We make this inquiry personal and too complicated. You are not questioning love, but your ideas of love. And that is all it is; questioning concepts given to you or created by you. You may want an everlasting love, or something of permanence, but what is it within you that needs anything to be permanent? Who is it that has something to lose?
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It seems to me there is that which seeks permanence because it knows it is there but cannot see it. A sense something is lost. Love places high on this seeking as it is deepest of what can be known. But in seeking,we step away from that which is sought.
Davidya,
It is important. The self believes in a permanence of some kind, but what is permanent? There are certainly ideas of permanence, but they have all been handed down to us. Beyond what we think, is there anything of any permanence?
This need for permanence may be the ultimate point in the creation of religions and ideas of the afterlife. The self desperately wants to go on in some form, and cannot even entertain the idea of the end of it all. One approach might be to create a system that explains what happens in order to give permanence to this all too finite existence.
I suppose if one is serious, they will have to cast out their ideas of permanence in order to see if it is really there. But I am not at all sure they will be happy with what they find.
For me, the inner silence has a deep sense of permanence to it. It is not some idea handed down. None of that met what was there. How it is “experienced” varies, but it continues. A common root, come to from many paths. It is no longer an emptiness but rather a fullness. An impulse arises and a vast play is expressed within That. But That remains.
The irony to me is that what we think is permanent is not. When we take away all the ideas and forms and thoughts, what we are left with is nothing. But that nothing turns out to be everything.
Davidya,
It all goes back into what we mean by that word, “permanence.” I now see what you mean, and although I would use a different word for what you have explained, I agree with you.
For many people, the problem might lie in the desire for a continuity of some kind; if the state they desire continues, all is well, but if it stops, it’s bad. Or, if they achieve what they think is that state, it is good, but if they do not, it is bad. And so on. If Takuin has an interest, it might be in finding out if anything is there, beyond all of that.
This may sound strange to some readers. I can never say, Yes it is this, and not that. But nothing can be made out of this state. One certainly may try to do so, but I suppose that has nothing to do with what is really here.
It is not something to be had, in the sense of an experience. It is not something you can simply remember and bring about. One might say it goes beyond the mental laws of physics for everyday experience (If that is a good phrase).
It can be a shame; one may have a feeling or a flash of emptiness, or whatever you want to call it, but then they go right back to what they were before. Then they spend the rest of their time doing things to try and bring it back. But I often wonder if they were doing anything at all when that state first arose?
Perhaps more precise attention is needed?
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