| Subject: Re: An historical (and spiritual) perspective on Osama Bin Laden |
Author:
John Parker
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Date Posted: 20:53:10 10/22/01 Mon
In reply to:
True
's message, "An historical (and spiritual) perspective on Osama Bin Laden" on 21:05:05 10/18/01 Thu
Hi,
Thanks for the wonderful perspectives re: our Oneness with Bin Laden. Great food for inquiry.
Stephen Jourdain in his new book "Radical Awakening: Cutting Through the Conditioned Mind" puts his spin on questions re: the subjec-object split, i.e. between ourselves and someone like Bin Laden, and to characteristics of the "fusion of subject and object" as follows: "There is certainly the union of the subject and the object but they do not "fuse," they do not disappear in some kind of undistinguishable magma. What's miraculous in these experiences is that, without the least losing my identity, in legitimately remaining who I am, I become the table, the stove or the mountain, or the entire landscape, which, in turn, remains integrally itself. A remains A, B remains B, and yet A is in the heart of B and B is the heart of A. If both terms cancelled out each other's original nature in a "fusion", there would be no miracle, there wouldn't be anything at all. This point seems important to me to the extent that ordinarily, I find it poorly understood. If one believes what one reads or hears, if John becomes the tree, the tree, such as it is, is consumed, as is John. But that's not it! John remains entierely himself, the tree remains the tree, yet there is union. It is in this coexistence of oneness and maintenance of the intrinsic identities of both parties where the miracle resides. If an annihilated A fuses with an annihilated B, there's really not much to fuss about. The extraordinary thing is that two completely different things can be truly joined while each, at the same time, maintains its original nature."
He goes on (at considerable length): "It's not a simple question of the abolition of duality, but rather the sudden appearance of unity in the heart of the duality. In other words, there is (such a thing, et al.) as a healthy, legitimate duality. A number of teachings insist on (an absolute) "nonduality." Yet if a falsified duality exists, there also exists a completely legitimate duality that manifests itself in space/time. There is that which separates me from the tree as an example, but there is also that which separates me from what I was or what I will be. Duality can therefore be either healthy or corrupt. It is a grave tactical error to set people going in an assault on duality without clarifying the difference between a healthy duality and a corrupt one. They run the risk of hurting, or even destroying, themselves as they do of being saved. Certainly, a false duality that is the product of a given person's mind should be destroyed. I repeat and insist: duality, to the extent that it is a duplicate of reality, a dreamlike and personally fabricated duality, must be ruthlessly destroyed. But when this veil, in the center of which we habitually evolve, is consumed, when this enormous subjecive bubble bursts, what is then left? What will you see once you're outside the bubble? What remains is the world, plainly and simply. There is something! There is me and the tree. Duality exists."
So we could surmise that those who, like Bin Laden who have chosen to hijack Islam to suit their own religio-social/political "agenda", would be a classic example of a corrupt duality. And those who live from the heart of A in B and the heart of B in A, would be expressions of a healthy "with heart" duality. Embodied healthy duality would would effortlessly and naturally express characteristics of simplicity and Divinity.
Re: the apparent Father/Mother schism: there recently appeared a wonderful series of interviews celebrating the tenth anniversary of "What is Enlightenment?" magazine. There were two interviews with exceptional Tantric dakinis; Miranda Shaw, a western women expert on Tantra, and Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, the first Western woman recognized and enthroned by a Tibetan rinpoche as a tulku. They had a different take on the subject which is outlined in the following exchange between Andrew Cohen who posed the questions, and the subsequent answers that followed:
Andrew:
"In the previous issue of WIE, we spoke with Buddhist scholar Miranda Shaw about gender roles in the practice of Tibetan Tantra, which is considered by many to be a powerful and even essential vehicle for reaching enlightenment. She made the intriguing statement that in tantric practice, conventional male/female gender relationships are reversed and , specifically as part of the practice of sexual yoga, the primary role of men is to serve women, acting as their devotees, servants, and even slaves. In trantric practice, Shaw writes, men are to 'take refuge in the vulva of an esteemed woman' and are to literally worship her as a goddess. By worshiping her in this way, she told us, 'He's also realizing his innate divinity and his Buddhahood; only he believes that the proper expression of his Buddhahood is to honor her divinity. In this worldview, it is the role of the female to channel enlightened energies, the energy of transformation, into the world in a powerful way. It is the role of the male to be the recipient of those energies and to honor them and their source.' According to Shaw, that is the tantric view. In your own experience as a dakini and an incarnation of Mandarawa, perhaps the most renowned Tibetan yogic consort of all time, are women the source of enlightened energy for themselves and for men?"
Jetsuma Ahkon Lhamo
Wow! Well, I can't say that I agree with her interpretation. I don't feel that men actually worship and become enslaved to women. I think that what really happens is that there is a mutual recognition of the view. The female and the male become inseparable; they become unable to practice fully without one another. They are a unit in union. They are primordial emptiness and its display, inseparable. And that being the case, there is a mutual viewing of one another as that. The dakini recognizes the daka (male counterpart of a dakini) as the source of her energy, the daka recognizes the dakini as the source of his energy. It is a symbolic picture of primordial emptiness and the display or emanation of that emptiness, like the sun and the sun's rays: completely inseparable. Any ideas that separate them or put one higher than the other really have no place in that kind of practice."
She goes on to say that women have been trained culturally to surrender a bit more readily. And men in these times, are having "a little problem with their footing", i.e. strengths sometimes wind up being counterproductive to getting past the exterior ego identity (or we could say "the corrupting aspect of duality"). Uh huh. No kidding. After living in Saudi for three years and watching men treat women worse than cattle, it's clear they have some serious inferiority issues and fear-based attitudes toward women. It used to grate on me worse than just about anything while living there. It was an incredible learning experience.
It appears that as long as there's a corrupting aspect of duality when it comes to God/Goddess, Mother/Father schisms apparently pitted against each other, which the human ego seems to relish by perpetually causing difficulties so it can justify it's existence, there will be this unrecognized inseparableness and the insuing difficulties will continue to arise. It appears culture continues to play a huge part in it all.
Sorry this is so long, but for me it does point out some interesting perspectives to inquire into.
Are there any answers in all of this? Who knows. And for some, who cares? Life rolls on - unless it doesn't.
Namaste
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