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Question: I had a wonderful opportunity to spend several days with Sailor Bob in Melbourne in January, but just recently it dawned on me what this Awareness business is all about. I realized that I had been laboring under a misconception that Awareness was ‘mine’ -- so I was trying to grasp Awareness as a personal experience, not realizing that it’s as impersonal as can be. Once this mistake was recognized, it seems everything clicked into place: there’s Awareness, and there are objects in Awareness, and to identify myself as an object in Awareness (including human body, thoughts, sensations, etc.) is simply ludicrous. I am the ‘no thing’ that perceives and makes space for all the ‘things.’ Is it really that simple?
Answer: Beautifully expressed, and yes it really is that simple. Or perhaps I should say “It is much more simple than the mind ever could hope to comprehend.” Question: Yet there’s an undeniable tendency to be pulled back into identification with the objective world, since Awareness is a rather subtle matter, isn’t it? Trying to turn and look at Awareness is not possible -- as you say, like the sun attempting to shine on itself -- and so it’s only by a kind of indirection that Awareness is ‘known’ (and of course ‘known’ is not the right word here). Does recognition of Awareness, and disidentification with the world of phenomena, just settle in after a while, once the illusion is seen through? It does seem that the pull of the old habit patterns, built up through the years, is strong. Answer: Is the ‘pulling back’ not also an object/appearance in Awareness? Does whatever appears in Awareness affect Awareness? In the same vein; does that what is reflected in the mirror, affect the mirror in any way? All there is, is Presence, and any idea about past conditioning arises only presently. IT may appear to itself as the idea of ‘being pulled back’; IT may appear as a story about ‘the strong pull of old habit patterns, built up through the years’ but all this is as much presence/appearance as the idea that all is clear and that identification is no longer the case. To say it in another way: All there is, is THIS and IT manifests AS everything, yet IT is no-thing at all. IT may appear as a dance, in and out of identification, but there is no one that is identifying or disidentifying; there is only One appearing as such. There is no need for a settling away from identification and there is no separate character to do this. The idea that disidentification would somehow be preferable is in itself the manifestation of apparent identification. And again, there is nothing wrong or right with this. IT may appear AS Identification or AS disidentification, while at the same time IT is forever beyond such duality, IT is neither and both and there is nothing else than IT that could be more or less IT and ‘you’ are (IT is) always and already THAT.
If or when you have a question you'd like to see answered in this newsletter send it to:
author@awakeningtothedream.com Art by: Bill Brauer Title: 'Mirror Dance' Found at: http://www.firstartsource.com/Content/BrauerB.htm Fair Use Notice |
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Because of the unobstructed nature of the mind, there is a continuous arising of appearances.Like the waves and the waters of the ocean, which are not two (different things), Whatever arises is liberated into the natural state of the mind. However many different names are applied to it in this unceasing process of naming things, With respect to its real meaning, the mind (of the individual) does not exist other than as one. And, moreover, this singularity is without any foundation and devoid of any root. But, even though it is one, you cannot look for it in any particular direction. It cannot be seen as an entity located somewhere, because it is not created or made by anything. Nor can it be seen as just being empty, because there exists the transparent radiance of its own luminous clarity and awareness. Nor can it be seen as diversified, because emptiness and clarity are inseparable. Immediate self-awareness is clear and present. Even though activities exist, there is no awareness of an agent who is the actor. Even though they are without any inherent nature, experiences are actually experienced.
From: "Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness"
By: Padmasambhava Translation by John Myrdhin Reynolds Fair Use Notice |
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Call it Tao Something mysteriously formed, Born before Heaven and Earth. In the silence and the void, Standing alone and unchanging, Ever present and in motion. Perhaps it is the mother of the ten thousand things. I do not know its name Call it Tao.
~ Lao Tzu ~
From: The Tao Te Ching As Translated by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English, Vintage Books, 1989 Fair Use Notice |
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Nature has no end set before it. If God acts for the sake of an end, he [must] want something that he lacks. ~ Spinoza ~ Art by: Martha Saudek Title: 'Nature's Majesty, Yosemite National Park' Found at: http://www.tirageart.com/artists/saudnature.shtml Fair Use Notice |
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Long ago... A man and his ever-nagging wife went on vacation to Jerusalem. While they were there, the wife passed away. The undertaker told the husband, "You can have her shipped home for $5,000, or you can bury her here, in the Holy Land, for $150." The man thought about it and said he would just have her shipped home. The undertaker asked, "Why would you spend $5,000 to ship your wife home, when it would be wonderful for her to be buried here and you would spend only $150?" The man replied, "Long ago a man died here, was buried here, and three days later, he rose from the dead. I just can't take that chance." Fair Use Notice |
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