What exactly is "grasping"?

[deci belle]

In terms of "If you are not there yet"… one has never left this. It is just that one is unaware of it.

 

As far as heightened awareness and clairvoyance being necessary to realizing essence goes …well, being a full-blown clairvoyant obviously isn't that big a deal then, is it, because one possessing these qualities isn't realizing this essence now. Immediate knowledge covers all these concerns adequately. Furthermore, Immediate knowledge just is as is according to circumstances. Prescience is the flower of the Way, not its root.

 

In terms of the OP:

 

Direct your attention to the syllable AH as to the radiant image of the moon rising in a clear sky. From that space, direct your mind to the clear syllable AH without grasping onto it.

 

In terms of the subtlety required by the situation, perhaps not reaching for it at the most subtle level would suffice for a substitute phrase, i.e., not grasping? Even in acceptance, there is still an indication of one not yet… (identified as space itself) implied.

 

I used to enter into these states and hang out, now I don't.

[Captain Mar-Vell]

...

I do so like you Deci.

 

/me blushes.

...

Edited April 25, 2014 by Captain Mar-Vell

[Tibetan_Ice]

In terms of "If you are not there yet"… one has never left this. It is just that one is unaware of it.

 

As far as heightened awareness and clairvoyance being necessary to realizing essence goes …well, being a full-blown clairvoyant obviously isn't that big a deal then, is it, because one possessing these qualities isn't realizing this essence now. Immediate knowledge covers all these concerns adequately. Furthermore, Immediate knowledge just is as is according to circumstances. Prescience is the flower of the Way, not its root.

 

Yes, but developing the divine eye (third eye) is a step on the way to enlightenment, one which lets you realize the nimittas and enter the jhanas, which is how the Buddha became enlightened.

 

If you can use "immediate knowledge" to realize enlightenment, then good for you. But most of us mortal beings need to develope a step by step approach, and part of that stepladder, according to the Upakkilesa Sutta, is the divine eye which realizes nimittas. Clairvoyance is the equivalent to the divine eye:

 

http://dharmafarer.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/5.18-Anuruddha-Upakkilesa-S-m128-piya.pdf

Before the rains residence was over, Anuruddha had won the “divine eye” or clairvoyance (dibba,cakkhu), for which he was declared to be foremost amongst the monks (A 1:23).

 

Clarivoyance is not just the ablity to know the future, other minds or previous lives, it is third-eye sight.

 

“We perceive both…forms,” obhsa c’eva sajnma dassana ca rpna. Light is perceived before and

during dhyana, while vision of forms arises through the divine eye. From here on, the Sutta proceeds differently

from Ca Gosiga S (M 31.10/1:207). Comy glosses “light” (obhsa) as the preliminary light (parikamm’obhsa)

[which M glosses as the light produced by the access into meditation dhyana, adding that one who gains the fourth

dhyana develops the light kasina as the preliminary to attaining the divine eye]. The “visions of form” (dassana

rpna) is the seeing of forms with the divine eye (MA 4:207). Anuruddha was later declared by the Buddha as

the foremost of the monks who have the divine eye (A 1:23).

 

...

 

Rupa,nimitta. One pays attention to the forms arising within the range of one’s divine eye (dibba,cakkhu) (MA

4:209).

 

 

So, yes, the divine eye does not make you realize your essence, but it lets you take a step closer.

[deci belle]

It is ok for one to temporarily hedge one's bets in terms of the gradual~ but the gradual has no beginning, nor does it end. Likewise, the absolute is not a separate reality in terms of the gradual. The mystery is Complete Reality. The Virtue of the Receptive is enlightening function incipiently flowing as the Dharma-eye inherent within conditions. Seeing is not self-reifying~ just one's sensitive, effective, unperturbable selflessly aware nature— no different than reality.

 

The Dharma-eye is immediate knowledge. One is not in a position to develop what is inherent. The process of self-refinement is an open-ended continuum. Our approach must be utterly open, total and over-arching. Even after the sudden realization of open nonorigination, the gradual is still continuous. There is no end to the depth of the selfless Mystery.

 

In the aftermath of the sudden, one can take advantage of the fact that psychic compulsion is eliminated, but one has not gained anything. In fact, one must continue the process of loss to pass through one's own fascinations with creation, not to mention the overwhelming experience of the absolute. It is not that there are or have ever been any kind of barrier(s) in existence relative to a self-conditioned psychic awareness to impede endless transformations in the midst of endless changes. It is just forgetting self, feelings, thoughts. This is because self-reflective consciousness is what constitutes the separate identity to begin with. The gradual approach is dealing with the conditional— buddhas are not exempt. The sudden is not just inherent in the gradual… it is the nature of immediate knowledge itself; the light of unity inherent in creation.

 

In the microcosm of ordinary situations to the macrocosm of cosmic unity, the process is identical. In seeing through particulars, one learns to deal with reality (essence) directly. In so doing (which is a matter of not-doing), one transforms karmic energy back into potential by selfless adaption to ordinary cycles in the context of everyday situations. Beyond stillness and movement, one stores potential void of intellectualism. The process of maturation of the foregoing has no corollary.

 

Padmasambhava's "occasional rejuvenation of the pristine awareness" comes close.

 

Reality is one. Mind is one. Just this is it without beginning. A taoist statement is "One topples the polar mountain, shatters space and sublimates oneself physically and spiritually to enter the Tao in reality".

 

In terms of the gradual, entry into inconceivability is never-ending. In terms of all-at-once, sameness has never entered the creative, so one's form being formlessness is itself transcendence. This is selfless unity in terms of potential in perpetuity.

 

Whether or not one sees, the dharma-eye is open. It is not a matter of ability relative to oneself, rather the function of enlightening being is itself universal. The dharma-eye is not a thing, nor is it an ability relative to the person because the function of seeing is the activation of one's impersonally aware nature which is not gained by awakening to it.

 

Since one is not in a position to develop the inherent function, it is a matter of awakening to it and learning the subtlety of its function. This is not in any way dependent on the sudden. The sudden is just an indication of one's efficacy in terms of a practical harmonization with Suchness as is. When a supersonic craft goes faster that the speed of sound~ there's a b00m!

 

Sudden enlightenment is just a sympathetic resonation with one's activated presence unable to be confined within the confines of creation. As such, it is not even oneself that achieves this. The event is an utterly impersonal phenomena.

 

Relying on scripture is a purloined path. Ultimately, there is no thing. This means there are no explanations. The descriptions left behind by prior illuminates can only be referred to in terms of experience matching potential to creation. After all, the authentic teachings were written by enlightening beings from the perspective of enlightening beings. In other words, since no one is not already thus, Buddha said, "refer everything to the self" (in terms of experience, not views).

 

Recreational philosophy references everything to the words as if they mean something— as if the words are relative to inconceivability. If one is bound by words (rational thought) to begin with, this is never resultant in any kind of real power because words themselves are the reason people come to learn that they have a self, which is pure bondage. Selflessness is realized by virtue of forgetting one exists, and this comes about by forgetting words. It is a fact. If you are not dependent on words, you know freedom. True freedom is an effect of lightness that has no bounds in terms of self, culture, worlds, being.

 

Granted, knowledge is embedded in the symbology, but there is no meaning per se, because reality is inconceivability— which is what symbology is able to impart. Philosophy, is necessarily bound by conceptual, rational thought. Adepts are such by a long process of detachment. With not even nothing to cling to, eventually, after a long time, one arrives at the function, and effect, of the totality of oneself, which is selfless.

 

Honzhi said, "Just trust your luck, accept your function and take the forward step with open hands, innocent".

 

Even now, just this is it.

[deci belle]

One does not use immediate knowledge. Awareness is the nature of enlightenment itself; mind is one. It IS you, it's not good for you.

 

I don't do or know— so please consider dropping the congratulatory posture, dear. I don't need it.

 

As it is, you are stuck in you other mind right now.

 

You have nothing to explain or justify to one who has seen the absence of knowledge.

 

Clairvoyance is augury; "Augury is the flower of the Way… and the beginning of delusion" (Chapter 38).

 

May I suggest you recognize your attachment to the flower of the Way and realize how far it is from its root.

 

Then you might go as far as to refer to the title of this thread~ is your question indicative of rhetoric or a function of self-refinement?

 

It seems to be the former.

[Mark Foote]

Well, possibly off-topic, but I hope a little grounding; wrote this elsewhere today:

 

 

I was cutting up a chicken the other day when I somehow triggered a back spasm. Three days now, and this morning I couldn’t find my way to the plow (the hatha yoga posture, which I’ve been doing before I wind into the pretzel pose). Still, it’s enlightening; all I could do in the pose was relax my lower abdomen along these lines:

 

 

and the lower back similarly. “Before as behind, behind as before”. The pitch, yaw and roll is in those lines, but relaxing allowed the pose; of course, the trick is to be open to the emergence of the sign of the concentration in the movement of breath, and I am working on the anxiety I feel when I give up control of thinking like that.

 

My friend John there made this comment:

 

 

“the anxiety I feel when I give up control”

IMHO “grasping” is just this: holding on to the illusion of control.

 

And I had to agree.

 

Regarding how it happens, I think Gautama was right:

 

ignorance --> intention --> (stationing of) consciousness --> name-and-form (conceptualization?) --> senses --> feeling --> craving --> old age, birth, death, summarized as "in short the groups of grasping" (grasping after form, feeling, perception, habitual activity, consciousness".

 

regarding how grasping ceases, cessation of ignorance (and that's a moment-to-moment thing). If you want to talk eight-fold path, I am impressed with the sermon I recount here.

 

Getting back to Gyatrul Rinpoche:

 

"During meditative equipoise, casually release your self-illuminating, empty awareness, without contaminating it with grasping or clinging to unmediated, primordial wisdom. "

 

 

Although it's not wisdom-speak, I would say that a person could do worse than to look to their sense of location, and to how the sense of location moves between waking and sleeping. Like at 4am, lying in bed trying to get back to sleep. Letting it move (casually releasing), proprioception enters into equalibrioception with the eyes closed.

 

Likely to fall asleep. Some fine day, proprioception enters into equalibrioception with the eyes open and the sense of gravity throughout; call it while waking up.

 

Only falling asleep and waking up around here.

[dogson]

This thread is the REAL TTB shiznit!

To the original poster: the question itself is grasping. Just be where you at!

[Captain Mar-Vell]

...

IMHO “grasping” is just this: holding on to the illusion of control.

 

A Men.

 

And I always learn from the Dogson.

 

Or should dat be da Dogon?

 

xxx

...

Edited April 26, 2014 by Captain Mar-Vell

[Tibetan_Ice]

...

Relying on scripture is a purloined path. Ultimately, there is no thing. This means there are no explanations. The descriptions left behind by prior illuminates can only be referred to in terms of experience matching potential to creation. After all, the authentic teachings were written by enlightening beings from the perspective of enlightening beings. In other words, since no one is not already thus, Buddha said, "refer everything to the self" (in terms of experience, not views).

...

 

You said "Relying on scripture is a purloined path".

 

In one sentence you accuse many world religions/Buddhist/Vedanta of being thieves.

 

You said "Ultimately, there is no thing".

 

That was a quote that someone else posted previously. You are just regurgitating here.

 

You said "This means there are no explanations".

 

Then what you are trying to explain?

 

You said "The descriptions left behind by prior illuminates can only be referred to in terms of experience matching potential to creation."

 

Are you saying that the practices, writings and teachings are all invalid? Did not practices, writings and teachings produce many enlightened beings in the past?

 

You said "After all, the authentic teachings were written by enlightening beings from the perspective of enlightening beings."

 

That is bad English. Did you mean "from the perspective of enlightened beings"? If so, you deny the ability of enlightened beings the capacity to create "authentic teachings", as previously mentioned. Therfore, there are no "authentic teachings", yet you say that "authentic teachings were written". Doesn't make sense.

 

Then you said: " In other words, since no one is not already thus, Buddha said, "refer everything to the self" (in terms of experience, not views)."

 

Buddha taught selflessness, NO SELF. You seem to think he said "refer everything to the self". I have never heard of this. Buddha taught Anatta, no self. If you say differently, then please prove your case with references and quotes. Otherwise, I will think it is more of your psycho-babble..

 

[GrandmasterP]

Thesis-Antithesis- Synthesis

That's a good route to take with analytic research.

It doesn't work for cultivation though.

TI you are manifesting ( reifying) duality in almost every post.

Just sit bro.

Give it time.

Edited May 15, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Tibetan_Ice]

Thesis-Antithesis- Synthesis

That's a good route to take with analytic research.

It doesn't work for cultivation though.

TI you are manifesting ( reifying) duality in almost every post.

Just sit bro.

Give it time.

Hegelian dialectics are faulty because they assume that there is always one equal and opposite. It's not that cut and dried.

There is no black and white, only shades of gray. Further, we're one to apply Hegelian dialectics to thought, one becomes entangled in an endless progression. The formula has no cessation, but thoughts can be stopped. Nor does a binary model account for for interactions between the strands.

 

Manifestation is duality, and whether you reify it or not is beyond subjectivity, there is no other way. As soon as you have an object, the subject appears. It is the nature of reality.

 

I'd believe your statement and observation if maybe you said i was manifesting duality in every post, not "in almost every post" as you have said. For, there can be no post without a subject.

 

Shows me your statements are just psycho babble.

 

The wind blows and stirs up much dust.

[GrandmasterP]

Yes TI, you are quite right.

 

:-)

Edited May 15, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[allinone]

See, once you have successfully practiced Samatha and totally quiet your thoughts into one point concentration (you can use colors or some simple object to passively concentrate), you have arrived to a Samadhi--inner light illumination, warming of the body, and not feeling discomfort from your meditation posture, and pronounced chakra vibrations. All of these phenomena are combined into a single conscious thought!!!! The more you become affixed to these phenomena, the sooner you will lose your samadhi. To have a stable, strong Samadhi, it means that you must be able to not become attached to your samadhi experience!!! Sorry, I am just simplifying such a difficult concept dealing with the phenomena of the mind. You can read up Master Nan's To Realize Enlightenment, the first 60 pages. In there, he dealt with various jhanas you can experience in various levels of Samadhi.

 

a)onepointed concentration, if you mean absorbtion into somekind of outer object, its not correct way.

 

Samatha- its in Taosim you have lower tandien activated, you have entered it.

 

b)Inner light illumination- its not a light separate from you neither it has color or shape, its your own awareness shining on ten directions on 10K things.

 

samatha practice is after you have activated this field of awareness(inner light) you start to apply to it non-graspingly till you succeed on one on one concentration(samadhi) with your own source of this light, and you are going to absorb it to your body then, so that you can become one with it(father and son are one and the same). After you have done it you feel such a joy for a while when you innerly realize what you have done..

 

Same way MCO is wrongly done if its looked like an outer object, doesn't matter if you feel it inside the body.

Edited May 22, 2014 by allinone

[GrandmasterP]

When we articulate these phenomena of cultivation we , of necessity; objectify them.

That's fine for discussion but counterproductive to effective cultivation 'whilst cultivating'.

Cultivation dissolves wherever there is a strived- after 'target or object ' to doing it during those moments of 'doing' cultivation.

That's 'grasping' IMO.

Whatever may arise as a result of cultivation cannot be 'consciously created' by means of grasping after anything at all during cultivation.

Edited May 22, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[dawei]

When we articulate these phenomena of cultivation we , of necessity; objectify them.

That's fine for discussion but counterproductive to effective cultivation 'whilst cultivating'.

Cultivation dissolves wherever there is a strived- after 'target or object ' to doing it during those moments of 'doing' cultivation.

That's 'grasping' IMO.

Whatever may arise as a result of cultivation cannot be 'consciously created' by means of grasping after anything at all during cultivation.

 

This is a great point which I once belittled... maybe unfairly... but I took it a step further.... any cultivation is grasping and is not even remotely going to be wu wei... A paradox to say the least (or most)...

[GrandmasterP]

Yeah we kinda did that elsewhere too.

There's tons of quotes from Masters from all sorts of paths along the lines of " CULTIVATE FFS!"

I reckon there's enough out there recommending it in order to carry on doing it.

Cultivating without any object is for sure, mainly; 'aspirational'.

Having no agenda is an agenda in itself.

Nu?

 

Hence zen I suppose.

Stuff doesn't have to make sense.

 

 

:-)

Edited May 22, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[gendao]

All grasping of "external" phenomena is ultimately grasping at your own dualistic existence as a separate entity.

 

Are "you" subject or object? Answer without thinking!

[Paul]

Grasping means believing something is true.

[goldisheavy]

It seems, according to Gyatrul Rinpoche, that you can look directly at an appearance and not grasp it. But what exactly does that mean?

 

It means you look at the suggestive appearances without falling for any of the suggestions. It means you look at your experience as "what can be" instead of as "what is."

 

It "not grasping" something, realizing that it is an illusion, and therefore not giving it the usual conceptual analysis and proliferation of thoughts?

 

It's this but it's also deeper. It means you also have reversed or relaxed away all the mental habits, expectations and commitments that are rooted in the ordinary conceptual analysis of phenomena.

[Paul]

 

It means you look at the suggestive appearances without falling for any of the suggestions. It means you look at your experience as "what can be" instead of as "what is."

 

 

It's this but it's also deeper. It means you also have reversed or relaxed away all the mental habits, expectations and commitments that are rooted in the ordinary conceptual analysis of phenomena.

 

You obviously have freedom to dream, but this is not what Buddhism means by grasping.

[Horus]

The most functional understanding imo of "grasping' and 'aversion/avoiding" is rooted in non-attachment.

 

The middle path - neither seeking it, nor seeking it not.

 

Just becoming the observer and being one with both and all in between.

 

ok, point taken Paul - my wife always berates me for talking too much

Edited July 9, 2014 by Horus

[Paul]

The most functional understanding imo of "grasping' and 'aversion/avoiding" is rooted in non-attachment.

 

The middle path - neither seeking it, nor seeking it not.

 

Just becoming the observer and being one with both and all in between.

close, cross off the last line and you've got it

[goldisheavy]

...

I do so like you Deci.

 

/me blushes.

...

 

I've read some of her posts. Sign me up into the fanboi club. At least until I read something stupid, when I'll be predictably having my falling out experience, as has happened to me numerous times. Until then, color me enchanted.

[Spotless]

Yeah we kinda did that elsewhere too.

There's tons of quotes from Masters from all sorts of paths along the lines of " CULTIVATE FFS!"

I reckon there's enough out there recommending it in order to carry on doing it.

Cultivating without any object is for sure, mainly; 'aspirational'.

Having no agenda is an agenda in itself.

Nu?

Hence zen I suppose.

Stuff doesn't have to make sense.

:-)

 

"Stuff doesn't have to make sense"

 

[Spotless]

No way. The end goal of meditation is to forget meditation. It is a temporary expedient for those who are as yet unable to maintain equipoise in action, which, as I stated earlier, is the highest meditation— even by those who have entered the inconceivable and have seen their nature.

 

There are those who are born knowing. There is no reaching, much less reaching closer. There are no stages.

 

There is nothing gained by enlightenment. This is the first truth of certification in terms of sudden illumination. No one must go through anything to realize their essential nature. One must only forget the false self to realize nonorigination.

 

The tenor of the comments have shifted a bit towards grasping in terms of the formless realm …ok.

 

So well put I thought a reposting was worthwhile!