04-16-2010, 12:00 AM
~
Acting.
Whether we realize it or not, acting figures very strongly into each of our lives.
We are always concerned with acting in such a way, presenting ourselves in such a way, that our spouses, our friends, our clients, our employees, our employer, our colleagues, our discussion group buddies, accept us in the way that we would like our projection of ourselves to be accepted. We are very much engaged in this all of the time, both unconsciously and even consciously.
Of course, how much we are aware of depends upon how aware we are of what we are doing, on all levels. And then we are also engaged in trying to manipulate and control others, in the outside world, to have them fit our image of what we think they should be.
Now: I say the word “act.” What does that mean, “to act”?
In the beginning, I thought that acting was different from real life. I thought acting was a false representation, and that daily life was real, because I wasn’t clear about what the word “act” meant.
This is important because, as an example, when we write on a discussion board, we are acting.
Now, there is such a thing as bad acting and good acting. What do you suppose the difference is?
I am saying that acting, on stage, or acting when you are writing to a discussion group, or even acting when you are eating dinner or driving to work is all the same.
It is all acting. It is all just doing something. But, as I'm learning from Sensei, there is doing something without mind and body unified, which is false, and there is acting in a true way. We call this “true action.” Or, “Gods Mind,” or “One With The Universe.” Pick your poison
It means not making the Universe into your own image or trying to fit yourself to someone else’s image of the Universe.
Can you see how that allows for true action?
Because of our habit of being untrue, we think that being true is something that we need to manufacture or represent. We cannot represent that which is true. It is not in our capability, our lexicon, our quiver.
In fact, that which is true is the very opposite of any kind of representation. It is not something that we can manufacture at all. It is only what is here when all of the effort to create it drops away.
We must let go of all of our compulsion - I am talking here about letting go of the attachment to the conditioned personality itself. This is the attachment that has to go before the true can be present.
Once again per Sensei, the true is our Original Condition.
It is the way we already are, without anything added on. Doesn’t that just sound great?! So why do we feel compelled to add something on?
We don’t know? Our compulsion is habitual?
So we are saying that we are forced to add on something, because this is habitual. It kind of sounds like saying “We do it because we do it.” Isn’t that circular thinking?
A big hint is that the answer to the question resides in the correct understanding of identity. We have to be careful that we don’t think about life from a distance, as if it is a story. This is looking from conditioned memory, not seeing what is immediately in front of us.
The reason we tend to think in circles when asked a question like this is that our consideration is secondary to the cause. There is a primary cause. What is that? There is an original error that all human beings have made through all of time and that will continue as such. What is that error? What is the mistake that compels us to choose minus, to add on top of what is, to fake it?
We find ourselves in an identity crisis. And you don’t have to do something about that. Just recognize it. Seeing it is everything. You don’t have to chase the negative away.
You don’t have to beat Satan. If you go into a dark room, what do you do with the dark?
You turn on the light! It is just darkness. It actually doesn’t exist as such, but only as an absence of light. It is not a substance. But we tend to come into the room and feel frightened and then try to do something with the bad darkness. The solution is just seeing, just recognizing the condition that we are in. That is what turns on the light. It may not do so instantly, like a light in a dark room, but it begins the process of change.
And then at some point all the darkness indeed is gone, in one moment of blinding light.
From then on everything is different for you. It still looks the same to everybody else.
And you still have to go through everything. It is not the end to your troubles, exactly. It is simply that the awakening event is actually the beginning of true practice for you. You still have to earn a living, raise a family, drive yourself to work, etc. It doesn’t mean there are no more things to work out. It is just that you see life utterly differently. You can now practice being free of the attachment to the result of it all. Do you see that this is possible for you?
This is why we want to engage with each other, why we discuss a subject about being a warrior or whatever it is. We want everyone to get jump-started into this process, because we only have old-fashioned circular thinking otherwise. This process of being a 'warrior' is the process of seeing so that you can let go of the darkness.
Does that sound familiar?
“Oh yeah.” So everybody is engaged in this and everybody knows it? Does it sound like I am talking about you, or do you think maybe I am talking about some other people, not you, but someone else?
There is a story about a Zen monk that is cooking in the kitchen and the master comes in and says to him, “Go to my room and look just above my desk, in the tokonoma.” The student has just recently cleaned the master’s room, and thinks he must have left something amiss. So he runs to the room and searches the whole room very carefully, to see what is wrong. But he can’t find any dust or even a drop of water left over from the cleaning. So he runs back to the teacher and says, “Roshi. What did I do wrong? It seems perfectly fine to me. I’ve checked it out very carefully. Your room is clean.” And the master says, “No, you fool. I picked a flower this morning and put it in the tokonoma. I wanted to you to see the flower. It’s so beautiful. Did you notice the flower?” And the student says, “No, I didn’t see any flower. I was looking for what was wrong.”
We are so busy, looking for and then correcting, what isn’t even wrong, that it is very difficult for us to see what is right in front of us. We often see something wrong and think, “I’m seeing what is.” But is this seeing "what is"?
Kris
Acting.
Whether we realize it or not, acting figures very strongly into each of our lives.
We are always concerned with acting in such a way, presenting ourselves in such a way, that our spouses, our friends, our clients, our employees, our employer, our colleagues, our discussion group buddies, accept us in the way that we would like our projection of ourselves to be accepted. We are very much engaged in this all of the time, both unconsciously and even consciously.
Of course, how much we are aware of depends upon how aware we are of what we are doing, on all levels. And then we are also engaged in trying to manipulate and control others, in the outside world, to have them fit our image of what we think they should be.
Now: I say the word “act.” What does that mean, “to act”?
In the beginning, I thought that acting was different from real life. I thought acting was a false representation, and that daily life was real, because I wasn’t clear about what the word “act” meant.
This is important because, as an example, when we write on a discussion board, we are acting.
Now, there is such a thing as bad acting and good acting. What do you suppose the difference is?
I am saying that acting, on stage, or acting when you are writing to a discussion group, or even acting when you are eating dinner or driving to work is all the same.
It is all acting. It is all just doing something. But, as I'm learning from Sensei, there is doing something without mind and body unified, which is false, and there is acting in a true way. We call this “true action.” Or, “Gods Mind,” or “One With The Universe.” Pick your poison
It means not making the Universe into your own image or trying to fit yourself to someone else’s image of the Universe.
Can you see how that allows for true action?
Because of our habit of being untrue, we think that being true is something that we need to manufacture or represent. We cannot represent that which is true. It is not in our capability, our lexicon, our quiver.
In fact, that which is true is the very opposite of any kind of representation. It is not something that we can manufacture at all. It is only what is here when all of the effort to create it drops away.
We must let go of all of our compulsion - I am talking here about letting go of the attachment to the conditioned personality itself. This is the attachment that has to go before the true can be present.
Once again per Sensei, the true is our Original Condition.
It is the way we already are, without anything added on. Doesn’t that just sound great?! So why do we feel compelled to add something on?
We don’t know? Our compulsion is habitual?
So we are saying that we are forced to add on something, because this is habitual. It kind of sounds like saying “We do it because we do it.” Isn’t that circular thinking?
A big hint is that the answer to the question resides in the correct understanding of identity. We have to be careful that we don’t think about life from a distance, as if it is a story. This is looking from conditioned memory, not seeing what is immediately in front of us.
The reason we tend to think in circles when asked a question like this is that our consideration is secondary to the cause. There is a primary cause. What is that? There is an original error that all human beings have made through all of time and that will continue as such. What is that error? What is the mistake that compels us to choose minus, to add on top of what is, to fake it?
We find ourselves in an identity crisis. And you don’t have to do something about that. Just recognize it. Seeing it is everything. You don’t have to chase the negative away.
You don’t have to beat Satan. If you go into a dark room, what do you do with the dark?
You turn on the light! It is just darkness. It actually doesn’t exist as such, but only as an absence of light. It is not a substance. But we tend to come into the room and feel frightened and then try to do something with the bad darkness. The solution is just seeing, just recognizing the condition that we are in. That is what turns on the light. It may not do so instantly, like a light in a dark room, but it begins the process of change.
And then at some point all the darkness indeed is gone, in one moment of blinding light.
From then on everything is different for you. It still looks the same to everybody else.
And you still have to go through everything. It is not the end to your troubles, exactly. It is simply that the awakening event is actually the beginning of true practice for you. You still have to earn a living, raise a family, drive yourself to work, etc. It doesn’t mean there are no more things to work out. It is just that you see life utterly differently. You can now practice being free of the attachment to the result of it all. Do you see that this is possible for you?
This is why we want to engage with each other, why we discuss a subject about being a warrior or whatever it is. We want everyone to get jump-started into this process, because we only have old-fashioned circular thinking otherwise. This process of being a 'warrior' is the process of seeing so that you can let go of the darkness.
Does that sound familiar?
“Oh yeah.” So everybody is engaged in this and everybody knows it? Does it sound like I am talking about you, or do you think maybe I am talking about some other people, not you, but someone else?
There is a story about a Zen monk that is cooking in the kitchen and the master comes in and says to him, “Go to my room and look just above my desk, in the tokonoma.” The student has just recently cleaned the master’s room, and thinks he must have left something amiss. So he runs to the room and searches the whole room very carefully, to see what is wrong. But he can’t find any dust or even a drop of water left over from the cleaning. So he runs back to the teacher and says, “Roshi. What did I do wrong? It seems perfectly fine to me. I’ve checked it out very carefully. Your room is clean.” And the master says, “No, you fool. I picked a flower this morning and put it in the tokonoma. I wanted to you to see the flower. It’s so beautiful. Did you notice the flower?” And the student says, “No, I didn’t see any flower. I was looking for what was wrong.”
We are so busy, looking for and then correcting, what isn’t even wrong, that it is very difficult for us to see what is right in front of us. We often see something wrong and think, “I’m seeing what is.” But is this seeing "what is"?
Kris