Yes, I would agree, Magnus. Nicely put.heart wrote:The difference between causation and reflection is self-liberation. Self-liberation is the only approach that is free from activity.
/magnus
Thank you.
Yes, I would agree, Magnus. Nicely put.heart wrote:The difference between causation and reflection is self-liberation. Self-liberation is the only approach that is free from activity.
/magnus
asunthatneversets wrote: Stabilization and familiarization with vidyā will make it so a) new karma isn't being generated and/or b) the influence of karma which is being generated is greatly diminished. Once vidyā is stable, the latent karma, which resides in the form of propensities, then has to exhaust itself, the fuel which kept the fire going is removed so karma just burns out.
Sorry, my thinking on this wasn't very clear. T. Choyki is absolutely correct that the mirror functions the same whether it is the realm of Aksobhya or dzogchen. Its just that theres much more to dzogchen than just the mirror-like wisdom. Hope thats clearer.MalaBeads wrote:No, I don't think thats what i meant. If that were so, all of dzogchen would be reducible to the realm of Aksobhya. Somehow, i don't think thats so.gregkavarnos wrote:You mean what is the difference between apprehending phenomena through the Mirror-like wisdom (Skt. ādarśajñāna; Tib. མེ་ལོང་ལྟ་བུའི་ཡེ་ཤེས་, Wyl. me long lta bu'i ye shes) of Aksobhya instead of the karmically causal mental poison of aversion?
No problems. If one looks at everything in ones condition, one is seeing all our karma manifest, yet that isn't "us" either, it is dream like, like the reflection in the mirror, this is how our "world" or dimension manifests what we experience. If we open up and allow this to be reflected back to us, we can see our temporary condition, it's what the karmic traces that are with our own consciousness created. Since each person has their own "dimension", no two are totally alike, we can see our own limitations if we truly understand we created all this which we are experiencing as our own situation.Sorry, my thinking on this wasn't very clear. T. Choyki is absolutely correct that the mirror functions the same whether it is the realm of Aksobhya or dzogchen. Its just that theres much more to dzogchen than just the mirror-like wisdom. Hope thats clearer.
T. Chokyi wrote:No problems. If one looks at everything in ones condition, one is seeing all our karma manifest, yet that isn't "us" either, it is dream like, like the reflection in the mirror, this is how our "world" or dimension manifests what we experience. If we open up and allow this to be reflected back to us, we can see our temporary condition, it's what the karmic traces that are with our own consciousness created. Since each person has their own "dimension", no two are totally alike, we can see our own limitations if we truly understand we created all this which we are experiencing as our own situation.Sorry, my thinking on this wasn't very clear. T. Choyki is absolutely correct that the mirror functions the same whether it is the realm of Aksobhya or dzogchen. Its just that theres much more to dzogchen than just the mirror-like wisdom. Hope thats clearer.
CHNNR teaches us to discover the mirror, so he often teaches about looking at our own face, when we see our own face we are observing ourselves, he teaches that the mirror needs a secondary cause for the reflections, so he is teaching about this inward direction of looking into the mirror because we have our clarity as part of our nature, so seeing clearly what is placed in front of this mirror includes seeing our own condition reflected back to us, we have to know something about ourselves. Rinpoche mentions seeing the blemish or defect on our own face, so when he teaches he often mentions this inward direction, we put our own face in the mirror, we see our reflection there, and if there is some defect we can see it, our nature has this reflective clear limpid quality. This makes sense in practice, since the condition of the individual is pivotal in "self liberation", our state, seeing how we are conditioned, our limitation, working with our circumstance.
You know, the mirror is really a perfect device for seeing non-duality as well. If you are standing in front of a mirror, you are looking outside while at the same moment you are looking inside at yourself.MalaBeads wrote:T. Chokyi wrote:No problems. If one looks at everything in ones condition, one is seeing all our karma manifest, yet that isn't "us" either, it is dream like, like the reflection in the mirror, this is how our "world" or dimension manifests what we experience. If we open up and allow this to be reflected back to us, we can see our temporary condition, it's what the karmic traces that are with our own consciousness created. Since each person has their own "dimension", no two are totally alike, we can see our own limitations if we truly understand we created all this which we are experiencing as our own situation.Sorry, my thinking on this wasn't very clear. T. Choyki is absolutely correct that the mirror functions the same whether it is the realm of Aksobhya or dzogchen. Its just that theres much more to dzogchen than just the mirror-like wisdom. Hope thats clearer.
CHNNR teaches us to discover the mirror, so he often teaches about looking at our own face, when we see our own face we are observing ourselves, he teaches that the mirror needs a secondary cause for the reflections, so he is teaching about this inward direction of looking into the mirror because we have our clarity as part of our nature, so seeing clearly what is placed in front of this mirror includes seeing our own condition reflected back to us, we have to know something about ourselves. Rinpoche mentions seeing the blemish or defect on our own face, so when he teaches he often mentions this inward direction, we put our own face in the mirror, we see our reflection there, and if there is some defect we can see it, our nature has this reflective clear limpid quality. This makes sense in practice, since the condition of the individual is pivotal in "self liberation", our state, seeing how we are conditioned, our limitation, working with our circumstance.
Very nice.MalaBeads wrote:
You know, the mirror is really a perfect device for seeing non-duality as well. If you are standing in front of a mirror, you are looking outside while at the same moment you are looking inside at yourself.
It reminds me of a device that Thich Nhat Hanh gave to a group of practitioners in early 1983. He said hold up your hand in front of your face and ask yourself, "Is it inside or outside of you?"
Looking outside, can you see inside?
Very nice or not, I think there is still some confusion about the whole issue of reflections and causes. So I'd like to pursue this a bit more if its okay.T. Chokyi wrote:Very nice.MalaBeads wrote:
You know, the mirror is really a perfect device for seeing non-duality as well. If you are standing in front of a mirror, you are looking outside while at the same moment you are looking inside at yourself.
It reminds me of a device that Thich Nhat Hanh gave to a group of practitioners in early 1983. He said hold up your hand in front of your face and ask yourself, "Is it inside or outside of you?"
Looking outside, can you see inside?
When looking outside I can see the results of all of my karma, this is the maturation of karma, my environment, my body, supports for practice, whatever is there it is what I came in with.
If I mirror that back to myself, then I see my condition. I know that karma is unique to me, it isn't exactly someone elses "dimension"; how this is separate from my own mind, it can't be, the mind created all this, it was my actions that planted the karmic traces in my consciousness to cause this.
What causes reflections to appear is the minds innate capacity to reflect any image that appears before it. However nothing causes the reflections to appear. You don't have to do anything, contrive anything, hope for anything, or perform any action to make the mind reflect things. Therefore I wouldn't call the minds innate ability to reflect a "cause" since it arises from nothing, for no reason, without having to do any action and furthermore the reflections also vanish, also without cause, without having to do anything either.MalaBeads wrote:
Maybe a better question is: what causes reflections to appear? Are they just spontaneous and "uncaused"? You seem to be saying the appearance of reflections is karma. (I really do get slightly lost here) and maybe I'm just trying to understand karma which I've been taught is impossible for ordinary beings.
Reflection: Minds innate capacity to reflect any image that appears before it without limitation and without needing to do anything to make the reflections happen. Although external events have their own causality that made them come together, the appearance of those events within the mind is spontaneous, open and free.MalaBeads wrote:I don't mean to be difficult but I know I am not really clear about these two issues: reflections and causation.
wisdom wrote:
However although this self liberation of appearances is spontaneous and uncontrived, still one has to be able to abide in their own true nature for it to be effective. If you can't abide in rigpa, trying to apply this level of meditation will be fruitless.
In this context it means that trying to abide in the mirror-like nature of the mind without direct introduction will not lead to Buddhahood, instead it will at best generate positive or neutral karma that will lead to rebirth in a higher realm which in itself isn't terrible, but its not the goal of Dzogchen. So its fruitless in the sense that it won't bear the fruit that you want, which is Buddhahood, and instead will bear a different fruit all together such as rebirth in the formless realm.MalaBeads wrote: What does that mean, wisdom, "be fruitless"? Can you be specific?