Thanks to Brendan for leading Dharma Punx last Sunday. He led with a 30 minute silent meditation and a reading titled the “Three Categories of Illusion” by T’ien-t’ai from the Zen tradition.
Our following discussion centered around the nature of time and space and whether time exists or if it is just something we experience, an illusion. Brendan shared his thoughts “Once you start taking time out of the equation the results look different. Most important are the “now” moments, what we do in this life time. But at the same time, it doesn’t matter. Time goes on forever but we are just this lifetime.” Marco commented “In physics one can know where a particle is OR where it is going, but you can’t know both at the same time.” And Rob replied “I love the fact that there is so much we’ll never understand.” Marco stated that religions historically have supplied basic answers and definitions to simplify life for people.
The persona is only a constructed reality. All we really have is the self which is impermanent and in transition. The persona works in tandem with the self. Neither is true, but they are both true. It is a duality, and we learn to hold the two opposing thoughts in your mind at the same time. (In the Tibetan Buddhist lineage, it is known as the Conventional Self and the Ultimate Self, or the Two Truths.) Reality is perceived in layers. How you are perceiving it changes the outcome of how it unfolds. Questions arose in our group such as, when we die, how will we be perceived? They may be many things about us that no one knows, things we haven’t shared with anyone, that we carry with us, to our graves. What persona will we be remembered for? It may just be the little things like, being kind to one person, or helping another along the way. Or the things we made by hand, that may be found by another in a thrift store. Our gifts left behind.
Brendan commented “Think of consciousness as just a field. It’s possible that we all experience the same field. But we channel it through our own mind. This is how we separate ourselves from others. Because we experience it directly, we feel that our experience is more important than others.”
Melissa talked about ego stories being illusions we tell ourselves to try to make sense of things. Asking herself “What are the stories I tell myself that I would like to change?” and “what is the new story that I can replace it with?”. The story, “I am a busy person” is countered with “Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. No one to be”. And the story “I’m not good enough” is countered with dropping out of my identity. Letting go of thinking things are always related to me. Melissa concluded “I find that there is much more space when I am not guided by the constricted view of who I am.”