09-05-2010, 12:00 AM
not-doings
This is an observation on not-doings. Every act is a not-doing. Its only thought that makes it appear otherwise.
The sense of continuity.
For example, the eye works like a movie projector, film. Each reel of film has an individual frozen frame. If you pull the reel out and look at it you will observe static pictures, and its only when viewed at massive speed that all the frames meld and make an object appear to be in constant motion. In fact the eye does this same maneuver. It perceives separate images (frames) one after the other and melds them together.
Now thought, reflection does this too. A person may be making coffee in the morning. He may say "oh here it is morning again and here I am making coffee again." Its almost as if he will perceive an identical experience. That is, he thinks each morning is "the morning" and the act of making the coffee is "the act" done repeatedly. Or, there's the expression, "the sun always rises" but truly its never the same sun, always change has occurred, but its this perceived continuity that makes the appearance of "the sun" as a fixed thing, unchangable. This is doing. In fact doing never does occur, always there is change so no two things are ever the same and you cannot return to anything. If you cannot return to anything, then there is no permanence to acts. Each act is different and it cannot last even a second. You can type the word "act", then delete it and type it again. But you are not repeating anything. Because when you type it again you are having a different experience as when you typed it before. You cannot repeat that identical action. You were never able to hold that experience. It was never a doing, its only the thought of doing that makes everything appear stable and permanent.
So its not that not-doing has to be learned, but rather to see there is no doing. A doing would be stable and in fact there is no stability, only the appearance of continuity.
Someone may say, "but one doing leads to another doing to another doing. So there is continuity, its a real thing." But if you cannot even hang onto a doing for one fraction of a second, how "real" are any of these so-called doings? They are vaporous.
http://player.youku.com/player.php/sid/ ... MjA=/v.swf
When a "you" becomes a point of focus, then that you seems to gather momentum and the idea of "having" seems a viable possibility. "If there is a "me" then certainly all things are as real as me. I am stable so the universe must be stable too." And it's through this maneuver of perception that impermanent things appear permanent, and thus become like "doings". I say "like" because the becoming in fact never occurs. Nothing can root itself in this realm of experience. Always there is change and even that change cannot be apprehended in any way that is or becomes permanent.
This is an observation on not-doings. Every act is a not-doing. Its only thought that makes it appear otherwise.
The sense of continuity.
For example, the eye works like a movie projector, film. Each reel of film has an individual frozen frame. If you pull the reel out and look at it you will observe static pictures, and its only when viewed at massive speed that all the frames meld and make an object appear to be in constant motion. In fact the eye does this same maneuver. It perceives separate images (frames) one after the other and melds them together.
Now thought, reflection does this too. A person may be making coffee in the morning. He may say "oh here it is morning again and here I am making coffee again." Its almost as if he will perceive an identical experience. That is, he thinks each morning is "the morning" and the act of making the coffee is "the act" done repeatedly. Or, there's the expression, "the sun always rises" but truly its never the same sun, always change has occurred, but its this perceived continuity that makes the appearance of "the sun" as a fixed thing, unchangable. This is doing. In fact doing never does occur, always there is change so no two things are ever the same and you cannot return to anything. If you cannot return to anything, then there is no permanence to acts. Each act is different and it cannot last even a second. You can type the word "act", then delete it and type it again. But you are not repeating anything. Because when you type it again you are having a different experience as when you typed it before. You cannot repeat that identical action. You were never able to hold that experience. It was never a doing, its only the thought of doing that makes everything appear stable and permanent.
So its not that not-doing has to be learned, but rather to see there is no doing. A doing would be stable and in fact there is no stability, only the appearance of continuity.
Someone may say, "but one doing leads to another doing to another doing. So there is continuity, its a real thing." But if you cannot even hang onto a doing for one fraction of a second, how "real" are any of these so-called doings? They are vaporous.
http://player.youku.com/player.php/sid/ ... MjA=/v.swf
When a "you" becomes a point of focus, then that you seems to gather momentum and the idea of "having" seems a viable possibility. "If there is a "me" then certainly all things are as real as me. I am stable so the universe must be stable too." And it's through this maneuver of perception that impermanent things appear permanent, and thus become like "doings". I say "like" because the becoming in fact never occurs. Nothing can root itself in this realm of experience. Always there is change and even that change cannot be apprehended in any way that is or becomes permanent.