"...and after 12 years, he was liberated into space."
Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 1:19 pm
Space or "Dakini's paradise" is how Keith Dowman translated it in Masters of Mahamudra.
Why do I get the feeling that the way liberation or enlightenment are described are not really what it sounds like? Yes, there is rainbow body (which is truly perplexing based on all the other kinds of "enlightenment" which appear to be more or less just a change of mental attitude/understanding), but then there is another kind of "liberating into space" which is just like releasing the grasp of the mind. Where to release the grasp? Into space, where else? There really is no place else.
I'm thinking in particular of one of the 84 tales in Keith Dowman's above-mentioned book toward the end where a woman drops a pot and to observers appears to stare blankly for long enough for someone to basically say, "Hey, what are you doing?" Then, she says something about samsara and death in poetic language using the broken pot as a metaphor and then she liberates into space. It might have said she flies off into the sky, actually. I think either expression means the same thing.
Maybe my revised understanding of "sky-goer" (dakini) has helped me somewhat in thinking along these lines. I used to think a sky dancer was "I-don't-know-what," really, but I had some vague ideas, anyway, about them being somehow female nirmanakaya beings (whatever that is). In a teaching by Chagdud Tulku about Dakini Wisdom, I learned that this is really pretty figurative language. A sky dancer isn't some being that dances around in the sky. Sky means "space" and not just empty space, but all of space. So, "sky dancer" or "sky goer" is just a reference to the manifestations arising in space. They are female because concepts, forms and emotions are considered "female" while the penetrating awareness is considered "male." I suppose this makes sense because concepts, forms and emotions are like mothers pregnant with a baby awareness inside in the same way we refer to reality as "mother nature" because she births and nurtures all us babies.
So, this brings me to thoughts about the age-old question people ask: "where do we go when we become enlightened?" The answer that comes back is usually "nowhere." So... liberating into "dakini's paradise" = space = nowhere. Well, I'm nowhere already; seems like I'm somewhere until I examine the groundlessness of my experience.
It's hard to believe a view can be stabilized to a point beyond this understanding... and to a point where suddenly we find we have various siddhis and can maybe even decompose into rainbow light if we want. HENH!? <- that's a very nasal "huh?!"
Why do I get the feeling that the way liberation or enlightenment are described are not really what it sounds like? Yes, there is rainbow body (which is truly perplexing based on all the other kinds of "enlightenment" which appear to be more or less just a change of mental attitude/understanding), but then there is another kind of "liberating into space" which is just like releasing the grasp of the mind. Where to release the grasp? Into space, where else? There really is no place else.
I'm thinking in particular of one of the 84 tales in Keith Dowman's above-mentioned book toward the end where a woman drops a pot and to observers appears to stare blankly for long enough for someone to basically say, "Hey, what are you doing?" Then, she says something about samsara and death in poetic language using the broken pot as a metaphor and then she liberates into space. It might have said she flies off into the sky, actually. I think either expression means the same thing.
Maybe my revised understanding of "sky-goer" (dakini) has helped me somewhat in thinking along these lines. I used to think a sky dancer was "I-don't-know-what," really, but I had some vague ideas, anyway, about them being somehow female nirmanakaya beings (whatever that is). In a teaching by Chagdud Tulku about Dakini Wisdom, I learned that this is really pretty figurative language. A sky dancer isn't some being that dances around in the sky. Sky means "space" and not just empty space, but all of space. So, "sky dancer" or "sky goer" is just a reference to the manifestations arising in space. They are female because concepts, forms and emotions are considered "female" while the penetrating awareness is considered "male." I suppose this makes sense because concepts, forms and emotions are like mothers pregnant with a baby awareness inside in the same way we refer to reality as "mother nature" because she births and nurtures all us babies.
So, this brings me to thoughts about the age-old question people ask: "where do we go when we become enlightened?" The answer that comes back is usually "nowhere." So... liberating into "dakini's paradise" = space = nowhere. Well, I'm nowhere already; seems like I'm somewhere until I examine the groundlessness of my experience.
It's hard to believe a view can be stabilized to a point beyond this understanding... and to a point where suddenly we find we have various siddhis and can maybe even decompose into rainbow light if we want. HENH!? <- that's a very nasal "huh?!"