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Yen Hui said, "I am making progress."Confucius asked, "In what way?"Yen Hui said, "I have given up doing good and being right."Confucius said, "Very good, but that is not quite enough."Another day, Yen Hui saw Confucius and said, "I am making progress."Confucius asked, "In what way?"Yen Hui said, "I have given up ceremony and music."Confucius said, "Very good, but that is not quite enough."Another day, Yen Hui saw Confucius again and said, "I am making progress."Confucius asked, "In what way?"Yen Hui said, "I just sit and forget." Confucius was startled and asked, "What do you mean by sitting and forgetting?" Yen Hui said, "I am not attached to the body and I give up any idea of knowing. By freeing myself from the body and mind, I become one with the infinite. This is what I mean by sitting and forgetting." Confucius said, "When there is oneness, there are no preferences. When there is change, there is no constancy. If you have really attained this, then let me become your pupil."
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Note: I just plunked this post in this topic, not a specific reply to P's original post. I enjoyed the title, "I am making progress".
I’m sitting next to a serene pond, staring into it.
What do I see? Myself. I think it is about me, because I see my reflection. And then I become a little bit more awake, and I realize that I can actually see through this reflection of my face way down into the water.
And as I train and sit and meditate more deeply and become more calm, I look down into the water and I can see all the little fish swimming around, the pebbles on the bottom, the crystalline nature of the water, and it is so impressive, and I am telling all my friends about this incredible experience I’m having!
This is all so fantastically blissful for me, and I’m thinking, "I am enlightened now”!
And then one day I get too close to the edge, in my careless, greedy blissfulness, and I step on the muddy edge, slip, and fall, right into the pond. And I cannot swim, I cannot breathe, and I slowly sink to the bottom of this pond.
Then ... then I suddenly see what is "enlightened".
What drowns in this pond? Only the mistaken notion of enlightening myself. The part of me, in other words, that wants to become something; that wants to become enlightened, this is drowned in the pond.
So no matter how good, how developed and trained that part is, as long as I’m using that part of myself, I will always fail.
What I’m saying is that there is not some other condition that we may achieve at some point in our life. There isn't some other place to go. There isn't something else to attain. This is it, folks; like it or lump it, as they say.
This, right here and right now, is the way, our path with heart. What is not here is not there. Only most say "Nonsense" to this. Most people don't notice that the way is here, because they are too busy searching for it! Don't you think so?
Even some of us, who are practicing Zen or Nagualistic principles and teachings, hear this very thing again and again. And yet most us, consciously or unconsciously, are seeking to develop ourselves into some ideal that we feel is somehow still outside of us in time and location.
It's not that no progress ever happens; of course it happens. Of course we have our "self development"; we must do recapitulation, meditation, other principles show to us ... we do have to practice these things or we will never develop. It’s true.
The issue is, we imagine that we are perfecting ourselves for some future state, but actually this is a paradox. Our awakening is never because of the endless practice, but without the endless practice it could never occur.
That's why I say everyone is doing it now, only we are just not aware of it. It is already exactly this, but we just don't notice it because we are looking elsewhere.
We are so busy trying to find the way to be, (doing, doing, doing, and doing) that we hide our natural condition from ourselves.
SHM
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Yes it's all folly. So it matters not what we do or don't do, just that we remain aware its all folly.
And no one in our world around us is going to notice we changed our perception. And we will not behave as if we changed our perception, we still participate as if we had done nothing any different than before.
As DJ said "who would sign up to do that?" lol That's why he says everyone has to be tricked.
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It's not that no progress ever happens; of course it happens. Of course
we have our "self development"; we must do recapitulation, meditation,
other principles show to us ... we do have to practice these things or
we will never develop. It’s true. SHM
But if we are able to follow Nagarjuna's logic we will see that "Nothing Is Actually Happening"
We are so busy trying to find the way to be, (doing, doing, doing, and
doing) that we hide our natural condition from ourselves. SHM
These two sentences of yours here...it is precisely the adherence to what is expressed in the first sentence that is at odds with what you express as hidden in the second sentence.
Are you able to imagine No Happening?
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I don't follow the posts much, so a bit tardy on this reply to Lex.
As to Nagarjuna's logic, I'm rather unconcerned. "Nothing Is Actually Happening" and "Something Is Actually Happening" are both the same side of the same coin.
As to my other comments that you decided to cherry pick out, if you'd follow the entire post you'll see how this is reconciled. I'll make it a bit easier with this comment that you missed: "Our awakening is never because of the endless practice, but without the endless practice it could never occur".
As to 'imagining' No Happenings or Happenings or whatever we choose to confuse ourselves with, once again, both the same side of the same coin.
Attempting to bring non-duality to duality with words is a tough one, that's for certain.
Kris
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