Report 27

Stim: any questions you have about the topic of codependent arising and its application to life should be articulated and stated, so I can try to address them.

*)  This is a question I've been carrying around for a while and I feel a little embarrassed about it -- embarrassed because the question does not seem to arise when I'm more in the flow of things, but more when I'm thinking... Well, here it is:  Are things like emptiness, big compassion, no distance, Indra's net, everything is everything, suchness and other intuitions along those lines -- are these also subject to the critique of codependent arising?  I can see that an intuition as a human intuition is subject to co-dependent arising in the sense that we are (I am) so good at turning everything into a framing, an object/experience held by a self, etc.  But it feels like there's a way of knowing which is not dependent on our ordinary mind and structuring and I'm just wondering if at some point if it's going to be possible also to see that there is a subtle level of framing involved even in the knowing that is free of ordinary mind structures, or if what's really happening is that I've created an artificial divide between "ordinary" and "real knowing".

*)  On the "how this relates to my life" side of the question:  A few mornings ago while I was sitting, it was possible to feel the distance that ordinary notions of compassion can create -- I'm over here, and I'm going to help this thing/thought/object that's way way WAY out there.  The distance felt so great that the thing out there seemed unknowable and maybe even gone, and then the distance felt gone/empty -- it was not an unpleasant feeling, but it was weird!  So the question is, I guess when I'm considering co-dependent arising in the context of things I don't like to begin with (anger, feeling threatened) I'm happy to find ways to let go.  But when co-dependent arising comes up for things I consider good or useful, I'm not sure what I mean by "letting go" anymore.  I still find maneuvers like reminders of kindness or generosity very helpful in my day to day life; I guess the key is just recognizing that these maneuvers can also be dropped in favor of something more direct.  Are there more pointers to consider here?