From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Sun Aug 05 2001 - 15:17:29 MDT
From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com>
> In just this way, we can employ our rationality to help ourselves
> move forward. In this way, we can allow, as you put it, reason
> into our lives.
Can insight be awakened in another? We were discussing what it is for the
brain to have no movement. When a human being has been pursuing the path of
becoming, and has gone through all that, and this sense of emptiness, silence
and energy, one has abandoned almost everything and come to the point, the
ground of being. How does this insight affect one's daily life? What is one's
relationship to society? What is ones\'s action with regard to war, and the
whole world -- a world that is really living and struggling in ignorance? What
is one's action? We've seen that it is a non-movement, this ground of being,
which is movement without division.
In some sense it seems inconsistent to say non-movement while saying that the
ground is movement. A certain kind of movement involves average, educated,
sophisticated people, with all their unpleasant activities, constantly moving,
moving in time. That movement is becoming. But we are discussing the one who
has trodden that path, if that is the word, and come to that point, the ground
of being. From there, what is one's action? For the moment, it is non-action,
non-movement. What does that mean?
It means not taking part in this process of becoming, obviously, and if one
doesn't take part in this process, what part does one play? Is it a part of
complete non-action? It is non-action in the sense that it is not part of the
process of becoming, although one still has to live in the world. Of course
whatever one does is action, but not necessarily directed towards the illusory
process, and not involved in it, but directed towards what underlies this
illusory process. It is directed towards considering the wrong turning which
is continually emerging from the ground. Various religions have described one
who has achieved something or other, from ancient Hindu religious books, and
recently a book called _Zen and the Brain_. A great deal of that literature is
simply imagination and poetic description, though with some it is not like
that, because they know exactly what it is. How does such a person live in
this world, in a state of non-movement, the non-movement which we have gone
into? One becomes poetic about this non-movement: it is like a single tree in
a field. There is no other tree, but that tree, and it stands without moving,
and so on... having gone from beginning to end, one has a totally different
kind of movement, awareness, and has moved out of ignorance.
It is a constant movement, beyond the deception of romance and poetry, and its
constancy is timeless. The quality of that movement exceeds pursuing and
becoming, it has gone through all that and released all that ignorance. What
does this entirely different being do, or not do, in the world which remains
in ignorance? It does not enter into the movement of that world, yet it is
constant -- not fixed, yet it does not move, it is a dynamic constant. From
the ground of being a movement emerges that is completely free. What has
happened to it, to make it free of anxiety and fear? Empty of knowledge,
acting in the light of insight, pervaded by the quality of insight, it remains
constant in a flash of insight. What does that mean in everyday life? Does it
affect how one earns a livlihood?
Is special skill needed to live or does it come naturally? Knowledge and
experience develop into skill, giving one opportunity to earn a livlihood,
either meager or rich. But is there a different way of living and earning, a
way unlike the pattern we are used to (which may be totally wrong)? This does
not negate ordinary and necessary skills such as driving cars, doing
carpentry, or operating computers, obviously. Do we need to make a distinction
between living and earning a livlihood or can one have superficial contact
with the world while having deep compassion in relation to human beings? And
what will the world do with one who is so different? Worship, kill, ignore,
deny? No matter, because the work of coaxing humans out of darkness into the
light, dispelling ignorance, getting rid of psychological shackles, goes on.
If people pay for that kind of teaching, it is a means of livlihood. And if
there were many people doing such teaching, that would be an evolutionary
phase shift. Such people would not be divided; that is the point of their
teaching. If even ten or fifteen people were undivided they would exert a
force that has never been seen in human history. A group of ten undivided
teachers will bring a totally different kind of revolution. Will society stand
for that? Yes, it is happening, and humans are awakening to that intelligence
which dispels ignorance. This is the means of livlihood of an undivided
teacher. From the ground of being, this teaching emerges more deeply creative.
Is that all the undivided teachers will do in life? Just to teach people to
move out of ignorance? It seems to be the prime task at the moment, in the
sense that, if this doesn't happen, the whole society will sooner or later
collapse. Yet there is something more immense at work in this. How does this
direct action operate on humans, and spread? This clarity cannot be confined
to such a petty affair as human opinion. What is the significance of humans in
the universe? Something new is possible which no one had discovered before
science.
Are we fooling ourselves or is this logical and reasonable? We can have some
confidence that it is reasonable by exploring this further. See if you can
detect something about life which is greater than can be put in words. The
everyday life of sentient beings involves something which does not show,
something that affects all humans, and is part of existence. It teaches us
that existence does not need humans, although humans may learn from the
immensity of existence. The ground of being may employ humans as part of the
timeless movement of existence, and there is no reason to do anything except
this. Awakened humans, the ground of being, asking for no result, concerned
with the whole of humanity, and not interested in proving anything. Existence
does not need humans, but we have emerged from it, and compassion prompts
communication with those who have not seen this operation beyond words, cannot
possibly be put into words. Though existence is full of meaning, it cannot be
put into words or any political organization. A totally different insight
touches humanity, based on intelligence and compassion. If the whole of
mankind sees this, it would be an evolutionary phase transition, paradise on
earth, an organism of a new kind.
This immensity cannot be reduced to words or descriptions of how it benefits
us and affects our future. To bring the light of reason which allows people to
be open to the immensity is not enough, because we only see a small part, and
it extends to infinity. So with words we see immensity only as a very small
thing, and that immensity is the whole multiverse. It seems that this cannot
fail to have an effect on society, but even though the effect is real, and the
perception of it is the gate to infinity, and it is in itself a factor of
change, and can divert the course of mankind away from the dangerous path now
taken, somebody must listen -- at least a few people must listen.
Listen to that immensity calling, because it can divert the course of humanity
and effect an evolutionary phase transition. The individual cannot do it.
Don't just do something. Sit there and understand that whatever you do, you
are still living in that circle of ignorance, so don't act, you have nothing
to do.
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