Transcendence vs Integration

[old3bob]

 

Some karma can be described/felt (per an analogy) like rusty flakes of iron and iron (or the soul that it is covered with it will be pulled via a magnetic like field effect, (so to speak) until there is no iron left, also and at times a great master can hep by temporality holding karma in way so that a student can get a break and a moment of freedom/inspiration away from the weight.

Edited Saturday at 03:55 AM by old3bob

[forestofclarity]

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but the initial model sounds like it is dividing ultimate truth from relative truth, and seems to be describing a classic Samkhya, renunciate approach. Relative practices are often important, and this would include various forms of healing, therapy, integration, etc. But over time, the relative practices become less necessary as one's center of gravity shifts away from the relative self to a more open spacious awareness. This is not a state of inactive passivity but a state of spontaneous action. And the shift itself need not be forced, it just happens.

 

One issue is that people often overestimate their development tend to abandon the relative practices too quick, which some teachers describe as premature immaculation. 

[doc benway]

1 hour ago, forestofclarity said:

One issue is that people often overestimate their development tend to abandon the relative practices too quick, which some teachers describe as premature immaculation.

 

I must say that this is one of the best things I've read in some time.

Thank you @forestofclarity for that delightful metaphor!

[Bindi]

7 hours ago, forestofclarity said:

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but the initial model sounds like it is dividing ultimate truth from relative truth, and seems to be describing a classic Samkhya, renunciate approach. Relative practices are often important, and this would include various forms of healing, therapy, integration, etc. But over time, the relative practices become less necessary as one's center of gravity shifts away from the relative self to a more open spacious awareness. This is not a state of inactive passivity but a state of spontaneous action. And the shift itself need not be forced, it just happens.

 

My personal version of an integrative model approaches ‘spirituality’ and ultimate truth from an entirely different perspective. Relative practices are the work, a shift away from the relative self would be a shift away from integrative potential. The shift that does happen after many years of relative work is into a deeper more powerful consciousness within the body and the sense of self, equivalent to a shift into the central channel. This then becomes the stage for a different, more ‘energised’ level of relative work, which still addresses and works with emotions and thoughts (that weren’t sorted in the initial relative work, ie. underlying karma). These three consciousnesses, emotional mental and ‘energetic’, then align in the centre of the body in a central ‘dantian’, which aligns them with the soul or original self in the causal body, which can be seen as a fourth consciousness. The relative consciousnesses, purified and ‘upgraded’ through this work, are in direct communication and alignment with the deepest embodied Self, which is itself aligned with whatever is beyond one as an individual. Four consciousnesses, which all play a vital role in one’s life, and are all in direct communication with each other, in effect a team, headed by the fourth consciousness. 

 

7 hours ago, forestofclarity said:

 

One issue is that people often overestimate their development tend to abandon the relative practices too quick, which some teachers describe as premature immaculation. 

In an integrative model there is no possibility of abandoning relative practices too quick since relative practices are the work. 

[Cobie]

The truth is simple.

 

 

[old3bob]

15 hours ago, Cobie said:

The truth is simple.

 

 

 

yep, so simple that thought can not nail it down...

[Cobie]

If the argument is convoluted, it’s not true. 
 

 

[old3bob]

33 minutes ago, Cobie said:

If the argument is convoluted, it’s not true. 
 

 

any argument has convolutions of one sort or another...

[Mark Foote]

On 1/25/2025 at 1:58 PM, Bindi said:

My personal version of an integrative model approaches ‘spirituality’ and ultimate truth from an entirely different perspective. Relative practices are the work, a shift away from the relative self would be a shift away from integrative potential. The shift that does happen after many years of relative work is into a deeper more powerful consciousness within the body and the sense of self, equivalent to a shift into the central channel. This then becomes the stage for a different, more ‘energised’ level of relative work, which still addresses and works with emotions and thoughts (that weren’t sorted in the initial relative work, ie. underlying karma). These three consciousnesses, emotional mental and ‘energetic’, then align in the centre of the body in a central ‘dantian’, which aligns them with the soul or original self in the causal body, which can be seen as a fourth consciousness. The relative consciousnesses, purified and ‘upgraded’ through this work, are in direct communication and alignment with the deepest embodied Self, which is itself aligned with whatever is beyond one as an individual. Four consciousnesses, which all play a vital role in one’s life, and are all in direct communication with each other, in effect a team, headed by the fourth consciousness. 

In an integrative model there is no possibility of abandoning relative practices too quick since relative practices are the work. 
 

 

 

"What's a convolution without general immaculation..."

(apologies to the musical, 

"The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade")

 

What I find fascinating about your approach, Bindi, is the conjoining of the physical, as in the central dan-t'ien, with aspects of both emotional patterning and consciousness. 

 

I'll admit, I have relegated the emotional work to the occasional exploration of memories and involuntary feelings, with the expectation that my life and my general practice will bring forward what is unresolved. 

 

I associate that central dan-t'ien with the third line of Fuxi's poem:

 

The empty hand grasps the hoe handle
Walking along, I ride the ox
The ox crosses the wooden bridge
The bridge is flowing, the water is still

 

(“Zen’s Chinese Heritage”, tr. Andy Ferguson, p 2)

 

 

An essential part of my practice is the recognition that the ligaments, and in particular the stretch of ligaments, can control reciprocal innervation of agonist/antagonist muscle groups.  Fuxi's first line I believe concerns the reciprocity in muscle activity in the gluteous and tensor muscles, controlled by the sacroiliac joint ligaments.  The second line adds reciprocity in the muscles of the legs and the muscles around the pelvic basin generally, controlled by the stretch of the ilio-sacral ligaments (with the flexion and extension of the spine in inhalation and exhalation) and the stretch of the sacrospinous and sacrotubular ligaments. The third line is the arrival at reciprocity in all three sets of abdominals and the fine muscles of the spine, tied to the stretch of ligaments between the vertebrae of the central and upper lumbar spine. My role in it all is relaxation, recognizing the role of one-pointedness of mind and gravity in the feeling of ease, appreciating and detaching from thought. The last line is activity of the body solely by virtue of the location of consciousness, consciousness shifts and moves in the body and the automatic activity of the body follows. The sensation, said Gautama, is like a clean cloth covering the head and the entire body.

So indeed, phenomena of the middle dan-t'ien associated with the leap to a "purity by the pureness of  mind", a purity that can suffuse the body such that "there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind".

 

Those who leap out of the diamond trap make an effort to leap out, those who swallow the thicket of thorns swallow it with care.

 

(Yuanwu, "Zen Letters of Yuanwu", tr. Cleary, p 67)

 

 

As I wrote previously:

 

I practice now to experience the free placement of attention as the sole source of activity in the body in the movement of breath, and in my “complicated, difficult” daily life, I look for the mindfulness that allows me to touch on that freedom. 

 

My assumption is that the emotional work will find me, as it's invisible to me most of the time!

The practice of the extension of friendliness and compassion, in Gautama's teaching:
 

[One] dwells, having suffused the first quarter [of the world] with friendliness, likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth; just so above, below, across; [one] dwells having suffused the whole world everywhere, in every way, with a mind of friendliness that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence. [One] dwells having suffused the first quarter with a mind of compassion… with a mind of sympathetic joy… with a mind of equanimity that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence.

|(MN 7; Pali Text Society Vol I p 48)

 

Gautama said that “the excellence of the heart’s release” through the extension of the mind of compassion was the first of the further concentrations, a concentration he called “the infinity of ether” (SN 46.54; Pali Text Society Vol V p 100-102).

 

You scare me, Bindi--thar be dragons at the edge of my mental world, I'm sure.

 

 

Edited 14 hours ago by Mark Foote

[old3bob]

 

interesting thing about the mind is that it is not really an our mind which is only apparent, but the mind.

 

[doc benway]

I used to regard the adage, "before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood and carry water" to refer to the fact that our mundane activity precedes and succeeds enlightenment and requires and is worthy of our acknowledgment and attention; though our relationship to the activity, and to the one engaging in it, has changed. In the context of our discussion here, I also think it means that irrespective of our enlightening and awakening experiences, we continue to do the inner work that is needed with whatever tools are effective and at our disposal. As my teacher has said, in the context of when supplementary practices are needed by a dzogchenpa , 'when someone is present, practice is needed, when no-one is present, leave it as it is'

[old3bob]

7 minutes ago, doc benway said:

I used to regard the adage, "before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood and carry water" to refer to the fact that our mundane activity precedes and succeeds enlightenment and requires and is worthy of our acknowledgment and attention; though our relationship to the activity, and to the one engaging in it, has changed. In the context of our discussion here, I also think it means that irrespective of our enlightening and awakening experiences, we continue to do the inner work that is needed with whatever tools are effective and at our disposal. As my teacher has said, in the context of when supplementary practices are needed by a dzogchenpa , 'when someone is present, practice is needed, when no-one is present, leave it as it is'

 

 which would mean "no-one" is present to leave it as is...