tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46147182197515222662024-03-08T01:18:14.117-08:00Speaking of ConsciousnessRudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-53422361275898955792013-11-22T17:15:00.001-08:002013-11-22T17:15:19.491-08:00PHENOMENOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO DZOGCHENSelf Liberation Through Phenomenology and Dzogchen, Essays<br />
<br />
By Rudolph Bauer, Phd Wed, Oct 23, 2013 Rudolph Bauer Ph.D., Author<br />
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Phenomenology is the study of different kinds of giveness, the giveness of experience.There are various ways of being open to experiencing the world and the phenomena of the world. The phenomena and the objects of the world and the world itself can be experienced and perceived more or less directly and more or less in the present. The phenomena, the objects of the world and within the world as the world, can be experienced more or less in breadth and depth, and more or less in obviousness and more or less in subtlety. The world can be experienced more or less in translucidity and more or less in darkness, and more or less in openness and more or less in hiddenness, and more or less concealed and more or less unconcealed. There are many ways of experiencing the world and objects of and in the world which are the appearances of the world.<br />
MULTIDIMENSIONAL<br />
And most amazingly the phenomena of the world can be experienced in its many different dimensions. Truly we live in a multidimensional world and we are multidimensional beings in a mutlidimenisional world, a multidimensional cosmology. Multidimensional beings have multidimensional views and multidimensional experience. Experiencing through awareness and through the mind the various dimensions of our experience is the essence of phenomenology and the meditative awareness practice. Experiencing the phenomena of awareness both within ourselves as our own being and within the beings around us opens to us the multidimensionality of everything and everyone. Experiencing through mind alone is very different than experiencing within awareness. And since the mind can be integrated within this awareness such experience has its own difference than being located in either mind or awareness alone.<br />
Our capacity to perceive the world in its various dimensions has been reflected upon for centuries in meditative cultures. And this experience of various dimensions of phenomena and the world of phenomena is confirmed by contemporary quantum physics and science .We know this is a multidimensional world and universe. All of the modes of giveness, appearance and experience are related. There is relationship intimately between and within them. The awakened modes of experience and appearance vary in light of their ability to give to us and our ability to enter into and penetrate the phenomena of the world as directly and clearly as possible. The phenomena can be given and experienced more or less directly and more or less translucently. This means that our experience of the giveness of phenomena opens us to more or less of the various infinite dimensions of the phenomena and the infinite dimensions of the world. Phenomena itself is awakened as is so eloquently described in the Guhyagarbha tantra. By world I mean the universe of experience everywhere and within everyone and everything, from the most subtle to the most gross. Our own level of perception gives us and opens to us to the levels of the giveness of phenomena, and the multileveledness of phenomena opens us to our own dimensional perception. Truly this unfolding is a co- emergent process. Awakened awareness is co-emergent within awakened phenomena. Awakened awareness is within an awakened world. This is the essential understanding of contemporary Dzogchen and contemporary phenomenology.<br />
There is the awakened giveness of phenomena of appearance which opens us to our capacity to experience the different dimensions of presence. From the presence of a spatio temporal object concrete in its manifestations to the very beingness of the being of that object. From the presence of color and size and shape of an object, to the subtle energy of the object being manifested as an object in the field of being as a being. And so the different dimensions of the world that manifest to us in their giveness and their appearance reflect different dimensions of reality and of existence. The giveness of appearance reflects the different dimensions of the Beingness of Being in its manifestation and in its non manifestation. The giveness of the phenomenological configurations of the field reflect the field’s giveness as configurations, as an object and as an object configuration.<br />
OBJECTIFIED OR SUBJECTIVITY<br />
The phenomena of the appearance of the human can be experienced as an object among other objects. If the mind of the perceiver is objectifying and objectified itself by itself, then the otherness of an objectified human will be experienced. And the phenomena of the appearance of human subjectivity can be experienced and given to another human being if the other human being is in their own dimension of subjectivity within their innermost awareness which has no shape or form but is known in the wonderful co-emergent process of becoming aware of awareness in oneself and in the other. Truly awareness meets awareness...inside meets inside. The unfolding of intersubjectivity is mutually co emergent. Subjectivity is the primordial openness of awareness in time and space in the continuum of mind and body. Intersubjective is the openness passing through the openness of the other.<br />
APPEARANCE OF WORLD AS OPENNESS<br />
Phenomenology focuses on the appearance of the world and its various dimensions. Phenomenology is an experiential understanding of our experience of phenomena in and of the world. It allows us and presents to us the different dimensions of the world of reality and the actuality of the world. So, depending on the phenomena experienced, the reality and actually of the world shifts in profound and bewildering ways. As we phenomenologically become aware of awareness, the nature of awareness is experienced as openness, spaceousness. Experiencing this openness within one’s own self the openness within the world itself becomes more apparent.<br />
APPEARANCE AS AN UNHAPPY ILLUSION<br />
Buddhist idealists as well as Hindu Vedic idealists declare that the world is an illusion or delusion and is not real. What is real is the nothingness or spaciousness of the dharmakaya dimension or in the language of the Hindu, the dimension of shiva, the spaceous void. This understanding both comes from the experience of the masters of<br />
meditation who use direct perception of meditative experience and also from the scholastic traditions in both Vedic and Buddhist religions. The Buddhist traditions used madhyamika reasoning as well as other forms of idealistic philosophy of logic. In a sense this reasoning is used to point out the unreality of the immediate situation and the conclusion is that things do not exist and also do exist and that they neither exist or neither do they not exist - a rather deconstructional stew that would even bewilder Derrida about what is or is not in this idealistic enframing. It is as if the language negates itself in the very speaking...and so what is left is only an aphasic experience. By aphasic I mean nothing can be said, nothing can be affirmed, and nothing can be thought.<br />
This kind of deconstructionist thinking not only points out the impermanence of composite reality but moreover makes the attribution about the illusion of all appearance and the illusion of one’s self, and the illusion of experience and the illusion of the experiencer. This illusionary way of thinking is challenged by phenomenology in this matter of appearance and reality. Contemporary phenomenology has a great deal to offer Dzogchen’s presentation and understanding in this multidimensional and contemporary world.<br />
THE UNHAPPY BELIEF IN THE ILLUSIONARYNESS OF LIFE<br />
For the most part, many people simply believe these delusionary statements and attributions and work and live within this illusionary belief system with its advantages and disadvantages, including, at times the resulting problems of bonding and problems of schizoid like detachment. The well-established psychology of bonding is overcome by the nonattachment and nonbonding of detachment ethics. This kind of belief system over time structures both a personal and cultural viewpoint that can foreclose experience, invalidate experience and negate the very narrative schema of life’s experience. For many Buddhist idealists experience itself does not count and is without validity. In fact the world does not count. The phenomenological experience is without signification. As some Buddhist writers have said “phenomena never were and never will be”.<br />
Unhappily the experiential question arises as to whom or for what is the great compassion if everything is illusion. Is compassion itself illusion? Does the great compassion manifest illusions? Is this the sport of consciousness...illusion for illusion sake. And from within whom does compassion arise? And for whom does compassion arise? Is compassion an experience? Is there an experiencer of givingness of compassion? And is there a whom who receives the gift of compassion?<br />
In actuality the positiveness in which many Buddhist masters and students live is the manifestation of the indestructible compassion in action, confirming the worth- whileness of life, the validity of human experience, and the validity of the archetypical powers. The power and indestructibility of awareness and the manifestations of all of this vast human action goes far beyond the madhyamika and the idealistic philosophical view of life, the world and action. The actual action goes far beyond this philosophical muted view of human experience.<br />
MANIFESTATION OF WORLD AND MANIFESTATION OF SELF<br />
Phenomenology is the study of experience of the world and the phenomena of appearance both as the manifestation of the world and the manifestation of sense of self. Contemporary phenomenology can present the light of actuality and reality on these idealistic ruminations and solipsistic attributions about the invalidity all of human experience.<br />
PHENOMENOLOGY UNDOES ILLUSION OF IDEALISM and UNDOES THE VIEW OF MECHANICNISTIC REALISM<br />
Phenomeology challenges certain forms of western realism that sees beings as entities and thinks of Being itself as a kind of ontic entity. For western realism Being itself is a<br />
kind of Big Being, a Big entity...the Biggest of all the beings...a super Being. And for some Being is understood as the totality of all the little beings or the Big Being is thought of as source of all the beings. For the concrete realist all the beings including the Big Being is an entity. Human beings are entities and God is itself the Biggest entity; an entity beyond the other entities but entity nonetheless. The big entity Deus is the cause of all the little entities. And all the entities including the Big entity and the little entities only have knowledge through mediation of language and priesthoods of some form. For many, Knowledge is a function of belief and not direct experience. For phenomenology knowledge is a function of direct experience.<br />
For phenomenology Being is not a being among other beings. Being is not a being. And Being is not an entity. In this way Being is no -thingness and nonetheless Being allows beings to be and Being manifests the Beingness of Being in all the beings. BEING itself is empty or openness, radiant openness luminous openness. If one wants one could easily come to understand and come to think that Being is Deus. If one also wishes, one could easily understand Being as the dharmakaya manifesting the Beingness of being of sambogakaya and the beingness of the beings of nirmanakaya. And also if one wishes to come to understand that Being is shiva and the manifestation of Being of the various tattvas and realities as shakti.<br />
The masterful phenomenologist, Heidegger, takes awareness of the experience of appearance as the source of knowningness. He states that the discursive mind alone in its discursive conceptualization can easily become solipsistic and foreclose knowningness of the Beingness of beings. Dzogchen Masters and Shavite Masters have a similar understanding.<br />
MIND ALONE CANNOT GRASP THE BEINGNESS OF BEING AND CANNOT GRASP THE NATURE OF AWARENESS AS MANIFESTING SUBJECTIVITY IN THE CONTEXT OF MIND AND BODY<br />
Phenomenology challenges the view that there are no differences phenomenologically between perception and hallucination. Phenomenology also challenges the view thatthe giveness of experience does not depend on whether this object exists objectively and really or not. Phenomenology challenges the Buddhist views of the world as a<br />
hallucination or delusion. Phenomenology challenges the Buddhist invalidation of human experience.<br />
Initially, Husserl himself thought that phenomenology was not able to speak about the reality of phenomena and appearance as reality. This was a very limiting view and located Husserl in the idealistic discourse wherein he was locked within the transcendental hidden I; a hidden world and a hidden I. So solipsism seemed to be the initial fate of phenomenology. The phenomenology whose inspiration was to the things themselves was becoming locked in the box of the mind alone.<br />
HUSSERL’S EXPANDED VIEW: THE EPOCHE<br />
Happily, Husserl radically transformed phenomenology as he expanded the reduction and epoche to the suspension of mind, opened the phenomena of actuality to relational actuality.<br />
Husserl’s epoche and reduction allowed him to suspend the mind and enter into the experience and appearance of phenomena as they present themselves to us and within us. Based upon this phenomenological experience of the giveness to the field of awareness a reflection is possible. Reflection follows the prereflective experience of knowningness of phenomena. Reflection follows the prereflective awareness of the phenomena. Reflection follows the nonconceptual intuition of the giveness of phenomena. Phenomenology now focuses on giveness of experience and the knowningness of awareness. Gnosis has presidence. Direct perception has presidence. The phenomenologist now focuses on and within the dimension of appearance and giveness in order to reveal the inner structure of the experience of the world as the manifestation of phenomena. The shining of phenomena! Phenomenology elaborates the radical experience of the phenomena of the world in the light of their giveness and validity. From the givineness of experience a reflection and articulation emerges.<br />
SUBJECTIVITY AS AWARENESS, PRIMORDIAL AWARENESS IN MIND AND BODY<br />
The primordial giveness of experience takes place within subjectivity as knowingness. There is this primordial giveness to the experience of knowingness as the actual as it presents itself to us. Subjectivity itself is not an entity. Subjectivity is experienced within the entity of the mind and body, but subjectivity itself is no thing and has no form or shape...Subjectivity itself is primordial awareness manifesting in a particular time and place, and manifesting in a particular mind and body within the unfolding in a particular time and space. Subjectivity is the manifestation of primordial awareness in time and space. Subjectivity is timeless awareness manifesting in time and a locality of time.<br />
This awareness of awareness which phenomenology undertakes allows awareness not to be focused on mind alone but in becoming aware of itself, the awareness of subjectivity openness up as to what it actually is. Subjecitivity is awareness whose nature is spaceousness, energy, light as in illuminating. To say that the self does not exist is bewildering and is confusing in the lack of experiential clarity. It is true the mind and body exist termporally and that as mind and as body the human being is an entity, a composite. And that this entity exists for a certain limited time . It is also true that the human being is also subjectivity within mind and body appearing in time and space. It is also true that this basic subjectivity that is not contained in mind alone is openness, vast spaceousness, luminousity and pervasive sense of oneness. This is the unborn and indestructible vajrakumara in dzogchen language. And moreover this subjectivity is mutldimenisonal as this subjectivity is awareness itself. This awareness is multidimensional and manifesting in time and space as the nirmanakaya manifestation of awareness emanating as flesh, the world of the human, the world as desire. It is also true that this very same awareness is the archetypical dimension that is luminously energetic and is power that is ontologically prior to the dimension of flesh. It is also true that this very same subjectivity is the manifestation of the primordial awareness itself that is unbound and infinite in its dimensions. Pure Subjectivity is the manfestation in time and space of the dharmakaya. Pure subjectivity is the manifestation of the dharmakaya in time and space. As Husserl would so often declare: ‘what is the wonder of all wonders pure consciousness and the door way is our own subjectivity!’<br />
MEDIATED KNOWLEDGE AND UNMEDIATED DIRECT EXPERIENCE<br />
There are two different ways of understanding. There is the understanding of the analytic objectified knowledge and the direct non-conceptual lucid knowing experience of appearance of reality that can then be reflected upon and articulated. Understanding is direct experience followed by articulation; reflected articulation. This is the science of phenomenology, the science of awareness.<br />
REALITY AS THE PHENOMENAL AND THE ACTUAL<br />
The epoche and the reduction are methods of Husserl’s phenomenology. Phenomenology does not exclude the actual world from being known and phenomenology is concerned with meaning of beings and with Being itself. For phenomenology there is no gap between meaning and the experience of beings. Even Being itself is a focus of phenomenology. From the phenomenological point of view, the actuality of Being and beings is the natural focus of awareness.<br />
Later Husserl maintains that the epoche is used to suspend a certain dogmatic mind enframing towards the appearance of reality. The suspension allows us to focus more directly on the experience of multidimensional reality just as it is given. Epoche releases prejudice, releases enframing that is containing appearance and containing the experience of appearance of reality, not an exclusion of reality. The suspension opens us to be able to approach the experience of the giveness of appearance and the manifestations of objects as phenomena and as realities. Suspension of mind allows for a disclosure and unconcealment of what is given and the possibility of what is to be given. To speak of the sense and manifestations of the real in this context is to validate the giveness and significance of the multidimensionalness of phenomena and the reality<br />
of appearance. Suspension of the mind allows the explicit use of the instrument of direct perception which is vast and subtle and can meet the vastness and subtlety of the various dimensions that are presented and given to us as reality and actuality. Suspension allows for gazing to manifest.<br />
Phenomenology as method through the suspension of mind and the openness of the gaze allows a way of experiencing and consequent reflective thinking of beings and the Beingness of the world as actuality. Here, situated in the field of awareness one loses nothing of their own being and is able to enter into the depth and breadth of the multidimensionality of world and otherness. Through awareness one enters nonduality within duality, and through duality into nonduality.<br />
BEYOND IDEALISM AND BEYOND MIND ALONE<br />
To perform the epoche and the reduction is to activate awareness of awareness and to be able to experience the various dimensionality of actuality. Phenomenology does not stop at the focus on mental content and ideation. To stop at mental content and ideation alone is to take a path that leads to becoming located in idealism and solipsism. Phenomenology overcomes Self enclosed ideation of mind alone. In fact to perform the suspension of mind does not imply any loss of relatedness to realness. The phenomenological attitude makes completely possible the experience of reality through appearance and manifestation. In this way the very oneness of manifestation and subjectivity reveal the immanent oneness of the knower and the known<br />
THE EXPERIENTIAL BASIS OF PHENOMENOLOGY<br />
Phenomenology rejects analytic and those scholastic philosophies preoccupied with the construction of purely formal and logical hypothesis. This rejection is the same for contemporary analytic thinking as well as the Buddhist hyperlogic of negation such as the mahyamaka as well as the mentalization of hindu vedantic thinking. Phenomenology is in opposition to the mentalization that is experientially distant from the world and its<br />
manifestation. Phenomenology consistently returns to the experiential base of the giveness of phenomena and appearance which is the manifestation of the mutltidmenisonal actuality of which both the knower and the known are in oneness, primoridal oneness. Phenomenology is ultimately the method of direct perception which is gnosis or jnana. Husserl initially investigated direct perception as intuition and phenomenologists now understand intuition as gnosis or direct perception. This understanding was greatly influenced both by Heideggers and Merleau-Pontys work.<br />
APPEARANCE AND REALITY ARE NOT DIFFERENT ONTOLOGICALLY<br />
Phenomenology challenges the understanding that the world we live in might be nothing but an illusion. Husserl and Heidegger both came to understand that phenomenology being limited to the world of appearance as it is, in no way describes the world as illusion. Heidegger, Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty understood there is a prereflective oneness between us and the world, within us and the world. This prereflective oneness is the oneness of awareness. The oneness of awareness manifests as us and the world. This is the oneness of space, this is the oneness of light, this is the oneness of energy, this is the oneness of presence. There is this natural primordial nonduality from within which the duality of phenomena arises. Duality naturally arises out of nonduality. The duality of phenomena (the me and the you) arises out of the naturalness of the nonduality of primordial awareness. We can experience duality of phenomena within the nonduality of this primordial base of awareness. This relationship of duality, being and experience is not some kind of foundational mistake. The view of negation of view of Buddhism is completely unnecessary and reflects an alliance to tradition wherein from the beginning there was inadequacy of the use of language, the inadequacy of negation.<br />
We are in the world and our subjectivity is manifested in the oneness as world. Because of the innate perceived oneness the knower and the known, the natural ground of realization is possible to be experienced by all beings, with natural immediacy. There is no original sin or big mistake of hallucinating a world that does not exist.<br />
Heidegger says the fundamental question as to whether there is a world makes no sense since ‘dasein’ (awareness as the great expanse) is itself being in the world. The very asking is a manifestation of being in the world. The query is self-refuting since it presupposes that which it denies. This is also the understanding of the contemporary phenomenological neo thomist Jacque Maritan who consistently expresses the giveness of the world to human experience and that the knower and the known are essentially in oneness. If there is no prereflective oneness there could be no knowingness. Direct perception is the natural giveness of being in the world of the knower and known as knowingness itself.<br />
Just as phenomenology is concerned with meaning, it is concerned with appearance. How things appear, how they manifest and what significance they have, is an integral part of what they really are. To grasp the true nature of the object is to grasp how the object as world manifests and reveals itself to us. The reality of the object is not hidden behind or beyond the phenomenon, but unfolds itself in the phenomenon and as the phenomena. As Heidegger once put it, it is phenomenologically absurd to say of the phenomenon that it stands in the way of something more fundamental which it merely represents. Although the distinction between appearance and reality can be maintained, this is not a distinction between two separate realms. This distinction is internal to the dimensions of appearance. How the objects might appear in one gaze and how the objects appear in and through a more subtle gaze will manifest differences within the sameness. Different dimensions manifested by the same phenomena, different dimensions manifested through the same phenomena.<br />
For phenomenology the world that appears to us is the actual world although this world may consist of multidimensional realities and is infinite in its horizons. In this world there may exist hidden and concealed aspects of the world within the phenomenal world itself. Hidden and concealed dimensions of the world that allow the various appearances to differ depending upon their manifestation of the various experiential dimensions. There is more than one dimension to every experience. There is more than one view. Phenomenology has both horizontal and vertical dimensions of knowingness. The vertical represent ascendant states of the experiential field and horizontal represent relational states of the field. The two poles are completely contributory to the sense of<br />
stability and continuity of the awareness field. And the appearance of phenomena is temporal and the very manifestation is duration itself.<br />
AWARENESS AS THREE DIMENSIONS OF GIVENESS<br />
How can we think of the three dimensions of awareness or consciousness as the three kayas?<br />
Pure awareness in its spaceousness or great expanse Pure awareness as luminous radiance<br />
Pure awareness manifesting as the embodiments of the worlds<br />
We must think of phenomenological awareness as the three different modes of giveness. Each of the three kayas is a different mode of giveness or presentation. In a sense we can be aware of these different dimensions of awareness; the different manifestations of awareness, as different manifestations of giveness of appearance, the three dimensions of the one awareness, the three dimensions of giveness of the one awareness.<br />
The appearance of emptiness and spaciousness of the unmanifest The appearance of radiance and luminosity of the manifest<br />
The appearance of energy of the manifestation<br />
Thus there are different ways of becoming aware of awareness and there is a relation of manifestation between them. The appearance and manifestation of awareness has three dimensions or three manifestations. The first is nirmanakaya which is the world as it appears with its conventional appearance. The sambogakaya is the world as radiant light and energy and the dharmakaya is the un-manifest view of spaciousness, of potentiality.<br />
Depending upon what giveness or what view is being manifested multidimensionally, that will be the perception of the reality; of this multidimensional reality. Nirmanakaya<br />
will seem and be reality, sambogakaya will seem and be reality and dharmakaya will seem and be reality. From the dharmakaya view, only the dharmakaya dimension will be actuality. From the nirmanakaya view sambogakaya and dharmakaya are actuality and from the sambogakaya view, sambogakaya and dharmakaya are actuality. Each is real or actual in this multidimensional reality depending upon the view.<br />
Each view is contained within the other and present in the other in potential or in actuality. In dharmakaya everything is present in potentiality. In nirmanakaya everything is contained in actuality, namely sambogakaya and dharmakaya. The real or the actual is the manifestation of each kaya and so there are different realities or actualities in oneness. Existing or actuality is the manifestation of each reality, although each kaya implies a different mode of existing or different dimension of existence. Each implies a different level of subtleness and different kind of subtleness. Each reality is a different kind of actuality and yet all are the one reality of awareness or consciousness.<br />
From dharmakaya the others kayas are potential but may not be in actuality. From sambogakaya, dharmakaya is present in actuality and nirmanakaya only in potentiality. From nirmanakaya, both sambogakaya and dharmakaya are present in actuality.<br />
In meditative awareness one may have the experience of one or all of the kayas. All of the kayas are in oneness- in the same house, the one house with different floors or dimensions. One is not more real than the other and one is not less real than the other. There are three floors in the one house...there is only one house and within the house three different floors.<br />
The word “real” as it is often used in most Buddhist texts is a mixed and weak signifier. There is actually nothing signified within this linguistic structure of the word real. This aphasic view is normalized in Buddhist language, and in this normalization dissociation is normalized. In the truest sense the real is the actual as in the actuality of potential and the actuality of phenomena manifesting. The use of the word real as meaning inherent existence or eternal existence is an arbitrary attribution to the word real. Something can be composite, completely temporary and briefly real, briefly actual. To be in time does not destroy reality but actualizes real in time and as time. Time is the manifestation of the actual... Just as time is the manifestation of the great compassion. The statement<br />
that only emptiness is real is linguistically without signification and inaccurate in this contemporary language epoch.<br />
Such languaging of the real and unreal meaning delusion is more of a historical political and polemic statement reflecting a hopeful continuity of philosophical tradition with early Buddhist understanding and tradition. The path from Hinayanna to Mahayana to Vajrayana truly stretches the word real beyond all recognition. The quest of validity of view is a consistent quest and source of quarrels throughout Buddhist history and life. The sense of validity of thought and empowerment is based on the historical person of the Shakyamuni Buddha who died over 2500 years ago. Much of what he is attributed to have said takes place on the mythological dimension.<br />
Then there is the deconstruction frame of Nagarjuna and his relentless use of lack in his deconstruction of the actuality of experience and validity of person and the world. He uses Madhyamaka as a way of desconstructing the actuality of time and deconstructing the validity of a multidimensional view of reality with the use of the language of negation. Such as it is and is not, neither is nor is not, and never was. This is a way of using negation of language in speaking about the translucidity of the actual and its inclusive multidimensionality. This kind of muted language forecloses the actuality of the innateness of language as expression and manifestation of the primordial awareness itself. There is no logos. Phenomenology understands that language is the world and is the manifestation of reality itself. Language is the house of being. The Madhayamaka kind of aphasia forecloses the actuality of the Samadhi of syllables. This aphasic approach forecloses the sound dimension as well as the symbolic dimension of the vast multidimensional reality. This kind of presentation is a loss of and foreclosure of the power of logos, the power of awareness. Madhyamaka is the path of foreclosure.<br />
The Dzogchen understanding easily holds the multidimensional view and also contains the independence of the mind view as described by Longchenpa. The porousness of reality and its various dimensions are expressed in Dzogchen understanding , yet these teachings can be limiting and psychically unavailable to contemporary cultures because of the rhetoric of delusion and the declared unreality of experience. In this contemporary philosophical world, the reality of experience and perception must be<br />
taken into the formulation of Dzogchen. The reason is that naturalistic experience is so obvious and naturally validating. The way of negation and muteness of the symbolic and language function as being seemingly apart from the actuality of awareness itself is a step that actually mutes the experience of self-revelation which is the nature of the awareness itself. Self-revelation is the nature of the primordial guru. The way of muteness is a reflection of a view and way of life of rejection and foreclosure on human experience as valid with a language of melancholia, nihilism and solipsism.<br />
The phenomenological understanding of Dzogchen does not require that everything arises only out of the mind alone, as a kind of mental projection. In early Buddhism, there is no independence of mind reality. Outside of the mind alone nothing exists. There is no independent reality outside of the mind.<br />
Phenomenological understanding of Dzogchen does not require the belief that the world is an illusion which does not exist but rather that there are multiple realities within the same phenomena and within the same situation. Each of these realities depends upon the other in the sense of ontological priority but are different dimensions of actuality. Phenomena does exist in one dimension and in another dimension the phenomena may not yet experientially exist, may not be actualized, but only exist in potentiality.<br />
As the philosopher Brentano pointed out, there is physical reality or material reality and there is psychic reality-one is visible and one is invisible. They are two dimensions of experience. Because you cannot find or see the psychic does not mean it does not exist.<br />
UNIVOCACITY<br />
The non-Aristotelian view of one, one substance of the world and different manifestations does not trouble phenomenology. Or rather, the view that there is one essence and many different manifestations does reflect phenomenology. If by each manifestation you mean a different incidental essence with one ontological essence, this does and can reflect phenomenology. Phenomenology is the approach of univocity rather then analogy or equivocality. Univocity reflects the oneness of essence, of<br />
awareness, and the world of its manifestations. Univocity is the realization of equality consciousness and the purity of all beings.<br />
GAZE<br />
Awareness can become aware of its own self by the gaze turning back on the gaze. This is not the mind turning back on its self. The mind can reflect on itself and this self reflection can be the mind reflecting on itself, including its self as subject and its self as object. This is a self-object relationship. When awareness becomes aware of itself- when awareness becomes aware of awareness- this is the praxis of knowingness knowing knowingness. The full depth and breadth of awareness being aware of itself may require the awareness becoming its own object, awareness being aware of itself immanently. But this experience will never be objectified as it will never be thought. Awareness becomes aware of itself from within itself, immanently and intrinsically. When awareness focuses on itself it does not go outside itself to do so, awareness does not become otherness to itself. Rather awareness focuses within itself and through itself. Awareness locates itself within itself. It becomes itself in completeness and fullness.<br />
This self-manifestation of awareness can be a function of awareness gazing into awareness but this will be a non-mindful approach or a non-thoughtful or non- conceptual approach, hence there will be no objectification.<br />
So, first as method, there is the differentiation of the mind from awareness. Second, there is the experience of awareness as awareness wherein the recognition of awareness as a field phenomenon becomes manifest. This is a non-conceptual, clarity experience. This knowingness is without conceptualization and is direct perception. This perception of awareness of awareness in one’s self then allows for the perception of awareness in the other. Again this experience will be unmediated and come through the direct skills of the practitioner. The experience can be reflected upon, but the actual experience of knowingness knowing knowingness has actually taken place. This<br />
reflective step is the step of languaging what has taken place. Putting the experience to words places the experience in the representational continuum.<br />
Without the mind becoming separate from awareness, the mind reflecting on the mind will make this an objectified process of the thinking function. And this will be a self- object experience. The self will be conceptualized. When awareness becomes aware of its own self directly, this will not be a conceptual experience but a direct unmediated knowingness. Through this initial knowingness the kayas will present themselves phenomenologically: nirmakaya, sambogakaya and dharmakaya.<br />
LONGCHENPA: THE RELATION OF PHENOMENA TO MIND AND TO AWARENESS<br />
The Magical Realism of Longchenpa<br />
I will use the words of Longchenpa to describe his understanding of the relationship of mind to awareness. Longchenpa said “Are you not asserting everything to be mind? Let me clearly outline the distinction to be made. In general, if the world of appearance and possibilities (whether of samsara or nirvana) is explained to be awakened mind -which is awakened awareness, or awareness, or awareness field - what is meant is that phenomena are alike in that they do not waver from a single awareness, and they manifest naturally as they display dynamic energy and adornment of that awareness. They are manifestations of awareness, primordial awareness. In this sense they are considered to be the mind, just as one calls the rays of the sun “the sun” when one says sit in the midday sun.”<br />
Longchenpa continues “To hold that apparent phenomena are mind alone is to stray from me. The manifestation of primordial awareness is not the manifestation of mind alone. In ordinary speech some people hold apparent phenomena to be one’s own mind alone. They speak without defining the issues involved and commit error as ordinary mind and awakened awareness are not identical. Ordinary mind refers to the eight modes of consciousness and their associated mental events which together constitute the adventitious distortions affecting human beings in the three realms. Awakened awareness refers to awareness. Naturally occurring timeless awareness has no<br />
substance or characteristics, the basic space of all samsara and nirvana. Since the world of appearance and possibilities arises as the dynamic energy and display of awakened awareness, awakened awareness which is actually their cause is simply the label applied to them as the result. While that which manifests as samsara and nirvana is understood to be the dynamic energy of awareness, one should clearly further understand that awareness itself constitutes an unceasing ground for the arising of things although it has never existed as a thing, whether of samsara or nirvana.”<br />
Longchenpa continues on, ” apparent objects are understood to be clearly apparent yet ineffable and have never been mind alone. Empty yet clearly apparent, groundless, timeless and pure. When freedom occurs, the dynamic energy and display in being groundless are naturally pure which is like awakening from a dream. Thus one should know that self-knowing awareness without ever having wavered from its original state of natural rest. Unchanging dharmakaya is uncontaminated by any substance or characteristic.”<br />
Longchenpa elaborates that “the Dynamic energy is the creative potential of awareness and accounts for the fact that samsara and nirvana arise differently, just as the very same ray of sunlight causes a lotus to blossom to open and a night lily to close. Display is used in the sense of the radiance of awareness, displaying itself like a lamp, displaying itself as light or sun, displaying itself as sunbeams. Adornment refers to the fact that naturally manifest phenomena appearing in full array arise of themselves as adornment in light of awareness. This is similar to rainbows or the sun and moon being adornments of the sky.”<br />
“The essence of the dynamic energy is unceasing. Unceasing, non-dual and richly endowed. I have shown these to be the essence of display.” Longchenpa. These quotes I have used are from Longchenpa’s great text Words and Meaning.<br />
EVERYTHING IS THE MANIFESTATION OF AWARENESS<br />
Everything is a manifestation of awareness. Manifestation is the primordial giveness. There are three modes of giveness and three manifestations of awareness, or two with<br />
one mode being unmanifest. The manifest is the appearance of awareness. The appearance of the manifestation of awareness is in oneness with awareness. Appearance is ultimately the nondual oneness of awareness becoming manifest. To become aware of awareness is to become aware of the different modes of giveness. It is to become aware of the different manifestations as well as the unmanifested dharmakaya. Ultimately awareness is the actuality of awareness as nirmanakaya, the actuality of awareness as sambogakaya and the actuality of awareness as dharmakaya.<br />
To perceive the manifestation or the giveness of awareness is to experience the nondual oneness of awareness. All objects are configurations of and within the awareness field or manifestations of the awareness field. As dharmakaya the appearances are manifestations within spaciousness, and within radiance as sambogakaya and within the elements as nirmanakaya.<br />
Gazing is the manifestation of gnosis. Direct perception or gnosis is our way of knowing the giveness of awareness. So, gnosis itself has three modes as does the manifestation of primordial awareness.<br />
Gazing within opens the perception of the three kayas. Then from within the gaze one gazes into the openness of the world and gazes from the gaze into pure awareness, manifestations of luminosity and manifestations of the elements.<br />
Gazing bypasses the mediation of the mind and yet can integrate the mediation of the mind into the awareness field. In the way one gazes both into awareness or the manifestations of awareness and gazes into the manifestation of nirmanakaya through the mind in the awareness field. Awareness comes through both in the mind and beyond the mind.<br />
AWARENESS GAZING INTO AWARENESS<br />
Awareness seeing awareness and awareness sees through the mind, awareness sees both at the same time. Depending on the Place of the UNFOLDING View, the world will seem actual or only potential. From the view within Nirmanakaya the world is<br />
actual,phenomena, is actuality and exists. From the view within Sambogakaya dimension the energy and luminous archetypical dimensions of the world is symbolic and personalzed as actual and the very dimension manifests within Nirmanakaya. So these manifestations are considered actualities. From the view of Dharmakaya the spaciousness and emptiness of phenomena seems to that which is actual, the world of potentiality is the only actuality...<br />
Gazing into phenomena opens up the phenomena, opens up the giveness of awareness. As one enters one dimension, the other dimensions of awareness easily open and become apparent. Initially the openness of the gaze within opens up the experience of awareness within oneself. The gaze views the same giveness of awareness in the other and in the physical world itself. One perceives the different dimensions of the giveness of awareness within one’s own self, within others and within the physical world.<br />
The oneness of awareness is apparent in the oneness of the three modes of giveness of awareness. There is the oneness of spaciousness, there is the oneness of light, and there is the oneness of the elements, there is the sameness of oneness of awareness as knowingness.<br />
NONDUALITY WITHIN DUALITY AND DUALITY WITHIN NONDUALITY<br />
The nonduality of awareness for phenomenology takes place within the phenomenogy of duality. And duality takes place within the oneness of nonduality of awareness. Often in some idealistic eastern philosophical traditions in order to support nonduality the experience of duality is denied and foreclosed. The experience of duality of me and you in the oneness of nonduality is unseen and the experience is foreclosed. The indivisibility between phenomena and awareness is foreclosed. Phenomena are foreclosed. This view is often expressed in Hindu Advaita and certain forms of Buddhism. Nonduality does not foreclose the experience of duality within nonduality. Duality is phenomena in its infinite manifestations and nonduality is singular essence as primordial awareness. Duality arises from within nonduality. What is called duality is the<br />
differences or differentiatedness within oneness of nonduality. In the dialectics of phenomenology’s magical realism duality and nonduality are not in opposition whatsoever. Duality within nonduality is mutually inclusive and using Deluze’s language the difference is nonessential difference.<br />
GARAB DORJE: DEEP IMMERSION IN AWARENESS<br />
I will utilized and transliterate the wording and understanding of Garab Dorje to describe the experience of the deep immersion within awareness. I will phenomenologize his language and understanding. Garab Dorge describes that given pervasive evenness or sameness of the field in which objects manifest and are conceptualized. Nonetheless awareness itself is not reified. And so body and mind dwell as a matter of course in the expanse of that evenness of the field, the oneness of the field. Regardless of how awareness appears to arise or whatever awareness manifests as a matter of course there is no wavering from this expanse of evenness and sameness and oneness. All difference is nonessential difference.<br />
At the level of source or pure awareness objects with characteristics have no existence as objects when they are abiding in a state of deep potential. They are potential but not yet actual. Timelessly there is no duality and so no distinctions can be made. There is only potentiality. And so even within their actuality within the nirmanakahya there are still No distinctions between ordinary people and buddhas. There is no essential difference between samsara and nirvana at the level of nirmanakaya. What has substance and what lacks substance are equal in basic space. Buddhas and ordinary beings are equal in basic pervasive space of awareness in all of its manfifestations. Relative or conventional reality and ultimate reality are equal in basic space. These dimensions are in oneness as oneness. Flaws and qualities are equal in basic space. Up, down, all directions are equal in basic space. Therefore when arising, things arise equally without being better or worst. When abiding, they abide equally without being better or worst. When free, they are freed equally. They abide in the basic space of their equalness. Although they arise unequally and with nonessential differences they abide in the basic space of their equalness. Although they manfest within unequally, they<br />
abide in the basic space of their equalness. Although they are freed unequally, they are free within the basic space of their equalness.<br />
It all comes down to using the term Buddhahood to refer to nothing more than one’s own true face beholding itself.<br />
The very essence of awareness has never existed as anything other than awareness. So, nothing exists within awareness that is not awareness itself. There is nothing to be found within awareness that is not free. This awareness is a field vast and infinite in its horizons. And although objects exist within the sea of awareness, the variations of the different objects existing in the sea of immanence are nonessential differences within awareness . These differences themselves are nonetheless awareness. Even the nonessential difference is awareness.<br />
In light of this understanding Garab Dorge gives the following suggestions as path. Rest in suchness itself. Rest within awareness as awareness. Within the ultimate heart essence there is nothing to improve upon so positive actions bring no benefit. And there is nothing to deteriorate and so, negative actions inflict no damage. Within infinite spaceousness there is nothing to improve on. There is no karma within space and there is no previous life within spaciousness.<br />
Awareness as such, dharmakaya in all its nakedness, regardless of what virtue has been created, nothing becomes any better and and no benefit is entailed. Since in essence it has never been anything, karmic traces do not exist. For one immersed in genuine being, the total resolution is called timeless awareness, pure emptiness in which phenomena are resolved. By abiding in this very essence of awareness, those immersed in genuine being realize this awareness. They have merged with the reality of what is. Those who are immersed in genuine being to the very highest degree relate to apparent phenomena in an easygoing way since virtue and harm do not exist for them. They never fall out of self-knowing awareness as such because, for them, there is only the understanding that awareness manifests naturally. Dakini laughter reflects this experience.<br />
Many people are bound by fixation. Those immersed in genuine being realize that all phenomena manifest their freedom within the great expanse of awareness. Awareness as the sea of potential is nonreferential. This sphere has no edges or corners. There are no causes and condition. It is spontaneous presence free of limitations. People who reify this state will reify enlightenment, and try to grasp liberation.<br />
PHENOMENOLOGY OF SUBJECTIVITY WITHOUT A SUBJECT AS ENTITY<br />
One of the great contributions of Heidegger to phenomenology was his deconstruction of subjectivity as awareness being reduced to being a subject of mind alone or awareness field as the property of the individual subject as mind. For many, subjectivity is the subjectivity of the mind alone. Unhappily and unfortunately for most people, the sense of subjectivity and sense of entity are equated.<br />
Phenomenology allows for the experience of subjectivity without being the subjectivity of mind alone. Pure awareness that is pervasive and is the source of individualized awareness and individualized subjectivity understood experientially. There is the deconstruction of subjectivity being reduced to a individualized subject as mind body continuum; as individualized awareness. Subjectivity is the vast nonlocalized field comparative to space. Space as knowingness, space as subject is not experienced as an objectified thing or localized unit of experience, but is experienced as unbound vast awareness, a limitless, nonlocalized field of pure awareness. This space both embraces and pervades all things and beings within it. This is the space of pure awareness or pure subjectivity or pure knowingness without being located alone as knower as entity or subject. In other words subjectivity without a subject...knowingess without the knower. Or as the knower knows knowingness the knower is only knowingness beyond time and space and in time and space.<br />
So subjectivity is primordial awareness unborn and undying and is located within subjectivity as mind and body. Hence there is the double play of subjectivity as awareness within mind and body and awareness which is nonlocal. So the person can experience the range of subjectivity given to him or her. From highly contained within<br />
mind and body to becoming aware of awareness itself; becoming unbound and experiencing subjectivity as primordial space itself.<br />
And so all knowingness both localized within a subject and nonlocalized is pervasive, is the same knowingness. There is knowingness without a knower and knowingness within infinite knowers. It is impossible to think of knowingness without a knower, but this is the very ultimate nature of awareness.<br />
Even in death the mind may dissolve but subjectivity is indestructible, the true vajra is your subjectivity itself. The subjectivity of the mind body configuration is a manifestation of primordial subjectivity itself. The subjectivity of mind is primordial subjectivity veiled within the mind and body configuration of space and time. Timeless awareness is subjectivity without a subject.<br />
In this understanding the very sense of personal subjectivity is the manifestation of pure awareness, primordial awareness. And thus the simple act of becoming aware of awareness is the path of oneness, nonduality. As Husserl so often exclaimed “what is the wonder of all wonders, pure consciousness, and the doorway is our own subjectivity.”<br />
Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D. A.B.P.P.Author.<br />
The Washington Center For Consciousness Studies. Elizabeth Ebaugh, MSW. EditorRudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-17752171911370678142013-11-22T17:12:00.002-08:002013-11-22T17:12:53.465-08:00HOW TO READ A TEXT, HOW TO HEAR A TEXTSelf Liberation Through Phenomenology and Dzogchen, Essays<br />
<br />
By Rudolph Bauer, Phd Wed, Oct 23, 2013<br />
Rudolph Bauer Ph.D., Author<br />
<br />
How to read a text and how to hear a text. How to open words and syllables so that knowledge arises within your own body, within your inner awareness. When you are located in mind alone, when you are located in conceptualness and concrete mind alone, you will be locked in and contained. William Reich described concrete minds as living machines. Concreteness can be described as rigidity, a mode of tense cognitive activity. Strangely enough, concreteness with its compulsiveness, its drivenness can distort the sense of presence and the sense of reality. The concrete mind in its literalness struggles to find the right solution. The literal view can be narrow, highly vigilant and stimulus−stimulation bound. The concrete mind struggles to find the right solution relentlessly. Of course whatever the solution, it never is enough. One becomes stuck in the stimulus of the word and stuck in the signification of the word. The nexus between the signifier and signified is without space and is densely bound.<br />
There is a profound difference between mind and awareness. To know this difference is to know the necessary difference. Longchenpa suggests the poetic capacity of the opening of language wherein the language signifies not the mind alone but language signifying the awareness field. And so learning about awareness takes place not in mind alone but within awareness field itself. The awareness field is wisdom gnosis or direct perception. Longchenpa as well as Dudjom Lingpa in their attempts to demystify gnosis would suggest that everyone is intelligent enough to do this. The major limitation is concreteness of mind alone. This concreteness is not a function of intelligence, or the brightness. Concreteness contains the brightness. Concreteness mutes the brightness of experience, the brightness of thought. Concrete thinking can become a substitute for brightness. And this substitution becomes what is often called “figuring it out.”<br />
The signifier of wording can be reflective of mind alone and so the signification results in mind- alone experience. In fact if the signifier style is concrete and mechanical and reified, then the result will be signification that will be at the same level of experiencing, namely, concrete, mechanical and reified. No matter what the content or context, cognitive style organizes experience. Thus language can be the expression of mind alone, resulting in the dense experience of mind alone. Thinking is redundant and unhappily thinking. Thinking and even more thinking does not lead to understanding, the nonconceptual understanding that is the nature of awareness.<br />
Heidegger describes this actuality of the potential of language this way: Poetically does man dwell and Language is the house of being. So here the wording opens just like the icon opens<br />
so that Being shines through the syllables, awareness shines through the syllables and awareness is manifested through the voice of the syllables. The wording unpacks and opens and there is within this openness, and within this openness arises the transmission of that which the words are signifying takes place. Signification arises within awareness and within the transmission of awareness.<br />
Signifiers and the signified<br />
In mind alone to mind alone the signifier can signify affective states or conceptual states, or memory or sensation or information. The signifiers from within the awareness field can also signify and invoke symbolic experience that is felt and known directly. Signifiers signifying and invoking symbolic experience of awareness of awareness. The signifiers of both language and symbols can invoke the spaciousness of luminous knowingness, the luminosity of awareness that is penetrating and within all phenomena in essence. The essence of the situation becomes manifest, the essence of appearance and emptiness becomes manifest. The indivisibility between appearance and emptiness becomes manifest. Awareness as knowingness, as luminous spacious openness takes place, and the translucidity of experience takes place within the place of awareness, which is you as you as a who.<br />
When a person is experientially within in the field of awareness and so attuned to the other who is also within the field with them, then direct knowing can manifest, can arise. What is going to be said can be known before what is to be said is said. This is unmediated knowing. This happens when you are in the field in the same field as speaker and as hearer. This posture is very different than the times wherein the speaker and hearer and the space in between them is mediated by only words and cognition and affective states. Concrete mind speaking to concrete mind and concrete mind hearing concrete mind! When this concrete event happens there are never enough words and unending details, more and more minute details, to fill in the space in between. The space in between is what cannot be tolerated or held, which is awareness itself. Mechanical speech to mechanical ears results in a mechanical mind and mechanical knowing.<br />
When the speaker and the one spoken to are within the field, then awareness is speaking to awareness as awareness. The space in between is now the field, and the space within each other is now the field. So there the speaker and hearer are the field, and direct knowing is possible. They are within the field as the field. Inside to inside happens, and knowingness arises from within.<br />
As Bodhidharma said in the 6th century, beyond words and letters there is a transmission that does not belong to any tradition, it is the very nature of human awareness, which is the Buddha. The Buddha is not a person but primordial awareness within everything and everyone.<br />
When you are speaking from the field within yourself and you are hearing from within the field, the field itself opens for direct understanding. From within to within, from self to self, from inside to inside, unmediated knowing. Knowledge arises, the mind is infused. There is a vast difference of a couple trying to making connection through mind alone, thinking alone. They<br />
make points, I have point here and what is your point. Point making and point seeking. Life on the point. This is so different than when a couple is speaking within the field as field. This is the experience of being within the nonduality of the field as singular dualities. Being as singular dualities being within the nonduality of field is heaven. That is what the Buddha field is.<br />
Many people are wonderfully able speak from the field and articulate their experience within the field of the present moment and in the present hour and also many people are able to hear from and from within the field. There is this great practice of speaking experientially near while being within the field of awareness. To practice this skill, to accomplish this learned skill is so valuable both in love and in work. It is a high aesthetic.<br />
Speaking from your experience in the immediacy of what is happening is the simplest and most direct way to learn this skill. When you are only commenting on yesterday you will be in yesterday and your speech will not from the field. You may tell an interesting story but it will not be within the field. Some people can speak always in the field from the field as the field. It is amazing and wonderful. They make comments and the comments are reflections of their experience within the field. Some have this capacity. Some who have many opinions speak their opinions and comments from within the field...it is aesthetically fun and informing. But first they have spent hours of speaking experientially near, within the field of the present moment of the here and the now. Only in time have their minds integrated into awareness. Such completion takes time.<br />
This is very developed skill. This capacity to be experientially near, from within your experience and from within your awareness. In learning this method of deepening your experience of awareness, commentary speech can be a distraction. Making commentaries about yourself or the other is a distraction from being within the field of your own awareness. When you make certain judgments about yourself and absolute judgments about others, this judgementalness will take you out of the field. In such absolute judgments you pretend to be the one who knows. It can give you false certainty, illusionary certainty, which actually is no certainty at all. And then you are surprised at what actually happens.<br />
The concrete superego is a relentless commentary both on oneself and everyone else and everything else. Because primitive states of deprivation and annihilation are the primitive affective source of the superego formation, the judgments arise out of attempts at surviving annihilation, anxiety or deprivation anxiety. The person located in the superego will impose deprivation or annihilation on the one to whom or on whom the judgmentalness is focused. The person dominated by the superego equates this judgmentalness with discrimination or discernment and believes this cruel assessment is wisdom gnosis. More often than not religious fools equate divinity with their superego formulations.<br />
The abyss of Emptiness! There is the metaphor someone presented recently about reading a self-help book sitting on the edge of the abyss of the Grand Canyon. It is really a great metaphor.<br />
Many people are caught in this dilemma. Concrete books within a concrete mind. Surely you have been in a concrete situation looking at a concrete book with concrete mind and trying to find concrete operations for a concrete solution. This is technical mind, objectified mind, reified mind, and an obsessional style...a compulsive style. We will call this the obsessional moment...the waiting for Godot moment.<br />
So this metaphor brings us to the question as how to read a text or hear a text.<br />
So how to read a text....Most importantly how to read sacred or classical text, a symbolic text that reflects the awareness field of the writer and the field of lineage. Should you read it with your mind alone or read within the field of awareness? What do you think? There is that difference again. There is that difference between knowing within you mind and knowing within your awareness as awareness.<br />
First, pointing out instructions<br />
Pointing out instructions is not a self-help text. The instructions are not really concrete operational, and if you think they are you will suffer because you will read within your mind alone and nothing will happen. Nothing will happen since something is always left out, and you yourself have to discover that which is left out either from within the field of your being or you may discover it within the field of the person giving pointing out instructions. In pointing out instructions you are not actually being given information but you are being informed by and within dimensions of the awareness field that is manifesting or self-arising via transmission.<br />
The pointing out is actually asking you to experience and gaze into what is happening within you in the here and now...in the here and now of the transmission.<br />
In pointing out instructions the field is the teacher. The same field is within you and within the person giving the pointing out instructions. The same field is teaching both in the present moment...coming through both persons. Liberation is self-arising presence, self-arising knowledge, self-arising knowingness. And what is being spoken is not to your mind but to your awareness, which is abiding within awareness, within the field. In that direct experience of nonduality what is being said and being thought and being felt and pointed out is the experience that is arising from within you. There are words and letters but the actuality of transmission is direct and unmediated. The words are the winds that move and open us to experience what is being spoken about or felt or known. They are indicators, gestures, signs pointing to the opening of openness within you. Words as metaphors or words as metonyms!<br />
In reading a text the same phenomenon is taking place. In reading a text you want to experience the mind of the writer, or better said the field of the awareness of the writer that is carried by words and even through the words and beyond the words. The words and symbols are like winds that stir the mind and most of all the innermost awareness. So that awareness gazes into the text and beyond the text into the mind to the writer or the awareness of the writer. The syllables are iconic doorways. Ultimately such texts are mind-to-mind transmissions or<br />
awareness-to-awareness transmissions...all within the oneness of the timeless field arising in time...time within timelessness.<br />
I grew up knowing this. Not all the time but some of the time. Whatever text I read I learned to gaze into to experience the mind of the writer. In my life this method has opened so much experience for me. Later I learned that this is how the masters have described how to read and how to hear.<br />
So in reading a text you gaze into the text within text or even one word of the text or the whole text at the same time. Timeless awareness in time...timeless awareness manifesting in time as words and symbols...through your awareness field you lean into or enter into or penetrate into the text with your feeling or tone of the field of awareness.<br />
Heidegger when asked what he wished to have said at his funeral by Professor Wendt, the famous theologian from Tubingen, he said, “Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find and knock and it will opened.” This quote from the gospel of John is a great way to open the book of the text.<br />
You gaze within the text and experience what arises within you. You experience the lineage of the text...the field of the text. The more concrete operational you become the less you will ever understand, as hard and as sincerely as you try. The tighter the focus, the smaller the space of openness. Your mind will lose space, and without spaciousness you are in an obsessional state...a place without space.<br />
As you meditatively gaze into the space of the page, the words will manifest and symbols will manifest and syllables open and the vibrations are felt and knowledge itself arises. The text has opened and is giving its treasures to you. Gazing into givenness, self liberates.<br />
You should have an open unbound focus and not a tight narrow focus. Your concentration should be lose and silky and at times you should gaze at the whole page and see what manifests both to you and within you. Such reading takes place within your whole body and not through eyes alone.<br />
The more you love the page and love what is to be given through the page the more you will receive within you embodied knowledge. Some of you are in recovery. Learning to recover your lost skill of direct perception and knowingness that you had as children. Before your mind became so concrete and linear and hyperfocused, a mind always remaining in a mild, unending panic. Knowing knows fields, fields of knowledge are only fields of being.<br />
When you are reading a tantric text it is necessary to invoke mediative awareness and feel the text with your whole body permeated by the field of awareness and extending your field through the text into the realm of the whoness of the teacher. As you join your whoness with the whoness of the text that is the whoness of the teacher and the whoness of lineage, that is the field of awareness becoming self-presence and self-knowledge. As you know this it is self- liberation.<br />
At times you will find yourself reading randomly or being lead randomly. In a way the field is reading the field through the iconic forms of letters and words and the very space of the pages.<br />
In a way a whoness wrote the text and the text itself is now a whoness...primordial awareness manifesting through words and letters as understanding itself. Is the who, the logos. As is declared in Genesis: In the beginning was the word and the word was with god and was god.<br />
Passing through the text<br />
Passing through is a fruitional practice of the power of extension. The power of extension is the power of the awareness field extending beyond your body into the body of another. The power of extension is the power of the light being extended into the light. The power of extension is the power of the bodhichitta, the great compassion. As the great lama Yangtang Rinpoche said in giving the empowerment of the bodhichitta, the absolute power of the bodhicitta is the extension into the present, the extension in the past and the extension into the future.<br />
When extension takes place the light meets the light. Or as is described in the dzogchen text by Jigme Lingpa the Yeshe Lama, the inner ying meets the outer ying. As the inner field of one awareness meets the inner field of the other, arising out of the nonduality is the intensity of the light.<br />
The same power of extension can be used in reading a text or listening to the words of a teacher. The nondual state arises and the intensification opens gnosis and knowingness to us.<br />
Written by Rudolph Bauer, Ph. D. .A.B.P.P.<br />
The Washington Center for Consciousness StudiesRudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-4183734566476459042013-11-22T17:08:00.001-08:002013-11-22T17:09:05.558-08:00PRAJNA: THE DISCERNMENT OF DIRECT AWARENESS KNOWNINGNESS (GNOSIS, JNANA)Self Liberation Through Phenomenology and Dzogchen, Essays<br />
<br />
By Rudolph Bauer, Phd Wed, Oct 23, 2013<br />
Rudolph Bauer Ph.D., Author<br />
<br />
Judgment as a function of superego can be relentlessly cruel and concrete. This cruelty can be focused on one’s self or the self of the other, the “self” of a culture or the “self” of a gender. The focus can be on the very self of one’s family or the very self of one’s closest companion. The internal drama of deprivation and annihilation are sources of superego judgmentalness and self- destructiveness. Survival, in its most primitive forms, is the source of much of superego orientation. The superego’s relentless pursuit of achievement and functionality destroys children’s psyches, relationships, and the sense of whoness in one’s self and in others. As the superego arises in ascendency, whoness (which is awareness itself) disappears both in one’s self and in the other. Objectivity of cognition pervades, and the sense of righteousness is paramount, so anything and everything can be done to anyone. The gods are truly on one’s side. Inflation is the superego’s arc, often followed by deflation. The hero-zero show.<br />
When you look beyond the judgment of mind, there is the luminous discernment of awareness knowningness, gnosis, or jnana. As you look into phenomena, discrimination is necessary. The duality of phenomena requires discrimination for action. In the discernment of awareness you are looking directly, seeing directly, gazing directly into phenomena and into the essence of phenomena simultaneously. You are gazing both into the phenomena and the essence of phenomena simultaneously. As you gaze into phenomena, discrimination arises naturally; gnosis arises naturally. The duality of phenomena requires discrimination for action. The duality of phenomena requires the discrimination of right or wrong, good or evil, true or false, safe or unsafe.<br />
As the Guhyagarbha Tantra suggests, “choose carefully who you connect your karma with.” The Guhyagarbhaar Tantra also suggests that the duality of phenomena arises from within the non-duality of primordial awareness. And so, within non-duality, there is duality. Within the vast unbound sea of non-duality, there are the infinite currents of duality. And within duality itself, is the basis of non-duality. To experience non-duality is to experience the oneness of the indivisibility of appearance and the essence of awareness, the indivisibility of appearance and emptiness. To experience phenomena as the manifestation of non-duality is to experience the purity and equality of all phenomena. And to experience the required action within the duality of me and you and within the duality of me and the world requires prajna . . . discernment and the discrimination that arises out of discernment -- gnosis or jnana. Duality is in actuality; it is not simply a distorted mode of thinking. There is a me, and there is a you. There are infinite<br />
singularities of phenomena, infinite differentiatedness within the non-differentiatedness of the primordial ground awareness, emptiness, luminous potentiality, unbound knowningness.<br />
This prajna is an empowerment of Guhyargarbha Tantra and also one of the six parameters. Prajna is the nature of awareness of awareness . . . rigpa. Prajna is direct perception, gnosis, jnana. Prajna is discernment and the discrimination that arises out of discernment. There is a discrimination that arises out of mind alone, and there is the discrimination that arises out of discernment.<br />
The multiplicity of phenomena of the world requires discrimination for action to take place. Compassion itself is non-duality manifesting the dualities of phenomena. Compassion itself is the discernment of essence, and such discernment requires discrimination for actions. As the Shiva Sutras declare, knowledge is action. And so action requires the discrimination of prajna. Prajna is the remarkable direct focusing into the non-duality of luminous radiance of awareness within the duality of phenomena while simultaneously gazing into the duality of phenomena within the non-duality of primordial awareness. Prajna is simultaneously gazing into duality and non-duality. Duality and non-duality are completely complementary and are the two views of the manifestation of awareness as phenomena.<br />
Some forms of Eastern philosophies declare that only non-duality is real and duality is delusion, and, in fact, duality does not exist. This view can result in lack of agency and lack of action. As phenomena is experienced as unreal and without validity, passivity and lack of agency takes place. If one sees only goodness, only purity, only the light of non-duality, and the singularity of the reality of phenomena is itself foreclosed, then there is a dissociation between the signification of experience and the luminous essence of the phenomena. In this splitting, the path of phenomena and emptiness is foreclosed, appearance and awareness is foreclosed. The path of one’s life is no longer the path of realization. The divinity of appearance is muted and glazed over by descriptors such as “delusion” and “illusion.” Such descriptors invalidate the actuality of phenomena, which is the path of self-illumination. Such descriptors invalidate the actuality that phenomena has character and signification, that phenomena is the manifestation of the infinite qualities of primordial emptiness awareness.<br />
And when non-duality is foreclosed, as it is so often in the West, the person sees only phenomena, and only from mind alone. What remains is “technical mind” in a technical world. What remains is opportunistic life and opportunistic relationships. What remains is the thing<br />
alone. This thing is the thing unto death. In this hobbled frame, the superego becomes so powerful and so destructive, as the superego, the source of judgmentalness, becomes the base of relatedness. Without the presence of non-duality, the medium of prajna does not arise, and the unbound support of non-duality of prajna, then gnosis, jnana is lost.<br />
Duality and non-duality is like the horse and carriage, you “can’t have one without the other.” When gnosis or prajna is grounded in primordial non-dual knowningness, the dualities of phenomena become translucent and transparently open. The character of the phenomena is directly entered into, and the very light of non-duality manifests and reveals the character of the dualistic phenomena. Prajna is seeing directly into the character of phenomena and the nature of phenomena. The light of awareness reveals the essential purity and equality of phenomena, and the light of awareness reveals the character of phenomena. The non-dual light within the phenomena itself reveals the character of the phenomena. In this way prajna gives knowledge for discriminative action and knowing discernment of essence.<br />
The action of direct knowningness takes place within the duality of non-duality. Within the very character of phenomena, there is the luminous light of awareness. Within the luminous light of non-duality, the character of duality shows itself and shines forth. By relating through the phenomena of duality, the pervasiveness of non-duality is completely experienced, and it completely supports our relating to the dualistic phenomena of our circumstances. Natural liberation takes place within the unfolding of dualistic phenomena within the context of timeless non-dual prajna.<br />
In the Vajrakilaya practices, the drama of the phurba is the symbol and empowerment of awareness destroying demonic manifestations. From within the non-duality of discernment, the power of awareness cuts through the dualities of negation, the forces of negation and obscuration. The more you have the energy and view of non-duality within you and through you, the more capable you are destroying the demonic duality manifesting within duality.<br />
The more access you have to the non-dual dimension of experience, the more capable you are of destroying the demonic forces manifesting within phenomena as phenomena. The more subtly the non-dual connection is experienced, the more power manifests to deconstruct the problematic demonic energy -- both within self and within circumstances. This deconstruction can take place at the level of appearance and at the apparitional level arising from within pure awareness of prajna.<br />
The skillfull means arising through the doorway of non-duality gives access to appearance as nirmanakaya, apparitions as sambogakaya and to vast non-dual dharmakaya. The dimensions of appearances, apparitionalness and pure potentiality become apparent through discernment. Discernment becomes the basis of discrimination.<br />
If a person forecloses duality and has or is within only non-duality, then discriminations about specific phenomena become a mind-alone action, a mental action. The signification of dualistic life and dualistic experience as the path of liberation is foreclosed. The path of appearance and awareness is foreclosed, and the path of liberation becomes the archetypical path of apparitions and deities alone.<br />
If a person forecloses non-duality and the view is only duality, the person cannot perceive the purity of phenomena and the essence of phenomena. The person cannot access the power of non-duality. If a person forecloses non-duality, then the person does not experience discernment. There is only signification and a vast absence of the non-conceptual, vast field of direct, timeless knowningness. Mind within awareness bring forth discrimination and discernment.<br />
Dualistic experience is highly deterministic. Reality is determined by unceasing causes, known and unknown . . . infinite causes manifesting one event . . . infinite events arising causing one event. Reality is determined by personal historical fields, contextual cultural fields, ageless generational fields and physical actualities. Fantasy is determined by cultural context, familial context, generational context and physical events. Opportunistic events and no events whatsoever are the web of causality. Events are not only determined by what happens, but also by what does not happen.<br />
Historical past is determined and fixed forever, as is the present that arises out of the past, and the future that arises out of the present. Within duality there is not much spaciousness or openness for liberation -- just locked-in potentiality. As non-duality is accessed, the non-duality of dharmarkaya, the non-duality of prajna -- the vast spaciousness and light of awareness -- enters into the present, it enters into the space between reality and fantasy, between thought and action; it enters into the historically determined mind, it enters into the bound sequence of causality and it opens the space between events and the sequencing of events; it opens the space of the present, it opens the space of the past and it opens the space of the future. That is why within the great compassion, the person extends to the present, extends to the past and extends to the future. And so, spaciousness opens, prajna cuts through and the light illuminates and invigorates.<br />
Timeless awareness alone liberates us in time. Prajna is timeless awareness in time.<br />
Written by Rudolph Bauer,Ph.D A.B. P. P.<br />
The Washington Center for Consciousness StudiesRudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-71797111236004565732013-11-22T17:06:00.001-08:002013-11-22T17:06:45.490-08:00WELCOME TO WHOVILLESelf Liberation Through Phenomenology and Dzogchen, Essays<br />
<br />
By Rudolph Bauer, Phd Wed, Oct 23, 2013 Rudolph Bauer Ph.D., Author<br />
<br />
Our .personal innermost awareness is our very own subjectivity . Our subjectivity is our awareness and awareness is our subjectivity. Aham ah! I am becoming who I am!. This subjectivity is not the subjectivity of the mind. Such mind based subjectivity is of mind alone. Such subjectivity is bound like I am my mind or I am my thinking function or I am my feeling function or I am my sensation function, I am memory function. This subjectivity of mind is limited and contained and is often called the ego and is locked into duality. Western phenomenology undersands that person must know the difference between their mind and their awareness. In the upadesha instructions of dzogchen there is the admonition that it is necessary to experience the difference between your awareness and your mind. In this way you can directly and easily know that your very own innermost awareness is the manifestation of primordial awareness itself. The primordial ground manfiest within us as our own awareness. Primordial awareness manifest within us as us. This self recognition can and does take place easily. This awareness is not the mind or the functions of the mind . Nonetheless the mind can be an expression of this awareness field. The essential method of dzogchen is by becoming aware of awareness we experience directly the manifestation of ground awareness, pure awareness. To know awareness as awareness is to know primordial awareness what ever the context,whatever the dimension.<br />
In experiencing awareness we soon discover that awareness is a field whose qualities are spaceousness or emptyness, energy, light and the resonance of compassion.. The vajrajana tradition describe this field quality as dbying. Western phenomenology as expessed by later Husserl, later Heidegger and Merleau Ponty all converge on the profound field qualities of awareness. And although this awareness is not simply our body or mind, this pervasive field of awareness manifest completely within our body and mind.<br />
This primordial awareness is not a thing, and neither is our own personal awareness a thing. Our innermost awareness is not a thing. Awareness is no thingness from which everything and anything arises. Our own personal awareness is not a thing , and from within our no thingness everything and anything can arise.No thingness is the potential space within our own awareness. Since this awareness is not a thing does not mean it does not exist. Awareness exist as who. A human being is a who, who is no thing. The who is not an entity although the<br />
who is contained within a thing of mind and the thing of body and thingness of circumstances .Being a human being is paradoxical we are no thingness within thingness. We are not an entity within the entity of mind an body<br />
You are a who. In knowning the who of your own awareness you can know the who in the awareness of another person. And in knowing the who in the other person you can know the who in yourself. You can love the who in the other.This recognition of whoness is the great compassion. In knowing the who whether in your self or in the other you are actually meeting and knowning and recognizing primordial awareness manifestation as who, as pure potentiality<br />
of this singular whoness who is no thingness.. This is natural knowning of whoness in sensient beings is more often then not a prereflective knowing, a knowing that is direct without reflection and without the understanding of representational mind. We can naturally know the experience of whoness without all kinds of linguistic signifiers. The who of the mother experiences so directly and profoundly the who of the baby, and the who of the baby is brought forth by the moms experiencing the whoness within the baby as the baby. This is the process of natural realization of divinity with and as human beings.<br />
This recognition and experience of whoness in ones self and whoness in the other is actually the experience of primordial awareness within us and within the other. As the great master of awareness Swami Muktananda so often said god dwells within you and you and see god in each other. This is divinity as primordial awareness manifesting as the world and as us.<br />
Sometimes .we experience whoness which is no thingness as thingness..In experiencing the person as a thing whoness disappears. The structure of mind that fosters this unhappy change we will call and use the metaphor of the superego . The superego has something to do with this unhappy turn of events. There is often the transition from whoness to thingness in human experience.when we loose our sense of being in our awareness ..We can relocate our sense of being a subject within mind alone. When we are in mind alone we can be organized by the minds conscious and unconscious structure which contemporary psychology calls the superego.<br />
When we are subsumed into structure of our mind of the superego we become a thing and all otherness becomes things. The superego is a developmental structure of judgementalness. This judgmentalness is often primitive and pervasive. The superego is preoccupied with Right and Wrong, Good and Evil , Better and Best, and Truth and Falsity.This judgmentalness splits all phenomena into the polarities just described. This judgmentalness judges everything and every person. The superego is preoccupied with security and survival and is an attempt to contain the primitive terrors of deprivation and annihilation.<br />
The superego creates whoness into thingness.This judgmentalness permeates clericalism and fundamentalism in so many forms of human experience. The life of marriage, the life of parenting, the life of families, the life of so many human organizations such as religion, corporations, tribal life on and on. God becomes a thing, and awareness becomes a thing and all whos become things. For instance in corporations there are no whos but economic signifiers as things. In this way corporations and religions are very similar in there allegiance to superego constructions and cruelty based ethics..<br />
THE WHO OF GNOSIS AND THE MIND OF THE JUDGEMENTALNESS<br />
The who is the qualities of awareness...spaceousness, luminousity or clarity , compassion and energy. To know the who is to naturally bring forth compassionate perception. To know the mind of the who is not the same as knowning the who. The mind of the who can often become a thing, both the judge and judge become thingness.<br />
Judgement can make a who into a thing. Both the who who judges the who and the who who is being judged becomes things. Groups of whos are easily be made into things. Groups of whos can easily make us into things. Some historical epochs are completely thingfields. Parents easily treat the little whos as little things.<br />
When a person is no longer a who and everyone is a thing, then absolutely everything and anything can be done to the who things.Genocide is the killing of thingness, entire fields of whos are very bad things. So too children can become bad things in light of manical minds of judgementalness.<br />
Psychopathicness is not simply the lack of superego as some naïve people think. In fact psychopathicness is the lack of the experience of whoness in ones self and the other. If you do not know whoness in yourself you can not know who ness in the other. Many if not most people know whoness within themselves in a particular context and then outside that context whoness disappears. Judgementalness destroys the perception of whoness in ones own self..<br />
Whoness is space. The space of the who is the space of awareness.The greater the spaceousness the more the knowner can experience and embrace experience, all experience. Space is the great inclusiveness. The field of awareness is space,vast unbound space. If there is no space or only a tiny bit of space in the who, then the limited space of who can only experience so much, embrace so much experience. A tiny whoness is easily disturbed. The less<br />
there is space of awareness then the more the who will depend on judgement and separates experience into good and bad, right and wrong, better and best and truth or falsity compulsively and relentlessly, and unendingly. So many whos who do not cultivate the space of their awareness and located in mind alone distance themselves from experience of everything and anything including the whoness in themselves and in others. Such whos are ambilvalent and often distance or dissociate themselves from the range of manifestation of the presencing of primordial awareness.They use the method of dissociation and divinize this dissociative approach to human experience as the virtue of detachment. This detachment reflects their ambilvalence to the range of human experience and engagement. This detachment allows the who to be neither here nor there. The who is especially afraid of the power of love and the consuming presence of love. The presence of love is the presence of the primordial ground.<br />
The whoness is a field and the more vast the field and unbound the field then the who can directly enter the whoness of the other and experience the natural indivisibllity between the me who and the you who. The capacity of the who to extend its self is actually beyond the physical boundaries of the body. And so the whoness is in a certain way non local and can extend through space and beyond the boundaries. The place of the who can be extended and inclusive.<br />
Sometimes whos hid themselves in solipsism and in doing so become contained and locked in whoness. And their indivisibility with all whos become only a thought or a good idea. The who has depth and breath and vast range..The range of awareness of the who is ultimately the unbound range of primordial awareness, the dharmakaya.<br />
The superego of psychoanalysis is the languaging of a mental structure of mind that can contain the who and creates the base of who as the mind of judgementalness. The who may thinks discernment and wisdom discrimination is actually a judgement which is an act of the mind and not awareness not whoness. Actually judgment takes the person outside of whonesss ever so briefly and subtly. To be in whoness is actually to see rather directly and translucently. Whoness and gnosis are naturally in oneness. Clearly. Whoness can enter a whoness and know without distance.<br />
The who can experience non duality. Knowning non duality is so direct that secrets and situation are unveiled directly. The whoness can experience non duality within duality. When whoness enters whoness the non duality of whoness is manifest. This non duality of whoness takes place within the duality of circumstances and differentiated personality of mind and body within which is whoness. Ultimately realization is experience the completeness and vast of whoness.<br />
To be a who is to be both in duality and non duality. Often a who does not know that it is in non duality. Baby whos know this easily if there is good enough circumstances. Since primoridial awareness itself is a vast who the more one becomes aware of awareness the more the whoness of universe becomes evident. All of the infinite and singular events who reflect the vast singular actuality of whoness which is primordial awareness.<br />
The primitive affective states that are often contained and manifested within the super ego are deprivation and annihilation. And of course you can be on either side or both sides . You can be both deprived and depriving and having the terror of annihilation and imposing the terror of annihilation on another. Guilt is a sense of both. O lord I am not worthy,say but the word and my soul shall be healed. Unworthiness is actually deprivation..i am not enough and will suffer annihilation or should be annilated. The superego is not love but judgment and cruelty.The preedipal stage which is non conceptual and preverbal is deprivation and annihilation anxiety. The aedipal is at first glance achievement and accomplismnet and being in the world but i the back ground is failure ,deprivation and annihilatiion .<br />
Religion is rather strange in that it recognizes the vast who which is great and then religion combines the knowningness of whoness with the great institutionalized superego of right and wrong. The human superego confabulates the very whoness of the big who as a big judgmental thing and makes all the little whos become things . Of course other whos become bad things who do not believe in the big who of one group of who’s .Of course religion treats awareness like a thing and so everything has to be counted...and accounted..and judged.<br />
Religion likes and preoccupied with the death of the who.. Religion tells whos that if you mess up at death then you are in for it..A lot of escatalogical narratives are metaphors of cruely and the rage of judgementalness on the cosmological level. The realms of judgementalness of right and wrong, good and evil, better and best, truth and falsity with cruel and everlasting consequences.<br />
Much of religion is the cultural formation of the superego...within religious tradtions There is a relentless judgmentalness.with eastern as well as western traditions. There is intrinsic tension between clericalism and shamanism, a tension between historical dogmatism and mysticism....a tension between truth as judgment and truth as revelation of Being within all beings.<br />
THE WHONESS OF PRIMORDIAL AWARENESS AS WHO<br />
We will use transliterations of the dzogchen trantric text The All Creating Sovereign. The text declares When the rupakaya(forms as archetypical(SAMBOGAKAY) and the dimension of flesh(NIRMANAKAYA) appears objectively ,that is the manifestation of my Being.<br />
I am the all creating sovereign , and you self liberate yourself through me and you will be seen by my eyes. I gaze both into them and through them. When the experiences of the mind are articulated through language ,then this is the elaboration of my Being. All language indicate Being. Whether you pursue me or not this is the sound of who I am.<br />
if you are able to sustain your experience of wisdom awareness which is remaining in awareness of awareness then original ground is experienced as presencing all the infinitely different experiences of form, sight ,sound and the sensory stimuli. And even if you are not in aware of awareness then you are still experiencing the original ground manifesting all the infiintie and different experiences. To know directly the all creating monarch is to sustain wisdom awareness . And even if wisdom awareness is not sustained you are still knowning me directly even if you do not know that.<br />
By staying in luminous spaceous knowningness with whatever phenomena is presenting itself is to know me directly and easily. Yes you can know me through all phenomena as well as through innermost awareness. There is the manifestation of innermost awareness as you and the manifestation of innermost awareness as everyone else, all who’s.<br />
When all kinds of thoughts occur within the who , this is the sublime nonconceptual samdhi of who I am. All thoughts are manifestations of the whoness of me. I am not a thing I am not thingness although I manifest everything and within every who as a who. Primordial awareness manfiest both mind and body and circumstances and the who who is embodied in time and space and circumstance. The who is a place. The place of the who is a you or I.<br />
The mind grasping and fixated can hide and lose the sense of the who. Nonetheless the who I am will still be present, I am always present wheither I am known or not. Even the grasping and fixation is none the less who I am. I am the who of all the whos. Wherever a who is, I am.<br />
Written by Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D. A.B.P.P.<br />
The Washington Center for Consciousness Studies .<br />
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Rudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-83912855779736854032013-11-22T17:04:00.001-08:002013-11-22T17:04:50.405-08:00EMPTY MIND, TRANSITIONAL SPACE AND THE DISSOLVING OF SELF OBJECT FUNCTIONSelf Liberation through Phenomenology and Dzochen, Essays<br />
<br />
By Rudolph Bauer, Phd Wed, Oct 23, 2013 Rudolph Bauer Ph.D., Author<br />
<br />
We have focused on the transmission of the field of awareness and on the extension of the field into the present, the past and the future. We have focused on cutting through methods which are forms of the methodology of the ancient Vajrakilaya. We used cutting through methods as ways of dissolving mental structures. We especially focused on the primitive superego's structuring of unhappy experience. We use various methods of awareness cutting through configurations of awareness. This is why these actions are so direct, immediate and powerful. We are using awareness to cut through the configurations of awareness.<br />
We focused on the apparitional dimension of the Dakini. We experienced how the apparition may seem to go beyond our body boundaries and seem extrinsic to us. And yet, at the very same moment, that Dakini is the nature of your own awareness. The Dakini is not a projection of your mind, but the manifestation of primordial awareness in you, as you and your circumstances. Remembering the difference between mind and awareness is important. The Dakini is both completely within you as you, and beyond you as the world. This is the nature of the archetypical realm. The Dakini is not a function of your psychology, but is the very nature of the ontology of subjectivity and the nature of the ontology of the world. To experience this apparition is to be open or privy to the anima, the anima mundi. Psyche! You and I live in psyche. And, if you are open experientially to that dimension of actuality you are very, very lucky. The task is becoming what you are, Aham Ah. And so, you become the apparitional. This is a path of completion for you, but not necessarily for the person next to you. In time, you see through the eyes and feel through the hands of the Dakini.<br />
Tat tvam asi. You are that. The symbolic realm of the great compassion is available for you, for your protection and actually the protection of others. This apparitional dimension will help you to go beyond your mind and the superego structuring of experience which enslaves you and those around you.<br />
I have spoken about not having teachers in your mind, nor having father and mother in your mind. This is important in your liberation from being in the mental drama of the eternal family and freeing yourself from childhood states of mind. This does not mean you do not love your father and your mother. It does not mean you do not love your teachers. It simply means you do not always locate them in the representational sphere of mind. This mentalization encloses the relational experience within the representational mind alone. Relational experience can be situated in the vast field of awareness.<br />
I will make a commentary from the point of view of the self object function. The self objects are actually those others who help us sustain self. This self object function, this very personal function of having another help us by holding and resonating to our sense of self, is so important. The self object begins in the beginnings of life and manifests through various developmental periods. The self object function appears and reappears over time and throughout time. In the beginning and for some time , the self object is external and gross, and can be both in the real or in the symbolic realm. By gross I mean physical, such as real person or real animal, or real apparitional being. Then, slowly but surely, the self object function of that person or situation is becoming internalized. In the deepening and in the owning of the self object function, the self object and the function become more subtle and more internal. Eventually, the self object function becomes the self, itself. The self object becomes immanent to and within the self, itself. The self object function is the nature of awareness itself. You release the configurations of the self object function. Your awareness is the self and that which holds and sustains self. Timing is completely important in this endeavor. And so, I have no mother and father in my mind; I have no teachers in my mind. I have gratitude. Gratitude sustains the self object function within your self as your self. Idealization is useful to a point and then becomes containing, and keeps you a child. Lama Tharchin Rinpoche spoke so beautifully on the death of his guru and about what his developmental task was at that moment. Dissolving the self object function results in empty mind and fullness of awareness.<br />
I will now speak about the same and similar function through the language of Winnicott. Winnicott spoke about the function of the personal mother and how necessary this function is for a child to become a person. He also described how the personal mother dissolves and becomes the environmental mother. The experience transforms from the experience of the personal mother to the experience of the environmental mother, meaning the world or aspects of the world as mother. You can see this confidence in persons who have made this transition from good enough mother to the environmental mother, from object focus to being in the world within its infinite horizons. By world, I do not mean physical earth, but the world as the being of Being itself. Winnicott describes the capacity to enter transitional space and to live within the transitional space and transitional relatedness with its freedom and generosity of spirit. Transitional space, the intermediate area of experience, is free of superego domination. The transitional space transforms and is no longer simply within me and my body. This intermediate state, this place of potential space, becomes the space I live in and dwell within. The transitional space unfolds from interiority within me to the very space of my life. From dwelling within the transitional arena within my self and transforming into wherever I am, I live in the transitional dimension. Transitional is not simply within me but becomes the mode of the being of the world. This, of course, gives freedom to be present and to keep moving within the freedom of transitional relatedness.<br />
To free your self from the objects within in your mind allows the very objects, in actuality, to become the field of awareness. In death, the objects of your mind become the field of awareness. In death, the object of your relatedness become the field of awareness, the sea of awareness.<br />
The object or person in your mind dissolves into the sea of awareness. The teachers in your mind dissolve into the sea of awareness, the field of awareness. They are no longer objects of your mind, interiorized pictures or memory, but the actuality of the field of awareness. When<br />
you feel the awareness field you are feeling within the awareness field their traces unfolding their wonderful support. But, they are not in your mind unless you bring them forth. Where are they? They are the very field of awareness itself.<br />
Within your awareness they are of the nature of awareness itself.<br />
And so you live in awareness and live in the humanness of awareness, which is the Buddha. You are free within the spaciousness of your mind. In doing so you are more free of psychology and live within the cosmological view. Sometimes people do not live in the field of awareness, which is infinite in its horizons, and confuse the generational field with the field of awareness. And so they are forever limited within the generational field.<br />
Ultimately, representational becomes the non conceptual. The mind becomes the field. You want to live in the field and not the mind. In dissolving the mirrors of your mind, the field of awareness becomes the mirror of its own self. Immanence mirroring immanence.<br />
Written by Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D. A.B.P.P.<br />
The Washington Center for Consciousness StudiesRudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-45273976439675112852013-11-22T17:02:00.001-08:002013-11-22T17:02:19.285-08:00HEIDEGGER ON BECOMING SELF LIBERATED THROUGH THE MANIFESTATION OF APPEARANCESelf Liberation through Phenomenology and Dzogchen, Essays<br />
<br />
By Rudolph Bauer, Phd Wed, Oct 23, 2013 Rudolph Bauer Ph.D., Author<br />
<br />
There is similarity of the theme of becoming self liberated through the manifestation of appearance in both dzogchen and Heideggarian phenomenology. There is this similarity between the dzogchen meditative awareness tradition as articulated by the 14th century Tibetan master Longchenpa and the phenomenologist of 20th century philosophy Martin Heidegger. This paper will speak to Heidegger’s understanding of Being manifesting the appearance of phenomena and the corresponding self liberation.<br />
Richard Capobianco in his text Engaging Heidegger describes how Ereignis is another name for Being itself. Ereignis means in essence manifestation or manifesting. Heidegger is focused on Being as Ereignis. Being and manifestation are the same. There is this manifestation of the temporal spatial emerging of beings in their beingness and the spontaneously presencing of what is present. Being is the pure giving of what is given. The giveness of phenomena of appearance. Beyond this giveness of appearance there is the giveness of pure openness. The phenomenological openess is what is within the Dzogchen tradition described as dharmakaya or ground of being or emptiness. This dharmakaya or ground of being is not a thing or an entity. Through this no-thingness everything and anything arises.<br />
Being itself is not a being. Being is the manifesting or is the givingness of Beingness to beings. Being brings beings forth into actuality. Being manifests beings, Being manifests appearance and phenomena. Being conceals itself in its revelation. Being both conceals and reveals itself as aletheia. To understand Being in itself and of itself is to understand Being without beings. This Being is no-thingness and this no-thingess is the manifestating of phenomena and the appearance of phenomena. The appearance of beings and all things is the manifestation of no- thingness which is the base as Being and the base of beings. The very character of Being is the manifestation of beings coming into Being. The beingness of Being brings forth beings into their beingness. There is this emerging and self-arising of Being as beings and the appearing of beings or presencing of beings. The nature of Being is shared by all beings and things.<br />
Within all beings there is difference and oneness at the same time. There is the duality of infinite singular beings and the nonduality of Being manifesting with and through all the beings. Being is the unconcealing and the revelation of the presencing of beings. Being allows beings to come<br />
<br />
Heidegger: On Becoming Self Liberated Through the Manifestation of Appearance By Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D A.B.P.P.<br />
into presence. Being gives beingness to beings. To experience a being is to experience the nature of Being itself manifesting within and as a being. Being is the ground of beings and the source of the beingness of all beings and things. To experience the being of a being is to experience the beingness of Being itself.<br />
Heidegger’s understanding is similar to dzogchen in that Heidegger is emphasizing the giving or the manifesting of presence of Being as beings. This manifestation is the manifestation of the ground of being becoming beings. Heidegger in his seminar Time and Being focuses our attention not only what is present (the being of the phenomena in its sheer presence is Beingness) but focuses us on the experiencing and the perceiving of the pure coming into presence itself. This Being (dharmakaya) is manifesting beings. The manifestation is the nature of the ground of being and this manifestation allows beings and Being to be of the same nature although there is difference in that Being is not a being. This experience of manifesting is the dynamic of liberation.<br />
There is this unceasing movingness of all things into and out of presence. This appearing and disappearing of phenomena is the very manifestion of nature of the ground of Being. The nature of the ground is both revealing and manifesting as well as disappearing and concealing. The ground is both illuminating and obscuring. The ground of Being gives and brings beings into appearing as presence. We have this capacity to experience beings both as subjects and objects. We can experience individuals in their separateness and we have the capacity to experience beings within the manifestation of the ground manifesting them. We can experience manifesting. The ground gives what is present in its presentness. What manifest itself in the inner beingness of beings is Being itself. In experiencing the manifestation we can experience the nonduality of BEING indivisble within the duality of the beings<br />
This aletheia is the ever prevailing power of the presence of all beings and things becoming and disappearing. There is this temporal showing or shining forth of beings and things. There is this manifesting and opening and shining forth of beings to us. Just as being is manifesting so beings are themselves manifested by Being itself. Being is manifested both as the being and the beings activity. Being is manifested activity. The presence of things is beyond the things meaning to us. All things show themselves to us and are nonconceptually more to us then their signified meaning. Presence is beyond signified meaning.<br />
The radiance of Being manifesting beings and within beings is an intimate aspect of Heidegger’s phenomenology of manifestation. Capobianco describes this radiance of manifestation using Heidegger’s commentary on Holderin on Natures Gleaming. The first line of the Holderin’s poem is “Natures gleaming is higher revealing”. This theme of light reflects Heidegger, understands light and space as qualities of Being and its manifestations.<br />
Heidegger and Holderlin loved the word glanzen. The word glanzen means shining, glistening, glimmering, glittering, glowing. Nature (Being) does not simply shine it gleams. This gleaming is a luminous revealing and appearing. Nature brings everything into being and presence. Everything manifest to us as nature as Being. Within presencing the presencing is shining,<br />
Heidegger: On Becoming Self Liberated Through the Manifestation of Appearance By Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D A.B.P.P.<br />
gleaming and glimmering. This is the radiance of appearance, the radiance of the manifestation of appearing.<br />
For Heidegger Being is manifestation. Nature which is oneness or nondual is simply Being unfolding and manifesting all beings. Being is manifesting itself as singular individual discrete things. Being manifests to us within and as singular beings. Nature or Being shows itself as a being, as singular. We experience nature and being through the way we see things and into things. Being manifests itself through the phenomena of beings. Through the very presencing of beings we experience the presencing of Being itself. Nature or Being is the splendor that infuses everything. The seeing of nature is different than the seeing of things. We see the nature of Being in the singularity of a being. Presencing presences itself as within singular presences. Being which is no-thingness is manifesting things and beings. Being in itself can be unapparent. Through appearance within awareness Being becomes apparent. This means that Being is not a being and yet Being is indivisible from all beings. Being is the no-thingness that shines out brightly to those who can see the manifestation of being as Being itself.<br />
To be able to see or gaze through all that is present, in all of its luster and to be able to experience the source of all that is present, presenting itself, self presencing is self liberation.<br />
To gaze into the very source of all things and beings,and to gaze into the manifesting of everything and anything is self liberation. This is the becoming of manifesting which is liberation. This naturalnesss of the unfolding of all things and beings, which the ancient Greeks called phusis is the rising and receding of all that is present in its presencing and absencing.<br />
There is unceasing radiance of what is manifesting as unique is gleaming of pure giving and letting. In every human being there is an abiding awareness of the emergence of all beings and all the whos .This vivid presence of the unfolding of presencing, this gleaming of nature is all whos gleam.<br />
Being brings beings into presence. It is not simply the presence of the being which draws one attention but the presencing of the being coming into presence. Our attentnion is not simply focused on what is present (the being) in its sheer presence but gazing into seeing into the pure coming into presence itself. Being is without a being. One stands before Being as Being. Through beings we enter Being itself. Through experiencing the manifesting of beings we, as whos, experience Being itself through beings.<br />
There is this movingness of whos and beings and things in and out of presence. There is a movingness in Greek language that allows this to be heard and seen more easily. We can easily see beings as inert and static objects or entities fixed, for the subject also is fixed and fixated. When we focus on the ground, the temporal ground out of which beings manifest, and this is the manifesting of what is presenting. What shows itself is the manifesting, and what is manifesting is the inner empowering of beings namely Being itself.<br />
Heidegger: On Becoming Self Liberated Through the Manifestation of Appearance By Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D A.B.P.P.<br />
To experience the field of awareness is to experience the manifesting of phenomena .The more you are in the field of awareness the more able you are able to experience the manifesting of phenomena arising as field. The more you are in the awareness field the more you feel the energy of manifestation. The more you are in the field of awareness the more you experience the energy, the vibration as the shakti. The more you experience the energy the more you are experiencing the manifestation of the ground.<br />
When you experience the pulsations, the vortexualness, the openingnness, the sublime vibrations the more you are feeling the manifestingness of the ground.<br />
Presence to us is more than its meaning. Presence is not reducible to meaning.Being or phusis. It is the presencing of beings and things and the presencing of the who...who is not a thing, but is beingness itself.<br />
Phusis is the emerging and letting come into presence of what is present. Phusis is self presencing of presence in infinite ways. There is this power of the emergence of all things and beings and whos, the opening and showing of all things and being to us which is the showing of Being itself as beings.<br />
Nature as phusis is the temporal manifestation of beings in their beingness and you and I dwell in this in the midst of this manifesting and we ourselves are being manifested. Everything is not grounded in the subject..Subject is not source but is a manifestation of source. There is amazement and astonishment at the unceasing and inexhaustible giving, showing, shining, forth of all things and beings and whos. The core matter is not our meaning making but what calls forth meaning which is phusis or nature or manifestation.<br />
In experiencing presencing of a who, or being or even a thing, you are seeing through, seeing into experience presencing itself. This presencing is the manifesting of the ground. You enter the flowing, you are the shakti, you enter the field of Being...the field is the manifesting of Being, the manifestation of shakti, the energia is the manifesting of Being, which is the field of awareness.<br />
Written by: Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D A.B.P.P.<br />
The Washington Center for Consciousness StudiesRudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-86151992178375735112013-11-22T16:45:00.002-08:002013-11-22T16:54:24.279-08:00THE REALM OF OMNIPOTENCE AND THE POWER OF AWARENESS: LACANIAN PHENOMENOLOGICAL VIEWSelf Liberation in Phenomenology and Dzogchen, Essays<br />
By Rudolph Bauer, Phd Wed, Oct 23, 2013 Rudolph Bauer Ph.D., Author<br />
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We are focusing our Lacanian and phenomenological understanding of the superego’s domination of the perceptual field and the destruction by judgmentalness of relatedness with our self and those we love. Judgmentalness destroys whoness, destroys the person.<br />
When you are consistently located within the superego function, the very sense of critical judgmentalness and relentless criticism minimizes our sense of innate primordial awareness. The unbound judgmentalness and critical relentlessness replaces the sense of innermost self as the base and source of our person. Superego judgmentalness destroys the sense of whoness in our self and the sense of whoness in those we love. Only the thing remains. As Lacan describes the comedy shows up. The world as thingness. The primitive affective states of deprivation anxiety and annihilation anxiety dominate our thought and action. Because deprivation anxiety is so unbearable we impose and transmit this deprivation on the one we love, on to the other. There is not enoughness. Annihilation anxiety is so unbearable we impose and transmit this annihilation on the ones we love and so death anxiety pervades and we live in dread. We are always waiting for death.<br />
The One who Knows<br />
The more completely you become the superego function, and are encapsulated within this primitive childhood structure , the more you experience unbound omnipotence as the one who knows, and knows and always knows. The one who knows! Knows what? Knows exactly what is right and exactly what is wrong, what is good and what is evil, what is the truth and what is false. The Pharisee mind. As Merleau Ponty describes judgmentalness forecloses the gnosis of perception, forecloses the awareness of situation, forecloses the discernment of character and discrimination of right action.<br />
The very psyche of person , the anima dimension is sent away, exiled, and you are left in mind alone. When psyche disappears there is only mind alone. Solipsism replaces the great compassion and the ongoing continuity of relatedness or bondedness is ruptured yet again.The experiential instruction to get beyond our mind and to differentiate our mind from the sphere of awareness, allows you and I to make the shift to live within the field of awareness. To shift from being located within mind alone to being located in the<br />
awareness of awareness allows us to enter the transitional space and to experience the nature of awareness within our self and within the other, allows us to live within the field of being, the field of being within our self and within the other. Non duality arises naturally, continuity of relatedness naturally arises and is sustained. For so many the life of relatedness is ongoing relentless rupturedness and fracturedness. This is the hell realm.<br />
Judgmentalness is ultimately self directedness. Self hatred is unworthiness and within the domination of the superego there is the vast lack of not knowing ones own desire. When faced with the openness of the situation and freedom of the situation, we will not know what to do with our own lack of authorship and with our own lack of inspiration. Without authorship and self inspiration a vast oppositionalness arises out of this lack of self inspiration and self authorship. Ambivalence becomes the way of life , waiting is the way of life. Nothing actually happens.<br />
When we are located within the superego function , we are in desperate need of the castle of the law and the Citadel of omnipotence .We slowly but surely become more and more compulsive, more and more fixated, more and more driven by an unknown master, never ending drivenness but for what or for whom is really not so clear, even for the one who knows.<br />
The realm of omnipotence is so very concrete operational, so very dense, and there is so very little space, there is no play, no place of space. This concrete operational world of density of experience results in sensory overload, and the fusion or intrusion of the presymbolic concrete realm. There is a background sense of terror with this unending containment, no space. The concreteness of the situation is endlessly closed, there is no space of awareness.The space of awareness is replaced by the Judge of judgment.<br />
In this realm of concreteness complete concreteness omnipotence reigns. There is the sense that the source of life and goodness lies outside of the self. Envy arises out of our sense of the entitlement of others and their unearned giftedness. We envy the freedom of others, and we envy their lack of burden. We envy what others are given. We envy children. Envy hates what it does not have, the hatred of the other is experienced as the hatred of the self. The hatred of the situation is experienced as hatred of the self. Just as the love of the other and the love of the situation is experienced as love of the self.<br />
The Little Used Power of the Awareness Field!<br />
The power of the awareness field has great and wonderful influence on the concrete mind and the concreteness of relentless judgmentalness. Primordial awareness can infuse the concrete mind. The great primordial field of the fire of awareness infuses, suffuses and dissolves, metabolizes concreteness mind and its judgments. Awareness cuts through the concreteness of mind . The energy and the light of awareness allows or brings forth the subtleness of mind and the translucidity of perception. The perception of awareness becomes more open, more apparent and more transparent. Awareness and its field infuses the mind, penetrates the mind, deconstructs the density and redundancy of thought, interrupts the repetition of thought and eventually allows thought free<br />
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experience. Space brings forth more space. There arises the non technical view of self and life. Emptiness of mind as space, the poetic state of spaciousness self arises.<br />
The first and most simple method is to hold the experience of the mind and most specifically the judgmentalness of mind within the awareness state and this action brings forth the power of metabolization of thoughts, sensations and affective states. Holding the mind and the judgments of the mind within the sea of awareness dissolves the relentless criticism of childhood structure of superego. One begins to get beyond the relentless judgmentalness of right and wrong.good and evil, better and best. Empty mind appears.<br />
Just like writing on the sea with your finger tips, the water dissolves the notation.Writing in a bowl of water with your finger tips the notation dissolves. If you have the stability of awareness and the fire like strength of awareness this dissolving takes place naturally and directly and with immediacy. The primary reason this healing event does not take place is that our judgmentalness is syntonic and not dystonic. So we must come to the conclusion that your compulsive mind, this castle of the lord superego, this king of crticalness robs us of our life of the freedom of awareness. Alas nothing will happen. The concreteness of mind forecloses the felt field of awareness. The judgmentalness of mind forecloses the field of awareness and we are left in a presymbolic concrete state of envy aggression and omnipotent self righteousness. This ruptures of relatedness will happen repeatedly in our life with those whom we love.<br />
We must release this demonic source of security and in doing we will bring forth what is within us..aham ah.I am becoming who I am.<br />
The cranial vault method is a simple cutting through method with great power and results. You focus from the back of the head and focus the energy, the light to the forehead. Then you focus to the eyes. Then to the palette of the mouth. And then if you wish the throat, heart, navel.If you wish you can also focus on the throat, the heart, the navel and the perineum.<br />
You can use the method to open the sense of space.You can focus the energy from the back of the head as if you were cutting through a paper bag. Dissolving the boundaries and opening the windows and doors into spaciousness. You are using the power of awareness, the space of awareness, the energy of awareness, the fire of awareness to cut through phenomena. Awareness cuts through awareness, cuts through the configurations of awareness. Cutting through opens phenomena so that the radiance and space of awareness shines through.<br />
.We can use the power of the source, the innermost heart essence. The self arising of the energy and light of the heart essence through the mind wherein there is the metabolization of the mental structures and ideation. We focus the heart of awareness, the luminous energy of awareness on the configurations of our mind. We infuse our mind. We focus on the functions of the mind and it corresponding affective states including terror. Sometimes the use of the cutting through sound of phat will be a most powerful. The mantric repetition must be in the vibrational field. Short fierce cuts of awareness cutting through the configurations of awareness.<br />
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The primal and magical sound of Ah opens containment and opens the constrictures of contracted mind and bodily states. Ah not only arise from the mouth, but from every part of the body. You will only discover this experience by practicing the somatic Ah.<br />
Ultimately our own integrity with primordial awareness is the doorway to self liberation. The luminous energy of the heart infuses the mind, infuses the concreteness of mind. The history of mind which is the mind itself. The mind arises out of relational history and can foreclose the transparency of awareness. The judgmentalness of the other is directly reflected within our own sense of self . Many times we attempt the unburdening of self criticism by attacking the other. There is tremendous pleasure in transmitting our own affective burdens into the other. This transmission is the most common way we unburden our affective states of pain.<br />
The greatest method of dissolving the domination of the superego is the transmission of the absolute compassion. This transmission or this extension of our own awareness field of light and energy overcomes and suffuses judgmentalness in the most direct manner. Extension cuts through and dissolves obscurations and the obstructions of primitive mind. Extension is the transcendence of a vast generative openness that takes us beyond good and evil, love and hate, truth and falsity, right and wrong,even liking and disliking. Extension infuses the other with light and energy and infuses our own mind and body with light and energy. This is the great secret of extension. The great lama Yangthang Rinpoche spoke to this in his transmission of the absolute bodichitta. Extension focused on person or the cosmos in the present,. in the past and in the future. This takes the power of timeless awareness beyond space and time and yet within space and within time.The power of timeless awareness is infused into time bound body and time bound mind.<br />
Since many a person do not practice this natural use of their own awareness nothing much may happen for them which can happen. Most persons rely on their mind alone or begging for help from the sky.<br />
The method of invocation of the archetypical dimension or Sambogakaya dimension reconfigurates the mind from within the field of innate primordial awareness. The manifestation of the archetypical actions penetrates the nirmanakaya experience from with and through the Sambogakya drama of the archetypical energies and shakti’s. The cosmological deconstructs and transmutes the psychological.<br />
The invocation of compassion as the Dakini as the mother as the anima brings forth the essence of the nature of awareness with vast amounts of energy presence. This presence of the feminine is not outside you whatsoever, but is the very nature of your awareness. This apparitional manifestation is not a projection of your mind, an idea or affect. The archetypical may be seen as apparitional and outside of us, external to us. The archetypical presence manifests through us and around us. The archetypical presence is our own primordial presence.<br />
This knowing of this presence is a great gift and healing is directly connected with this manifestation. Naturally as this mysterious process unfolds we become the archetypical energy which becomes what we have always been. Many people who have the gift of<br />
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seeing archetypical apparitions do not integrate these visions of primal power into their life and mind as person.<br />
Sometimes the apparitional can be psychologized and contained as a psychology of mind alone. This position keeps the symbolic function contained like in picture book and lacks the power of actuality. This can actually manifest as the realm of the fairies. In completing the process of apparitional life you become the mother, your own awareness is the dakini. So you can see through the eyes and feel through the hands and the body of the dakini. Without becoming the apparitional there will be distance from the great compassion.<br />
.As the great Siddha Tilopa said look into the mirror of your mind , into mysterious realm of the Dakini<br />
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Written by Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D. A.B.P.P.<br />
The Washington Center for Consciousness StudiesRudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-16420920922276720732013-07-18T17:33:00.000-07:002013-07-18T17:33:03.078-07:00Outside The Window<br />
FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2011<br />
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Outside the Window<br />
I’d like to tell you a little story that is true....<br />
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One day, I had completely exhausted all of my usual ways of entertaining myself and I still had time to fill. I had played with my dolls and colored, and God knows what else. So, I decided to sit and look out the window. The next step unfolded quite naturally. I thought that I would experiment to see what something could happen while doing nothing. Something out of nothing! I was very curious about what might happen. But, I had no idea what! So, I turned our big cushy chair around to face the window and sat in it. I decided to just look at the big maple tree in front of our house and sit in the chair. And I waited. I just gazed. I think I had enough faith and curiosity combined to just simply sit and see. I felt empty.<br />
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That was the action within non action. I was opening to a possibility. Sitting there felt satisfying enough. And, I began to explore the tree very slowly. I was aware of how clear this picture was. I saw the branches and the different shades of black and the green of the leaves. My vision took in the shape of the leaves, baby leaves and really big ones, their directions hanging on the limb, the different sizes of the branches and twigs and how they were all so unique, like snowflakes. I traced their own path to reach the sun. I was lead to discover the space between the branches and a whole new world within that space. I noticed that I was very still and actively calm. There was a sweet, warm energy flowing in my body and mind.<br />
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Then, I began to notice something very interesting. And, very exciting and new! I couldn’t think about it with my mind! I was just allowed to notice it with my experience of what was inside of me and what was outside of me. It was like the window that was separating me and the outside just opened up. And, that openness was the something! The tree and me were having the same experience of “something”! We weren’t two separate things anymore, me and the tree. The “something” that was glistening cool diamonds of light sparkling in the tree and the sky and the branches and leaves was the same cool sweet feeling moving inside my whole body. I could sense myself in the tree and the tree could sense me and we perfectly still together even though the leaves were moving. We were occupying the same space. Just open light and love together, in this endless moment of pure awareness and being. It was all around me, in me, outside of me .and it was all the same. The tree was alive in me. It was in my eyes, my hair, my arms, my whole body, and I was inside of the branches and the trunk and the leaves and all the never-ending spaces in between. One becoming two and two becoming one.<br />
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When I experienced this, I felt so happy. I was amazed and very satisfied to know that there really was something in nothing, and that my question had been answered. I was very happy to be alive and grateful to know the secret living in the tree and in me. I didn’t quite know what to do with this information, but there was a completion in just knowing it. I saw the tree , went through it and found the sky on the other side. It was emptiness and it was fullness, simultaneously. Then, I heard my mother call me for lunch.<br />
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Written by Karen Ferguson<br />
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Rudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-88151272711876619442013-06-07T07:23:00.002-07:002013-06-07T07:23:56.722-07:00Graduation and Baby Gnosis<br />
Graduation and Baby Gnosis<br />
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I went to a Pre-Kindergarden graduation yesterday for my stepson’s girlfriend’s 5 year old boy. The boy and I have a sweet connection. We have been playmates since my stepson came into his life before he was a year old. Historically, this little boy’s parents despise one another. Besides his divorced parents, he has two sets of biological grandparents who have all divorced and are with someone else or remarried, an 11 year old half brother whose biological father died when he was three, his father’s second wife and their year old son, and a colorful assortment of aunts and uncles and cousins from both parents as well as his step parent’s parents and their parents. At the graduation, his mother and father were there with their spouses, parents and children and one or two aunts. All in all there were around 15 close family members at his graduation. The hostility between the parents was invisible and silent, but clearly apparent. When I introduced myself to the boy’s father, I was immediately texted by my stepson describing this person’s past behavior and told to refrain from speaking to him. It was the “Hatfields and Mccoys” all over again.<br />
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The 10 little ones paraded in their rented red caps and gowns. They sang songs, pledged their allegiance and received their diplomas. Proud parents videoed and took pictures. The children were all smiles except for one little girl who kept running to her parents and grandparents for hugs and reassurance and tear wiping.<br />
Even the teachers were sniffling as they talked about each child and what they would miss about each one. It was my first “kid’s graduation.” The love in the air was palpable.<br />
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I stood in the back as the chairs were filled, and I noticed that my little graduate was focusing on me. I was resonating with love in the sweetness of the moment..and the little guy had a sweet smile on his lips as he looked at me. He was gazing into my eyes, and the transmission was occurring naturally between us. Everything faded around us as we entered the field of pure awareness together. He was taking in the support of the field and the pure love in this extension and transmission. We were radiating together in the Heart Essence. I know there was healing for him in this timeless moment as I felt him in his little freedom and expanse, totally independent of this spectacle before him. He was finding his own experience of wholeness and happiness. I could see him filling up. It was just us in the room in that moment. <br />
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Afterwards, this boy’s mother, her sister, my stepson and his parents (my husband and his ex) and me and the grandmother and her boyfriend spouse all met at a restaurant. He grabbed an open seat beside me on the bench and sat close to me. We chatted and played and spoke together quietly. He put his head on my shoulder. He was resting in the healing space of nonduality that we created together. Baby Gnosis is still alive and well for this little boy. It was a happy ending to a happy beginning and vice versa. In September, he will be in Kindergarden. <br />
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Rudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-4947536064543081742013-06-07T07:11:00.002-07:002013-06-07T07:13:33.389-07:00<br />
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<br />Rudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-82233659980608866332013-06-02T10:36:00.003-07:002013-06-02T14:39:24.322-07:00Spring<br />
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Looking deeply into the presence of my own awareness, I at once embody and journey into the material of consciousness as it appears in my body. I am aware that as I am sitting here in meditation, I can see the thick expanse of an interplay of light and dark and feel sensations of bliss as the centers in my head open. Like the flowers in my kitchen, I am blossoming . <br />
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Empowerments given by a great master, Yangtang Tulke Rinpoche, must be taking root. The seeds were planted in early spring and are being watered in meditation. A subtle force like a current sweeps through my being, awakening a deeper truth. My foundation feels more strong and firm, and more beautiful. What was unknown in the foundation of my being, or in question, or doubt, has been repaired. What I am really made of, this material of consciousness, is appearing. It seems like a fine time for refinement. I welcome the master craftsman from the divine realms who are assisting me in this movement towards more light in my life.<br />
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We are building from nothingness to knowingness. The foundation, and now the walls are going up. They are made with a fabric like a dragonfly fly’s wing, so the breeze can pass through. I hear the voice of the spirit calling me. It is a whisper of softness, a vibration that is felt as subtly as this breeze blowing through me. It is calling me to take my seat among the others, and join them as they sit. At first, one buddha image, then ten, then hundreds, thousands, multiplying, they are everywhere. They appear as Buddhas, but they feel like me. They are giving great support, and filling the house of my being. The buddhas are very still, colorful and tiny points of light. They are smiling gently, and awake. They change from having Buddha's face to my face. I am in good company. The visions or gift of Sambhogakaya melts into pure awareness. Birthing, manifesting, reseeding, and perpetually blossoming as Dharmakaya, the great wheel turns as she reveals her secrets.<br />
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written by Karen Ferguson<br />
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<br />Rudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-47784194311019384592013-03-08T06:13:00.002-08:002013-03-08T07:34:31.167-08:00Honey<br />
Love is like honey. Yesterday, I was cleaning out my pantry and found a mason jar of honey I bought in Asheville, NC last year, that I didn’t use very much because it had the whole honeycomb filling it, and I couldn’t get the honey out of the jar without scooping up some of the waxy stuff. So, I got out a bowl and a strainer and placed the jar of honey on the strainer upside down. It was a process of waiting for the honey to slowly go through the little holes and down into the bowl. I was happy to see that my idea was working quite well. There wasn’t anything to do except be with this process. This sweet nectar was so beautiful, a rich, gorgeous amber color . When held up to the sunlight, it turned into gold.<br />
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The honey was in the jar, along with the messy honeycomb, and I saw the potential of having a nice jar of pure honey sitting on my shelf. I saw the immediacy of not having to dig through the honey comb. It was going to be much easier to get a scoopful of honey for my tea. It would be there, present, within my reach. Towards the end, I had to mash it with a fork, to push the honey through the comb and extract as much as I could. The comb was finally dry and my honey was ready for it’s container.<br />
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That is the way love is.. a pool of nectar, flawless, pure, sustainable, within reach. Beautiful like my jar of honey, it sits on the shelf of the pantry, behind closed doors. It is there all the time, but it is not always in my awareness. It is only when I think of a nice cup of tea, that it beckons to me..Open the pantry doors, I am sitting on the shelf. I am here. I boil the water, get the teabag, and reach for the honey. It isn’t waxy anymore, it is ready to use, simple. No effort now, no work, it is smooth and perfect. My spoon reaches down into the thick amber and goes into my cup, melting, swimming. It fills the cup, filling the cup of tea with it’s magic. Drinking it , gratitude somehow comes into my awareness. Just a simple act of drinking a cup of tea, with a touch of honey from a divine queen bee and her worker bees, I drink it all in. Love in a cup. All the work of my honey straining, all of the work of the bees, all of the sunshine and happy days and bees on flowers collecting pollen, skip me down the street. <br />
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There was nothing but joy that created a bee, a flower, a spoonful of honey, a cup of tea. Love is like honey.<br />
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written by Karen FergusonRudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-81064793997412989122013-02-21T08:58:00.004-08:002013-03-01T05:50:23.686-08:00Mindfulness and Meditation<br />
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In order to compare sitting in Mindfulness and sitting in the awareness field beyond the mind in Meditation we might take a look at how we first begin to understand our world from birth. So much of our passive or receptive learning is acquired in the early formative months and years by simple observation. Similarly, Mindfulness is an introduction to one’s mind, to the world created within the mind. We do this practice to gain access to the window of the mind, to learn how to witness or watch our thoughts, feelings, obsessions, super ego bantering, and the rest of the players on the street of the mind. It can be torturous, fascinating, and annoying to process but it’s well worth the price to learn “everything anyone ever wanted to know” and more, about the contents of one’s mind. It also takes great patience. <br />
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By adding a little mindfulness to a meditation practice, like a little cream in one’s coffee, the person who is intending meditation can become better equipped to discern the difference between pure awareness and the mind. However, if we look at our mind continually as a complete meditation practice, it is entirely possible to completely miss the mark. One can wander indefinitely in the land mines of the mind and never reach the pure field of awareness.<br />
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This is usually what I have to do in the beginning of my meditation time. My mind travels a universe full of the stuff of the mind. It takes a little while to settle down, even though I just go up! I think about how good and hot my coffee is, what my dreams were, what I am doing after I meditate, or my favorite worry. So, I might use the technique of Mindfulness to let my mind know I’m watching it and see what it’s up to. If it is something that I need to think about, I save it for after I meditate. Then, when I remember why I’m sitting, I open the window of my mind. I lean forward into the freshness of pure space, beyond the details of my life. I feel the openness and allow this sensation to grow naturally. It is a process of allowing, of gently and gradually opening, like a flower that closes up at night and reopens in the morning. It opens directly into the light. We also open to the light of this purity, this spontaneous presence, this mutual recognition that moves one into the experience of oneness. Once this tiny opening occurs, the light can fill the entire space within the person meditating and even beyond the boundaries of the body. The heart wants to join in on this process which happens quite magically and on it’s own accord. It is a tall blessing to be received with deep gratitude, and it continues from the simple analogy of a flower opening, to an ethereal trip into the space of the divine heart, into the world beyond words, into pure love, pure divine light. It is ablaze with drops of fire, hot in becoming, but cool like liquid diamonds, when they drop blissfully into the heart. It is sublime, it is wondrous, it is the “raison d’etre” of the meditator. The invisible chain of the mind, now unbound, allows a direct connection to the source of life itself, what all life is, in it’s most natural essence.<br />
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Written by Karen FergusonRudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-52429152228398973672013-02-02T14:04:00.003-08:002013-02-02T14:14:55.291-08:00Windows.<br />
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Windows are used for many things; protection from the elements, to allow in light, to open for some fresh air, or to afford a view of nature. Windows can be painted on a wall, to give a sense of openness in a closed room. <br />
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If I were to compare the difference of looking through a window and actually going outside, I would be able to feel the elements, the sun or rain, the temperature and the time of day. I would be able to touch what I could only see through the window. I could take a breath of fresh air. So, actually going outside would bring the difference between observing the snow falling from behind the window, and literally feeling the snow falling and melting on my cheeks and eye lashes. On snow days, most children want to go outside as opposed to sitting by a window, watching all day. A fast sled ride down a hill, a good snowball fight with your friend. Catching a snowflake on your tongue is a real experience. Then, come inside and warm up with some hot cocoa.<br />
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The manifestation of appearances is the actual presence-ing of the appearance within the experiencer. Given that, let’s take another look at our window. We are so accustomed to windows that we hardly notice them unless they are broken or open when it’s raining. I often wonder about pure awareness, like a window without glass, naked. That experience of sheer beingness, the simmered down essence of who I am at the very core of my being, that experience of unconditional love. Love of the Self, or the infinite, radiant and simple love of what is. I wonder as I look through the looking glass, what my experience would be if I could break through the window, smash my concepts, my prejudices, my judgmental, obsessive, meandering mind. I wonder what it would feel like to fly thru the window and merge with my own truest reality. But, on the windowsill of my mind, I sit. Watching, while the other kids play in the snow..<br />
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What, I ask, would it be like to see directly into pure awareness, with no boundaries to my vision, inside or out. Pondering this, I notice that a certain holding on is erased. I relax. I might now sense the life in every appearance, I might see things for what they really are, and feel part of this mandala of my life, or my circumstances in the moment. As I gaze into the clarity of the light before me, a divine experience of beauty arises. A feeling of luminous, absolute stillness pulsates within, something like a top that is spinning so fast that it looks perfectly still. I feel a warm glowing energy. Thru the windowless window, a frame which was holding the picture or projection of my mind, disappears . Now, what is manifesting is part of me, I am not just sitting and watching, witnessing from behind this old pane of glass. There is no glass, no window, and nothing but clear and unbounded skies ahead. Windows open and close. Life begins and ends, people come and go, and the ever changing mandala glistens, like snow falling gently, creating a blanket of white light and peace. Being so, the heart, magically, finds her home.<br />
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written by Karen Ferguson<br />
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<br />Rudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-21909464903677586412012-12-30T14:51:00.001-08:002012-12-30T14:51:54.193-08:00The Appearance of Emptiness Through Time<br />
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The word Emptiness has many various meanings. The experience of awareness becoming aware of its own self opens the experience of emptiness in a most direct manner. Experientially emptiness has many faces. Sometimes the face of emptiness is a void or abyss like experience. This abyss can open the unhappy experience of falling and falling and falling. This void experience can at times open the experience of disappearing and dissolving into a terrifying nothingness. And sometimes emptiness is experienced as no thingness. Sometimes emptiness is experience like endless and infinite space. Sometimes emptiness is experienced as unbound openness. Sometimes emptiness is experienced as deep unmoving stillness, stillness of movement and stillness of sound. Sometimes emptiness is experienced as bliss, vast bliss. All these variations of experience unfold over time as one becomes aware of their own awareness. Sometimes emptiness is experienced as freedom of pure potentiality. Often the word sunyata implies the experience and nature of emptiness. The personal experience of emptiness is a vast range experience often beyond words and language. The human range of experiencing emptiness is vast and ineffable. The experience of emptiness can range from nihilistic experience that can not be thought to the positive experience that is unbound bliss as gnosis. This wide range of meaning of emptiness is not only personally experiential but there is vast range of the historical cultural unfolding of the appearance of emptiness and articulation of emptiness by the various spiritual traditions. Over time the phenomena of emptiness has been articulated in various ways, and at times in ways that are in opposition to each other.<br />
Historically, emptiness has had many meanings in the history of eastern philosophy both in Buddhism and Hinduism. I will briefly describe some of the meanings ascribed to emptiness in Tibetan Buddhism. I will describe the appearance of emptiness and the unfolding of the understanding of emptiness over time.<br />
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Emptiness as Dependent Origination<br />
In early Buddhism (approximately 400 BC through to the second century AD) the understanding about emptiness was primarily dependent origination. During the time of Buddha Shakyamuni and the Brahmanic scriptures, the Vedas had not be written down. Buddha’s own words or understanding was not to be written for several centuries. For the Tibetans, this was the first turning of the wheel of teaching and was to be continued on within the ongoing revelation of the Mahayana and Vajrayana teachings. Another way of thinking is that the early teachings of Buddhism was part of an ongoing, unfolding process of reformulation and self revelation. For the Tibetans the word Buddha referred less to the historical person than to the universal process of self revelation.<br />
Early Buddhism was preoccupied with causality as karma. The word karma itself means action. The early understanding of mindfulness was a total awareness of the immediate situation. Realization or enlightenment has the implication of being able to read the karma of the situation; the knowingness that allows the reading of the subtle causes and results. Early Buddhism grew out of a shamanistic context. Its formulation was none the less within a clerical context with the emphasis on monastic life and spiritual rules of behavior. This shamanistic clerical tension manifested early in the Buddhist tradition and has continued to manifest throughout time; the dynamic tension of the rational and logical with the magical and esoteric.<br />
Buddha gave subtle insight into the relational nature of phenomena in his early teachings. There is the famous formula pratityasamutpada, which is dependent origination. Dependent origination understanding was foremost philosophically in early Buddhism. There is this ceaseless arising of mutual causation. The emptiness of phenomena is described as all phenomena are without substance and are empty since they do not exist independently. Dependent origination reflects the understanding that phenomena are the result of infinite multiple causalities. Interdependent causalities bring phenomena into a temporal and time limited existence. Interdependent phenomena are empty and have no basis within them. Every and all phenomena are a result of multiple infinite causalities. This causal result is phenomena and the resulted phenomena, in turn, enters the sequence of causality and in turn contributes to innumerable causal sequencing resulting in infinite phenomena arising. Interdependence is the meaning of emptiness. This experience of emptiness is experienced as the view of phenomena within our own self and as well as our view of all external phenomena.<br />
Because every phenomenon is the result of causes outside of its own being, its own being is empty and contingent. The self concept was considering the occurrence of attributions and reality was regarded as some sense real. Reality was regarded as somewhat real as the subject and object implies each other, or co-emergent with each other. By self concept we may use the contemporary language of self representation. Self concept means how I represent myself to myself on the level of ideation or representational thinking. In this phrasing the sense of self or sense of subjectivity becomes an ideational and mental configuration.<br />
Some people interpret this vast infinite interdependency as an empty process with empty results. They consider this is a mechanistic approach to emptiness. This view is there is simply this unending process of events without basis, without source or without end. This interdependent view is considered by some to be nihilistic. In this view of emptiness there is neither cosmological source nor intrinsic meaning. Some think this dependent origination can be also understood beyond the rationalistic. Dependent origination frame can be viewed from within the shamanistic frame. From within the shamanistic frame this would imply the power of unbound resonance, the vast magical net of radiant luminous energy that makes up the universe. This is implies a cosmological framing of the vast relational reality of the energetic luminous universe.<br />
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Unthinkableness of Emptiness<br />
In time (1st or 2nd century AD) the meaning of the appearance of emptiness was described by Nagarjuna. He formulated the Madhyamaka traditions. This great tradition was part of the unfolding of the Mahayana tradition. This was another turning of the wheel of dharma, the wheel of understanding. Mahayana or great vehicle was a vast shift in the experience and projection of Buddhism. Mahayana and Madhyamaka are not the same. Mahayana was a vast shift in understanding and practice of Buddhism and Madhyamaka was the major philosophical part of this shift.<br />
The Madhyamaka tradition is an epistemological tradition. Epistemological traditions focus on what we know, how we know, and if we can know. This epistemological tradition of Madhyamaka suggests that emptiness means empty of meaning and empty of signification. This emptiness of meaning suggests that emptiness can not be thought and neither can emptiness be conceptualized or linguistically represented. In a profound way, no signifier actually can signify emptiness. So this place of emptiness is a place without reference and without signification. This emptiness is the essence of phenomena or the essence of everything about which nothing can be said or thought. This is an epistemological and deconstructive approach to emptiness. In a way, the methodology of approaching emptiness is by deconstruction of both meaning and attribution of meaning. This deconstructed event is experienced beyond language and words. This view has nihilistic sides (no meaning) as well as being powerful in its epistemological openness which is free of language attribution.<br />
Madhyamaka orientation was also a response to the concreteness of earlier Buddhist formulations of mind and awareness. Nagarjuna‘s work challenges some of the fundamental concrete language and imagery of the Abhidharma. Nagarjuna used rationalistic thinking to deconstruct the rationalistic Indian Buddhist philosophy of the day. Nagarjuna attempted to logically prove that the logical assertions about the nature of reality are inconsistent and useless assertions about emptiness. All language and rational thought takes us away from sunyata. The mind can not lead us into emptiness and can only distract us from the non conceptual experience of emptiness.<br />
Madhyamaka does have limitations. A limitation is that Madhyamaka seems to make no active understanding or intuition as to phenomena of emptiness. Madhyamaka makes no attribution as to the indivisibility of phenomena and emptiness. The dimension of phenomena is simply left out of the Madhyamaka. Phenomena is left as unsaid and unthought. Within this lack of inclusion of phenomena there is a loss of the understanding of the non duality of appearance and emptiness. The presentation of Madhyamaka lacks reference to phenomena that does reflect the non-duality of form and emptiness as expressed in the heart sutra. The non-duality of relative truth and ultimate truth is by passed and unsaid. The dynamic aspect of radiance is unspoken and un-recognized in Madhyamaka.<br />
Nonetheless, the actuality of the great compassion as sunyata is spoken and signified. The bodhichitta is also expressed and signified. The sambhogakaya dimension is also relatively unsaid, as is the nirmanakaya dimension. The Madhyamaka is an epistemological presentation of the dharmakaya via the path of negativity. What is not rather then what is.<br />
It was on the basis of a group of Mahayana sutras the Prajnaparamita sutras that Nagarjuna created Madhyamaka philosophy. Prajnaparamita is the “Perfection of Wisdom” and means going beyond. Cutting through dualistic thinking, conceptual thinking; into experience of wisdom. The Madhyamaka uses rational thinking in cutting through rational thinking and understanding. In this approach, he deconstructs causality and all and any assertions that can be made about nature of reality or emptiness or sunyata. The cessation of conceptualization will itself transform samsara into nirvana and brings forth enlightenment.<br />
Nagarjuna says emptiness is essentially compassion and compassion is emptiness. Ultimately the Madhyamaka philosophy opens the doorway to non-conceptual actuality of compassion. Similar to Madhyamaka methodology is the post modern philosopher Derrida’s methodology which deconstructs language and its meaning. This path of negation is also present in forms of Vedic philosophy as well as in Christian theology.<br />
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Emptiness as Buddha Nature<br />
The next major tradition to unfold within the Mahayana was Yogacara originated by Asanga around the fourth century. The Prajnaparamita was considered the second turning of the wheel of dharma. The later sutras that followed Nagarjuna were considered the third turning. The Yogacara reflects a number of sutras, especially the five teachings of Maitreya revealed by Asanga. In the teachings of Maitreya, the understanding of the Tathagatagarbha clearing arose and is translated as Buddha Nature. This understanding and actuality of Buddha nature was specifically developed in the Uttaratantra. The Uttaratantra is one of the five teachings of Maitreya. This tradition of the givenness of seeds of enlightenment as the innate Buddha nature is understood to be within everyone and all sentient beings. The Tathagatagarbha doctrine is significant here as representing a contrasting pole in the presentation of Buddhism to the Madhyamaka philosophy of Nagarjuna. The Tathagatagarbha doctrine provided the basis for a different way of conceptualizing the process of enlightenment. Rather than a progress along a path in which the path is primarily one of purification, the Tathagatagarbha perspective understood the attainment of Buddhahood as the uncovering of potential that was always there. The path is the path of experiencing the underlying sublime structure of reality. This arising of the Uttaratantra tantra and the Tathagatagarbha gave cosmological base to dependent origination. This primordial awareness as Buddha nature became the primal cause of dependent origination. This is an amazing shift and there is the opening for the Vajrayana to unfold. Within this formulation there can be an implicit theism. Within this understanding, phenomenon was also included into the path of realization.<br />
The Yogacara also provided a frame to hold the relationships between conventional reality or relative truth and the ultimate truth. The realm of phenomena was being integrated into the ultimate reality. The two truths understanding contrast our ordinary perception of reality with the absolute or ultimate truth.<br />
Tathagatagarbha understanding is different than the Madhyamaka approach. Rather then the rational descriptions of the illusion of samsara there is the beginning attempts to experience the indivisibleness between view of phenomena and the enlightened state. This view is closer to the shamanistic view of meditative practice. The Madhyamaka descriptions are negative and deconstruct experience. The Yogacara was the view of yogis and meditators. The Nyingmapa tradition or the old translation school manifest the positive descriptions of primordial awareness as emptiness that is neither void nor dead. Rather, primordial awareness is alive and luminous radiance and is the source of phenomena and the possibility of experience of the indivisibleness between phenomena and emptiness. The Tathagatagarbha was emptiness but within each person it is the base of experience and the world. Buddha nature is emptiness, which is alive and compassionate and is knowingness or gnosis. <br />
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Emptiness as Cosmological Radiance Embodied: The Path of the Tantra<br />
Within this formulation of the tantra, emptiness is primordial awareness that manifests the three kayas. This next unfolding was the revelation of the great tantras and the Vajrayana and Mantrayana paths. The arising of the understanding of emptiness as radiant light and bliss. . This period was from the fourth through the 12th century. These great tantras arose, which elaborated the practice of deities and the cosmology of the deities and dakinis. The world of awareness as being multi-dimensional was unfolding as dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya.<br />
Dependent origination is now ultimately light. Emptiness is understood to be the openness of spaciousness, luminous radiance. And this radiant light is the great compassion that creates everything and manifests everything directly ceaselessly. Since luminous emptiness was manifesting the infinite circumstances of dependent origination, dependent origination was also light. So the world is fused with light as light, and the map of Indra reflects this understanding of the interpenetration of energy and light. The indivisibleness of phenomena and luminous emptiness and luminous emptiness and phenomena is central to the tantric practice.. Also, the field of light can be located within the human body but is also beyond the body. Hence, there is this interfusion of the world of beings as light. This allows for extension to place us within the other directly and not just by words or modeling but by extension and transmission of awareness itself. The time period of the tantras was an extension of the great sutra’s and goes from about 400 A D through 1200 A D. The Guhyasamaja tantra, one of the major Anuttarayoga tantras may date as early as fourth century. New tantras continued to appear until the last stages of Indian Buddhism. One of the most important tantras for the Tibetans was the Kalachakra tantra. This tantra appeared in India not long before the destruction of Buddhist monasteries by Islamic armies.<br />
The old tantras were transmitted to Tibet during the eight century. The major sources of the new tantras were transmitted two centuries later. Some of the major tantras concerning the supreme siddhis of enlightenment were the Hevajra, the Guhyasamaja, the Chakrasamvara, Kalachakra and the Guhyagarbha tantra. In this understanding, emptiness becomes positive, alive, luminous radiance, potentiality and is embodied as human awareness itself.<br />
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Indivisibleness of Emptiness and Phenomena<br />
In the old translation traditions of Nyingma tradition phenomena is brought deeply into understanding of the essential relationship between luminous emptiness and phenomena. The understanding was the non-duality or the indivisibility of phenomena and luminous emptiness was essential to the path of realization. The oneness of relative truth and ultimate truth is an essential aspect of the Vajrayana path. The meaning of heart sutra is completed explicitly. The early understanding of sutra was emptiness alone. And the later understanding was the indivisibility of form and emptiness and emptiness and form. There is the moving away from emptiness as void alone to the understanding of emptiness as potentiality and source of manifestation of the world and the archetypical energies as the deities and dakinis. There is the recognition of the divinity of appearance and the divinity of experience within the Vajrayana. The Nirmanakaya dimension is included in the drama of realization.<br />
The arising of Dzogchen during the 8th and 9th centuries was the most exquisite understanding of the indivisibleness of phenomena and luminous emptiness. The indivisibility of relative phenomena and absolute truth was completed within Dzogchen. There is much speculation since the origins of Dzogchen are mysterious that Chan Buddhism influenced the arising of Dzogchen. Other influences were the Indian Mahasiddha tradition, Bon, Indian Yogacara /Tathagatagarbha understanding, Hindu Kashmir Shaivism, the Mahayoga tantras, and even Gnosticism. Of great influence was the fundamental Mahayoga text of the Nyingma School, the Guhyagarbha Tantra. <br />
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Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D.<br />
Rudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-66894714414294736842012-12-30T14:50:00.001-08:002012-12-30T14:50:30.662-08:00 Phenomenology of the Essence and Appearance in Merleau Ponty<br />
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1.For Husserl phenomenology is an experiential philosophy of essence as phenomena. For Husserl there is the indivisibility of the essence and the manifestation of the essence which manifestation is phenomena, the manifestation of appearance. This was Husserl’s great contribution to philosophy, the inseparability of essence and phenomena. Merleau Ponty made this the focus of his philosophical work.<br />
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Essence as phenomena<br />
2. Essence is the essence of something. The essence of being, the essence of some quality, the essence of some dimension of experience are examples of essence and its relationship to phenomena. Phenomena and the essence of phenomena are within non duality and are indivisible. Phenomena and the noumenon are within non duality and are indivisible. Being and the appearance of Being as beings are in non duality and indivisible within the very duality of appearance. Appearance as phenomena are dualistic. There is a me and a you and we are indivisible.<br />
Essence is manifested in phenomena as the phenomena. Phenomena is the manifestation of essence. This understanding that essence and phenomena are not in opposition dissolves many philosophical and theological impasse’s and the violent splitting of the actuality of reality. This understanding opens up the possibility of experiencing pure primordial awareness as manifesting our own singular subjectivity. Pure awareness is essence and our subjectivity in time and space is the phenomena.<br />
3.For Plato and much of ancient philosophy(not the presocratics) the essence was the unchanging and subtle idea, a subtle dimension of being. There was opposition between the ephemeral world of the senses and the essence of reality. There was a split between the world and the essence of reality. This split is played out both in western philosophy and theology as well as eastern philosophy. The split was expressed in vedic philosophy as the split between consciousness and prakrti(flesh). In buddhist philosophy there was a split between ultimate reality as emptiness and the appearance of phenomena. The appearing of phenomena of human life was considered deluded and illusionary. Some would consider this very splitting of essence and phenomena as the true grand illusion and deludedness. As human experience is validated, except for the rare few who become realized.<br />
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In psychoanalysis there was a foundational splitting between phenomena and noumena. The split was a function of dynamics for un knowning such as foreclosure, repression, denial. This foundational split is found in both western and eastern traditions of philosophy. Jung ‘s struggle was with understanding the intimate relationship between phenomena and noumenon. In Jung’s thinking the relationship was between known experience and unknown source, between consciousness and unconsciousness. He searched for the medium of indivisibility.<br />
4. Merleau Ponty focused on the actuality that essence and phenomena are indivisible. Phenomena is the manifestation of the noumenon. the essence. The essence can not be detached from the phenomenal form. The essence makes its appearance in the world as phenomena. The essence may not itself be limited to the sensible but can manifest itself in sensorial form. There may be different levels of manifestation or different dimensions of manifestation of the singular essence. The phenomena and noumena are intimately related. The essence and its manifestation are intimately related and are actually in non duality. Non duality manifesting in duality. Non duality manifested within dualistic appearance.<br />
As was already described there is foundational split found in certain forms of buddhism and vedic philosophy. The unhappy and nihilistic views of the world as not being real, and the realm of appearance is delusion…<br />
The Iconic Openness of Phenomenon as Appearing<br />
5.Merleau Ponty continues that the essence can be experienced from the iconography of vision and experience. The essence is not simply a contemplative reflection, but essence presents itself within corporeal vision, The field and medium of the flesh are indivisible. To know is not limited to thinking conceptually but we can see and gaze non conceptually and directly into the place of essence. Essence can be known non conceptually and experienced directly. Understanding can be thought free. Direct knowingness is natural and is non duality within duality. This is the phenomenology of the icon, the iconic view of reality. The iconic view of Being manifesting through beings as Being.<br />
6.Essence can be the very presence of the thing appearing. There can be the representation of the thing and there can be the appearing of thing. Representation is only one form of knowning. Representation is not experiencing the essence of what is. The mapping is not the experience of the territory. Representational thinking and representational conceptualizing is the mapping of experience knowing the experienced.<br />
7.The visible bears the invisible within itself, inside itself. The language of the icon takes us beyond representational knowning and representational thought. Thinking and conceptualizing is one kind of knowingness. The iconic opening expresses the essence becoming visible experientially. The icon is the place where the invisible becomes visible. The visibility of the invisible, the visibility is where the invisible appears. The iconic place, the icon space, the iconic openness of phenomena is the indivisibleness between the visible and the invisible. Being and the appearing of beings are indivisible and all beings are iconic doorways. The realm of the flesh and medium of the flesh is iconic.<br />
8. The experience of Primordial being is as Merleau Ponty describes is beyond representation thinking and yet is not invisible to non conceptual direct perception of open awareness.<br />
Embodiment as Medium of the Field<br />
9.Embodment manifest in us within space and time. Our embodying is embodying the medium of the field. The field of being is manifesting within the dimension of flesh. The field of flesh moves itself through us and is the expression of spaciousness. This experience of the flesh is experiencing the essence of luminous spaciousness. The body illuminates the phenomenological flow of the field of the world which is the Field of Being manifesting within this dimension of flesh.<br />
10.This essence can be grasped from the iconography of vision. The classical essence as Husserl’s description as being constituted by the mind in noetic noematic frame is replaced by contemplative awareness and non conceptual thought. The essence presents itself within corporeal vision. Essence can be known nonconceptually and then language and represented in various ways of words and sentences. There are many words and languages that approximate essence but no word holds the whole experience. Language is limited. This is the phenomenology of the iconic view of Being manifesting through beings with languaging referencing the experience in approximation.<br />
11. Essence is within the very presence of the thing, There can be the representation of the thing, and there can be the appearing of the thing. The appearing of the thing as Being manifesting as thing. This essence is ultimately is no thing and arising from within this no thing can be everything and anything. There is always some distance between language and experience.<br />
12.The visible bears the invisible inside. The experience of icon takes us beyond representational knowning or represenatational thought and language. There is direct and indirect knowning of essence. The icon expresses the innermost relation. The icon is the place where the invisible becomes visible. The visibility of the invisible. The visibility where the invisible appears as such, the iconic place, iconic openness of phenomena.<br />
Embodiment As Phenomenological Flow of Singular Essence<br />
13.My body manifest within space and time. Our body is the medium of the field of the world, the field of being manifesting as this dimension of flesh. The field of flesh sounds itself through us and is the expression of spaciousness. The understanding of the flesh of the field deconcretizes the body and illuminates the phenomenological flow of the field of world which is the field of BEING manifesting within this corporeal dimension. Embodiment is a relatedness of the field of the world and is a hollow or fold or flesh of openness which is made and can be unmade. My consciousness is saturated with limitless blue, the blue of the sky somehow gives self in me. The skill of Merleau Ponty is the expression and realization of how subjectivity is de concretized , de entified or de -reified, de -objectified, de-thinged.<br />
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No thingness As Essence of Phenomena<br />
Yes I do exist but I am not a thing…although my body and mind have thing qualities. There is an extension in space but this extension is non materialistic form. No thingness arise in everything and as anything. In this way the essence of phenomena is emptiness as no thingness.<br />
14.The essence of the unfolding understanding of Merleau Ponty in his later work is the non dual relationship within duality and duality non duality. Merleau Ponty will continually try to elaborate how there can be both oneness and twoness. How there can be intertwining between appearance and essence. For Merleau Ponty the experience of flesh as openness will not emerge if you overly reify phenomena.<br />
15. There is infinite manifestation of singular experience. No thingness, manifest fields and the field of fields. These fields in which things, people, creatures, intertwine, interweave, yet there is wonder in each singularity. Everything and everyone is connected within the field. There is the fluidity of all phenomena as all beings are open and within otherness. The indivisibility of twonness within oneness. There is the expandedness and interrelatedness and interpenetration of all beings through the flesh of the field. There is non duality of Being within the beingness of all appearance can be experienced easily.<br />
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Intertwining of Phenomena<br />
16.The body is actually embodying. As embodying the self that emerges as embodiment Is foundational. Always emergent among all the being emergence, and of the world. Embodiment is an ongoing upsurge of the, an interweavement, a kind of bringing forth that has the foundation of no thingness and yet is everywhere as the dimension of the flesh of the world is not material drama. These vortices that are en bodying and the perceived of the world are spirals of transformation that find themselves with moments of meaning as the emergence of sensibility. The depth of the world is our participation in Being without restriction, a participation in the being of space. There are transformations of movement within vibrational reality. This embodiment is corporeal. There is confusion between being the dimension of corporealness and equating that quality with not being real or existing. This is untrue. The flesh of the world is spaciousness Viscousity.<br />
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The Flesh as indivisibleness of Phenomena<br />
17.The metaphor of flesh allow us to go beyond the thing. For Merleau Ponty there are not simply sensible objects contained within themselves but rather a series of showings, appearances, and emergence of sensual meanings that retains vitality in keeping open the infinite variety among l infinite singular things with infinite singular subjectivities which are openings within and of the field of Being.<br />
18.There is the ongoing transformation and relational intertwining of all beings such that they do not exist independently on their own. Being is being brought forth ceaselessly and in their beings both appearing and disappearing. Time sequencing gives the illusion of fixed thingness.<br />
19.Within the flesh of embodiment there is the experience of spaciousness ,pervading spaciousness, pervading energy and pervading luminosity. This dimension of no thingness is the source of the spiraling vortexual energies, which bring forth ongoing embodiment. This is the dimension of fluid spaciousness. The views of intellectualism and empiricism are ways of the mind alone organizing experiencing of the world.<br />
20.Merleua Ponty works within non duality within duality. His move to non dualism went against the history of western philosophy. Emptiness or Spaciousness or Potentiality is not the embrace of non being or nihilism but rather the sense of intertwining of vortices, of ongoing, foundational emergence or manifestation. The seemingly void of nothingness is the fullness of Being. We are shared embodiment of the field with another. This description is a description of the dimension of flesh. In the language of vajrayana, this is nirmanakaya.<br />
21.The resonating bodies of human beings are part of an enveloping sense that we can enter and penetrate into the flesh of Beingness. The flesh of awareness in which we are intertwined is non dual ontological vibration that everyone communicate through. This vibration is the wild region of being from which everyone has originated or are ceaselessly originating from within. The childhood experience of gnosis is never completely liquidated and may be used in the re-experiencing of direct perception. The feeling of inseparability is present before the age of three and can be reincarnated experientially.<br />
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Rudolph Bauer,Ph.D.<br />
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Rudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-73715692560786829362012-12-30T14:47:00.000-08:002012-12-30T14:47:26.403-08:00 Phenomenology of the Manifestation of Appearance<br />
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Merleau Ponty suggests that the Phenomenology of awareness gives rise to a phenomenology of the invisible becoming visible.<br />
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Husserl Early Phenomenology<br />
1. Through phenomenology Husserl studied the conditions of possibility of appearance of phenomena; this form of understanding leads to idealism, and the solipsism of the self contained mind alone. This idealism emphasizes the contributions of mind alone to knowing and amplifies the split between subject and object actuality.<br />
2. Husserl’s early understanding of the epoché (suspension of judgment) helped him gaze into the phenomena in a manner that was freer from the view of cultural prejudice. The view of early phenomenology was not simply the experiential articulating of our experience of appearance but the attempt to understand the conditions of the possibility of appearance of phenomena.<br />
3. Husserl in his phenomenology focused on appearance of phenomena and he understood that no appearance is independent and self sufficient. Appearance refers to something other than itself. Every appearance is characterized by self other structure; appearance is an appearance of something for someone, appearance is relational. Similar to Buddhism, he understood the interdependency and interpenetration of phenomena.<br />
4. Appearance of phenomena has horizons which are the range of limits imposed by the reference of appearance to the context of other appearances. There are many different views of the same phenomena. Our experience of phenomena of appearance is organized by our awareness of the horizon of various views of the phenomena. Early phenomenology of Husserl was a phenomenology of mind alone viewing how appearance of phenomena comes to be conceptualized and represented or constituted.<br />
5. There is the subject for whom the appearance is given and for who the appearance appears. As St. Thomas Aquinas the medieval theologian would say “Quid quid recepitur ad modem recipientis recipitur.” (Whatever is received is received according to the mind of the receiver.) These appearances of subjectivity of ones own subjectivity is radically different than the appearance of an external phenomenon. This appearance of subjectivity to subjectivity may have a self other structure; the subject manifesting itself to itself as subject, is very different then phenomena external to subjectivity manifesting to subjectivity. The issue of whether there is a self object structure in this phenomenology of self appearance depends on what is meant by subjectivity and what kind of phenomenology is being used. Subjectivity identified with mind alone can be limited to the mind and contained within the mental function of thinking and to the realm of the conceptual representation. In this early phenomenology of Husserl, Husserl used the language the noetic noematic mind structure and this cognitive framing limits subjectivity to being a structure of mind. Subjectivity as mind is contained within the noetic noematic structure of apprehending and conceptualizing the object of appearance. This noetic noematic structuring of experience will be a self other structure. The self other structure happens whether the object is phenomena outside of subjectivity or whether subjectivity itself is the object of noetic noematic cognitive structure. This noetic noematic structure results in subjectivity becoming objectified. Amazingly in subjectivity becoming objectified the essence of subjectivity disappears.<br />
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Later Phenomenologies of Heidegger, Merleau Ponty and Husserl<br />
6. In Heideggerian phenomenology as well as the work of Merleau Ponty and later Husserl, the mind is differentiated from our awareness. In Dzogchen Tibetan Buddhism awareness is differentiated from the mind. In this context mind means the functions of thinking, feeling, sensing, remembering, and fantasy. In these functions, phenomenology’s suspension (epoché) becomes the suspension of the mind, and what remains is awareness. This shifting from mind into awareness allows awareness to become aware of awareness itself and consequently to know and perceive itself directly which is from inside to inside. This shifting from mind into awareness also allows awareness to be present to phenomena in a direct and most immediate manner. This openness of awareness experiences the givenness of phenomena in a preconceptual and non-conceptual manner. When the person’s sense of subjectivity is no longer located within their mind alone, then the sense of subjectivity can be located within awareness itself as awareness itself. Because and within this awareness state a profoundly different kind knowingness can manifest within us. This kind of experiential perception takes knowingness outside of the noetic noematic cognitive structure and places phenomenological knowingness within the realm of the direct perception of awareness. This direct perception is pre-reflective and non-conceptual knowingness.<br />
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The Field<br />
7. What is most amazing as one enters this awareness of awareness continuum, awareness begins to manifest as a field. In this unconcealment the great qualities of the field of awareness become apparent. The field quality is a signature of later phenomenologies of Heidegger, Merleau Ponty as well as later Husserl. Again, it is also of great interest that in the tradition of Dzogchen Tibetan Buddhism the awareness field (dbying) becomes felt and the qualities of the field manifest. There is this shift from mind to awareness of awareness in the meditation practioner. When the field manifests in meditation, the power and expanse of meditation is felt and the power of extension within the field can be used. In this experiential view of the phenomenology of the awareness field, the phenomenon of the field begins to show itself experientially.<br />
8. There are many qualities of the field. The most fundamental quality is openness, or spaciousness or emptiness, or no thingness. The field is luminous or light or radiance or clarity. The field is energy and is the very life force of phenomena. The field is multidimensional and infinite in its horizon. There is the primary or primordial dimension of formlessness or pure potentiality; there is the apparitional dimension of the field as archetypical energies and configurations manifesting continuously; and there are fields of the flesh, to use Merleau Ponty’s metaphor, which is the appearance of the phenomena of the world. In Dzogchen language the dimension of pure potentiality is dharmakaya, the dimensions of the apparition of archetypical energies is sambhogakaya, and the flesh dimension of the world is nirmanakaya. <br />
9. The field is self arising. The self arising of the field of awareness allows the field to permeate and manifest both subject and the otherness. The field in its self arising manifests both subject and otherness. The field arising manifests both awakened awareness and awakened phenomena. The possibility arises to experience within the duality of singular phenomena and within the appearance of individual phenomena, the non-duality of indivisibility between phenomena and the field of awareness. There is one awareness field manifesting all the differentiated beings and within all the differentiated beings is the same awareness field.<br />
10. In the unfolding of these later phenomenologies the field of awareness is experienced as the field of Being. As Merleau Ponty declares in the unfinished text, “The Visible and the Invisible”, the field of Being manifests both the subject and the object. Everyone shares the same flesh. The flesh is the medium of the field. In this experiential understanding, subjectivity appears to itself directly and immediately without the mediation of mental cognition. The view of knowing conceptually from the reflective mind differs from the view of the non conceptual knowingness of awareness itself. Subjectivity, which is awareness, experiences its own self as the appearance of awareness. The appearance of subjectivity is not a self other structure. The self otherness structure involves objectification in which awareness or subjectivity disappears. The mind looking at mind, involves self other objectification. The mind looking at its self would involve self other objectification. The mind looking at the subject as mind and otherness as mind results in objectification.<br />
11. Awareness as subjectivity can only be known experientially and directly. In mind alone phenomenology, the thought that is experienced is not the experience of knowingness but the thought of the experience of knowingness. To think subjectivity within mind alone is not to know subjectivity as awareness. This phenomenon of awareness can only be revealed experientially and then the experience can be languaged as thought, and conceptualized within thought. What is thought is the conceptualization of appearance of the experience of awareness of awareness.<br />
12. There is a radical difference between the earlier Husserlian phenomenology of mind alone as reflective thinking that constitutes the appearance of objects as concepts and the phenomenology of subjectivity as awareness knowing itself directly and experientially. Within the phenomenology of awareness phenomena can be experienced and known directly and experientially.<br />
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Non Conceptual Direct Perception as Radical Difference<br />
13. It is true that there is a difference between object manifestation and self manifestation. The radical difference within phenomenology’s is not the difference between object and self manifestation but rather the difference between representational conceptual knowing and the non-conceptual direct experiential knowingness of self and the knowingness of otherness. The knowing of phenomena whether as self appearance or as object appearance is known both directly and experientially.<br />
14. The earlier Husserlian phenomenology was mind alone with its corresponding idealistic containment. The mind which can take itself as an object and the mind which takes itself as subject is an enclosed mind and enclosed subjectivity; enclosed in conceptualization. This earlier phenomenology studied the constitution of mental objects whether as subject or as object. This phenomenology was the mentalization of experience in dualistic appearance and situated in the land of ideation. This phenomenology was not the phenomena of awareness as subjectivity in non dualistic relatedness within world of dualistic phenomena.<br />
15. The earlier phenomenology did not actually study the appearance of experience but of cognition about experience. This study was mind alone and contained within itself. The earlier phenomenology was a study of conceptualization or representational thinking. This is a limited view of knowingness and phenomenology. The earlier phenomenology of Husserl took place in the cognitive dimension of mental experience and not the direct perception of the experience of phenomena. Awareness within itself and within the world is the new phenomenology. This newer phenomenology was opened up by Heidegger as well as Merleau Ponty and the vast amount of unpublished papers by Husserl in the Louvain archives. The earlier phenomenology did not focus on awareness as field and the direct knowing of field of appearance.<br />
16. This radical shift of experiencing awareness as field took place in Heidegger, later in the work Merleau Ponty and Husserl. The phenomenologist Sartre remained in mind alone and within the solipsism and idealistic framing of phenomenology. The self contained phenomenology of mind alone was over come by Heidegger, later Merleau Ponty and Husserl himself.<br />
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Reflective and Prereflective thinking <br />
17. We may consider that Heidegger was the master of prereflective methodology and Merleau Ponty and Husserl’s initial methodology was reflective and evolved into prereflective methods.<br />
18. There is a vast difference between reflective methodology and prereflective methodology both in the understanding of self-manifestation as well as other or object manifestation. This understanding will not only lead us to understand self-manifestation as subjectivity in and of itself but also self-manifestation within and through the other. The experience of self-manifestation of the other in the singular field of awareness is radically different then object manifestation as the other in the rational phenomenology of mind alone phenomenology. The doorway of the phenomenology of awareness opens to us the experience of non-duality within duality and duality within non-duality. Or as the Dakini said to Dudjom Lingpa, “You and I are indivisible.” There is actually a “you” and actually an “I” and there is the actuality of indivisibleness. Non duality becomes visible and experiential because the one field manifests the knower, the known and the process of knowingness. Within two there is indivisibly… As the Dzogchen tradition describes, there is awakened awareness and awakened phenomena.<br />
19. Understanding self-manifestation of awareness opens the door way for a deeper and truer understanding of manifestation of the appearance of otherness as self. Both self-manifestation and object manifestation may be experienced from the mediated view by mind alone. In this view there is duality alone. From within the radical view of awareness knowing awareness within self and within the other there is non-duality within duality. This radical view takes place when awareness is experienced as field. Awareness is a field, vast and infinite in its horizons. This radical experience of awareness becoming aware of its own self as the great expanse radicalizes the experience of both self and world, subject and otherness. Knowingness as outside subject to outside object and knowingness as inside to inside is a radically different experience. The duality of experience is a natural manifestation of the differentiation of phenomena into singularity and individuality. The language of delusion of dualism as often used by Buddhist and Vedic thinkers negates the natural unfolding of recognizing non-duality within duality. This nihilistic language forecloses of the actuality of differentiated and individual appearance of a “me” and a “you”, within which and through which is non-duality of the pervasive and singular field of awareness. These eastern thinkers can only think non-duality because they foreclose the actuality of duality.<br />
20. This arising of duality is both the biological and cultural natural unfolding of complexity of singularity and individuation. This capacity to experience the naturalness of openness of non-duality within the duality of appearance arises effortlessly when a person enters the awareness field. This radical opening from reflective mind to the immediacy of the prereflective awareness field opens for us within the natural duality of appearance and phenomena, the experience of non- duality inherent within and through phenomena. This is an experience of liberation and consolation of the highest aesthetic.<br />
21. Moreover, and this is most important, within this differentiation of mind from awareness there must be in time a reintegration of mind within the awareness field. As mind is reintegrated within the field of awareness there will be simultaneously mediated and unmediated knowingness. One can experience both reflective and prereflective knowledge. One can experience both duality and non-duality within the same phenomenological event. Or as the Dakini said to Dudjom Lingpa, “You and I are indivisible.”<br />
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The Efforts of Michel Henry and Self-Manifestation<br />
22. Self-manifestation has various manifestations from that of mind to that of awareness field. From the reintegration of mind within the awareness field view, there is the experience that I am the one experiencing the phenomena manifesting within the field. This occurs the moment one is acquainted with experience in the first person mode of givenness. It is possible to speak of self-manifestation the moment I am no longer simply mentally conscious of the foreign object, but through my experience of the givenness of object or phenomena or appearance as well. This is both reflective mediated and prereflective unmediated experience. Reflection is mental reflection upon the experience of the object. Prereflective is the experience of the givenness of the phenomena directly and experientially and non-conceptually. Conceptualization may follow after or even during the direct experience of the phenomena.<br />
23. Michel Henry takes subjectivity to be absolute in the sense of being completely self sufficient in its radical interiority. This kind of self absorption unhappily arises from his misunderstanding the nature of awareness field as immanence. His narrow and contained understanding of immanence leads to Michel Henry having a contracted and solipsistic view of awareness. For Michel Henry this immanence of self manifestation is enclosed and highly contained within the body and is auto centric at best and ultimately autistic. For Michel Henry the sense of awareness manifest itself to itself without ever leaving itself, without extending itself, without producing or presupposing any kind of expansion or extension. The original self- manifestation of subjectivity excludes all kinds of exteriority and expansion beyond the body mind boundaries. For Michel Henry the immanence of awareness is bound within the body mind boundaries.<br />
24. For Michel Henry you cannot approach absolute subjectivity as if it were merely another otherness. There is no otherness within the confines of absolute subjectivity. For Michel Henry absolute subjectivity does not reveal itself in the world. Within absolute subjectivity it is impossible to grasp categories or dimensions pertaining to the world. This is a unique form of immediate and non- transcending manifestation. The manifestation of subjectivity is not only utterly different from the visibility of worldly phenomena, it is elusive and excluding. There is always something that eludes visibility and touchability.<br />
25. The essence of self-manifestation cannot appear in the visibility of worldly exteriority, and Michel Henry describes it as obscure and invisible. The self-manifestation of absolute subjectivity must be characterized as an invisible revelation. Michel Henry’s misunderstanding happens because his own experience of self manifestation was contained within self referential awareness. This contained awareness did not expand beyond the boundaries of mind and body. This self-manifestation of his awareness was relentlessly self referential and the field phenomena that is so unbound and uncontained did not manifest for Michel Henry. For Heidegger, Merleau Ponty as well as within Dzogchen the immanence of awareness is pervasive and within everything and everyone. Michel Henry misses the actuality of awareness and the boundaries of immanence were imprisoned. Within his solipsistic transcendental view, the nature of self-manifestation and infinite field of immanence is lost for Michel Henry. His view is not unlike the Buddhist Madhyamaka tradition, with its nihilistic orientation to world and to its own manifestation.<br />
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Unfolding Visibility and the Self-Manifestation of Self Recognition<br />
26. This is an immanent revelation which is presence itself and this presence remains invisible and can become visible. Heidegger and Merleau Ponty open this dimension of awareness of unbound openness and unfolding visibility. Paul Ricoeur is also a master at bringing into clarity the unfolding of self recognition in human experience. Self-manifestation and self recognition is not a once and for all event but an ongoing existential and developmental task of being human and becoming human awareness which is awareness itself. The unfolding of phenomena and appearance of phenomena is the natural unfolding human task of experiencing the light of awareness within and through phenomena. Just like the baby learns to recognize the mother and the father and others in every unfolding depth and breath of self other recognition, the same baby can learn to experience the light of awareness within the mother and the father and within the others. The same baby experiences the indivisibleness with the mother and yet differentiatedness from the mother in the same duration. So the unfolding development task is the deepening of the basic truth of indivisibility and differentiatedness.<br />
27. When thinkers invalidate appearance of phenomena as delusion, they easily fall into the self isolation of Michel Henry’s absolute containment within absolute subjectivity or they fall into fusion states of mind alone arising out of various forms of dissociation. These dissociative fusion states are in essence self imposed trance states. Truly speaking the world does become a dream and dissociative detachment saves them from the relational pain of suffering but not from the suffering of living in the vacuum. The dissociative vacuum is in fact empty as a vast hole is empty and is not the natural state of nothingness of the open unbound human awareness within the world which is also awareness itself.<br />
28. Nothing will manifest itself unless it is encountered by a self manifesting of awareness. We can only be aware of phenomena, if the phenomena manifest within our field of awareness. There is a oneness between the knower and the known. Implicit in the heart of experience is the non-duality of the knower and the known, the indivisibility between Being and phenomena, the indivisibility between relative and ultimate truth.<br />
29. It is only a self-manifesting subject which can be conscious of appearing phenomena, and it is only because we are already given and opened ourselves to phenomena that manifestation becomes possible. This early phenomenology is a mind to mind phenomenon. In mind to mind phenomena the realm of awareness as field is not yet opened. Thus duality dominates. This dualistic mind knowing itself dualistically and other objects dualistically is mediated by mind alone. Even the Intentionality of mind alone presupposes self awareness and even the self transcending that we encounter in intentionality is founded on the self support of subjective immanence, which is awareness as the field.<br />
30. The phenomenology of self-manifestation is the opening into the possibility of manifestation of both self and otherness as self. Self-to- self indivisibility opens up the subtle action of the passing through of self to self beyond mind body boundaries. The manifestation of both self and object is on the level of mind is objectification. The self-to-self oneness and interpenetration is the true intersubjective relatedness that is life giving and the drama of creativity.<br />
31. Prereflective non-objectifying self-awareness was implicit in early intentionality studies but awareness of mind alone knowledge is not deep or complete enough. Later phenomenologists understood that in the study of intentional and mind based phenomenology there was foreclosure of intersubjectivity as Sartre described relentlessly.<br />
The unhappy but common view<br />
32. There was for many as there is now the assumption that there is only one type of manifestation and only one type of phenomenology. That is to appear, to be given was always to be given as an object, whether as self or as otherness. This is an assumption behind the persistent attempt to interpret self-awareness or self-manifestation in terms of reflection. This is the model of mental intentionality and the compelling extremes of idealism and realism; the mind looking at mind as the object or looking as its own subjectivity as mind alone, the “I” as an idea. There is the enclosure of identification of the mind and subjectivity. The sense of subjectivity is located in the mind alone. Self-awareness has been misunderstood as the result of an objectifying, intentional activity and self-manifestation has been misunderstood as a special form of object manifestation, characterized by interiority being locked in.<br />
33. As long as mind and awareness are thought to be identical such objectification and inner alienation is sustained. Once the difference between awareness of mind and awareness of awareness is clearly experienced then the radical field phenomena of awareness is opened and unbound by self other duality…The self-manifestation of subjectivity, the self-manifestation of awareness is an immediate, non-objectifying occurrence, and therefore best described as awareness becoming aware of awareness.<br />
34. First there was phenomenology of mind, mind knowing mind. This was the phenomenology of being located in the mind as mind; hence the emphasis on mental intentionality. Then there was the shift to becoming aware of mind and this brought forth the transcendental view with its distant objectification. And then there was the great leap of awareness becoming aware of awareness and within that leap the field phenomena become apparent and the openness of direct perception becomes possible.<br />
35. When we are in the field and we are aware of our experience of feelings and moods, pain, anxiety, happiness, this experience is held within the field. This vital knowing does not arise through an intentional act that we are immediately aware of; there is no distance or separation between feeling the experience and our awareness of the experience. The experience is given in and through the awareness field as experience and ultimately given through and held by the field of primordial awareness.<br />
36. Everything has a certain feel, and what it feels like to experience these feelings, and so there is meaning and signification as to what is experienced. Awareness is the subjectivity in which the experience takes place. Awareness is a place.<br />
37. Primordial self-awareness is self-manifestation; awareness knowing awareness from within, immanent knowingness without the transcendental gap. This is a direct and immediate self awareness…direct knowing of knowingness. Self awareness can be purely interior and a self sufficient event involving no distance. Awareness is immediacy. Awareness can be an event which is beyond the felt horizon. Self-manifestation of subjectivity reveals itself to itself directly and with complete immediacy. Within this paradoxical awareness, the field manifests beyond reference and yet within its multidimensionality is within reference of otherness.<br />
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Timeless Awareness and Time<br />
38. Self-manifestation is both temporal and atemporal in the vast realm of immanence. Self-manifestation as timeless awareness is atemporal and is within the timeless realm of immanence. Timeless awareness as immanence manifests in time and is time. Time itself manifests within timeless awareness as timeless awareness manifest within time. The field of immanence is inclusive of time and timelessness. All manifestation is ultimately self-manifestation, the self-manifestation of primordial awareness. The actuality of phenomena is the self-manifestation of primordial awareness. There is no real difference whatsoever between primordial awareness and the self manifested phenomena. To touch the phenomena is to touch primordial awareness.<br />
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The Beingness of Being<br />
39. Awareness in becoming aware of awareness reveals the innermost actuality of awareness and the emerging sense of presence of awareness with its innate oneness within the beingness of Being itself as beings. This awareness of Being is the oneness of radical immanence. This immanence is not the immanence of a self contained subjectivity or self contained mind that is often so preoccupying to phenomenologist such as Michel Henry. This immanence of awareness is openness and ultimately infinitely unbound. The awareness field can not be contained within the mind body continuum but the focus within the field expands naturally into infinite horizons beyond mind body continuum and otherness itself.<br />
Pure presence, presence as pure awareness, pure potentiality is without no reference. Being as source is without reference and is beyond the containment of reference and is infinite its horizons and unfolds into otherness and beyond all otherness.<br />
40. Husserl could not conceive of pre-reflective self-awareness as truly immanent, and non- referential in self-manifestation. Husserl presents self-awareness as the givenness in inner time consciousness. This givenness becomes caught up in retention protention framing of time consciousness. The givenness of awareness is not actually contained between now and not now.<br />
41. Time consciousness is the primary self-objectification of awareness according to Husserl…Where the source of self manifestation is timeless awareness there is no reification and objectification. This openness is the most fundamental source of manifestation and since it is no thing, anything and everything can arise from it. This is the true phenomenology of the invisible becoming visible. The manifestation of primordial awareness as non-dual subjectivity is the experience of timeless awareness in time. This manifestation of timelessness within time as non-dual subjectivity brings forth dualistic self other manifestation or self other appearance. This is a natural arising of duality within the appearance of phenomena. This innermost non-dual awareness is neither contained nor bound within duality of the appearance of self and other.<br />
42. EmBodied life is awareness embodied and the body is the medium of the field. The body can become an intentional object but in essence the medium of the body is the embodiment of the awareness field in space and time as the luminous flesh. Awareness can become aware of its own self within its own self. The pre-reflective self- awareness is not the result of our own achievement, but is the given state and in becoming aware of this givenness is to experience self origination. The original self experience is not something we ourselves bring about; rather it is a primordial givenness of primordial awareness as primordial awareness. This primordial ground or base can be experienced when awareness focuses within awareness on awareness itself. Personal awareness ultimately is ground awareness. This movement of self recognition is wherein the field dimension opens and become visible. The true invisibility and true concealment is our own awareness as field which is the unfolding process of beingness of Being revealing and concealing within us as us.<br />
43. The movement from visibility to invisibility is phenomenologically motivated. The desire to know our own awareness is ultimately the desire to know awareness itself within self and the otherness of the world. This vast surge to know awareness within our self and within phenomena is the surge of primordial awareness itself to know itself in infinite forms and conduits.<br />
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Appearance of the Manifestation of Being<br />
44. For Heidegger, the very essence of phenomenology is to disclose what remains hidden from view namely, Being, the beingness of being. The phenomenology of the unapparent is the phenomenology of the translucent becoming apparent. The natural unfolding of the transparency of appearance is in essence the translucidity of Being manifesting and shining forth as phenomena and through phenomena. The nocturnal source of light is beyond mind as objectifying mind, linguistic mind. Phenomena interpenetrate phenomena as light penetrating light and phenomena infuses phenomena as light infuses light.<br />
45. The experience of immanence goes beyond object fixation and the objectified and reified representationalized and conceptualized mind. Such a mind is concrete, operational, and dense. To enter into the world of knowingness experiencing knowingness is to go through the doorway of phenomena into the experience of Beingness manifesting being as beings. Awareness is awakened and phenomena are awakened and so awakened awareness meets awaked awareness through and within phenomena. The descriptions of self and other are identical in the nature and within the light of awareness.<br />
46. Subjectively and otherness both belong to the singular ontological dimension of Being which is no thing and from this no thing everything and anything arises and manifests. The knowing of subjectivity of the other requires that one is in the dimension of subjectivity and within this inter-subjectivity indivisibility becomes visible; direct knowing takes place inside to inside. The non-mediated indivisibility becomes apparent. The invisible manifests itself in a radically different way than the visible. The invisibility of Being does not remain forever hidden but unfolds non-conceptually within subjectivity and the circumstances surrounding subjectivity. In essence, subjectivity is no thingness manifesting as no thingness within the mind body continuum and as the mind body continuum. No thingness as subjectivity manifesting within the thingness of body mind continuum. In true intersubjective states no thingness experiences no thingness in mutual recognition and the direct sense of indivisibleness.<br />
47. The old phenomenology of intentionality and object manifestation is a surface phenomenology. The sublime act of becoming aware of awareness is completely natural and open to everyone. It is amazing that in becoming aware of awareness the light of awareness pervades everything and everyone everywhere.<br />
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Written by: Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D.<br />
Rudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-85718190843005525332012-11-04T17:07:00.001-08:002012-11-07T13:03:05.732-08:00The Crystalline Light<br />
I find this light by first quieting my mind, by using the cranial vault technique that is found in the skillful means handbook and is taught on site and online by Rudy and Sharon Bauer. This is one of the methods I use. You may have your own way that guides you into meditation, the expansive and vast space of openness or pure consciousness within. Using a mantra like Guru Om, or the Boddhichitta Mantra, for example, can effortless lead one into the state of meditation. Another effective means is to “Identify with the Guru” (teacher, master) that Swami Muktananda teaches in "The Play of Consciousness." You can use this technique with any human being with whom you feel represents the embodiment of divinity for you, ie., from any religious or spiritual tradition. Nature is also very conducive to finding stillness or a peaceful place in which to meditate. <br />
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The following is an experience, and is not meant to be a technique. I’m just describing what happens for me and where I am now in my practice. My meditation practice has evolved over the course of the past 38 years. The health and life challenges I've had have at times been the catalyst, the beneficiary, as well as the motivation, behind the discipline and committment to continue on during times of difficulty. It definitely has brought comfort, clarity, and inspiration during times when hardship and aloneness were front and center in my life.<br />
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My personal and spiritual evolution greets me when I sit to meditate. Everything I’ve been through is present; the path I’ve taken, although invisible in the present, unfolds. My body is my ship and I navigate using the winds and my intuition to guide me. There is no part of me that is not involved in this inner pilgrimage. I am grateful for the steps and the grace, the difficult times and struggles, the tears of pain and tears of joy, that have brought me here, now.<br />
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After finding a meditative place of openness and stillness, I begin the process of refining my attunement to bliss, consciousness and knowledge, Satchitananda, or simply put, pure light. This light is deeply penetrating and all encompassing. It is within me and all around me. It is everywhere and is the source of all. It is the spanda, the shiva lingam. the buddha nature, the holy spirit. It’s the energy of pure creativity, or the sunlight of one’s spirit. It is a continual and eternal combustion of Shiva and Shakti, in yogic terms, the divine union of the male and female; Samatrabhadri and Samatrabhadra, or Vajrasatva. It is givenness. It is a movable feast; nurturing, sustaining, completing; recreating, birthing and destroying, all contained within the vase of my body. Ultimately, when all is said and done, this light is nothing, save the essence and wellspring of pure compassion.<br />
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In the most subtle and most infinitesimal movement, I lean a little forward, a little backward, like the distance between two specks of dust, as I investigate a deeper alignment of my relationship to this divine light, or the source of my own true Self, i.e.., the Self that existed before I entered this world. I move to merge completely, to fully unite with my own inherent divinity. This is the space of the heart essence, the pure and vital essence of the heart. Here, I find the opening and then explore a little further into the soft center, the soft column of radiant and luminous light moving down into the earth through the perineum and up through the crown center and beyond, this ever expanding experience of a realm of light, of sambhogakaya, or Crystalline Light. As I continue to align myself using grace and self effort skillful means, I open and surrender and soften into this light, and allow it to infuse me on it's own accord. I surrender bit by bit, this individual identity of me, myself, and mine. Then, in a magically timeless moment, I am fully engulfed by this light, as a combustion of humanity and divinity occurs. I remember Swami Muktananda saying as he guided us into meditation once, "Go ahead, lose yourself. I will find you." It is like an ambrosia filled fountain of the most pristine and divine love in which I am simmering and floating. It is elemental, like air, like ether, like space, but I am earth, I am sound and water, and I am connected with all elements within my body.<br />
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There is no endpoint to this pure potential space. One can only become more and more infused, and this play is seen, this Play of Consciousness, embodied, ever openning , as the whole world, as Nirmanakaya, and finally as the all embraced, pure space of Dharmakaya, of God. As a great being I know said, “Buddhahood is the whole world”. ”God Dwells with you as you”, Muktananda , or as Jesus Christ said, “ I and my Father are one” and "Never be afraid to be alone, for I will always be with you". "The Heart is the Hub of all Sacred Places, Go there and roam." Bhagawan Nityananda.<br />
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Oneness. This is an invitation to bathe in this fountain of love, this exquisite Crystalline Light of the Heart. My path to enlightenment in this lifetime is my life as it presents itself to me. The truth of my life, like the planet Saturn which beckons one to use the reality of one’s own life to focus on the highest truth, leads me home. Sometimes, it’s eating an ice cream cone sitting on a park bench on a gorgeous summer day. And, sometimes, it’s taking whatever else life has in store. Possibly, Realization doesn’t wait for a sunny day. <br />
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written by Karen FergusonRudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-39123824294028694002012-10-09T07:42:00.000-07:002012-10-09T07:42:30.336-07:00View<br />
Everything is method!!! Method to refine our cosmosal view of reality. That view is like a lens on a camera. It limits what we see. The view that everything is made up of reality, or actuality, or being, is the view we are striving for. That is, all methods are designed to attain the view or lens that sees the truth of what is and our perception of the truth of what is , is determined by the lens we use.<br />
Here's the view. Everything is made of the divine bliss that creates and energizes everything. Nothing is left out and everything is made up of, or permeated with, divine bliss. When we see that, there is no place to go, nothing to do, just be what we are. Be awareness that sees and acts from this view.. Just be being. This view is very natural and can be attained by everyone of us regardless of our circumstances ( Karma) . We are already ( and have always been) it . When I say attained I mean we are able to open our individual subjectivity (lens) to the fullness of the view that all is divine bliss. We are able to see it within time at this moment. We may not be able to see it in the next moment but that does not mean it is not there. It just means it is hidden in time at that moment from the view of our particular lens. <br />
One more thought to carry the lens metaphor a little further. My wife Carol uses a new process in her photography called HDR. It takes 3 shots for each photograph . One with much light, one with medium light and one with very little light. It then merges all three to create the photograph. (they look great, more like a painting). One effective method for attaining the full view is , like HDR does, to look or gaze with a combined lens that includes and merges the three levels of being simultaltaneously ( the dharmakaya, the sambhogakaya and the nirmanakaya). I like to call this the 3kaya gaze. Lama Wangdor calls it the svabhavikaya, the fourth kaya.<br />
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Written by Tom Walsh</div>
Rudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-77283433494440050522012-09-10T14:03:00.002-07:002012-09-10T14:03:11.670-07:00"You're In Paradise"<br />
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Friday night in July, I was outdoors listening to a neo soul concert. The lead singer’s grandfather had died that day. She dedicated her next song to him and began singing a lovely song she had written years earlier when her mother and grandmother had died (close together). “You’re in paradise” she sang with deep love and connection. <br />
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Well, her grandfather had died from a slow deteriorating illness and when I tuned in to him, he was not in paradise. He was surrounded by thick energy and murky colors and was only vaguely aware that he had died. As her song reached him, amplified by an audience of 2,500 people, his murky energy field was gradually surrounded by this light from her and by her love. The warmth, light and love in her energy field begin to shift the thick energy and murky colors of his energy field. As his energy began to clear and turn more transparent, he emerged from the thick cloud and saw clearly that he had died. Surrounded by her love and light, he awoke to the clear radiant light that is available at death and his face shown in radiant glory. My heart burst open and tears flowed from my eyes, yes, indeed, he was now in paradise.<br />
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Mary Kay Parkinson<br />
Rudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-9583956456780370732012-08-24T15:06:00.002-07:002012-08-24T15:06:50.671-07:00A Bit of History<br />
Beginning of The Washington Siddha Meditation Center<br />
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It was the summer of 1976 and we were at the Deville Hotel in SouthFallsburg,New York. It was the week after the Bhakti intensive which was so moving for so many people as Baba spoke about his love of Bhagavan Nityananda and his pain at the loss of his beloved Guru.<br />
We had asked Baba’s secretary if we could speak to Baba about the opening of a Siddha Meditation Center in Washington DC. She told she would let us know if such a meeting was possible. After a few days the message came that a meeting was possible with Baba at 2 pm that afternoon.( We were told about the possible meeting at about 1:30 that day) The meeting was to be held in field in Deville Hotel. We remember running and running and trying to gather all the Washington people to be there on time. Some of the people who were there were: Jorge, Arturo, Alexandra, and Muktabi as well as Sharon and Rudy.<br />
We ran across the field and there in the middle field was Swami Muktananda and Malti his translator. We ran to Baba and knelt before him and asked Baba could we have a meditation center in Washington DC. He paused for long, long endless time. And then he said..Do you see that pony over there.? And there not too far away was this beautiful little pony standing quietly. And then Baba said “The pony is very small and yet filled with great Love. Many people will benefit from the presence of the center. The center will be like that small and yet filled with love and that it would last for a long time”.The energy at that moment was so beneficent and with that we thanked Baba and returned to Washington and so the center was created in love and through love.<br />
Sharon and Rudy Bauer <br />
August 22, 2012<br />
Rudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-37735634665069504262012-08-06T06:40:00.002-07:002012-08-08T04:52:29.808-07:00SKIPPING<br />
Standing still, like a flamingo in a shallow pool, gazing down at a quiet reflection of space, my mind finds repose. Fullly present, embodied in the flesh, fully contained, I now take my seat. As I sit, peace finds me. I recognize it as myself and bow to it. <br />
I find my old friend once again. Take a seat beside me and rest awhile. I will take over from here, peace says. <br />
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As a child skips down the sidewalk, fully focused on perfecting the hop in the middle, a shift occurs, a natural extention into space, and the child takes flight. When the mind is satisfied that the hop is quite fine, and the rhythm has reached an easy cadence, the real skipping can begin. Like a smooth stone skipping over the water, the motion itself is the doer. The stone rides on the motion, on the momentum. Inside the whirl that propels the child, fully engaged in the act of skipping, is a point of stillness from which all movement arises. The child knows this point well, seeks it, and finds it over and over again. This point is pure potential space, the bliss of freedom , the spirit of creativity or life itself. Herein is the spanda, the now and the how. Finding this point is how one can take flight into this creative momentum. Releasing into the moment, stepping into this void, one can extend into awareness and fly.<br />
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A child twirls for the sheer joy of embodying energy, this vortex within. It is the ecstatic dance of the Sufi. Tiny little beings of light, twirling to find this free space inside that extends into the still point, the pure point of potential, the blue bindu. Consciousness from which all arises, like a wheel spinning out of control, spinning off in all directions, sparking billions of universes within universes, from here to infinity.<br />
What is seen is seen as light. Sambogakaya light. Jewels raining down into tiny, open eyes, drinking in the nectar of love and compassion. These eyes blend into one. The eye of God, the eye of wisdom, the eye of the divine. <br />
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Once opened, this eye of divinity shines forth onto the world of appearances, revealing the space of oneness. The truth of equality vision, the ultimate realization that God dwells within you as you. Once again, Muktananda, the bliss of freedom, extending this freedom into nirmanakaya, the day to day experience in and of the world. Dharmakaya is the still point. There is a verse in the Bible about becoming a child again to enter the kingdom of heaven, here on earth. Children sit naturally in meditation, if given enough time to be alone. They are natural yogis. Watch them skip down the street.<br />
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Written by Karen Ferguson<br />
<br />Rudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-43827658630615820042012-07-11T06:17:00.001-07:002012-07-11T06:33:38.861-07:00Beach Note<br />
At sunrise, the absence of activity on the beach is a natural time for meditation or gazing. It is pure dharmakaya. Nothingness. Emptiness. But, full of life. So soft, these sweet smelling breezes, ocean sounds, all the senses mingling, sand beneath, water all around, and sky above. Nothing to cling to...nothing to abide by, nowhere to go. Just sitting and embodying everything at once as the mind’s boundaries merge with the limitless scene extending in all directions. There is a support that is so gentle but so strong, to go inside, suspend the mind and glide on the light of the dawn. It is so easy to drink in the nature of compassion here. It is on my face as this gentle wind brushes through waves, through the wings of the single sea bird flying in to catch the first bite of the day, through the toes resting in the cool sand. The reflection of the water is in my soul which is oceanic this morning. My soul is full of this water which rocks me and lulls me into a certain atmospheric peace with beauty as it’s essence. My eyes are soft and drop to the ground gathering diamonds in the sand. Wherever my eyes go, there is a piece of God’s body, standing naked in the pastel hued expanse. Wet, soft, breeze, warm, lovely, ocean, sand, shells, sky, and all the unseen life in the ocean and in the sand is the appearance. Where I sit amidst this pristine golden light, I am a reflection of love, reflecting love. An endless circle of reflections, a mandala of this moment, stretches out beyond my toes, into the space where the sea meets the sky. <br />
As the moments pass, more activity appears on this scene..and the sound of OM is taken deeper into my being. Resonating in the cave of my heart, the music of the day begins from this primal note.<br />
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written by Karen FergusonRudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-39779689490817188482012-06-14T06:28:00.001-07:002012-06-14T06:28:27.973-07:00Meditation as Becoming Aware of the Field of Awareness<br />
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1. My first meditation teacher, Swami Muktananda, would say meditation teaches meditation….so let ‘s begin with a brief meditation…..since meditation teaches meditation.<br />
Close your eyes and focus within…resting in awareness. I will give you meditation instructions by Dudjom Rinpoche who was a great Dzogchen Tibetan master .His instructions are so simple and yet contain everything.<br />
By simply relaxing in this uncontrived, open, natural state, we obtain the blessing of aimless self liberation of whatever arises.<br />
2. I am going to read you a poem. It is called The Song of Awareness…do not worry about the words…let them be in the background of your meditative awareness.<br />
Song of Awareness<br />
I pay homage to the Enlightened Ones of the three times… the past, the present and the future<br />
Who abide in the vastness of the ocean of enlightenment, which is consciousness itself<br />
The qualities of those who practice awareness cannot be measured.<br />
Whoever is able to become aware of the nature of their own awareness, even only for one moment, is so fortunate and on the way to becoming liberated… once they taste the experience of their own consciousness, they can never go back, never again close up so completely… so darkly.<br />
Therefore, experience your awareness in its essence. True enlightenment lies in the essence of your own awareness.<br />
If even for an instant one sees, glimpses, the essence of one’s own awareness field<br />
It is like meeting all of the Enlightened Ones of the three times.<br />
So… who can say you do not know this experience….<br />
It is the same consciousness that thinks, remembers and feels<br />
Just like the miracle of the moon appearing in several bowls of water<br />
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Any thought, of all the thoughts that arise, is not something other than that single primordial all encompassing awareness field… so infinite in its horizon<br />
That single state is beyond the limits of a center and its related directions<br />
It is beyond arising, beyond interruptions; it is beyond coming and going, beyond appearing and disappearing<br />
The essence, self originated from the very beginning, is completely pure… completely untouched<br />
The awareness, which is like the sky has no base or root, it is completely pervasive… completely vast<br />
This awareness field is the source of both transmigration and enlightenment<br />
To be in this awareness is beyond the mind, and so it is very difficult to express in words<br />
If one wants to explain it, it is like an endless ocean of knowledge<br />
Pure from the very beginning, it is beyond names and explanations<br />
Yet there are unending names and explanations pointing to it<br />
Whomever has not experienced this primordial awareness may think, may really think that each of the innumerable names defines something different and<br />
That all of the scriptures are marvelous, but some are really better than others<br />
If one were to spend their entire life writing, this great subject would not be exhausted and will never be exhausted<br />
This naked state is the clarity and the light of one’s own awareness<br />
Knowing this, tasting this experience, out of oneness one knows the whole of existence and is intimately connected to everyone and everything….out of oneness<br />
Just like the eagle, King of the birds, leaves all the mountains below<br />
When it flies into the sky…the wide open sky<br />
If you can realize the knowledge of your own awareness field, there is nothing else to meditate on, nothing else to do<br />
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If one can come to know this experience precisely, knowing this everything becomes<br />
liberated….every thought, every experience, every condition<br />
This all happens in the context of your own life and your own situation… Just As It Is!<br />
Then whatever of the various visions and experiences manifested by your own mind arise<br />
It is like the trail of a bird flying in the sky, or drawing on the water with your finger tips<br />
Without any goal, without any aim, without any target, in the great all pervading limitless state<br />
Remain in the Great Joy, which is liberation from the beginning, beyond transmigration and beyond enlightenment<br />
In that nature of the awareness field, which is innate dharmakaya<br />
Remain in sky –like awareness… remain in luminous spaciousness which has no root and no base<br />
Remain in that nature of the awareness, which is uninterrupted sambhogakaya… that is the experience of the qualities and dimensions of the field of consciousness experienced as the Divine Deities and Divine Dakinis<br />
Remain in the condition of clarity which is the wisdom of recognition of your own state, your own state of being…your own light<br />
Remain in the nature of unfolding awareness which is nirmanakaya, which is this awareness field manifesting in different forms…..including your own form, your own mind, your own body, your own situation, your own karma<br />
Remain in the condition of the great vastness of all-pervading space….extending the horizons<br />
Remain in the luminous clarity that is beyond thoughts and affects and fantasy<br />
Remain purposeless in the completely pure condition…so subtle …so present…so simple …so silent<br />
Remain in this space of self liberation where there is no dualism of transmigration and enlightenment…..remain in this space life after life …death after death<br />
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Remain in this space beyond observer and observed, beyond subject and beyond otherness<br />
Remain in the Oneness of the energy field<br />
Remaining in the condition where there is no doubt<br />
Through the power of this text, the Song of the awareness field as the nature of Existence, may all beings obtain the benefit of natural enlightenment <br />
The meditation practice of becoming aware of awareness is found in many traditions, including Dzogchen Tibetan Buddhism as well as western Phenomenology. Namkai Norbu, a contemporary master, says Dzogchen does not belong to any religion, it is the very nature of human awareness to become aware of its own self (both within our self and within the self of others) This naturalistic and experiential understanding is expressed By Dudjom Rinpoche this way although hundreds of thousands of explanations are given, there is only one thing to be understood; know the one thing that liberates everything…awareness itself, your true nature.<br />
4. To become aware of awareness you must suspend your mind a little and free your awareness to rest within its own self…Often we are located in our mind so we pause or suspend our mind or a function of the mind in order to refocus awareness within awareness itself. When you begin to become aware of your own awareness, you may experience and discover that your mind is not your awareness; there is a difference between being in your mind and being within awareness. Awareness is not a thought; awareness is not an affect, or a sensation. Awareness is not a fantasy or a memory, but rather awareness is simply open knowingness….a non conceptual knowingness…a gaze of direct perception, gnosis.<br />
5. Often our first step is to shift out of our analytic mind, and by suspending being located in the mind or specific function of the mind, we can become aware of our mind. We gaze at thoughts, gaze at feelings, gaze at sensations, gaze at memory, gaze at otherness, and the world. At this moment we are experientially near, closer to experience, to the felt sense. We are not in the mind but are aware of the mind .This very powerful practice is the basis of many experiential therapies and meditations.<br />
6. But if you wish in time you can make one more suspension, you suspend your awareness of the mind and objects of the mind, and turn your gaze back on itself, you gaze into the gaze...You gaze into awareness itself. And in so doing, you enter into awareness and even become awareness itself, you embody awareness...In gazing into awareness, the qualities of awareness begin to manifest; including the quality of<br />
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spaciousness or openness or emptiness, the quality of the energy or qi or shakti, vibrancy, the quality of the light - clarity, radiance, lucidity, the quality of oneness, the oneness of the field, the oneness of great compassion. As the qualities of awareness manifest , you may discover that this awareness is a field and awareness has field characteristics, it opens and closes, contracts and expands, it has depth and breath, and goes beyond the body. It fills the in between.<br />
7. This awareness field has power. The first power of the awareness field is that it becomes the base of your experience, rather then the mind or even a particular function of the mind. The awareness field and the qualities of the awareness field spaciousness, energy, lucidity and oneness become the base of our experience…the container. The mind and the functions of mind can be integrated into this base of awareness, this base of oneness. And so our mind begins to experience itself in the oneness of the field, and the functions of the mind are infused by the awareness field. You begin to live in and through the field. This is a Path of natural liberation.<br />
8. The second power of the field is that a person can more easily dissolve negative states of mind and negative states of experience into the awareness field. The field has a metabolizing or dissolving capacity or assimilation of experience. This allows a person to enter into various experiences and metabolize them. When one has little awareness, the metabolizing capacity is greatly limited and one lives with much unresolved experience and much unresolved unformulated experience. Unthought but known.<br />
9. A third power of the awareness field is the field can become not only the base within a person; the field can become a base between two people or even a group of people. When the field of awareness is between two people, the field gives a base and support for the relatedness of the two people. The field assists by providing base and support for conflict resolution, the dissolving of negative states of mind, and just as important, the offering of potential space for new experience, new views and new contactfulness. In essence, the awareness field is potential, potential space.<br />
10. A fourth power of the awareness field is awareness can be given or extended or transmitted. There is great statement by the ancient Buddhist master, Bodhidharma, who says, “beyond words and letters, there is a transmission that does not belong to any tradition, it is the very nature of human awareness, and that is the Buddha.” Human beings consistently and relentlessly transmit their minds to each other, from person, to person, from generation to generation, from group to group. Human beings are also able to transmit their own awareness field to each other…This is the great compassion.<br />
11. The great compassion or the bodhichitta, is not simply sympathy, or simply empathy or the internalization of others pain and suffering, but is our capacity to transmit or<br />
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extend the inner heart essence which is light, and energy, the pure love of awareness itself. This capacity of extension or extending into others and into this world, both to those whom we love and those whom we do not love is the power of healing and transformation. The bliss of compassion dissolves suffering.<br />
12. The source of primordial awareness is within the human heart. This extension brings forth the bodhichitta (compassion) within ourselves and within others. In meditation when people extend the field to each other, the field grows in intensity and in light. Two awarenesses are really better then one and the field is never bound by locality.<br />
13. Let us practice extensions…..the art of the inner heart essence.<br />
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Meditation<br />
14. I would like to describe one more important and mysterious quality about the nature of becoming aware of awareness. Primordial awareness is ultimately our personal awareness. As Husserl said, “What is the wonder of all wonders? Pure consciousness and the doorway is our own subjectivity.” As you and I experience the innate dimension of the awareness field, we will find that we are both in duration (in time) and at the same time (timeless). The primordial innate awareness field is both in time and also in timelessness. Awareness is in duration and is in timelessness. We can experience timeless awareness.<br />
15. When you and I are in the field, deeply in the field of awareness, we can experience both duration time and within the background of the meditation field is this vast unbound timelessness, pure presence, timeless awareness without reference without boundaries, infinite in its horizon. This experience can be stunning and not easy to hold.<br />
16. This sense of timelessness is an unbound stillness and this timelessness can infuse our sense of time…from the immediacy of the moment, to the immediacy of a day, to the immediacy of a year, to the immediacy of a life time. Timelessness is the base and source. Within this timelessness of our own awareness is a grounded stability and grounded continuity of awareness through time.<br />
17. This timeless awareness provides for the person a large and vast universal sense of ones being in the world, a world that is both in duration and beyond duration. Timeless awareness opens for the person the sense of unbound potential space of manifestations ready to come forth….timelessly.<br />
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This timelessness is the state of potential spaciousness that opens up possibilities of manifestation for bringing forth that which has not yet come forth in duration. Timelessness is the state of potential space, the unbound voidness of creativeness. Being in timeless awareness helps dissolve the fear of death, the fear of annihilation anxiety and the fear deprivation anxiety.<br />
Let us meditate and discover this timeless dimension of our own beingness.<br />
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Written by: Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D.<br />
Edited by: Mimi Malfitano<br />Rudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4614718219751522266.post-90553522596869205352012-06-14T06:22:00.001-07:002012-06-14T06:22:06.979-07:00The Phenomenology of the Healing Power of the Awareness Field<br />
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1. Welcome to our study of the phenomenology of awareness and the power of the awareness field. Edmund Husserl, who was the father of phenomenology, would always say at the beginning of each lecture… “What is the wonder of all wonders? Pure consciousness; and the doorway is our own subjectivity.”<br />
2. As we know from our last meeting, phenomenology influenced both western philosophy and western psychotherapy. Western phenomenology is very similar in both view and method to Dzogchen meditation which is a form of eastern meditative practice. Both phenomenology and Dzogchen are interested in the power of becoming aware of awareness itself…where the object of awareness becomes its own self. Moreover, in both phenomenology and Dzogchen, when one becomes aware of ones own awareness, the person experiences that their mind is not their awareness, awareness is not a thought, or affect, or sensation, or fantasy or even memory, but rather awareness is simply open knowingness….a non conceptual knowingness….a gaze of direct perception. And if one is able to stay with this knowingness of knowingness there appears the next discovery…when one becomes awareness of awareness itself. This awareness is a field……this field goes beyond the body boundaries…goes beyond the mind. <br />
2b. The methods of both western phenomenology and Dzogchen are similar in that both at times use the epoché or the reduction or to use English “suspension “……suspension of the mind as method of entering into awareness field. What does one do…One shifts out of the analytic mind, thinking about the problem by suspending the mind or suspending being in the mind or mind functions….after making the suspension one is then in the awareness state (mindfulness) and one can be aware of the mind functions by gazing at thoughts, gazing at feelings, gazing at sensation, gazing at memory or gazing at the outside, gazing at otherness…the environment…the world. A person is experientially near, or experientially closer to the experience. This is very powerful and is the basis of experiential psychotherapies…<br />
2c. Then if one wishes, or if one desires, the person can make one more reduction, or one more suspension and one suspends the inside and outside, one suspends their awareness of objects of mind or objects outside the mind, one suspends everything and one turns the gaze back on itself, one gazes into the gaze…one gazes into awareness itself...and in doing so one enters into awareness and even becomes awareness itself…in gazing into awareness the qualities of awareness begin to manifest…including spaciousness, energy, light and oneness….the oneness of the field…One discovers that this awareness has field characteristics, opens and closes, contracts and expands, it has depth and breath and the perception of this field can be extended and extended and this field is completely multidimensional. Ultimately, this field is direct perception, perception of the manifestations of awareness…manifestation in ones own self, manifestation in the other and also the manifestation of the field of awareness in this world.<br />
3. This field has great power. The first power of the awareness field is that it becomes the base of experience, rather then our mind or a particular function of the mind. The awareness field and the qualities of the awareness field which are spaciousness, energy, lucidity and oneness become the base of our experience, and the mind and functions of the mind can be integrated into this base of oneness. Thus the mind or ego begins to experience itself in the oneness of the field, and the functions of the mind become infused by awareness field. One begins to live in and through the field.<br />
4. The second power is that besides having the power to integrate ones mind functions in the awareness field, a person can more easily dissolve negative states of mind and negative states of experience into the awareness field. The field has a metabolizing or dissolving capacity or assimilating. This allows one to enter into various experiences and metabolize them…when one has little awareness, the metabolizing capacity is greatly limited and one begins to live with much unresolved experience and much unresolved unformulated experience.<br />
5. The third power of the awareness field is that the field can become not only a base within a person; the field can become a base between two persons, or even a group of persons. When the field is between persons then the field gives both a base and support to the relatedness of the two people. The field assists by providing a base and support for conflict resolution, the dissolving of negative states of mind, and just as important and just as necessary. the offering of potential space for new experience and new views, new contactfulness. Without this newly formulated base, then the base between the two people will be the mind of each, or the group minds of the groups of people. The dilemma is that it is the mind itself of one or both parties is the problem. One mind talking to another mind and each mind with their own different and difficult generational fields behind each mind, often has no base other then some intention often implicit in the speaking.<br />
6. The forth wonderful power of the awareness field is as one becomes aware of awareness and becomes more skillful in becoming aware of awareness one begins to completely embody the awareness field. In the beginning, one learns to hold the awareness field, or then enters into the awareness field and then one becomes the awareness field…aham ah I am becoming what I am. In embodying awareness, one begins to truly embody direct perception and direct experience of the immanence (a permanent abiding within; indwelling) of ones own beingness of being.<br />
7. This sense of the immanence of the beingness of one’s own being is a source of great pleasure and happiness. We might say that this sense of the beingness of one’s own being is the sense of self. As one feels the ongoing continuity of beingness…this ongoing continuity of beingness protects one from fragmentation, protects one from states of psychological collapse and even the profound and ever present fear of death lessens….coming and going, absence and separation, oneness and separateness no longer have the same existential drama and trauma that these experiences once invoked. As the sense of the beingness of one’s own being grows, the sense of the beingness of being in others becomes more apparent, more visible, more real, more present. And so, oneness and a sense of the non-duality of the beingness of being begins to arise slowly but surely.<br />
8. This subtle and initially implicit sense of oneness is not a function of sameness in the sense of likes and dislikes, same beliefs or disbeliefs, same tribe or same customs, the sameness of history or the sameness of attraction, but this sense of subtle oneness reflects the oneness of the beingness of being….that the same beingness of being is within all beings….all of the beings that one sees, and can touch.<br />
9. As this oneness of beingness of being arises, the knowledge that awareness and beingness are in some way the same phenomena….knowingness and beingness are in oneness, are oneness. This experience, this awareness, is beingness and beingness is awareness becoming vivid, even for the most ordinary of persons. A great freedom and completeness arises from within as one realizes out of one’s own experience that one’s own awareness, one’s own consciousness is the beingness of being itself…and in these moments one becomes much less of a psychological person and more of a cosmological human being…the view and experience becomes much wider and has much more depth and breath then that of our own historically based psychological or mental viewpoint.<br />
10. So we have spoken about the nature of the awareness field, the powers of the awareness field and some ways of entering into the awareness field. We have spoken about the importance of spaciousness, open spaciousness, the usefulness of the energy, and the necessity of lucidity and innate luminosity. We have emphasized the power of oneness of the field, oneness of body, oneness between therapist and client, oneness between couples, oneness within a group, oneness within conflict…within ones self or between others. We have spoken about the power of direct perception, knowing awareness in one’s self, knowing awareness within the other and even knowing awareness or consciousness within the phenomenal world.<br />
11. I would like to describe one more important and mysterious quality about the nature of primordial awareness. As you and I experience the innate dimension of the awareness field, we will find that it is both in duration (in time) and at the same time (timeless). The primordial innate awareness field is both in time and also timelessness. Awareness is in duration and is in timelessness…we may speak about timeless awareness.<br />
12. When you and I are in the field, deeply in the field of awareness, we can experience both duration and within the background of this vast unbound awareness timelessness, an eternal presence. The same description can be said of our awareness counterpart which is the beingness of one’s being…in experiencing the beingness of one’s being, one will feel both the time bound quality, the here and now quality in duration and also one can feel the unbound timeless quality of the beingness of one’s own being.<br />
13. This sense of timelessness is an unbound stillness and this timelessness can infuse our sense of time….from the immediacy of the moment, to the immediacy of a day, to the immediacy of a year, to the immediacy of a life time. Timelessness is the base and the source…Within this timelessness of our own awareness is a grounded stability and grounded continuity of oneness.<br />
14. This timeless awareness provides for the person a large and vast universal sense of ones being in the world, a world that itself is both in duration and beyond duration…timeless awareness opens for the person the sense of unbound potential space of manifestations ready to come forth…forever and forever and ever manifesting.<br />
12. This timelessness provides the sense of this unbound potential spaciousness that opens up possibilities of manifestation, for bringing forth that which has not yet come forth into duration. This dimension is of the utmost importance in healing events and experience. This is not a mental hope. A hope based on probability and improbability. This timelessness is the state of potential space itself...it is the dharmakaya…the unbound voidness of creativeness.<br />
14. You and I are in time, we are in duration and yet the beingness of our being is timelessness…time and timelessness are that close…they are in oneness…just as the nirmanakaya dimension is in oneness with the dharmakaya.<br />
15. Time does not exist separately from beings…from entities…you are time, and I am a time…the manifestation of beingness becoming particular beings in time…unmanifested beingness is timelessness. Timelessness is completely immanent in all of us and is manifest in all of us as time. Time is the manifestation of timelessness. Time is the manifestation of awareness, the bringing forth of awareness in time…<br />
16. The Dzogchen understanding of the three kayas brings forth some understanding for us…the knowing of awareness or consciousness or gnosis has three dimensions….from the unmanifest to the manifest…from timelessness into time, from no appearance to appearance of phenomena.<br />
17. First dimension is pure knowingness without appearance, pure consciousness, the void, the unmanifest, potential space ready to bring forth itself….the second dimension, the manifestation of energy and light and the configuration of vortexes, and spiraling, luminous creative energy, this is the dimension of the cosmological archetypes, and then the third dimension, the manifestation of earth, embodiment, humans and human minds and generational fields. Timelessness infuses all the dimensions of awareness both the unmanifest and the manifest. There is no fragmentation within timelessness; there is stability and continuity of beingness.<br />
18. The more the innate sense of timelessness is lost and disturbed then duration itself fragments more and more, splitting within splitting, part breaking into more and more parts, oneness of experience dissolving. The mind itself without the base of awareness field becomes more and more fragmented, and the innate continuity of persons and relatedness itself breaks into bits and bittles.<br />
19. Working within the Field of Awareness in Psychotherapy and Consultation:<br />
How to create a first phenomenological reduction<br />
The required necessity of the therapist being in the state (awareness) and in being in the (awareness) field<br />
Different positions for different experience<br />
How to create the second phenomenological reduction<br />
As a person has entered into the awareness of awareness itself and the field phenomena has manifested itself (spaciousness, energy, lucidity, and oneness) the next step is to have the person explore and articulate their experience of being in the field. This representation of experience of the field allows the experience to be entrained and remembered and even brought forth more easily and consistently…this articulation of the field begins to teach integration of the different ego functions or mind functions in the field. One will discover the difference of being in the mind, being in the awareness state, and being in the awareness field. This step of integrating the mind functions into the awareness field dissolves some primary dissociative experience and the bringing of the mind into the oneness of the field allows one to think, feel, remember, and have imagination and sensation in and through the field of spaciousness, energy and lucidity. Also a more pervasive sense of oneness pervades the body and mind.<br />
There will be a co-emergence of the field between the two people and the corresponding experiential base that this provides for participates in individual, couple and group psychotherapy.<br />
This co-emergence means that the more I am in the field the more you may experience the field out of resonance. And the more you are in the field the more I will be in the field…as we both are in the field, the experience of the field will be amplified. If you are in the field and have a strong field, the co-emergence of the field may be limited by the limitations of the other who is in the field.<br />
The capacity to extend the field is most important for the therapist and the capacity to resonate to the other is equally important. The more one can sense the field in the other, the more probable the field will emerge in the other. The sense of recognition is most important.<br />
Recognition is not simply a cognitive experience but is somatic and is a function of resonance which is a feeling, although not an affect…a bhave…<br />
In certain situations, and everything does depend on the situation and ones own skills and capacities, one may utilize the body to help bring forth the field, and often using the hand can be most effective...however, one’s own body must be activated by one’s field …the activation of the field pulls forth the field.<br />
One must have a sense of activation and pacification or how to intensify and pacify the field so that the experience is assimilated and usable.<br />
12. For some, simply entering the field is enough and then one can integrate the mind functions in order to work within the field experientially…namely by focusing in and articulating experience of the difficulty or problem or goal… a narrative of the situation. Then one can work by amplifying the experience of the narrative in the field in an experiential manner. Sometimes having discussions in the field is extremely powerful ….the more one is skillful in being in the field and invoking the field then the less one has to work in a formal manner…everything becomes naturalistic.<br />
13. By being in the field the intensity of the field brings forth both problematic experience and resources to solve the experience. We focus in a solution oriented manner and a resource oriented manner with the sense of the field which is the beingness of being becoming manifest as powerful source. Yes, two people can participate in the beingness of being…that is intimacy.<br />
14. The sense of intimacy is the sense of inside to inside, of knowingness in a relatively direct manner and even unknowingness in a direct manner…both knowingness and unknowingness are both manifestations of awareness and can be known directly…inside to inside.<br />
15. One will work with the different dimensions of the field, in other words, spaciousness, energy and lucidity of the experience unfolding.<br />
16. For some, one will work with being in the intensity of the field and embodying of the field in different degrees and dimensions of embodiment. The embodiment of the field becomes more and more subtle…the energy proceeds from gross until luminosity.<br />
17. We do not worry about the chakras or the mythology of the energy channels…rather we focus on the expansion, stability, intensity of the field of luminosity….light becoming flesh.<br />
18. Not everyone can enter the field but will primarily work in the awareness state which is classical experiential psychotherapy.<br />
19. Dissolving of negative experience is the bringing of the negative states into the awareness field…sometimes amplifying them…EMDR and other methods can be utilized…presenting a narrative in a strong field is working within luminosity and dedensifies the reified narrative. The strength of the field is in metabolistic function….the dissolving of energy cathexis (charging an idea or emotion into significance) to stories, memories and narratives.<br />
20. The potential spaciousness of the field is completely excellent for the manifestation of new stories, narratives and actions.<br />
21. There is a polarity of the unfolding of the light and the falling away of darkness. The falling away of darkness does involve the falling away of representations of oneself and others, and the falling away of connectedness to context that reflects darkness. This is very painful and so one may not want to move. This does not mean leaving everyone physically but there is a psychic transformation wherein you and the other no longer share the same psyche or the same beingness of being. The other may be family, groups, etc.<br />
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Written by: Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D.<br />
Edited by: Mimi Malfitano<br />Rudy and Sharon Bauerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944225873563751789noreply@blogger.com0