covertmetaphor wrote:Perhaps choosing a side is really just another worthless fantasy, idea and mentation. I wonder if such questions even cross the mind of a Zen master...but that question is again another mind game.
I'm tired of bouncing between polarities. I want out.
"choosing a side" is probably an illusion...
the choice is made by the collective momentum of "the whole system"
=the last thousand years of evolution, DNA, according to causes and conditions~
the seeming choice/ "chooser" and the final reaction/acting out from the ideas taught to have value in our world...
hence having power over minds
what we are willing to do to achieve these pre-set values
may say something about individual "character"
or is that a quality available non-locally when one sees/acts directly... rather than reflexively.
The polarities may be smoke and mirrors to some extent.
We see what we have termed "negative and positive" working, let's say in a circuit...
but only in relation to each other do we know them!
Take one away and the other loses it's meaning...
so the distinct reality of anything being truly dark/light good/bad right/wrong is another illusion
stir them back into the paint and the rigid edges melt away
We cannot safely trust our conditioned judgments and labels for everything.
We are all, no matter how masterly, involved/weighted towards the "life" of a personal self and it's shadow,
the subconscious desire/fear... an inner power that can create or destroy...
but darkness, if it is meant to be symbol for thinking/acting selfishly...
this world is just the place to see what that brings
when we are willing to look at it... observe it non-judgmentally
face it respectfully without fear or stigma
the shadow loses it's power
Our world (the explicate order) does not exist merely in terms of opposites...
the absolute (the implicate order) knows no such distinctions. It functions as a whole.
in any case our effort of will to impose some order over this or that often backfires
and eventually every structure breaks down to it's elements
we do not order the heavens or the earth but we may respect the order that is.
the great master, Huang Po has said:
~
Mind is like the void in which there is no confusion or evil, as when the sun wheels through it shining upon the four corners of the world. ...
~
It is void, omnipresent, silent, pure; it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy—and that is all. Enter deeply into it by awaking to it yourself. ..."
~
there is but one source of life for each of us, no matter how we might characterize it.
change comes slowly with patience and discernment,
not by making choices that are fairly predetermined "reactions" anyway.
"I want out"
how much dissatisfaction is just stuck thinking about "me" being trapped
instead of seeing "the me" as the trap itself.
that we cannot help but live as thought reaction, a mechanical thing to an extent,
without silence to inform the listening
Awareness is change...it is the only "action" possible~light
but it is not "a me" acting. awareness is passive...just here and awake... in lucid state
If we could sit still and just get a look at what is choosing...
seeing in silence~
i am that i am
Direct perception of the moment is not male or female, is devoid of moral judgments (right or wrong)
nor is awareness racially/tribally influenced.
Now where is the rub exactly?
is it that we see ourselves over here when we want/need to get over there?
lets get down to cases~how exactly in my life does it gets painful or complicated psychologically?
pressure from parents/society?-that's been internalized.
simple resistance of life/fear of death?
that can change only by getting INTO IT ~ not out of it.
instead of gratitude for this life, this opportunity, this FRONT ROW SEAT~ we feel we deserve more somehow.
how about... IN THE CENTER RING...yes, that's where these fantasies come in...
wondering~ are we the actors or the audience?
are we both simultaneously?
antaeus wrote:We exist within impermanent physical bodies on an impermanent physical planet. This fact is why someone might say we are illusion. If you are only a physical body, then you are an illusion. Character is not an illusion, nevertheless, it can be diminished or on the other hand it can be grown or evolved into ever more increasing illumination of...
what is?