Disasters, Silver Linings, and Conventional & Transcendent Don't Knows **

Abstractions

For any situation, there are innumerable views which each has validity. And these views fall into desirable, undesirable and neutral - and where they go is slightly different for each one of us.

Distinct from abstractions

At the same time, there is the transcendent view - where it just is, as it is. There is no added layer of interpretation and abstractions. It is distinct from abstractions, meaning and stories about it.

My case

So with the issue that emerges for me now - of past fall from grace and loss in many areas of life - all of this comes up.

I can see it as undesirable. It is indeed quite a loss in quite many areas of life. And there is nothing glamorous and little comfort in it.

I can see it as desirable. I did learn about humility. New opportunities did come up.

I can see it as neutral. I truly don't know if is undesirable or desirable. Life is too complex and too unpredictable to say.

And I can find myself as formless awareness, distinct from the world of form and meaning, and see it as it is. Just be with the stories and everything that comes up, allow it all to unfold within space and come and go as guests, with no trace.

Of course, this last level has different flavors as well. I can be with whatever is, allow it to unfold - to arise, morph and fade. I can find myself as it, fully as the believes and abstractions and their effects. I can find myself as the ground of it all, the emptiness it all arises from, within and as.

All together now

And yes, it all seems necessary to allow this know to unravel.

I need to tell the stories, all the many variations of them. I need to explore the disaster and the silver lining and the conventional don't know.

And I need to find the transcendent don't know as well. I need to come to - to find myself as - that space where it all just is, as it is, without the stories. Without the belief in an added layer of abstractions.

Silver lining?

The conventional approach to these situations is to either get mired in self-pity, or - slightly more enlightened - to look at the silver lining.

But something in us know that even the silver lining is a lie. It is just a way to make us temporarily - and on the surface - feel better about it.

All the stories, the ones telling it as a disaster and the ones telling it as desirable, are just stories. They each have some validity, and they each are incomplete and just a story.

The conventional reality of it is that we truly don't know. Who knows what would have happened if I had continued on my apparently quite desirable path? Who knows what this other path leads to? The chinese story of the farmer and the horse is an expression of this conventional don't know wisdom.

But even that does not quite release it all. We still have a feeling that we are just talking ourselves into something - to make ourselves feel better.

So this is where the transcendent don't know comes into the picture. This is where we find what is, or ourselves as what is, without the added layer of abstractions.

We find ourselves as the Witness - formless changeless awareness, the eye of the spirit - this pure stainless awareness distinct from any abstractions. And here we see that it is truly just stories, with all sorts of different effect if we believe in them - if we take them as gospel truth, if we get caught up in them.

Or we can find ourselves as the ground - the emptiness - from, within and as it all happens, the stories and the story maker and the one reacting to the stories, the seer and the seen, the emptiness and the formless and the form.