Analysis of 'presence'

[Andrew108]

Andrew, Presence is good. So is awareness and just being, not this or that but just be.
The trouble is we can't just be. The latent tendencies and emotional thoughts come bubbling to the surface so 'presence' is obscured but not lost.

When you know that latent tendencies and emotional thoughts are not separate from the natural state then what harm do they cause? If you recognize them as being separate and harmful then it's hard to let them go and you get stirred up.
Meditation isn't about keeping these thoughts under wrap. When you do Rushen practices in Dzogchen you let these thoughts hang out. You bring them up and look at there nature. When you do Mahamudra you can bring up these really strong thoughts and emotions and then suddenly look at them and see their nature. So the point in the end is to see that thoughts and emotions are in formal dharma terms 'self-arisen awareness'. Sounds complex but it just means that you just let it be and have confidence that it's just the natural state display. Obviously you don't become a monster and use these emotions or give the display any fixed importance. Airplanes can fly through clouds and in the open sky. In that sense they are unobstructed. So are you.

[Astus]

Conventionally it seems that there is a teacher but really there is just the natural state and that's what we are exposed to.

Exposed to how? How do you make the shift from non-presence to presence?

So....no words I'm afraid can get to it. Also whilst we experience everything with our body and mind both of these are not separate from 'presence' whilst at the same time 'presence' is not caused by body and mind. When we look at karmic experiences in this way then they are always super fresh and in actuality 'unborn' in that they are not separate from 'presence'.

Body and mind are not separate from presence, but presence is not cause by either body nor mind. So, are body and mind same as or different from presence? Or both? Perhaps neither? Do you see that any if these will result in contradiction, just as in Nagarjuna's analysis of the relationship between the aggregates and the self?

And no words can get to it. What do you mean words can't get to it? There is no way to give instructions on presence, or how to attain presence? Then all those teachings are really a waste of paper and bytes.

Right. It's not an object or even something to be reified like a type of emptiness. It's just what it is. There isn't really any analysis that needs to be done. The natural state brings with it all the knowledge we need. Actually right now we have all the knowledge we need.

It is not an object of perception, OK. Is it the subject then? If neither subject nor object, what else is there? And how can anyone ever know about it? If there is no analysis, what is the source of knowledge? If it is some special instruction, see my questions above.

Just to be clear, the reason I'm asking these questions is simply to get your perspective on what you happened to start a discussion on.

[Andrew108]

There are two types of knowledge here. The one which you create through words and analysis and the one that comes from recognizing the natural state. The second type of knowledge is part of the natural state - not separate from that. It's knowledge that doesn't come from intellectual analysis. It is knowledge that is 'co-emergent' or unified with the nature of the experience which is a display of the natural state.
If we think about this some more we would say something like it is 'emptiness' which also has a knowing quality. We could in Mahamudra terminology call this the union of luminosity and emptiness. And so on. So it is something that knows itself from it's own side.
If we want to think about this in a more down to earth way then it's like knowing or seeing what anger is as an actuality. So we can have two ways to know anger. We can know it dualistically as something unpleasant and threatening to us (intellectually by looking with effort) or we can understand it from it's own side as being a display without basis (seeing without effort). This knowing so-called 'anger' from it's own side is similar to talking about knowing 'presence'. Recognizing 'presence' is also effortless seeing that knows itself. If we use Dzogchen terminology then we can see 'presence' as 'mirror-like'. But this analogy isn't always appropriate.
I'm not a teacher and so really there isn't much point in me talking about these things. This thread wasn't started by me but was started because Huseng split another thread about dharma being in decline.

[Astus]

If we want to think about this in a more down to earth way then it's like knowing or seeing what anger is as an actuality. So we can have two ways to know anger. We can know it dualistically as something unpleasant and threatening to us (intellectually by looking with effort) or we can understand it from it's own side as being a display without basis (seeing without effort). This knowing so-called 'anger' from it's own side is similar to talking about knowing 'presence'. Recognizing 'presence' is also effortless seeing that knows itself.

So if we view anger just as an emotion without pushing it away, just being present with it, then it is the presence? And we can do the same with any other emotion or thought, right? That is, just being present with it without adding or taking away anything, without reacting to its presence. Isn't that just passivity?

[Andrew108]

There are two ways that you could understand passivity. 1. That you are passive and fall under the spell of anger. That anger takes control of you. Takes you away. Obviously this kind of passivity is not what we want. 2. There is passivity in that you don't add fuel to the fire and you don't block the anger either. It's this type of passivity that we want.
But then is the overall situation passive? Then the answer is that 'no' the overall situation is not passive. Why not? Well I guess you have to figure this out with your teacher or just figure it out by yourself. I don't really want to discuss things further.

[Jyoti]

If we want to think about this in a more down to earth way then it's like knowing or seeing what anger is as an actuality. So we can have two ways to know anger. We can know it dualistically as something unpleasant and threatening to us (intellectually by looking with effort) or we can understand it from it's own side as being a display without basis (seeing without effort). This knowing so-called 'anger' from it's own side is similar to talking about knowing 'presence'. Recognizing 'presence' is also effortless seeing that knows itself.

So if we view anger just as an emotion without pushing it away, just being present with it, then it is the presence? And we can do the same with any other emotion or thought, right? That is, just being present with it without adding or taking away anything, without reacting to its presence. Isn't that just passivity?

Passive in term of not doing anything with regards to those emotions, that is, does not view them as objects to be avoided yes. But one is not passive in term of not doing anything with regards to remaining in that intellectual intentionality, not that there is anything wrong by being actively engage in such intellectual intentionality, rather it is the absence of this intentionality, when the presence is taken as an object to be clinged, that the practice become no different than ordinary samantha meditation.

Try to note the number of 'presence' you use in your first article. Presence should not become your priority, rather it should be the intellect.