Our true nature never, automatically, reveals itself to us because it is thoroughly incorporeal. Still, it is never non-present. Accordingly, this incorporeality is ungraspable by the corporeal senses including even our consciousness which we cling to, tenaciously.
When we learn, for the first time, of our true nature from the teachings of the Buddha it seems dark and hidden from us since we are trying to see it as something corporeal which is all that we know. The corporeal, we don't realize, is continually obscuring our true nature, as it were, hiding it from us almost completely. It seems for us that a dark veil covers our true nature which we can't rend.
Naturally, when our true nature is revealed, which is luminous and compassionate, only then is the darkness dispelled. When it is not taken away we seem doomed to suffering and death; we see no means of escape. In fact, the idea of the luminous seems alien to us. In this regard, there seems to be two opposed worlds, the world of light and the world of darkness, or the same, the world of unconditionality (nirvana) and the world of conditionality (samsara). But from the awakened standpoint it is one substance that expresses itself as an arising and a return, this really being the arising of infinite power/compassion and a return to self-knowingness.
The unawakened, on the other hand, are only aware of birth and death because of their strong attraction to the corporeal. In this condition, will or desire can dangerously exalt itself which then becomes entrapped in the cycle of birth and death with no way out. This is really regression led by a will to more and more corporeal states. Such a person who exalts their will is an icchantika.
"Also, next, O good man! For example, a burnt seed will not call forth buds, even if the rain falls on it for a period of 100 thousand million kalpas. There can never be a situation in which this seed will bring forth buds. The same with the icchantika. No bud of Enlightenment springs forth, even if the icchantika gives ear to this all-wonderful Great Nirvana Sutra. Such can never happen. Why not? Because such a person has totally annihilated the root of good. As with the burnt seed, no root or bud of Bodhichitta will shoot forth" (Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra).
@eidelron
Waaaayyyyyy to complicated. I never did any if that!
It's a phase, it passes. For a while "Mountains are no longer mountains.
Live life normally and everything settles down. Grasping, labelling, slicing and dicing into this and that just creat division and anxiety and get in the way. It's a NATURAL process, it doesn't need a manual.
What is/is-not me is really hard to say with any certainty. It's just too damn fuzzy. The fuzziness is more real and natural than this dumb slicing and dicing based on nothing more than wishful thinking and grasping.
If my body is not me then who cares what happens to it? If it is not-not me then what I eat and drink and who I sleep with matter a lot. In fact all these things have a big impact on "me" so how can that be unless somehow we are not two things,
In this world beyond words philosophy and beliefs are about as useful as a condom for a eunuch!
Posted by: Om nom nom | February 28, 2014 at 02:31 PM
Below is a direct quote from Nisargadatta about this process and how he taught it. I think it is very clear, and very much like what the Zennist is always talking about on this blog (tho he seems to have little affinity for N.). This quote is from a blog operated by Timothy Conway, the quote was recorded by one of N.'s students near the time of N.'s death. The interpolations in brackets are by Conway:
"Try to observe the body and mind and understand you are not the body and mind. By understanding you stabilize in a position prior to body and mind. Having rejected the body and mind you are that total consciousness. Then you have to understand that this consciousness is due to the body. Because of the instrument of the body, that feeling of consciousness is there. And I as the Absolute [pure Awareness] cannot be that consciousness. So again, try to observe consciousness [the sense of beingness, knowingness, "I-am-ness"] as you observe the flower. Having become, or realized, the total consciousness, the next step is to be in a position to observe consciousness and all the play in consciousness. That is a very difficult stage because of the attachment to the body and to consciousness which is due to the body. So to understand that you are not the consciousness, the product of the body, is very difficult, but is the next step.No more or no further than this will be given. That's all. This is the limit of communication. Further, you must fend for yourself.
I have no form, no identity. And thus I see you as myself. You are myself only, without form or identity. By mistake you stumble into this place and collect all this talk. When you have collected, go away and don't come again. If it's good, try to use it, if not, throw it out.
Some people are in the habit of arguing with the guru and don't meditate. They don't realize. Just as children don't offer resistance to growth, they naturally grow, similarly, a spiritual seeker doesn't offer resistance to the guru's instruction and meditates on that and then he realizes. It is "intelligent" people who offer resistance to the guru. The simple ones don't offer resistance to their guru. Some people don't allow the knowledge to stabilize, they go on arguing, they use their intellect to [try to] realize the Self, which is of no use. Many people go on collecting knowledge in different places but never let it stabilize and so do not realize."
http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/Nisargadatta_My_Recollections.html
Posted by: Eidolon | February 27, 2014 at 01:07 PM
My I recommend some good alternative American country music?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmGebvIzX3k
The lyrics are simply amazing:
No man ever seen the face of his foe no
He ain't made of flesh and bone
He's the one who sits up close beside you girl, and When he's there you are alone
Every man is evil yes and every man's a liar
Unashamed with the wicked tongues sing
In the black soul choir
Every man is evil yes and every man's a liar
Unashamed with the wicked tongue
The black soul choir
Oh, he rises in my way
Oh, he rises in my way
No man ever seen the face of my Lord no
Not since he left his skin
He's the one you keep cold on the outside girl, he's At your door let him in
Every man is evil yes and every man's a liar
Unashamed with the wicked tongues sing
In the black soul choir
Every man is evil yes and every man's a liar
Unashamed with the wicked tongue
The black soul choir
Oh, he rises in my way
Oh, he rises in my way
I will forgive your wrongs, I am able
For my own I feel great shame
I will offer up a brick to the back of your head boy
If I was Cain
Every man is evil yes and every man's a liar
Unashamed with the wicked tongues sing
In the black soul choir
Every man is evil yes and every man's a liar
Unashamed with the wicked tongue
The black soul choir
Oh, he rises in my way
Oh, he rises in my way
Posted by: Methexis | February 27, 2014 at 11:04 AM
This is a process and it can be a little scary and a little trippy and this is all quite normal. It's a deterministic process. At this stage you are trying to navigate in a new domain with old tools that no longer serve you. The problem is you are coming to be aware of that which cannot be grasped. It's natural to want to grasp and explain - it's an habitual life-time pattern.
The first basic rule-of-thumb is that "whatever you see in the 'outside' world is probably a manifestation of something that is unseen in the 'inside' world". This is quite normal, it's just now you are becoming more aware of it all rather than disowning it. In Jungian terms you are going through a process of withdrawing a projection. In Buddhist terms you might find that Nagarjuna's MMK is readable now.
The second basic rule-of-thumb is that "it doesn't fit into words". The internal feeling is something like a baby grasping onto a finger with its mouth. There's a satisfying feeling of having grasped something, of being back in the familiar together with a worry of "this doesn't really feel like a nipple to me".
So now is the time where you learn to live beyond words. Words are a map not the territory. It's time to learn to live in the territory, not move a token around on a map. It's 50% forgetting, 50% adapting.
It takes a while to get used to this stuff. Sometimes when I'm tired I still find myself grasping at stuff I see as "outside" knowing simultaneously that it's probably "inside".
If you can find someone who has gone ahead ITRW that would help you to settle in. A lot can be said with body-language and not words and hearing it mind-2-mind / body-2-body is much more helpful than using words like this were there is a double translation process of mind-2-word-2-mind. This is slow and inefficient.
Posted by: Om nom nom | February 27, 2014 at 03:02 AM