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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3176, Saturday, May 24, 2008, Editor: Mark
By being clear about confusion, you become clear of confusion.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to ANetofJewels
Confusion is natural, and is only the mind trying to make sense
of it all. Let go of trying to make sense.
- Gangaji
Seeing confusion as the four kayas is unsurpassable shunyata
protection.
Shunyata is the best protection because it cuts the solidity of
your beliefs. "I have my solid thought" or "This
is my grand thought" or "My thought is so cute" or
"In my thoughts I visualize a grand whatever" or
"The star men came down and talked to me" or
"Genghis Khan is present in my mind" or "Jesus
Christ himself manifested in my mind" or "I have
thought of the most tremendous scheme for how to build a city, or
how to write a tremendous musical comedy, or how to conquer the
world"-it could be anything, from that level down to:
"How am I going to earn my living after this?" or
"What is the best way for me to sharpen my personality so
that I will be visible in the world?" or "How I hate my
problems!" All of those schemes and thoughts and ideas are
empty! If you look behind their backs, it is like looking at a
mask. If you look behind a mask, you see that it is hollow. There
may be a few holes for the nostrils and the mouth-but if you look
behind it, it doesn't look like a face anymore, it is just junk
with holes in it. Realizing that is your best protection. You
realize that you are no longer the greatest artist at all, that
you are not any of your big ideas. You realize that you are just
authoring absurd, nonexistent things. That is the best protection
for cutting confusion.
from Seven Points of Training the Mind, translated by the
Nalanda Translation Committee under the direction of Chögyam
Trungpa, Rinpoche.
Note: (the four kayas are the four aspects of Buddha mind, and
shunyata means emptiness or voidness - also meaning infinite
fullness or release)
Who Brought the Clarity?
Effortlessly, awareness is here. Falling into ease, what is there
to do? Finding no body to be concerned with, I float. Nothing
exists, yet within this floating arises a noticing of
consciousness. All that is noticed is that noticing is clear.
All thoughts, feelings, and sensations that arise are seen
clearly: the clarity is common to all. How is this possible? This
clarity is before the thoughts that are seen clearly. The clarity
is already there. There - where? With you. You brought it.
Nothing can be seen un-clearly. When clarity is sought, the clear
light of seeing shines on the seeking of it; seeking is seen
clearly. Even confusion is seen clearly. It is seen in perfect
definition, no detail left out. We forget that this is what is
going all the time - clear seeing. Who brought it? You did.
You are the clear light of seeing that is already there when a
thought arises to be seen. You are the clear light of seeing that
is already there when the idea of a body arises. Where are you?
You are prior. You have to be, before the thought "I
am" can be.
- Annette Nibley
Our true nature is that simple and undeniable presence of
awareness that illumines all thinking, feeling and perceiving.
Always present and radiantly clear, it is never obscured by time,
circumstances or thoughts. The body, mind and world rise and set
in awareness and have no independent existence apart from
awareness. Awareness, your real being, is all there is. You are
not the limited person you have taken yourself to be. Look for
the separate self and you find it entirely absent. Seeing this,
suffering, doubt and confusion effortlessly drop away, revealing
your natural state of innate happiness and freedom. Understanding
who you are is immediate and always available - here and now.
- John Wheeler