Month: November 2004 Page 4 of 7

Not Resting

On 16/11/2004

How tempting it is for the mind to grasp onto what is directly perceived, and to ossify it into necessarily rigid and falsifying concepts. The raft of skilful use of conceptual understanding is a tricky one to ride, and one which seems to hold much potential for misuse. The Buddha described the Dharma as being like a raft to the other shore, and said to this effect:

Would a man who has crossed to the other shore, then take up the raft, place it upon his head, and proceed to walk around with it?
Alagaddūpama Sutta (Majjhima Nikāya 22)
also known as the Discourse on the Parable of the Water Snake or the Water Snake Simile Sutta

Don’t grasp the method

The methods are a means to an end, and not to be grasped onto as an end in themselves. Descriptions of how things are, necessarily words, conceptual in nature, are just skilful means, designed to point us in a particular direction, and are not the thing itself. How easy to grasp onto both as the point itself, rather than something just to skilfully utilise. It seems when looking around that it is so easy for followers of the various religious paths to lose sight of the point, and grasp onto the means as literal and ultimate.

Concepts are beguiling

The concepts which make sense of our experience once outside of meditation are beguiling in their simplicity, and seeming definitiveness. However things are, however we see things, there seems to be a tendency to hold onto that level of seeing, and to automatically turn it into a conceptual view. Emptiness is like this … appearances are like this ….. mind is like this ….. but how is it all?

The conceptual understanding sits easily in the mind, a neat clear nugget, which simplifies to the point of utter falsification. Life seems to be utterly mysterious at root, and defies all description. By that I mean that what is/isn’t seems endlessly ungraspable … always slipping away as the mind struggles to word it. It seems endlessly elusive, as awareness seems to see and know. It seems endlessly wondrous, as we open truly and let go.

So full is this experience, so blissful the openness, and yet, how easy to rest on our concepts and names.

Exchanging the richness of moon itself for the poor relation of the finger pointing

How readily concepts seek to intrude in meditation itself, naming and judging …. a chance to exchange the richness of moon itself with the poor relation of the finger pointing. Letting go of naming, letting go of the concepts which try to overlay and overlap direct perception. Our habit is to name, to understand, to contain and explain.

Yet names have usefulness, as do our notions and concepts.

Without names, could we find our way? …. I don’t know …. I’ve never given up the conceptual habit outside of meditation. I can’t imagine why the Realised Ones would have spent so much time spinning skilful concepts unless there was definite utility in them. Holding up the golden flower, Shakyamuni spoke the unspeakable …. and we cannot but help smiling in return. But how to share this wondrous glimpse?

Holding concepts lightly

And how to lightly hold concepts, this precious means of pointing to that which cannot be pointed to, and yet one so intoxicating in their potential duplicity.

Never resting with what is seen. Never resting with conceptual crutches. Never resting with our limited love. Never resting with beings still suffering.

Never resting with the job part done.

And yet, perfect as things already are, we let go, completely and utterly.

The concepts are not the thing itself. And yet, they point to all that is and can be.

Beads on a String

By Chodpa

On 15/11/2004

In General Buddhism

It has really struck me over the weekend how much the continuity of meditation is facilitated by a daily practice. For many years when I started on the Dharmic path, I was fiercely concerned that I should meditate every day, following my teachers advice. Like many things in those days, there was a sense of struggle, of battle, of throwing myself up headfirst against all that I was seeking to move away from, and towards all that which I wished to encourage. So meditation practice was something which sometimes I had to ‘fight’ to get into my day, up against so many other activities and responsibilities as it was.

Relaxing the struggle

In more recent years, I seem to have relaxed somewhat, and things are no longer the ‘battle’ or ‘struggle’ they were. I’m more able to allow things to be as they are, and allow the practice to do the work, without excessive ‘doing’, and allow dharmas to self-liberate in awareness and love.

So meditation, like other things, had become one flavour of the day, and sometimes I skipped one of my sessions at the weekend if family responsibilities seemed like a more skilful thing to do. In a week then, I’d meditate 6 days out of 7, and do my various samaya commitments on the day that I skipped.

Recently, I’ve been meditating in the living room when I get up at weekends, and part way through my two year old tends to wake up and come down. As I’ve posted before, it’s been a very beautiful time, sharing the space with him, and radiating spacious awareness amongst his busy inquisitive doings.

The deja vu of meditation

But it’s really struck me once again how the sense of continuity in meditation has been facilitated by this ‘every day’ fullness of my meditation practice. There’s a stronger sense of momentum which is maintained by running through my full practice every day. Each time I start meditation, the flavour is so readily there, and so strong, as if I’ve barely stopped meditating. Some days, it almost feels like deja vu, as if ‘surely I’ve already meditated today’, such is the strength of what readily comes into awareness at the beginning of practice.

It feels like a string of beads, one right up against the other, with so little gap between. And like thumbing beads in prayer, they slide along in a dynamic continuity, moving and shuffling, but always in connection. My meditation shimmers and moves, and has a shifting pattern like the weather. But so much runs through it which seems connected and threaded. Not like something, a ‘thing’, which is passed from one day to the other. More like flames which flicker on, a continuity, but where is the substance in a flame which truly is continuous?

Blessings overflow into gratitude

The sense of wholeness and meaning is strong …. the feeling of connection runs deep. Blessings overflow, and gratitude is something which bubbles up, hardly able to show how wondrous this thing is, this gift, this precious, precious jewel.

Like beads on a string, the rhythms of life and practice flow on. Each moment a bead, each meditation session a bead, each being encountered a bead, each bead a Buddha.

The Experience is the Experiencer

By Chodpa

On 14/11/2004

In Mahamudra

We experience endlessly, and on top of the flow of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, and thinking we project and add a fictional ‘experiencer’, a one, a self who is doing this experiencing.

And yet, there isn’t anyone there to do this. so who or what is experiencing the experiences? ….. the experience itself is in a sense the experiencer! Not as a self, or something separate or added on top of the experience. Just the experience arising in awareness …..

Each moment of experience, as it arises in awareness is just what it is … an experience … and that is all there is.

Nobody is home

Don’t need to project out a self or me who ‘has’ this experience. No need to experience these arisings in mind as being ‘out there’ … things in the world.

No ‘me’, no ‘world’ directly experienced.

Just arisings in mind, momentary and complete.