What If...

[Alaya]

the most radical act we could preform would be attaining Enlightenment? I know this is not an original thought but this a.m. I was thinking how our minds have filled with so much trash.
Why not clean it up?

Here is a random quote I found while looking into Original Mind:

Humans’ pure Original Nature is just this. Without shape, form, or color; without birth and death; not clean or dirty; not increasing or decreasing; not male or female; not young, not old; not intelligent, not stupid; not rich, not poor. There are no words, no explanation possible, no description that will apply here, only a pure mirror-like base. This is humans’ true quality; this is an actual experience. From our zazen (sitting meditation), cut all nen (mind-instants), dig down completely to the source of those nen—dig, dig, dig until we reach the place where the human character has been totally cleared. When the source point is reached, this state of Mind can be touched.
Shodo Harada Roshi


What if we all Turn On, Drop into the Dharamkaya, and Stay Awake?

From Wiki:

Padmasambhava, Karma Lingpa, Gyurme Dorje, Graham Coleman and Thupten Jinpa (2005: p.452) define "Buddha-body of Reality", which is a rendering of the Tibetan chos-sku and the Sanskrit dharmakāya, as:

...the ultimate nature or essence of the enlightened mind [byang-chub sems], which is uncreated (skye-med), free from the limits of conceptual elaboration (spros-pa'i mtha'-bral), empty of inherent existence (rang-bzhin-gyis stong-pa), naturally radiant, beyond duality and spacious like the sky. The intermediate state of the time of death ('chi-kha'i bar-do) is considered to be an optimum time for the realisation of the Buddha-body of Reality.[4][5]


Just asking....

[stefano]

Dunno if it's the most radical act we can perform, but it certainly can't hurt.

There are times when I think of Hugh with compassion; cause the information/sensibilisation/radicalisation vibe has its limits. At a certain point you have to ask what you are asking. Can we sort out our shit at the level at which it was brought in to the world? Or so we need to approach it from an angle of synthesis?

[Simulist]

If you're a prisoner, one of the most radical acts you can do is to escape.

If you're an inmate in a somnambulatorium — where everyone is being kept in a sort of semi-sleep state — one of the most radical acts you can do is to wake up.

[Alaya]

"We live in states of confusion and fear from which we see no escape. Our problem is that we don't see who we truly are at the deepest level. We don't recognize the power of our enlightened nature. We trust the reality we see before our eyes and accept its validity until something comes along - an illness, accident or disappointment - to disillusion us. Then we might be ready to question our beliefs and start searching for a more meaniful and lasting truth."

"That is the essence and mission of the 'rebel buddha': to free us from the illusions we create by ourselves, about ourselves, and from those who masquerade as reality in our cultural and religious institutions."


- from Rebel Buddha by Dzogchen Ponlop

[Hammer of Los]

Yes.

I just try to keep on learning and loving. What else can I do? I am ignorant and my love is imperfect.

Is it time to Awaken yet?

Progressive rock is sacred music. Jon Anderson is my guru. Maybe this will help us. Strong dreams reign here;

High vibration go on
To the sun, oh let my heart dreaming
Past a mortal as me
Where can I be?

Wish the sun to stand still
Reaching out to touch our own being
Past all mortal as we
Here we can be
Here we can be

Suns, high, streams, through
Awaken gentle mass touch
Awaken gentle mass touch

Strong, dreams, reign, here
Awaken gentle mass touch
Awaken gentle mass touching
Awaken gentle mass touch

Stars, song, age, less
Awaken gentle mass touching
Awaken gentle mass touching
Awaken gentle mass touching

Touching
Touching
Touching

Workings of man
Set to ply out historical life
Reregaining the flower of the fruit of his tree
All awakening, all restoring you

Workings of man
Crying out from the fires set aflame
By his blindness to see that the warmth of his being
His promise for his seeing, his reaching so clearly

Workings of man
Driven far from the path
Rereleased in inhibitions
So that all is left for you
All is left for you
All is left for you
All is left for you
Now

Master of images
Songs cast a light on you
Hark through dark ties
That tunnel us out of sane existence
In challenges direct
As eyes see young stars assemble

Master of light
All pure chance
As exists, cross divided
In all encircling mode
Oh, closely guided plan
Awaken in our heart

Master of soul
Set to touch all impenetrable youth
Ask away, that thought be contact
With all that's clear
Be honest with yourself
There's no doubt, no doubt

Master of time
Setting sail over all of our lands
And as we look forever closer
Shall we now bid
Farwell, farewell

High vibration go on
To the sun, oh let my heart dreaming
Past a mortal as me
Where can I be?

Wish the sun to stand still
Reaching out to touch our own being
Past all mortal as we
Here we can be

Like the time I ran away
And turned around
And you were standing close to me

Like the time I ran away
And turned around
And you were standing close to me

[guruilla]

what if the most radical act would be to stop caring about how radical you can be?

[Alaya]

Ok, we can say courageous or compassionate act instead of radical act.

Or you can fill in the goddamn blank yourself.

[meng]

Ok, we can say courageous or compassionate act instead of radical act.

Or you can fill in the goddamn blank yourself.

I love where this thread was going. I didn't see it sooner... let's resurrect this conversation.

The intermediate state of the time of death ('chi-kha'i bar-do) is considered to be an optimum time for the realisation of the Buddha-body of Reality

I'm reading Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth by Tulku Thondop. A radical act is looking at death nakedly -- and preparing for it head on. I'm still too cowardly to do so. Letting go is the radical act.

[Alaya]

Hiya meng. Have Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth on my shelf but have not read it yet. Will get on it when I get back. Am in Mexico at the moment but returning within the next few days. Would like to have a conversation about such things and really need to be relating to them now more than ever, instead of gazing out the window in semi denial, since we have a live-in family member with a very serious illness. Well, at this point it's all so precarious anyway.. I know it always is but the Japan thing brings it home in a renewed way. Can't get away from that at all in the light of the suffering those poor people are enduring.

We prepare for so many things except the most important one.
Did read a book called Who Dies a while back and found it helpful.

Would love to hear any thoughts you have..

[meng]

We prepare for so many things except the most important one.
Did read a book called Who Dies a while back and found it helpful.

Would love to hear any thoughts you have..

This is so true. I highly recommend Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth -- I am really taking my time reading it (taking my time = getting so freaked out about what I perceive to be the harsh truths contained therein, that I must take it very slowly) and I am fairly struck by Tulku Thondop's gentile, yet firm insistence that now is the time to work these things out for ourselves.

I hear you about wasting time staring out the window. I remember reading a poem by Allen Ginsberg from his last book, Death and Fame where he laments, in the twilight of his life, all the time he wasted reading books on the toilet etc. It was absolutely heartbreaking. I was thoroughly inspired for about 4 mins to make sure I do all the practice and preparation I could before my own time. Yet, when the alarm goes off in the morning, I hit snooze and decide I'd rather sleep the extra hour. So many distractions. What are your experiences with this?

[Alaya]

There is that teaching about the turtle. There is a turtle swimming in the ocean and a doughnut floating on top of it. What are the chances of the turtle rising to the surface of the water and putting his head through the doughnut hole? Supposedly we have the same chance to be born in a human life time.

I think we all have those feelings that we have not practiced enough whether we are super practitioners or lazy grasshoppers. I just spoke to a friend who made a ten year commitment to do a practice for two hours a day. She is an advanced Tantric practitioner who re realized the rarity of a human life and decided to put the screws to it toward the end of her life because she wants to help others. The possibility of enlightenment in this lifetime is something I never took very seriously and I always preferred the high action of being 'in the midst of it' than to breaking my knees on the cushion.

I've been getting lots of messages from the phenomenal world to practice lately and so I'm doing it. Nothing fancy or strenuous but something grounding.

[Hammer of Los]

Good luck with that enlightenment thing.

Once a long time ago, I used to practice meditation of various forms, in the most slovenly and lax manner imaginable.

I had a strange experience once of emptiness. It scared me, so I withdrew from that form of meditative practice.

No, I'm still not ready to let go yet either. Hell, I'm ignorant and practice that universal human sin;

Wilful blindness.

I am sure 23 wanted to speak about that somewhere. It is a sin we are all guilty of. Perhaps even, from a certain perspective, the primary error.

But anyway yes, you are so right, a single human life is such a fragile and precious thing, and we are all such wonderful unique creatures. Each flower trembles at every breeze; it is so sensitive. But its beauty is all the greater for its brief flowering.

I don't think people consider the fact of mortality very much, if at all. Or maybe they are simply reluctant to talk about it. I do rather tend to think about it, but of course, as one of the basic facts of existence, as a philosopher I would be most remiss were I not to think about it.

I don't really know what to do as I ply out this historical life. Mostly I do nothing much. I do try to help look after people though. My interest in religion and philosophy is a response to my overactive curiousity, and is an intellectual diversion, or form of play. The real spiritual work is in looking after others. Self transcendence is the goal, so one must put others first. The way of yoga focussed on devotion is easier than the way of intellection.

I love to ramble here, you know. It's self expression. I don't expect it to have any value to anyone. It's just words on a page.

[Alaya]

HoL, If you had a strange experience of emptiness chances are you were doing something right.

Agree that it can be unsettling but what if that experience was akin to stepping out of the matrix for a moment? Or even better, what if that emptiness is the condition of our original mind and everything else is distraction that we fill in to spare ourselves the discomfort of emptiness?

Just asking, of course. I don't claim to know anything.

Oh wait, I know I love my dogs. That's the only thing I know for sure.

[meng]

HoL, If you had a strange experience of emptiness chances are you were doing something right.

Agree that it can be unsettling but what if that experience was akin to stepping out of the matrix for a moment? Or even better, what if that emptiness is the condition of our original mind and everything else is distraction that we fill in to spare ourselves the discomfort of emptiness?

Just asking, of course. I don't claim to know anything.

Oh wait, I know I love my dogs. That's the only thing I know for sure.

Hi Alaya,

This was quite a nice post, thank you (even though it was directed to Hammer of Los). Emptiness is such a tricky thing because on one hand its utterly frightening, but at the same time, from what little investigation I've done, it seems to be our natural condition in a way. So this post really rang true to me.

I read a great book by Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel called the Power of an Open Question, and it tackles the emptiness (the E word as she calls it in the book -- which she never uses by the way) question in a completely sane and down to earth way. I highly recommend it. This is actually a nice dovetail to bring the conversation back to our discussion of avoiding practice, or finding motivation to practice -- just yesterday I read something at Elizabeth Mattis' blog about resistance to meditation practice. If you're moved to read it and have any comments, I'd love to hear what you have to say.

If you think about it, what we call “our life” is nothing more than a momentary stream of experiences? So if we resist these experiences what we are really resisting is our life. So I guess what I am saying is that it is not really practice we are resisting…it is our own life. We don’t know how to value and digest the natural energy that arises and expresses itself moment by moment.

Resistance to Meditation Practice

Cheers,