Victor: Who am I Not?

[Guest guest]

>

>>Whould you please describe what you experience when you are

>>at the root level of awareness and contrast that with what

>>you experience when you are in your so called thinking mind?

>>This is for the purpose of -- how does one recognize and

>>maintain the recognition of the non-dual? VT:

>

> Yes, I can describe that, but first let me say that it is not an either-or.

> Both are going on at the same time.

> Not only that but thinking, feeling, bodily perception (proprioception),

> the 5 senses.

>

> But the difference is that what I am calling "the root level of awareness"

> is the field in which all these others occur. So the root level awareness

> is always going whether or not I am lost in thought or feeling or whatever.

>

> It is always going on whether or not the self-illusion is running as well.

>

> As I have worked with this exercise of awareness (it is a walking-around

> meditation, I suppose) the clarity of the quality of simple resting in

> awareness increases. And while resting in this awareness, the self is

> perceived as a contraction. Self-contractions occur around thoughts and

> feelings to which identity adheres.

 

Really interesting -the practice you describe is what Buddhist practitioners

call "vipassana" or mindfulness - or insight meditation. If you allowed

into this practice the "view' that thoughts and all stories, feelings

(pleasureable or otherwise), seeing, hearing, all experiences ("high" or

"low", bliss also included here)everything of body/mind, everything arising

into the field of awareness including the "I" thought were expressions of

awareness or innate wisdom and you "recognized" occurrence of mind as such,

recognition maintains awareness and has to be present or clinging of "I" to

experience arises - you would be doing the practice named "Dzogchen". Then

one is in Wholeness, IS Wholeness - which is another word for Great

Perfection. Wholeness or "Perfection" meaning that nothing is excluded,

everything is welcomed as an expression of compassionate, enlightened, wise

true nature - this heals the split, the belief created by mind as anything

"other" - the "waves" are an integral part of the ocean and an expression of

it. Or, as my friend keeps telling me - " all ya gotta do is maintain the

view."

 

Cheers - Joyce

>

> Example: right now I am looking forward with a great deal of anticipation

> to a date tomorrow night. That gives me the feeling of the pleasure of

> anticipation. But if I honestly inquire into this feeling it is a

> contraction within that field of awareness. It is hard to breath into it

> and let it go but as I do so I realize that the feeling was/is arising

> within the vastness of that unchanging root level of awareness. The root

> level awareness will always be there, even after tomorrow's date, even if I

> end up marrying this person and going through heaven and hell and getting

> divorced, the root awareness will still be there as the container of it all.

>

> So the answer to your question as to what I experience:

> Root level: spacious, peaceful, impersonal, knowing, vast, a kind of

> emotionless bliss.

> Thought level: constricted, full of "me", always trying to make stories out

> of experience, repetitive, limited. The thought level seems to try to usurp

> awareness of other modalities. It is very easy to slip into "thinking" one

> is in root awareness. Thinking is a great imposter.

>

> Well, I "think" I'd better get to work.

>

> David

>

>

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> //

>

> All paths go somewhere. No path goes nowhere. Paths, places, sights,

> perceptions, and indeed all experiences arise from and exist in and subside

> back into the Space of Awareness. Like waves rising are not different than

> the ocean, all things arising from Awareness are of the nature of

> Awareness. Awareness does not come and go but is always Present. It is

> Home. Home is where the Heart Is. Jnanis know the Heart to be the Finality

> of Eternal Being. A true devotee relishes in the Truth of Self-Knowledge,

> spontaneously arising from within into It Self. Welcome all to

a.

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