How do you test something that responds to doubt with failure, but at the same time, does not reliably respond to belief with success?

You cannot test such a thing through attempts at making it fail.  It will respond to your attempts as inputs and fail accordingly.  Garbage in, garbage out.

Not being able to test it in this usual way, how can one learn more about it?

How can one learn whether it can be improved upon?

If it turns out that it can be improved, how does on learn to go about improving it?

…you must realize that in this life it will be impossible to continue in this work [of contemplation] with the same intensity all the time. Sickness, afflictions of body and mind, and countless other necessities of nature will often leave you indisposed and keep you from its heights. Yet, at the same time, I counsel you to remain at it always either in earnest or, as it were, playfully. What I mean is that through desire you can remain with it even when other things intervene. – Anonymous, “The Cloud of Unknowing”

Don’t seek, don’t search, don’t ask, don’t knock, don’t demand–relax. If you relax, it comes. If you relax, it is there. If you relax, you start vibrating with it. – Osho

“The aim of life is to live and to live means to be aware – joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.” – Henry Miller

58. Tui / The Joyous, Lake

THE JUDGMENT
THE JOYOUS. Success.
Perseverance is favorable

The joyous mood is infectious and therefore brings success. But joy must be
based on steadfastness if it is not to degenerate into uncontrolled mirth.
Truth and strength must dwell in the heart, while gentleness reveals itself in
social intercourse. In this way one assumes the right attitude toward God and
man and achieves something. Under certain conditions, intimidation
without gentleness may achieve something momentarily, but not for all
time. When, on the other hand, the hearts of men are won by friendliness,
they are led to take all hardships upon themselves willingly, and if need be
will not shun death itself, so great is the power of joy over men.

Later, I pondered his remarks. Learning the deeds of the ancient masters by reading the recorded sayings or koans in order to explain them to deluded people is ultimately of no use to my own practice and for teaching others. Even if I don’t know a single letter, I will be able to show it to others in inexhaustible ways if I devote myself to just sitting and clarifying the great matter. It was for this reason that the monk pressed me as to the ultimate use [of reading and studying]. I thought what he said was true. Thereupon, I gave up reading the recorded sayings and other texts, concentrated wholeheartedly on sitting, and was able to clarify the great matter.

As someone recently said to me “Time to apply your ass to the cushion and keep at it!“. I’ve been working with meditation teacher Kenneth Folk, both through his website, his weekly classes, and hopefully soon one-on-one via skype.  I can’t recommend his website highly enough, a lot of really great people, strong practitioners, very helpful information, and to top it all off a well thought out teaching method.  Kenneth has several decades of meditation experience and it shows.  If you’re interested in learning more, you can get started here (or ask me questions in the comments).

Now, about that great matter…

from tumblr, apparently from this book

(via tumblr buddy Crashingly Beautiful)
thanks to this
I happened to go on amazon
and find a sweet hardback copy
of Daumal’s “A Night of Serious Drinking”
for four bucks!  Thanks Luke!

(from here)

In any case, I’ve decided to streamline the artistic aspect of this site by, in the long standing tradition of disposable online tools (remember my twitter stream, anyone?), setting up a flickr account for my photography.  I’ve just uploaded a bunch of photosets there, so head on over and check ‘em out!

Pics from the Monastery

To Anonymously Report, Where is Paradise?

Hiking to the Waterfalls

A Seattle Miscellany

(from here)

Ch’ien, heaven is above; Chên, movement, is below. The lower trigram Chên is under the influence of the strong line it has received form above, from heaven. When, in accord with this, movement follows the law of heaven, man is innocent and without guile. His mind is natural and true, unshadowed by reflection or ulterior designs. For wherever conscious purpose is to be seen, there the truth and innocence of nature have been lost. Nature that is not directed by the spirit is not true but degenerate nature. Starting out with the idea of the natural, the train of thought in part goes somewhat further and thus the hexagram includes also the idea of the fundamental or unexpected.

THE JUDGEMENT

INNOCENCE. Supreme success.
Perseverance furthers.
If someone is not as he should be,
He has misfortune,
And it does not further him
To undertake anything.

Man has received from heaven a nature innately good, to guide him in all his movements. By devotion to this divine spirit within himself, he attains an unsullied innocence that leads him to do right with instinctive sureness and without any ulterior thought of reward and personal advantage. This instinctive certainty brings about supreme success and “furthers through perseverance”. However, not everything instinctive is nature in this higher sense of the word, but only that which is right and in accord with the will of heaven. Without this quality of rightness, an unreflecting, instinctive way of acting brings only misfortune. Confucius says about this: “He who departs from innocence, what does he come to? Heaven’s will and blessing do not go with his deeds.”

THE IMAGE

Under heaven thunder rolls:
All things attain the natural state of innocence.
Thus the kings of old,
Rich in virtue, and in harmony with the time,
Fostered and nourished all beings.

In springtime when thunder, life energy, begins to move again under the heavens, everything sprouts and grows, and all beings receive for the creative activity of nature the childlike innocence of their original state. So it is with the good rulers of mankind: drawing on the spiritual wealth at their command, they take care of all forms of life and all forms of culture and do everything to further them, and at the proper time.

(from the Richard Wilhelm translation)

There is a sense that the ego tells me: “I am complete”.  Or perhaps, “I have a complete understanding of things”.

The ego is usually described as a separate self and I am not disputing this.  I think the two concepts might be describing the same thing, though I am not nearly far enough along the path to say for sure.  But I do notice that there is an “ignoring” quality to the ego, or a tendency to ignore that leads to suffering, in any case.  There is a sense that I have a complete understanding of what I am and what is going on in the present moment and so do can ignore it.   I think this is a lie, but it happens so fast I don’t notice my own agreement with it.

Still, what is it that is being ignored?

Its not exactly clear to me yet, but I think there is a connection between the “separate self” and a sense of not needing to pay attention to some core process going on with us.  Its the feeling that that process is done or doesn’t matter, whereas were we to turn toward that process, it would develop on its own and THAT would make us complete.  Or reveal what was actually complete within us.  Or something like that…

Like I said, this is vague stabbings in the dark toward what seems to be some kind of connection.  But its certainly not clear yet, and there’s no guarantee this isn’t just something I’ve dreamt up.  But it feels important, and I wanted to try to make sense of it…  More to come, if there is indeed anything else to this.

On logic, and the times we catch ourselves being irrational:
“Anything outside yourself, this you can see and apply your logic to it.  But it’s a human trait that when we encounter personal problems, those things most deeply personal are the most difficult to bring out for our logic to scan.  We tend to flounder around, blaming everything but the actual deep-seated thing that’s really chewing on us.”

On intuition, the Invisible Landscape, and the “safety” of plans:
“Muad’Dib could indeed see the Future, but you must understand the limits of this power.  Think of sight.  You have eyes, yet cannot see without light.  If you are on the floor of a valley, you cannot see beyond your valley.  Just so, Muad’Dib could not always choose to look across the mysterious terrain.  He tells us that a single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of one word over another, could change the entire aspect of the future. He tells us “The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door.”  And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning “That path leads ever down into stagnation.”

On evolution and involution:
“Life improves the capacity of the environment to sustain life.”

On the lessons of the space fire:
“…that metaphysical realm where all physical limitations are removed.  And he knew fear at the thought of such a place, because removal of all limitations meant removal of all points of reference.  In the landscape of a myth, he could not orient himself and say “I am I because I am here .”

On the need for dualities:
“When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself.  You are always a little less than an individual.”

On the staleness of life, leading to war and destruction:
“The race of humans had felt its own dormancy, sensed itself grown stale and knew now only the need to experience turmoil in which the genes would mingle and the strong new mixtures survive”

And vice-versa.

A life wrapped up entirely in plans is an unaware life is death.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

In its place there is now animal time (doing, moving about, preying on others, eating, building, killing, etc. ); plant time (dreaming, languishing, imagining); or “mineral” — that is, mechanical — time: the time of devices such as clocks and computers. What we call logical thinking is often just an internal version of these lifeless machines. Implicitly, we even take pride in the mechanicity of our thinking when, forgetting the metaphorical origin of the usage, we refer to a computer’s “intelligence.” This is mental time, “mineral” in its rigidity and sterility. We lay this logical cement over organic life out there and in ourselves. Carried to its extreme, this becomes the mindset that measures the whole of human life solely by the “bottom line.”

In the Old Testament the lower world is called Sheol. Here there are no images of raging fire. No cacophonous sounds. No sulfurous fumes. Sheol is simply and solely the place of shadows, dark, weak existence, continually fading, ever-paler life. Sheol is the realm of diminishing being.

(from here)

The best way to make this point is to keep tracing the thread from the desire to its resulting actions and their consequences. If the desire causes suffering to others, notice how their corresponding desire for happiness leads them to undermine the happiness you seek. If the desire aims at a happiness based on things that can age, grow ill, die, or leave you, notice how that fact sets you up for a fall. Then notice how the distress that comes from acting on this sort of desire is universal. It’s not just you. Everyone who has acted, is acting, or will act on that desire has suffered in the past, is suffering right now, and will suffer in the future. There’s no way around it.

(from here)

Nine in the third place means:
He who does not give duration to his character
Meets with disgrace.
Persistent humiliation.

If a man remains at the mercy of moods of hope or fear aroused by the outer
world, he loses his inner consistency of character. Such inconsistency
invariably leads to distressing experiences. These humiliations often come
from an unforeseen quarter. Such experiences are not merely effects
produced by the external world, but logical consequences evoked by his own nature.

Six at the top means:
Restlessness as an enduring condition brings misfortune.

There are people who live in a state of perpetual hurry without ever attaining
inner composure. Restlessness not only prevents all thoroughness but actually
becomes a danger if it is dominant in places of authority.

Anywhere you go, there you are.   Don’t seek out adventure for the sake of restlessness and escape…

(from here)

(from here, image links to source)

(from here)

The first part of this comes from a new post over at Imaging the 10th Dimension.  As any longtime Reclusland readers know, I am a big fan of Rob’s 10 Dimensions framework, and I think this is one of his best posts.  Anyway, go read the whole thing, but the most relevant part is as follows:

The Universe Loves You
Ultimately, the distinction between past, present, and future is meaningless. This means that our universe’s basic physical laws and locked-in fine structure constant have already created a set of versions of the universe that are each part of its wavefunction of all possible outcomes. From our spacetime perspective, this means that the version of our universe that lasts the longest already exists, while the version of the universe where some science experiment goes wrong tomorrow and destroys all matter is a much tinier part of that fabric. Which version exerts more gravity? Why, the one that has greater mass within the fifth dimension. The low probability science-gone-wrong scenario may exist, but it’s not the one with the greater mass because it soon ceases to be part of our 5D spacetime tree, so to speak. In that sense, the universe that lasts the longest is the one that is drawing us forward just through the weight of its existence within Everett’s Many Worlds.

Your body’s natural inclination is to want to heal, to want to thrive.
Likewise, the version of you or I that dies tomorrow in a car accident must exist, but exerts very little influence compared to the versions that continue. With this project, we’ve talked a lot about addiction and negative loops, and how so many self-help systems work because they rely only upon a person’s willingness to embrace the better version of themselves that already exists. Are you doing things to yourself that you know are keeping you from getting to the healthiest, happiest version of you? Then stop! It really is that simple, you just have to say to yourself “now is the time that I make the change” and the rest can follow. Meditation, positive visualization techniques, drinking more water, eating more fresh fruits and vegetables, getting more exercise – changes like these allow you to tap into the better version of you that already exists, and the science of epigenetics confirms that these changes are real right down to the way our DNA is expressed, and what DNA patterns we pass on to our offspring.

I like this a lot, but we have to keep in mind that it doesn’t necessarily follow that because the happy scenarios have the most 5th dimensional mass, we are necessarily going to be drawn to them 100% of the time.   We often fight such things (or don’t bother to put the necessary work in) because we simply don’t see that they’re possible.  As Rob says, it’s simple to avoid this, just stop doing them!  But the key is, we have to see that we are doing them, in order to stop.  Even on the basic level of eating right and exercising, which seem easy enough, we won’t really be able to avoid them until we see what brought those 5th dimensional branches into our tree, so they can be cut off at the root.

Rob’s article was followed a little later by a comment over on Kennth Folk Dharma, on a long thread regarding something called Actual Freedom.  The debate over Actual Freedom is an interesting one, but it has a LOT of back-story so I won’t be going into it here.  Feel free to head over and read it, but the comment that particularly caught my eye was this one from betawave (comment 137 on this page):

(I)t’s good to hold off conclusions about causes of depression/angst as much as you can and keep going… Having a “on its own” reason for why something happens can sometimes lock you into a sense of fatalism that might prevent a whole hearted commitment to naturally changing and evolving over time. My own experience is that it happens from having expectations that don’t mesh with the complex nature of the world and then solidifying that into some kind of personal character flaw. Some weird kind of identity gets built around that. And it sets up it’s own negative feedback loop… and then depression is kinda locked in. Conversely, as you get more distance, you can see that they do have a cause and and they aren’t just gratuitous excretions… and then you avoid the causes and sometimes even a new positive feedback loop sets up. This is just my experience, for what it’s worth.

Another little thing: a lot of these practices (“meditating, surrendering,” etc) seem like phenomenal >things< but they are actually much more like openings that are walked through. Like doors that disappear when you step through. The experience is more of a dropping away of something but not another thing that gets added on.

Here we see another mention of “negative feedback loops”, which , as betawave points out, are often caused when we misunderstand reality and then base part of our identity on that misunderstanding.  How can our “identity” cause us suffering?  It can’t, not really, because suffering is a response of our self to something, that is, there is something at odds with what we are (or, for the non-dual, something at odds with what is).  Yet we hold onto that false identity, not knowing the suffering we’re causing ourselves, like a frog in a slowing boiling pot.

Until we see through that misunderstanding, we’re steering head toward those lower-gravity future “branches” of the 5th dimensional “tree” that result from our negative self image, giving rise to the negative feedback loop.  Which does a lot to explain why people often seem to face the same problems over and over again (such as “why do I always date losers?” or “how come I can’t hold down a job?”).   This might also be compared to the idea of karma, how our past thoughts and deeds give rise to future life situations.  It is only in the now, in this present moment, that we can affect our karma, and its only in the present moment that we can make decisions that  effect the probability space of our fifth dimensional “tree”.

As betawave goes on to point out, once we come to see the root of the negative identity/understanding/feedback loop (in this case, through a contemplative practice), we cut off those negative “branches” and the higher 5th dimensional gravity of the happy potential futures can draw us onwards with less resistance.   These dropping away moments are the openings we walk through, the gateless gates of meditative practice.  Consider here the translation of the word “dukkha”, the original word that Buddha used when he said “all life is dukkha”. It has been translated as “suffering”, but it carries with it the association of an unbalanced potter’s wheel that squeaks while it turns.  We are drawn on by the rotating potter’s wheel of the universe regardless, but it is up to us whether the wheel turns smoothly and sweetly, or creaks unevenly while it goes.

So that’s my little thought trail.  What it all boils down to is just another reason to get your ass on the cushion and investigate the hell out of the present moment.  Cause that’s the only place that change happens, here in the presence of the infinite.  Practice well everybody.

Six at the top means:
Not light but darkness.
First he climbed up to heaven,
Then plunged into the depths of the earth.

Here the climax of the darkening is reached. The dark power at first held so high a place that it could wound all who were on the side of good and of the light. But in the end it perishes of its own darkness, for evil must itself fall at the very moment when it has wholly overcome the good, and thus consumed the energy to which it owed its duration.

Prematurely publicizing themselves, intent
upon reaching some spiritual climax, they
constantly sacrifice the truth
and deviate from the Tao.
What they really offer the world
is their own confusion.

The true master understands that
enlightenment is not the end,
but the means. Realizing that
virtue is her goal, she accepts
the long and often arduous cultivation
that is necessary to attain it.

She doesn’t scheme to become a leader,
but quietly shoulders whatever
responsibilities fall to her.
Unattached to her accomplishments,
taking credit for nothing at all,
she guides the whole world by guiding
the individuals who come to her.

She shares her divine energy with
her students, encouraging them,
creating trials to strengthen them,
scolding them to awaken them,
directing the streams of their lives
toward the infinite ocean of the Tao.

If you aspire to this sort of mastery,
then root yourself in the Tao. Relinquish
your negative habits and attitudes.
Strengthen your sincerity.
Live in the real world, and extend
your virtue to it without discrimination
in the daily round.

Be the truest father or mother,
the truest brother or sister,
the truest friend, and the truest disciple.

Humbly respect and serve your teacher,
and dedicate your entire being
unwaveringly to self-cultivation.
Then you will surely achieve self-mastery
and be able to help others in doing the same.

(from here)