Me-ness and the Emotions

Our mind has this quality of "me-ness", which is obviously not the other, not you. Me-ness is distinct from you, other, the rock, the tree, or the mountains, the rivers, the sky, the sun, the moon--what have you. This me-ness is the basic point here.

There is a general sense of discomfort when you refer to yourself as "me", which is very subtle discomfort. We usually don't acknowledge or notice it, because it is so subtle, and since it is there all the time, we become immune to it. There a certain basic ambivalence there. It is like dogs, who at a certain point begin to relate to their leashes as providing security rather than imprisonment. Animals in the zoo feel the same thing. At the beginning they experienced imprisonment, but at some point this became a sense of security. We have the same kind of attitude. We have imprisoned ourselves in a certain way, but at the same time, we feel that this imprisonment is the most secure thing we have. This me-ness or my-ness has a painful quality of imprisonment, but at some point this became a sense of security. We have the same kind attitude. We have imprisoned ourselves in a certain way, but at the same time, we feel that is imprisonment is the most secure thing we have. This me-ness or my-ness has a painful quality of imprisonment, but at the same, it also represents security rather than just pure pain. That is the situation we are in at this point. Every one of us is in the situation.

This me-ness is not painful in the sense of outright suffering, like what you get from eating a bottle of jalapeno chilli peppers. But there's something behind the whole thing that makes us very subtly nauseated, just a little bit. That nausea then becomes somewhat sweet, and we get hooked on that sweetness. Then if we lose our nausea, we also lose our sweet. That is the basic state of mind that everybody feels.

When the first of the four noble truths talks about suffering, this what it is talking about. There is that very subtle but t the same time very real and very personal thing going on, which sort of pulls us down. Of course there are various occasions when you might feel on top of the world. You have a fantastic vacation by the ocean or in the mountains. You fall in love or you celebrate a success in your career. You find something positive to hang on to. Nobody can deny that everyone of us has experienced that kind of glory. But at the same time that we are experiencing that high point of glory, the other end o the canoe, so to speak, is pushed down in to the water a bit. That big deal that we are trying to make in to a small deal continues to happen. Sometimes when it comes up on the surface, we call it depression. We think, "I feel bad, I feel sick, I feel terrible, I feel upset," and so forth. But at the same time, it is really something less than that. There is a basic, fundamental hangover, an all-pervasive hangover that i always taking place. Even though we may be feeling good about things, we have the sense of being stuck somewhere.

Often people interpret that sense of being stuck in such a way that they can blame it on having to put up with their parents' hang-ups resulting from some other part of their problematic case history. You had a bad experience, you say, therefore, this hang-up exists. People come up with these very convenient case-historical interpretations, maybe even bringing in physical symptoms. These are the very convenient escapes that we have.

But really there is something more than that involved, something that transcends one's case history. We do feel something that goes beyond parents, beyond a bad childhood, a bad birth, a difficult cesarean--whatever. There is something beyond all that taking place, a basic fuckedupedness that is all-pervasive. What Buddha calls it is ego, or neurosis.

That is the first of the two aspects of the mind we mentioned (cognition, separateness, duality). It's something we carry with us all the time. I'm afraid it is rather depressing.........

~ Chogyam Trungpa ~

("The Path is the Goal" Part Two "Me-ness and the Emotions" pp.57-58)

**Author goes on to speak of the second aspect of mind "emotions" which he more rightly terms "eruptions". To be continued (if I decide to post on this further)...

***Commentary: This is what must be confronted and acknowledged if spirit life is to be anything more profound (eternal) than just a superficial happiness, that akin to a candle wanting to stay lit amidst frequent heavy winds...

Observing bodily pain

All of us know physical pain—a little or a great deal—and we can deal with it medically and in other ways. You can observe pain with a mind that is not attached, with a mind that can observe bodily pain as though from the outside. One can observe one’s toothache and not be emotionally, psychologically involved in it. When you are involved emotionally and psychologically with that pain in the tooth, then the pain becomes more; you get terribly anxious, fearful. I do not know if you noticed this fact.
The key is to be aware of the physical, physiological, biological pain, and in that awareness not get involved with it psychologically. Being aware of the physical pain—and the psychological involvement with it which intensifies the pain and brings about anxiety, fear—and keeping the psychological factor entirely out requires a great deal of awareness, a certain quality of aloofness, a certain quality of unattached observation. Then that pain doesn’t distort the activities of the mind; then that physical pain doesn’t bring about neurotic activity of the mind.

J.Krishnamurti On Love and Loneliness, p 132

Limitations of Knowledge and Thought

All of knowledge has limitations, and they aren't just the limitations of being somehow provincial. The real limitation of knowledge - however broad - is that it has a way of interpreting our experience.. It sees things through the eyes of yesterday. The thinking mind jumps in front of our experience and tells us what is happening - using past experience as a guide - then runs back into our mind and hides, so we have no idea that thinking ever came along. We believe we know what we just went through. But our beliefs may not be in accord with what actually happened.

That is why don't-know mind opens us up to a new kind of freedom. You learn through awareness practice to see how thought comes out of hiding and interprets your experience. You learn to recognize a thought, to see that a thought is just a thought; it isn't reality. You then have a chance to see what your experience really is. The more you don't know, the more you see.

Larry Rosenberg ~ Living in the Light of Death (Ch.3, p.112)

**Comment-In light of what the author refers to, the above paragraph is relevant to how different religions lay claim to the truth via their own mental interpretations AND how fears of "old age and death" are distorted and made worse by the stories of the mind... For the old (which is our thought) cannot possibly guide one through such a process which requires a total beginners mind, a willingness to let go and be with whatever is happening (without expectation or anticipation) in that final moment.

The Wisdom of Insecurity - Quotes from last chapter

"He who thinks that God is not comprehended, by him God is comprehended; but he who thinks that God is comprehend knows him not. God is unknown to those who know him, and is known to those who do not know him at all" ~ Upanishads

"The highest to which man can attain is wonder; and if the prime phenomenon makes him wonder let him be content; nothing higher can it give him, and nothing further should he seek for behind it; here is the limit." ~ Goethe

"One of the greatest favors bestowed on the soul transiently in this life is to enable i to see so distinctly and to feel so profoundly that it cannot comprehend God at all. These souls are herein somewhat like the saints in heaven, where they who know him most perfectly perceive most clearly that he is infinitely incomprehensible; for those who have the less clear vision do not perceive so clearly as do these others how gratly he transcends their vision". ~ St. John of the Cross

"When you are dying and coming to life in each moment, would-be scientific predictions about what will happen after death are of little consequence. The whole glory of it is that we do not know. Ideas of survival and annihilation are alike based on the past, on memories of waking sleeping, and, in their different ways, the notions of everlasting continuity and everlasting nothingness are without meaning"

"Free from clutching at themselves the hands can handle; free from looking after themselves the eyes can see; free from trying to understand itself thought can think. IN such feeling, seeing, and tihnking life requires no future to complete itself nor explanation to justify itself. In this moment it is finished"

Alan Watts "The Wisdom of Insecurity" Chapter IX

When I don’t compare I understand what I am

…Throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another; yet when I compare myself with another I am destroying myself. In a school, in an ordinary school where there are a lot of boys, when one boy is compared with another who is very clever, who is the head of the class, what is actually taking place? You are destroying the boy. That’s what we are doing throughout life. Now, can I live without comparison—without comparison with anybody? This means there is no high, no low—there is not the one who is superior and the other who is inferior. You are actually what you are and to understand what you are, this process of comparison must come to an end. If I am always comparing myself with some saint or some teacher, some businessman, writer, poet, and all the rest, what has happened to me—what have I done? I only compare in order to gain, in order to achieve, in order to become—but when I don’t compare I am beginning to understand what I am. Beginning to understand what I am is far more fascinating, far more interesting; it goes beyond all this stupid comparison.

Talks & Dialogues Saanen 1967, p 86

Can I be a light to myself?

We depend on experiences—pleasant or painful—to keep us awake; every form of challenge we want to keep us awake. When one realizes that this dependence on challenges and experiences only makes the mind more dull and that they do not really keep us awake—when one realizes that we have had thousands of wars and haven’t learnt a thing, that we are willing to kill our neighbour tomorrow on the least provocation—then one asks, why do we want them and is it all possible to keep awake without any challenge? That is the real question—you follow? I depend on a challenge, experience, hoping it will give me more excitement, more intensity, make my mind more sharp, but it does not. So I ask myself if it is possible to keep awake totally, not peripherally at a few points of my being, but totally awake, without any challenge, without any experience? That means, can I be a light to myself, not depending on any other light? That doesn’t mean I am vain in not depending on any stimulation. Can I be a light that never goes out? To find that out I must go deeply within myself, I must know myself totally, completely, every corner of myself, there must be no secret corners, everything must be exposed. I must be aware of the total field of my own self, which is the consciousness of the individual and of society. It is only when the mind goes beyond this individual and social consciousness that there is a possibility of being a light to oneself which never goes out.Talks & Dialogues Saanen 1967, pp 111-112

Five Realms, Three Bodies, One Liberation

Emptiness/Awareness/Energy (Causal) -- The Spirit (Divinity Self)

Thinking/Feeling/Vibrating (Astral) -- The Soul or Mind (Human Self)

Breathing/Attention/Perception (Physical) -- The Body (Animal Self)

Action/Sensation/Expression (External) -- The Ego or Personality (The Individual)

Doing/Devotion/Service (Social) -- The Role or Reputation (The Collective)

*Liberation-Unification-Evolution-Transformation-Realization & Absolute Perfection (The Universe)


JDZ