Hello-ing A New Friend

Hello, RS!

Just today I discovered your very interesting website via
a posting of a quote from you on the NonDuality Salon (via
ND Highlights) that I immediately saved. It begins:
"For me mystical ecstasy is a feeling and a realization."

It's wonderful to read someone who is not afraid to talk
about 'mystical ecstasy'! And also about what I usually
refer to as 'zero-ing out...' In fact recently I tried to
describe is as a formula:although my math-inclined friends say it’s nonsense.
I describe its meaning as ‘zero-ing out through any number
of the levels that present themselves equals Foreverland.’
Foreverland is a poetic term for Nirvana – I’m constantly
trying to find modern English equivalents for foreign
phrases.

My main interest these days is summed up on this page of my website:

Some might consider me as hopelessly hedonistic,
but I would perhaps change that to ‘hopefully’...
because the only hope I see for our poor planet is
to find easily accessible methods for a larger percentage
of beings to increase their bliss tolerance than the reported
1% that Buddhism ‘enlightens’.

Also, I think the time for ‘secret’ or ‘whispered teachings’
is long past, and all and every possible method should be
shared as widely as possible, including the shaman’s
paths and all the most esoterically held exercises. Frankly,
I think I may have stumbled in my own back-assed
way onto a number of them (tracheal resonance,
blinking to swat thought streams, etc.) but also try to keep
a sense of humor about it all (smile).

Thank you for introducing me to the term ‘apophatic.’
Do you consider it related to the so-called Christian
‘Via Negativa’ and in Hindu, ‘Neti neti?’ I’m somewhat
familiar with these ‘dark night’ experiences, and perhaps
my essay on ‘Light’ you might find of interest:

I don’t consider myself to be part of any particular lineage
or ‘path,’ although I have met many mostly unknown enlightened
teachers, perhaps summed up in this essay.
http://www.raysender.com/volsimp.html

I’m interested to read that you live in the Bay Area. My wife
Judith and I have been happily settled in San Francisco’s Noe
Valley for 24 years. We run a free-admission speakers’ series
at the Noe Valley Ministry on odd-calendar-numbered Mondays.
The series is six years old, and the seventh season will start
this September.

My personal experiences tell me that matter and spirit are
intrinsically one Holon and that our star the Sun is a conscious
entity we might as well refer to as Our Mother Goddess Self. Of
the current crop of teachers, I especially admire Adyashanti,
Master Aziz Kristof in Poone (currently in seclusion), the
Christian contemplative Bernadette Roberts, and my spiritual
friend David Spero. For a sampling of his talks and videos, see www.davidspero.com

Also, I’m continually amazed by Ken Wilber’s ability to inhale
all East and West traditions and map them in marvelous ways. If
I were a 20-yr-old, I’d intern in Boulder for as long as I --
or they -- could stand it. Interesting gathering of folks.

On top of all that, I realize I might just as well continue to
throw all this silly nonsense out the window and just remain
seated, fat and sassy, on Mother’s lap where upwelling gratitude
means downpouring Grace. Go gettum, Sri Sri Ma!

Quote from jax on the DzogchenPractices list:

Dzogchen is the sound your hear that is part of your
world of sensory experience... all sound is the mantra
of Rigpa as it is. The samaya of Dzogchen is simply "to
remain undistracted"...but even that notion is too
dualistic as it implies there is "someone" who should
avoid being "distracted". Rigpa never is distracted
from the state of Rigpa... the "self" does not exist,
as it is only a concept or thought of "me" that arises
from and within Rigpa, and therefore has no volition of
its own to be distracted or not. There does not exist
an entity that get's distracted, who by practicing "non-
distraction" can realize Rigpa. There is "no one" that
realizes Rigpa or Enlightened Awareness. Buddha's main
teaching was "anatman" or absence of self. He said there
is no personal self or individual... that was the whole
liberating realization of the Enlightenment! He also
realized at that same moment that "no one" else exists
either. Hence he states in the Diamond Sutra that there
are no sentient beings to save or liberate. To think so,
he said, would be still suffering from the root delusion,
that there is some "self" entity.

That's the key premise of Dzogchen: there is "no one"
to liberate, and "no one" to attain enlightenment. "Being"
is all there is and Being is who you always are. That
perfection cannot be added to nor diminished. That's why
there is nothing to "practice"! Who would do the practices?
Explain that...

Froth Above the Waves

roo wrote (on http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DzogchenPractice/):

Bottom-line in all this is this: awareness naturally arises
from within oneself AND as an infinite arising everywhere,
spontaneously. This is exactly as ALL realized (experienced)
masters state. We EACH display at any given time a teacher
teaching...regardless of 'where' (here, there, now or then) or
what form this teacher/teaching arises as, whether directly
and within (called >direct mind-to-mind transmission/
introduction), or in-person and directly >face-to-face with
each of us, OR even from NATURE itself, in and as our normal
course unfolds from day-to-day!!!

Yee-ha! What she sez, and I use the feminine pronoun because when Truth is transmitted, I always hear Mother's voice. And Mother has no lineage except the Unmanifest. She gives birth to and is the whole effing manfestation - literally! - Foreverwhere! - while dancing with a ferocious smile on her lover's body!

and roo again:

One particular point which is strongly indicated by Thinley
Norbu Rinpoche (Dudjom Rinpoche's son) is that if we have
received transmission and pointing-out instructions -at-
any-time- ...even in past lives, that our understanding will
(perhaps) naturally unfold in this life as well. This will
take place in differing "strengths and degrees-of-unfoldment"
depending how much we seek to re-familiarize ourselves
whatever teachings have a natural type of usually unspoken
appeal for us.
He vehemently states that in such cases, there is natural and
profound understanding and abilities to comprehend these
teachings at whatever point these are encountered, and in or
from whichever form (books, teacher/gurus, within oneself,
bumblebees, sticks or stones)...and that there would be no
reason to go and have the same introductions again...just to
satisfy those on the outside looking in. He states how
redundancy is coemergentwith fulility, as thought and
thinking compounds and deepens our conceptuality.

I presume 'fulility' is a typo for 'futility'... although even then I'm not sure I understand that last sentence. Redundancy is okay with me. I've forgotten more samadhis that I can possibly even evoke. Forgetting is for the joy of rediscovering the light buried in the most amazing places! What else is the universe for? What I _do_ remember is that the pointing-outs I've received have been during THIS one and one-only planetary lifetime and, if I have a secondary purpose to being ploinked planetside as a portable fertilizer factory for trees, it's to demonstrate that you can realize total hilarious relaxation into Solar Consciousness while embodied in a poop bag, even the first time around. No zillions of anguished rebirths necessary, folks, unless once you've been proven harmless to the Life Form you want to come back (within the Garden of Gaia this time and not as a supplicant) as a rabbit, a hummingbird, a tree, etc. I aver this this despite having made every conceivable idiotic mistake short of something that would trundle me off to the pokey. Thus I can cry "I am you!" to the least of my brethren/ sistren, and prove it.

I do believe (echoing roo) that we receive transmissions from books, music, trees, birds, lizards - even rocks! I've received direct written-word transmissions from (short list): Milarepa (1966), Lama Govinda(1967), Evans-Wentz (1966), Sri Aurobindo (1967), The Mother (1967 including shaktipat from 12,000 miles away), Sat-Prem (2004), Gurdjieff (almost died laughing reading 'All and Everything' in 1966). There are more recent ones too, but I think that suffices.

In K.S's clarification on the need for a guru-in-the-flesh for the tantrica, he wrote:

If you truly are a "solitary realiser," I am so happy to hear that
you have found your true path - dzogchen is not for everyone,
that's why Lord Buddha taught 84,000 different paths - but if
you are a tantrica, please don't lose your way. Unwavering
trust is needed here.

Finding a guru-in-the-flesh is a great great boon, a great privilege. It's like finding your true love planetside, isn't it? I've had many spiritual friends, even many teachers, and now even a few like roo and jax I call 'spiritual coaches,' (attached to my choo-choo train) but my TRUE teacher is the one pointed to in jax's posting from Tulku Urgyen's son Chokling Rinpoche, but certainly not original with him:

The true guru will awaken from within your heart. It is said,
the guru is not outside but within. This means that you are
face-to-face with the true guru the same moment you recognize
the nature of mind. Please understand this!

And if we look again, this true guru must be none other than The Mother Light, yes? And where does this Mother Light reflect Herself in the so-called projection of so-called outer space? Hint: when you do the blue sky meditation, you are asked to turn away from The Big Watermelon-
Ripener She-selfies...

N'est pas? If the Lord Buddha taught 84,000 different paths, where d'you think HE was taught them? In actual fact, all paths just merge into The Divine Play, the Solar Lila where all and everything dance in the golden meadows... In my sometimes humble opinion -- and puhleeze don't go astronomical on me and point to worlds beyond our solar system -- it's just the half-second delay caused by our self-reflective consciousness that takes us OUTSIDE of what everyone INSIDE the Garden of Gaia understands perfectly. THAT which WE ARE displays Truth optimally without the need of telescopes and atom-smashers. Woof? Moo?
(sigh...)
From where Gratitude meets the Grace brought to you by She who Manifests First from the Unmanifest, and Cleans Up Last...

But watch out for False Positives... they do come along...

Ramon

jax:

When you come to the place where there is nothing at all you
could call effort, that is the moment when you find yourself
in the nature of mind: free from your thoughts, feelings,
emotions and conditions

So all that's left is to sing and dance a leetle song I wrote in 1967:

Just where you are
Is the nicest place to be
Just where you are
Earth touches Eternity
Just where you are,
The sunlight's on the sea,
And where you are,
Is never far,
From me!

Loss of Awareness in jhana, and Ramana

I appreciate your reply, M.J. And understand what you’re saying, especially
‘wakeful sleep’. But I still think that inasmuch as ‘the sounding breath’
is self-arising (through deep relaxation in sleep), it offers us a key to
that final door that might otherwise take 20 years sitting in a cave,
something that few of us are willing to do – or capable of doing – these
days. Luckily, Mother is very beneficent.
This remark of yours was especially helpful:

”concentration is not opposed to such total relaxation. The
word 'concentrate' means to focus on one centre, and in order
to experience total relaxation we must be focused in our real
centre, which is our true and essential self.”

I understand now that there's a stage where Concentration and Relaxation
become the same. This is something I had been wrestling with for some
time - i.e. how to remain on the meditation object (which requires some
application of focus/fixation) while at the same time going ever deeper
into relaxation.
Yesterday I visualized 'concentration' as a golden ball gradually
sinking into a deep ocean of relaxation, and found this helpful.
Regarding this from your book
The Happiness of Being page 13 (that you pointed me towards),
how did Sri Ramana know he went through a true ‘physical death’
experience, i.e. that his heart ‘stopped beating’ and that he was
‘out’ for 20 minutes?

Sri Ramana merely simulated the signs of physical death.
But he explained on several occasions that he
did not merely simulate it, but actually underwent the
experience of physical death at that time. Because he fixed his
whole attention so firmly and intensely upon his
consciousness of being, not only did his breathing cease, but
his heart stopped beating, and all the other biological
functions that indicate life also came to a standstill. Thus his
body literally lay lifeless for about twenty minutes, until
suddenly life again surged through it, and his heartbeat and
breath started to function as normal.

To put this into perspective, here is a quote from “The Jhanas”
by Ajahn Brahmavamso, page 29 of 46, distributed free by The
Buddhist Fellowship, Singapore

A lay disciple once told me how he had “fluked” a deep
jhana while meditating at home. His wife thought he had
died and sent for an ambulance. He was rushed to hospital
in a wail of loud sirens. In the emergency room, there was
no heartbeat registered on the E.C.G., nor brain activity
to be seen by the E.E.G. So the doctor on put defibrillators
on his chest to re-activate his heart. Even though he was
being bounced up and down on the hospital bed through the
force of the electric shocks, he didn’t feel a thing! When
he emerged from the jhana in the emergency room, perfectly
all right, he had no knowledge of how he had got there,
nor of ambulances and sirens, nor of body-jerking defibrill-
ators. All that long time that he was in jhana, he was fully
aware, but only of bliss. This is an example of what is meant
by the five senses shutting down within the experience of jhana.

Comment:
Although I disagree with Ajahn B regarding the shutting down of
the five senses in_ all_ jhana states (including the the lower
four jhanas,) this reported experience cannot be disregarded,
and does seem to reference Sri R’s own.

I thought you also might find the following of interest.
It was quoted on the Way-of-Light Yahoo list
that focuses mostly on Tibetan Dzogchen/Mahamudra:

From the Choying Dzod By Longchengpa From Chapter 9:
"Awareness, involving no plans or actions, no coming or
going, entails no time frame or antidote, so drop reification
and effort.
If there is a deliberate frame of reference, it is a cause of
bondage.
Do not rely on any fixed construct whatsoever - let go in evenness!

It is of no concern whether or not all phenomena are timelessly free.
It is of no concern whether or not the way of abiding is pure by nature.

It is of no concern whether or not mind itself is free of elaboration.
It is of no concern whether or not anything has ever existed within
the fundamentally unconditioned, genuine state.

It is of no concern whether or not samsara and nirvana
are by nature a duality.
It is of no concern whether or not all thoughts and expressions
are transcended.
It is of no concern whether or not confused attempts
at proof and refutation are demolished.
It is of no concern whether or not the view to be realized has
been realized.

It is of no concern whether or not you meditate
on the ultimate meaning of the true nature of phenomena.
It is of no concern whether or not you engage in examination,
since there is nothing to accept or reject.
It is of no concern whether or not the way of abiding
has ever existed as the fruition.
It is of no concern whether or not you have traversed
the paths and levels of realization.

It is of no concern whether or not you are free of all obscurations.
It is of no concern whether or not the development and
completion stages perfect your true nature.
It is of no concern whether or not the fruition of liberation is
attained.
It is of no concern whether or not you wander in the six states of samsara.

It is of no concern whether or not the nature of being
is spontaneous presence.
It is of no concern whether or not you are bound
by dualistic perceptions of affirmation and denial.
It is of no concern whether or not you have arrived
at the enlightened intent of the true nature of phenomena.
It is of no concern whether or not you follow
in the footsteps of masters of the past.

No matter what arises, even if heaven and earth change
places, there is a bare state of relaxed openness, without any
underlying basis.

Without any reference points nebulous, ephemeral and
evanescent - this is the mode of a lunatic, free of the duality
of hope and fear.

With unbiased view and meditation,
ordinary consciousness that is caught up in reification
collapses.
Without the entanglements of wishful thinking,
there is no "thing" to strive for or achieve.

Let whatever happens happen and whatever manifests
manifest.
Let whatever occurs occur and whatever is be.
Let whatever is anything at all be nothing at all.

With your conduct unpredictable
you make the final leap into awareness
without the slightest basis for determining what is spiritual
or not,
and so this bare state with no reference point
is beyond the cage of philosophy.

Whether eating, moving around, lying down, or sitting,
day and night you rest in infinite evenness,
so that you experience the true nature of phenomena as their
equalness.
There are no gods to worship, no demons to exorcise,
nothing to cultivate in meditation this is the completely
"ordinary" state.

With this single state of evenness, the uncontrived ruler
that has no pride -
there is oneness, a relaxed and unstructured openness.
How delightful!
Things are timelessly ensured without having to be done,
and free of effort and achievement, you are content.