Practice 2.

I’ve been finding Jack’s second practice useful: “Let appearance appear in a way that preserves the insubstantiality of space.  In this way of appearing, substance is the appearance of substance.”  It’s interesting how these two sentences themselves don’t have subjects and objects related by active verbs, and how the three  main nowns (appearance, substance, and space) are in a kind of dance with one another.  I tried attending to experience as appearance while doing yoga and sitting practice, and it was relaxing to view experience as not grounded in anything more substantial than its own appearing.  But then my mind strayed to concerns about the inconsistent connectivity of mycomputer, and it occurred to me that I really do count on consistency and reliability in many elements of my daily life.  If none of my expectations and intentions are based on anything substantial, then what is the nature of the appearance on whose relative reliability my plans and life itself seem to depend?  Is it possible to view my own intentions as part of a dance in which energies are never frozen?  Perhaps what I consider to be my private self is really a reflection of the  energies that have spawned this way of looking and dancing.  I know I enjoy life more when–as befits a reflection of something greater–my intentions are more about the community in which I find myself, addressing a time span that reaches forward to my own inevitable death.  –Michael

About Michael Gray

I first started studying TSK in the mid 1980's and have since attended a number of retreats and workshops at the Nyingma Institute, in both TSK and Buddhist themes. I participated in the life-changing Human Development Training Program in 1991, and upon returning to Albuquerque co-founded an organization, Friends in Time (with a friend who has Lou Gehrig's Disease), which continues to serve people with similiar disabilities. I contributed an essay to "A New Way of Being"--the last one in the book--in which I describe how learning to honor who I have been has broadened and deepened my openness to present experience. I live in New Mexico with my wife and two sons.
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3 Responses to Practice 2.

  1. David says:

    Really enjoyed this Michael, like a window into my own soul. :-) Much appreciated.
    David

  2. Soudabeh says:

    … thank you for sharing reflections of your practice… it is beautiful and inviting … to engage experience in such ways…
    Soudi

  3. Hayward says:

    I appreciate the qualities of your reflections.

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