The picture we are seeing here—knowing it’s just a picture (a map)—is of two sides of existence: one, the appearance, the phenomenal, the apparent material world, the mortal dream, Body, Mind, and World (BMW) which arise simultaneously to play Maya, or spacetime and matter; and two, “outside” of this world as it were, the spiritual, noumenal, universal consciousness-intelligence, the unbroken timeless reality.

And as we lean towards or form new habits, new conditioning, identifying more with, and trusting more the existence of the Real, that which does not change, the infinite conscious intelligence we Are (I Am), it becomes more and more self-evident and self-revealing that this is true, and proves itself in daily existence, and described in terms like "peace of mind" and "happiness" that are not conditional on circumstances.

Then, at some point, we can see that the first, the apparent, and the second, the Real, are indeed the same Reality. It becomes more obvious there is o separate observer and observed. The observer is the observed. The first is like a phantom shadow play, a mirage, in or of the second, so to speak – and there is no second. It's a strange thing to think about, and our minds can't really conceive it, except in passing images and metaphors.

There is an old Zen saying "First there is a mountain, then there isn't, then there is" to describe the stages of a student's understanding.

According to Seigen Ishin (Ch'ing-yüan Wei-hsin):
"Before a man studies Zen, to him mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after he gets an insight into the truth of Zen through the instruction of a good master, mountains to him are not mountains and waters are not waters; but after this when he really attains to the abode of rest, mountains are once more mountains and waters are waters."

(D. T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, 1926, London; New York: Published for the Buddhist Society, London by Rider, p. 24.)

The purposeless purpose of a body is to find out we are not a body, not a person, not a human being. That’s the joke, the cosmic puzzle.

You could say there are 4 stages: From an infant (still boundless), to a child (starting to learn limitation, via language and socializing, since we want to survive and be loved), to an adult (fully identified with with a body image, smallness, fear, lack, wanting, needing and becoming), to a sage or loving being: like a newborn babe but with self-awareness.

And this whole discussion is mental “stuff”, and so like the difference between a quiet mind from mindfulness (which never stays quiet for long), and a silent mind in being Being (permanent), we come to have greater knowing and living where the eternal is not forgotten, quiet, no matter what appears to be happening.

What I Am is at bottom real, despite whatever appears; Consciousness is Real, and I intuit the One. Therefore Reality and Consciousness are one and the same Reality.

Use the map then throw it away.

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