1- Ego (a meditation)
The ego is an illusion. It arises as a phenomenon, conditioned and reified through grasping at the world as if there were a real duality there between self-and-world. Substantialising the ego substantialises the world. The truth of interdependent co-origination is the truth of ultimate emptiness, the absolute. The true absolute self is the no-self, the Self of Emptiness, the no-mind or the Mind of Emptiness;
Prior to the separation of subject and object in experience, prior to the separation of the phenomena of ‘mind’ and ‘matter’, prior to the separation of ‘then’ and ‘now’, in short - prior to the subjective self and objective world.
This True Self does not exclude the ego, since the True Self excludes nothing and nothing can stand opposed to it. The ego is a phenomenon of the Self of Emptiness.
It is not that the objective world and the subjective mind do not exist. Rather they arise together from what is prior. Subjective mind arises from the subjectless mind base, which is not separate from what subsequently presents as the objective world. The common base is the undifferentiated of which experience is the function.
Experience here includes the lived experience of a living being. It is not a static thing, it is a process, even a creative process. That such a process of creative change which unfolds as the dynamic interaction of a living being in life can take place, necessitates that no absolutely self-sufficient entity exists as the self. What unfolds as relative existence is a dialectic of subjects and objects in contradiction. A relative dialectic can take place only if its reality is absolute emptiness/trans-consciousness, in other words, the Mind of Emptiness, the No-self Self.
The subjective mind that is able to see that the world of things, the world of patterns, regularities of phenomena, the world of reason and dialectical understanding, or in short, the world of experienced differentiation, is the conscious aspect of a world of undifferentiation, is open to understanding that reality as it is cannot be explained, only partially described, by the object-orientated logic of a subject.
If that subject can then turn and break through to this Undifferentiated which lies as it’s ground just as it does with it’s objects, it can be seen that what was taken before to be real is unreal and what was full before is empty, and what was separated before is not separate.
The subjective mind that does this realises the no-mind as it’s real mind, the no-self as it’s real self, the boundless as the reality of what has been bounded.
In short, the subjective mind that does this opens to become the Mind of Reality; where reality becomes aware of itself within itself. This ‘mind’ does not exclude the relative, subjective mind, the bounded and differentiated world, but includes them as appearances of its Self.
The whole is dependent on the part, the part is dependent on the whole,
the part is empty of independent self-nature, the whole is empty of independent self-nature,
the emptiness of the part and the emptiness of the whole are not separate, not different,
what is at the base of the part is at the base of the whole.
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2- True Being (a speculation)
‘true being has two aspects. Consciousness and it’s objects. They are not separate. The objects, or generally the things in the objective realm, are ordinarily called ‘being/s’. Things appear and disappear in an endless flux, with patterns and regularities, with development and dissolution, with one identifiable thing wholly dependent on all others, constant change where both relative being and relative non-being transform, where all things are empty of independent existence.
Consciousness too is in constant fluctuation, inseparable from the objective, empty of the subjective apart from the relative existence of an ego, or egos. But consciousness is always conscious. In itself it is not subjective, neither is it unconsciousness, neither is it an objective thing alike to but independent of it’s objects. Consciousness and existence are not separate. Consciousness emptied of subjectivity and objects empty of independent existence. This is the nature of true being,
Change and stillness form a relative duality.
Absence and presence form a relative duality
Freedom and determinism form a relative duality
Knowledge is the appearance of relative dualities and their patterns in consciousness. It is the realm of discursive thinking.
Human beings require liberation from material concerns, and liberation from the fear of violence and oppression.
Tools, including science and economic planning below to the realm of discursive thinking and to knowledge. To the competency of that realm too belongs politics. Dualities include the contradictions and the dialectic analysis of Marx and Marxism. For mundane aspect of the human experience of life, Marxism is the ultimate tool for both understanding and progressive change.
A holistic approach to action and thought should understand that to be a whole human entails using our intellectual ability to compartmentalize our experience. It is a human skill, a tool. Rendering the proper attention and forms of attention to the aspects in turn, in short, diversifying reason to address diverse aspects is ironically a unifying activity that fulfils the potential of human intelligence.
Beyond knowledge, is Wisdom.
Wisdom dissolves all relative dualities
Wisdom is Reality knowing itself.
Creation is the activity of Wisdom
Wisdom, Reality, Being, Principle, God, Atman, Buddha Mind, Isis, Sophia, Prajnaparamita, and all such names are the many names of the one that is many and the many that are one, the one true Being whose nature encompasses but surpasses discursive thought’
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3- Sunyata (a prose piece)
‘There are white footprints on the bridge. Still traces, though faded, of that morning’s ascent. Twenty-five years ago, my footprints. A morning after my eighteenth, I trailed through fresh paint and left my mark on the bridge.
If I were to meet him now as I climb, what would he, what would I see? Why ask- the seeing is now, and the seer is not separate. Separated, yet not separate. Distinct, but not two.
In ancient Egypt, a winged woman greets the dead- “behold! I am before thee, behind thee, I am thy temple, forever, forever’. Seeing the filters is seeing past them. Change does not cease, but ceases to be change.
That morning, that man, that me are now, always will be, and still never were.
Countless worlds, just one thought.
Morning, and another change of light.’
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4- GROUND (a poem)
‘Like waste-ground by a river;
ashtrays, deep-laid beneath,
spent rubber, tin trash,
fried chicken carcass, bones of wading-birds,
long dead-
poisons of the aeons, piled up,
compounded pain, beginningless,
wrong turns of the aquafer,
through a buried junkyard of incoherence-
upon which grows a sward;
green as the early dawn of Earth,
from out which rises a silver birch;
leaves in splendour of gold and green-
I am not Buddha,
but we are not separate.’