Calm the mind
Relax the body
Abide in breath and sound
That's what I've been telling myself finally to counter the onslaught of mental activity I've been experiencing during sitting. Let's see how long it works. The conscious train of random thoughts streaming through my mind is bad enough, but I've noticed in the past couple weeks that even in the few seconds when I have been able to dampen them, there's a whole background of "unconscious" chatter filling the void in my brain.
It's not unconscious in the psychological sense, since I wouldn't know about it if that were the case. But it's just always there in the background, under the background, it's just that I haven't noticed it. Or something's been amplifying it and bringing it to a level that I'm aware of it. It's disjunct "stuff"; niggling, indistinct remnants of partial thoughts, concepts and ideas still floating around and filling the space. With my tendency towards spiritual-cosmological tie-ins, it's like my brain's equivalent to the cosmic microwave background radiation that pervades the universe and is the earliest point in time scientists can identify going back to the Big Bang. It's something that's always there, humming away.
Also curious about this recent unusually distracted period of morning sitting is that it comes right after that brief triumphant revelation of successfully maintaining that "still point" for an extended period of time and finding it was something. It's felt like a backlash, like one step forward, two steps back, but in light years. My brain is becoming mush, no doubt fueled by work frustrations, alcoholism, no social life and insomnia, which has actually gotten a lot better in the past few days.
Speaking of cosmological tie-ins and cosmic microwave background radiation – I did mention that my brain is mush, right? – well, it also occurred to me recently what the Buddha did in expounding his dharma. Before his insight, his teachings weren't available to the general populace. They're not accepted by the general global populace now, but at least they're available now. It occurs to me how huge that is. The Buddha made a commitment to find "answers", and he did. Not everyone's answers, but for a certain class of seekers. His teachings are Universal, just . . . not for everyone.
What the Buddha did was create a path of teachings that takes a practitioner to the threshold, the doorstep, the edge, the cosmic microwave background radiation of enlightenment. It's the fast track. Crossing that threshold is up to the practitioner. He definitely made it easier, his teachings are eventually a very clear path for the few who are "ready" for it (not to be condescending to other paths, also not to say that not many people are on the path in their multitudiness ways). Still, getting to the threshold is hard, crossing the threshold is even harder.
I've been loop-reading the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead for years now. By now, I've probably read this book more times than any other book, not that I recommend it to anyone who isn't ready for it. I actually constantly re-read a lot of books on Buddhism that I've noted enough to own. Most recently, I found the Burton Watson translation of the Lotus Sutra on my cousin's bookshelf and she let me take it. I have the Bunno Kato translation, but I think the Burton Watson translation may be better. It is a grand fictionalization of what I think was a non-fiction event – the Buddha's last great sermon on "Eagle Peak" in India. The basic ideas are what he preached, but the actual form of the Lotus Sutra, I think, was later embellishment by zealous followers who wanted to make the sermon more impressive to teach to living beings.
Anyway, all these different teachings, all these different books are the many paths up a mountain peak, or to the cosmic microwave background radiation. The more they converge at the peak, the more you realize how there is only one teaching, a singularity, at the peak, and that all the teachings are talking about the same thing. And if enlightenment was a black hole swirling at the peak, there's no guarantee a practitioner can cross the event horizon once the peak is approached.
I've been loop-reading the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead for years now. By now, I've probably read this book more times than any other book, not that I recommend it to anyone who isn't ready for it. I actually constantly re-read a lot of books on Buddhism that I've noted enough to own. Most recently, I found the Burton Watson translation of the Lotus Sutra on my cousin's bookshelf and she let me take it. I have the Bunno Kato translation, but I think the Burton Watson translation may be better. It is a grand fictionalization of what I think was a non-fiction event – the Buddha's last great sermon on "Eagle Peak" in India. The basic ideas are what he preached, but the actual form of the Lotus Sutra, I think, was later embellishment by zealous followers who wanted to make the sermon more impressive to teach to living beings.
Anyway, all these different teachings, all these different books are the many paths up a mountain peak, or to the cosmic microwave background radiation. The more they converge at the peak, the more you realize how there is only one teaching, a singularity, at the peak, and that all the teachings are talking about the same thing. And if enlightenment was a black hole swirling at the peak, there's no guarantee a practitioner can cross the event horizon once the peak is approached.
