Transparency

Right now, the center of gravity is mostly in transparency.

There is the familiar vague sense of an I placed on parts of my human self - usually a "tube" from the crown down to the throat area of sensations, feelings, emotions, thoughts and attention, and also vaguely on the seeing of it all, the pure awareness. But when I look, when I examine it, there is no I inherent in any of that - or anything else. It is all just happening.

Fog

So when the center of gravity is in transparency, I also notice a veil of fuzziness in my experience. There is a layer of fuzziness on top of everything.

There is the noticing of what is happening - of everything arising in the present, in the field of what is outside and inside of my human self. And it is all arising within a fog, a substantial atmosphere of some kind. Contractions still happen here of course, and there may or may not be an identification with them - depending on how much clarity is present.

Fog and sense of I

My sense is that this cloudiness, this fog, this denser atmosphere, goes with the transparency. It comes from - and is in a sense, the vague sense of I, the habitual belief in I placed on a segment of what arises.

I also see that this fog can be taken as the ground, in this state. It is all pervasive, and everything seems to arise within it. But this fog too is within the world of phenomena. It is all-present, but no ground.

Fog and identifications

And this fog also allows for temporary and exclusive identifications with contractions. Habitual contractions come up. Sometimes, when there is more clarity, they just come and go within the field of what is. They are just part of the landscape. No need to identify with them more than anything else. Other times, there may be less clarity and the vague sense of I sharpen and is placed on the contraction. "I" go on the inside of the contraction, and the sense of I and Other appear in a sharper way.

Popped ground/selflessness

The popping of the ground last fall - for a couple of months - allowed some further explorations of this.

The center of gravity was shifted from a vague sense of I to a clear realization of selflessness and the groundless ground. Everything was just happening, with not even a trace of I anywhere. Every forms was revealed as the groundless ground forming itself into all these things. Emptiness dancing.

All of this was familiar to me from my initial awakening, but two aspects were new to me.

Ordinary

One was the sense of it being completely ordinary. There were no bells and whistles. No nothing. Just a shift in context from a vague sense of I to the complete absence of it.

There was no need to talk about it. No need to do anything about it. Everything just happened. My human self continued to operate just as before, and others probably did not notice much or any difference. The only difference was that there was a complete absence of any doer (apart from the whole of what is).

Crystal clear

The other difference was the crystal clarity of it all. The ground was revealed as being a diamond clarity. As diamond space.

And the usual fog, typical for transparency as described above, was revealed as clearly belonging to the world of phenomena. Temporary. Just one form among many.

There was just the crystal clear ground beneath all forms. That from, in, and as the world of phenomena arises.

Contacting it

After these two or three months, the vague sense of I returned. It seems that these waves are quite typical, and just part of the exploration process and the unfolding. There may be things in the transparency to learn more about and explore. Then other shifts into the popping of the ground, and then back, until the center of gravity shifts more stably into the popped ground/selflessness.

When attention is brought to the crystal quality of space, as I can easily do in transparency, I see that it is always there, always available. It has just not popped into the foreground and remains more as a background to everything happening in the present.

Labels: currently, transparency