Ascent

 

In the ascent of the Universe to self recognition through the vehicle of Life's ongoing sophistication of Awareness, humanity is merely a moment of convenience.

So near

Yet so far.

Monkey Business

 

Let us imagine one million monkeys silently evolving in empty space. Each one can access all of the knowledge, religious and secular, that exists in the universe, and yet they are asleep.

The awakening of Awareness that I have been referring to as "Enlightenment" is not the monkey waking up to Awareness. It is Awareness waking up to the monkey.

Intuition

Beneath the world that the mind of humanity has created, lies an undiscovered (and unsuspected) world of intuition. 

The works of genius which have given men and women so many comforts and so many horrors were first intuited, and then crafted, into being. The mind's distorted twisting of the fruits of intuition will be the end of us all

But that's not the point. 

The point is that with the awakening of Awarness the mind no longer rules the intellegence, and we enter a magical realm of unerring Intuition. 

Physicality

All existences are physical existences. 

The force-field of a magnet is invisible to the human eye, but non-the-less its physical existence is incontrovertible. The awareness which we find in all life is also a field phenomenon, and in the same way as magnetism, awareness is dependent upon specific agregates of matter for its activity. In much the same way that magnatism is a much utilized yet wholly mysterious phenomenon known only by its affects, the Awareness which is the substrate of all identity is a wholly mysterious phenomenon known only by its affects. 

The "What" that is the "Who" of our daily life is a field of Awareness, and our humanity is the form made necessary to its existence: our humanity is a vehicle and an abode and a means of proliferation. Awareness (like magnatism) has only one quality: Awareness. In every creature we find Awareness, which is the very stuff of life, totally identified with the vehicle that maintains it. It is quite inevitable that this should be so. It is also quite inevitable that at a certain point in the evolution of living organisms, Awareness should achieve self-recognition and become the seat of identity, thus entering into an entirely new relationship with the natural world.

It is not too great a stretch to consider that such an awakening might be the entire thrust of evolution to begin with.

Shakespeare Reads Thucydides at a Dylan Festival

 

I have a friend who suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome. She suffers terribly. She can’t eat. She can’t sleep. As therapy I have recommended cultivation of “The Historical View.“

In the prelude to his account of the (431 BC) Peloponnesian War, Thucydides (a general on the losing side) says that if people understood how stupid and unnecessary the war was then perhaps this sort of thing need never happen again. In the plays of Shakespeare we find a catalog of cruelty, cunning, and chicanery worthy of any modern despot. Bob Dylan’s “Times They Are A Change’n” was something of an anthem for a certain idealistic set back in the day, but the times have slogged on in the same muddy rut.

The creature that we are continually recreates the forms made inevitable by the animal that it is.

My friend immediately found Donald Trump recast as Shakespeare's Richard the Third, but it hasn’t seemed to help much.

I think we’ll try Ecclesiastes next.

The Perception of No Mind

A silent Mind becomes the ears and eyes of Awareness. 

 Mind is a configured state of Awareness and when Awareness is configured, a state of tension exists that makes impossible the suppleness necessary to the more subtile aspects of perception. 

 No Mind does not imply the absence of Awareness.  Though a necessary and valuable tool, Mind is an abridgment of Awareness.

 The hand must guide the tool.

About Gnats

A world in which gnats exist is not made more remarkable by the existence of humanity.

Our Existence as Biological Beings

 

Our existence as biological beings is an accessory to Awareness.

Nuts and Bolts

 

Though necessary and celebratory, consciousness is patently superficial. Like the skin of any animal, consciousness is an interface and a protective layer. It is a conditioned state of Awareness that is made inevitable and necessary by the vicissitudes of existence, and the Awareness of any organism is generally found wholly identified with its animal consciousness.

But animal existence is the garden in which the Awareness of the Universe distills and refines itself to the state of Self Recognition. When the Universe awakens to Self Recognition in its progeny this is called Enlightenment. Awakened Awareness clearly recognizes consciousness as superficial and consciousness becomes more or less subsumed by an Awareness that transcends what is normally considered consciousness.

One side affect of this is that we find individuals with abundant potential who are hypnotized by consciousness and who therefore never become properly Aware.

Consciousness is individual.

Awareness is Universal

Chance Favors the Prepared

Recently there was an article in the health section of one of the news services concerning psychological problems resulting from the practice of "mindfulness". Some issues were the emergence of unpleasant memories, and an emotional leveling in which the individual no longer experienced strong emotions negatively or positively.

These "problems" come from using the method without a requisite intellectual preparation, and it is unfortunate because these "problems" indicate that this or that particular person was actually achieving something: actually getting somewhere. Silencing the mind enables repressed content to bubble to the surface, and if the practitioner is alert and prepared, that which has been repressed like leaves pressed in the pages of a book, can be digested, composted: the repressed element can be reintegrated and become a source of growth. Those reporting diminished emotional intensity, well duh, emotional intensity is seldom a sign of maturity of soul. Awareness is sufficient.

So in an odd way this is a demonstration of the efficacy of meditation. It works even if you don't know what you are doing or why. And it is a shame that these individuals came so close to change of being only to walk away, not recognizing a valuable opportunity: mistaking gold for brass.

Chance favors the prepared.

Ten Bulls: the Obvious Becomes Apparent

 

There is nothing the least poetic about "The Ten Bulls". "The Ten Bulls" is an utterly prosaic description of the state of an Awareness wholly identified with animal-mind discovering the Self.

The fact that this reality was noted and codified well over one thousand years ago says something about humanities marginal powers of observation.

Enlightenment is simply a matter of the obvious becoming apparent.

Labyrinth

 

The mind is not a labyrinth. The mind is a system of hallways designed to lead an enchanted Awareness into the ways of the world. Seen from above our humanity is warren of ancient pathways leading to various rewards that most generally serve the needs and appreciations of the creature that we inhabit. The Universe is thus served by the production and emanation of vibrations completely foreign to the material world.

The only new thing in the Universe is the experience of living organisms. The paramecium, the earthworm, the elephant, all generate what we might call "life", and the creation of new vibrations common only to life is the Universes way of feeding.

Enlightenment is an entirely personal matter, but I rather suspect that the Universe may find the vibrations delicious. 

Knowledge

 

Knowledge does not distance the mystery. It is not uncommon that physicists are properly in awe of the unknown for they are amongst the few who experience the limits of the known. Knowledge brings us closer to the Mystery by obliterating opportunities for mythologizing and donkey-tail pinning. The greater our penetration into the perceptible, the more obvious it becomes that the perceptible is the surface of a sublime Mystery the center of which is the substance of ourselves.

Many are those who continue to pin an imaginary tail on the inconceivable donkey,

The Spacious Mind

 

A mind has limited space, and like a a closet, or a garage, or a barn we can jam it 'till the doors won't shut. When we are in the habit of keeping things and making them ours, what then.

Meditation is the exercise by which we clear the mind of the detritus of our human existence, and create spacious living quarters for the Pristine Awareness which is the essence of all life.

Expectations

What do we expect to come from our study of Zen? Supposing we should domesticate the animal that was born to the earth and become the child of the Universe, do we suppose we will be the same person on some higher level of awareness? In overcoming sorrow we have overcome joy. Do we suppose the same things will move us, call to us, motivate us? Please us?

What then?

Tests of Being

 A great difficulty with Enlightenment is that the unenlightened imagine something that happens to a person. Enlightenment happens when the "person" dissolves into the sea of awareness while retaining the discipline that enables self purpose.

Without the familiarity with silence and emptiness that comes with the exercise of meditation the sudden breakthrough by accident might leave an otherwise newborn child of the Universe in a straightjacket.

About Becoming

 

We will never be what we can become 

until we see what we are.

The Gift of the World

 

The "Gift of the World" is that we will never know any peace except through self discovery.

Enlightened

There is a tendency to think of Enlightenment as an amendment to our being, not so. Enlightenment is when our being shakes off amendments.

Rain Drop

Let us give a drop of rain an intellect and an imagination.  What is this raindrop to think concerning rejoining the ocean?

The Qualities of Force

People are qualities


The dissipation of entropy concentrates force

Unintended Consequences

When I began my exploration in Zen I was 25. I had discovered Buddhism while in Japan some 5 years earlier, but the sect in which I had enlisted did not reveal to me the core of my Self. My search continued and I looked into every system I could find, looking for the essence of my Being.

It was the Koan exercise and the insistence of Enlightenment in Zen that finally struck a chord.

I am now 75. In my early survey of Taoist and Zen literature, for all its charm, there were anecdotes that mystified me. Lao Tsu: why did he leave the kingdom to live out the rest of his life in obscurity amongst the barbarians? Would not his enlightenment have been of great value in his homeland? He knocked out the "Tao Te Ching" at the request of the gate keeper on his way out, never to be heard from again. And the Zen masters who came to live under bridges or to dwell in some rustic hideout. Would not their presence in community have been of great value?

Well, now I understand the why of all that just plain as day.

Chocolate Buddha Box

The mind is the "Chocolate Buddha Box"

Imagine That

In great measure it all comes down to the use of the imagination. The imagination must be brought to heel like a well trained dog. The "freedom" of the wild animal is all very nice in a pre-civilized romantic sort of way, and there exists a culture to celebrate this sort of lack of self awareness and civil restraint. But this freedom is actually that of a soul enslaved to an animal.

The freedom that accompanies Enlightenment is one in which the animal, and therefore the imagination, serves awakened Awareness.




This is the difference between a ball-and-chain and a magic carpet.

What Buddhism is All About

Awareness is the stuff of which we are made. Intelligence is the ordering principle that by its exercise determines efficacy of Awareness.

There is an inherent blind spot in the existence of creatures which makes instinct the base-line of consciousness, this shifts intelligence toward the natural opacity of the animal. 

The maturation of Intelligence will awaken the same un-carved Pristine Awareness anywhere that it arises in the fabric of Existence. And this is what Buddhism is all about.

Existence

Existence has three elements: Emptiness (sunyata), Lucency, and Being. Though colloquially identifiable these are not individuated, and Existence is the essence and the fact of Eternity.

Being does not displace Emptiness. Being is woven of Emptiness and charged with Lucency.

By discovering the colors of Being, Lucency emerges as the fount of all colors, and Emptiness is revealed as the meaning saturated gestalt.  

About Being Understood

It is not necessary to be understood. What is necessary is to come to understand oneself. And if you come to understand your Self you will come to know how ludicrous it is to expect to be understood in a world where one who knows the Self is seldom encountered.


What is possible is to be kind and considerate.

Under the Streetlight

Perhaps you are familiar with the joke concerning the fellow who searched for his keys under a streetlight after losing them in the dark "because there is more light here". Well that is the perfect analogy for those who seek Enlightenment in the domains of the personality.

The Field of Enlightenment

The field form which is the substance of our individual awareness exists between "things". The thing we are born into has a library of forms that is ancient and sufficient to its natural needs. In the process of maturation this library of forms is enriched through the vehicle of experience, and experience exists as field shape in the tissue of the brain. Memory is an assuming by the field of awareness, previously known shapes using the architecture of the brain as a frame to stretch upon. Intuition is the action of forms suggesting themselves by association and by force of subtle external emanations.

The Enlightenment sought in Buddhism is no less than this field awakening and becoming the seat of Identity. The field of Awareness is not a material thing and exists in the space between things.

Be Careful What You Wish For

The highest fruits of Zen Buddhism transcend the human surface of our existence, and if you wish to preserve  your "humanity" don't mess with it.