Is the light of our mind blocked by the net of illusion…? or…. is the illusion the light of our mind?
Does how you look influence what you see, what seems to be so to you?
Well, I have a loosely woven cardigan…is this cardigan opaque or translucent?
Lying on the chair it looks opaque…
and if I hold it at a distance and try to look through it I can’t see the flowers in the sink outside.
So, as I cannot see through it – my cardigan is opaque.
However if bring it close to my eyes… the sink and flowers clearly appear.
I can see through it – so my cardigan is translucent.
Which is it… opaque or translucent?
As it can seem both it is neither… but can seem either, depending on your point of view
Sri Nisgargadatta said:
‘The real world is beyond our thoughts and ideas; we see it through the net of our desire, divided into pleasure and pain, right and wrong, inner and outer. To see the universe as it is, you must step beyond the net.
It is not hard to do, for the net is full of holes.’
William Blake wrote of ‘mind-forged manacles’….
and the realisation of the historical Buddha, as expressed in the Dhammapada, was:
‘Mind is the forerunner of all experience. Mind is their chief and they are mind-made’
Seeing this, its clear that our lack of freedom arises from substantialising both the ‘self’ and our ‘obstacles to freedom’…and it is from this ‘self-ish’ mental activity that we need to desist on order to realise the truth of who we are… beyond the stories we weave about ourselves.
Stretching the metaphor a bit … similar to stretching the cardigan… compassionate views and activity stretch the self-net…so that the holes become bigger and bigger – more light permeates both ways, and our view of the world changes becoming clearer and more luminous…
…and with the clearest view there is no need to stretch… for compassion arises naturally from the un-deluded mind. Arising from wisdom, the net is insubstantial and there is nothing to escape
From the Vajra Knot:
‘Whatever appears is forever inseparable from the ever-changing net of illusion….’
Linked with this prayer, in one of the Macclesfield Talks, James described the Great Net of Indra …where from each of the myriad interstices of this inconceivably vast net… a multifaceted and brilliant crystal hangs.
Each facet of each crystal shows reflections from all of the other facets…resulting in an entrancing, ever-changing mutually influencing illusion.
This display of the energy of the mind needs no interference, it is not a problem to be solved…
However if we are bedazzled by and fuse with display, as if it were real, our perspective narrows and excludes the on-going un-changing stillness and spaciousness within which these movements are occurring, forgetful of the source of the creativity.
In fusing into the movements as if they showed the actual truth of our situation … we forget our non-dual freedom, and take on the dualistic beliefs of a suffering sentient being wandering in samsara.
The introductions are now included in the recordings of The Aspiration of the Vajra knot and the Prayer of Aspiration which is a Wish-Fulfilling Jewel. The option to download or listen to them is now available.
I’d be glad if you would delete the earlier version, lacking the introduction… as they belong together, the introduction influencing the connection.
For these are not ‘just prayers to be said as a duty’ but can be a profound education, in the truest sense of the word…
…as we take in these words, their words… into our hearts, and release them out into the world on our breath…this brings us very close to the hearts vision and aspiration of those who have realised the deepest truth….from which the words arose…