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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4277, Saturday, June 11, 2011
Cosmic Joke In order to cut through the ambition of ego, we must
understand how we set up me and my territory, how we use our
projections as credentials to prove our existence. The source of
the effort to confirm our solidity is an uncertainty as to
whether or not we exist. Driven by this uncertainty, we seek to
prove our own existence by finding a reference point outside
ourselves, something with which to have a relationship, something
solid to feel separate from. But the whole enterprise is
questionable if we really look back and back and back. Perhaps we
have perpetrated a gigantic hoax?
The hoax is the sense of the solidity of I and other. This
dualistic fixation comes from nothingness. In the beginning there
is open space, zero, self-contained, without relationship. But in
order to confirm zeroness, we must create one to prove that zero
exists. But even that is not enough; we might get stuck with just
one and zero. So we begin to advance, venture out and out. We
create two to confirm one's existence, and then we go out again
and confirm two by three, three by four and so on. We set up a
background, a foundation from which we can go on and on to
infinity. This is what is called samsara, the continuous vicious
cycle of confirmation of existence. One confirmation needs
another confirmation needs another...
The attempt to confirm our solidity is very painful. Constantly
we find ourselves suddenly slipping off the edge of a floor which
had appeared to extend endlessly. Then we must attempt to save
ourselves from death by immediately building an extension to the
floor in order to make it appear endless again. We think we are
safe on our seemingly solid floor, but then we slip off again and
have to build another extension. We do not realize that the whole
process is unnecessary, that we do not need a floor to stand on,
that we have been building all these floors on the ground level.
There was never any danger of falling or need for support. In
fact, our occupation of extending the floor to secure our ground
is a big joke, the biggest joke of all, a cosmic joke. But we may
not find it funny: it may sound like a serious double cross.
To understand more precisely the process of confirming the
solidity of I and other, that is, the development of ego, it is
helpful to be familiar with the five skandhas, a set of Buddhist
concepts which describe ego as a fivestep process.
The first step or skandha, the birth of ego, is called
"form" or basic ignorance. We ignore the open, fluid,
intelligent quality of space. When a gap or space occurs in our
experience of mind, when there is a sudden glimpse of awareness,
openness, absence of self, then a suspicion arises: "Suppose
I find that there is no solid me? That possibility scares me. I
don't want to go into that." That abstract paranoia, the
discomfort that something may be wrong, is the source of karmic
chain reactions. It is the fear of ultimate confusion and
despair.
The fear of the absence of self, of the egoless state, is a
constant threat to us. "Suppose it is true, what then? I am
afraid to look." We want to maintain some solidity but the
only material available with which to work is space, the absence
of ego, so we try to solidify or freeze that experience of space.
Ignorance in this case is not stupidity, but it is a kind of
stubbornness. Suddenly we are bewildered by the discovery of
selflessness and do not want to accept it, we want to hold on to
something.
Then the next step is the attempt to find a way of occupying
ourselves, diverting our attention from our aloneness. The karmic
chain reaction begins. Karma is dependent upon the relativity of
this and that - my existence and my projections - and karma is
continually reborn as we continually try to busy ourselves. In
other words, there is a fear of not being confirmed by our
projections. One must constantly try to prove that one does exist
by feeling one's projections as a solid thing. Feeling the
solidity of something seemingly outside you reassures you that
you are a solid entity as well. This is the second skandha,
"feeling."
In the third stage, ego develops three strategies or impulses
with which to relate to its projections: indifference, passion
and aggression. These impulses are guided by perception.
Perception, in this case, is the self-conscious feeling that you
must officially report back to central headquarters what is
happening in any given moment. Then you can manipulate each
situation by organizing another strategy.
In the strategy of indifference, we numb any sensitive areas that
we want to avoid, that we think might hurt us. We put on a suit
of armor. The second strategy is passion - trying to grasp things
and eat them up. It is a magnetizing process. Usually we do not
grasp if we feel rich enough. But whenever there is a feeling of
poverty, hunger, impotence, then we reach out, we extend our
tentacles and attempt to hold onto something. Aggression, the
third strategy, is also based upon the experience of poverty, the
feeling that you cannot survive and therefore must ward off
anything that threatens your property or food. Moreover, the more
aware you are of the possibilities of being threatened, the more
desperate your reaction becomes. You try to run faster and faster
in order to find a way of feeding or defending yourself. This
speeding about is a form of aggression. Aggression, passion,
indifference are part of the third skandha,
"perception/impulse."
Ignorance, feeling, impulse and perception - all are instinctive
processes. We operate a radar system which senses our territory.
Yet we cannot establish ego properly without intellect, without
the ability to conceptualize and name. By now we have an
enormously rich collection of things going on inside us. Since we
have so many things happening, we begin to categorize them,
putting them into certain pigeon-holes, naming them. We make it
official, so to speak. So "intellect" or
"concept" is the next stage of ego, the fourth skandha,
but even this is not quite enough. We need a very active and
efficient mechanism to keep the instinctive and intellectual
processes of ego coordinated. That is the last development of
ego, the fifth skandha, "consciousness."
Consciousness consists of emotions and irregular thought
patterns, all of which taken together form the different fantasy
worlds with which we occupy ourselves. These fantasy worlds are
referred to in the scriptures as the "six realms." The
emotions are the highlights of ego, the generals of ego's army;
subconscious thought, daydreams and other thoughts connect one
highlight to another. So thoughts form ego's army and are
constantly in motion, constantly busy. Our thoughts are neurotic
in the sense that they are irregular, changing direction all the
time and overlapping one another. We continually jump from one
thought to the next, from spiritual thoughts to sexual fantasies
to money matters to domestic thoughts and so on. The whole
development of the five skandhas - ignorance/form, feeling,
impulse/perception, concept and consciousness - is an attempt on
our part to shield ourselves from the truth of our
insubstantiality.
The practice of meditation is to see the transparency of this
shield. But we cannot immediately start dealing with the basic
ignorance itself; that would be like trying to push a wall down
all at once. If we want to take this wall down, we must take it
down brick by brick; we start with immediately available
material, a stepping stone. So the practice of meditation starts
with the emotions and thoughts, particularly with the thought
process.
- Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, posted to AdvaitaToZen
Consciousness has produced this play.
Consciousness has written the script.
Consciousness is playing all the characters.
And Consciousness is witnessing the play.
It's a one man show.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar, from A Net of Jewels, posted to
AlongTheWay
It
Was all
So clear this morning.
My mind and heart had never felt
More convinced:
There is only God,
A Great Wild
God.
But somehow I got yanked from
That annihilating
Realization
And can now appear again
As this wine-stained
Talking
Rag.
- Hafiz, from The Gift: Translations by Daniel Ladinsky,
posted to AlongTheWay
HANGED IF I DON'T
Hanged if I don't
cultivate a lucid indifference
We are the sun hiding from itself
Snails & rats sing the song of
the unloved through the night
exploring every nuance
Hanged if I do
get to know language so well
that every word suspects every
other word of being an informer
Nothing but me up my sleeves
Nothing but you on my mind
hang loose
hang back
hang out
hang together
hang on until you get
the hang of it
Let your game face fall to the floor
we all speak our own tongues here
Kick back & pour yourself a little
light to drink to the darkness
No matter what the words say
a poem always ends in silence
- Steve Toth, posted to Distillation
So stay here, you lucky people,
Let go and be happy in the natural state.
Let your complicated life and everyday confusion alone
And out of quietude, doing nothing, watch the nature of mind.
This piece of advice is from the bottom of my heart:
Fully engage in contemplation and understanding is born;
Cherish non-attachment and delusion dissolves;
And forming no agenda at all reality dawns.
Whatever occurs, whatever it may be, that itself is the key,
And without stopping it or nourishing it, in an even flow,
Freely resting, surrendering to ultimate contemplation,
In naked pristine purity we reach consummation.
- Longchenpa, posted to DailyDharma