manitou

Excellent, excellent, excellent! I am ordering that book today. (Open Heart, Open Mind) I am predominately metal - rigid - and because of the years of Prozac, unable to feel much at all. More understanding of this, exactly what you posted, is what I need right now. I happen to be at the point where I am focusing on tigles (assumedly the same as thigles?) before going to sleep at night. The dream yoga is working incredibly well for me so far - I have never been much of a dreamer, especially because of the chemical. The way Tsoknyi Rinpoche compares the pathways of the nervous system to the pathways of the subtle energy body, it reminds me of the difference between a flock of birds that all turn to fly in a different direction, although not necessarily synchronized - as opposed to a flock of birds that shares a spontaneous and mysterious communication wherein the synchronization is immediate and perfect. Can't remember which type of birds those are -

To find merit, we need to uncover merit. It is there within, under conditioning. It appears there are two elements, riding on the shoulders of the wisdom of others who came before us and have 'real-ized' wisdom; but also cutting our own path, finding it, and making the wisdom Real by having the courage to live it. The true nature of the mind is Love. And to love one's self is the very hardest one to love. To love another before loving one's self is to not truly love at all. Until then, we need to make merit.

How could I possibly live without the samsara of CT? I know that your wisdom is my wisdom as well, yet it comes out of your mouth and not mine. As though you and I were separate? And yet I recognize that the wisdom is within me as well, and that the 'sang' process I am going through is merely being defined by one who appears as separate. You are pointing the way to the 'gye' on my path. (I have noted for some time now that spell-check doesn't have a metaphysical bone in its body) For some reason, this brings to mind that it's already all happened, that the three times are one. That what has lived and died is here now, and that which hasn't been born yet is here now. That this great opera has already played out and sits in its Is-ness, but we are in this samsaric fully extended accordion of linear thought. That the True is when the accordion is compressed, the 3 times superimposed over each other. It's all mind, and samsaric mind produces the Beginningless Time that Never Stops, as quoted above. Constant opportunity for one to return to Self, the true. Perhaps the fallen angel template. Yesterday Joe and I drove the next town up to buy a gift certificate at a restaurant for our neighbors who watched the house while we were gone. As soon as we took off in my Prius, there was a horrible thumping in the brakes. A quarter mile down the road we turned around, parked the Prius, and got into the Jeep. On the way to the restaurant was a terrible accident that had just happened - a car was overturned on the 2 lane highway, people were running everywhere, someone was still inside, the ambulance hadn't gotten there - you've got the picture. Had we not returned for the Jeep we may very well have been part of that. But that wasn't the configuration of the compressed accordion, for us to be involved. It had already played out in the correct configuration, but was unfolding in the linearity of the extended accordion of time.

This reminds me of a Father Anthony DeMello CD. He speaks of the first time we see, say, a butterfly; the wonder of it, the awe it inspires. Until someone tells us it's a 'butterfly'. It's like it's been placed in a little conceptual box and we're off to the next thing, the next sensory whoop-de-doo. The wonder and awe become a thing of the past once language minimizes it, pegs it, corrals it.

And metaphoric drops of water we all are, coming together of dependent factors. through the gathering of dependent humans the Awareness is merged into One. Perhaps one day we will catch up with the animals. So within this mere appearance i will observe ethical norms. No need to observe ethical norms, really. Just uncover the true balance of ethical norms within self.

Gently and beautifully said, IMO.

So the difference here is whether one is sitting in awareness of that which comes to the sensory perceptions - smells, sounds, etc - and letting it all merge into One? No judgment, no separation? Just resting in the is-ness?

Those were just what I needed this morning, CT. I'm learning the basics of TCM, the 5 elements. Seeing my own nature through the eyes of these elements and what they represent inside us is unbelievable. But it brings to mind an event that happened last night, and when it says in your quote 'Phenomena are like a dream, empty of true nature'. This morning I experience the concept of us being the microcosm to the macrocosm in a very individual way. Every moment there is opportunity to view manifestation (of our own projections) and see what they are telling us. Last night my partner and I were trying to hang a heavy metal chandelier off a mobile home ceiling. It occurred to me that the weight of the metal lamp was too heavy for the circumstances, and that Joe hadn't screwed into a beam. I became aware that this would not work. Joe, on the other hand, was of the attitude, 'well, we'll find out when we get down here next time' (to Florida). I immediately saw the relationship of this event to the 5 elements system, and how I am experiencing 'weakness' (in several forms) in my heart. And I immediately could see in my mind's eye coming down here this fall and finding my ceiling fallen, my beautiful new wooden table smashed by the chandelier. My first reaction was to shrink, to subjugate myself to him one more time, to let him be the decider in all things out of fear of his explosive nature. The chandelier (metal) is, according to a TCM practitioner I am working with, way too abundant within me and needs to be balanced. The ceiling in this case is representative of my heart, the upper organ. My inability to stand up to Joe (even though everything we have, I have bought - I have virtually mothered him for 33 years in a co-dependent way). And yet, I have recreated the very situation that I grew up with - being terrified of my father. (You'd think by the age of 69 that a person would have 'gotten' this.) Joe has a lot of underlying anger, and as explosive as my father's. My healing, my remedy for the heart and getting the system back into balance, is to stand at my full height. To stop thinking that if everything doesn't go his way, he'll leave me or go out and get drunk (apparently I have a savior complex too). So I have subjugated myself to a man that has duplicated the very same bathtub ring of discomfort that I had as a kid. and this is why I have taken Prozac for 30 years. To keep the truth stifled. What an eye opener. What gratitude I am having for the fact that I have suddenly developed a great interest in TCM and am learning about the phases, interactions, elements. And what an eye-opener to see that at any given moment, particularly in a somewhat unusual situation, that we are truly the microcosm for the macrocosm; that we create the health for our own bodies, and that life gives us opportunity after opportunity to work through it. Sometimes all we have to do is look around, see what's happening, and see how it fits into our particular patterns. I have been so unaware. The rage I am always afraid of when withdrawing from Prozac (one more time) is at none other than myself, for allowing this to reenact over and over for 33 years. Geez, I wish I would grow up. Thank you, CT. (P.S. - I have informed him that I will be calling a handyman today to figure this out, find a beam, and do it right). As to the rest of the sham relationship? One day at a time things will go as things will go.

I guess that's how all of us learn anything. Trying it our way - good advice, IMO. I applaud him. Nobody could've told me nuthin' back in the day. I knew a young Buddhist chick that I met in a campground when I was staying there several winters ago, in Santa Barbara, CA. She had decided to do just what Dream Bliss is talking about - sort of a 'Buckminster' sort of thing. She was gorgeous and from Russia - she had been a model and an actress there - but in order to lose all her baggage she shaved her head and decided to go into free-fall and travel the U.S. The world, in fact. The campground was a Thousand Trails campground that sells membership. The salesman there talked her into buying a membership so she could be 'safe' as she was traveling around the country. She bought a membership, and woke up the next morning with a terrible case of buyer's remorse. She knew this was totally contrary to everything she wanted to do, that it was the opposite of free-fall. So I went up to her rental cabin the next morning and she was in tears. She asked me if I could get her money back, that she had made a horrible mistake. I told her, no - I wouldn't get her money back from her, but I could teach her the art of wu-wei. I glanced down the hill and saw that the salesman, Martin, was coming out of his cabin. I told her that Martin may be headed this way, and if he was, for her to do set her intent on getting her money back, and do nothing to change the dynamic, and let Martin do all the talking. He walked into her cabin, told her he couldn't get the exact terms of their agreement, and handed the check back to her. I had to go into the other room and just laugh - it worked so perfectly. For some reason, Natasha and I didn't exchange numbers. I wish I knew what she's doing and where she's doing it today. What an exquisite creature she was. But it was one of those strange situations where I was put into her path for a very specific reason - and she was put into my path for an equally specific reason - to channel to me my Russian grandmother whom I had been looking for for years on Ancestry. An incredible couple days.

You are so self-honest! I love it. My thoughts: to focus on money is to imprison oneself in a limited way. I say, let it flow. You don't know what you don't know. I wouldn't assume that the things that require money are the things that are going to make you the least restricted. Follow the serendipity. Try making no assumptions about anything. Nothing is as it appears. Seems to me like trying to define a chief aim is limiting, too. Very best of wishes to you! Can't wait to see what you get into!

I've probably read Mitchell's translation of the DDJ 20 times because it's so small and it carries well in my purse. I've never quite understood his Chapter 12; even his excellent footnotes at the back of the book never seemed to quite hit the mark for me. Until today. For some reason, I saw things entirely opposite of how I had been interpreted them. Ch. 12 Colors blind the eye. Sounds deafen the ear. Flavors numb the taste. thoughts weaken the mind. Desires wither the heart. I had always taken this to mean that too many colors blind the eye, and Mitchell seems to bear this out in his comments (which I'll write at the end of my observations). But it occurred today that the colors we see are only those which are reflected, which are not absorbed by the object viewed. Black is black to us because the surface absorbs all other colors on the electromagnetic spectrum. Perhaps this does not refer to 'too many colors', or 'too many sounds'. Perhaps it refers more to the illusiveness of phenomena, in that it really isn't there anyway! When we realize that 99.99(9)% of an atom is void and the remaining .001% is infinitisimal particle (which may one day be proven not to be solid either; the Hadron collider actually shows that upon collision, some of the quarks actually go backward in time!), then it certainly all comes back to mind, doesn't it? I mean, we seem to think that we are 'hard shell' and various values in between, but we're predominately air. We are thought. Perhaps just all our communal perception. As I saw it today, color, sound, flavor, thoughts, and desires are an elimination of all other potential. Imagine the things we can't hear, see, taste - because our senses are so limited. And desires withering the heart - how poignant this seems to me. To desire anything is certainly relative to all the other phenomena we are rejecting. To desire one particular person is to find all others not as desirable. It's a judgment call, a conclusion on our part. And with conclusion comes the closing of mind as to infinity and potential. But the next part is the part that hit me the most. The Master observes the world but trusts his inner vision He allows things to come and go. His heart is open as the sky. I had always looked at this from the perspective of looking outward from the inside. But I realized the possibility today that it's just the opposite. What does trusting our inner vision really mean? I think it means that we know others if we know ourselves, and it is this that we can trust. If we know ourselves, truly know ourselves, then we know the macrocosm of other living beings. We have gotten down to the spaciousness within ourselves, the clarity of 'the sky', as Mitchell would put it. There are no clouds. His heart is not closed to any thing or any body; all is just phenomena that we realize is relative to the perception of every other being. There is no One Judgment, no One Truth. Just perception. Hopefully, if we are skilled, perception without coloration. Mitchell's comments re: Ch. 12: Colors blind the eye, etc.: We need space in order to see, silence in order to hear, sleep in order to carry on with our wakefulness. If the senses are too cluttered with objects, they lose their acuteness and will eventually decay. Desires wither the heart: Once it has let go of desires the heart naturally overflows with love, like David's cup in Psalm 23. His inner vision: There is no inside or outside for him. He reflects whatever appears, without judgment, whether it is a flower or a heap of garbage, a criminal or a saint. Whatever happens is all right. He treats his own anger or grief just as he would treat an angry child: with compassion. (I think he did an excellent job on this comment..) Open as the sky: The sky holds sun, moon, stars, clouds, rain, snow, or pure azure. Because it doesn't care which of these appear, it has room for them all. Any other interpretations?? I'd sure be interested to hear them...

Less is more. Exactly. I've been playing classically for over 60 years, but no more sheet music or classical. Just this simple but hauntingly beautiful sound that comes out of my keyboard. Also - I've started closing my eyes, placing my hands anywhere they want to go on the keyboard - some of it is wonderful, some is awful. But I've been playing for so long that even the awful will gently morph into something with less dissonance and more resonance. My hands are so used to keyboard patterns that order will come out of chaos. But it seems that it works best if I have the structure of a familiar song in my mind, even though it comes out sounding nothing like that song at all - but it does give it the slightest of structure where I want it; and occasionally, if I wanted to, one could almost claim that it 'is' that particular song, because in places the patterns will be apparent to a discriminating ear. I am doing a CD (vocal) with a wonderful producer that writes and plays piano music unlike anything you've ever heard. What a talent he is. I just suggested to him in an email today, in fact, that I do the closed-eye keyboard for a period of time, then let him do his magic on it, interposing where he wishes some strings or any of the wonderful synthesized sounds he can come up with. If this comes out sounding like anything at all and we actually make it into an MP3 file, I'll shoot you over a copy. But this won't happen until I get back to Ohio from Florida in a few weeks. When spring finally decides to make an appearance. always nice to talk to another musician. A language all of its own. You probably know this by now, but you can always hit the 'follow this topic' button at the top of the page to make sure you get advised via email on a thread you're participating in. (Although for some reason mine doesn't work and I don't get notified). Doppelgangers in my twitterbox.

I play keyboard by ear, in the past several years my music has gotten simpler, simpler, simpler. But more beautiful, because there is now so much contrast in volume, and almost a vibrato that comes through the fingers when only one tone is held. This started happening when becoming Kundalini active some years back. It is eerily beautiful, as though from the ethers. Same with the Native American flute. It is the quality of the tone that seems to have the beauty, not the quantity or even the melody. I just saw Madama Butterfly by Puccini, and one more time I got the tingling thrill at the moment the conductor raised his baton; the moment of supreme possibility within the silence, the potentiality, prior to the potential being tainted or constrained by a single note even being played. Glad you're here, Old River.

I wish I could say I spend several hours a day in meditation. I do not. I will spend maybe 20 minutes a day in meditation, over a period of 30 or so years. I wish I could say I walk around in a state of constant gnowing, in Awareness. I do not. I get caught up in something that someone said or did, then realize later the metaphysical importance or reason for it. I seem to be a few steps behind in my Awareness much of the time. I do have those moments when bliss occurs, when all things come together as one. They are short lived. I have had the blissful experienced of tantric sex on several occasions; there are no words to describe that. I wish that for everybody at least once; it is unforgettable. I have meditated to the point where I got to the outer limits of 'something', some edge of the universe where there was a sudden awareness of the Aloneness of it all; where there was nobody but my presence out there; where ego dissipated and fell around me like a broken eggshell. It was terrifying and I was afraid I couldn't get back. I did, but very slowly. But the thing that came to me in meditiation this morning in a lovely Florida park was the following: that the closest I have ever been to understanding what we could maybe call the primordial brain, the reptilian brain, or perhaps Rigpa (my non-Buddhist understanding being 'innate awareness, the true nature of the individual', using the definition of Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche) was in one of the deepest depressions I had ever fallen into. This happened several years ago, and my partner called an ambulance to take me to the hospital. I was on my bed in a fetal position, crying so hard that no sound even came out any more; my eyes were swollen and some blood vessels had broken in my eyes; this went on for several hours. My mouth was frozen in an open crying position, but again, no sound was capable of even coming out. And yet, it was then and only then that I felt the presence of an Other of sorts. It seemed to be located at the brain stem, the area toward the back of the throat. It was a presence that clearly said to me 'you are choosing this, you know'. It was a part of my brain that was not caught up in the depression of whatever it was I was so depressed about (can't remember now), but it was clearly not affected by the emotion. It was emotionless and all-knowing. And it saying what it said was partly comforting, and at the same time partly not what I wanted to hear. Perhaps the ocean of rigpa. Perhaps it was reached because the id or ego was totally demolished at that moment, nothing left to survive for. But all I know was that it was real, and it was dwelling within. The dweller.

I'm guessing stuff to look at from that period of time, karmic remnants that are interfering with you today. Any amends to make? Any relationship you can change for the better re: family, friends? And don't forget it's all actually happening Now, that time isn't really linear.

This makes perfect sense because in the case of my OP experience, there was both the Speaker and the Hearer (me). Still in duality. Apparently there is only one entity in your dance, RigdzenTrinley. Or perhaps more correctly, non-entity. The Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.

And in the book it apparently gets you to the place where it is all like one big lucid dream, whether in the dream state while sleeping, or the dream state while awake. Since reading the Flower Ornament Sutra, I have found myself merging with Flower Glow, a boddisatva, in my mind. when I do this it is easy to realize that the waking state is a dream. I wish I didn't take sleeping pills at night, but I take Prozac and there's no sleeping at all with that stuff. So I take pills to get to sleep. I only get snippets of dreams, but they are often profound. But not lucid, although I have had one in the past. Such fascinating reading, and a fascinating concept (or truth). I look forward to the day I can get rid of all the pills, but as long as I'm living with another, I stay on them out of deference to our getting along. I've tried again and again to get off the Prozac and, even knowing it's all a dream, the physicality of withdrawing from that drug is just horrible, no matter how slowly you try to do it.

Thank you Steve. I am rather awed by the Dream Yoga book, and in fact I am re-reading it again from the beginning. Even reading the introduction (after the initial reading) brings deeper level of understanding. I expect that this is one of those books that each time you read it, you see it with higher eyes. I appreciate your statement that it is something that is impossible to define - the only thing I could relate it to was experience. So perhaps the experience had nothing to do with rigpa. Perhaps I'll get a further glimpse (an undefinable one, for sure!) upon second reading. And this time I won't try to define it, Love to you.

Hello Kshanti! Great shoes! I really look forward to your participation here. Glad you've found this site to be of help to you - it has been invaluable to me. To get the most out of it, keep your mind as open as your yoga stance is, lol. Manitou

That is quite wonderful, T.I.! I can't help but note that Daskalos is a Christian mystic, and as such he would think in terms of archangels. Maybe there is no relationship between archangels and the 'voice' of rigpa, the inner and outer awareness That Is, but maybe there is. Thank you so much for that quote - it was beautiful. We're all looking at Awareness from different perspectives, I'm guessing. And if Daskalos is right, that everybody does have a guardian angel, then our guardian angels would certainly sit under the throne of ego, IMO.

I agree with your understanding as well. It is the awareness of self, the self realization realized from a constant series of 'Aha's' that create the type of awareness we're speaking of here. For the past 34 years, I've had to pull my inner covers to be in a state of recovery. Your words couldn't be truer to me. . Interestingly, I've heard this voice 3 times. The first time was when I had my moment of alcoholic clarity, when I had my boyfriend pull the car over because I had to vomit, and the wind blew it back into the car all over him. I heard a male voice in my ear say "You're so much better than this". (And it wasn't the fellow with vomit dripping off of him) The second time was after I'd been sober for about a year, and one more time I was sitting in a Christmas service in a Christian church, hearing the same old dusty nativity story once again. I distinctly heard a male voice say into my ear "This is so dead". I even looked around to see if someone had come forward and whisper this in my ear, and nobody had. I haven't been to a Christian church since then, other than occasionally to a Southern Baptist church in Ohio that I support. That voice caused me to broaden my spiritual search, resulting in me being here with you. This was the third time I heard the voice - when I was in the depression and it told me that I had a choice. Again, it was a male voice, living under the space of ego. It was real. To me, this is the voice of My Truth - not saying it's absolute truth for anybody else - but it is my truth. It is the ocean of awareness derived from uncovering self, that sense that dwells underneath. it is emotionless and every time I hear it, I know it to be my truth. It is absolutely authoritative and it is useless to second guess it. But it just struck me as I was recently reading about dream yoga and the concept of rigpa that it occurred to me that the voice I've heard on those occasions could be connected to rigpa somehow. Or not. So maybe to refer to this as a type of rigpa is absolute incorrect. I do not pretend to be a Buddhist - I just love reading everything, that's all. And sometimes the tumblers just fall into place when you read or hear something in particular, and you recognize it. That's why I felt the proximity to what the Rinpoche was describing as rigpa.

Blue Eyed Snake - thank you so much for the loving words and the time you took to respond to all that. Your compassion and kindness is greatly appreciated from this end. Barbara

Hi Lisa - lovely to have you here, and I look forward to having you participate in the discussions. May you enjoy your time here. Manitou

Hi StrongMystic - really nice to have you here. Hope you enjoy yourself in this metaphysical candy store. Manitou

I am having trouble with this sentence. Does it refer to the following sentence wherein there is no reference point? And as to the difference between cutting through outer misconceptions and inner misconceptions, this seems incredibly nuanced; almost the difference between a noun and a verb. The inner misconceptions, he seems to be saying, do not arise from cause and effect or karma of any sort. apparently he, Shri Singha, is saying that mind has no inherent qualities whatsoever, it is emptiness. Whereas, is he referring to the illusion of incoming phenomena in the first paragraph, the 'outer misconceptions'? The second quote, by Hui-neng: regarding true and false views. True and false views are always going to be relative to the viewer. Is this not to say that when one drops the concepts of right and wrong and sees things only as 'is-ness' that the buddha nature will manifest?