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Bruce:Buddha and Jesus notwithstanding,
the primary "graven image"
remains "ourselves," our harbored
self-images. Statues of Buddha
and lovely images of a kindly
Jesus comprise a distraction from
confronting the crucial fact of
this imagined and imaginary idol.


Dan: We worship the graven images we project. We idolize our mind's
constructs. Jesus didn't die to leave us an image to worship. He died
to
invite us to face ourselves, account for ourselves, not postpone
rebirth,
no-birth, birth as imageless infinity, within, from, and through the One
beyond One. The Greek word "Christos" has no equivalent in Hebrew.
Jesus
was made into the image of a divine savior to be worshipped, he spoke to
reveal truth. By making of him a divine image to worship, humanity
revealed itself to be affected by the energy he released, yet postponed
dealing with this Truth that he pointed to as present.


Melody:
When 'images', whether of a savior, heaven, father,
lover, etc are taken out of the 'concrete', and allowed
their fluidity, images have the potential of leading
awareness far beyond the realm of 'belief' and 'worship'.

Images - as living metaphors - can open us to spaces
of consciousness we have not yet touched, much less
'embraced'. And once one has traveled all the way
through an image, the image...and the traveler...simply
fall away.

As an example, I could 'worship' a Jesus,

or I could recognize Jesus as a distracting
graven image,

or I could 'step inside of' Jesus with mind
and heart, and open to where it takes me.
(I remember the first time I tried this,
I could not sustain the 'fullness' of the
experience. After only a minute, I had to
let it fall away, it was so
...so...'expansive' (hard to find a word.....).
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Dan: <snip> If attention is Indra's net, what is the jewel that is
being reflected? If we neither pull nor let out the lines,where are
we then - and who is to make decisions about how to deal with
attention then?
The contracted awareness isn't released by anyone or anything.
There is, then, no real "line" to abolish, no need for a belief to end
erroneous beliefs. The contracted awareness, not belonging to anyone,
ceases to be a problem that needs releasing. This seems to me a great
mystery, a multidimensional infinitely facetted jewel.
------------------------------------------------------------------------


andrew: Chuang Tzu said this about that;

"Now there is a saying about this, but I don't know if it's in the
same category or not. If being in the same category and not being
in the same category are construed as being in the same category
with each other then there is no difference. In any case, let me
say it.

There is a beginning, there is never beginning to have a beginning,
there is never beginning to never begin to have a beginning.
There is existence, there is nonexistence.
There is never beginning the existence of nonexistence,
there is never beginning never beginning the existence of nonexistence.
Suddenly there are existence and nonexistence,
but we don't know if existence or nonexistence actually exist or not.

Now I have said something, but I don't know if what
I have said actually says anything or not."
------------------------------------------------------------------------


I am attention
within awareness
Like wave and ocean.

But unlike water
when my attention
contracts
I choke and drown
in non-flowing

Rather I drown
in awareness,
having given up
hanging on to
directed attention

xan
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>Dan: A key thing to me in this is that the world-dream
>requires that we sacrifice to it: our lives, our thinking, our energy, our
>awareness. This sacrifice is based in denial. Denial of the pain of
>giving up our true being. We avoid waking up so as to avoid the pain from
>which our sleeping now "protects" us. The world-dream is organized so as
>to be inculcated in the vulnerable, maintained through belief, perception
>of belief as perception, and belief that belief is necessary for reality.
>
>Gene: Yes, precisely. This 'protection' is as useful as wrapping ones head
>tightly with barbed-wire, and just as comfortable.

Dan: Yet loosening the barbed-wire exposes one to the possibility of
being
the sky, a condition which would require exquisite sensitivity, care,
and
awareness in order to navigate day to day enounters, obligations, etc.
"Be
wise as serpents and harmless as doves," said Paul.

>Dan: The circular logic of the dream requires us to substitute the past
for the
>present, and to be unable to communicate or gain admission to the
>marketplace where we are bought and sold, unless we make this substitution.
>

>
><snip> Gene: For me, the world-dream has become... like the weather. The
effects are
>always occuring; I now generate my own reports. What had been a constant
>storm, now is a distant squall, a small noise, the quarrel of those
>competing for the top of the totem-pole. This recession of the gripping
>drama of the world-dream, has taken many years to occur, for me. I find
>that now, I do not need a raincoat; it just runs off of me without wetting
>me.

Dan: Having just weathered an East Coast hurricane, I'm aware that it's
nice when the winds blow favorably, that knowledge about what you are
dealing with helps, and if you're not worried about getting a little
wet,
that helps too.


>Gene:... <snip> It is
>the constant shopping at the marketplace of the dream, looking for a remedy
>for real pain, that keeps one immersed in the dream... in the hope that
>there actually is a remedy. But the only 'remedy' is not a dream-remedy;
>the actual remedy is to awaken to the dream. I believe this is called
>'lucidity'.

Dan: Yes - a dream remedy helps with dream ills. The remedy for the
pain
from which dreaming protects is to wake. The need for protection was
the
dream's mechanism, its self-preservation.

>Gene: <snip> My point was/is... that knowing that "all teachings are
moot" is a useful
>concept to consider, at the beginning. If all teachings are moot, what is
>NOT moot?

Dan: I agree with you. To know from the beginning the limitations of
all
knowledge, that is "true knowledge."
------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Gene: <snip> There is no escape from the world-dream; there is only the
chance to live
>impeccably within it, awake to it, growing immune to it, and of service to
>those who suffer in it. There is no remedy to the 'human condition' within
>the dream, but there is the chance to experience the 'human condition' as
>awake to the dream. That wakefulness has however been so misdefined, as to
>become an 'vast attainment' of Deistic proportions, out of reach, requiring
>great sacrifice, adherence to 'duty', as being even a 'cosmic lottery'. It
>does not require, but the courage to step through the fire, not the
>toughness of an asbestos suit of invulnerability.

Dan: Gene - well said. The fire is simply one's own doing, the fire is
one's own "eye" to see through. I am the world-dream. I manifest it
through the ignorance of my original condition. Seeing this, I am free
of
the dream.
Seeing this, my only duty is to the Infinite, to live impecabbly in the
dream.
My original condition has never been disturbed, only I imagined it to be
so
when I allowed myself to be measured by dream-standards.

Dan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


thanks for this --

nothing to be pushed aside
nothing to be remembered

each moment is a passageway
with no entry door, window, or exit

the barrier is thinking there is
something that can approach the gate
something that can move through

the barrier is thinking that
there is no one who can approach the gate
no one who can move through

wholly met,
it is like empty space
it is like solid rock

Dan

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

>> Marcia: Awareness is a very good book. I have read it
>>three times so far. <snip>

Dan: I'm reading it for the first time. I forget where it started
and I'm not sure where it ends.


Awareness, attention, consciousness. Being, bliss, nondual
realization. With these ingredients, what recipes we
concoct!

jerry

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From: Marcia Paul <jacpa@earthlink.net>

"An object attracts us; we do not attract the object.
Objects govern us from outside. They make us
do all sorts of things. It is not the woman who buys
the hat, but the hat buys the woman. The man does
not smoke the cigarette; the cigarette smokes the
man, as Mr. Gurdjieff said. The attention and the will
generated by outside objects, through the senses,
are not our own. They are part of the mechanism
of Nature: Nature works us. We do not conquer
Nature; Nature conquers us."
-Thomas deHartmann
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I came across this quote attributed to Thich Nhat Hanh.

How does this 'sit' with you?

"Enlightenment is always enlightenment about something.
It is not abstract."

Melody
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Xan:

Welcome back. Thank you for your post....well said...permission to "be"
whatever way one is...is very healing...and kind...and gentle....and
EASIER.

Love, Kristi
>>

I've always found the simplest ways work the best -
no matter what the task.

I've also found nothing needs to be pushed aside so the "real"
consciousness
work can be done. Every apparent barrier becomes a gateway, when
wholly met.

love
xan

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