The dharma offers us the deepest and most profoundly healing invitation…to look and keep looking…
until we are able to relax out of our fascination with, and absorption into, the movements of the mind as if they held inherent truth…
into the unconpounded, ungraspable basis for those movements… the underlying ground and truth of each and every ‘one’…
We can use the different dharma lenses offered by the teachings to open ourselves up to different perspectives, as to how the world is and we are. Views which range from rather to radically different from that offered by our self-absorbed myopia, help us examine our fixity, putting into question the validity of the basis of our assumptions and beliefs…
Are the opinions that we hold about ourselves, others, and the world… the actual truth of how it is?
Are we a knowable entity, an independently self-existing… individual ‘thing’?
Our ‘ego-self’ would like to think so…but then…what exactly is this ego-self?
And how and why does this aspect attempt to assume definitional mastery over every other ‘thing’ by, in some way, labelling?
Is it the whole.. and truth… of us?
And fundamentally…if we rely on what we take to be ‘our’ thoughts feelings and sensations to tell us the answers to these questions, to tell the truth about everything…is that wisdom or ignorance?
Without encountering the dharma…would we ever ask these questions?
Without the teachers and teachings would we find the answers… all on our ‘owney-o’ ?
We are so lucky to have so many different teachings, explained and available…to help us release from our delusions. Different aspects of these will be helpful at different times…and they will reveal themselves differently to us as we continue to engage with them.
Exploring the teachings an relating to them we find our own unique and wiggly way to unfold…
Mine has relied heavily on the teacher and teachings in the Macclesfield Talks for the education, which in the true sense of the word, I lacked.
I’ve worked on and with many of them over the years and so was able to checking a query about the abrupt ending to Talk 3 Anxiety and Doubt.
My copy ends the same way… so I checked with Chris Coppock who made, and has many of the early recordings … unfortunately there was a hiccup, and the ending was not recorded.
Checking that out was a bit of an obstacle course… but I then found myself listening again to Talk 15 Balancing relaxation and effort in Buddhism with its wonderfully rich invitation to explore how our off-balancedness comes about, can be recognised… and resolved in the true balance of the middle way…
I wrote a post recently about balance, referencing Weebles … this talk takes it much broader and deeper.
I think listening to it would be helpful, and enjoyable… for those who are meditating on Sunday (or any day) to engage with ….taking your time to feel your way home : )
Maybe, like the snail, you’ll find some older older invitations… including some simple prayers… if you look below…
