if anyone from the multiplex is attending day three of this great and wonderful gathering and u want to hook up, let me know 'cuz i'll be there with bells on and would love to see u

religion as it is today isn't working .. the time is ripe for a world religion of common ground

 

i won't be attending myself, fairyfaye, but i think it's great you will be. there are some new names, i believe--david deida, traleg rinpoche and lama surya das, although i gather not everyone will be staying for the third day.

i share your hopes for a 'world religion of common ground', but isn't there still much work to be done just to get to a common spiritual ground all can accept?

you're almost as far away from denver as i am. will you be flying?

looking forward to your report (you will give us one, won't you? ,

ralph

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yes ralph there is much work to do so let's get to it .. talking about it is a really really good start

we will be driving .. it will be an adventure

oh please don't say that some of them won't stay for the third day .. am hoping to see reb and some christian monks and zen masters and a certain doctor author and his wise woman wife and mr sexual yoga and .. but i guess we'll see

and yes will give my report
thanks for wanting to read it

 

 

also what ken was saying to reb zalman in the 'god in the 21st century' dialogue

about how the religions in the outer planes almost never agree with each other because their myths and dogmas are different

but in the inner planes .. the world's mystics have always had much greater resonance with mystics from other traditions because when you're plunged into that unmanifest infinite domain .. there are no qualities to agree or disagree with

so there's some common ground for ya

 

hi fairyfaye,

just finished reading 'big mind ~ big heart', after getting back to his previous book, the correct title of which is 'the path of the human being'--much to say, and no-thing to say about this. but first off (the voice of the Literal Mind), i owe you a reply.

i'm sure it will be great, whoever is there for day 3--looking forward to your promised report . btw, i'm beginning to see references to sam in your posts. is that who you will be travelling with? what is anything? good question!

now to the voice of Desire: i haven't yet got to the CD at the back of 'big mind ~ big heart', but this book really excited me, so i want to say something about it now.

invoking as best i can the Eight Awarenesses of the Awakened Mind, of all that i could say, what do you need to hear, so that having heard it, you will know it's what, in fact, you want to hear (genpo suggests that we get what we need and, consequently, it makes sense to want what we get)?

the question, i guess, is would you want to include these books in your ilp? if you are not truly interested in the 'big mind' process, then the answer is probably no. if, however, you are, then it's simply a matter of whether you can fit it into your practice or not. well, it's not that simple. if you are like me, there's much more you would like to include than you possibly can. obviously, we need to be selective.

for both books, it helps greatly to have heard genpo before. having watched all the ISC videos of him, and listened to stu's interview of him, i read the books as if he were talking to me in his characteristically easy-going way--he could have been sitting in my living room--which is deceptive, because, like kw, what he has to say is profoundly new, something i expect we will grow to appreciate to the extent we engage in 'big mind' practice along with meditation.

'the path of the human being' can be looked at as a statement of genpo's philosophy, as it developed in his day-to-day talks with his students--in effect, why we would want to engage in 'big mind' practice, as well as meditation--along with practical, how to advice.

'big mind ~ big heart' really excites me because of all the possibilities it seems to me to be opening up. i suspect there will be much more to come. i don't quite know what people are alluding to by the expression 'the fourth turning of the wheel', not even being clear about what the first three were, but aren't we truly blessed to have access to the teachings of kw, genpo et al?

i'm afraid i haven't been able to provide what you need. fortunately, 'big mind ~ big heart' is designed to be read in the same way the big mind process is carried out, so you can give it a test drive and decide for yourself if it's something you want to do on a regular basis.

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the "we" that is embarking on the mystical voyage is none other than me myself and i

hey i googled three turnings of the wheel and found this for you ralph:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Turnings_of_the_Wheel_of_Dharma

thanks, fairyfaye. although i didn't think to do it here, i often do just what you did: google the term i'm curious about and, then, look at any wikipedia article that shows up. incidentally, i heard something about software that evidently judges the quality of wikipedia articles, which varies widely. i think i heard that articles of questionable quality would show up in orange (maybe this is a green project ).

i just recently realized that 'the fourth turning' doesn't refer to a book by that title that i happened to read a half dozen or so years ago, by a couple of u.s. historians. it has nothing to do with buddhism, although it is somewhat new-agey.

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yes first i too searched the fourth turning but when that book kept coming up, i knew that isn't what ken, et al, are referring to so i tried the three turnings of the wheel

in short, each turn seems to embody greater understanding, wisdom and experience of spirit as taught in mahayana buddhism

 

so is it a recursive formation after all ?

and please correct me someone if am wrong .. but the fourth turning is that in addition to states of consciousness .. emerges the recognition of structure stages

OH RALPHIE !! WHERE ARE YOU ???

 

here! fairyfaye. somewhat lost, as usual, but joyed to see that balder, pelle and others still haven't completely abandoned the forums, and that you've connected up with them. i'm sure things will liven up again next year with the unfolding of integrallife--integral portal, or whatever they come to be called. perhaps we can benefit from a little peace before then?

your stab at the meaning of the fourth turning reminds me, rehearts me?, of the book 'big mind ~ big heart'. early on genpo says he won't be talking about stages (structures), and, you know, the process is meant to be state-altering. but not much more than half-way through the book he goes beyond big mind/big heart, and the accompanying triangular diagrams clearly indicate that he has transcendence/inclusion in mind, i.e. structural transformation, rather than the exclusion that is characteristic of progressive states (can't be drunk and sober at the same time! ).

i wasn't able to experience this part of the book anywhere deep enough to say with confidence what's going on (has anyone else read this?), but once we've realized nonduality, maybe we cannot go any further with regard to states, and only with structures + nonduality?? maybe related to your sense of what the fourth turning might be?

this brings him to a state/structure with various aspects and names to go with them, the one that especially intrigues me being 'the unique self'. aren't we each contributing in our own unique way to Spirit's unfolding? to experience this in conjunction with nonduality has got to be awesome, and genpo is definitely manifesting something i've never seen before.

so that's what i'm lost in, reflecting on the myriad individuals we've seen and heard at IN and ISC, each with their unique voice, no two saying the same thing, nor saying anything different!

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there's this little voice in there somewhere asking why we can go no further than nonduality in regards to states

why couldn't ultimate reality evolve too ?

 

 

fairyfaye, i've been wondering about this, too. probably too much! afterall, who is wondering? certainly not the Self.

yet, before my Wonderer will give any facilitator permission to move on to higher, deeper voices, it wants its wonderings to at least be considered.

my sense, based on somewhat limited experience and reading, is that there is a progression of human states, most simply and conveniently described as going from gross to subtle to causal to turiya to turiyatita=nonduality. looking more closely, though, i think their are gradations of the subtle, for instance, going from more superficial to deeper and eventually to causal. that was the way i interpreted caoline myss's 'entering the castle'. so we can train ourselves progressively to experience deeper and deeper states more and more often. of course, states are very fluid, and we can also go backwards as i feel i, in fact, have over the past half year .

so how far can we go along this path? isn't that yours and my question? the well established answer is nonduality. well, what about other animals? if we define nonduality in a way that excludes them, then the necessary conclusion is that nonduality as an evolutionary, i.e. temporal, achievement. (at this point, i need to adjourn a while so that i can watch ken burns' new war epic.)

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