November Project: Question #27
This short exchange comes from Facebook, and it references the previous post, What Do You Believe?
I have tried to envision the world from your perspective. And your perspective from my perspective is:
You see that people see glimpses of enlightenment, and they “know” it. But we are so fondly attached to our human-ness that we can’t, don’t want to, or just decide to not “let go” of that part of ourselves.
Well, not only that, but when one catches the glimpse, it is impossible to hang onto it.
There is a certain recurring tendency; one has the experience and immediately wants it to continue, so one remembers the feeling and starts chasing the memory of the thing, which is not the actual thing one might have experienced.
It is just one of those strange things…it is for the best to not care if that feeling continues or not. Once you chase the memory, you are out of it, and one just goes from feeling to feeling trying to capture the original.
If you really look at this, you can see the issue. The original feeling was beyond memory. In other words, you did not have to do anything to experience it, and you didn’t even know whether or not it might be important at all. But once you hope to capture it, you are out of it.
Liberation is not about recapturing the ‘right’ feeling, or following a specific set of rules or regulations. It is beyond all of that.
The Bridge
Maybe for you it wasn’t a choice? You see how beautiful human beings are from the outside. I feel like I see how beautiful being human is from the inside.
Not a choice, yes…
On the one hand, it is like walking a rickety wooden bridge and one of the slats breaks. You can hop over it with no problem. You can even go back. Nothing has really changed, apart from being able to see the ground a bit easier.
But the other hand is like crossing the bridge successfully, then it breaks behind you, completely destroyed. There is no going back…
This doesn’t change the beauty inherent in all living things, but you will see it without question. It removes the interference once keeping you blind.
…but I know the world you see is the one I will ultimately know … and I guess I’m just holding on as long as I can, because once I am there, I will not be here anymore.
I suppose you can put it that way. You will not be there any longer. But that does not mean you’ll be careless, or devoid of anything apart from your own ‘interference’ with life, if that is the right way to put it.
Most of us will live somewhat long lives before death arrives. It is probably for the best that we keep moving forward, and not hide ourselves in old, pleasing memories of what once was.
Thanks for your interaction and your seriousness…
{ 6 comments }
“This doesn’t change the beauty inherent in all living things, but you will see it without question. It removes the interference once keeping you blind.”
The interference makes itself visible thrugh thoughts, right? Please tell if thoughts have lessened after the accident.
Thanks, a.
The interference itself is part of thought. But it is the part of thought, thinking it is separate from the rest.
We shouldn’t look at thought in this way. You can’t really ‘count’ thought, so the idea of less or more does not apply. There is simply thought.
I know, because there is this tendency to jump from one thought to another to another, it seems like they are separate thoughts. But are they really separate?
Don’t think of thought as a single subject one holds in mind; think of it in terms of a movement, if we can put it that way.
What is important is the interference…the little bit of thought, thinking it is in control and separate. But it is all a part of the same movement.
May be I’d like to ask you if the movement is shorter in yur case. It is this movement that makes life kind of horizontal. Is this movement less in your case?
Thanks, a.
Well…it is not seen as a scale. Or maybe I should say, it doesn’t appear to move outward in any particular direction.
For some, they might think of it as a road extending outward from them. That road, or that horizontal plane, is thought. The track of thought. The boulevard of thought. It is solid, and you can more or less see where it is going, what it is doing, what you will do, or whatever. And it also seems like a road that never stops, never ends, and you are bound to stay with it, otherwise you’ll be lost.
For Takuin, it is not like a horizontal plane extending outward. It is more like walking outside in the snow. Sometimes, as the snow falls from the sky, it hits you. Sometimes it doesn’t. That is thought to Takuin.
When the road is needed, it will appear. But no one is ever bound to obey the road. It is a tool we can use; it does not have to use us.
Takuin-
I have never given any serious thought to thought, but when I read your response to a., my first thought is that thought is like water. No starting or ending point, unless interrupted by an “object” that can interrupt it (land, a fish, etc.), but otherwise endlessly flowing here and there.
What a lovely thought!
~ Nomi
Thank you, Nomi.
Yes…and the interference is like the ocean trying to stand in the ocean, using a bucket to try and separate the water from the rest of itself.
Maybe that is the right way to say it?
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