nintheye:
New video posted:
Trompe l'oeil, the nature of illusion, and enlightenmentTrompe l'oeil refers to a technique in painting that is used to make it seem truly 3D. It's an illusion. The illusion of the I experiencing the world is like that. You might think of it as a series of I-other thoughts, each of which is a painting like that. Self-inquiry and surrender are meant to recognize these illusionary pictures for what they. But the recognition -- or the failure to recognize -- it itself another trompe l'oeil. The illusions are nested, creating an infinite series. One cannot exit them through recognizing them one by one, but, through this series of recognitions, gains the faith that they are ALL illusory, and by that has faith enough to let go into what is continuously beneath all the illusions, what is continuous in their very changes and recognitions.,
And then there is the illusion that one has separated out the ground of being from the manifestations of being, as though they weren't not-two. Another trompe l'oeil. What is transparent is not non-existent.
"Recognitions" involve placing pictures in their proper sequence and category, while primary cognition confronts the present as immediately and intuitively real. Phenomenologically, directly. Aristotle says that the senses take an immaterial "impression" of the world. We go from being impressed to being manipulative, to creating karma. Living in a world composed almost exclusively of tools.
There is an underlying sense here - the underlying "self" idea, perhaps - that the ego survives, and "exits" the "illusions" of phenomena through faith in..."what is continuously." One might sum this up as, "there is a god, and I am him." Rather solipsistic, taken as a doctrine rather than as an ecstatic exclamation.
Perhaps consciousness itself is just a bubble of froth on the surface of a vast ocean. No more the ocean itself than a container of seawater in the desert interior.
Anyhows, there is danger of stumbling upon the truth and then trying to use it for any number of purposes. As the truth unfolds there is one blissful sunrise after another, and we're always drawn over the next hill, and the next, the foothills of the great mountain range. Each new vista claims to be the ultimate, but we know deep down, if we can see it, it isn't the ultimate, because we are still here.
A zen master was sitting with a monk one time, and he asked the monk if he had been to the top of the mountain. The monk affirmed that he had. The master then inquired, "and did you see anyone while you were there?" The monk replied, "No, there was no one." The master then said, "And to think I doubted this fellow!" The monk remarked, "If I hadn't been to the top of the mountain, how would I have known there was no one there?"
terry
from the zen teachings of huang po, trans blofeld:
10. When the people of the world hear it said that the
Buddhas transmit the Doctrine of the Mind, they suppose
that there is something to be attained or realized apart
from Mind, and thereupon they use Mind to seek the
Dharma, nol knowing that Mind and the object of their
search are one. Mind cannot be used to seek something
from Mind; for then, after the passing of millions of aeons,
the day of success will still not have dawned. Such a method
is not to be compared with suddenly eliminating conceptual
thought, which is the fundamental Dharma. Suppose a
warrior, forgetting that he was already wearing his pearl on
his forehead, were to seek for it elsewhere, he could
travel the whole world without finding it. But if someone
who knew what was wrong were to point it out to him, the
warrior would immediately realize that the pearl had been
there all the time. So, if you students of the Way are mis-
taken about your own real Mind, not recognizing that it is
the Buddha, you will consequently look for him elsewhere,
indulging in various achievements and practices and ex-
pecting to attain realization by such graduated practices.
Bul, even at er aeons of diligent searching, you will nol be
able lo attain to the Way. These methods cannot be com-
pared to the sudden elimination of conceptual thought, in
the certain knowledge that there is nothing at all which has
absolute existence, nothing on which to lay hold, nothing on which
to rely, nothing in which to abide, nothing subjective or objective -
It is by preventing the use of conceptual thought that you will realize
Bodhi; and, when you do, you will just be realizing the Buddha who
has always existed in your own Mind! Aeons of striving will prove to
be so much wasted efort; just as, when the warrior found his pearl,
he merely discovered what had been hanging on his forehead all the
time; and just as his finding of it had nothing to do with his efforts to
discover it elsewhere. Therefore the Buddha said: 'I truly attained
nothing from complete, unexcelled Enlighlenmenl."