I wish I could understand why “fabricated” - a relatively comprehensible word - is used as a synonym for “empty(ness)” - a relatively incomprehensible word. Saying “….fabricated, THUS empty” .. I don’t see how they equate or even relate. 🥲 Take, say, a piece of music. By definition it is fabricated… a song you like… written and played by a musician. Fabricated. Sure. How does that get us to “empty” … it could just as easily be understood that by virtue of fabrication any thing of any kind is now an entity, it has some IDENTITY, which seems to opposite to emptiness. Its impermanence is not hard to grasp. Its dependent origination is also not hard to grasp. But how is this empty. (And by the way, what is it about being empty that is so good… do we not appreciate music, or other WELL-FABRICATED things… a game of baseball is fabricated, the earth is fabricated… yet these are the components of a human (and all others forms) of life. I’m not pressing an argument here. Rather I’m just perplexed SEMANTICALLY. the word “empty” is almost oxymoronic.
You notice that fabrications have no inherent being or identity. In regards to your example, of a song written and played by a musician. If I take the song, but make another musician play it, is it the same song? Seems that way. But we know that the second musician plays it slightly differently, indeed it would be impossible to play it exactly as the original artist. In fact it would be impossible for the original artist to play it exactly the same way as the first time, but that's neither here nor there, let's continue. If we admit that it is the "same" song, that is, it has the same identity, we therefore conclude that the sounds don't have to be the exact same, nor does it have to be the same musician for it to hold the same identity. However, this raises a problem. If we imagine an axis of sameness and differentness relative to the song, at what point along that axis do changes and differences cause it to lose it's identity? Where exactly is the boundary between "this song" and "not this song". Try to find the exact boundaries and "inherent existence" of the song and you will fail to find it. It's identity only exists as an product of the mind. You can also notice that different people will have different ideas on where the boundary is. If I sub out the acoustic guitar for electric, or piano for keyboard, is it still the same song? To one it may, to the other it may not. How can it be both the same song, and not the same song at the same time, that is the true oxymoron here. Clearly it cannot, hence you are forced to conclude that the same song means different things, and hence it cannot have any true stable identity. Honestly just read his book, he goes into this and more in detail and explained in a very clear and lucid manner.
Burbea says many people have meditated for years and been to retreats where there is no teaching about this concept. I agree, but a problem I see is that even with their intense practice, it doesn’t somehow spontaneously occur. If it’s really there, why should it depends so much on, a teaching? I’m not saying that there isn’t some value in a teaching, but if it’s really what’s going on, why don’t people who have spent years and hours and hours exploring the inside stumble on it somehow? I have spoken with people who have been much more dedicated to a sitting practice than I have, and I can tell that they are still often talking about these insights so to speak from a theoretical rather than an experiential stance. They’re saying it as a philosophy that they impose on particular situations rather than from an experience of the philosophy. I admit that I’m a little dejected over the kinds of promises that are made that if you do X, why, or Z, you will have a particular kind of experience. There are no guarantees. I will sometimes hear particular teachers speak about going to their very first retreat, and getting to a level of concentration and focus that I have not experienced after 10 years and 20+ retreats. I’ve also been around people who’ve been at the search even longer than I have and died before they ever had a truly deep experience of the teachings. These were people who were intensely interested and were very dedicated to it. Then I will sometimes see people write something similar to what I’m saying and another person will answer them online saying oh, just keep at it. It will happen. There is absolutely no guarantee.
May you, Rob, be filled with light, golden and warm; May you be surrounded by love and goodness, and May you be always be blessed, now and always:) Yours, Jim
I believe this one happened before the "Contact and the construction of self", although both happened on the same day (which is probably why the order is mixed up on Dharmaseed). Also, there's actually no guided meditation here (the recording is cut off just as the sit was starting).
I wonder if vitaka and vichara could be translated as "initial and the following thought(s)", i.e. a train of thoughts (unfortunately there were no trains in the Buddha era so he could not have used that description).
Antidotes to the hindrances: Sloth and torpor: -Reaffirming the uprightness of the posture -Imagining an all encompassing bright white light, imagining a body made of light, etc -Paying more attention to the in-breath, it's a natural energizer -Spend some time doing long and slow breaths -Open up the awareness to include the whole body, perhaps open the eyes -Stand up -When doing the walking meditation, walk a bit more briskly -Make sure you're getting enough exercise during the day (tai chi, yoga, walks in nature, etc) -Gently checking if the awareness is curling up because it's trying to avoid something, like an emotion or a thought Restlessness -Keeping the body still with a gentle intention to stay relaxed at the same time -Tuning to the relaxation of the out-breath -Bringing attention lower to the body to take awareness away from the head -Opening up the awareness to the whole space and fully allowing the restlesness in the body Craving for sense pleasure: -Tuning into the unpleasant nature of craving itself. It's not a "happy" state -Asking "What is lacking right now?" as a means to see into the emptiness of desire -Re-establishing a closeness with the meditation object. See if it's possible to tune into enjoyment Aversion: -Physically relax the body -Questioning aversion. "Is this taking me where I want to go?", "Am I building something out of proportion?" -Switch to metta -Opening up the awareness Doubt: -Just recognizing it as an impersonal hindrance sometimes helps a lot -Promising oneself to address the doubt later on, but focus on getting through the sitting/walking period first
Hi, I'm a huge fan of Rob's talks, and also and audio professional. There are some which have some issues that could quite easily be fixed (this one for instance, and also the Samatha retreat has some distorted talks) . I would be happy to repair these in my own time. Please reply if that's something you would like :)
for the right amount of intensity, I think listening is a great analogy. Suppose you are a music critic, and you are able to analyze deeply while listening a song. But if you want to get in the flow of the song and lose yourself in it, you have to stop putting your attention deeply on the quantity of the elements, but rather experience the parts as a whole while still appreciating the intricacies from time to time when they emerge
@@Paul-kl2mnWhen our minds are full of loving kindness or compassion it is very easy for us to dwell there. We don’t force our minds to concentrate, we allow our minds to settle and become still. It is much easier to be still with states of happiness than when we try to wrestle or force our minds to be focussed.
awareness of receiving-giving dimensions that Rob talked about fits so nicely into the interpretation of concentration as an act of harmonious responsiveness that he also highlights in a first recording of the series.
"Sometimes we have a very different sense of perfection. Our perfection, perfection of being; perfection that runs through being and existence. Washing my hands-they're so bony now, I've lost so much weight... Feeling my body, wasted away-just bones really. Can't see properly, I can't stand up, don't have any balance. Washing my hands after your tutorial, trying to be careful because of the virus- -Somehow, when I touch one hand on the other, there's some kind of perfection, there's some kind of beauty of God's grace, but there's nothing to do with perfection in the way that we usually understand and think of it-of 'becoming perfect'. It's a way of seeing. It's very personal. It's universal and it's personal. Somehow there's love in there. Somehow. Being known in there, and knowing. Wrapped up in perfection, or perfection wraps it up. Permeates through- Shoots through- Exudes it, it expresses it. So when things are bad, feeling so weak and tired, and lost all useful capacities, somehow- Jesus' blessing is on everything. I don't know what that means. What does it mean? I don't know. The heart and the soul knows something, feels something, senses something, opens something, realizes something- Jesus' blessing is on everything. And that blessing is a perfection. It's in exactly the opposite direction of accumulation of wonderful capacities; the stripping away, the loss, the dukkha, the misery, the incapacity. That's why theology (theodicy) is trying to explain how the current of difficult, bad, even evil things, it's congruent, or makes sense with a good God; theodicy. There's all these different theories and perspectives. Maybe it's something to do with what more we need to arouse sense in our soul; a sense of something opens and begins something, we taste something, our heart know something, or our soul knows something. We see it, we feel it- Jesus' blessing is on everything. Christ's blessing is on everything. Even in dukkha itself, right there in the palpable dukkha. It's a very different sense of perfection."
