The Unseen World

[JustBe]

Originally Posted by Gem

This the issue with coming from the practice perspective is everything is a description of what I've been though, and I can put that in my own words. I know this is often argued against, but I still believe I have a valuable contribution because of my experience.




Because I studied Buddhist meditation, mindfulness, insight, vipassana, rather than read stuff about meditation, I don't know anything about all the things people talk about here, and no one here knows what I'm talking about. People think they do and say it's beginner stuff and all that, but for example, if I talk about breath meditation it is because many times I have sat in a bare dark room for many days and not many have done that sort of thing...


I've been through the grueling experience of formal meditation so I don't pretend to know something. Do you see what I mean? People start to make me wrong about things I understand from the long retreats I've undertaken.



The way I speak is like, sit upright and keep still for one hour feeling the breath without reacting, and you'll know the effort involved. Imagine doing that 11 times a day, day after day, for days and days; then imagine doing that 20 times. If you undertake that IRL then talk to me about effort. That's what I've done, which is why I believe I can make valuable contributions to the discussion. Others want me to be wrong and prove their point, but I can't prove my point - you can't get wet because I talk about water. I have to pour out the bucket on your head teehee.

Well I’ve noticed your often challenged by those who follow the Buddhist teachings as ‘gospel’. “This is the way it says it is” rather than, “this is the way it is for me, in the way it says it is” And immediately you, or others, not in alignment to the ‘the way it says’ become their own contradiction. Like myself, your view comes through the latter aligned to your own direct experience, the teachings are secondary to the nature of what is as you are. As everything becomes.

You can only see another as you see yourself. When your not weighing yourself up against ‘teachings’ but rather what you’ve become, ‘aware’, as the one who speaks as that wisdom, the conversations with those who are yet to know themselves in this way, will challenge your view.

And those in the thick of Buddhism, seem to thrive on the challenges in the midst of becoming aware of themselves in it all.

[django]

Originally Posted by sentient

Here I would like to introduce an idea from the book "The Lamp of Mahamudra"
by Tsele

THREE TYPES OF PEOPLE

Whether or not points are easily comprehended depends upon the mental capacities of individual people. These can be divided into three degrees.

People who give rise to understanding, experience, and realization by merely being shown a symbol or who, in one instant, quickly perfect the qualities without having to exert themselves through hardship are called the "instantaneous type." These are great beings who have realization through former training.

People whose qualities of experience and realization increase and decrease without sequential order or without being fixed as high or low are called the "skipping the grades type," those with middling capacity.

Other general or ordinary people of the type who ascend in definite progressive stages, according to their degree of diligence, are called the "gradual type," which includes all ordinary people.

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Thanks for that, I get what he’s saying, and I absolutely agree with him. Clearly I’m not a great being, not even a middling one. I’m just ordinary, and happy to keep plodding along, definitely making progress, definitely in stages, and I reckon doing a good job of it because I am extremely diligent to say the least.

[sky]

Originally Posted by django

Thanks for that, I get what he’s saying, and I absolutely agree with him. Clearly I’m not a great being, not even a middling one. I’m just ordinary, and happy to keep plodding along, definitely making progress, definitely in stages, and I reckon doing a good job of it because I am extremely diligent to say the least.

We can but try, and the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step...

[jonesboy]

Originally Posted by django

Thanks for that, I get what he’s saying, and I absolutely agree with him. Clearly I’m not a great being, not even a middling one. I’m just ordinary, and happy to keep plodding along, definitely making progress, definitely in stages, and I reckon doing a good job of it because I am extremely diligent to say the least.

"People who give rise to understanding, experience, and realization by
merely being shown a symbol or who, in one instant, quickly perfect the qualities without having to exert themselves through hardship are called the "instantaneous type."

Have you ever read up on a tradition and it just makes sense? That the terms used don't seem completely foreign? You just get it? That would be an example.

As far as instantaneous realizations of a true depth, it is very hard to completely let go, to be open with such an expansion without flinching. It is a very, very rare thing.

[sentient]

Originally Posted by jonesboy

Have you ever read up on a tradition and it just makes sense? That the terms used don't seem completely foreign? You just get it? That would be an example.

Yeah - like reading Chögyam Trungpa who was Nyingma, Kagyu, and also Bon.

Or like what your Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche quote said:

SPACE
Space is the ground of everything, the fundamental reality. We generally think of earth as representing groundedness, and it does as long as we believe ourselves to be one thing separate from everything else. In duality, earth is the ground, space is the absence of ground. But in Dzogchen, space is the ground. The practitioner merged with space is more grounded than earth because he or she is the space in which earth exists; is more comfortable than water because space has no obstructions; is more flexible than air because air can go no place that space is not already; is more creative than fire because space gives rise to fire. Space is what we truly are.

That is also Shamanism. Space as the ground is ‘our’ Reality Orientation also (and you are brought up with it from early childhood).

Reality Orientation as “the normal state of consciousness which is characterized by immobilization of a structured frame of reference in the background of attention which supports, interprets and gives meaning to all experience. This frame of reference remains a superstructure of consciousness only by means of active mental striving, which in fact it is not usually conscious”.

Thanks for this jonesboy ….. because I just keep on wondering why oh why do Westerners have such a hard time shifting into “nondual space dimension”, but that must be because in Western Reality Orientation earth is the groundedness …. And it is such a core belief on subconscious (dreaming-reality-what-is) level …..

Nondual space as the ground is a ‘starting point’ for shamanics & not some ‘realization’ down the road …. Which is why – I trust – Tibetans were taught Vajrayana/Tantra.

P.S.
I see duality .... earth being the ground as volitional (willed) – be it a subconscious volition ……

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