The Dumbing Down of Our True Nature (part six)

A traditional view of escaping the human dysfunctional state is very strong in Buddhist practice and meditation. The study of the workings of the ordinary and the evolving mind is unavoidable if we wish to become free of suffering. Buddha means Awakened One, and the process is literally one of awakening from the dream-like programming to a new alert state called enlightenment. The first stage of enlightenment, as a minimum standard is knowing that the perceptual knot that holds the dream like state to be authentic, is not real.

So, how does the innate view damage evolutionary development? How is the innate view preventing you from being and living right now in a pure land such as heaven or in some Buddha field? The reasons are both complicated and very simple depending on the stage of development of the individual. It is simple because the innate view is deceptive and false for someone who is close to transformation. The inner signs of impending transmutation inside become more real than how the world appears. If the meditator is careful and does not return to ordinary mind thinking they have found the goal, they will experience the event of enlightenment or awakening effortlessly.

On the other hand, evolutionary transformation is complicated for someone who has become enmeshed in karma and its consequences compelling suffering rebirths and is unable to gain enough freedom to think clearly. Confusion regarding how you are alive can divert your precious life toward goals and desires that are based on cyclic continuity of births and making decisions that will continue that. Further, due to these, the person will develop likes and dislikes based on confusions and develop obstacles to transformation, leading to the unhappy result that they cannot understand the preparation instructions to transformation when they are offered.

These issues are among the traditional problems associated with learning our True Nature. Another one is forgetting the instructions. Sadly, there are many people so enmeshed in suffering of many kinds that, not only do they not understand the instructions, but also they do not have an opportunity to receive these important preparation instructions for transformation. They are so involved in every day life and trapped in the machinery of their own karmic events, they are not even exposed to the path of preparation. If they do come into contact, because of obscurations or poor development it is meaningless. Poor development can also mean following a path that is not liberating, for example, working very hard to become powerful and able to control many as a goal. This definitely shows how the innate view can exacerbate damage to evolutionary development by seeing oneself and others as separate and unequal.

A student recently questioned, “ I understand Rinpoche, that if the innate view is held in our perceptions, we hold the perceptions of a human being. But if we held the perceptions of being located in the pure land, in fact we would be in the pure land.” It could be so, but that is not necessarily true. On one level of your being, you could have an intellectually held perception of a pure land, but energetically you could be nowhere near actually being a candidate for existing in a pure land. Instead, the location of your actual being could be alive in the energetic equivalent of some drunken bar. If it is not ready to be alive in a higher form, that means it is not prepared.

An important part of preparation is the energetic healing that has to happen in the essence being, the actual being. That is why initiation is bestowed, in order to model the correct dynamics of a new way of being and to facilitate this change and healing. It is also important to set in motion actions and motivations that will produce more beneficial results toward preparation for transformation. This can be done by anyone, whether developed in their innermost being or not. The path is open to all and not just to the pure.

Student: “You said earlier that when we are given the bestowals and become candidates for the human realm, there is a special kind of hypnosis that occurs with the actual being and also with this sense of a human being or this sense of self. Is the hypnosis of the perceptions broken from subtler to gross gradually, or does is it happen all at once?” First of all, the bestowals are not given to you, but to the one interior, the subtle being. To imagine the innate programming as though it is given to the human being is not so useful. That is because you are speaking through the filter of your innate view and still wish to be the one who is the actual alive one when that is not true.

From reality spheres of great compassion and guidance such as pure lands, and from Buddha fields accessed by quantum shifts in direction of our consciousness help arrives, just as we prayed it would. By logic, these changes facilitated in us should and usually do come from the more subtle toward the more gross. Nevertheless, a feature of existence of certain levels of development such as higher Buddhas is the quality of being unlimited. This means the Buddhas are capable of arising in any form and so it is not necessarily from subtler to gross.

Another way that harm can occur is by the innate view becoming too mixed with the teachings of Dharma or religion and become stylized and dry ritual and so the cure becomes a further disfigured dynamic. It is possible that the very pathways for the healing cure and release, can then become a cause for further confusion or suffering. There is also a strong possibility that the individual becomes disappointed in learning about higher spiritual life and winds up believing in nothing.

As we continue to discover how the innate view damages, we notice that it is also possible for the innate programming to become overly strong, too solidified and with too much sense of separation that is unhealthy. In that way, the individual loses the natural ability of the flexible mind to be able to accept the vast understandings of the path to perfection.

Instead, the guiding and sheltering care in the form of permissions to participate in human life should be viewed and used as a delicate employment of principles. “By the power of compassion”; this is how the reincarnate lamas and other awakened benefit beings see their existence in this world. It then becomes like a ballet, a dance, or a theatrical play. To be continued…