Dear Friends,
I’ve been a bit busy, too, over the last weeks, but I’d like you to know that I’ve been contemplating the subject-object dance, nevertheless. In response to a recent post by Jack, I went through the books and read up on the by-stander/outsider thing. That was very helpful and I had regular experiences of peace and (what I call) unfindableness; of unnameableness (to use some inelegant phrasing).
Just one of these: one night, while speaking with a friend, contemplating the nature of mind, I experienced a pure state of unity, an experience of undivided dynamic reality, without a separate observer; and then I reflected on how exactly that was like the experience upon waking all those years ago (which I wrote of before). A significant difference, though, was the degree of comprehension of this recent experience that could follow on reflection.
The ‘dwelling’ itself (as compared to the reflection) was a stable period of presence of an unformed, unconditioned (…). It verified that the experience that Jack questioned me about was, after all, simply empty a self and self-making; it wasn’t regressive, but an opening. (This also makes more sense when I think of other experiences at that time of my life, which I needn’t go into now).
I won’t have time to share much more in this course, because my father died the other night, and I’ve also got to lead a retreat in the next couple of weeks… so I’ve got plenty to work with outside of this forum. (Though, I’ll take TSK with me to read on the four hour journey on a train tonight.) But I’ll be back next year, in Jan, for the Time course. I’m looking forward to it. May all here be happy and well. Thank you friends for your presence here in this course.
Metta,
Christopher.
