| | Working with Sensory Ongoing, Passion & Dispassion, Bondage & Liberation
Liberation is found in the opposite direction from disassociation but it's also in the opposite direction from association which might seem paradoxical to some. Liberation is simply acknowledgement, somewhere in between the two, in the middle. In sensing with full acceptance of the 'ongoing process' coupled with full release of both 'the media and the message', what arises doesn't meet with either resistance or adhesion in it's passage through the mind and body. As the liberated sensory flow does not persist in mind and body it passes almost as immediately as it arises. It's in this sense that it is the opposite of the re-arising that occurs with conditions such as the self-denial spin in disassociative trauma or the self-deception spin in associative conceit.
When the mind blocks experience from taking place consciously, that sensory input system goes into a kind of echoing storage loop or a kind of a data buffer, the unprocessed datum re-arising on occasion until one 'faces that input' or otherwise 'processes it'. I've observed this in my own body and mind and in others many times in innumerable forms. When one refuses to accept the sensations that arise or when one won't let go of fabricating identifications of the I/Me/Mine-making variety, these unprocessed signals re-arise again and again until they are adequately acknowledged and then dropped for good. All experiential clinging, craving and averting creates this kind of dukkha of persistent clouding of the present tense data with the obscurations of recurring past sense input data on top of new incoming input data.
There can be and in many ways pretty much has to be selective disassociative activity taking place all over the place on a lot of levels (and there usually is some kind of a priority system for the overall sense input). When bonding due to trauma is found it can be re-trained into acceptance and in those moments input sensation becomes dynamically more open to directed attention.
One can associate with the input sensations, associating the narrative construct of the "I" ideations. One can disassociate with the input sensations, turning them off at the inputs. One can manipulate the input sensations by focusing attention on one aspect or another of that input. For instance all sensation is dukkha because it is so fleetingly impermanent that even the most blissful of it is dissolving before it can really be savored and enjoyed. At the same time all sensation is 'ongoing experience of being' which is inherently exciting and passionate and sweet. So one can focus on the pleasant or unpleasant aspects of the same sensation or part of a sensation and thereby manipulate experience itself. The entirely clear awareness doesn't play any games of manipulation and just takes in whatever sensation comes in, accepting it all and letting go of it all simultaneously.
Liberating action lets go of the agitation/anxiety of hanging on to or resisting the sensory input and the agitation anxiety of craving/averting the body/mind output that goes with it.
I continue to examine the sensory ongoingness for 'hang ups' and liberating leverage. If there is nothing interesting surfacing on the event horizon to examine and just the usual bs, I like to see if the inherent tragedy of life can at least be turned into comedy. I figure if Shakespeare can write a scene either way maybe so can I.
The conceptual mind naturally likes to get a run in now and then anyways, that is what it does, might as well let it do something. I think of it as kind of as the dances with no-wolves version of no-dogging. The inherent tragedy of life can't always be re-interpreted and transmuted into comedy (although a lot of it is pretty funny in any number of given lights - not many people share my 'serious sense of humor' so I have had to learn to largely refrain from commenting on what I find humorous {and/or tragic} about life. Although letting free association, conceptualization or imagination off of it's chain can be a fun exercise under the right circumstances often it is best to let go of the creative spin on things and simply remain even minded and sober about things that can seem incredibly ironic in the transparent light of a mind that isn't committed to applying any particular kind of spin at all. There is nothing so fine as to totally relax being and becoming and, as Kenneth would say, do some Buddha-ing or rigpa-ing.
Recommended reading:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nanananda/wheel188.html
"The Exalted One said this:"
"Let one not trace back the past Or yearn for the future-yet-to-come.
That which is past is left behind Unattained is the "yet-to-come."
But that which is present he discerns — With insight as and when it comes.
The Immovable — the-non-irritable.
In that state should the wise one grow Today itself should one bestir Tomorrow death may come — who knows?
For no bargain can we strike With Death who has his mighty hosts. But one who dwells thus ardently By day, by night, untiringly Him the Tranquil Sage has called The Ideal Lover of Solitude.
...
...
This recognition of the essential relationship between mindfulness and memory is understandable, since the keenness of the one naturally leads to the clarity of the other. The denial of its rightful place to the faculty of memory in the complex scheme of mental functions, might even give rise to a schizophrenic condition. The noble disciple, therefore, would not unscrupulously contradict himself or claim to have "forgotten" what he has said and done earlier, on the flimsy ground of his devotion to the practice of "moment-to-moment awareness." On the contrary, he might, without inhibition, even develop his faculty of memory to such a degree that he could recollect his past lives and experiences in all their major and minor details (saakaara.m sa-uddesa.m pubbenivaasa.m anussarati [Saama~n~naaphala Sutta, D I 81]). What he aims at by his diligent practice of mindfulness is mastery over the pathways of thought currents, as the concluding lines of Vitakkasa.n.thaana Sutta (Discourse on the Adjustment of Thoughts) of the Majjhima Nikaaya make it clear:
This monk is called, monks, "a master of the pathways of thought modes" (vasii vitakkapariyaayapathesu), and whatever thought he wishes to think, that he thinks; whatever thought he does not wish to think, that he does not think. He has cut off craving, turned back the fetter and by fully understanding conceit, put an end to Ill.
— M I 122
The most distinctive feature of the Buddha's solution to the intricate problem of mindfulness and memory is the emphasis on detachment. The elimination of the element of delight was the essential condition to be fulfilled, and to this end he oriented his exhortations to the monks so that often the finale turns out to be: "Impermanent, O monks, are formations. Unstable, O Monks, are formations. Unsatisfying, O monks, are formations; so much so, monks, that this is enough for one to turn away from all formations; enough to get detached from them; enough to seek release from them." The theme of impermanence runs even through his contemplation of mountains and rivers, which, for the average man, offer beautiful landscapes and lasting landmarks. Indeed, this emphasis on utter detachment based on the contemplation of universal impermanence is not so marked in other systems of thought purporting to solve the above problem; even in Krishnamurthy, too much stress is laid, for instance, on the beauty of "marvelous" mountains, trees, rivers, and sunsets.
[So the question of an enlightened agenda remains. What do you do when you are entirely free to act on anything and everything internally and externally and at the same time there's nothing in particular left to do?
I continue to examine the sensory ongoingness for 'hang ups' and liberating leverage. If there is nothing interesting surfacing on the event horizon to examine and just the usual bs, I like to see if the inherent tragedy of life can at least be turned into comedy. I figure if Shakespeare can write a scene either way maybe so can I.
The conceptual mind naturally likes to get a run in now and then anyways, that is what it does, might as well let it do something. I think of it as kind of as the dances with no-wolves version of no-dogging. The inherent tragedy of life can't always be re-interpreted and transmuted into comedy (although a lot of it is pretty funny in any number of given lights - not many people share my 'serious sense of humor' so I have had to learn to largely refrain from commenting on what I find humorous {and/or tragic} about life. Although letting free association, conceptualization or imagination off of it's chain can be a fun exercise under the right circumstances often it is best to let go of the creative spin on things and simply remain even minded and sober about things that can seem incredibly ironic in the transparent light of a mind that isn't committed to applying any particular kind of spin at all. There is nothing so fine as to totally relax being and becoming and, as Kenneth would say, do some Buddha-ing or rigpa-ing.]
============= All the best & take care as you ride those waves fellow Dharma surfers
triplethink/nathan
[I'm fairly confident about this kind of a description of the situation, still, this page is subject to revision and review by the accomplished here, so please feel free to comment if and when I have erred in this analysis or else failed to communicate this type of understanding comprehensively or effectively.] This page comes from notes I was making today on a couple of recently active threads:
Why reject the "limited emotional range model" of Enlightenment? & Chakra Pain from Dark Night
key words Passion: Resistance, Association & Disassociation Dispassion: Acceptance, Acknowledgement & Release
Sensory Ongoing, Being, Becoming, Passion, Association, Clinging, Baggage, Bonding, Bondage, Disassociation, Craving, Averting, Ignorance, Delusion, Confusion Unmindful Identification, Adherence, carelessness, unconsciousness,
Mindful Adverting, Recognition, attending, taking care, consciousness, mindfulness, Dispassion, Acknowledgement, Acceptance, Release, letting go, Liberation. |