How is Liberation?
I adore the wide-open, sometimes gnarly, sometimes snarly, all in adore with hold up presence of Alan Clements. Last night, we listened to the new speak with him, as good as then discovered this speak from multiform years ago, which covers the little of the same territory, yet additionally breaks off in different directions.
One of the beautiful things about this man is which he is the fierce dissident when it comes to Buddhism in it's institutional, rhetorical, as good as hackneyed forms as good as views, whilst still embodying apply oneself as good as even reverence for the people as good as practices found therein.
Witness this exchange:
AC: As distant as we understand, the Buddhist practice of non-grasping is meant as the equates to to discover anattathatyou dont exist. My point is which we do exist as good as which we must do all which we can to sense how to consolidate the existence, the humanness, as good as not homogenize it or try to transcend it. And to me, which equates to desire. Its taken me the long to time to see enterprise as the beautiful thing. we adore celebration coffee in the morning. we adore sex. we love...
IM: Dont we meant we adore the compensation of your desires?
AC: we adore both. we adore desirethe heat of passionas good as the compensation of enterprise when the met. But we can additionally live with restraint. we did it for years in the monastery as good as we do it each day of my life. And Ive taken patience to the little provocative limits. In the monastery we lived for years yet sex. Years yet in contact with the woman. But we additionally found the kind of compensation in the enterprise to curb the single form of sexuality for an additional expression it. It wasnt as if sexuality went away. You transmuted it into an additional form. There was something very amorous about celibacy. There were many other forms of patience as well. we w! as silen t for many months during the time. Still today, we can cranky my legs as good as lay still yet moving at your convenience we want. Im not fearful of myself. And to me enterprise as good as passion have been critical aspects of vital as the giveaway tellurian being.
It might be tempting to fast say he is articulate about something else upon top of desire, yet we do not consider which would be wise. Sit with it awhile first. Maybe he's missing something - we do not know. But we similar to the approach he's upsetting the apple cart here.
To me, when he says "I'm not fearful of myself." which should be the large cue for all of us. Regular readers have seen me starting upon about the need to abate up about forms, to not consider which sitting zazen all the time is the little great thing, for example. Now here is the man who has lived the forms, lived in sangha, lived with which laundry list of friar manners which has tumbled by time, as good as he's fundamentally revelation us - get over your fantasies! These have been great tools for learning about what it equates to to be human, yet that's only it - what is it to be human? How do we consolidate it fully?
If we were to take the check upon my own experience, we have tended to be some-more of the suppressor. Others lean some-more in the director of expressing. In my case, this has meant hiding, denying, minimizing, or reframing aspects of experience which possibly have been melancholy or as well furious as good as thus scary. This isn't only about what we tag as negative. It's additionally been what we'd tag positives. Like land back enthusiasm for something. Or tamping down the turn of caring we have for something or someone. That's how we generally have operated in my adult hold up - not always of march - yet substantially the infancy of time. And which pattern fits in unequivocally good with what we have gifted in my zen community, as good as others, including what I've seen online to the little degree.
The opposite group, tho! se who d emonstrate readily, have been additionally entrance from an fearful place. Maybe it's the low fear which not expressing will meant they have been dead. Or which they hold the universe is the frightful place as good as which we best play the drama, or else you'll be stomped on. I'm reduction familiar with this approach of vital since we do not do it as much, yet we consider both have been entrance from the place of bone-deep fear.
AC:Another complexity we have with classical Buddhism as good as vipassana meditation in general is the drive towards achieving the state of equanimity, as if perpetual change is the best approach to be in life. A bit as well Dr. Spocklike
for my taste. Flat lining the emotions isnt part of my picture. Nor am we meddlesome in the thought which dispassion as good as calm have been characteristics of the highest states of consciousness. Ill be still enough when we die. For now, we similar to singing. we similar to music. we similar to dancing. we similar to yoga. we similar to hip bound theater. we similar to good wine. we similar to things,most things which is. Unless, we dont similar to it. Normal behavior, in other words.
This is the bit differing for me, given my penchant for change in new years. And yet, it does give rise to the question: what was Buddha articulate about with "equanimity"? Not what's in the sutras, or the little canned definition of equanimity. Lately, I've been thinking which peacefulness is being able to float the flow of hold up as it is. That all the speak about attachment is unequivocally directed during training us how to float better, not only to be logs floating calmly in the river. Think about it. Good swimmers have been buoyant. They have to have the low sense of lightness, in any case of actual body weight. And they need to be engaged with the H2O as it is, impulse by moment.
And as for cessation of passion as good as enterprise - I've always thought which the stories about Buddha as good as the little others seem the litt! le as we ll clean. Even saintlike during times. On this, Clements remarks:
lets not get stranded in the little high, singular note called nirvana as good as only go upon singing silently perpetually as good as ever. (Sings) Ahhhhh. Nirvana may be cool as good as peaceful, yet we happen to be the complex, energetic, finite tellurian being who happens to similar to being in the body during the moment. we dont similar to only sitting there all the time
assuming which calm is freedom. Im an active partner of the dharma, yet we hold in finding ones ransom by vital in the world, where it is often messy, as good as harsh. We need to rise tellurian responses to life, not conceptual ones.
How do we be still whilst active in the world? This is an critical subject for me. Because if the low calm from which knowledge arises is only about physically being still, we're kind of fucked as the species. If this total thing is unequivocally about henceforth breaking divided from the active world, the single by one, well, which seems no better than Christians who condemn this universe as an irredeemably sinful mess in need of being escaped from.
Maybe Clements' take upon Nirvana is mistaken. Or he's working as well hard to counter it in statements similar to this. we do think, though, which he's receiving target during the hackneyed bargain of ransom being alike with cessation.
Which leads to me consider perhaps people have misunderstood the entire training around breaking the cycle of birth as good as death. That cessation, interlude production of karma, isn't about ending tellurian practice similar to passion as good as desire.
That it's about being liberated in such the approach which we can float by all of it, pierce by all of it, yet removing caught, removing stuck. Another approach to put it might be which we do not get torched by the fire of life.
There's no approach to know for certain which the chronological Buddha ceased to desire, ceased to practice passions. But I'm flatt! ering da mned assured which this man had the in essence different approach of vital with it all, which whatever passions as good as desires came weren't taken the approach the normal chairman takes them.
At the end of the interview, Clements quotes Elie Wiesel: "Favor the question, always question. Yes. But we additionally consider this, too, can turn the discouraging certainty. Like all those who run around citing the Kalama Sutta, as good as then do not subject why it is they have been questioning.
So, I'll end with the odd sounding subject which titles the post: how is liberation? Liberation being the verb, do not we think? And the how indicating us to process, functioning, transformation by stillness. How is ransom for you?
*Image is of the Green Tara
