Saturday, 13 September 2025

B GATEWAY OF SENSES X “Awaken through the senses: perceive without grasping, and touch the infinite.”

 B

Here’s a concise gist of Francesca Fremantle’s article, highlighting the key ideas in bullet points:


Gist: Through the Gateway of the Senses

  • Purified perception: Drawing on Blake and Vajrayana Buddhism, the article emphasizes that when our perceptions are cleansed of grasping and attachment, the world appears infinite and sacred.

  • Senses are not the problem: Confusion arises from grasping—internally (ego) and externally (objects)—not from the senses themselves.

  • Ego creates duality: We project “I” and “other,” solidifying space and time, which leads to suffering.

  • Dance with appearances: Instead of clinging, we can experience the world as luminous, ever-changing, and interconnected.

  • Buddhas perceive directly: Using jñāna (wisdom), they see all of space-time simultaneously, beyond individual senses.

  • Ordinary experience vs. awakened perception: Our senses normally obstruct genuine knowledge; meditation can train us to experience sensations without grasping.

  • The power of immediate perception: Observing sound, color, touch, taste, and smell directly—without labeling or reacting—reveals the underlying reality.

  • Miracles of the senses: Heightened sensory experiences (like Proust’s madeleine, Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, sexual pleasure in Vajrayana) can open glimpses of mahasukha—great bliss beyond ordinary pleasure or pain.

  • Sensory gateways to awakening: Through disciplined engagement with the senses—without attachment—one can experience sacred vision and approach buddhahood.

  • Key principle: Body, mind, and senses are the vehicle; grasping is the obstacle. True bliss and insight arise when we fully engage sensations while letting go of attachment.


💡 Core insight in one line:
When we experience the world through the senses without grasping, we open a gateway to profound awareness, interconnectedness, and the bliss of awakening.


If you want, I can make an even shorter, ultra-memorable 3–4 line version that captures the essence for quick recall. Do you want me to do that?


B


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