Our world is an organic unity. Such a unity is not a unity of interdependent differences but is, instead, the many (a world of seeming differences) unified by and through one essence or substance. If we are, intrinsically, this essence, which is absolute and primordial, then the many or the world of differences is really an illusion, including even our most intimate thoughts. Submerged in this illusion, we have to reclaim (smriti) our essence in order to participate in this unity. There is no other way.
To do this, we have to meditate in a truly profound way after we have, so to speak, gone to the forest, or to an empty place, according to the Buddha. This is for the purpose of remembering this essence, which we truly are. In order to remember it, we have to pass through all states of mind. All these countless, different states of mind are the great illusion which has no true, abiding nature, although we might believe otherwise. We have to pass through them all. We can imagine that it is like being in a diving bell in which we have to go deeper and deeper from coarse illusions to very subtle ones, the final one being the most subtle and the most difficult to overcome.
In some respects, this kind of profound meditation can be somewhat frightening. There is no one near us. We are alone and isolated from the madding crowd. In my case, I was seven miles from my nearest neighbor meditating by the light of a kerosene lamp. When I meditated, not only did it seem like I was in a diving bell, but I was looking at territory I had never seen before. I was becoming transparent as I was able to see the illusion that I was. At first it was difficult to get the diving bell to go down deeper but over time it became easier and easier. It was no longer an uncomfortable process.
Paradoxically, it seemed that the more I was able to see myself as an illusion I was also coming nearer to what I really was—my true nature. In subsequent years, all my actions finally bore fruit so that I beheld, to my utter amazement, the organic unity: the one true substance phenomenalized into a cosmos. From all the gods, or devas, to the earthworm, there was only the One Mind with its great compassion which acted to cancel out any vestige of exclusive differentiation. Hence, nothing could ever be excluded. In a manner of speaking, every cry the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara hears. Avalokitesvara is really our ultimate nature forgiving us our long journey into the maze of illusion and lamentation. It is then that we are poised to overcome the last and most subtle illusion.
Where is the dreamer inside a dream?
Posted by: cloudless | March 19, 2014 at 10:15 AM
What you perceive will move around over time - a strong clue that it's not as external as it feels.
"THAT was illusion, but THIS is real" - notice the grasping and the certainty. How can you possibly know which was the illusion. Perhaps this is too!!!
Sticking a label on it is seductive but it just gets in the way.
If you stub your toe it hurts. If someone two blocks away stubs their toe it doesn't hurt.
Posted by: Om nom nom | March 18, 2014 at 02:55 AM