Innate Freedom

[alan.r]

Hi Daitetsu . Sorry for not responding sooner. Been away from the internet for a few days. The experience or way of experiencing in the OP is something gradual, maybe organic. I can't say it is especially "Enlightened". I have had (what was for me) an awakening, with a sudden inside-out quality, after a seemingly fruitless effort to understand awareness. This was some years ago. I was struggling in practice, doing a lot of retreats, trying to be awareness. When suddenly there was the realization that awareness is effortless and pristine, and that the whole of body, mind and "world", including effort and non-effort, are present at-once, just like a mirror. Perfectly intimate as my very self, yet happening to no one. There was a quote I read somewhere by ..not sure who.. "when you realize that you are nothing , you realize you are everything". That is not just poetry as you may also know first hand, it is experiential fact. The birds fly across your face, and you are the sound of blowing through branches... All that poetry is true. That awakening was a new life... Yet as you may also know first hand, it was just the beginning of practice. Still just a baby.


Gassho, Daizan

Thanks, Daizan. I've felt this same inside-out quality, similar moments of body, mind, and world present at once: awareness and non-awareness pristine and each thing reflecting each thing, and in that reflecting, connection, an always connection (if I may play a bit with what you've written). Interestingly (or I find it interesting), I think at one time I may have believed some of these moments were "awakening" moments, but now I really don't know, and that's not poetry. I look back and view these things as moments. Maybe moments of certain difference or quality than other moments, but just moments in the end: beautiful now not for their specialness or wildness or interestingness, but for their ordinariness.

In any case, I feel I haven't seen you here for a while. Or maybe I haven't been as active here for a while. Good to see/read you.

Gassho

[RichardH]

Thanks, Daizan. I've felt this same inside-out quality, similar moments of body, mind, and world present at once: awareness and non-awareness pristine and each thing reflecting each thing, and in that reflecting, connection, an always connection (if I may play a bit with what you've written). Interestingly (or I find it interesting), I think at one time I may have believed some of these moments were "awakening" moments, but now I really don't know, and that's not poetry. I look back and view these things as moments. Maybe moments of certain difference or quality than other moments, but just moments in the end: beautiful now not for their specialness or wildness or interestingness, but for their ordinariness.

In any case, I feel I haven't seen you here for a while. Or maybe I haven't been as active here for a while. Good to see/read you.

Gassho

HI Alan. Ive been around but not participating in online sitting much. That is about to change, I miss the group sitting here.

As far as the "awakening" goes.. I can't speak to what you have been through, but for me it was not an experience so much as a change in the way I experience, and that change has been permanent. Just this past five days I was at a retreat (in honor of an old sangha mate who died) with our old teacher, and the location of the retreat brought back the struggles I went through. There has been a fundamental change, and much of the suffering I knew ended and has never come back, could never. This retreat was like the closing of a circle in a way, and good to see this beautiful man who showed me how to sit when I was a confused 20 year old.. He is Theravadin, yet he only ever taught me to just sit. He just gave me an encouraging "that'll do pig" that meant a lot and brought me to tears. It meant a lot ... But... practice goes on, and I'm just another baby buddha at Treeleaf.

One thing that has come recently , is that I am very ready to look again at yogacara teachings.. really ready to do that again.

[alan.r]

HI Alan. Ive been around but not participating in online sitting much. That is about to change, I miss the group sitting here.

As far as the "awakening" goes.. I can't speak to what you have been through, but for me it was not an experience so much as a change in the way I experience, and that change has been permanent. Just this past five days I was at a retreat (in honor of an old sangha mate who died) with our old teacher, and the location of the retreat brought back the struggles I went through. There has been a fundamental change, and much of the suffering I knew ended and has never come back, could never. This retreat was like the closing of a circle in a way, and good to see this beautiful man who showed me how to sit when I was a confused 20 year old.. He is Theravadin, yet he only ever taught me to just sit. He just gave me an encouraging "that'll do pig" that meant a lot and brought me to tears. It meant a lot ... But... practice goes on, and I'm just another baby buddha at Treeleaf.

One thing that has come recently , is that I am very ready to look again at yogacara teachings.. really ready to do that again.

Yes, I hear you. Likewise, it has been about a change of, for me, mainly perception, which of course influences the way "I" experience. And that "perception" now is less me, more free, more open (though not always and certainly with plenty of my own little problems), and always evolving. For me, and probably from what I can see you saying here to some degree, that change has come through practice and not any "opening" moment or awakening moment or whatever; those moments I view as important from a personal pov, and certainly important in shifting/changing perception. And but still, in fact, sitting practice has changed "my" "perception" of those so-called special moments and so, as we say often here, it's in the practice that the shift has manifested, allowed to bloom, always there.

But anyway, I think we're talking about the same thing from different angles, and with you, a baby is speaking here.

Gassho

[RichardH]

Maybe we are talking about the same thing. I do not think it is really heroic or anything, just letting go and realizing, tasting, that simple innate clarity. Habits and problems don't disappear all at once. There is no mirror where dust can alight, but there are still the habit energies that make me do asshole things sometimes, so there is work to do. Maybe we should have a live chat sometime.. or even better sit together?

[alan.r]

Maybe we are talking about the same thing. I do not think it is really heroic or anything, just letting go and realizing, tasting, that simple innate clarity. Habits and problems don't disappear all at once. There is no mirror where dust can alight, but there are still the habit energies that make me do asshole things sometimes, so there is work to do. Maybe we should have a live chat sometime.. or even better sit together?

Yes to this fully. And yes to sitting and/or chatting sometime. I sit at a local Theravadin place just because it's close and they're nice enough to let me sit shikantaza, as well as occasionally doing a zazenkai here - need to do more that so would love to begin something. Maybe set up something for next week sometime or join an already set group?
Gassho