Carl Gustav Jung (1875/1961) sojourned to Africa in 1925. He stood overlooking a seemingly endless plain, seething with astonishing varieties and astounding numbers of life forms, and he had an epiphany.
But for his standing there, there was a total absence of awakened Awareness.
Thought is the product of cogitation: the mind turning over the sock-drawer of its contents, rummages through the objects of its present fascination.
Intuition is the product of Awareness: the spirit of inquiry in synaptic resonance has connected the dots of experience and a previously unimagined symmetry emerges: the spirit of inquiry enriches the soil of intuition, and Pristine Awareness is the field of its endeavors.
Awareness is the Hall of Wisdom
Not transcendence
but
Transformation
the distillation of ones passage into finer states of meaning
Wisdom is the prosperity of Awareness
Shakespeare puts in Hamlet's mouth words to the effect that "nothing is good or bad save seeming makes it so". A brilliant gem from great antiquity has "nothing is as it seems, nor is it otherwise". My private view is that all things are just as they are, and that things seem different to the snake and to the frog because they are.
The figures of the meaning saturated gestalt are cut from the fabric of Awareness.
"Good Governance is responsible maintenance of the State."
"Bad Governance is irresponsible use of the State."
From the analects:
Monk: "Pray instruct me in Zen."
Master: "Have you eaten?"
Monk: "Yes"
Master: "Then wash your bowl."
It is said that this exchange produced the desired Awakening.
A rich history has come down to us by way of records kept in ancient monasteries. Monks of the Rinzai Zen tradition were there expressly to pursue the change of being described as "Sudden Enlightenment". The social disciplines and meditative practices of these institutions were designed to eliminate any impediment to the achievement of this end, and even in these carefully articulated circumstances many acolytes failed to cross over. So how in the world is somebody in secular circumstances to achieve this Cosmic change of being?
The "Centipede's Dilemma" is an Aesop-like tale concerning the centipede's psychological collapse when confronted with the question of the facility of his many legs and the circumambulations necessary to his daily life. Well, the narrative of "The Ten Bulls" which we encounter in Buddhist lore directly addresses the struggle and successful resolution of the psychological upheaval inevitable when we begin to realize how much of what we have been in life could be described as: Cosmic Awareness enslaved by an animal.
The silence of mind we cultivate in meditation makes possible that Awareness might come to the fore. The animal is the ride and beatings will not improve its quality of life. What is necessary is for Awareness to infuse and befriend the natural inclinations of the animal. The privations and austerities of monastic life are most certainly an accelerant to the self discovery necessary to the awakening of Awareness, but these bracing privations and austerities are not possible, or even advisable, in the press of secular existence.
Good will and good humor and meditation are advised.
Loosely paraphrasing from the analects:
Master: "I see from your countenance that you have entered the realm of Awareness!"
Monk: "Yes, but my joy is that of one who has found a precious gem beneath a pile of dung."
Carl Jung remarked that "People who live unconsidered lives get along just fine. It is when some aspect of the Collective Unconscious treads unbidden into the realm of Consciousness that there is trouble." Neurosis is often a crisis of discovery.
"The Ten Bulls" of Zen poetically relates the struggle that even an individual with some degree of preparation has with integrating the discovered Unconscious framework of the personality with the new forming personhood of Awareness. The new creature of Awareness finds its Self a stranger in a strange land.
Meditation provides a foundation of facticity which smooths the birth of the child of the Universe.
It is said that there is 85 to 90 percent shared DNA between chimpanzees and humans. We are simply very smart monkeys, and all of the many problems facing life on Earth are quite simply monkey business. A monkey with an IQ of 150 is still a monkey.
The web of life on planet Earth created by eons of the sophistication of Awareness is being shredded by the private interests of its smart monkey.
When that Awareness which is the foundation of all life awakens to its self, it represents the emergence of an entirely new kind of being: the creature of the Earth has become the child of the Universe, and one for whom the unity of all life is glaringly obvious. The smart monkeys are destroying the very fabric of life.
Only the dawning of Awareness can save life from the smart monkeys.
Meditation is a good place to start.
I began experiments in meditation when I was 13. In my mid 20s I moved to a remote shack at the end of a rough dirt road and the silence I enjoyed there resulted in the culmination of my meditative efforts. With fasting and sitting meditation I was eventually able to at will enter a Samadhi, and in this state I was able to at will generate a field around me that gnats, and flies, and mosquitoes would not enter. The field extended about three feet all around me and if some companion sat within that zone the bugs would not come in to get them. This state required the complete dissolution of consciousness into Awareness. With much practice I was able to assemble speech while remaining an artifact of Awareness. All of this was very arduous, but the door had been opened to that Awareness which is the substrate of all life, and I found myself increasingly a creature of Awareness and consciousness became a necessary and useful faculty.
Of course my life at that time was one built on the foundation of identification with Mind, and the complications peculiar to humanity were well articulated in my day to day existence.
But that's not the point. The point is that I have known meditators with years of practice and find they remain firmly entrenched in the clutches of consciousness. Their years of meditation have solidified their personalities, and I have come to the conclusion that sitting meditation is not necessary. It is an extraordinary exercise and will yield benefits to any who enter into practice, but it is not necessary to the awakening of Awareness.
One can quite simply practice Awareness. Be aware of your consciousness. No repression is necessary. Simply make a habit of being Aware of the weavings of the mind and that is enough. It's like a magic trick, or training a dog. The practice of Awareness is enough.
The practice of Awareness is enough.
It is said that we are the Cro-Magnon. Within the statistical variations of human physiognomy if an infant from those scores of thousands of years ago were dropped down and raised amongst us, we would find before us a human being basically indistinguishable from the rest of us. The Cro-Magnon of 50,000 years ago had the body, the brain, and (ostensibly) the personhood, of ourselves.
Peter Ouspensky (d.1947), writing in his early Gurdjieff years of around 1915, expressed words to the effect that "one could go mad from contemplating an ashtray". I was in my mid 20s when investigating this material. I was surviving as a sculptor in copper, and I imagined Ouspensky in deep contemplation, settled in comfortable surroundings and smoking a cigarette. As he tapped the ash from his cigarette into the copper ashtray at his side he was flooded with intimations of all involved in its seemingly innocuous existence.
Between a Cro-Magnon fascination with a strange and wonderful substance sweated from the rocks of which he'd made his fire pit to the existence of Ouspensky's ashtray lie thousand of years of inspiration and iteration: thousands of years of innovation and intuition and (quite simply) Genius. And this is true of every aspect of modernity.
All the advances in practical solutions to everyday tasks have led to our ever-so-modern "fifty dollar-answers-to-five cent-questions" and to fabulous answers to questions that don't even exist.
All of this is the product of Cro-Magnon consciousness.
The sleep of Awareness is undisturbed.
50 some-odd years ago I was reading anything I could find by the Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung (d.1961). His doctrine of "Individuation" spoke to the need to open up to the latent contents of the Unconscious Mind, and to assimilate what was found there into the realm of the Self. With this accomplished the person involved had become an "In-dividual": no longer driven by psychic forces beneath the horizon of awareness.
It strikes me that this process of "Individuation" is very close to the change of being that is sought in the "Enlightenment" of Zen, with the singular difference that the Zen view incorporates all of life into the fellowship of Awareness,
"Nature is not only aristocratic, she is also esoteric. Yet no man of understanding will thereby be induced to make a secret of what he knows, for he realizes only too well that the secret of psychic development can never be betrayed, simply because that development is a question of individual capacity."
My father in Zen died yesterday at the age of 86. Master Craftsman Marvin Huey. At our first encounter I was 25 and Marvin was 31. When he was 84 Marvin bought a Mercedes convertible because "It's a Chick-Magnet".
At the human level of life there are two planes of existence: the Electric, and (for lack of a better word) the Ethereal. The Electric is a world of protons, neutrons and electrons: a world of loaves and fishes. The Etherial is a world of field phenomena: a seething world of resonances in the alleged emptiness of space. These aspects are omnipresent; they fully interpenetrate and are in no way antagonistic. But in terms of everyday human existence their relationship to each other is rather like that of a one-way mirror. If our awareness is confined to the Electric the Etherial is invisible: the Electric sees only its reflection. If our awareness is awake in the Etherial the Electric is visible in great subtile detail.
It seems to me inconceivable that anyone could understand the true nature of the human circumstance without a firm understanding of Emptiness and Suchness (Sunyata and Tathata), and this understanding must be wrought in the forge of Samadhi and tempered in the well of silence.
Unless these conditions are met, existence will inevitably be viewed through the lens of ones humanity. Seen as if in a carnival mirror.
and Life goes on
one way
or another
I have a young acquaintance who suspects that we are living in a simulation. Well, in a way this is most certainly true. All that we know concerning reality are representations assembled by the brain from stimulation of sensory extensions. Our eyes, our ears, our fingertips, are antennae, and the body itself is simply an extremely sophisticated support system for a nodule of Awareness.
However it "is", is the way it has always been, and while knowing how "it is" doesn't change "how it is" our surmises do influence our behavior.
And this behavior in regard to "reality" is rather like a fish in a goldfish bowl. We have liberties of imagination. Imaginings will influence our scurryings but as for the bowl: as "it" was in the beginning, "it"is now and "it"ever shall be.
Sum, Ergo Cogito
For all the the years that I've jotted down these notes to my Self I have intentionally avoided subjects that were (in my view) subject to speculation. But it's been 20 years now and I see a valid reason to address subjects that might be subject to incredulity.
If you are not familiar with the term "Tulku" look it up. Consciousness is electrical and tissue dependent. Awareness is a field phenomenon and is conspicuously unregarded in psychological speculations. Well, the whole issue of transmigration sums up to "is the field phenomenon of Awareness capable of surviving the extinguishment of the tissue it has inhabited". Once Awareness is recognized as a field phenomenon this is not a great stretch, and if we understand what the Tulku club is about then we are in a position to realize that such beings are not confined to doctrinal affiliations and that all about us exists an ecosystem that transcends and infuses the molecular realm.
Once awake the Awareness enters an unexpected realm of subtle realities, which, though heralded in various religious lore, is not without its ecology and its economy.
Credulity is the enemy of Self discovery.
All thought is the use of imagination. Even inspiration must use the field of imagination for its exercise, and much of what passes as inspiration is mere decorative thinking.
An extremely valuable venue of thought is to question the innate. Almost all of civilization's accouterments are decorations on the foundation of what is innate in the human animal. And this to the degree that the innate is buried under an avalanche of inspired products of the imagination. An excellent example of this is the automobile. Probably brought to perfection in the mid twentieth century, what is innate in the automobile has become larded with culturally inspired imaginings. What is innate in the automobile is taken for granted and is all but invisible under its weight of accouterments. Just so with civilization in general, as the accouterments come to dominate the innate the innate becomes increasingly encumbered and inaccessible, while at the same time omnipresent.
So I suggest that a valuable use of the imagination is to question the relationship of the innate to the decorative in humanity, in culture, and in ones Self.
Well, today marks 20 years of jotting down these notes from my Self. I had crossed over many years before and attempted in various ways to describe the view to those who seemed that a little nudge might be of some help. Of course my own very real limitations are in evidence, and there are aspects of the view which comes with the awakening of Pristine Awareness that can be damaging if held before a mind yet under the hypnosis of consciousness.
Humanity at large is very much in an animal stage of disposition. Every advance in understanding the natural world is weaponized. Our entertainments are that of sex and violence. It is quite clever to sort out the workings of the nuclear bonds which hold the atom together, but using that knowledge to build tools of previously unimaginable destruction could hardly be considered wise, and even the medical sciences are weaponized by industrial finance. Clever but not wise, the brightest of these animals are among the most dangerous.
Oddly enough all of this is blameless. None of this is anything that an aware creature would pick out of a catalog. And when some creature shows you its natural leanings, permit yourself the discomfort of becoming informed.
Be all of this as it may, humanity is also the larva stage of a new kind of creature on the face of the Earth.
It is difficult to speak of these things without sounding pejorative though that is most certainly not the case. All life participates in the pressing of life to Self awareness. Animal existence has been very effective in the refinement of vehicles, and in humanity we have a sufficiently evolved vehicle to finally engage in the paradigm shift from the simple animal to awakened Pristine Awareness. I have described this as "the child of the Earth becomes the child of the Universe"
This paradigm shift was undergone by our precocious predecessors, and they sought to build a path to the transformation which they had experienced. Our Zen forefathers were not the only ones to undergo this transformation, and not the only ones to attempt to build an opening which could stand the erosive winds of time as the animal mind transforms technologies of being into belief systems.
It's not their fault. Of course it is so. The animal mind seeks to make sense of what is beyond its comprehension, and builds a box of rationalizations in which to keep it. It is not an exaggeration to refer to Enlightenment as a paradigm shift, and those who undergo this transformation have genuinely become a different kind of creature.
Looking around it seems to me that Zen has been more resistant to adulteration than most other systems because of the uncompromising insistence of our precocious predecessors on nothing less than the awakening and entering into the formal identity of Pristine Awareness.
When I consider their work and their yet living achievements I am filled with boundless gratitude.
Most systems past and present, are built around modeling behavior apon the iconic representation of an idealized figure: a Chuang Tzu, or the Christ, or whomever. These behavior modification regimens produce a psychological topiary which can be a very satisfactory simulacrum of the iconic goal and produce a fine figure of a human being.
What sets Zen apart is that Zen is not about behavior modification. Zen uses behavior to build the key which will unlock the door and awaken Pristine Awareness from its intoxication with consciousness.
Zen is about a metamorphosis: a metanoia. 2,500 years ago the pre-Zen Taoist Chuang Tzu spoke of this as "those who have left their humanity behind"
As a butterfly leaves behind the chrysalis.
If you do not possess your Mind
it is you who are possessed
In Samadhi we find that Mind is a subordinate faculty of Pristine Awareness, and that Mind is the seat of animal identity. A Mind not occupied by Awareness will most certainly become the possession of squatters.
No-one has to tell an amoeba how to pursue, capture, and consume its prey. No-one has to teach a bird how to fly. No-one has to prompt a caterpillar to become a butterfly. And no lessons are needed to school humanity in the subtle arts of petty irritations, of vanity, and of tribal violence. What Carl Jung (d. 1965) referred to as the Unconscious Mind is no less than a minefield of instinct: stimulus-response patterns that determine the moment to moment behavioral repertoire in every living organism.
Consciousness has created a situation wherein the creature subject to these impulses says "I" do this. "I" feel this way. "I" want that. The "I" of these pronouncements is a chimera devoid of any individuality other than proximal.
There is a Self that is real, that is fundamental and common to every living thing, and which can awaken to become the arbiter of a given life. Pristine Awareness is the stuff of life and Pristine Awareness is the primordial substrate of consciousness. And in some examples of humanity Pristine Awareness is capable of awakening (just the right word) and charting a path through the minefield of animal existence. The mind has become the wish fulfilling gem, and the body the magic carpet.
This awakening is as natural as a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, and is a natural flowering of the tree of life.
If in meditation we simply let consciousness contemplate Awareness we encounter Pristine Awareness as receptive emptiness. This "receptive emptiness" is the storehouse of all potential and is in fact the Self itself.
Meditation is the brick with which we knock at the door.
The cake icings of yesteryear were made of sugar and lard and were applied to make the cake more attractive visually and culinarily. And in just such a manner the technologies of being developed by millennia of intuitive individuals come to us larded with mythologies and sweetened with tales of transcendence.
This is what Lin Chi (d 866) was getting at with his:"If in your travels you meet the Buddha, SLAY HIM!"
In meditation simply let consciousness contemplate Awareness.
The Self is a droplet of Awareness with an inside and an outside.
Our humanity is a garment woven by aeons of Self "improvement"
.
No aspect of the living world is indifferent.
and
Awareness does not require or imply mind.
It is not at all hard to see that desire shapes the world of the animal. All animals. Desire is the crucible with which time has cast its exquisite forms, and desire is the retort in which evolution has distilled the vapors of instinct.
The nectar sipping bird desires a longer bill, and epigenetic eccentricities do the busy-work.
Will and Repose are the coins of this realm. The Yin and the Yan. The Alpha and the Omega.
It is through the cultivation of emptiness that we discover our selves as Awareness. Everything which exists, exists as presence. The presence of Pristine Awareness is the presence of living emptiness. This receptive emptiness is in every creature the repository of the tools and inclinations which make possible its continued existence, and Pristine Awareness becomes invisible by inflating these sterile tools and inclinations with purpose.
It is not for the inconceivably various forms of creature hood to undergo the transformation of profound awakening. They do not have the capacity. The same could be said of the great masses of humanity. They are, and will remain, held in the colorful iron folds of animistic individuation.
Is it Fate, or is it Destiny, that compels any certain flower on the tree of life to the liberation of self discovery?
Do we see awareness through the lens of our humanity
or
Do we see our humanity through the lens of Awareness
