Reclusland

“The true contemplative is not one who prepares his mind for a particular message that he wants or expects to hear, but is one who remains empty because he knows that he can never expect to anticipate the words that will transform his darkness into light.  He does not even anticipate a special kind of transformation.  He does not demand light instead of darkness.  He waits on the Word of God in silence, and, when he is “answered,” it is not so much by a word that bursts into his silence.  It is by his silence itself, suddenly, inexplicably revealing itself to him as a word of great power, full of the voice of God.”

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I can see how a misunderstanding of this perfectly valid explanation of truth could lead to the impression that we are somehow unworthy of God’s love, or that we are somehow inherently flawed beings. Original sin rises from something like this, as does the first noble truth, but neither should be taken as a condemnation.  God loves us and wants us to be happy.  That is all there is.

If one is uncomfortable with the religious language, perhaps this could be another way to look at this same core concept.

There are layers of reality before us, behind us, around us, and in us, and we stay in a layer no matter how far we travel until the spirit admires our courage and grace and allows us to sprout into another zone of experience.

Note on line 104: “‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ (literally ‘clear and not clear’) characterize the natural forces rejoined to their principle (the devas) or separated from it (the asuras).

The Natya Sastra is a Sanskrit text on the origin of the theater as a mystic art, attributed to the sage Bharata and considered by some as the fifth Veda.  It describes the creation of art of theater by Brahma, which he gives to the sage Bharata to be used to instruct people in the sacred.  The first play Bharata chooses to put on is the story of the defeat of the asuras by the devas.  He does such a good job that the asuras in the audience are offended and stop the actors in their tracts, necessitating an actual battle between them and the devas, in order to free the actors from paralysis.  Daumal, a Sanskrit scholar, surrealist poet, and student of Gurdjieff, offers his own translation this part this text with notes nearly as extensive as the text itself.  It is one of several works by Daumal in the above book.

What I find most interesting in the above note is the equating of “good and evil” with “clear and unclear”.  Elsewhere in the text, Daumal chooses to translate “devas” as “gods”, a common enough translation.  However, he also chooses to translate “asuras” as “titans” which, to me at least, is a new way of looking at the asuras.  In Greek mythology, the gods go to war with the titans, just as the devas do with the asuras in Hindu mythology.  Thus, this note shows points out a perspective that can take into account both the Hindu and the Greek mythological structures: that the natural forces rejoined with their principle (i.e.: the Absolute) are going to war with the natural forces who are not joined with the Absolute.  In this, one can also hear echoes of Satan’s “Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven” from Paradise Lost.

A caveat though, that, while the Greek, Hindu, and Christian depictions of the forces of good and evil are similar when looked at in this way, one cannot say that they each play the same larger role within the overarching mythic/social structure of the three cultures.  The stories, exploits, and explanations of the various divine and demonic beings clearly all come out of very different cultural contexts, and so cannot and should not be held up as “the same”. In the very least, if one looks at the chronology of the relationship between the two groups, one finds major differences, which, because they have to be dealt with in a logical manner, do much to color the relationship between the two groups, and between the concepts of “good” and “evil” within these mythic structures.  The devas and asuras are children of the same god, making them fairly equal in stature.  The greek gods, however, are children of the titans, meaning that “good” sprang out of “evil” and defeated it, while the Christian demons are fallen version of the angels, showing that “evil”, in fact, came from a movement away from “good”.  This is the power of the stories we tell ourselves…

However, while these beings all play different roles in their respective cultures, we can also look at mythology as a stage upon which humanity watches its own internal motivating forces as if they were external objective beings.  From this viewpoint, what becomes important are the places where the different mythic structures overlap, as it is there that we can hope to find ground common to all humanity.  Therefore, the myth of “good” and “evil” can been seen as the conflict between that which is “clear” and that which is “unclear”, or as that which is “connected” with the absolute and that which is “not connected”.  Evil, then, becomes not a fault or a sin or an inherent baseness, but rather a blindness, an unheeded loneliness, or an ignorance to be outgrown. The various forms of divine and demonic can be seen as these inherently human traits given regional clothing according to the style of the times, so to speak.

And so we have a battle between those internal motivating factors of humanity which are “connected with their principle” and those which are “not connected with their principle”.  It is telling, then, that in this text, the asuras are also called “obstructors”, “hinderers”, “prisoners”, “the cut”, “the separated”, “the bound”, and “the end”.  And it is also telling just how easily they are defeated by the devas…

Not from the Natya Sastra, but an interesting picture nonetheless.

When I woke up, the earth was no longer visible. All I could make out through the spy holes were the white spots of the distant and unattainable stars, blurred by the lenses. I imagined the existence of a huge, immensely hot sphere hanging entirely unsupported in the icy void, billions of kilometers from the closest stars, those tiny gleaming dots, of which all we know is that they exist, and even that’s not certain, because a star can die, while its light will carry on traveling out in all directions, so we really don’t know anything about the stars, except that their life is terrible and senseless, since all their movements through space are predetermined and subject to the laws of mechanics, which leave no hope at all for any chance encounters. But then, I thought, even though we human beings always seem to be meeting each other, and laughing, and slapping each other on the shoulder, and saying goodbye, there’s still a certain special dimension into which our consciousness sometimes takes a frightened peek, a dimension in which we also hang quite motionless in a void where there’s no up or down, no yesterday or tomorrow, no hope of drawing closer to each other or even exercising our will and changing our fate; we judge what happens to others from the deceptive twinkling light that reaches us, and we spend all our lives journeying toward what we call the light, although its source may have ceased to exist long ago.

—>
CHANGING LINE:

Hexagram Sixteen/Line Five

Six in the fifth place means:
Persistently ill, and still does not die.

Here enthusiasm is obstructed. A man is under constant pressure, which prevents him from breathing freely. However, this pressure has its advantage – it prevents him from consuming his powers in empty enthusiasm. Thus constant pressure can actually serve to keep one alive.

Decay occurs because a part has been separated from the whole.

Out of decay, evil can blossom, if the remainder is not brought back into the fold.

Yet to attack the evil on behalf of the good is only to drive the separate still further from the whole.

Instead, work to find the last few remaining connections between the separate and the whole.

Strengthen those, while undermining any attempts at further separation, and the underlying good will shine forth.

Whether the decaying piece comes back to life depends on whether it’s heart can reattach to the whole.

If it can, it will be reborn.

If it cannot, it will die, and, after death, it will be reborn.

When discomfort occurs, we often process some of it, not all.

Comfort also occurs, but soon thereafter, discomfort from the past arises with it.

This is because in the comfort, we have reached an equilibrium, and the past discomfort we could not process now demands our attention.

Discomfort in comfort is our chance to deal with the past.

Do not make the mistake of running from it, seeking further discomfort in order to escape the safety of equilibrium, hiding once again from the past.

You are only digging yourself deeper.

I am often puzzled by the fact that even some of my long-time students are confused about the meaning of relaxation. In general, to be relaxed in I-chuan training does not mean to be inactive. The notion of inaction implies not doing anything either mentally or physically. By contrast, the very heart of I-chuan training is the mental and physical activity of hard work. Consequently, any interpretation of the notion of relaxation that confuses it with inactivity is fundamentally misguided. The difficulty, however, is that, by its very nature, work creates tension, and tension always hinders one’s training. Paradoxically, then, the student must learn to work hard and simultaneously to let go of the tension created by that work. Some prefer, however, to throw away their relaxation and keep the tension associated with work.

Like most paradoxes, that of relaxing while at work is only apparent. Consider, as a simple example, the activity of swimming. If you’re tight, you sink. If you’re inactive, you sink. The only way to say afloat is to let go of your tension as you do the work of swimming. That is to say, swimming is possible only if all the swimmer’s muscles are continuously interchanging between being at work and at rest. You sink if you keep the tension or if you throw away the relaxation. Anyone who has any experience swimming knows just what it means to work and let go of tension.

Scientists allowed one group of rats to run. Another set of rodents was not allowed to exercise. Then all of the rats swam in cold water, which they don’t like to do. Afterward, the scientists examined the animals’ brains. They found that the stress of the swimming activated neurons in all of the brains…. But the youngest brain cells in the running rats, the cells that the scientists assumed were created by running, were less likely to express the (stress). They generally remained quiet. The “cells born from running,” the researchers concluded, appeared to have been “specifically buffered from exposure to a stressful experience.” The rats had created, through running, a brain that seemed biochemically, molecularly, calm…. “It looks more and more like the positive stress of exercise prepares cells and structures and pathways within the brain so that they’re more equipped to handle stress in other forms.” – From the NY Times

Contrary to previous research, the study found that people who engage in behaviors that increase competency, for example at work, school or the gym, experience decreased happiness in the moment, lower levels of enjoyment and higher levels of momentary stress. Despite the negative effects felt on an hourly basis, participants reported that these same activities made them feel happy and satisfied when they looked back on their day as a whole. This surprising find suggests that in the process of becoming proficient at something, individuals may need to endure temporary stress to reap the happiness benefits associated with increased competency. – From Science Daily

Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are. — Chinese Proverb

To exert control, you must create a solid place of tension from which to generate that force. Feel this in your mind and body when you try to “take control” of something.  And in fact, this solidification may lead to change in the world.  But, “know the male, yet keep to the female“, holding that force in place will not hold the change in place.  This is to confuse cause with effect.

A man, wandering late at night through a dark wood, came upon a large house.  Inside the house, there appeared to be a great celebration going on.  Lights, music, cheering; the man could smell food cooking and hoped to soon be inside, enjoying himself with all the other guests.  For with such a grand party, how could they turn away one lonely traveler?  The man searched around and around the house, looking for a way into the house.

On his third trip around, he finally noticed a small door, at the back of the house, away from the lights and sounds of the party.  This, it seemed, was the only way into the festivities.  He stepped up to the door, knocked once, sharply, and stepped back to await for the door to be opened for him.  He dusted off his clothes and rana  hand through his hair, hoping to make a good appearance.  Minutes passed, but no one came to the door.

He stepped back up to the door, knocked again, louder this time, and stood there waiting, looking up at the window over the door.  Still, no answer.  Desperate to find a place to rest his feet, fill his stomach, and converse with other human beings (for he had been alone in the woods a long time), the man turned his attention back to the door and began knocking and knocking and knocking.

Eventually, just has he was beginning to grow tired and his hands to sore, a light went on in a second story window above the door.  Revived by the hope that someone might hear him, the man renewed his pounding.  Still, though he hammered with all his might, no one came to the door, nor even to the lighted window on the second story.

A long time after that, when his hands were numb with the repeated efforts of banging on the door, he heard a faint noise in the hallway behind the door.  He grew frantic and began to bang and knock and hammer for all he was worth.  The muffled sound continued from behind the door, but still, no one opened it to let him in.

He pounded and pounded, until his hands were raw, and the door was stained with his blood.  At this point, he was so tired and hungry that all he knew was the knocking, the continual knocking against the door, and that he must keep it up at all costs, until the door was opened and he was allowed into the house.  At that point, he heard the rattle of the lock being turned back and saw the door knob jiggle back and forth.  A voice was speaking on the other side, but the man could not make out the words.  He fell to his knees in front of the door, begging, pleading to be let in.  But to no avail.

At last, the man gave up.  Cursing the house and its happy occupants, he turned around and began to walk back into the dark woods.   And just as he was about to step outside the warm glow of the light from the second story window, the door slowly creaked outwards and the master of the house stood in the doorway, a lighted candle in his hand.

“Good sir!” he cried. “I must apologize, for all your troubles, but I could never have hoped to open the door with you standing so close.  And even if I could, with all your knocking and pounding, I did not know what manner of guest you were.  Now I can clearly see you are a poor traveler in need of shelter.  Please, come and join our celebration, we have more than enough to provide for one more.  And we must bandage those wounds on your hands as well!”

So the man entered the house at last, had his wounds bandaged, and joined the party.  However, he did not make the best party guest, at least, not at first.  He could not easily shake the foul mood of being locked outside the house for so long, his hands were bandaged, and the other guests were startled by his tendency to knock repeatedly on any wooden surface within his reach.

The image that comes to my mind is like being on the outside of a cave.  And all of the past messages we’ve given ourselves, and all of the beliefs we hold of ourselves, come out of the cave like flying bats.  And we’re at the mouth of the cave and the bats continue to fly out, but we’re not flying with them any longer.  We’re just holding the space at that cave opening and no longer moving forward with that momentum of that old conditioning.

And I really saw that each of us has that ability in the present moment to hold our past and not resurface again as the same limited, neurotic person moment-after-moment that we were and have held ourselves to be.  And that this neurotic person is never going to evolve into completion.  That’s an essential point that this neurotic person thinks of him or herself as someone who is evolving towards some sense of refinement, some self-improved way that I will then become so that I’ll no longer be in pain.  But, in fact, the mind keeps evolving itself into more pain through that very logic.  And it’s not until we stop that logic that we allow the bats to fly through us, around us, rather than flying with them in the air. - Rodney Smith (on Buddhist Geeks)

“All composite things pass away…” – Buddha (famous last words…)

“By your belief in granular singularities, you deny all movement – evolutionary or devolutionary.  Belief fixes a granular universe and causes that universe to persist.  Nothing can be allowed to change because that way your non-moving universe vanishes.  But it moves of itself when you do not move.  It evolves beyond you and is no longer accessible to you” – One of Frank Herbert’s Zensunni admonitions.

“Peace is Letting Go-Returning to the Silence that cannot enter the realm of words because it is too pure to be contained in words. This is why the tree, the stone, the river, and the mountain are quiet.” -Malidoma Some (via Parabola Magazine‘s FB page)

(I)t’s not logically consistent that things are exactly perfect in this moment, and there is endless room for self-improvement. Those are contradictory statements… But I think here’s the thing about that paradox: if you fall into either side of the paradox, you fall from grace…. (I)f you fall into the addiction of self-improvement, then you really never enjoy this moment because you’re always trying to fix yourself.   On the other hand, you can fall into the other side, into the delusion of everything is perfect.  And that I would say is the delusion of enlightenment, which is very common in Advaita, nondual circles. This idea, “Well, there’s nobody here, there’s nothing to fix.” Well, how come your life looks so broken then? How come you’ve got relationships that don’t work and you can’t pay the rent if everything is perfect as it is? So…both are the truth: things are perfect and you are in a dance that is evolutionary. And when you are actually willing to be in the evolutionary dance, you can see there are endless things to fix and improve and work on as an art form—but it has no end. You’re in an endless process of upgrading that really has no final point of arrival. – Arjuna Ardagh (from IATE)

When Hyakujo Osho delivered a certain series of sermons, an old man always followed the monks to the main hall and listened to him. When the monks left the hall, the old man would also leave. One day, however, he remained behind, and Hyakujo asked him, “Who are you, standing here before me?” The old man replied, “I am not a human being. In the old days of Kashyapa Buddha, I was a head monk, living here on this mountain. One day a student asked me, ‘Does a man of enlightenment fall under the yoke of causation or not?’ I answered, ‘No, he does not.’ Since then I have been doomed to undergo five hundred rebirths as a fox. I beg you now to give the turning word to release me from my life as a fox. Tell me, does a man of enlightenment fall under the yoke of causation or not?” Hyakujo answered, “He does not ignore causation.” No sooner had the old man heard these words than he was enlightened. – The Gateless Gate, Koan 2

Let us play, but in reverse,
the Waltz of Eden’s Fall.
Perhaps we’ll yet regain that Garden,
coming through its Western wall.

The way to study the past is not to confine oneself to mere knowledge of history but, through application of this knowledge, to give actuality to the past.