For the past several months I've been focusing morning sitting on the Tibetan Buddhist concepts of sem and rigpa. Both of those terms are translated as "mind", but distinguish between different types of mind. Sem is mind as manifested in our perceived reality and it is also divided in two. One aspect of sem mind is how we subjectively perceive things, what is received through our senses and how our brains integrate them and interpret reality. The other aspect of sem is what's out there, what's being perceived and is also a product of mind. It's not to say that without us being here that it would disappear, that would be a misinterpretation of it being "product of the mind", but rather establishing the non-duality between reality and mind – what's "out there" IS our mind. That takes a bit to get one's sem around. 

The focus on sem is also good for returning the wandering discursive mind back to the breath – Zen focus on breathing – that I perennially wrangle with. I start by identifying breath as being representative of sem, so as soon as I think "sem" my mind immediately goes to my breath and the sensation of breathing and then that expands to focusing on all senses and what they're doing, as well as the discursive mind and the thoughts which are also sem. It sometimes takes a while for the thought of sem to trigger the focus, sometimes it's there from the start or even before starting (although once it came to me literally right before the 46-minute timer went off (sem! *beep beep beep*), which wasn't ideal). Doesn't matter. And once the focus on the perceiving is there, it spreads to the objects of perception, the other side of sem.

Rigpa is a more elusive concept of mind; it is mind as the ground of all being. Sem mind is merely the projection or manifestation of rigpa. Sem is how mind appears as our perceived reality and with what and how we interact in our lives, but rigpa is the true mind, the true ground of existence. Imagine seeing the trees (sem) but being unable to see the forest (rigpa), or the waves but unable to see the ocean. You look as hard as you can and you can see the trees and the waves, but for the life of you you fail at the challenge of seeing the forest or the ocean. The problem with the analogy is that we can see the forest and the ocean, but that's also the conceptual difficulty of rigpa where everything is rigpa, rigpa is imbued through everything around us, but we can't see it or point to it. 

Rigpa can't be learned or taught, but must be experienced, it is said, and experiencing rigpa is akin to enlightenment. And as I understand it, it is the "clear light" or "pristine cognition" (or many other terms) described in the death-point between in the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead. There's a point in the death process where all beings experience enlightenment but it is so subtle that beings generally blow through it without any recognition or notice of it. It is possible to train oneself to try to recognize it, and enlightenment can be achieved during the death-point bardo if successful. 

Of course, not having a teacher I haven't received any instructions on it, but maybe while alive keeping a meditative focus on the understanding that rigpa is life and reality itself all around us and we are experiencing it, just not noticing it, will help recognize it when encountered in death. During the death process, not succumbing to the fear and tumult of the death process and concentrating on recognizing the clear light/pristine cognition so that when it occurs it's the most obvious thing because we just lived our entire life marinating in it. It's something that becomes obvious at that point along with the recognition, finally, that it's been there all along. 

Both of these focuses on sem and rigpa are ideally maintained or returned to throughout the day and not just for the cushion.

Recognition of experiencing rigpa is described as something very familiar, like the meeting of mother and child. I hope I can be forgiven if that analogy is somewhat lost on me. I mean, yeah, familiar – I've never failed to recognize my parents whenever they or I came out of customs at the airport no matter how many years have passed, but any implication of a pleasant familiar reunion would be pushing it. I suppose the analogy may have been a sentimental expression of what Tibetans believed was universal. Even Paul Simon wrote a song about it, so OK, fine. 

Me? I'd go for a familiarity that's less sentimental and perhaps even more universal than the mother and child reunion that's only a motion away. I'm thinking the familiarity more like whenever we wake up and we know who we are and that this is reality. We aren't repeatedly freaked whenever we wake up wondering who or where we are. It's just here immediately, not frightening, not necessarily comforting, just fact and possibly profoundly familiar if you think about it. I also like that familiarity being of oneself as similar to The Conference of the Birds when the thirty birds reach their stated goal of meeting the Simorgh, which we find can be translated to "thirty birds" in I think Persian or Farsi. You reach the clear light/pristine cognition state and its basically a mirror, yourself. 

The key to failing to commit suicide is having a plan that is so damn hard, so involved that the likelihood of success drops dramatically because of the time and mental lucidity required. Since I'm not planning any simplifications or changes to my age-old plan, chances are that I'll fail again, which I'm more than half expecting *wink*.

It is doubtful that I will be able to stay in the moment, to summon up my understanding to fade everything away; to realize that staying is empty grasping. It is doubtful that I will rise to the realization that this might be an essential and integral part of my journey and search. It is doubtful that I will exhibit any true understanding of life and reality beyond our five senses.

Quite the opposite. I will be gripped by the true nature of attachment (NB, attachment=not good). I will hold my arms out and spin 360 degrees and feel that this is all real and all that there is. There is nothing else, there is no leaving this, this is all there is, and I will go home. That's why I duct taped my house key under the fire extinguisher. I will accept that life isn't theory, it's flesh and bones, metabolizing and processing; eating, shitting, sleeping, fucking.

Each time I do this, whatever kept me around eventually fades and goes away. Then I go on flights of fancy, I go on distractions, I go on life benders. Life goes on and mutates and eventually I'll come around back to what made me want to leave again, like a bird to its nest.

OK, I'll do that if I fail this time. I will accept my life to live. I will no longer think of suicide as a mystical passage to get to the other side. And by the "other side", I don't mean death. Believing in reincarnation, I believe I've died countless times. Death is not a big deal. My ingrained understanding of non-attachment goes at least that far.

I mean the other side of a wall that is blocking my path, that rises now before me. A dark and silent barrier between all I am and all that I was ever meant and would ever want to be. I will turn away from that path and head down another, and I will look at the path ahead of me as one to be walked down. Build a road and go, just to keep on dreaming. I will accept that normative path, but in exchange I insist on being able to buy and own a gun.

Then if I do kill myself in an ordinary and gauche way, it will be quick and easy, and for reasons easy for people to figure out and understand as well as condemn. Depression. Loneliness. Social anxiety. Stress. Fear. Anger. Childhood isolation. Failure. Social detachment. Frustration. Inability to cope. Delusional. Possible borderline. Possible personality disorder.

A slaggard once approached a fasting saint,
and baffled by despair made this complaint:
"The devil is a highwayman, a thief,
who's ruined me and robbed me of belief."
The saint replied: "Young man, the devil, too,
has made his way here to complain - of you!
'My province is the world,' I heard him say,
'Tell this new pilgrim of God's holy Way
to keep his hands off what is mine. If I
attack him it's because his fingers pry
in my affairs. If he will leave me be,
he's no concern of mine and can go free'."
- Conference of the Birds, p. 99

Next comes the Valley of Bewilderment,
a place of pain and gnawing discontent.
Each second you will sigh, and every breath
will be a sword to make you long for death.
Blinded by grief, you will not recognize
the days and nights that pass before your eyes.
Blood drips from every hair and writes "alas"
beside the highway where the pilgrims pass.
In ice you fry, in fire you freeze - the Way
is lost, with indecisive steps you stray.
The Unity you knew has gone; your soul
is scattered and knows nothing of the Whole.
If someone asks, "What is your present state;
is drunkenness or sober sense your fate,
and do you flourish now or fade away?"
The pilgrim will confess, "I cannot say;
I have no certain knowledge any more;
I doubt my doubt, doubt itself is unsure.
I love, but who is it for whom I sigh?
Not Muslim, yet not heathen; who am I?
My heart is empty, yet with love is full.
My own love is to me incredible."
- The Conference of the Birds, pp. 196-197

From The Conference of the Birds:

The Valley of Insight into Mystery
The next broad valley which the traveller sees
Brings insight into hidden mysteries;
Here every pilgrim takes a different way,
And different spirits different rules obey.
Each soul and body has its level here
And climbs or falls within its proper sphere -
There are so many roads, and each is fit
For that one pilgrim who must follow it.
How could a spider or a tiny ant
Tread the same path as some huge elephant?
Each pilgrim's progress is commensurate
With his specific qualities and state
(No matter how it strives, what gnat could fly
As swiftly as the winds that scour the sky?).
Our pathways differ - no bird ever knows
The secret route by which another goes.
Our insight comes to us by different signs;
One prays in mosques and one in idols' shrines -
But when Truth's sunlight clears the upper air,
Each pilgrim sees that he is welcomed there.
- by Farid Ud-Din Attar, pp. 179-180, Penguin Classics translation

I needed this passage today. I get tired of readings that seem to suggest that there is some uniform, linear path. That lines can be easily traced and summarized – this person drank alcohol and ended up in hell, that person committed adultery and is now in his fourth generation living as an animal. Be that as it may, and I don't want to just write off those accounts as wrong, but there are always other contributing factors; karma weighs and balances all karma creating events. That sort of moral summation is just so simplistic and it gets frustrating.

I had a less literal dream this morning. In fact, it was pure transparent metaphor so I won't even bother describing it. The overall metaphor was the journey that can't get started due to trivial, petty distractions. The dream journey was to drive with my parents from New Jersey to my uncle's place in Ohio in separate vehicles. I think I was driving a big u-haul truck. My parents never make an appearance in this dream.

One of the distractions was a woman who was asking me a question and then blowing me off when I was answering. Another distraction was Katie, the black hole of a friend who is now attending Golden Gate University law school, and yes, this part of the dream was set there.

There was a futility metaphor as I went searching classroom to classroom for the professor/parent of a friend who I was supposed to call upon arriving in Ohio. The "friend" was no one I know in real life, and I didn't have a name or face for the professor/parent, I was just supposed to recognize her.

Then there was the disconnected/abandonment metaphor as I gave up on trying to find that professor/parent, and was trying to figure out how to get in touch with my parents who were waiting for me at my uncle's place on this end of the journey, and who may have left already, in which case I would have been screwed. I realized I didn't have their phone number, and also didn't know my brothers' phone numbers either, so I was trying to figure out who I could call to get the phone number.

The metaphor of the beginning of the journey being the same as the end of the journey is more subtle. But not as subtle as the journey in The Conference of the Birds where the end of the journey turns out to be the travellers on the journey. Oh come on, I didn't give anything away. Like you were about to go read a book that is filled to the brim with metaphor after metaphor why all your excuses for not undertaking the spiritual path are invalid.

Other assorted facts about the dream: That uncle, who now lives in New Jersey, as do my parents, used to live in Ohio. Even though we were leaving from New Jersey, it was actually San Francisco with both my uncle's place on this end of the journey and Golden Gate University located on or near what looked like the Embarcadero.