On this day of solar eclipse, April 8th, 2024, I study, reflect, and meditate on the nature of karma and matter in a psychophysical universe where the space-time continuum is a medium of feeling. Space, like water, is displaced by energetic bodies. For example, a large boat compresses water molecules around it, while pushing away liquid’s volume from the hull. Planets do a similar thing, curving light around large star forms, shifting optically in position. As light rays come closer, they gain in frequency. On the chromatic scale, light becomes more ‘blue’ in the morning as the earth turns toward the sun and more ‘red’ as the earth turns away in the afternoon, and at sunset. This same imagery is translated into a yogic, psychophysical cosmology, with the sun as the mother’s red uterine blood and the moon as the father’s white bodhicitta of semen.
Einstein, in his Theory of General Relativity, explained gravity as the curving and warping of space, with the speed of light a constant determining the speed of energetic bodies. Within the space-time continuum, each event requires three space dimensions and a time for its description, stated Minkowski. And Ouspenski said time becomes space in the fourth dimension. This latter observation is more a ‘feeling’ as might be found in Buddhism’s Four Foundations of Mindfulness. The shrinking and equal expansion of space is made possible, I believe, by the emptiness of black holes, making it a space-time continuum by virtue of its unimpededness. Otherwise, those black holes remain simply the ruin of light. I suppose one could attempt to practice another one of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, that of phenomena, while employing the required math to more ‘scientifically’ investigate black holes. But there too one would also encounter emptiness in the form of many numerical nulls. This of course is another observation from the mindfulness of feeling rather than, let’s say, astrophysics.
The validity that mindfulness of feeling is well expressed when recalling that, distance is often spoken of as a feeling, because going anywhere for the first time can seem very long. Then, with familiarity, the distance begins to feel much shorter. The longest way around may be the shortest way home when it become a welcome feeling. A good example of a feeling space-time continuum is found in the Four Immeasurable Prayer, when it ends saying, ‘Leaving attraction and hatred to those near and far by living in great equanimity.’ Beings near to us have a higher emotional intensity than those farther away, same as light rays gaining frequency when entering the earth’s gravitational pull. Even if we struggle with someone’s presence, we often really miss them after they’re gone.
Despite the Theory of Relativity eclipsing Newtonian Mechanics, I still feel that ‘bodies at rest tend to stay at rest.’ This is an opportunity for the profound pacification and the discovery of the naturally arising conate. While this enlightening is dependent upon nothing, a constant on the Vajrayana path is still sadhana practice, ideally three and four times a day. This is a serious commitment often pledged in the beginning. Gravity in the sense of ‘cruciality’ then is its equivalent in physics. Commitment in Vajrayana practice is realization of a constant, which is the stable experience of clear light appearing often, but not always, after the progressive dawning of lights in three colors, referred to as the ‘three empties.’ The following discussion from Jeffrey Hopkins well explains these dramatic astronomical-like experiences of subtle mind: “The first subtle level of consciousness to manifest is the mind of vivid white appearance. All of the eighty conceptions have withdrawn and one's consciousness itself turns into an omnipresent, huge, vivid white vastness. It is described as like a clear sky filled with moonlight not the moon shining in empty space but space filled with white light. All conceptuality has stopped, and nothing appears except this slightly dualistic vivid white appearance, which is one's consciousness itself. Then, the energy that supports that level of consciousness retracts such that the mind of vivid white appearance no longer can manifest, whereupon a more subtle mind emerges. One's own consciousness appears as an omnipresent, huge, vivid red or orange vastness. It is called ‘increase’. It is compared to a clear sky filled with sunlight, not the sun shining in the sky but space filled with red or orange light. One's consciousness itself has turned into this even less dualistic vivid red or orange appearance; nothing else appears. When this mind loses its support through further withdrawal of the energy that is its foundation, a still more subtle mind of vivid black appearance dawns. One's own consciousness appears as an omnipresent, huge, black, thick darkness. It is called " near- attainment"because one is close to manifesting the mind of clear light.” (Death, Sleep, and Orgasm: Gateways to the Mind of Clear Light,
by Jeffrey Hopkins, Journal of Chinese Philosophy V. 25 (1998) pp. 245-261)
This awareness of the subtlest nature of mind, clear light, is based on the Guru’s pith instruction and then one’s ‘effortless’ efforts. A diligence in the application of meditational antidotes, their reapplication, and then just doing nothing. The famed abandonment and realization of meditation masters is also a calculus of coming together and then breaking apart. A ‘Big Bang’ in one’s being repeated as many times as necessary until it’s a constant of one’s experience.
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