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Saturday 03/03/01 (part 1)

Lions and Tigers and Bears:

JanB:
Good appetite, tiger...
think A but do B
that is one definition
of conditioning

a killer it is...
big cat that catches a prey?
...inconsistency

Cyber Dervish:
Tigers or cheetahs?

Mark:
Yes, liars and cheaters. Liars and cheaters
and bores...

Doc Hobbes:
ChiTah's no question.
This bear is awake and I am very, very 'hungry'...
The heart I was protecting was my own.
and now it is lost.


Cheers and tears to Karma...
that her hand
may be slow like
rolling thunder
and her judgements
quick like lightening.

To Karma.
--
Shaking off the snow
a bear and two opened eyes
spoke to the sky.
--TeCha
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Purification:

Andrew:
Beloved, bless your love with a kind word.
He has lost his soul, now his body is being
consumed.

In the realm of love, both selves are wiped out.
The moth is consumed,
just as the flame itself is extinguished.

The destiny of mankind
was foreseen on the day of creation.
Alter the design, if you have the courage.

First cleanse yourself,
purify your heart, then counsel others,
O Huma, but first you must change
the form of your speech.

Meher Baba
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What Can We Attend To:


Terry (tmnabata):
OK, those who have gone before into mysterious
regions of the mind/body and non-dual realms:

The way we construct reality is imperfect and out of
sync with "what is", because of the necessary
feedback loop needed to construct the
arena in our brains which takes time. Some
traditions speak of "direct experience" of reality.
But all experience must be mediated
in some way for us to be conscious of it--we may
have non-conscious experience, but we wouldn't refer
to that as experience. Do we get closer to experience
by constructing maps and images of the earliest
stages of processing: still out of sync in time with
reality, but more directly in line with "what is
happening to this body-mind"? In some
ways, now, when I look around at what is
constructed, and think of it like some of the games
my son plays on the computer, where there is
darkness until you explore the territory (the fog of war
kind of thing), I actually see the elements of the
construction, and how much processing went into it,
and then wonder what it all does. Compared
to the movements of energy in internal space, its
all kind of slow and it is as if I turn away and its gone.
So then is direct experience not an experience of
"reality" out there, but of our own processing of
it? Yes, this might be a way out of the solipsism
problem in that there is something we bump up against
even if it is our own neurons firing. We create our own
realities out of our contact with external
stimuli, but can only really directly experience our
internal processes. However doing so, could provide
insight into both internal and external reality, and the
"end to suffering". So in summary, we
ordinarily attend to our construction of reality
(very enticing it is) and lack the tools and energy to
attend to how that construction takes place. Letting
go even a little frees up enough resources to look at
the process itself, explore the boundaries of how we
interact with reality including our images of it, and
gradually, we come to know our selves.
Does this sound like something? Terry

Dan: > Terry:
We never construct reality - and it's because
the loop you mention is self-contradictory --
nothing "really" can be constructed ...

Nothing is mediated, for there can be no
mediating entity.
The impression of meditation is a self-contradictory
tendency of perception to try to validate itself
as existing, by constructing a perceiver who
has perception, falsely implying that mediated
perception can be received, and there can
be an "inside" and an "outside" to reality.

The one who thinks itself to be looking, is part of
the construction.
The construction has no way to validate itself,
hence it can't be said to exist.

There is no solipsism because there is no private
space for an entity to have perceptions.
Neurons firing is just another construction -- it won't
get you out of this nonexistent dilemma ;-)

> Letting go even a little frees up enough resources
>to look at the process itself, explore the boundaries of
>how we interact with reality including our images of it,
>and gradually, we come to know our
>selves. Does this sound like something?

To me, it sound fruitful.
Looking into the "image formation" ...
that's where the dilemma is revealed
as unable to sustain itself as grounded
anywhere --

Thanks for sharing these thoughts, and
this dialogue.

Terry:
Dan, you're really killing me here. So I get rid of a
lot of beliefs, like Santa Claus, and even gurus, and
enlightenment, but neurons? (I take it that's a belief).
Ok, I'll try it out.

Back to the drawing board, oops, OK, back to space
particles, or the drawing board that arises from space
particles that are not separate from me, and so I don't
have a "back" to go to because there is no time and if I
turn around...do I push the send button?
Thank you.


Dan:
The way I was reading what you wrote was in terms of
"constructing the universe through cognition/perception".
So, "neurons", like "sensations", like "body-mind",
can only be part of that construction,
having meaning only as related to other constructions,
no?

I'm glad the "send" button used you to press itself --
I enjoyed hearing what the never-existing
space particles said through you ;-)
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I had a thought did I

R Perrymore:

I had a thought did I
it went like this did it
I think I'll think myself high said I to I and here is a
sweet new way to do it, whenever doubt comes
yelling that I really can't get high by just thinking I can,
why I'll just say to old doubting Ron there, that shoot
the universe does the same thing to you in every moment
that you are saying you CAN'T do it to it. The universe
it seems to me proceeds with certainty and
simplicity.... YOU are just ignorant boy and so I scrub
that doubt away

I had a thought did I
it went like this did it
I think I'll think myself great said I to I so I did and I did
and I scrubbed my doubts along the way, for after all I
know that if I am not great by now after all this thinking
then I miss the point of scrubbing doubt in the first
place, the point is that great cannot compare great,...
is one bit of quanta as great as magnificent, as any
other? Of course that's true said one silly me to
another...you are worth as much as ANY other...
which is nothing.. and.. everything combined and
pulsing, pulsing, pulsing through you... is just you...
thinking yourself high.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The benefits of awakening?

CyberDervish:
When a person awakens there is no benefit to
Reality. To Reality it makes no difference if a form
[body/mind] is realized or not.

As Gensha once said:

"If you understand, things are such as they are.
If you do not understand, things are such as they are."

So the only benefit, if any, is to the body/mind?

Patrick:
If there is no benefit to awaken ((a person can not
awaken)) to Reality why have the Zen practicer
there Bhoddisatva mantra from? From where is that
Bhoddisatva engagement to come back until everyone
is awaken?

Michael:
This is a very good question, CD.

Let's see hmmm... benefits or side effects?!

Taller - smarter - better looking - more charm - stronger -
and endowed with powers beyond that of mere mortals....

heeheehee - maybe, maybe not.

Here is what i have noticed.

Fear of the so-called ego - dropped.
Fear of heaven and hell - dropped.

Kindness, acceptance, compassion - deepened.
Sense of wonder and beauty - deepened.

A profound sense of gratitude for the beauty of plain
old ordinary life as it is.

No longer overwhelmed by the so-called miraculous
- seeing light everywhere, the beauty of everything
and everybody.

Gloria:
Hey, you become better company! (At least you are
more interesting to hang out with for those bored by
predictability.) But seriously, the whole universe
"benefits". Don't forget that what the Buddha realized
under the Bodhi tree was that when you are liberated,
you simultaneously liberate all beings everywhere
for all time. There is no contradiction between the
reality of that and your quote by Gensha.

Sarlo:
Can't see how this conclusion is called for. Whether
all existence " benefits" or not -- and how can we
know? -- things are inevitably such as they are.

Tim:
*Ringing the gong*...

Sarlo, you may increase your own rating on the
"Guru Ratings List" by one pink hershey's kiss :-).

Sarlo:
Appreciating your appreciation but it only shows i have
learned to talk the talk.



Dan:

What Gensha said was purely unnecessary.
It's a statement given to confound the urge to
try to understand, or to think that there
could be a way not to understand.
He was kind enough to say something anyway,
realizing that anything said adds nothing,
but to say nothing wouldn't help.

The body-mind can't benefit because it is only
an imaged location. It's like a door that tried
to think it could swing itself open and shut.

The breeze that blew the door open and shut,
couldn't benefit or hurt the body-mind, which
was never an obstacle or a beneficiary
in the first place.

Tim:
*Ringing the gong again*

Eegads, I'm gonna go deaf today...

What is it about 'your' words, Dan-ji, that so often
prompt something... that "speak to" something that
does not speak and cannot be spoken to and does
not listen...

These words bring clarity and a great empty wondrous
bliss and are thus a blessing, despite being nothing
but words.

Jan:
Good seekers are like dogs
But bad ones are like hogs
The good ones give up seeking
The bad ones will keep shrieking


Tim:
No disagreements here, but it could be said that if
the body-mind is an imaged location, the image
and/or location may change (not benefit, but change)
as a result of an alteration in image and/or location.

As part of what is sometimes called "Realization,"
something could be said to occur that resembles a
'disentangling' of concepts and a simultaneous
detachment from concepts.

Since the body/mind is part and parcel of the
concept-web, chances are it may follow along with
whatever "happens with" the concept-web.

In other words, there is a possibility of locational
changes, behavioral changes and/or physiological
changes (not to mention psychological changes).
A sort of "reflective change" that reflects anything
"happening" with the concept-web.

Some such changes have been historically noted,
although perhaps not "proven." U.G. Krishnamurti
being an example.

However, to claim *benefit* is another story altogether.
Rather, from a conceptual viewpoint, it could be loosely
stated that Awareness "benefits" from Itself, rather than
so much attention given to its "products." The word
"benefit" not to be taken literally.

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