Click here to go to the next issue.

Friday August 4, 2000

__________________________________________________

ANDREW


It's a funny thing...without your hands and the hot soapy water the dishes
don't get
washed but when you're there and moving your hands around with scrubber and
dishrag,
the dishes wash themselves, pile themselves in the rack, put themselves away on
the
shelf...

love,

andrew
________________________________________________________

MELODY responding to Gene's "Benevolent & Wrathful Deities"


You said, in part:

> I offer this information as compassionate caution to all readers.
>
> Beware of the impulse to react to perceived 'evil', and equally,
> beware of the impulse to follow perceived 'good'.
>
> A deep study of the universe as seen by Vajrayana will fully inform
> you of the inherent traps and hazards to be found in our basic
> spiritual infrastructure; specifically, the impulses of AVERSION and
> its polar opposite, DESIRE.
>
> You may note, if you look carefully and dispassionately, that among
> the population of self-identified followers of various spiritual
> paths, that there is shame attached to desire, and yet VIRTUE is
> attached to aversion. People speak with pride and passion, of what
> they 'abhor', and yet they speak little of what they desire, having
> accepted that desire is a flaw.


Some desires are easier to recognize than others. One of
the subtlest and yet most compelling desire is: to be accepted
as part of a community....which includes for me, the desire to be
appreciated. That desire alone is strong enough to get me
to 'sell my soul' to the (d)evil.

And yet, I see no sense of 'shame' attached to this....not
like the shame for admitting a desire for fame and fortune,
for instance. There seems to be a sense of 'good' and
'evil' even as it pertains to the 'flaw' of self indulging.

<snip>


> The aversive impulse is to move _away_, while the desire impulse is
> to move _toward_. Persons who are unconscious of this basic reality
> of human design principle, are very easy to manipulate; simply
> present them with a symbol which is aversive, and they will move away
> from it. If at the same time, a symbol of desire is presented, they
> will move toward it. It is quite easy to manipulate most people in
> this way; this is how the entire world-dream system of
> governance/control is enacted.


It IS easy to manipulate people. The easiest manipulation
....the way to best assure your 'acceptance' by the community
....is to compliment them, individually and collectively. I call
this 'aura fluffing'. People eat this stuff up. People demand it.

I caught myself demanding this 'fluffing up' just last night. A
new friend of Joseph's was over. I carpooled him around
yesterday, fixed dinner for him, and after only a couple of
hours (and having not yet gotten an opportunity to get to
know this boy) I heard myself thinking, "I don't want Joseph
to have him over any more."

When I heard this thought I started laughing.

I stated laughing because the only reason I didn't want him
to come over again was SIMPLY because he never once
offered to 'fluff me up'...... never complimented me on my
home, or my dinner; never offered a thank-you. And I was
ready to banish him from my home for that 'sin'! Is that crazy or
what? Funny thing is: after I laughed to myself about it...
...after promising myself there would be no such banishing,
on the drive home he couldn't say 'thank you' enough.
Gratefully, by that time, his 'thank you' was no longer
*necessary*.


It's such a marvelous experience to allow both
opposing forces at the same time, Gene. When I do
so I am immediately shifted to 'witness' position....
witnessing and allowing both the body 'refusal',
along with the conscious 'allowing' of thought
and experience.....that they seem to neutralize
that 'pulling' - of moving towards/moving away...

they become simply 2 ingredients of 1 experience.

Melody
______________________________________________________

MARCIA adds

Not to be picky here but it is three ingredients of
one experience. The witness is the third ingredient.
The space between the yes and the no is its own
position.

How I experience this is yes, a holding firm, or
grounding in the body or keeping attention on
my spine, and the emotions rise and fall
without my manifesting them either internally
or externally. Each moment they get neutralized.
Where I make my "mistake" is to feel like I want
them neutralized once and for all when to be
present is a moment by moment experience.
This is "if" I am awake.

The more common experience is a falling back
into the present as I allow one or the other of the
two original forces to act on me in such a way
as I become present. In the Work it is often
talked about being third force blind but the
situation is that we are most often blind in
two of the forces. So it becomes a little wake-up
and another wake-up. A wake-up to wake-up.
It can also be a wake-up to plunge-deeper kind
of thing.

_________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

In the Journal of Global Buddhism.

Sort of a sociological article the buying patterns of Americans who like
Buddhism. The author tries to link the things they buy to their attitude
towards Buddhism. He talks about "night-stand Buddhists," "Buddhophiles,"
sympathizers and seekers. Kind of interesting.

http://jgb.la.psu.edu/1/padgett001.html#twentyseven

Enjoy!

--Greg

------------------

Around here, Buddhists seem to drive Subarus.
I'm not sure why. In my opinion Subarus have
an undeserved reputation for reliability and
durability when they actually rust badly and
break down a lot. No insult intended either to
Buddhists or to Subarus.

love,

andrew

---------------------
That Glows-in-the-dark Buddha on my nightstand was a GIFT!!

I swear,
Gloria
________________________________________________

DAVID on Jerry's "Nonduality Street"

Jerry,
Thank you for this exquisite piece of writing. That fan that does not turn
has been
haunting my imagination all day. It is a like a tiny detail in a painting by
Edward
Hopper.
I think you might have just created a new genre - NonDuality Noir.

The city is such a fertile metaphor for poetry and prose-poetry. Like the
Matrix,
it is entirely a created environment that has much to teach us about perception
and
consciousness. I like my little NonDuality Street here in New Haven...it is
actually
called State Street, and the buildings in my little area represent all the
states of
human existence. When I go to work in the morning, chances are there will be
people
going to early morning Mass at Saint Stanislaus R.C. And there might be
anti-abortion
protestors hanging out in a desultory way at the Women's Clinic. During tax
season
people line up at the H.R. Block office on the corner, and more often than not
in the
afternoon or evening there is a funeral at the funeral home in the next block.
Late
weekend nights young people throng the dance club across the street. And every
once
in a while the strange unpredictable enterprise called NeverEnding Books opens
its
doors to an indifferent public. Birth, death, drinking, religion, death,
taxes...we've got it all, here on State street. And dusty used books if you get
lucky.

David
-----------------

You can, and have, written about your street as it is.
NeverEnding books sounds like a place I'd own.

I might do so more writing on my paragraph. In an ideal
world, the writing would be expanded into a novel which
would be populated by all the characters to have populated
these lists. It would be an interesting way of putting
everyone's writing together. Nonduality Street.

Jerry
________________________________________________________________________

PHIL & JAN


Jet set nondualists. Nondualists who drive BMW's -- or who
take a week off to be with Gangaji at Lake Tahoe(!). Must
be nice. Are there any nondualists who work six days a week
in order to pay bills and can hardly afford even a day off?

Just wondering.

Phil


The diversity among nondualists probably exceeds the diversity among taxpayers
:)

Jan
_______________________________________________________________

JERRY & DAVE


Has anyone ever practiced meditation while lucid dreaming?
The great thing about it is that you don't have to relax
your body. Your body's already quite relaxed. In fact, it's
sleeping!

I've done lucid dreaming meditation a few times. The first
thing you notice is what I just mentioned: there's no bodily
relaxation to practice. How about the easing or releasing of
thoughts? There's none of that either. In fact the only
thought would be, 'I am dreaming'. There's none of the other
junk pressing on the mind. Then arises the thought, 'I'm
going to meditate'.

The meditation begins immediately. For me, there is direct
contact with the third eye. Whatever chakra you focus on
will immediately absorb your attention, I would think. I
don't know, though, because I've never talked to anyone
about it, nor have I ever read anything about this practice.

What happens to me is that the third eye opens viciously, it
swirls and reveals all kinds of symbolic secrets and offers
to suck me in. It's very powerful.

I have also inquired 'Who am I?' in a lucid dream. It throws
me to my body, or it finds me looking into a mirror. It
shows me my real self, I think. I say, 'I think', because
the whole darn thing is a dream! It has the veil of
dreaminess about it no matter how lucid it is.

I don't know whether lucid dreaming meditation or inquiry
has value other than recreationally. It's possible that
inquiry would be more clearly understood when waking inquiry
is compared to lucid dreaming inquiry. Waking inquiry is
much more effective, I find. Lucid dreaming meditation is
recreational and very interesting. I wonder if others
sensitive to third eye activity would try it. Maybe others
could try inquiry during lucid dreaming and report what
happens. It's recreational inquiry, my latest invention.

Jerry

--------------------------------------
My Lucid dreaming practice is a preparation of the dream body,
or other self, to be used in waking states, as such, it is
almost a meditiation in itself.

I used to do recreational lucid dreaming, like sex, flying
and that kind of stuff, but then I realized that it was
a very powerful tool for investingating and meditating.

I didn't ever intentionally call it meditating however.

Almost automatic about half the time. I think it's important to
insist that you get there first, or else, it IS recreational
lucid dreaming.


I do a Carlos Casteneda excersize, identifying the energy.
It's great for highlighting or accentuating reality from
non-reality. Don't ever believe that certain aspects of
lucid dreaming are as real as "life". Or maybe the other way around,
that life is no less a dream than a lucid dream!

Lucid dreaming is very serious! It's far less than recreational,
or could be, when used in the form you use it. The practice
of lucid dreaming brings super valuable experience into
your waking life.

By the way, a true adventurer can stuble upon some very
serious territory. Like entering directly and consciously from
waking state to lucid dream and then repeating that in the lucid
dream. Not recommended for beginers! You're never sure if you've
come all the way out.

It is a very practical excersize however trying to enter directly
from waking state to lucid dream. It gives you a real perspective
on consciousness transitions and the control it requires to manage
such transitions. Also, if entering directly can be managed, you
can practice entering with someone else.

I managed that once, with my wife Ale. It was her first lucid dream,
I waited for her ( after trying for about 3 months ). She bounced off
all the walls, because she wasn't used to her body not having mass!
(Fortunately she didn't pass through the walls at least). I woke her up.
There was also another energy in the room!

Oh yeah, where was I?

Thanks Jer.
Dave

--------------------

There is one lucid dream I remember very well: it started as a normal dream, at
the
beach, going to swim, and suddenly I was swimming under water, enjoying the
sight of
colorful fish and coral reefs - very beautiful. At a certain moment I noticed
there
was no feeling of warm or cold and amazingly, there was no need to breathe
either.
Immediately it flashed through the mind "transfiguration completed" and the
sense of
happiness was so strong that it catapulted me directly into waking up from
sleep,
with the thought: "fooled again. That kind of happiness is impossible when
transfiguration is completed". Even when "normally" dreaming, I always know to
be...
well, someone with active K. :)

Jan
________________________________________________________

LARRY

Daniel, thanks for your interesting and thought provoking reply.
Basically I am trying to understand what people mean when they say "all
there is is consciousness". It makes more sense to me to qualify it by
saying all there is _in_experience_ is consciousness. The way you
outlined it there is 1. consciousness, 2. appearance, 3. objects, and 4.
noumenon (which you defined as space? rather than subjectivity). This is
fine with me but I don't see how it adds up to "all there is is
consciousness". Further, I don't see how Don Juan's "tonal" meaning
known and unknown knowables could equal consciousness. How could
consciousness be what I am not conscious of?

Nevertheless, I am not 100% disagreeable. I can see how ruminating on
the consciousness quality of this lived experience could be a doorway to
experiencing the emptiness (ungraspable) quality of all we hope for and
fear.

At any rate, it certainly merits further research :)

Larry

__________________________________________________________

DAVE

Andrew wrote:
>
> Mark's right, practise, some form of meditative practise,
> formal or not, so that one is familiar with the underlying
> stillness of the mind, then the reactions seem very much
> like wind driven waves on the surface which rise when the
> wind blows and quickly dissipate when it stops, and the
> underlying stillness is everpresent.
>

What a lovely little arrow you shot there Andrew.

I go back to a time, when I don't think I existed.
On the coast of British Columbia, standing on an island
that could have belonged to no one, maybe 1 square Km
in area. My brothers and I had fought a fast rising storm,
in canoes, getting to the island. Fortunately we were all
in very good physical shape in those days, (quite a while
ago). The wind dictated our direction, we had to point
the bow of the canoes into the oncoming wave. The nearest
land, was a rock cliff, less than 500 meters from us.

We rowed frantically one stroke ahead, a half a stroke
behind, all the while battling 2 meter waves... almost
cresting. I had done white water rafting, so was roughly
prepared to manage the canoes. We had supplies and
gear for the weekend, there was absolutely no room for error.

There was an island with a "beach" (apt for docking) 1 Km
ahead, but we were travelling about 1/2 Km per hour.

Well, I'm here, so you know that we made it to the beach.
The first thing my younger brother did was ran to shore to
kiss the ground. I stood, looking at the storm. It was a
time when I had read the Carlos Casteneda books for the first
time. Looking back, I remember in that moment... Silence.
The storm was raging, my hair was tossing from one side to
the other, my clothes blowing against my body. I don't remember
sound. The whole trip in canoe passed as though it were a
dream. The Eagle had let me pass, for the time being. He knew
more than I.

Later that night, the storm passed. My other brother had a
surprise for us. He was excessively anxious to go skinny
dipping at midnight. Kept repeating it and repeating it.
We were tired, but he insisted. Finally we tore off our clothes
and he went running ahead, kicking and splashing before we got
to the beach. There's a special kind of phosphorescent algea
that lights up in that area when its disturbed. He was surrounded
in a pool of light. What a night!

Anyway, that silence... in walking around meditation, can be
an extraordinary grounding point. Thank you for recalling it.

There are a very powerful series of exercises for strengthening
this aspect of ones consciousness.

Love
Dave.
_________________________________________________________________

MIKE CHANDLER

Recently I was watching--- for the sixth time or so-- Tim Robbins in
the film "Jacob's Ladder"....probably the only movie in which it
turns out the protagonist died in the first scene....All the horrific
weirdness that ensues is his journey through the Bardo....And then I
was (love the term) gobsmacked to realize that the Bardo is
recapitulated in our every mind-moment. We die as the process we just
were....Our past can rise up as peaceful or wrathful figures...then
we choose our "rebirth" in the next mind-moment (deific, or human, or
animal, or desire-driven hungry ghost, or hell-realm)...And in the
Bardo of each mind-moment we can drop all the realms and stay with
the Clear Light....So it's not a some-day-far-off between-lives thing,
this bardo. It's now, and now, and now.

M.

top of page