Sunday, May 23, 2010

Outer, Inner, & Hidden Bustle

A Nyingma commentary on ngondro says:
outer bustle is many activities ~
inner bustle is many thoughts ~
hidden bustle is many intentions ~

Don't make a project out of being still. The natural and inevitable fruit of stability, clarity, and knowing is that all things are completed. Roots, branches, leaves, and fruit are one: five aspects of natural awareness.

Where Do We Meet the World?

Stability and clarity are undermined by busyness and dullness. Busyness includes distraction, attention and energy being drawn into objects and excessive activity, or becoming obsessed and believing in the solidity of thoughts, feelings, or activities. Dullness includes sleepiness, dreamy states, torpor, laziness, and sinking into oblivion.

Don't turn the cultivation of awareness into a withdrawal from the world. Sinking into oneself is as much a problem as attaching to sense-objects. When distracted, return to the body, here and now. When dull, open eyes and ears and reenter the world. The body does not stop at the skin. Sitting, standing, walking -- awareness does not depend on posture. Don't pose. Where do we meet the world? Explore the border, not dwelling anywhere.

Demons and Buddhas

Muso Kokushi wrote:
Aversion or fear of demonic states is itself a demonic state. If you have emotional attachment to the appearances of the state of Buddhahood, then it is actually a demonic state. If you are unconcerned by the appearances of demonic states, then they are the realm of Buddhahood.
True practitioners of Buddhism are not emotionally attached to the realm of Buddhahood and do not fear the realms of demons. If you work in this way... obstructions will vanish of themselves.
~ from Dream Conversations, translated by Thomas Cleary