Re: Practice
Hi Hans and Don,
When I say (as I do so often) that we can be "at one" with this whole life-self-world ... and "at one" with the good days and bad for example ... I am always referring to our being "at one" with all conditions in/as/through ...
the dance of EMPTINESS.
I am not referring to some "stiff upper lip" stoicism, nor to some idea of "eternalism" in which we merge with the "Great Unchanging Cosmic Eternal One" (whether existing or not ... that is not the crucial point of 'the dance of emptiness'). No, I mean that you and me can lose our separate self (and find it again) in the constantly changing, dependently arising dance of emptiness.
Emptiness is the particularly Mahayana path to the "escape" from suffering ... for we dancers dance with all the ups and downs of life in this dance, as well as find that there is no "up or down" in this dance ... and no dancers. The dancers are dancing with whatever comes, taking all that life can throw at us in the dance ... while in emptiness, simultaneously, there is not even separate dancers ... just the ongoing dance itself. EMPTINESS!.
Perhaps earlier Buddhism emphasized more the quelling and denial of desire as the means to the cessation of suffering. In contrast, the Mahayana ... while also believing that we need to moderate our desires and avoid excess and harmful desires ... also saw that we can live life by "seeing through" our remaining desires via the lens of the dance of emptiness. Likes and dislikes, something to attain or place to get to is all dropped away in this dance ... even as we keep moving, trying to go where we like (both perspectives ... going/no place to go .... at once). This "emptiness" dance must be seen and realized to truly get the point about what this life-self-world-no life-no self-no world dance is all about.
We dance as seemingly separate dancers with sickness, with health, with birth, with death ... and let the dance go on ...
As well, we find that there were never separate dancers, no sickness, no health, no birth or death ... just the dancing going on and on ...
Here is how I describe it ...
And one last point:
Although there are "no separate dancers, and no good and bad" from one perspective ... from another perspective, THERE MOST CERTAINLY ARE! And, thus, what this dance becomes ... and what we make of this life and world, or how we muck them up ... is greatly up to how we dance this dance (with skill or not). Thus, even though there is "Emptiness" ... we all still should try our best to be graceful, balanced, cooperative dancers and make a beautful dance.
Gassho, J
Originally posted by Hans
Where does the Buddha ever say that his path is not about escaping suffering? (Pali or Sanskrit scripture references will both do). Obviously it depends on what you mean by "escaping". I think there is a slight danger in the wording "being at one"...dropping delusion, opening up to dynamic suchness is IMHO a very valid approach to resolving the problem of suffering...but the term "being at one" can also lead one astray along the road of eternalism, because it sounds as if there was a) someone who could be at one with: b) a something. 
When I say (as I do so often) that we can be "at one" with this whole life-self-world ... and "at one" with the good days and bad for example ... I am always referring to our being "at one" with all conditions in/as/through ...
the dance of EMPTINESS.
I am not referring to some "stiff upper lip" stoicism, nor to some idea of "eternalism" in which we merge with the "Great Unchanging Cosmic Eternal One" (whether existing or not ... that is not the crucial point of 'the dance of emptiness'). No, I mean that you and me can lose our separate self (and find it again) in the constantly changing, dependently arising dance of emptiness.
Emptiness is the particularly Mahayana path to the "escape" from suffering ... for we dancers dance with all the ups and downs of life in this dance, as well as find that there is no "up or down" in this dance ... and no dancers. The dancers are dancing with whatever comes, taking all that life can throw at us in the dance ... while in emptiness, simultaneously, there is not even separate dancers ... just the ongoing dance itself. EMPTINESS!.
Perhaps earlier Buddhism emphasized more the quelling and denial of desire as the means to the cessation of suffering. In contrast, the Mahayana ... while also believing that we need to moderate our desires and avoid excess and harmful desires ... also saw that we can live life by "seeing through" our remaining desires via the lens of the dance of emptiness. Likes and dislikes, something to attain or place to get to is all dropped away in this dance ... even as we keep moving, trying to go where we like (both perspectives ... going/no place to go .... at once). This "emptiness" dance must be seen and realized to truly get the point about what this life-self-world-no life-no self-no world dance is all about.
We dance as seemingly separate dancers with sickness, with health, with birth, with death ... and let the dance go on ...
As well, we find that there were never separate dancers, no sickness, no health, no birth or death ... just the dancing going on and on ...
Here is how I describe it ...
How 'bout we try .... 'The Dance' ... 'The Dancing' ... just 'Dancing' to capture "emptiness" (Sunyata)?
Universes of dancers (including you and me) danced up in this dance ... each dancer seemingly standing apart on her own two feet ... yet each dancer simultaneously seen as just the dance-dancing-the-dance (for what would we think a 'dancer' without a dance to dance her and her to dance? There is no dancer apart from her dance.) There is nothing but the dance and the motion, the separation lost in a lively, enlivening, living blur ...
The whole universe dancing ... whole universes dancing with universes ...
All of reality swirling and twirling in partnership with all of reality, constantly changing partners, such that nothing and nobody is truly sitting still ... such that all is caught up and spun up by all ... such that there is nobody and nothing remaining but the dance ... this Ballet of Inter-being ...
The dancers each are there seemingly as individuals, yet swept up in the dance ... moving, ever changing ... the separate dancers may be forgotten such that only the dancing remains. Soon in the spin and twirling, the individuality of the dancers can barely be seen ... there yet not ...
Can we truly say that there are dancers, so encompassing is that dance? And endless dances are going on within each dancer, each cell and each atom just dancing, ultimately beyond that ... just dancing inside dancing ...
That is why I am turning more and more to the "Dance" image for some feeling of "Emptiness" ... all of reality engaged and engaging in one great jazzy, creative, non-stop, powerful dance ... dancers and all reality absolutely absorbed in the constant motion of the Dance --- no distinction of dancers and dance remains.
Yet it is not chaos (though we sometimes trip and fall or bang into each other ... yet that too becomes just part of the life of the dance!). Something wonderful is created from it all, which we call this world ... which we call this world and all it contains ... which we call you and me ...
Each Sentient Being 'loses herself' in the power of dance ... truly loses her little self as the dance ... thus to find herself again ... to find their True Self as The Dance itself, as the Dancing itself ... as a unique and precious Dancer ...
You are just a dancer, a lonely dancer. You are just the whole start to finish dance. Both ways of experiencing the dance, and your life as a dancer, are precious and vital.
But where is "it", this thing you call a "dance"? It is just an ongoing swirl ... just dance-dancing-the-dance ... nothing to "nail down" ... There is not a "thing" there, only the constant swirling and twirling and naked interconnected motion and expression .. all fully exerting ...
Dancers dancing each for themselves, sometimes bumping into other dancers, tripping on their own feet ... yet sometimes able to see beyond themselves to the great harmony of the total Dance ... such grace is there, such balance ... this dance has gone on and on for all time ... timeless dance ...
We feel as dancers in a dance, across a stage we run,
each dancer dancing solo, our connection nearly none.
But when our steps are flowing, as leaves in wind a’frenzy spun,
it’s not hard to see that dancers, stage and dance are truly one.
It is free, yet it is not chaos. It is not nothing, not a vacuum or meaningless vibration. There may be some rules to the dance, some choreography ... but much of it seems up to us, free will, how we choose to go with each step. LIFE DANCE! It all changes and turns with your every chosen step and gesture.
Lose your self in that, lose your "self" in that great Dancing which is your Self Dancing. It's going is your going.
Anyway ... something like that.
Don't just understand the concept of this dance intellectually. Instead, truly feel what it is to be swept up in this dance. Truly lose and find yourself in this very step-step-stepping now.
Where this dance has come from, where it is going ... we may not know be fully informed. No matter, for the dancing is not there but only here. It has always been right here. The dance is ever right underfoot ... so just dance, right here and now, without thought of any other place to go or which you can go.
A Zendo is a kind of dance school ... and our task to be graceful dancers (even when we fall). Our way is to go with the flow of the dance, and just let the dance ... its up and it downs ... just be the dancing.
... something like that.
Universes of dancers (including you and me) danced up in this dance ... each dancer seemingly standing apart on her own two feet ... yet each dancer simultaneously seen as just the dance-dancing-the-dance (for what would we think a 'dancer' without a dance to dance her and her to dance? There is no dancer apart from her dance.) There is nothing but the dance and the motion, the separation lost in a lively, enlivening, living blur ...
The whole universe dancing ... whole universes dancing with universes ...
All of reality swirling and twirling in partnership with all of reality, constantly changing partners, such that nothing and nobody is truly sitting still ... such that all is caught up and spun up by all ... such that there is nobody and nothing remaining but the dance ... this Ballet of Inter-being ...
The dancers each are there seemingly as individuals, yet swept up in the dance ... moving, ever changing ... the separate dancers may be forgotten such that only the dancing remains. Soon in the spin and twirling, the individuality of the dancers can barely be seen ... there yet not ...
Can we truly say that there are dancers, so encompassing is that dance? And endless dances are going on within each dancer, each cell and each atom just dancing, ultimately beyond that ... just dancing inside dancing ...
That is why I am turning more and more to the "Dance" image for some feeling of "Emptiness" ... all of reality engaged and engaging in one great jazzy, creative, non-stop, powerful dance ... dancers and all reality absolutely absorbed in the constant motion of the Dance --- no distinction of dancers and dance remains.
Yet it is not chaos (though we sometimes trip and fall or bang into each other ... yet that too becomes just part of the life of the dance!). Something wonderful is created from it all, which we call this world ... which we call this world and all it contains ... which we call you and me ...
Each Sentient Being 'loses herself' in the power of dance ... truly loses her little self as the dance ... thus to find herself again ... to find their True Self as The Dance itself, as the Dancing itself ... as a unique and precious Dancer ...
You are just a dancer, a lonely dancer. You are just the whole start to finish dance. Both ways of experiencing the dance, and your life as a dancer, are precious and vital.
But where is "it", this thing you call a "dance"? It is just an ongoing swirl ... just dance-dancing-the-dance ... nothing to "nail down" ... There is not a "thing" there, only the constant swirling and twirling and naked interconnected motion and expression .. all fully exerting ...
Dancers dancing each for themselves, sometimes bumping into other dancers, tripping on their own feet ... yet sometimes able to see beyond themselves to the great harmony of the total Dance ... such grace is there, such balance ... this dance has gone on and on for all time ... timeless dance ...
We feel as dancers in a dance, across a stage we run,
each dancer dancing solo, our connection nearly none.
But when our steps are flowing, as leaves in wind a’frenzy spun,
it’s not hard to see that dancers, stage and dance are truly one.
It is free, yet it is not chaos. It is not nothing, not a vacuum or meaningless vibration. There may be some rules to the dance, some choreography ... but much of it seems up to us, free will, how we choose to go with each step. LIFE DANCE! It all changes and turns with your every chosen step and gesture.
Lose your self in that, lose your "self" in that great Dancing which is your Self Dancing. It's going is your going.
Anyway ... something like that.
Don't just understand the concept of this dance intellectually. Instead, truly feel what it is to be swept up in this dance. Truly lose and find yourself in this very step-step-stepping now.
Where this dance has come from, where it is going ... we may not know be fully informed. No matter, for the dancing is not there but only here. It has always been right here. The dance is ever right underfoot ... so just dance, right here and now, without thought of any other place to go or which you can go.
A Zendo is a kind of dance school ... and our task to be graceful dancers (even when we fall). Our way is to go with the flow of the dance, and just let the dance ... its up and it downs ... just be the dancing.
... something like that.
Although there are "no separate dancers, and no good and bad" from one perspective ... from another perspective, THERE MOST CERTAINLY ARE! And, thus, what this dance becomes ... and what we make of this life and world, or how we muck them up ... is greatly up to how we dance this dance (with skill or not). Thus, even though there is "Emptiness" ... we all still should try our best to be graceful, balanced, cooperative dancers and make a beautful dance.
Gassho, J
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