As I was meditating this morning, I lightly went over the four verses that make up these yogas. I often don't, today though I was struck by how fresh these verses seemed. I know that they belong to deeper levels of practice and understanding, yet today a new level of realization dawned, and a little bit more of them I was able to grasp. A micro sized seed, but I'll take even that!
Let me start by sharing that the door ro realization is found in several texts. Let me quote from the Root Verses of the Six Intermediate States, from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I grant that isn't it's real title, but it's the best known one. Root #1 says: "Alas, now as the intermediate state of living arises before me, renouncing laziness, for which there is no tinme in this life, I must enter the undistracted path of study, reflection, and meditation...." The laziness here of course is spiritual laziness. Elightenment takes a bit of work at first, just like a freshman attempting to begin grabbing a hold of particle physics and quantum engineering. It takes time to wrap your head around it. And so the Buddhist path of study, reflection, and meditation.
First, I need to ingest the words. Reading the way I know a lot of Americans do, isn't enough. It needs to be thought about, reflected on. Ruminated. When I Kindle, I make notes. Lately I've been reading James Fennimore Cooper's The Spy, and making all sorts of notes. I'm amazed at what Cooper was aware of. It's no different with other texts. I have to read them. Memorize them. Reflect on them, and then sit with them. Sit in meditation and allow the liberation to unfold. There is no hurry here. Last, I add the mantra around my lack of understanding.
For me, what is unfolding is the understanding of one-taste. At first, I though it meant a bland "universal oneness" that eliminates all individual distinctions. I am coming to see that isn't the case. The new agey "we are all one" might be right in reality, but it presupposes a lot that isn't correct either. I've heard it as a white wash for dysfunction many times. The one-taste is that place you will experience when you have begun to do as the text says: cut away and demolish.
Gadzooks! Rather rough sounding for a Buddhist! But that is the vigor and level to which I need to approach my "klesha," my samsaric way of being. In other words, the false constructs my ego puts up that blind me to reality. I need to cut away the clinging of my mind, the attaching it does to beliefs that creates an interpretation of reality. I need to demolish the false lair of appearances. False lair. Potent words, those. It is an apt description of the ego. Let me use this story for this kind of work.
When I was younger a group of us used to go camping across the Minnesota border in Canada every year. We became known to the guides and other Park people who worked there most of the year. One year, when we were filing our plan with the authorities (that way they knew who was going to be where and approximately when and when they would return to "check out," meaning they were safe and sound), they noticed we were going by a certain island. They told us of a certain camp site that had been too "civilized." The rules were that you left it the way you found it, the way nature presented it too you. So when we got there, and located ourselves on another "site," we went over to the "remodel" site and were greeted by assembled benches, built up fire pits, and objects attached to trees. So we demolished all the assembled benches, fire pits, and when we left, from the water, it looked a spot that could be a great camp site, instead of one that was indeed, well used. Such is the work of cutting away and demolishing. Return it to the natural state.
That will be the state of the "all pervading freedom from extremes." Be fearless. This isn't easy work. It is however, necessary, if I want to be free. Like any demolition though, you just have to start. First, empty the house. That's basic meditation practice. Once it's empty, there is more work to do. The real work in fact. I start with removing all trim and interior doors. Then I can strip out flooring, then sheet rock, then electrical and plumbing. Sometimes this is where remodeling is considered. Don't do it. You can make it look all cool and Zen-ish, but it won't be the natural state. Non bearing walls go next. Windows and doors, and now the house is open to the temperature of the natural state.Then you are left with the roof and the walls. I want this location to look the way it was before the foundation went in. So I take off the roof in pieces, and then the walls, working down floor by floor until I get to the foundation. The cinder block or concrete foundation, basement, or pad. Then I remove that.
Yes, a lot of work indeed. It will seem like a shame to throw away all those "resources." But I must. What I'm talking about here is a house built on illusions, and I want no part of that. I want the natural state. Once we learn the practices and start doing them, we'll learn how to do this activity moment by moment. We can return this "civilized" campsite to it's natural state. Pick up a hatchet, and let's get started.
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