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A PERSONAL REFLECTION…

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    • #884
      David Filippone
      Moderator

        Photo:  ‘Awakening’ by Frohes neues Jahr – Pixabay  https://pixabay.com/photos/spring-awakening-crocus-flower-snow-3132112/

        A PERSONAL REFLECTION…

        I was corresponding with a friend, and long-time TSK student, and we were discussing the different secular or non-Buddhist teachings that Rinpoche has written books about.  There are many:  Time, Space, Knowledge (TSK), Dimensions of Mind, Revelations of Mind, Caring, The Lotus Trilogy, just to name a few.  We noted that they are each ‘separate paths’.  But also, they all seem to point toward the realization of a greater human awareness.

        As we study Rinpoche’s secular teachings, follow their individual paths, I think it’s possible to develop a view from 30 thousand feet, so to speak… coming at the essence of them from different perspectives.  In TSK alone, Rinpoche will describe one way to approach a practice or a TSK concept, and then offer, “Or you could try it this way.”  There are so many ‘views‘… despite his emphasis on the point that each of these secular paths are separate.  I mean, you travel the path of one teaching to deepen an understanding of it, gradually you become one with it, then if you study one of his other paths, in a kind of next level way, you begin to understand the unity in all his different secular paths.

        I was exchanging emails with Richard Dixey last week, thanking him for his classes and books on ‘Searcher Reaches Land’s Limits’.  Something he wrote back caught my eye that kind of united TSK and Revelations of Mind, for me… quoting my paragraph to him… [Emphasis added]

        You said, “I think it is clear that being able to discriminate knowing from the known is an essential precursor to any study of non conceptual engagement.”  This has become clear through my years of TSK practice.  Experientially, as I tracked-back my personal time-line, in my case specifically looking for the sources of reactive behavior [quick to anger, and other triggered reactions,], I didn’t realize during those months I was actually inviting Understanding to inform knowledge.  But frequent calm sittings, inviting the unformulated to arise, was quite telling.  Childhood memories and patterns came up, I was able to see how my child’s mind interpreted situations with my parents and school experiences.  I began to understand my parent’s behaviors while holding my child’s perspective in a caring way, within my adult perspective.  As I got further in your books it dawned on me, I was actually employing the path of Revelations of Mind. [Inviting Understanding to inform knowledge]

        So, it seems to me, as with all Rinpoche’s secular teachings, to the degree we can employ that initial point or moment of the unformulated not-knowing… Understanding, the non-conceptual, Knowingness, the future infinitive, [all words pointing to that primordial instant], and allow that to inform our formulated knowledge… read-outs, the knowing-process, the regime of mind [all words pointing to the same process], then, Wisdom and all that it imparts to living, is possible.

      • #893
        Michael Gray
        Moderator

          I too have found that each of the ways Rinpoche has shared, in his many series of books, for develoing our appreciation and embodiment of the potential of our lives, reflect each other.  So going more deeply into one will enrich our appreciation for the others.  I find that lived life is one of those reflecting facets; what we leave room for in our daily life invokes and illuminates any spiritual path we feel we are on; reflecting back to us the intersection of what we presently are with what we hope we can become.

          • This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by Michael Gray.
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