HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO ME? This view has consequences when it is applied to whatever I call I and mine: I am not isolated from my surroundings and other living beings. I create the world with my own concepts and ideas. The world is like an illusion: how I see the world depends on my own ideas/projections. This world is my film, my projection, I run the show, so I can change my experience of the world. I can change the world, if I start with my own mind. I can change, as I is only a concept, impermanent and dependent on causes and conditions, just like all phenomena (even emptiness itself). Although I can understand this intellectually, I dont perceive the world that way until I directly realise emptiness! Sometimes, the thought of I suddenly arises with great force....The situation is like that of a rock or a tree seen protruding up from the peak of a hill on the horizon: From afar it may be mistaken for a human being. Yet the existence of a human in that rock or tree is only an illusion. On deeper investigation, no human being can be found in any of the individual pieces of the protruding entity, nor in its collection of parts, nor in any other aspect of it. Nothing in the protrusion can be said to be a valid basis for the name human being. Likewise, the solid I which seems to exist somewhere within the body and mind is merely an imputation. The body and mind are no more represented by the sense of I than is the protruding rock represented by the word human. This I cannot be located anywhere within any individual piece of the body and mind, nor is it found within the body and mind as a collection, nor is there a place outside of these that could be considered to be a substantial basis of the object referred to by the name I. (The Second Dalai Lama (1475-1542), in Samuel Bercholzs Entering the Stream. )
Posted on: Tue, 11 Feb 2014 03:53:29 +0000
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