Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Dualistic vision: attraction, aversion, indifference and identity














"In everyday life, the continual search for reference points distorts experience in a manner that is largely unsatisfactory. But, although the sensation of unsatisfactoriness irritates or tortures us, we would appear to endure it in order to satisfy our need for self-definition. This is what makes it possible to distract ourselvs from being by continual attempts to 'be'--and thus 'be' is always manufactured through 'do.' We do 'attempting to be permanent.' We do 'attempting to be solid.' We do 'attempting to be separate.' We do 'attempting to be continuous.' We do 'attempting to be defined.' This 'do style' designs itself on the basis of dualism. The basic misconception is that it is only the form qualities of being that have the capacity to validate existence. Dualistic vision takes existence and nonexistence to be mutually exclusive--and in so doing strays into unending cycles of dissatisfaction and painful confusion. Because we grade what we perceive in terms of its referential value, we are capable of only three responses: attraction, aversion and indifference. If what is perceived substantiates our personal definitions, attraction arises. If our personal definitions are threatened, aversion manifests. If the phenomena of perception neither substantiate nor threaten our personal definitions, there is indifference. What cannot be manipulated referentially is ignored. We never actually experience anything as it is--we only experience according to our need for definitions, and consequently everything is graded as to its suitability as a possible reference point." ...from Ngakpa Chogyam and Khandro Dechen in Roaring Silence, Discovering the Mind of Dzogchen, pg. 63

artist: Nancy Desjarlais

There will be a class this thursday the 9th. 




Also check out these Chan sites of interest:
 

2. How to chan meditate:
 
3. Master Sheng Yen in Facebook

4. The Western Chan Fellowship at http://www.westernchanfellowship.org/


Call Adrian at 250 898 8201,
email adrian2@shaw.ca
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