that place saying the same? What exhausts the samskaras. I've only heard of one student around the Buddha who sat closed his eyes and understood the emptiness the nothingness of the Buddha, tradition tells of a man with little book knowledge, a simple man, very ordinary for his times...... Was blown out like a candle (a better meaning to nirvana) Became a Buddha....some say if you can't fall into the silence around a teacher of nothingness just sitting staring in to the eyes on a one to one level does much in that way. What exhausts the samskaras? Dzogchen is considered the foremost practice in Tibetan Buddhism. It is a ~ground~ state of awareness, the name translated into English in various ways, primordial awareness, pristine awareness, primordial nature, innate clear light, diamond mind. In the book I've been reading by The Dalai Lama, he calls it innermost awareness, or the Great Completeness. Here's what he says: "In fact, all Tibetan systems, in their final view, emphasize the fundamental innate mind of clear light. In terms of the center of these systems, all the phenomenon of cyclic existence and nirvana are the sport, the effulgence, of the fundamental innate clear light. Hence, the root, and foundation, of all that is within the scope of cyclic existence and nirvana is the fundamental clear light. This being so, when practicing the spiritual path, there is nothing else needed to purify these impure appearances--that themselves dawn from within the context of innermost awareness or clear light--than to turn the the fundamental innate mind of clear light itself into that through which you practice the spiritual path. Also, when finally manifesting the fruit of practicing the path, the fundanental innate mind of clear light Iitself, when separated from all obstructive defilements, is the resultant omniscience of buddhahood...." pages 47, 48. This is precisely what I was taught, the (interior) practices clean out the centers ("from all obstructive defilements"). You simply find this innermost awareness (which is actually not so simple), and live through it. (It is not merely awareness, which is ~tangled~ with and obstructed by the "defilements". Here on ST's it has been called awareness of awareness. Madame de Salzmann called it getting in front of oneself). |
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Post by bluey on Sept 4, 2016 20:06:33 GMT -5
and in the Dzogchen tradition do they talk of transmission between teacher and student.
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Post by bluey on Sept 5, 2016 17:39:37 GMT -5
Speak to you later stardust I'm away for a while. Take a look at Patrul Rinopoche, the way of the bodhisattva, treasury of precious qualities and words of my perfect teacher. And the Dzogchen texts have only been made available partially available to non initiates. Just like in the tantric traditions not many get to see the real method. Saraha was most likely the most open in that sense but he was in the direct line of the Buddha after Sri kirti. Take care.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 6, 2016 7:52:54 GMT -5
and in the Dzogchen tradition do they talk of transmission between teacher and student. I didn't get a chance to chase this down specifically (not at home). I would say it's kind-of like Zen, transmission outside the scriptures. A maybe metaphor, teacher has been to a certain "place", makes a map, a coded map, gives map to student. Student finds place using map. The "place" is the transmission, not the map. Transmission was outside the map. It's similar to a discussion with ZD a couple of days ago. The word can represent something, but the word means little without a direct experience of what the word represents. Read an example yesterday. You cannot describe via words what seeing is like, to a person born blind. I've been reading a book on Dzogchen by The Dalai Lama, he uses the words innermost awareness. But you don't know what ~that is~ from the words alone. But when ~the actual transmission occurs~, the teacher will know the student has received, and will most likely acknowledge it. (BTW, from another tradition, Kabbalah means received). |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 6, 2016 8:06:14 GMT -5
Speak to you later stardust I'm away for a while. Take a look at Patrul Rinopoche, the way of the bodhisattva, treasury of precious qualities and words of my perfect teacher. And the Dzogchen texts have only been made available partially available to non initiates. Just like in the tantric traditions not many get to see the real method. Saraha was most likely the most open in that sense but he was in the direct line of the Buddha after Sri kirti. Take care. OK...later. See post above. Words can be a treasure, like a treasure map. But if you don't use the words as a guide, you never find the treasure. IOW, the words in and of themselves are useless. As an example, Christianity today, let's say Protestantism, sort-of worships scripture, sola scriptura, scripture only. However, probably 99.999% have no idea what the following words mean: "If your eye is single, your whole body will be filled with light". The words should give a thirst to find out what they mean. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 6, 2016 12:24:08 GMT -5
Speak to you later stardust I'm away for a while. Take a look at Patrul Rinopoche, the way of the bodhisattva, treasury of precious qualities and words of my perfect teacher. And the Dzogchen texts have only been made available partially available to non initiates. Just like in the tantric traditions not many get to see the real method. Saraha was most likely the most open in that sense but he was in the direct line of the Buddha after Sri kirti. Take care. In The Heart of Meditation (2016) The Dalai Lama uses for primary discussion a poem/song by Patrul Rinpoche, the text Three Keys Penetrating the Core. |
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Post by bluey on Sept 14, 2016 20:11:36 GMT -5
Speak to you later stardust I'm away for a while. Take a look at Patrul Rinopoche, the way of the bodhisattva, treasury of precious qualities and words of my perfect teacher. And the Dzogchen texts have only been made available partially available to non initiates. Just like in the tantric traditions not many get to see the real method. Saraha was most likely the most open in that sense but he was in the direct line of the Buddha after Sri kirti. Take care. OK...later. See post above. Words can be a treasure, like a treasure map. But if you don't use the words as a guide, you never find the treasure. IOW, the words in and of themselves are useless. As an example, Christianity today, let's say Protestantism, sort-of worships scripture, sola scriptura, scripture only. However, probably 99.999% have no idea what the following words mean: "If your eye is single, your whole body will be filled with light". The words should give a thirst to find out what they mean. Have already been through all of that stardust.The whole body full of light is just the first stage part of the shadow,the dream state. The natural state knows not what it is. |
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Post by bluey on Sept 14, 2016 21:29:49 GMT -5
I'm just promoting Ian Wolstenholme on here I'm just passing through, just an exchange, a thank you. As for the Dalai Lama he's just a repeater standing on the shoulders of what has come before him. I have met many who know little knowledge but just break through into that nothingness. Have no language for it. Their samskaras, the accumulation of good and bad action, was very little, just a thin veil, their light on an inner level attracts the light of a teacher without. No use reading books, repeating like Shawn, if you have a debt you can't plough through from your own efforts. No technique, no method can see you through without a guide, rare is one who truly submits, one in a million, who needs not a guide. Not even spiritual teachers forum, Shawn, the TAT can brings much in the way, they are just playgrounds for entertainment, a place for conversation. Read back, you've missed something in your eagerness to show your knowledge which is not really your own knowledge, your own experience.
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Post by zendancer on Sept 15, 2016 7:52:12 GMT -5
I'm just promoting Ian Wolstenholme on here I'm just passing through, just an exchange, a thank you. As for the Dalai Lama he's just a repeater standing on the shoulders of what has come before him. I have met many who know little knowledge but just break through into that nothingness. Have no language for it. Their samskaras, the accumulation of good and bad action, was very little, just a thin veil, their light on an inner level attracts the light of a teacher without. No use reading books, repeating like Shawn, if you have a debt you can't plough through from your own efforts. No technique, no method can see you through without a guide, rare is one who truly submits, one in a million, who needs not a guide. Not even spiritual teachers forum, Shawn, the TAT can brings much in the way, they are just playgrounds for entertainment, a place for conversation. Read back, you've missed something in your eagerness to show your knowledge which is not really your own knowledge, your own experience. Without a teacher, and without knowing anything about anything, it's possible to suddenly encounter the Infinite. When this happens, all worries and cares instantly vanish, and one encounters something so vast and intelligent that the body/mind is overjoyed to discover that everything is taken care of, that the world is perfect just as it is, that all normal pursuits are part of a mysterious play, that the entire field of being is alive and unified, and that love is the underlying principle of reality. One who sees this instantly loses all interest in anything personal, and becomes solely interested in the welfare of other beings (including plants and animals). The idea of past or future lives, and all other similar ideas, loses all meaning because it is seen that there is no time or space, and that whatever happens is happening through some grand scheme that is unfolding in perfection. Somehow, the Infinite, through a particular body/mind, can perceive It's own vastness and the feeling of the individual to whom this happens is similar to discovering that one is being held in a loving embrace by something that has everything under such infinite control that there is simply nothing to ever worry about. If that individual were told that s/he would be dead in three hours, it would be perfectly okay because s/he would know that that's all part of the perfect unfolding of what's going on. FWIW, samskaras are only a meaningful idea on the personal intellectual level. At the level of the Infinite, such ideas vanish and are meaningless. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 15, 2016 12:42:13 GMT -5
and in the Dzogchen tradition do they talk of transmission between teacher and student. Hey bluey... I ran across a book on Amazon, The Precepts of the Dharmakaya...According to the Zhang-Zhung Tradition of Tibet (in North-West Tibet). On the Amazon page: "The Precepts of Dzogchen were said to have originated with the Primordial Buddha, Kuntu Zangpo, passing down at first through the direct mind-to-mind transmission and then later through the oral transmission of the 24 Master..."... 7th century...and has "come down to our own day through an unbroken line of oral transmission"... |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 15, 2016 12:56:58 GMT -5
I'm just promoting Ian Wolstenholme on here I'm just passing through, just an exchange, a thank you. As for the Dalai Lama he's just a repeater standing on the shoulders of what has come before him. I have met many who know little knowledge but just break through into that nothingness. Have no language for it. Their samskaras, the accumulation of good and bad action, was very little, just a thin veil, their light on an inner level attracts the light of a teacher without. No use reading books, repeating like Shawn, if you have a debt you can't plough through from your own efforts. No technique, no method can see you through without a guide, rare is one who truly submits, one in a million, who needs not a guide. Not even spiritual teachers forum, Shawn, the TAT can brings much in the way, they are just playgrounds for entertainment, a place for conversation. Read back, you've missed something in your eagerness to show your knowledge which is not really your own knowledge, your own experience. Agree with the underlined. As for one who needs not a guide, I'm not sure one would have a context to understand ~what they went through~ without a "guide". I guess you were talking about me, "you've missed something". I don't talk (or don't write about) significant experiences or non-experiences (although I usually try to write from experience, but not to experience). I bring things up sometimes just to raise an issue, and then what happens is up to whoever responds. I will reply somewhat further in response to ZD. .......But if you want to point out what I missed I'll certainly appreciate it..... (and will check out Ian). |
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