Truthful Existence

 

How deluded we have been by our grasping at characteristics!...

 How pitiful we are, clinging to purity and impurity...

How deluded we have been in clinging to the dichotomy[contrasting things and seeing them as opposites, at different ends of the pole ( my definition)] of great and small...birth and death...corners and angles...transitional processes[beginning and end]....effort and attainment....existence and non-existence...middle and extremes...spaciousness and confinement....higher and lower [energy centers]...between the environment and its inhabitants!

How deluded we have been in clinging mistakenly to nomalism[naming and labelling everything...(my definition)]...

How pitiful is the mind obscured by ignorance, which grasps immaterial phenomena as materially  substantive!...

How tormented is the intellect of a bewildered being, which apprehends the uncreated truth in terms of "I" and "mine"!...

We have not understood that phenomenal appearances are illusory, and thereby our minds have become attached to material wealth!

How deluded we have been in clinging to the dichotomy between hope and doubt!

How totally mistaken is this mind of ignorant people [such as ourselves]!...

Since we have failed to experience the natural liberation of pristine cognition, which is [intrinsic]awareness, we have forsaken  the modality of intrinsic awareness and persevered in distracted acts. 

Take pity on these sentient beings who are devoid of such truthful experience!

The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Section from Chapter 7 entitled: Confessions in the Presence of the View, pages 143-147

This excerpt obviously caught and held my attention. And from this excerpt, these are the words that rang true the most.  It resonated with me.  Though I have no right to pick and choose from such  a sacred text...that is what I have done here. I see in this section so much of what I learned about "wrong view" and the impact it has on our life experience, how it is responsible for our sense of "suffering" and in this tradition's view point:  our being caught up in cyclic existence.   

It brings to mind this idea of sin we feel the need to confess.  Truly what sin is , is simply wrong view , is it not?  The word sin actually came from an ancient Hebrew/Greek translation of the an archery term..."to miss the mark".  When we sin...we have not hit the target of truth square on...we are not seeing clearly...our views are wrong. Our actions are determined by those views.  Redemption simply comes with seeing clearly...right view rather than wrong view.

Hmm! We are not living in a truthful way when truth is obscured by our grasping and clinging to views that keep us from it. Duality and dichotomy are terms used a lot in Buddhist teachings ( as well as Vedanta and other wisdom traditions)  when expressing "wrong view".  We , normally before we awaken, operate from an understanding of extremes...bouncing from one extreme to another in our beliefs and views.  This prevents us from walking the "middle way" of truth,. Yet there is only truth. We can not help but be in truth if that is all there is. To believe we live in any other way is delusion. To dualize subject and object...to see a contrast and distinction between them is a delusion. To name. label and perceive things as being one or the other: good or bad, pure or impure, great or small, beginning or ending, existing or not existing is wrong view.  It doesn't serve us to think this way...it leads us to grasp for that which is not permanent like "material wealth" or this idea of "I" and "mine" which separates us from the "other". This idea of separation, then,  creates a whole host of problems.  It , among other things, leads us to make distinctions and get caught up in those distinctions between hope and doubt.  Hope keeps us in the future, doubt keeps us in the past and both keep us from the present moment...the only time there is. Awareness, which is nondual truth, is found and experienced in the present moment while duality is just a fabrication of the mind as is teh past and teh future. Without awareness we are trapped in distractions of the external world, grasping and clinging to illusory things we view incorrectly through the lenses of dualism. 

Note:

I have been reading/studying ( meaning I have been taking down notes, contemplating and reflecting upon what I read) The Tibetan Book of the Dead.  As I said many times before, it is likely not my place to do this, let alone share what "I" (this very limited and personalized  body and mind) has 'interpreted from my reading.  The text says again and again that a teacher is required, a teacher from the lineage holders, and I interpret that to mean, a monastic teacher from a specific Tibetan Buddhist tradition. I don't have one of those and I am weary of such means of teaching, only because I feel the habituated  compulsion to directly learn and experience for myself...an oppositional off shoot, maybe,  from my own religious upbringing. Regardless...what I am trying to say...is "do not take a word of what I write here in reference to my studying as truth".  I will write down certain things because that is how I learn but I am in no position to critically judge what I am reading.  My mind wants to judge that which seems too far out there for it to comprehend or that which differs dramatically from the belief systems I grew up with but man...I don't know anything. I have to keep reminding myself of that as I breeze through Chapter 5,6, 8, 9. My mind won't even begin to understand the "Peaceful and wrathful deities" and all those we are requested to pay homage to. And it is hard for me to see the signs of death and dying and the rites used to avert death as more than superstition and traditional folklore based on the culture from which the text emerged.  My mind won't let me get past certain things so I just breeze through them which I suspect is not the way to approach these teachings. I see more and more how this teaching is meant for someone in the monastic tradition and not for us "householders" who do not have time or skill enough  to pray, chant and meditate hours and hours a day. Chapter 7, on Confession, however, I can relate to...to  some degree, as confession was a big part of my Catholic upbringing. Of course, I do not truly "understand" what is being taught and maybe I am not meant to. 

Regardless of all this clashing between cultural and religious differences...there is so many tidbits of undeniable...soul reaching wisdom and truth in these teachings, one cannot help but say "Yes!  I get it!" It is those tidbits that I will share, for my sake, I suppose, more than anyone else's. 

All is Well!

Padmasambhava (composer), Terton Karma Lingapa (revealer), Gyurme Dorje (translator), Graham Coleman and Thupten Jinpa (editors)(2005) Tibetan Book of the Dead .Penguin: London