Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Summer Meditation Challenge! (Day 36)
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
Maps!
Click image to expand!
"This is good advice," I thought to myself. "Perhaps I can bring this mindset to the rigid views I hold about Buddhist practice!" And then--lo and behold--Thubten uses the exact same analogy in tonight's reading in Chapter 7, only he's talking about personas instead of opinions. (Come to think of it, an opinion is just a subset of a persona!)
At any rate, I opened up to the reading and I realized that most schools are fundamentally the same when it comes to the essence of Awakening: realize the true nature of reality. And most of the differences involve the myriad ways of going about that! Shazam!
So, resting easy, I participated without view-holding in tonight's discussion. It was good, better than usual. Moreover, during the short sit at the end, something happened. Usually I'm churning over the discussion and trying to sort out, synthesize any ideas requiring process. Tonight--for the most part--I returned to pure concentration practice and held it right there for the entire sit!
For my next map, I want to articulate via image just where this concentration practice fits in the larger scheme of "realization of the true nature of reality." I have some general sense already, but I need to flesh it out.
Maps!
Click image to expand!So, this map represents an insight that I had this afternoon as I prepared for our book group discussion of No Self No Problem. I've been so hung up on understanding, selecting, or favoring a particular approach to deepening my meditation practice that at some points I was frustrated with the generalities of the book. And then yesterday, I read this comment by "muchtooloose" on The Automatic Earth--a blog I visit regularly:
Enjoyed your reply. Now could I go off on a tangent and talk about ideas being like shirts? Okay you wear a plaid shirt and I hate plaid shirts! So I should hate you? Of courses not! Now what are ideas and opinions other than shirts that we wear? Just things we can put on or off as we please. Is that right?
If we can understand that each of us are not our opinions do you not think we just might have a better chance of reaching some sort of true understanding if we think of our ideas and opinions as something mutable rather than cast in stone? In other words I think "Skip Breakfast" has a point worth discussing.
"This is good advice," I thought to myself. "Perhaps I can bring this mindset to the rigid views I hold about Buddhist practice!" And then--lo and behold--Thubten uses the exact same analogy in tonight's reading in Chapter 7, only he's talking about personas instead of opinions. (Come to think of it, an opinion is just a subset of a persona!)
At any rate, I opened up to the reading and I realized that most schools are fundamentally the same when it comes to the essence of Awakening: realize the true nature of reality. And most of the differences involve the myriad ways of going about that! Shazam!
So, resting easy, I participated without view-holding in tonight's discussion. It was good, better than usual. Moreover, during the short sit at the end, something happened. Usually I'm churning over the discussion and trying to sort out, synthesize any ideas requiring process. Tonight--for the most part--I returned to pure concentration practice and held it right there for the entire sit!
For my next map, I want to articulate via image just where this concentration practice fits in the larger scheme of "realization of the true nature of reality." I have some general sense already, but I need to flesh it out.
# posted by bosuncookie @ 7/06/2011 09:25:00 PM 
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