RIVERFLOW

Without certain inherited epistemological assumptions, there can be no meta-physics. 

Metaphysics is a error.  But it’s an interesting error which must be examined in order to let it go.

Reflecting on the meaning of Avalokiteshvara’s name, “The one who hears the cries of the world”—the Bodhisattva of compassion.  Listening deeply to someone’s inmost thoughts is itself compassion.  All compassion begins with listening. 

And one cannot listen without emptying themselves first, allowing the one who is trying to articulate their own thoughts to be.  Not putting words in another’s mouth, nor in “trying to help” with even the best of intentions, but just letting them be—without trying to change them into something other than who they are in that very moment.  Intention no longer matters.  The deep, compassionate listening of Avalokiteshvara arises in the freedom of emptiness, in simply being present for that being who suffers.

Still polishing that tile to make a mirror: another day full of failure, chasing this, running away from that, looking like an idiot, I’m sure.  Only in my quieter moments do I finally sense something on the periphery, but I can’t say what. I can only smile, laugh at my own absurdity, and polish that tile again—I have not yet exhausted all my delusions!

When all conditions are accepted with equanimity, they are no longer conditions.

Dukkha arises by depending on certain conditions (usually “external”) in order to attain some kind of happiness.  Thus our desire for happiness is a desire for certain conditions.  Doing so will inevitably lead to failure and disappointment.

Pessimism is a primitive solution to this disappointment, which is only a more subtle dependence on certain conditions for happiness, albeit a “negative happiness.”  In such a case of “sour grapes,” certain conditions are rejected or overlooked.

Both cases of positive and negative happiness rely on clinging or rejecting.  In the course of a day, we usually resort to a combination of both, depending on the circumstances.  Our methods of clinging and rejection are rarely consistent, but ever changing along with the myriad conditions that arise and pass.

One of the problems with all this chasing and resisting is that we mentally add something extra to the phenomena that we participate in.  This extra shapes our experience toward positive and negative attitudes.  We rarely, if ever fully accept a moment for only what it is: just a moment which arises and passes.  Mindfulness is a way to train oneself to let go of that “extra” and to let the moment be precisely what it is, nothing less and nothing more.

That “extra” is the delusion of a happiness which we are deeply convinced depends on certain conditions.  It isn’t wrong to say that the practice of the Buddhadharma brings happiness, but this happiness is not a common, conditional happiness.  More precisely, it is peace.  It is making peace with oneself and the conditions—whatever they might be—that surround oneself.  That peace cannot be found by clinging to or rejecting conditions, but by learning to accept them all with equanimity.

In such a context, conditions are no longer even “conditions” but merely the arising and passing of phenomena.  This does not mean that events in the world have changed, but rather that the world is no longer seen from the perspective of a particular ego in a particular time and place bound to particular conditions.

It isn’t that there is actually is a reified, independent and permanent self which clings to actual conditions—rather this “self” is the very act of clinging.  The self is dukkha.  Equanimity then is the letting go of this self—and consequently, the letting go of all conditions as conditions.  

And this wisdom of equanimity is, in turn, linked with the compassion of unconditional love.

My understanding of karma and rebirth in relation to the Middle Way: Because there is no independently existing self-entity, there is no “self” which is annihilated by death.  For that very same reason, there is likewise no “self” which continues eternally as a permanently existing self-entity.  If the self is in actuality impermanent and dependent on a vast number of causes and conditions from one moment to the next, then this “self” can only be described as possessing a relational existence rather than an essential one.

What arises in rebirth is not an essentialized identity (i.e. reincarnation).  What arises instead is a relational consciousness: a nexus of karmic causality which is not a permanent and independently existing self-entity.  Every intentional action sets in motion a multitude of causes and conditions which, combined with many other causes and conditions, determines how that future consciousness may experience suffering in another life.

There is no separate consciousness—rather, all consciousnesses are ontologically bound together, seamless.  One does not possess a “future life” but rather one participates in its arising in the future.  For the same reason, “past lives” were not “me,” but rather they participate in this current life.  In the same sense, “my” karma is not “mine.”  The connection between reborn lives are not “psychic” but ontological.  Therefore, compassion should not only be extended spatially in this life, but also extended temporally to all future lives that may result from the actions of individuals, indefinitely into the future. 

Each moment in your fleeting life is part of one long dream.  To train yourself in mindfulness is to learn how to dream with lucidity: you alone possess choice to make this dream a pleasant one or an unpleasant one.

I am considering creating a second Tumblr as a sort of “Introduction to Buddhism 101” where I would post things of a less complex nature.  This blog is more of a journal to articulate my own thoughts to myself, but I could create a additional one to address the questions of beginners. 

I am not a teacher, but a student too.  But what little I have gained may be of help to others new to Buddhism.

Thoughts anyone?

     an old willow
catches the wind
     lets it go

     carelessly
sprouting here & there
     dandelions

Awakened compassion is not a result of wisdom of awakening, nor does the practice of compassion result in wisdom.  It only seems to be the case that wisdom and compassion are different but perhaps related aspects of the Buddhadharma. 

This is reflected in the Two Truths doctrine.  The relative corresponds to compassion and the absolute corresponds to wisdom.  Neither one sequentially causes the other, nor does one negate the other.  Compassion and wisdom are not two, but rather the identical expression of tathata, thusness. 

In perfect realisation, compassion is wisdom, and wisdom is compassion.  Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.