Three Dimensions
Waking Down does a good job of mapping out three essential components of any comprehensive spiritual practice...
- Waking Up
Opening to a transdual experience of the world. We directly experience Existence as beyond and embracing all dualities, and we continually deepen our experience of both the absolute and the relative, and the dance between the two. Both ends of all polarities are seen as integral to Existence, one no more important, spiritual or real than the other.
- Waking Down
(a) We ground and integrate the transdual view into our everyday life. We explore how to live continually more fully from this view.
(b) We explore our psyche, and especially the areas we see as "other" - those we, for one reason or another - have closed ourselves off from and fragments our world. This includes a good deal of projection work: seeing in ourselves what we see in the outer world. And the guideposts for this work is attractions and aversions to qualities in others and the rest of the world, both of which tells us that we are not as familiar with those qualities in ourselves as we could be.
- In Mutuality
And all this is company of others on the path, both guides - those a little further along - and companions. We explore our own path in the company of others, through guidance, conversations, rubbing against each other, and in honest exploration. Our Sangha is our laboratory for clarifying and for testing out how to live from a more transdual view. What does it mean in our everyday lives? How can I live it in company with others? Where are my blind spots? Where are my wounds that need to be brought into awareness.