Opening from the Heart and the Wrong Approach to Non-Duality

[thuscomeone]

You read my words from your perspective. So everything I write is interpreted within that paradigm of entities/conventionality.

 

I no longer see or experience in that manner. If you are to go about this intellectually, you should investigate into the habit of conceptuality and non-conceptuality, and what it is to "recognize" things and "not-recognize" things. I don't see much hint of actual experience in your words, perhaps surges of bliss here and there arising from the feeling of "ah! I got it!" and I don't mean that to be condescending, I've been that way for years too . I mean that so you will drop the paradigms and see directly reality as is.

 

Please don't make this personal.

I don't intend to make it personal. If I came across that way, I apologize. It's that old ego coming back again. To recognize things is to see them as they arise. To "not recognize" them is to see their emptiness. There are three levels here, really: the conventional, relative and ultimate. The relative is what is called mere appearance. For example, a chair is mere appearance. Pre-analysis it appears solid and existing from it's own side. Now we can't refuse to acknowledge the presence of the chair. It's there.

 

Actually, we can further divide it into the incorrect relative and the correct relative. The incorrect relative is seeing that things are present but feeling that they exist from their own side. The correct is seeing things as present but dependently arisen.

 

The conventional is concepts. Concepts are stable, so they apply to the relative which seems stable. And the ultimate of course, is that there is no findable "chair" when we analyse it. Now, when we say, "emptiness is form", it means that the it is the appearance which is empty. Emptiness is not apart from dependently arisen appearances.

 

So, in practice, if life, there is nothing wrong with acknowledging the presence of a chair, or a thought, or a moment, etc. You can't live if you don't. That's the relative. If you think that you can stop using concepts, you're kidding yourself. At the same time, liberation in real time is seeing through the emptiness of appearances. It's more of a feeling of openness and letting go in experience, rather than a "seeing", though. I can acknowledge the presence of the chair (conceptually, relatively) and at the same time feel it's emptiness. There is no conflict in view there.

 

One more things I wanted to touch on. I think we can get all excited about our experiences of liberation and forget that these experiences are themselves ungraspable and impermanent. Personally, I don't go around every second of every day, analyzing everything to see that it is dependent and empty. That is a little absurd and doesn't need to be done. I only turn my mind to, or "feel" emptiness when fear, stress, worry, anxiety, etc. -- basically the afflictive emotions that arise from ignorance -- come about. The majority of the time I am living in the "incorrect relative" lol.

Edited February 6, 2011 by thuscomeone

[xabir2005]

 

Let go, let go, and in letting go, no mind, no thought, no me, no you, no universe, no reality, no structure, no fear, no non-fear, not even this or that, continual transcendence in this very moment.

 

http://www.buddhaboard.com/

[xabir2005]

[Cat Pillar]

 

http://www.buddhaboard.com/

 

Wow, that's cool! I remember when I was little, my parents used to give me this old chalkboard with a brush and some water to keep me entertained. Always loved playing with the way the water would run down the board and make paths of clean black across the surface...

[Vajrahridaya]

Investigation is an intellectual activity. How do you investigate without using the intellect?

 

One can manifest an intention in deep formless states without reifying a concept.

 

There are non-conceptual states of investigation. You can find that out for yourself as you enter the formless samadhis/jhanas.

[Lucky7Strikes]

One can manifest an intention in deep formless states without reifying a concept.

 

There are non-conceptual states of investigation. You can find that out for yourself as you enter the formless samadhis/jhanas.

I don't understand how that's different than me getting up to go get a drink of water. .

[Lucky7Strikes]

:lol:

[Vajrahridaya]

I don't understand how that's different than me getting up to go get a drink of water. .

 

Because this has to do with body and form. Investigating ones own consciousness through awareness is much, much subtler and takes a much keener space of insight and subtler space of mind to manifest.

[Lucky7Strikes]

Because this has to do with body and form. Investigating ones own consciousness through awareness is much, much subtler and takes a much keener space of insight and subtler space of mind to manifest.

I have an intuitive feeling at what you are getting at. Will be open to the experience!

 

_/\_

[Vajrahridaya]

I have an intuitive feeling at what you are getting at. Will be open to the experience!

 

_/\_

 

One of the driving vehicles is the arising of bliss... such as what you've been experiencing, and relaxing even deeper into it through breath and exploring it within your body, and brain within your body and subtle body and subtler body... through the layers by subtlifying awareness.