A couple of personal notes begin this podcast. Scroll to about 3 minutes to bypass those.
We revisit foreground/background or figure/ground in this session. Why? Because:
it is an excellent gateway into “no mind;”
foreground is the common mode of focus through one’s day. The item of our attention, be that a word, a thing, a person, a thought, projection, assumption, etc., is foreground. It is the “figure” in the foreground. All the while, the “it” is within a context, a larger mandala of supporting or neutral features and factors. These, the background mandala, and the overarching space of awareness are usually not equal in our awareness.
if one calls forward a breath in any given moment, thus the gap/pause/interlude, one experiences momentary no mind: a neutrality, spacious and clear.
Recollecting to do this pause, experience its momentary and flawless gap, one begins to notice that the single figure (thought, emotions, item, etc.) upon which one’s attention was fixed or fixated is actually in a unified condition with impartial, wide awareness.
“The project of enlightenment is simply a systematic attempt to discover the true nature of reality, (with the understanding) that the full knowledge of reality will be radically transforming.
We tend to think of enlightenment as a distant cognitive state … . We think selflessness is a state of martyrdom. Our operative psychologies teach that the habitual ego-centered self is the only one there is (which) demands comfort, stability, and consumption.
We become enlightened when we see through our blinding misperception.
Enlightenment is more than cognitive; it is emotional and moral, since the openness of wisdom brings happiness which automatically releases the most positive emotions and generates benevolent actions.
To open our minds at least to the possibility of enlightenment, we must dig out the presuppositions that make it hard for us to imagine such an evolutionary achievement. … A buddha is the butterfly that finally emerges from the cocoon of the human life-form.” Robert Thurman, Inner Revolution; pg. 59-62.
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The first and last sentences of this quotation are taken up before a long, silent meditation.
