Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Other Gems from Odier on the Spandakarika
As I move deeper into this text, I find more and more passages which confirm my own inner beliefs. Here are a few of these: (Note: Odier's words are in italics. Other comments are from me unless otherwise noted.)
THE ONENESS OF ALL MYSTICAL PATHS:
The mystical experience is one; abolishing all dogmatic limitations, it is silent fusion, the abolition of all disputing.
There is an ongoing discussion among critics as to whether all mystical paths are the same. I think the core experience, the forgetting of the small self and the uniting with the larger reality, sometimes called the Self, is the same for all. "Many paths up the mountain, one destination at the top."
ON SITTING MEDITATION (something I have never been overfond of and seldom practice--in fact, I have some difficulty attempting this for very long--I want to be up and moving and entering into a sense of sacred union in that way):
Tantrikas are not much in favor of the idea that one must be seated in meditation in order to enter vacuity. Like many of the Ch'an masters, they sometimes make fun of sitting and say to anyone who will listen that a few decades of sitting are useful. Sometimes they are against meditation and say that it is useless to meditate before the awakening. One may wonder what purpose it would serve after?
ON ABANDONING THE FRUITS OF ACTION
(first, from the original text): Actor and action are united, but when the action is dissolved by abandoning the fruits of the act, the very dynamic that is tied to the ego exhausts itself, and the tantrika who is absorbed in this profound contemplation discovers the divine tremor liberated from its ties to the ego. The profound nature of action is thus revealed, and he who has interiorized the movement of desire no longer knows dissolution. He cannot cease to exist because he has returned to the profound source.
(now from Odier): Act and actor, subject and object, perception and perceiver are united.. . . thus we free ourselves by experiencing energy without a goal.
(now, from me): I am not sure whether by "action" the writer is referring to action in the world, or something such as the action of moving meditation, when actor and action indeed become one. In any event, if you do this kind of practice (which is free, undirected, and uncodified), you do so without expectation of any particular outcome (unlike the case when you are trying to learn certain set forms, improve the posture, acquire greater skills). You "act" in order to be further united with the Beloved within, and your "success" is merely that sense of inner fulfillment as the subtle body embraces that which it loves and receives love in return.
And, I might add, that in my belief one does not meditate, practice, suffer austerities, and the like in the hopes of reaching some nebulous state called "enlightenment." One does one's activity for sheer delight of the inner spirit, who knows that in this state, enlightenment exists as undisputed joy, for that is the nature of the ultimate insofar as it is given to us as humans to experience it. More may be revealed to us after death, at some other plane of existence, but for now, this is our ultimate gift. "The mind cannot grasp it, the intellect cannot know it; scholars cannot describe it. Yet the Self affirms its own reality in the moment that is given."
THE ONENESS OF ALL MYSTICAL PATHS:
The mystical experience is one; abolishing all dogmatic limitations, it is silent fusion, the abolition of all disputing.
There is an ongoing discussion among critics as to whether all mystical paths are the same. I think the core experience, the forgetting of the small self and the uniting with the larger reality, sometimes called the Self, is the same for all. "Many paths up the mountain, one destination at the top."
ON SITTING MEDITATION (something I have never been overfond of and seldom practice--in fact, I have some difficulty attempting this for very long--I want to be up and moving and entering into a sense of sacred union in that way):
Tantrikas are not much in favor of the idea that one must be seated in meditation in order to enter vacuity. Like many of the Ch'an masters, they sometimes make fun of sitting and say to anyone who will listen that a few decades of sitting are useful. Sometimes they are against meditation and say that it is useless to meditate before the awakening. One may wonder what purpose it would serve after?
ON ABANDONING THE FRUITS OF ACTION
(first, from the original text): Actor and action are united, but when the action is dissolved by abandoning the fruits of the act, the very dynamic that is tied to the ego exhausts itself, and the tantrika who is absorbed in this profound contemplation discovers the divine tremor liberated from its ties to the ego. The profound nature of action is thus revealed, and he who has interiorized the movement of desire no longer knows dissolution. He cannot cease to exist because he has returned to the profound source.
(now from Odier): Act and actor, subject and object, perception and perceiver are united.. . . thus we free ourselves by experiencing energy without a goal.
(now, from me): I am not sure whether by "action" the writer is referring to action in the world, or something such as the action of moving meditation, when actor and action indeed become one. In any event, if you do this kind of practice (which is free, undirected, and uncodified), you do so without expectation of any particular outcome (unlike the case when you are trying to learn certain set forms, improve the posture, acquire greater skills). You "act" in order to be further united with the Beloved within, and your "success" is merely that sense of inner fulfillment as the subtle body embraces that which it loves and receives love in return.
And, I might add, that in my belief one does not meditate, practice, suffer austerities, and the like in the hopes of reaching some nebulous state called "enlightenment." One does one's activity for sheer delight of the inner spirit, who knows that in this state, enlightenment exists as undisputed joy, for that is the nature of the ultimate insofar as it is given to us as humans to experience it. More may be revealed to us after death, at some other plane of existence, but for now, this is our ultimate gift. "The mind cannot grasp it, the intellect cannot know it; scholars cannot describe it. Yet the Self affirms its own reality in the moment that is given."
