September 10, 2009
- From “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” -
When I was at Eiheiji monastery in Japan, everyone was just doing what he should do. That is all. It is the same as waking up in the morning; we have to get up. At Eiheiji monastery, when we had to sit, we sat; when we had to bow to Buddha, we bowed to Buddha. That is all. And when we were practicing, we did not feel anything special. We did not even feel that we were leading a monastic life. For us, the monastic life was the usual life, and the people who came from the city were unusual people. When we saw them we felt, “Oh, some unusual people have come!”
But once I had left Eiheiji and been away for some time, coming back was different. I heard the various sounds of practice – the bells and the monks reciting the sutra – and I had a deep feeling. There were tears flowing out of my eyes, nose, and mouth! It is the people who are outside the monastery who feel it’s atmosphere. Those who are practicing actually do not feel anything. I think this is true for everything. When we hear the sound of the pine trees on a windy day, perhaps the wind is just blowing, and the pine tree is just standing in the wind. That is all that they are doing. But the people who listen to the wind in the tree will write a poem, or feel something unusual. That is, I think, the way everything is.
This is beautiful…
Comment by speedbird — September 11, 2009 @ 7:19 am
When I like most about it is because it reminds me that, although I may envy the appearance of someone else living their life, (be they a monk at a monastery or a rock star), being in their lived experience never feels the same as the way it appears from the outside. It makes for a real peace of mind, when I can manage to remember it. :)
Comment by Ian — September 11, 2009 @ 9:11 am
It’s almost getting at a definition of ‘beauty’, beauty as ‘being’…
Also this springs to mind:
‘Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone
You pave paradise and you put up a parking lot’
Comment by speedbird — September 12, 2009 @ 5:26 pm
Yeah, I’ve always thought of that song as being so much more than just a eco-friendly ballad.
Comment by Ian — September 12, 2009 @ 5:33 pm
Also, a relevant quote from Karen Armstrong’s “Buddha”:
Gotama himself said that it could take at least 7 years, and stressed that the new self developed imperceptibly over a long period. “Just as the ocean slopes gradually, falls away gradually, and shelves gradually with no sudden incline,” he later warned his disciples, “so in this method, training, discipline, and practice take effect by slow degrees, with no sudden perception of the ultimate truth”
Of course, Buddhism later went on to prove that other methods could be used to the same ends (particularly in Zen), but still, that the gradual approach does work is a good thing to remember.
Comment by Ian — September 14, 2009 @ 2:06 pm
A thing I feel a need to share, on this topic…
Last weekend I was invited to participate in a concert given by our local community orchestra (I have amateur musical leanings). When we met in the afternoon for rehearsal, I swear you’d never have seen such a rag-tag group of people, all shapes, all sizes, all ages, all walks of life. When we met in the evening, all dressed in DJ’s and posh frocks, ready to perform, suddenly everyone was beautiful. This was a very strange thing to experience.
Comment by speedbird — September 19, 2009 @ 3:50 pm
Yeah, I like the gradual approach as well…
Comment by Ted — September 20, 2009 @ 2:56 pm
@ speedbird: commitment to doing something well can often invoke more change in a person than the actual doing of thing…
@ Ted: yeah, gradual, sudden, it makes no difference as long as you like it. :)
Comment by Ian — September 21, 2009 @ 9:12 am
Well, I think what it is really, is “as long as you can assimilate it” because that’s what it comes down to really if you want to make any progress.
I am suspicious of psychadelic drugs really. Seems like a short cut, but when the drug wears off what have they learned?
I am slowly coming to realizations, making progress, but its always there with me. Its a system change.
Comment by Ted — September 21, 2009 @ 7:45 pm
Yeah, as long as you can assimilate it. It has to resonate with you, so to speak, and you have to allow it to do so. Easy for me to to say, of course, but not so easy to do…
As for psychedelics, my preferred line of thought is that they show us possibilities, but relying on the drugs to access those possibilities is a crutch. It can become an excuse not to integrate them fully into our lives. And if we can’t integrate truths fully into our lives, what’s the point? I’d say they can be useful as a technology, but should definitely not be relied upon for anything.
Comment by Ian — September 22, 2009 @ 8:44 am
What do you think of the “five stages of Mysticism: Awakening, Purgation, Illumination, Dark Night Of The Soul, and Unity?”
I am reading “the Mission of Art” by Alex Grey and he mentions it. He says a lot of mystics reain all their lives at stage three. I like his art better than his writing, But I am trying to get through this book because I like his art so much and I am greatly interested in in the subject matter. The tone is kind of overly didactic, but anyway I was thinking about what he said about stage three.
To me the “dark night of the soul” is like a betrayal. So what happens is I get angry and then turn to nihlism. But I am not really a nihilist, but its almost like I play with nihilism. Its like as a kid I would get punished by being sent to my room, but then my sketchpads were there and my books and soon I would withdraw into my own world and it would be no punishment at all. That’s how I got into Nietzsche. But Nietzsche said “look too long into the void and the void begins to look into you.”
So its almost like I take it as a dare. The dark night of the soul to me is like a dare to see how long can I remain in the void. And really its indefinately, or its for as long as it takes to destroy me. Arguably Nietzsche was destroyed by it. Perhaps it broke his mind.
But at the same time I am not a nihilist. I just play with the idea. I already have some type of trans rational unity with the spirit. Its a real thing to me. I can’t ever be a materialist.
But then the next stage is unity, so I am perhaps missing out on that. Mybe it goes back to the sheep and the wolf thing. You can lead the sheep anywhere and he will follow obediently up until the dark night of the soul. But you lead a wolf into a dark wasteland and he feels at home.
Comment by Ted — September 22, 2009 @ 2:11 pm
I don’t know about these stages myself, but they do seem to tie in closely with Danial Ingram’s description of the Insight stages, which I have found to definitely be useful.
Regarding the Dark Night, everything I’ve read on this (and experienced personally) is that it sucks BAD, and you just have to kind of be cool with that. You are gaining intimate knowledge of suffering, you are cleansing your karma, and you are being shown exactly what it is that you have to let go of. It’s seeing just how bad the bad shit actually is.
And it’s learning to let things go from you that are not what you want, even if you think that they are.
Being stuck in the dark night is often a sign of not being able to give up some concept or idea that you are holding onto. You’ve asked for clarity and understanding, and this is the most direct teaching available. All your blinders are removed, and you get to experience the agony you’re creating in yourself, immediately and intimately.
I don’t know if the wolf and sheep thing is related to this in particular, as the wolf and sheep are two extremes along the path, while these stages are more signposts of the path itself. Maybe being more “wolf” gets you stuck in the dark night longer, I’m not sure. That would make sense though, given that the wolf is the active half of the pair.
In Ingram’s stages, the way from the Dark Night to Unity is through Equanimity, which I’ve heard described as needing to give up the idea of getting enlightened (or Unity or whatever) altogether, and just letting the final part of the process unfold itself within you. Any attempt to direct things at that point will just make them collapse again, I think…
Nihilism, meanwhile, is refusing to see what is being shown to you. I like your analogy. If your parents sent you to your room when you were a kid, yeah, maybe they were wrong. But when God/YourHigherSelf/TransrationalSpirit/Whatever does it, chances are, it’s not wrong. I think the goal of the dark night is to try to understand how that can be. The only way out is through. At that point, abyss staring is just stalling. :)
Comment by Ian — September 22, 2009 @ 4:20 pm
I guess I think of the dark night of the soul as being like the book of Job and that I am just supposed to patiently and obediantly take it.
I have a hard time with that.
I have read that wolves don’t understand punishment like dogs do. They just percieve that they are being attacked. So I think a mystic is perhaps supposed to be more like a dog and think its best for them.
Also there is a developmental thing where some kids with a high pain thresh hold don’t respond well to punishment. It doesn’t have a positive effect on their behavior.
So the dark night of the soul to me seems to be this phase where you feel as though God has totally forsaken you, like Jesus on the cross and you are supposed to work through it and remain faithful and steadfast or whatever.
Comment by Ted — September 22, 2009 @ 5:01 pm
Essentially, yeah, except that God hasn’t abandoned you, it just seems like he has. The way I put it once was that I was screaming out “where are you!” and only got the silence of presence as a response.
And it’s not that you’re “just supposed to patiently and obediently take it”, it’s that your supposed to patiently and obediently work your way through it.
It’s like reaching in the dark for something you know is there, but you don’t know exactly what it is or where it is. You can’t make it happen, but it’s not something you just sit through, I think.
Comment by Ian — September 22, 2009 @ 8:31 pm
Ted, thought you might like this:
http://harprakashkhalsa.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/on-enlightenment-an-interview-with-shinzen-young/
Comment by Ian — September 23, 2009 @ 1:21 pm
I can reaslly relate to this part:
Comment by Ted — September 24, 2009 @ 8:58 pm
Yeah, it’s a beautiful thing to have the realization that, eh, you just don’t have to care about it anymore.
Comment by Ian — September 25, 2009 @ 10:55 am
I’m happy to hear it Ted, it’s a good thing to be able to relate to.
Comment by Ian — September 25, 2009 @ 11:02 am
Does it mean I am enlightened?
Its interesting about the Samurai. In advanced (decadent?)Christian cultures, which basically is what Democracies are, like Europe and America-Being scared to fight to the death for the sake of honor, is seen as some type of meritorious behavior. But that is not what this story is about.
There is a certain nobility that initially seperated people into nobility and peasantry, and that is the type of nobility that was cultivated in feudal type cultures.
But it falls short of enlightenment. Still though, I think the guy needed to become a Samurai first, before becoming enlightened. Bruce Lee strikes me that way also.
Beyond taking offense at being slighted and spit on though, there is a certain nobility that causes one to value certain things more than life itself. That is the whole idea behind true nobility, I think.
But as far as examples in present day North America, I really don’t find myself being in crisis mode anymore compared to how I used to be and how I see people reacting around me. What is a crisis?
Comment by Ted — September 25, 2009 @ 6:13 pm
I still think the article suffers from some type of language problem or something about the idea of “one self” “no seperate self” inside you etc. Because then you run into the whole “We are Borg, resistence is futile” deal again.
Also people exist in relation to others. There is a dynamic tension between people that creates some type of interference pattern that is neccesary for existence. I guess you could say “existence” is the very problem that must be overcome, that its all a delusion. But I am skeptical of that. Its seems so nihilistic and can even be solipsistic.
So, on some level, I see what they are getting at with the “one self.” Ken Wilbur talks about that and that resonates with me, but also there is, I believe a unique mission we all have, in which individuation is a neccessary first step. And “doing things”, working, creating albeit imperfect things that are in a proccess of collective evolution, seems to be part of what we are here for.
So you are walking down the street and a guy spits on you and you don’t react, violently, angrily. Its because you have a connection with this unique person. Your relationship has changed.
Comment by Ted — September 25, 2009 @ 6:49 pm
I have no idea! :)
I think the key here is that “one self” or “no separate self” doesn’t mean that there’s someone else calling the shots. With the Borg, there is still a separate-self-hood coming in from outside, even in this mass-self there is a still sense of a separate self. “No separate self” is different, somehow, beyond any kind of mass-self, self-as-group-mind.
It’s tied-in with that samurai thing story, I think, just kind of a realization of some thing not being as important as we thought it was, rather than suppressing/giving up our will in favor of an other’s. There is no other will, I think. I don’t know though, I haven’t really figured that part out yet myself. :)
But I do know that the goal definitely doesn’t lie in a state of constant suppression. That’s just not healthy.
Anyway, I think you’re onto something with where you’re pointing towards with the Ken Wilber, one-self, stuff. There’s no really difference between being a unique personality who “does stuff” and having no-separate-self. They can both exist at the same time, in fact, they have to.
Comment by Ian — September 28, 2009 @ 4:06 pm
I think I might be enlightened but I don’t think enlightenment is the final goal.
Comment by Ted — September 28, 2009 @ 4:13 pm
It depends on what the meaning of “enlightened” is, I suppose. Find me two people who completely agree on THAT and I’ll be surprised. ;)
Who wants a final goal anyway? There’s always more to be done.
Comment by Ian — September 29, 2009 @ 10:42 am