Metaphysical cosmology and nonduality

[zendancer]

Peter: I would not agree. There only APPEARS to be personal effort in a particular direction. In truth, there is no person who can make an effort or do anything. Thinking that one can do something is part of the fundamental illusion.

[Peter]

Apr 23, 2010 8:17:00 GMT -5 zendancer said:

Peter: I would not agree. There only APPEARS to be personal effort in a particular direction. In truth, there is no person who can make an effort or do anything. Thinking that one can do something is part of the fundamental illusion.

And that personal struggle against sloth and laziness, fighting against the temptation to have a beer and instead go and sit (and stay!) on the meditation stool, that's all illusion too? Well it might be from where you're standing, but it's a very real struggle from where I am.

"You" paid money, you made the effort to travel to all those retreats and learn Zen when you could have stayed in your back yard raking up the leaves. A choice was made by something at somepoint. There is experience of struggle, of conflicting drives.

You (who doesn't really exist) paid non-existent money to not travel to a reatreat that doesn't really exist either. OK, I take your word for it that this might be the TRUTH, but it's totally not useful. It just seems like an utterly pointless mental exercise in reality denial. Begging y'pardon.

[lightmystic]

I personally find that anything you have to force yourself to do, unless there is an underlying sense of intense rightness, is probably not what you need to do next. Instead of assuming what you need is one thing (e.g. meditation) what if you just listened to Life and let Life direct what was needed next? If you ask Life to present the next thing for you, then it will.

Sure decision making is a real process, but that process itself is pre-programmed in.

Apr 23, 2010 8:57:10 GMT -5 Peter said:

Apr 23, 2010 8:17:00 GMT -5 zendancer said:

Peter: I would not agree. There only APPEARS to be personal effort in a particular direction. In truth, there is no person who can make an effort or do anything. Thinking that one can do something is part of the fundamental illusion.

And that personal struggle against sloth and laziness, fighting against the temptation to have a beer and instead go and sit (and stay!) on the meditation stool, that's all illusion too? Well it might be from where you're standing, but it's a very real struggle from where I am.

"You" paid money, you made the effort to travel to all those retreats and learn Zen when you could have stayed in your back yard raking up the leaves. A choice was made by something at somepoint. There is experience of struggle, of conflicting drives.

You (who doesn't really exist) paid non-existent money to not travel to a reatreat that doesn't really exist either. OK, I take your word for it that this might be the TRUTH, but it's totally not useful. It just seems like an utterly pointless mental exercise in reality denial. Begging y'pardon.

[frankshank]

I was going to post something sensible and now I'm lost for words. I really do have no choice!!

[karen]

Apr 22, 2010 19:52:21 GMT -5 question said:

Too bad that it's a distraction, because I'm a lot better at doing a job that has a specific goal rather than doing things for their own sake. It's very satisfying for me to know what I have to do, how and when, what the goal is and where exactly I stand in the process. You know, like I look at the chart and it says I'm at 73%, alright!, only 27% to go, I can do it, let's go! Compared to that, nonduality is a nightmare. Being left completely in the dark, not having a clue... it's appalling, what does it take to not refuse this process?

Question, here's just a recomendation: this guy's stuff ( www.johnsherman.org/ ) is very accessable. The looking he refers to might be right up your alley. It seems to be with me. He's like a laser beam.

Just a friendly FYI.

[zendancer]

Peter: It may or may not be useful to hear that there is no choice. I generally use those words when people think there is a choice. If they think they have no choice, then I say the opposite. I am always trying to shake people out of their mindsets by pointing to what is beyond ideas like "choice" and "no-choice." In my case, however, I never felt like I was making a struggle. My outlook was more in accord with what LM noted. I always had a pretty good sense of what I needed to be doing, and I always found it humorous when Zen people told me about their "hard sitting" (the idea that they were making themselves sit and meditate when it really wasn't what they wanted to be doing). Too often people who do this sort of thing are reinforcing the illusion of separateness rather than penetrating it (Do you see what I've accomplished? I've forced myself to meditate against my natural inclination).

[Peter]

Thanks for the responses, I'll consider. Somethings - like giving up caffeine - have been effortless. Otherthings - like getting up in the night to take a glass of water to a wakeful child - take effort.

Off to Geneva for a week.

Cheers,
P

[enigma]

Apr 23, 2010 4:01:20 GMT -5 Peter said:

Apr 23, 2010 1:56:51 GMT -5 enigma said:

If it is recognized that you are not trying to become something, but rather to realize what you already are, it becomes clear that no movement could ever take you either closer to, or farther away from your goal.

And yet it would seem to be self evident that that realization is not going to occur if one were to spend 10 hours a day in front of a TV, drinking beer and playing computer games (which at least in my case I find to be "effortless action").




So it seems to me that at least some personal effort in a particular direction is required. Would you agree?

Cheers,
Peter

I would say that interest and willingness are required. The effort is not required, and in fact it is the effort which must end. The one who it is believed to be figuring something out, going somewhere, accomplishing something, is itself the only obstruction to realization.

However, from within this belief, effort will naturally be expended in order to realize the futility of effort, and so effort is not discouraged, I'm just saying that it does not result in a movement that gets one closer to what one already is.

I suspect there have been cases where the willingness to see was present, and the Truth was effortlessly seen. I don't see that anything else is necessarily needed.

[lightmystic]

Good point enigma. The usual view of doing something means having desire along with the responsibility to "make it happen." This process, in a sense, is a strange combination, because it's learning to embrace the desire 100% (which is the first part), but then let go 100% as well - let Life take care of us, and bring it to us in ways we'd never expect. We can know what we in for our desires in terms of the feeling, but any idea of what that needs to look like on the surface usually just gets in the way of our willingness to receive it the way Life is trying to provide it.

To the extent I am 100% on board with my desire on the feeling level, but really letting life determine what the fulfillment of that feeling would look like on the surface, I have never had a situation where the desire wasn't 100% fulfilled (usually in ways I never would have expected).

[vacant]

Ah good. I was going to ask Enigma for some clarification — not that that you were not clear Enigma, I tend to this messed-up perversion of adding a touch of unnecessary complication!
I take it's all cool to stick with the longing and make friends with it (got really down a few days ago after denying the longing) but for sure loose the trying... oh, and drop that idea too specially if I thought it would lead somewhere. Surrender the doing...

[enigma]

I'm all in favor of letting the longing break your heart wide open.

[zendancer]

Amen!