Judi/Wim/James/TheLivingPresent/TheEndOfTheRope

[Guest guest]

You understand that? It's imagination. The entire spiritual path

>is all imagination. It's all imagining something called ego that

>has to be got rid of and then working hard to try and get rid of

>that which is not there.

 

Perhaps a clearer and less pejorative, less nihilistic way of

saying this is that, that which we are perpetually engaged in as

humans is "making (up) meaning", we are meaning-making

machines. This IS what it IS to BE human. The nature of mind,

being empty and spacious, is that mind expresses itself

perpetually as thoughts arising, (... abiding, and ceasing ... did

you notice?) Mind and thought (and the subset you are calling

imagination) cannot be separated any more than waves and

water can be separated.

 

It is possible to be at choice in the matter -- that is, to ride the

horse (of mind, of meaning-making machinery) rather than

having the horse ride you. (Judi, did you say you are a ... rancher

....?)

 

Unconscious beliefs, interpretations, the stories we make up

(and the subset you are calling imagination here) are indeed a

limitation -- not a support. All belief is untimately a story made

up after the fact, so is by definition about The Past, which is

dead/over/gone. A (big) limitation, takes up a lot of space, gets

pretty crowded in there! So, yes, belief (story) is a limitaton, not a

support, to experiencing the direct mind nature (empty/space).

 

I am here to contribute today that there *are* experiential,

ontological methods for pulling this seemingly insoluable

human dilemma out by the root. One can directly experience the

infinite empty effulgent nature of all phenomena, including and

especially one's self-perceived heart/mind (which disappears

when this occurs!) Then possibility, choice, life, present (empty)

and future (empty) profoundly opens up. It is perpetual satori,

ever beginner's mind, space/bliss every moment giving birth to

nothing/everything.

 

Simple? Yes.

Easy? No.

 

Judi, there are indeed subtle and refined ways to work with mind

and this sticky "holding to a sense of self" which is the term I

prefer in order to avoid the loaded and varied connotations of the

word "ego". The baggage-laden and misunderstood term "ego"

means so many different things in so many different schools of

psychology, thought and various traditions. These skillful

methods to which I refer are based entirely on experiential

inquiry on the part of the practitioner, not on beliefs, concepts or

imagination. You can use hypotheses if you wish (it's an inquiry,

so think: Experiment). Hypotheses have sometimes been

known to accelerate the investigatory process, but it isn't

necessary. The inquiry is an ongoing work-in-progress, an open

question, as long as you are in the body. It's a NeverEnding

Story, babe! (So get on the horsey, Getty Up and Ride!) Some

accomplished ones have stabilized the experience of this

unchanging spacious mind nature while still in the body, but they

are rare indeed! Rarer still to find a qualified mentor.

 

So caveat emptor, all you curious and inquiring ones; please

develop your discriminative wisdom. As the great 20th century

woman photographer Imogene Cunningham taught me, "Trust

your own crooked nose!"

>Waste of time. All spiritual seeking >waste of time. Complete

>waste. Waste of life.

 

It is not my experience at all that practice and study is a waste of

time. Au contrare, dear friends! Twenty-eight years of practice

and (not!) counting. Perhaps, Judi, you are impatient? Or

barking up the wrong tree (on a rope at the end of a ...?)

 

Surely, it's often a long and winding road with sharp turns and

plummeting chasms. However, the View is great and hardly a

boring trip! The kids have to skin their own knees. I certainly

have survived many scrapes and a few close calls, and am a

humble, card-carrying member of The Scar Clan. My sole

motivation for making a fleeting appearance here today -- mostly

I prefer my non-status as invisible sky-lurking witness -- is that if

someone can grasp the possibility of their own enlightenment in

my awkward words, Please! Grasp it! Steal it! At least may you

be inspired to keep taking a wide-open look into the nature

of your very own heart/mind. Is it small, or wide as the world?

Does it have a location, where is it? Does it have size, shape,

qualities? And who/what is it that is aware? And who or what is

it that is aware of the awareness? Not a waste of time, not at all!

In fact, what else IS there to do?!? Or shall I say, one who finds

the courage to embark on this investigation of one's very own

heart/mind will NOT be disappointed. It will rock your world!

(You may also like to read my much shorter practical post

directed to Jan on 02/18/01 at Nonduality Salon).

 

There are indeed refined and skillful methods for directly

experiencing the empty spacious mind nature, and the nature of

all phenomena as empty. Usually the ground needs to be

ploughed a bit first. Some loosening up of one's "ego's" velcro

and an experiential Getting It that the strategies and rackets that

one's been running for the first 40-50 years aren't going to cut it,

that the Authentic (non-existent!) Self wants to be born, to shine,

to express itself and just BE. And the methods are subtle --

rather like getting the eye to see itself, or experiencing the mirror

directly minus the pictures in the mirror. (If there's too much

glare or you're concrete, start with a blank white canvas.)

 

In case there's any doubt at all, you have my assurance and

promise that this is written from my personal experience, not

some high-falutin' theory.

 

I can't imagine (sic!) what evil is. The closest I've seen to that is

resignation and cynicism. These will undermine all other

qualities, virtue, wisdom and richness.

 

Wishing All of You love, clarity, wisdom and spaciousness,

 

American Dakini

******************

 

PS - Judi, James Bean posted one of my all time favorite poems,

by Kabir, yesterday (02/19/01 @ 17:28) here at

-- do check it out, there is a whiff of this wisdom therein -- it you

have the nose for it. Kabir gives good ... advice.

 

(from "The Kabir Book", versions by Robert Bly)

 

19

 

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.

 

Jump into experience while you are alive!

 

Think...and think... while you are alive.

 

If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,

do you think ghosts will do it after?

 

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic

just because the body is rotten --

that is all fantasy.

 

What is found now is found then.

 

If you find nothing now,

you will simply end up with

an apartment in the City of Death.

 

If you make love with the Divine now,

in the next life

you will have the face of

satisfied desire.

 

So plunge into the truth,

find out who the Teacher is,

Believe in the Great Sound!

 

Kabir says this:

When the Guest is being searched for,

it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest

that does all the work.

 

Look at me! And you will see a slave of that intensity.

 

-- Kabir

[Guest guest]

Hi Dakini,

 

Well put, what you wrote, the subtleties so well differentiated, great

intelligent fun to read.

 

Thanks,

> Wishing All of You love, clarity, wisdom and spaciousness

 

And likewise,

Love, Wim