Nondual Holistic Lucidity
Consciousness in the individual is just ordinary wakeful awareness interacting with the supposed differentiations of the manifested world. In its unobstructed and unconfined state consciousness has a natural lucidity. This clarity is the original face, the primordial, conditionless condition of free and pure consciousness. The individual contemplative, once having recognized his natural holistic presence, is then concerned with integrated wholes, or the total system of manifestation within the phenomenal matrix, rather than with deluded absorption in and attachment to the supposedly separate parts of it. All phenomena are then recognized as they really are, as interrelated components of the unified field of ever-changing conditionality. In undifferentiating, nondual holistic lucidity all the implications of the afflictions of conceptual dualism have ceased to be and the phenomenal matrix is clearly observed and understood.
When mind does not cycle through remembrance of the past time or through imaginations of the future time then there is the presence of unimpeded, unhindered wakefulness. When, in a relaxed way, the mental functions are investigated in an attentive manner, it will be noticed that, whatsoever kinds of thoughts have been arising, they all arise in the arena of consciousness. So thoughts are seen as object and what is looking is subject; the subject-object relationship is nondual functionality. Consciousness, subject, does not change just as space does not change; but thoughts as objects change into various subtle displays of mental structures. The onlooker, the spectator remains always beyond all the mental constructs. Understanding this makes it easier to be aware of the fact that the ego-notion has become the pseudo-identity, the identification of subject with one of its objects of perception. When the false identity has been repeatedly recognized and re-cognized then the major task of re-identification begins, as confusion and non-realization also begin to wane. An open receptivity to the habitual mental functions is the right way to get the required recognition. There should be no for-or-against attitudes toward what goes on in the mind. A detached and open receptivity exposes the hidden dichotomies of conceptual structures. This kind of contemplative practice exposes what we are not so we can recognize what we really are, and begin to live in that. This nondual holistic lucidity is the free and pure awakening.
From our Book: Heart Blossoms A Commentary and Analysis of the Exalted Mahayana Sutra on the Profound Perfection of Wisdom called the Heart Sutra By S. R. Allen click here
