Ra Samye Ling Day 7
Sunday 3 p.m.
There are no sentient beings, Jack. I read this in a juju book a couple of years ago and I thought: What!? There are no sentient beings. A bit of a shock to put it mildly. Here was I telling myself every time I sat down to meditate that I was trying to gain enlightment for the sake of all sentient beings, and this joe says there are no sentient beings. He said you do the juju for long enough and you get a realisation that there are no sentient beings. Dearie me!
THERE ARE NO SENTIENT BEINGS!
I'm supposed, I think, to be combining bliss with emptiness. I get tons of bliss which is very nice, but the emptiness is something else.
No wonder the Big Indian didn't bother learning English. Not only would it have ended up with him having tons of stupid, frivolous conversations with flatheids, but there aren't really any good words in English for this kind of stuff. Emptiness isn't really a very good word to describe ... well, emptiness. If you want to know more about emptiness, google it.
Since I've been trying to get into emptiness a bit down here this time (since I've already got ra bliss), I keep harking back to a realisation I had of non-self and emptiness ten years ago.
It was the year Shiva and I went to India and Nepal, really the end of a great period, and the start of a more moody one. I came back from Nepal addicted to tobacco again after kicking it (again!) for two and a half years. That Christmas I met Lama Yeshe for the first time and he said I needed a guru. I thought this wasn't much use to me till I gave up tobacco and that took me six years. Dearie me! What a waste of time that was! If someone like Lama Yeshe says you need a guru, jump into his lap straight away!
Before I went to Nepal, I had a mega realisation of non-self and emptiness. Yes, it's in The Buddha and the Big Bad Wolf! This involved a loss of phemonenal ego and a seeing of wholeness in flow, oneness. It was an awesomely powerful sight! Felt dead true, but inexplicable in words, as if you'd gained special knowledge, the whole mystical experience for ten seconds out of clock time.
How can nothing exist outside your own mind? That's what kicked it off. I got the big mind, like a gigantic supporting consciousness, immanent in the universe and through everything. The Big Mind.
I keep coming back to that event because I think it's made doing these analytical meditations a bit easier for me. Well, I might not understand emptiness, but I have seen it.
The Essential of Mahamudra, which I've read since I got here, says these analytical meditations can bring you complete enlightenment. They're for joes and josephines who can't hole up in caves doing deity yoga and all that stuff, I guess. I explained, or tried to, in an earlier post this week about doing the calming meditations and then doing these analytical ones. Understanding emptiness isn't what the game's about. Emptiness is dead logical. It's easy to understand. I can't really at the moment think of a way to explain what a realisation of it is though you'd know it if you had it!
I really like this postcard of the medicine Buddha. I've gazing at in in the middle temple this morning. It's about eleven o clock. So I do the bit when you find the false sense of self, or try to, and negate it. Then you try to get into the object you're looking on and you manage to decide that this a combination of appearance and emptiness. So are you.
Then you start looking for mind. It's like space. It's everywhere. It's has the quality of luminosity (which means it's knowing. English words again!). So it's empty and "knowing". Everything is of the same nature of mind and nothing is separate from it. Mind is empty and so is everything else. I think that's how it goes.
Everything in your visual field is a mixture of emptiness and appearance. Form is empty: Emptiness is form.
Sentient beings arise as appearance and emptiness, inseparable from mind. They arise, they abide and they decline in mind.
I think that's when it hit me. There are no sentient beings, Jack. There's the Big Mind and phenomena arise in it, abide in it, and decline in it, inseparable from it!
Still doing my head in, Jack.
There is no Buddha. There is no Dharma. There is no Sangha. And there is no Heart Sutra!!
I think I started meditating about twenty two years ago.
It seemed like quite a big realisation when it happened, but it's only a wee one. When I get home, I'll go to my hut every morning I can and try to re-inforce it.
Yes, there is no dharma! There is no Hotboy! There are no sentient beings. We arise and decline like waves inseparable from the ocean of mind.
Whenever I come here, I always think I get a wee present from the lama. That might be it. After twenty odd years (read this blog, Jack, and you could do it in five! No bother!), I guess that's the end of the beginning. Or game, set and match. I've got the teeshirt now, Jack. THERE ARE NO SENTIENT BEINGS!
It's bye, bye for now from RaBlissBlog. And over and out from HotboyMadyamika who's off to the temple to surf the oceans of bliss!!!
There are no sentient beings, Jack. I read this in a juju book a couple of years ago and I thought: What!? There are no sentient beings. A bit of a shock to put it mildly. Here was I telling myself every time I sat down to meditate that I was trying to gain enlightment for the sake of all sentient beings, and this joe says there are no sentient beings. He said you do the juju for long enough and you get a realisation that there are no sentient beings. Dearie me!
THERE ARE NO SENTIENT BEINGS!
I'm supposed, I think, to be combining bliss with emptiness. I get tons of bliss which is very nice, but the emptiness is something else.
No wonder the Big Indian didn't bother learning English. Not only would it have ended up with him having tons of stupid, frivolous conversations with flatheids, but there aren't really any good words in English for this kind of stuff. Emptiness isn't really a very good word to describe ... well, emptiness. If you want to know more about emptiness, google it.
Since I've been trying to get into emptiness a bit down here this time (since I've already got ra bliss), I keep harking back to a realisation I had of non-self and emptiness ten years ago.
It was the year Shiva and I went to India and Nepal, really the end of a great period, and the start of a more moody one. I came back from Nepal addicted to tobacco again after kicking it (again!) for two and a half years. That Christmas I met Lama Yeshe for the first time and he said I needed a guru. I thought this wasn't much use to me till I gave up tobacco and that took me six years. Dearie me! What a waste of time that was! If someone like Lama Yeshe says you need a guru, jump into his lap straight away!
Before I went to Nepal, I had a mega realisation of non-self and emptiness. Yes, it's in The Buddha and the Big Bad Wolf! This involved a loss of phemonenal ego and a seeing of wholeness in flow, oneness. It was an awesomely powerful sight! Felt dead true, but inexplicable in words, as if you'd gained special knowledge, the whole mystical experience for ten seconds out of clock time.
How can nothing exist outside your own mind? That's what kicked it off. I got the big mind, like a gigantic supporting consciousness, immanent in the universe and through everything. The Big Mind.
I keep coming back to that event because I think it's made doing these analytical meditations a bit easier for me. Well, I might not understand emptiness, but I have seen it.
The Essential of Mahamudra, which I've read since I got here, says these analytical meditations can bring you complete enlightenment. They're for joes and josephines who can't hole up in caves doing deity yoga and all that stuff, I guess. I explained, or tried to, in an earlier post this week about doing the calming meditations and then doing these analytical ones. Understanding emptiness isn't what the game's about. Emptiness is dead logical. It's easy to understand. I can't really at the moment think of a way to explain what a realisation of it is though you'd know it if you had it!
I really like this postcard of the medicine Buddha. I've gazing at in in the middle temple this morning. It's about eleven o clock. So I do the bit when you find the false sense of self, or try to, and negate it. Then you try to get into the object you're looking on and you manage to decide that this a combination of appearance and emptiness. So are you.
Then you start looking for mind. It's like space. It's everywhere. It's has the quality of luminosity (which means it's knowing. English words again!). So it's empty and "knowing". Everything is of the same nature of mind and nothing is separate from it. Mind is empty and so is everything else. I think that's how it goes.
Everything in your visual field is a mixture of emptiness and appearance. Form is empty: Emptiness is form.
Sentient beings arise as appearance and emptiness, inseparable from mind. They arise, they abide and they decline in mind.
I think that's when it hit me. There are no sentient beings, Jack. There's the Big Mind and phenomena arise in it, abide in it, and decline in it, inseparable from it!
Still doing my head in, Jack.
There is no Buddha. There is no Dharma. There is no Sangha. And there is no Heart Sutra!!
I think I started meditating about twenty two years ago.
It seemed like quite a big realisation when it happened, but it's only a wee one. When I get home, I'll go to my hut every morning I can and try to re-inforce it.
Yes, there is no dharma! There is no Hotboy! There are no sentient beings. We arise and decline like waves inseparable from the ocean of mind.
Whenever I come here, I always think I get a wee present from the lama. That might be it. After twenty odd years (read this blog, Jack, and you could do it in five! No bother!), I guess that's the end of the beginning. Or game, set and match. I've got the teeshirt now, Jack. THERE ARE NO SENTIENT BEINGS!
It's bye, bye for now from RaBlissBlog. And over and out from HotboyMadyamika who's off to the temple to surf the oceans of bliss!!!
posted by Hotboy at 3:01 PM
19 Comments:
I hope you have smooth sailing on the ocean of bliss Hotboy!
Nice to hear from you, Lee Ann. This bloggy stuff this week might be a bit hard on non-buddhists! I'll be out of here in two hours. Hope the train/bus connections all work, but frankly I don't care if they don't. Been a wonderful week! Hotboy
I say!
Rather dense postings, old chap. Best read before the first sundowner.
MM III
Mingin'! Nice of you to drop by! Yes, a bit dense. Really mingin' if one is also a bit dense. Fortunately, it seems we have minds the size of everything possible! Hotboy
not dense at all, actually.
I haven't read your blog in a long time....I've got my own bliss-less surfing to do.....but this time you read differently. I have never believed (newly bearded) sensei when he said I didn't exist, but when you said it - well, unexplainable. Forward, into the emptiness!
Hi Michi! Always pleased to hear from you! It doesn't matter if "There are no sentient beings" is true or not. Does it help you get rid of the disturbing emotions? Makes them seem a bit pointless anyway! Hotboy
hugs and kisses
Lee Ann! I could stop writing this blog, or I could write this blog just for you. There's no one else really showing an interest, or such an interest. Thanks for always paying attention. You're surrounded by ra bliss in Alabama! You certainly are! Hotboy!
I'm guessing the big indian is from Cuckoo's Nest?
The bliss is good. A shame about the emptiness. Why didn't you just ask someone to tell you you're full of it? That would have helped. But here's some Socratic help:
If nothing exists outside your mind, surely the bliss surrounding Lee Ann in Birmingham is by definition all in the mind?
But whose mind?
Yours or hers?
Or mine?
Or the mind in the sky?
Is this blog all in my mind?
Does my mind exist?
Or is it all in my mind?
Help required.
Something's changed, hasn't it?
You're not the same since you went to Samye Ling.
Adolf! Zeig! Your neck must be a bit better. Mind the mind. There is something out there, so we're maybe not doing nihilism. What is out there is an interesting question. If you look at a flower, your individual mind must come first since it takes a nono-second for the flower to register, surely, in your perceptions. The trick is to realise that you and the flower arise simultaneously, I think, in a bigger mind. Mind like space pervades everything and is by it's nature empty and also "luminous". It has a knowing quality. Whether this is "true" or not doesn't matter. There is the emptiness of emptiness! Anyway, it's very liberating since your disturbing emotions can be dealt with in this philosophy and eradicated somewhat. This should make you happier! You could call mind God. You arise in God; you abide in God; you decline in God. You have the same nature: emptiness. So what are you worried about? Who's worried.
I was meditating about ten hours a day at the Samye and not drinking or taking drugs. That's what makes a difference. I'll be back! Hotboy
My best friend's mother goes Samye Ling...her name is Pat, and she has polio which affects her left arm and leg...might you know her?
I am probably too dense to understand your posts fully...but i enjoy them nevertheless!
Lelly: I've been too skint to go to the Samye Ling much over the last year. I'll look out for her the next time I'm there though. These posts were written in a big rush and the "no sentient beings" stuff is hard to explain (for me anyway!). You could start with your computer. Is it a single thing? You know it's made up of bits, but it appears to you as a single thing probably. Where is the computer then? Has to be in your mind. Where else could it be? Hotboy
Hi Beesucker! What joy that you have arrived here again! I'm thinking of giving up ra blogging! But there is a very nice photie of lee ann facing me, but the rest might be self indulgent! Hotboy.
If you spell literary right in your header...it might help a little bit! :P Just sayin!
Thanks for stopping by and HHNT
HB - your blog seems to have become a pit stop on the HNT trail, as well as a bliss centre.
Thanks for your generous offer re the meditation for my sick woman. If we do it, I'll let her know. Does the 5 minutes start before or after I calm myself down with the breathing? I thought I'd visualise her happiness, rather than a miracle cure. BTW, she's a wee woman called Betty.
lelly - are we too dense, or too smart?
barefoot - I'm glad somebody said that, at last.
PS can we start with five minutes and see how it goes? I'll do some now, but it'll probably be mostly just me watching my breathing etc.
Adolf! Zeig! What's a header? Are we back to the football. It's harder to spell when you drink beer! Okay, I'll do some juju for Betty then. I'll do ten minutes as soon as I'm off the computer. Tell me when you do some and I'll do double (since I'll be doing it anyway!) It might not help, but it would help you! Hotboy
Barefoot mistress: Thanks! Literally illiterate! That's me. Never noticed that before! Hotboy
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