Tue, 18 May 2010
Your Naked Face
I'm taking a short break from working on the Gampopa center website, so here in the next verse from Lama Phurbu Tashi's poem.
When these three come together; oneself, present moment and awareness,
The true nature reveals itself in nakedness in front of us.
No one could explain it in words or pointed out by the finger;
Nevertheless everyone is seeing it without notice.
Our confusion, our ignorance, is that we have not experienced our awareness as it is. No one can explain what awateness is, it needs to be seen directly, in the present moment. Awareness is not some big, impressive thing, it is the ordinary awareness we have all the time. But we do not see it, because we misunderstand it.
Here is an analogy. Suppose you need to get a permit from the city to do some work on your house. You call downtown, but the person who handles the permits is not in the office. So you spend all ady trying to track the person down. Finally, you tell your neighbor about the problem. And your neighbor says, "I am the person who handles this permit." So you knew where the person who handles the person was all along. But you did not know that you know. Similarly, we all see awareness, but we do not understand it for what it is.
