stirling

You didn't ask me obviously, but I just want to add that the IDEA of emptiness/ripga/nature of mind is not emptiness/rigpa/nature of mind. Grasping at ANYTHING, including a reified "emptiness" is not it. Once seen and understood, and once "self" is finally seen through, you can't really get lost in anything (void included). So, as you suggest, it is a relative/conventional idea to be careful of falling into the trap of reifying "emptiness" as a concept or influence on behavior. Imagine you weren't aware of temperature as a quality of reality. People would say that they were cold or hot, and you would have no idea what they meant and think they were crazy. Then, one day, the quality of temperature becomes known to you as something that seems to underly all of your experiences. You could now incline your mind toward your sense of temperature and be aware of it at any time it occurs to you. Eventually, perhaps, you could even ALWAYS be present with this quality. Silence (as a "quality of emptiness") is always present. Emptiness/rigpa/nature of mind is always present. There is always this quiet empty stillness, even when walking, or on a busy street corner, or as a thought arises and passes. It is the one pervasive constant of reality. In relative terms the silence is an underlying quality to ALL arising and passing of phenomena. You can taste this stillness in meditation, in the quiet moments in between thoughts. In those moments there is resting in enlightened mind, and how things are seen is not different than enlightened mind, though NOT enlightenment itself, which is insight.

You can believe in both at the same time, however both are just thoughts happening now. Beliefs don't have any reality of their own. Where are either of those ideas in the quiet empty stillness in between thoughts? Skill is the same illusion as volition. Even intention only arises in this moment. Where are skill or perspective in the quiet empty stillness in between thoughts? Who is there to have any of these qualities there? Self is just another idea happening now, when the idea passes, so does self.

As long as we are seeing from the relative view, Karma will always catch and snag us where we have clinging and aversion. The "path" (if such a thing ever existed) is as simple as seeing what the dharmakaya, from which all arising phenomena and their interaction borne situations arise, shows us about WHERE we are snagged and where our concretions of ideas are. What arises is always pointing back to the empty NON-arising quality of things as they truly are. Karma exists and happens until it is experientially understood and the completely pervasive that there is no-one to have or, literally, embody Karma.

Those that seek or want enlightenment tend to have an inkling that there is something present that underlies what they think of as conventional reality, and want to know what it is. This commonly happens after having a spiritual experience or "supernatural" event of some kind. Seeking also happens when someone is just tired of the struggle of human life, tired of torturing themselves with stories from their past, or projected ideas about the future that always fail to come to pass as they had hoped. How does it happen? As thelerner capably suggests, there is momentary insight into things as they truly are. In that moment what you think of as your "self" disappears, and it is seen that the world of "self", things, others - of space/time even, are all conceptual constructs that have never truly been real in the absolute sense. This essentially breaks your belief in the world as you had previously contrived it. While this insight gradually fades shortly after it starts, as the "experience" of this seeing goes away, the insight is permanent. Over time it becomes increasingly obvious experientially that what you saw in that experience is, and has always been, present, eventually dissolving the seeing of things from a fictional "self" and ,later still, making it impossible to see anything as other than the grand emptiness/fullness of the Tao/Dharmakaya. If you don't struggle with your life, or find the events or objects in it and their lack of permanence unsatisfactory, there really is no need to try to alter how you see them. If you are satisfied, why would you bother? I would guess that your presence here suggests that this is not the case, though?

Thank you for the welcome, Mr. thelerner, and for your solid boilerplate ethics. I approve! Looking forward to contributing, while boring and confounding in equal measure!

Hello friends, I spent 25 years in Dzogchen, starting the ngondro in the early 2000's, and in the process my teacher passed on. A few years later, after a bottomless insight into non duality, I sought out the nearest dharma teacher, which was the start of my time in the Soto Zen tradition (which, as it turns out, is quite compatible with my previous experience in Dzogchen). 5 years since that insight, my everyday life happens without the handicap of a "self". Today I run a university meditation program, and have a small sangha. I am unaccountably sewing my robes for ordination. I really enjoy discussion on the topic of things as they truly are in a completely non-disciplinary sense, and treasure teenage experiences with Syd Barrett and Stephen Mitchell. Taoism looms as a early precursor to future experiences, inasmuch any of these things truly exists. I am interesting in finding pointers for deeper reading in Taoism, information on it's siddhi/magick aspects, and like-minded/experienced people here, and in the Western Washington area.