Perception

 

Perception is an excitation in the field of Awareness. As we discover in our meditation, the field of Awareness exists in a state of active passivity. Awareness resists nothing and requires nothing. Perception provides an itch and behavior provides the scratching. 

Every creature comes into being with a library of instinctual potentials ingrained in the physical patterns expressed in their existence. These potentials exist to excite the field of Awareness and spur behavior. The exegeses of existence further enrich this library, and the capacity of this library is what is known as "intelligence".

What we see here is that behind all this experiential busyness is the primacy of Pristine Awareness. And that all the activities of living organisms are constellated to ensure the wellbeing of the residence of said nodal of Awareness. We find here that Pristine Awareness is what we are and that all else is window dressing. 

Consciousness emerges with the advent of nervous systems. Nerve systems enable the creation of rich libraries of experienced exegeses, and with the enrichment of this library comes into being the librarian: the Ego. And this Ego, blind to its origins, believes itself to be the author of its tale when it is actually the stepchild of Cosmic Necessity.

Zen is the slap designed to awaken Pristine Awareness to the true state of things.

The Ascent of Awareness

 

In the time-scale of the Universe the ascent of Awareness has progressed smoothly and quickly. Our single-cell ancestors, in a Darwinian progression, gave rise to Homo Erectus. Homo Erectus paved the way for the emergence of Homo Sapiens, and Homo Sapiens is but a wide-spot in the road for the flowering of Homo Sophians. 

The soup of creature-hood is the agar plate for the emergence of Self-Recognition in the fabric of the Universe, and the emergence of what has become known as "Enlightenment" is the denouement of the Universe's aspiration for this "Self-Recognition."

All living creatures are the expression of Pristine Awareness, and Pristine Awareness over millions of years has, like a tree root in rocky ground, leveraged its way through the darkness of material existence in the process of refinement of said Pristine Awareness (which is the substrate of the Universe) that it might awaken to its Self.

The intuitive recognition of the oneness of existence in precocious individuals made religious mysteries inevitable, and filling in the blanks of knowledge in a pre-science world necessitates well constellated mythologies. And in all of this we find the thread of the Universe's appetite for Self-Recognition.

Just as there are mathematical geniuses, amongst the geniuses of all stripes we find religious geniuses. Religious geniuses do not invent anything: they see. And in the historical survey of religious genius we detect the budding fruition of self-recognition in Pristine Awareness. And just as one Einstein tills the field for ensuing mathematicians, a parrot can pronounce great truths.

On the Dogwood tree, every bud that will flower in the Spring is present when its leaves are dropped in the Fall. Those buds winter over and when the time is right they burst into flower in a matter of days. 

Homo Sapiens is the rootstock for the emergence of Homo Sophians.

The Majesty of the Inevitable

 

This blog of personal musings is certainly not about events in the world of the unenlightened, but it is so glaringly obvious that the animal faction of humanity is impervious to the majesty of the inevitable that they seem rather like an ant contemplating the toe of an elephant with aspirations and self importance.

I take it as a personal failing that I find this not only astounding, but a touch horrifying.

The Law of the Jungle

While the jungle is morally neutral, the foundational nature of Awareness in all creatures leads to emotional judgements that, while conflicting, are axiomatic: it is wrong to be hurt, it is wrong to be eaten, it is right to wield power, it is right to eat. Several thousand years ago a famous Greek wrote down that "The powerful do as they will. The weak endure what they must."

All animal behavior is an exploitation of its environment in pursuit of satisfaction of an organic need, and in the more complex creatures this includes complex needs that are psychologically driven. There is no behavior without motive whether it is scratching your nose or some act of tribal rapine. 

As we survey the infusion of intelligence into animal existence through the vehicle of evolution we find the emergence of a remarkable property. We find the emergence of an intelligence capable of awakening to the Pristine Awareness which is the substrate of its existence, not to mention the essence of all life. One might say that the spirit of life-itself has awakened.

As long as the mind of humanity at-large enjoys the state of animal innocence, our societies will reflect the laws of the jungle.

The Baby and the Bath Water

 

The maturation of Awarness can set one at odds with the old world brain of which it is the flower. It is never a good idea to set oneself in an adversary position to nature, for the self tires and nature does not. 

The awakening of Pristine Awareness which I refer to as Enlightenment does just this: in the same manner as a light coming on in a previously dark room, the cave lair of the latent contents of the unconscious mind is flooded with awareness. The archaic superstructure of the personality is clearly revealed to be the mechanical prod to behavior which it is, and it is not uncommon that the emerging Self is uncomfortable with what it has found.

Thomas Aquinas (died 1274) in his later years regretted the suffering he wreaked upon "Brother Mule" in his early struggles with his own humanity. In the same way as a dedicated archaeologist methodically and respectfully proceeds with a dig, one must reverently catalogue and repurpose the discovered energies of the antique genetic imperatives which are the soil of our being.

I suppose one way of looking at is: new growth through cultivation rather than "slash and burn."

The Citadel

 

Within every living creature in the Universe there is a Citadel. And in every living creature this Citadel is surrounded by an ancient and vast city swarming with layers of commerce and political expediency. In most every living creature there is no silence in the Citadel before the insistent cacophony of the city's rhythms.

The Universe has, over a period of millions of years of trial and error, come up with an organism in which the Citadel can come to its senses as it were, and rule the city.  

It is the gift of Silence,

The Lost Powers of Intuition

 

All knowledge is the product of intuition, but intuition is the fruit of Awareness and knowledge is a product of mind.

The intuitive "knowing" proper to any creature subject to awareness is in humanity subject to layers of knowledge. The obvious advantages of culture ask and in fact demand subordination of intuition to the disciplines of knowledge. The intuitive spontaneity found in children and other animals is gradually buried under a progressive burden of cultural norms and expectations to the point that for most specimens of humanity access to intuition is effectively cut off, and in leu of intuitively making one's way through life, one's life proceeds by juggling mental artifacts. These mental artifacts include such niceties as atom bombs and political parties (the benefits of civilization not withstanding).

At any rate the presence of being found in religious figures of historical note is the immediate side effect of a life founded in the cultivation of Awareness, and the restoration of mankind's native powers of intuition is a natural result of the practice of meditation.

The Weight

 

Much of the advice concerning "inner balance" is of the nature of counter-balance: cultivate pleasant memories etc. This must work for most people because this sort of thing gets a lot of ink. However that may be, it seems to me that this is a compensation that adds to the total weight one carries down the path of life.  One is unbalanced due to an unpleasant weight carried in ones right hand, so one puts a counter balancing pleasant weight in ones left hand. Some balance is achieved at the price of burden. 

The mind has formed these burdens in response to the vicissitudes and residues of existence. The ultimate nature of our existence is not the mind. The ultimate nature of our existence is Pristine Awareness. When we achieve that seismic change of identity from mechanically accepting ourselves as the waves to realizing ourselves as the water, we no longer are the tool of the mind.

It is profound relaxation. This "profound relaxation" can not be achieved by effort. Profound relaxation is discovered as the natural state of Pristine Awareness: the essence of all life. The weights that we carry are usually valid, real, visceral (I speak as a combat veteran on the wrong side). It is not about covering up or somehow compensating for the dark side of our humanity. It is about becoming a different kind of creature: a creature truly awake in the fabric of existence.

The waves are the water. When the water is awake the disturbances that are the stuff of the colorful surface of life will come and go. These agitations great and small are the stuff life feeds upon and by them the Universe finds its Self informed. The water of Awareness is enriched thereby.

Simply direct the mind to the contemplation of awareness. There is no effort in awareness for Awareness is simply aware. This practice will lead to unsuspected realms of Self discovery in anyone who will make a sincere commitment.

As the Crow Flies

 

There is a phrase in these once remote Ozark hills used to describe the shortest distance between two points, and that phrase is "as the crow flies." This is what "The Bird Path" is all about.

One encounters so much advice about how to rearrange one's inner furniture, and so much verbiage and effort concerning consciousness this consciousness that. None of this is pertinent to the awakening of the Pristine Awareness which is the core of not only your existence as a human being, but the "I AM" of all living creatures.

The image that comes to my mind is that of someone washing and waxing their car, sweeping out the glove box, vacuuming under the seats, polishing the rearview mirror, rather than simply getting in and driving to their allegedly chosen destination. Tidying up our humanity is like polishing a mud ball: there will be nothing left when we have cleaned it all up. We are children of the soil, and removing the soil from our being will leave an empty shell. Not to mention that the effort put into "raising consciousness" might have been put into the awakening of Pristine Awareness.

A difficult (but not insurmountable) fact is that consciousness is a conditioned state of Awareness, hence the old image of searching for fire with a candle. Another hurdle is the supposition that what we seek is a personal evolution, when the fact of the matter is that the personal has become translucent and therefor no longer a source of fascination.

The use of meditation to permit Pristine Awareness unfettered access to expression in the event which is our person-hood requires some preparation or else the freedom of self will be accessed as self improvement. But then it all depends on where you want to go. And as the crow flies, the bird path is the shortest distance between that place and where you now stand.

Certainty

The colors of experience which become the motive forces behind our lived moment boil down to a very few primary movers. These primary movers transcend our humanity, our mammal-ness, and are coeval with our existence as animals. With regard to our behavior as psychological beings the foundational need is that of "certainty". Emerging from the obvious need for food and shelter is an awareness of the uncharted land of a morrow. And this primal awareness of "future" in a sophisticated brain will naturally lead to the creation of "certainty".

Certainty is the foundation of civilization with its web of benefits and failings. The dysfunctional extensions of certainty include such behavioral grotesqueries as greed, lust for inordinate power, and a host of psychological maladies that when examined reduce to a hysterical need for certainty, and perhaps an intuited awareness of certain catastrophe. With regard to any future for humanity it is extraordinarily important that power possessing beings are not operating under dysfunctional appetites for certainty, but as we look about us the opportunities for catastrophe are little ducklings in a row following their dysfunctional certainties to their unnecessary denouements.

The most subtle and insidious uncertainty is that of the undiscovered self. The ultimate actuality of self is Pristine Awareness. And when Pristine Awareness becomes the seat of personal identity we exist in a discovered universe of certainty.

Meditation is the key

Satori is the door.