dropping reflection

[Lucky7Strikes]

so I figured reflecting is a dualistic process that bounds oneself to "I". that it is really an illusory activity, to "reflect" on some event, that it solidifies the reflector and the thing being reflected upon, or a fabrication based on symbols arise. that insight practice, which is yet another reflecting process is there to dissolve reflection, and that once this is understood, there is simply an effortless process. . Only when habitual dualistic thinking, bad desire, habit, reflection, grasping arise, the insight of emptiness dissolves it as soon as it arises until everything is very very smooth. . Feels awesome!

Edited August 23, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[Vajrahridaya]

Allow the muddy waters of mental activity to clear;

Refrain from both positive and negative projection -

leave appearances alone:

The phenomenal world, without addition or subtraction, is Mahamudra/liberation.

 

-Tilopa

[xabir2005]

Good!

 

Reminds me of Reflection and Presence: The Dialectic of Awakening

 

The many levels of reflection and post-reflection.

Edited August 23, 2010 by xabir2005

[C T]

so I figured reflecting is a dualistic process that bounds oneself to "I". that it is really an illusory activity, to "reflect" on some event, that it solidifies the reflector and the thing being reflected upon, or a fabrication based on symbols arise. that insight practice, which is yet another reflecting process is there to dissolve reflection, and that once this is understood, there is simply an effortless process. . Only when habitual dualistic thinking, bad desire, habit, reflection, grasping arise, the insight of emptiness dissolves it as soon as it arises until everything is very very smooth. . Feels awesome!

Nice!

[xabir2005]

so I figured reflecting is a dualistic process that bounds oneself to "I". that it is really an illusory activity, to "reflect" on some event, that it solidifies the reflector and the thing being reflected upon, or a fabrication based on symbols arise. that insight practice, which is yet another reflecting process is there to dissolve reflection, and that once this is understood, there is simply an effortless process. . Only when habitual dualistic thinking, bad desire, habit, reflection, grasping arise, the insight of emptiness dissolves it as soon as it arises until everything is very very smooth. . Feels awesome!

How will what you realized thus far lead to the insight that The phenomenal world, without addition or subtraction, is Mahamudra/liberation?

[Lucky7Strikes]

How will what you realized thus far lead to the insight that The phenomenal world, without addition or subtraction, is Mahamudra/liberation?

Continuous refinement?

[xabir2005]

Continuous refinement?

16th August entry on Scott Kiloby's facebook wall: http://www.facebook.com/#!/kiloby?ref=ts

 

Scott Kiloby: If you see that awareness is none other than everything, and that none of those things are separate "things" at all, why even use the word awareness anymore? All you are left with is the world, your life, the diversity of experience itself.

 

...

 

We talk about awareness only to see that what we take to be separate objects are really thoughts, emotions, sensations, etc appearing and disappearing within awareness. As that is seen through, we see that the word awareness is actually pointing to the world itself. But the separation is now sweetly missing.

Edited August 23, 2010 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

I found a piece of quote that is quite similar and related. Yet I do not know how to put into words their relation and difference.

 

So my question is.. what is the relation between Thusness's post, Tilopa's quote, and Kiloby's quote?

 

Hence disassociation immediately puts us into a position of dualism and that is why I disagree with Rob. If insight of anatta arises, there is no center, no base, no agent; there is only phenomena dependently originating and practitioners must from this very experience of vivid arising and dissolving instantly arise another important insight -- that this vivid shimmering that dependently originate is naturally pure and self-liberating.

 

~ Thusness

Edited August 23, 2010 by xabir2005

[Vajrahridaya]

[Lucky7Strikes]

I found a piece of quote that is quite similar and related. Yet I do not know how to put into words their relation and difference.

 

So my question is.. what is the relation between Thusness's post, Tilopa's quote, and Kiloby's quote?

 

Hence disassociation immediately puts us into a position of dualism and that is why I disagree with Rob. If insight of anatta arises, there is no center, no base, no agent; there is only phenomena dependently originating and practitioners must from this very experience of vivid arising and dissolving instantly arise another important insight -- that this vivid shimmering that dependently originate is naturally pure and self-liberating.

 

~ Thusness

That the non dual realization and its ungrspability is the nature of reality, that once the wrong views of solidity is dissolved, reality reveals itself as is, as it has always been, even dualistic views have been experienced non-dually but habitually circling like a mad man. . So sound arises in experience, but doesn't really arise at all because it doesn't arise "in" anything or "to" anyone so one cannot say it arises, it is then it isn't, experiencing it this way is sound liberating sound (?). It isn't like there was no sound before realizing no-self of things, it's just that one no longer returns to an imagined center, the dual mind that immediately labels sound as sound, thinks "I hear sound" wherein sound is solidified around a magnet of "self." Sound is sound, thought is thought, etc, an endless formless transmutation.

 

But I don't understand how one intuitively experiences "interconnectivity." I see that one thing arises after another without boundary, a seamless stream of presense that changes due to its nature of emptiness...And I understand interconnectivity conceptually, but how to realize it intuitively in all experience? What is Maha experience?

Edited August 24, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[Vajrahridaya]

But I don't understand how one intuitively experiences "interconnectivity." I see that one thing arises after another without boundary, a seamless stream of presense that changes due to its nature of emptiness...And I understand interconnectivity conceptually, but how to realize it intuitively in all experience? What is Maha experience?

 

Ive only experienced it full blown in front of various masters or teachers. But basically... which I experience enough, is just that love for everyone, natural compassion and a feeling of connection. There are different levels to experiencing this connection. For me it's just through contemplation and meditation, also transmission from living examples.

[C T]

"Like the illusory face of this appearing world,

the movement of mind is not touched by artifice;

It is not altered by action, freedom and realization.

To remain in the depths of mind free of reference

is known as Mahamudra."

(XVII Karmapa)

 

Nothing can arise without also bringing forth its twin essence of cessation. So one could say that liberation is always already present. As one thing starts it also ends. Recognizing this, and stabilizing the recognition, one will begin to see clearly that there is no where to grasp the exact cut-off point of something somewhere that arise and where another thing ends. If this was not the essence of direct perception into continuity, or interbeing, then every phenomena that ever came into present awareness would become 'frozen' - even a sound, once made, cannot have the space in the mind to dissipate. This would be quite detrimental. If the mind were to be graspable and not empty, or if things can fundamentally stick to the mind, the consequences would be unbearable. So the mind's imagined stickiness, the cause of much dissatisfaction, is also the imagined cause of Samsara. Liberation can mean the ending of this imagination, to see without the addition or subtraction of any notion of permanence. Finally, there comes the realization that even the 'self' that attains this insight is subject to the same instantaneous arising/ceasing movement, at all times, not separate from other, but as one summary movement of nondescript flowing.

 

A glimpse of Self-liberation (maybe?)

[xabir2005]

"Like the illusory face of this appearing world,

the movement of mind is not touched by artifice;

It is not altered by action, freedom and realization.

To remain in the depths of mind free of reference

is known as Mahamudra."

(XVII Karmapa)

 

Nothing can arise without also bringing forth its twin essence of cessation. So one could say that liberation is always already present. As one thing starts it also ends. Recognizing this, and stabilizing the recognition, one will begin to see clearly that there is no where to grasp the exact cut-off point of something somewhere that arise and where another thing ends. If this was not the essence of direct perception into continuity, or interbeing, then every phenomena that ever came into present awareness would become 'frozen' - even a sound, once made, cannot have the space in the mind to dissipate. This would be quite detrimental. If the mind were to be graspable and not empty, or if things can fundamentally stick to the mind, the consequences would be unbearable. So the mind's imagined stickiness, the cause of much dissatisfaction, is also the imagined cause of Samsara. Liberation can mean the ending of this imagination, to see without the addition or subtraction of any notion of permanence. Finally, there comes the realization that even the 'self' that attains this insight is subject to the same instantaneous arising/ceasing movement, at all times, not separate from other, but as one summary movement of nondescript flowing.

 

A glimpse of Self-liberation (maybe?)

Pretty good explanation on emptiness and cessation.

 

What do you understand about the vivid luminosity?

 

Thusness said,

 

Also do not get overwhelmed by the vivid luminous brilliance that manifests as the background source or foreground phenomena, let go of all; much like lamas building a sand mandala that is so vivid, colorful and beautiful, is destroyed immediately after it is completed. It is not just about the 'brilliant luminosity', it is also about the 'Gone'; therefore vividly present and instantly gone

 

This sounds related to this para, what do you see?

Edited August 24, 2010 by xabir2005

[Lucky7Strikes]

Pretty good explanation on emptiness and cessation.

 

What do you understand about the vivid luminosity?

 

Thusness said,

 

Also do not get overwhelmed by the vivid luminous brilliance that manifests as the background source or foreground phenomena, let go of all; much like lamas building a sand mandala that is so vivid, colorful and beautiful, is destroyed immediately after it is completed. It is not just about the 'brilliant luminosity', it is also about the 'Gone'; therefore vividly present and instantly gone

 

This sounds related to this para, what do you see?

I'm actually uncertain about what is precisely meant by luminosity and I'll probably come up with an apt definition of it and think I understand it when I don't experientially "get it." So I'll just share my experiences. I do energetic practices also, so I don't know how much of this is from insight.

 

If the word luminosity is pointing to light, yes from a certain point I've lost the ability to "see" darkness. I see shimmering light, a matrix of colors in everything. It is there when I close my eyes, in fact it is brighter, quickly vibrating, flicking on and off and on and off. This becomes quite intense during practices that involve the third eye and after one session I couldn't even see the room but just this colorful light brilliant enough to consume everything in it, vibrating radiantly. It's in everything I experience even in no thought states and with practice it becomes more vibrant and dynamic. I remember a few days ago when these quick explosions of this light quickly...well it's really hard to describe.

 

If the word luminosity is pointing to clarity and purity of experience, I've only had glimpses of the degree of this experience. It's as if the body is so sensitive to everything it feels painful to just hear sounds. I remember I was meditating and this knocking noise from floor above felt very painful to even hear my head began aching or certain feeling rise of so powerfully I begin crying or laughing but so alive! But these bits were nothing compared to this period of 3-4 days I went through after a seminar. I completely lost track of time in the sense that I was perfectly at accords with it, I wasn't "in" time but "was" the flow of time itself I would sit in zazen and ten minutes would feel like three, but no feeling at all really. Every sensation, every thought during that period was perfectly light not (as in not heavy) was like crystal, but not necessarily their content but the way they were, a complete lightness of being.

 

Ah I like Thusness's quote. I try not to get caught up in any of this, but now my mind reminds itself all is transient, impermanent and ungraspable, and when my being really implements this, really registers it to other experiences than thought, the clarity I mentioned above is felt.

 

But you forgot to answer my question about Maha. Is it the awareness of "all in one and one in all" as in Indra's jewel?

Edited August 24, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[Lucky7Strikes]

"Like the illusory face of this appearing world,

the movement of mind is not touched by artifice;

It is not altered by action, freedom and realization.

To remain in the depths of mind free of reference

is known as Mahamudra."

(XVII Karmapa)

 

Nothing can arise without also bringing forth its twin essence of cessation. So one could say that liberation is always already present. As one thing starts it also ends. Recognizing this, and stabilizing the recognition, one will begin to see clearly that there is no where to grasp the exact cut-off point of something somewhere that arise and where another thing ends. If this was not the essence of direct perception into continuity, or interbeing, then every phenomena that ever came into present awareness would become 'frozen' - even a sound, once made, cannot have the space in the mind to dissipate. This would be quite detrimental. If the mind were to be graspable and not empty, or if things can fundamentally stick to the mind, the consequences would be unbearable. So the mind's imagined stickiness, the cause of much dissatisfaction, is also the imagined cause of Samsara. Liberation can mean the ending of this imagination, to see without the addition or subtraction of any notion of permanence. Finally, there comes the realization that even the 'self' that attains this insight is subject to the same instantaneous arising/ceasing movement, at all times, not separate from other, but as one summary movement of nondescript flowing.

 

A glimpse of Self-liberation (maybe?)

[Lucky7Strikes]

Ive only experienced it full blown in front of various masters or teachers. But basically... which I experience enough, is just that love for everyone, natural compassion and a feeling of connection. There are different levels to experiencing this connection. For me it's just through contemplation and meditation, also transmission from living examples.

[xabir2005]

I'm actually uncertain about what is precisely meant by luminosity and I'll probably come up with an apt definition of it and think I understand it when I don't experientially "get it." So I'll just share my experiences. I do energetic practices also, so I don't know how much of this is from insight.

I wrote this to longchen two months ago:

 

I agree that real Presence has nothing to do with a visual sense of luminous light. I in fact have experience of very luminous (visual) lights and a resulting sense of unity years ago, however I categorize them as 'A&P' experiences according to Daniel Ingram's map, but this is not the I AM Presence.

 

My understanding of luminosity is that the sense of a bright vivid Awareness that is shining and illuminating all experience. This is different from a visual luminosity, but rather it seems that Presence is radiating everywhere and illuminating everything (nothing visual), very intensely. If that vivid luminosity is strong, even normal things like eating, walking, will feel so 'intense' that you will start smiling and there may even be tears. Just pure delight in Awareness.

 

Longchen replied 'I understand the luminousity as you have described. '

 

Also more recently I found some quotations by Dalai Lama which I think is very apt:

 

These two features - luminosity, or clarity, and knowing, or cognizance - have come to characterise 'the mental' in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist thought. Clarity here refers to the ability of mental states to reveal or reflect. Knowing, by contrast, refers to mental states' faculty to perceive or apprehend what appears.

 

All phenomena possessed of these qualities count as mental. These features are difficult to conceptualise, but then we are dealing with phenomena that are subjective and internal rather than material objects that may be measured in spatio-temporal terms.

 

Perhaps it is because of these difficulties - the limits of language in dealing with the subjective - that many of the early Buddhist texts explain the nature of consciousness in terms of metaphors such as light or a flowing river. As the primary feature of light is to illuminate, so consciousness is said to illuminate its objects. Just as in light there is no categorical distinction between the illumination and that which illuminates, so in consciousness there is no real difference between the process of knowing or cognition and that which knows or cognizes. In consciousness, as in light, there is a quality of illumination.

 

~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama, "The Universe in a Single Atom"

If the word luminosity is pointing to light, yes from a certain point I've lost the ability to "see" darkness. I see shimmering light, a matrix of colors in everything. It is there when I close my eyes, in fact it is brighter, quickly vibrating, flicking on and off and on and off. This becomes quite intense during practices that involve the third eye and after one session I couldn't even see the room but just this colorful light brilliant enough to consume everything in it, vibrating radiantly. It's in everything I experience even in no thought states and with practice it becomes more vibrant and dynamic. I remember a few days ago when these quick explosions of this light quickly...well it's really hard to describe.

This is what Thusness and Daniel M. Ingram calls 4th Nana, A&P (Arising and Passing).

If the word luminosity is pointing to clarity and purity of experience, I've only had glimpses of the degree of this experience. It's as if the body is so sensitive to everything it feels painful to just hear sounds. I remember I was meditating and this knocking noise from floor above felt very painful to even hear my head began aching or certain feeling rise of so powerfully I begin crying or laughing but so alive! But these bits were nothing compared to this period of 3-4 days I went through after a seminar. I completely lost track of time in the sense that I was perfectly at accords with it, I wasn't "in" time but "was" the flow of time itself I would sit in zazen and ten minutes would feel like three, but no feeling at all really. Every sensation, every thought during that period was perfectly light not (as in not heavy) was like crystal, but not necessarily their content but the way they were, a complete lightness of being.

This is what Thusness called 'intensity of luminosity', what Daniel and other Actualism guys calls 'PCE' (Pure Consciousness Experience).

 

And yes, luminosity refers to this the clarity of experience here.

Ah I like Thusness's quote. I try not to get caught up in any of this, but now my mind reminds itself all is transient, impermanent and ungraspable, and when my being really implements this, really registers it to other experiences than thought, the clarity I mentioned above is felt.

 

But you forgot to answer my question about Maha. Is it the awareness of "all in one and one in all" as in Indra's jewel?

Sorry... I don't know about the Maha experience. Edited August 24, 2010 by xabir2005

[Lucky7Strikes]

Also more recently I found some quotations by Dalai Lama which I think is very apt:

 

These two features - luminosity, or clarity, and knowing, or cognizance - have come to characterise 'the mental' in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist thought. Clarity here refers to the ability of mental states to reveal or reflect. Knowing, by contrast, refers to mental states' faculty to perceive or apprehend what appears.

 

All phenomena possessed of these qualities count as mental. These features are difficult to conceptualise, but then we are dealing with phenomena that are subjective and internal rather than material objects that may be measured in spatio-temporal terms.

 

Perhaps it is because of these difficulties - the limits of language in dealing with the subjective - that many of the early Buddhist texts explain the nature of consciousness in terms of metaphors such as light or a flowing river. As the primary feature of light is to illuminate, so consciousness is said to illuminate its objects. Just as in light there is no categorical distinction between the illumination and that which illuminates, so in consciousness there is no real difference between the process of knowing or cognition and that which knows or cognizes. In consciousness, as in light, there is a quality of illumination.

 

~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama, "The Universe in a Single Atom"

I like that quote very much. Thank you!

[C T]

Pretty good explanation on emptiness and cessation.

 

What do you understand about the vivid luminosity?

 

Thusness said,

 

Also do not get overwhelmed by the vivid luminous brilliance that manifests as the background source or foreground phenomena, let go of all; much like lamas building a sand mandala that is so vivid, colorful and beautiful, is destroyed immediately after it is completed. It is not just about the 'brilliant luminosity', it is also about the 'Gone'; therefore vividly present and instantly gone

 

This sounds related to this para, what do you see?

Hi Xabir...

 

Yes one could certainly see the similarity very vividly! Thanks.

 

I like these 2 presentations by Patrick Sweeney which is directly related to what is being discussed here:

 

Perhaps we could find some refreshing insights from listening to these two talks.

(In "Fundamentals of Buddhism" it gets interesting at the 7.00 mark, where he begins to speak about 'Luminosity')

It resonates with my understanding/experience as well.

 

 

Edited August 26, 2010 by CowTao

[C T]

Pretty good explanation on emptiness and cessation.

 

What do you understand about the vivid luminosity?

 

Thusness said,

 

Also do not get overwhelmed by the vivid luminous brilliance that manifests as the background source or foreground phenomena, let go of all; much like lamas building a sand mandala that is so vivid, colorful and beautiful, is destroyed immediately after it is completed. It is not just about the 'brilliant luminosity', it is also about the 'Gone'; therefore vividly present and instantly gone

 

This sounds related to this para, what do you see?

Hi Xabir...

 

Yes one could certainly see the similarity very vividly! Thanks.

 

I like these 2 presentations by Patrick Sweeney which is directly related to what is being discussed here:

 

Perhaps we could find some refreshing insights from listening to these two talks.

(In "Fundamentals of Buddhism" it gets interesting at the 7.00 mark, where he begins to speak about 'Luminosity')

It resonates with my understanding/experience as well.

 

 

Edited August 26, 2010 by CowTao