KWL: Nonduality

So what do you do when you don't completely understand a book. You can linger, reread, and really struggle. Or you can just cut your losses, and move onto something else that is more meaningful. 

I like to struggle to acquire meaning. But I also like to drop a difficult book because I have about 30 minutes for struggle, and then I like something smooth, easy to digest. Too many rich foods give you gout, indigestion. 

Loy seems to be asking a question, or I'm getting a question reading the book: Do you need to avoid sense perception or can you just try not to seek or attach to it? There seem to be shifting answers in various parts of the tradition.

I think it's impossible not to be human and humans seek out what they don't have. It's why we go to the Moon and Mars, it's why we hate the rich, and why even though being alone is better, we seek out partners. The desire for justice might be a sisyphean journey. The desire for a sane stable government might be a fight between two personality type projections vision of that government. The X in the sentence "I would just be happy if x were present," is an ever shifting target just beyond our reach. 

I don't like the asceticism of the Theravadan tradition banning music, dancing and general merriment. I like ecstatic dance. I like to listen to music. I like to taste rich foods. Their idea is to act enlightened, you might move towards it. But I think appreciation for the beautiful is what attracts us to the spiritual life, so that we can't ban the arts. I would be constantly writing poems, and creating sculptures, and wanting to read scripture, if I were meditating in the forest. To ban books and writing on a solitary retreat might be torture for me. You can restrict yourself in so many ways: sleep, food, socializing, art, entertainment, comfort, modern amenities, and on and on, but even if you're just trying to live your life, there's always a feeling of deprivation, because we always want what is just beyond our reach, and we like to work towards putting things within our reach.

The path is simple. The path is hard and subtle. Both statements are true.