06-13-2010, 12:00 AM
~
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
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