I’ve been finding Jack’s second practice useful: “Let appearance appear in a way that preserves the insubstantiality of space.\u00c2\u00a0 In this way of appearing, substance is the appearance of substance.”\u00c2\u00a0 It’s interesting how these two sentences themselves don’t have subjects and objects related by active verbs, and how the three\u00c2\u00a0 main nowns (appearance, substance, and space) are in a kind of dance with one another.\u00c2\u00a0 I tried attending to experience as appearance while doing\u00c2\u00a0yoga and sitting practice, and it was relaxing to view experience as not grounded in anything more substantial than its own appearing.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 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\u00c2\u00a0plans and life itself seem to depend?\u00c2\u00a0 Is it possible to view my own intentions as part of a dance in which energies are never frozen?\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps what I consider to be my private self is really a reflection of the\u00c2\u00a0 energies that have spawned this way of looking and\u00c2\u00a0dancing.\u00c2\u00a0 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,\u00c2\u00a0addressing a time span that reaches forward to my own inevitable death.\u00c2\u00a0 –Michael<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve been finding Jack’s second practice useful: “Let appearance appear in a way that preserves the insubstantiality of space.\u00c2\u00a0 In this way of appearing, substance is the appearance of substance.”\u00c2\u00a0 It’s interesting how these two sentences themselves don’t have subjects … Continue reading