http://www.radiantmind.net/index.php/radiantmind/written-entry/integrating-the-personal-and-the-transpersonal/
Although people desire the non-dualistic and limitless
(awareness, they make a) limit out of that which is not limited and
thereby constrict the essential mind itself. Even though people
desire (the realization of) both (the transcendent and relative)
realities they fall into an extreme understanding of these.
Although they desire the union of the two realities this is not the
way things naturally are. No matter in what way you think about
this you are trapped in the cage of (conflicting) desires.
Longchenpa
Throughout the ages spiritual masters and sage philosophers have
pointed to a limitless, tran- scendent mystical reality by
contrasting this with the limited, deceptive, and impermanent
reality that we experience through our senses. Amongst other names,
this mystical reality has been called the Godhead, Brahman, Tao,
Source and Emptiness. However, according to the Dzogchen or Com-
plete Fulfillment tradition, these realities are limited to the
very same extent that they are distin- guished from that which is
limited. In other words, as soon as limitlessness displaces that
which is limited it assumes its own limits and restrictions.
In the above lines, the famous fourteenth century Tibetan
master, Longchenpa, cautions people against limiting themselves by
becoming fixated on the limitlessness of the mind itself. By
distin- guishing the nature of the mind itself as being
fundamentally different from mental phenomena, such as thoughts and
feelings, people can become intellectually and philosophically
captivated by the “idea” that the mind is limitless. But in so
doing they fall into a fixed and extreme understanding of the
Complete Fulfillment perspective. The Chinese Zen master Foyan
makes the same point about Zen when he writes that, “You shouldn’t
set up limits in boundless openness, but if you set up
limitlessness as boundless openness, you’ve trapped yourself.”
This type of fixation is based on making a distinction between
appearance and Reality. In orthodox Buddhism and mystical
philosophies such as Hindu Advaita Vedanta, this distinction has
been formalized in a theory of two levels of reality, the social or
relative and the transcendent level. The relative reality
corresponds to the world that is known through our body and mind.
The tran- scendent reality corresponds to an open, unmarked and
insubstantial reality that underlies the exist- ence of
everything.
In terms of our spiritual development, knowledge of the relative
reality primarily refers to understanding the consequences of being
embodied. As a practice this involves understanding the inner
dynamics, wherein our physical, verbal and mental behavior
conditions what we experience in the future. In Indian spiritual
systems this is called “understanding the workings of karma”.
Through this practice we can gain skill in modifying our actions so
that we consistently create opportunities for on-going spiritual
practice. The implementation of these behavioral changes occurs
mainly in the interpersonal arena. As such, an appreciation of the
relative reality is mainly cultivated outside of formal sitting
meditation. In contrast, an understanding of the transcendent
reality is gained mainly through formal medi- tation practice
during which one generates an unalloyed experience of an
insubstantial voidness. While these contemplations begin with an
empirical content, as soon as meditators see the inherent voidness
of their object of contemplation, they let any imagery recede from
their awareness, so that they can focus single-pointedly on the
emerging experience of a formless, transcendent reality. In
Buddhist traditions this is called generating a “space-like
equipoise”. The rationale behind structur- ing their practice in
this way is that one can produce deeper and more pure realization
of the ultimate reality by focusing on a vacuous experience that is
uncontaminated by any thoughts, feelings or sensory images. This
type of meditation practice requires tremendous concentration and
control in order to break through the seeming solidity and reality
of our thoughts, feelings and perceptions. The downside in pursuing
the realization of the transcendent and relative realities
independently of each other is that they then need to be integrated
into a way of being that seemlessly blends the freedom of
unconditioned awareness with the complexities of living in a
conditioned world. Tradi- tionally this is done in two different
ways. Firstly, when meditators arise from their formal sitting
practice they cultivate seeing things as though they are an
illusion. In this way they attempt to directly suffuse their
appreciation of phenomena with the experience of insubstantiality.
Then within their space-like meditations on the transcendent level
they will begin to allow objects such as thoughts and feelings to
remain in their awareness alongside the emerging experience of the
tran- scendent realm. In time the experience of the empirical and
the transcendent become inseparable-one cannot be had without the
other.
A further consequence of this way of practicing is that people
can over-emphasize one or other of the two realities, and thus be
led into a distorted spiritual path. For example, if someone
cultivates an experience of transcendence but fails to appreciate
how their thoughts, speech and physical behavior influences what
they will experience in the future, they can easily lose touch with
empirical world. They might become completely spaced out and lose
their ability to operate safely and effec- tively in the physical
world. This is called erring to the nihilist extreme and it can
have extremely damaging consequences for people’s spiritual
development. Philosophically this is falling to the extreme of
misinterpreting the ultimate reality to mean non-existence. This
error can make people foolhardy, careless, and a danger to
themselves and others.
Conversely, if someone cultivates the relative reality while
ignoring the transcendent reality they err to the realist extreme.
So while they might take meticulous care with their behavior and
gain real control over their capacity to filter out negative
experiences they fail to gain the unconditional freedom that comes
from realizing that nothing is solid and fixed including any
connection between our behavior and what we experience. By
believing that karmic conditioning is a real and invariant
phenomenon they are trapped by the need to constantly monitor and
control their behavior. Philo- sophically this is falling to the
extreme of believing that reality has a real or intrinsic
existence. A consequence of this error is that spiritual practice
becomes a terribly serious and unforgiving en- deavor.
Thus, whilst the theory of two distinct levels of reality is
designed to assist practitioners’ spiri- tual evolution, from a
practical angle it can be misused so that it gives license and
support to the innate human impulses to: (1) seek happiness and
freedom by manipulating the empirical world, or (2) disconnect from
the physical world in an effort to be free of suffering. The
brilliance of the Complete Fulfillment tradition, is that it
doesn’t split reality into two different types or aspects that then
need to be assimilated. Right from the very outset, the notion of
two realities is seen as a purely intellectual construction. As the
great bodhisattva Subhuti says: “Absolute openness and relative
functioning are not divided. They are not two alternative dimen-
sions, but utter simplicity.”
The personal and transpersonal dimensions of the spiritual life
are integrated right from the very beginning. Consequently, there
is no need to subsequently recover an artificial split in our
experience that is conditioned by segmenting our practice into
separate meditational and post-meditational phases. This integrated
approach also removes the possibility of producing extreme and
potentially dangerous spiritual experiences, since it automatically
corrects any personal bias that might lead someone to disconnect
from the physical reality, or believe that they are nothing more
than an embodied mind. In other words, it is difficult for someone
to skew the Complete Fulfillment per- spective towards either the
relative or transcendent extremes, since the perspective to be
cultivated is one in which we begin to connect with a disclosive
space that allows all things to be just as they are. In our usual
way of living we relate to the flux of our experience by rejecting
our pain and becoming addicted to pleasure. The alternative is to
shift our attention so that we begin to experience the disclosive
space within which we and the universe appear as processes that
come into existence, endure and decay. This disclosive space isn’t
the same as the space that allows physical phenomena to subsist.
Rather, it is the space that allows physical space to be where and
as it is, and precludes it from being where it is not. It is also
the space that allows thoughts and emotions to emerge and subside
as they do.
As Longchenpa says:
The state of spaciousness, the true nature of being, is without
boundaries and is non-dual. It does not come into being and cannot
be destroyed. It neither endures nor decays, and neither comes nor
goes. Within this space the entire variety of phenomena appear
distinctly yet when they manifest they are natu- rally devoid of
complexity.
When we begin to relate to our experience as a disclosive space,
we see that it is the very nature of what we are experiencing. That
which is disclosed by the forms of our experience is the disclosive
space itself. In fact, outside of what is disclosed there is no
disclosive space. Similarly, the very structure of our personality
reveals the transpersonal nature of being itself. When we begin to
experi- ence the world as this disclosive space, the modulations of
our thoughts and emotions, and changes in our physical environment
become balanced and harmonized. Our experience becomes simple and
uncomplicated yet without compromising the full richness of its
texture and distinctiveness. The Complete Fulfillment tradition
invites us to appreciate that we are a totally unconditioned locus
of experience, without making this in any way special. There is
absolutely no effort, struggle, or need to escape who we are, since
this is our unique expression of transcendence. We open out so that
we can experience the subtle and dramatic modulations of our
thoughts, moods, feelings and perceptions, all the while realizing
that they are just a free play of appearances. Instead of arming
ourselves with a battery of techniques for running away from
unpleasant experiences and enhancing those that we approve of, we
come to see that every aspect and dimension of our experience is an
exquisite expression of freedom and transcendence. In this way, the
Complete Fulfillment closes the traditional rift between physical
embodiment and spiritual transcendence.
Adapted from a commentary Peter is preparing to a text titled
The Natural Freedom of Being by the great Dzogchen master,
Longchenpa.