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Monday January 8th


Marcia Paul <jacpa@e...> wrote:



> I am wondering if being aware of the transitions between states
> is germane. Being present as the state changes from one thing
> to another. I am particularly thinking about emotional states. I
> have found that the few times that I have witnessed the transition
> from one emotional state into another are the times that I have
> felt most present to myself. What do you think?
>
> Marcia

Dear Marcia...

I couldn't agree with you more. Being the "witness" of emotional
transitions which you describe so beautifully is so much more "being
present to yourself" than the usual human condition of being
submerged in those emotions. Here you describe having the experience
of being the one AWARE of those states rather than being the states
themselves ...(i.e. being aware of sadness rather than being sad)...

Thanks for sharing that...

--With Love, Stephen


Hi again,

I was specifically pointing to being aware of transitions
between as it seems that is where 'gripping' (not griping <s>)
or getting stuck or caught up happens. It seems easier, to me
at least, to acknowledge that I am not my thoughts than to
admit I am not my emotions. In that sense, then perhaps, emotions
provide more fuel to awareness than thoughts. Just some random
thoughts here. :-) What cha think?

Marcia



All emotions are linked to body-feeling: without the ability to feel hunger,
thirst,
pain etc.,
compassion would become a mere concept from the dictionary. Just try to read a
treatise on
quantum physics when suffering from migraine - it won't go. And the entire
issue of
transformation is regarding the mind-body, as to become less and less
influenced by
emotions
and body-feelings, without impairment of the ability to respond to stimuli.
That isn't
all: the
fuel for the transformation is - emotive energy. No automatic thoughts without
feelings...

Slightly rephrasing, transformation concerns the so called "virtual sentient
entity" -
it is
getting stripped off... until it finally "strips off itself"...

With the sense of "I", it is called "selfish"
Without the sense of "I", nondual or "liberated" - moksha, nirvana...

And this "leaves" a fully functional sentient entity, "only" stripped from
feelings
like "I and
mine", fear, guilt, shame and embarrassment... And of course, stripped from all
thoughts,
rooted in these feelings...

Jan

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> How can anything be known
> by anything? The richest knowing is the last moment of balance before
> the tightrope walker plunges into the abyss. The deepest knowing is the
> scream on the way down -- OM -- through the emptiness.
>
> jerry

And the truest knowing is the knowing that you are the abyss.

Sahajman!!

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Hi Terry!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and intuitions about
verbal teaching, including Wittgenstein, and
including the wonderful quote
here:


>*Verbal Teachings*
>
> All verbal teachings are just to cure diseases. Because diseases are not
>the same, the remedies are also different. That is why it is sometimes said
>that there is Buddha, and sometimes it is said that there is no Buddha.
> True words are those which actually cure sickness; if the cure manages to
>heal, then all are true words. If they can't effectively cure sickness, all
>are false words.
> True words are false words when they give rise to views. False words are
>true words when they cut off the delusions of sentient beings. Because
>disease is unreal, there is only unreal medicine to cure it.
>
>Pai-chang (720-814)

The distinction here is between false words that give rise to views
and true words which cut off delusion. Clearly, it isn't
the word per se in which truth or falseness resides, it is
in the "hearer" of the word, through "what is done with"
the word.

An intriguing thing about this teaching
is that if delusion is cut, no further words are
needed at that point, yet any word spoken, being spoken
in a nondelusional manner (which
inevitably will "cut off delusion" if comprehended),
will be true.

If views rise, then any words are false, no matter how
profound they seem.

If the "hearer" recognizes this situation, and recognizes
that the disease attempting to be cured through
unreal words is itself unreal, then the idea that truth or falseness
can reside in words is severed, and there is no delusion.

Love,
Dan



Yes. Indeed. The words are spoken, the hearer receives them as an aid
to cutting through delusion, or the hearer receives them as so much wind.
In the former case, we have communication, in the latter, failure. You
correctly take Pai-Chang's point, which is that truth does not rest in words
or the views which arise from them, but in their use as medicine, to turn us
away from attachment to views. Thus Hyakujo's fox spent 500 lives waiting
for Hyakujo (mumon-kan, case 2) to explain to him why telling the truth was
insufficient to liberate him. Because the truth was spoken, the fox lived
500 lives in a state of grace; but because, though true, the words had no
'turning' quality and didn't liberate the hearers from false views, the fox
had to wait 500 lives before his final liberation.
The essence of true speech is *communication*, reaching the mind of the
hearers and liberating them; any attempt to determine actual truth or
falsity by any other standard is delusion. Words may be a 'means,' in
buddhism, to communicate that which may be used to save beings from delusion
and error, and consequent suffering. They are 'skillful means' if they
succeed in doing so; they are mere 'flowers of air' if they fail.
This was the central point of that long missive, that words only have
value if they communicate, and if that communication results in liberating
the 'hearer' from attachment to views.
Thanks for 'hearing.'

love, terry

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I am new to this list, so I am sure some of this stuff has been gone over,
but here I go anyway... <smiles>
One way is to step gently into the abyss of No-thing-ness, Emptiness. *It is
not a terrible plunge*; (or at least it does not have to be). It is a
matter of insight that this No-thing-ness is the abyss within you. You are
It. Allowing it to be......... No form----Just It.....The Vastness, The
Fullness, The Oneness. . There is no place to go, you have been there all
along. Allow yourself to become what you already are: The Totality, the
Allness. No need for terrible plunges...You never left it and it was never
"lost".
Wittgenstein said "What we cannot speak about...we must pass over in
silence."
Of course, If you talk about it, you are talking about the past, and dualism
pops up again. But, I think it is only human to attempt to say that which
you cannot say...besides it is fun for me to talk about what you cannot talk
about. Words can be a playful form of energy and it does not have to be
serious. The map is not the territory, but I like playing with maps.
Here are some more samples of dualism attempting to point beyond dualism:
Krishnamurti said: "It is like the pool that becomes peaceful, quiet, any
evening when there is no wind; when the mind is still.....that which is
immeasurable comes into being"
A Buddhist sutra says:
"Form is emptiness, and emptiness is indeed form. Emptiness is not
different from form, form is not different from emptiness. What is form
that is emptiness, what is emptiness that is form"-
Lama Govinda said: "The relationship of form and emptiness cannot be
conceived as a a state of mutually exclusive opposites, but only as two
aspects of the same reality, which co-exist and are in continual
co-operation.'
In quantum field theory the 'physical vacuum' is not a state of mere
nothingness, but contains the potentiality for all forms of the particle
world. "The vacuum is far from empty. On the contrary, it contains an
unlimited number of particles which come into being and vanish without end."
Of course, Wheeler and other scientists have gone further "out" than this,
but I will not go into that now.
What are all these people making small mouth noises about? Something
(or nothing) seems to be going on. I am not sure whether it is something
that can be proved nor disproved. It is beyond reason, just as life is
beyond reason. "Just as cold and heat can only be experienced directly."
This seems to be an *experience* (not an idea, speculation or
philosophical concept) that many humans through history have had directly.
It has been expressed by poets, scientists, mystics, stone age men, Taoist
hermits, medieval monks, hippies in the 60's, etc. etc. What anyone *called*
this experience matters little. As the Taoist said, "The name that can be
named is not the absolute name" We must not confuse *interpretation* with
*experience*. The Void cannot be pinned down because the observer and
observed are not separate. We cannot "know it because we are inside of
it.....We are It!" An unknowable reality full of mystery. But religions
have been formed upon this experience, value systems of entire cultures have
been based on this experience. "It can be so profound and shaking an
experience that it can change the person's character and his Weltanschauung
forever after."

"No one at home", but *only called*

Chuck H ;-)

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