the Other Heart

[Vmarco]

Someone wrote, "I don't follow any religion only my heart. Being human...."

 

This post is strictly for open-minded conversation,...the prajnaparamita, the greatest of which is Avalokiteshvara's (Guan Yin) Heart Sutra,...suggests that human-ness or sentience, is part of the ego complex, and fully obscures the heart. Thus, following the "heart" of sentience can be called Ego Enlightenment,..which is one of today's most difficult delusions to awake from.

 

The wish of authentic bodhisattva's is for the liberation from sentience. Consider what René Descartes articulated, “All that I have tried to understand to the present time has been affected by my senses; now I know these senses are deceivers, and it is prudent to be distrustful after one has been deceived once.” In Buddhism, there are 6 senses of humanness that the ego uses,...seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, and thinking.

 

Avalokiteshvara (Guan Yin, the Goddess of Compassion) said that the senses obscure the heart from being recognized. However, She also said in the Shurangama sutra, “As soon as one sense-organ returns to the source, All the six are liberated." So there is a way to the Heart,...that is, to recognize humanness for what it is, and not cling to it for one's identity,...or imagine that the conditions of humanness can ever access Heart-Mind.

 

Realizing Heart-Mind is the heart of Prajnaparamita, and explaned very elegantly in the one page Heart Sutra.

 

So,...there are two Heart's,...the relative and absolute. Most see the relative, that which arises from ego, as Heart, when in fact, that is the sentient heart,...not the Heart of Compassion the Guan Yin spoke to.

[dust]

For the sake of discussion...(from the perspective of the kind of person I know who would argue against this on principle)

 

 

What precisely is this "absolute heart"? And where?

 

A human is nothing more than his mind. If we take away seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, and thinking -- all the ways we perceive or interpret reality -- what are we left with?

[Jetsun]

A human is nothing more than his mind. If we take away seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, and thinking -- all the ways we perceive or interpret reality -- what are we left with?

 

I would suggest you approach this enquiry experientially, something still exists if you strip all those things away, nobody can tell you what it is using words though

[thelerner]

I would suggest you approach this enquiry experientially, something still exists if you strip all those things away, nobody can tell you what it is using words though

Many lines of Taoism and meditation traditions have a practice of 'sealing the senses'. One interesting approach is in the work of Rawn Clark (Western Hermetic tradition). He has a free mp3 guided meditation called CSM, Center of Stillness Meditation (at abardoncompanion.com ). It has you displace; separating yourself from the 5 senses as well as thought and emotion. You visualize them as containers separate from your self. It allows dispassionate awareness. Its not an easy meditation to 'get' but its worthwhile to try a few times to see if you can experience a little of it.

 

Its probably not a path to the heart though. For me its a deep stoicism. I generally stay away from absolutes or being at a saintly level, its too much, too philosophical, not me. A path to the heart I like is Glenn Morris's Secret Smile technique. One part where you imagine a time of that brought on great feeling of love, lose the memory but keep the feeling/emotion and circulate it through the body. <It also involves the same circulation with relaxation, confidence, humor and sexuality).

[Vmarco]

What precisely is this "absolute heart"? And where?

 

A human is nothing more than his mind. If we take away seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, and thinking -- all the ways we perceive or interpret reality -- what are we left with?

 

This is a Taoist forum,..Lao Tzu, like prajnaparaita, said,"the ego is a monkey catapulting through the jungle; totally fascinated by the realm of the senses....if anyone threaten it, it actually fears for its life. Let this monkey go. Let the senses go....

Recognize that everything you see and think is a falsehood, an illusion, a veil over the truth." Lao Tzu

 

If one's heart consciousness arises from the 6 senses, it is merely the Relative Heart,...not the Heart of Essence,..nor the Heart-Mind of bodhisattva's. The 6 senses can never experience the Tao.

 

To say that the "human is nothing more than his mind. If we take away seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, and thinking," depends on the definition of human. If the term is limited to the physical-emotional-mental body,...then yes,...the human could be said to be nothing more than mind,...relative, physical mind that is.

 

Shantideva said,

"Relative and absolute,

These the two truths are declared to be.

The absolute is not within the reach of intellect,

For the intellect is grounded in the relative."

[Vmarco]

Its probably not a path to the heart though. For me its a deep stoicism. I generally stay away from absolutes or being at a saintly level, its too much, too philosophical, not me. A path to the heart I like is Glenn Morris's Secret Smile technique. One part where you imagine a time of that brought on great feeling of love, lose the memory but keep the feeling/emotion and circulate it through the body. <It also involves the same circulation with relaxation, confidence, humor and sexuality).

 

Absolute and saintly are surely contradictions,...although many who cling to the relative for their identity do use the term absolute as if it can merge with relative ideas.

 

Lao Tzu said, "To attain pure Tao you must understand and integrate within yourself the three main energies of the universe:

The first is the earth energy. Centered in the belly, it expresses itself as sexuality. Those who cultivate and master the physical energy attain partial purity;

Second is the heaven energy. Centered in the mind, it expresses itself as knowledge and wisdom. Those whose minds merge with the Universal Mind also attain partial purity.

Third is the harmonized energy. Centered in the heart, it expresses itself as spiritual insight. Those who develop spiritual insight also attain partial purity.

Only when you attain you achieve all three - mastery of physical energy, universal mindedness, and spiritual insight - and express them in a virtuous integral life, can you attain pure Tao."

 

Spiritual insight is beyond knowledge,...beyond the 6 senses.

[dust]

This is a Taoist forum,..Lao Tzu ... said,"the ego is a monkey catapulting through the jungle; totally fascinated by the realm of the senses....if anyone threaten it, it actually fears for its life. Let this monkey go. Let the senses go....

Recognize that everything you see and think is a falsehood, an illusion, a veil over the truth." Lao Tzu

 

I'm not familiar with the whole Taoist canon, or even the whole TTC. Could you point me towards this verse/chapter/book?

 

 

"Relative and absolute,

These the two truths are declared to be.

The absolute is not within the reach of intellect,

For the intellect is grounded in the relative."

 

Yes I can't really disagree with that

[Vmarco]

I'm not familiar with the whole Taoist canon, or even the whole TTC. Could you point me towards this verse/chapter/book?

 

 

Think that is Hua Hu Ching, Forty Eight,....which those who have no real interest in waking up will deny the source as not Lao Tzu, as if they could show the Tao Te Ching as authentically Lao Tzu.

[dust]

Think that is Hua Hu Ching, Forty Eight,....which those who have no real interest in waking up will deny the source as not Lao Tzu, as if they could show the Tao Te Ching as authentically Lao Tzu.

 

Well, you're talking to someone who believes that the modern DDJ is an accumulation of wisdom passed down by many people at many times through history -- there was never one Laozi, but many. But I will get to the HHJ one day, and decide for myself...

[Vmarco]

 

Well, you're talking to someone who believes that the modern DDJ is an accumulation of wisdom passed down by many people at many times through history -- there was never one Laozi, but many. But I will get to the HHJ one day, and decide for myself...

The HHJ is only 81 sayings,...thus a short, but interesting read. Appears to have been compiled from oral sayings around 300 CE

 

https://www.tumblr.com/search/Hua%20Hu%20Ching

[Mystique Enigma]

The young disciple was such a prodigy that scholars from everywhere sought his advice and marveled at his learning.

When the governor was looking for an adviser, he came to the Master and said, "Tell me, is it true that the young man knows as much as they say he does?"

"Truth to tell," said the Master wryly, "the fellow reads so much I don't see how he could ever find the time to know anything."

 

[Vmarco]

The young disciple was such a prodigy that scholars from everywhere sought his advice and marveled at his learning.

 

When the governor was looking for an adviser, he came to the Master and said, "Tell me, is it true that the young man knows as much as they say he does?"

 

"Truth to tell," said the Master wryly, "the fellow reads so much I don't see how he could ever find the time to know anything."

 

For the most part, that is quite correct. As Jed McKenna correctly said, "99.9% of the World's so-called wisdom, East and West, for the purposes of awakening, is about as useful as a glass of warm spit with a hair in it."

 

The Hua Hu Ching, Heart Sutra, Tilopa's Mahamudra, etc., would be examples of the .1% worth reading, if the criteria is Waking Up. Whatever does not expand upon those 3 short writings, is of the 99.9%