“In the process of letting go of everything to attain enlightenment, The last thing a bodhisattva will let go of is the intellectual understanding that brought him to where he is.”

A zen teacher recently told me this in a formal Dokusan. It was interesting to me because once I had realized form is emptiness, emptiness is form, I felt I had achieved the ultimate understanding. I felt like I can already let go of intellectual understanding. The mountains have become mountains again. The river is a river.

I wonder if this idea is something that anyone else has encountered. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it, r/zen. There’s one more thing I’d like to add to it however.

The idea here ties into an even bigger idea. Being unconsciously conscious, and consciously unconscious. And even unconsciously consciously unconscious. Alan Watts frames it nicely, “you can get so good at not thinking, you can even do it while you’re thinking!”

A good example of this would be: Conventionally, I know what month it is, I know what day it is, and I could probably tell you about what time it is, if I thought about it purposefully. This is the world we’ve created around us. The material, conceptual, regular, and ordinary understanding of reality. I feel like most people can’t help but operate in this reality. Their minds automatically perceive and comprehend reality in this realm. However, Absolutely, there is not an I. No time. No sensations. No perceptions. No formations. No consciousness. No ears. No eyes. No nose. No tongue. No body. No mind.

I find myself strongly preferring absolute reality over conventional reality. One cannot say this without conflicts immediately arising, so I will say it loosely: Most of the time I am living in the absolute. I find I am not easily bound by conventional things like the time of year, time of day. If you ask me what month it is, I’d have to think about it. I live in the moment, but I can also tap into the conventional with some labor of the mind. In any given moment I don’t know what time it is, and I’m not thinking about the application of the concept of time. I understand time is in abstraction, as well as every other concept.

So, it’s a harmonious intellectual groundedness within and between the not so straightforward nature of the absolute/conventional reality dichotomy. Being in the absolute but not detached from the conventional due to the ability to access the conventional through will. I feel like I can successfully let go of the intellectual conventional reality, and live primarily in the absolute, but still have access to the conventional.

I hope this makes sense, and I’m interested in having a discussion about it.

Submitted October 23, 2019 at 03:32AM by badbilliam https://ift.tt/32Fms6F