Ontological Who-ness A Phenomenological Experience
Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D. Diplomate in Clinical Psychology, A.B.P.P. The Washington Center for Consciousness Studies and The Washington Center for Phenomenological and Existential Psychotherapy
The All-Creative Source
In the 8th century Cei the foundational Tantric Dzogchen text the All Creating Source came into Being. The All- Creating Source was a foundational text reflecting the Dzogchen understanding about the nature of Being reflecting Primordial Who-ness. Our direct experiential knowing of Being and our direct experiential knowing of the phenomenological ontological field of Being is the natural path of Dzogchen to self-liberation.
This luminous text is a dramatic invocation to experience our human openness to the experiential knowing of our ever-unfolding experience of the infinity of Being. The infinity of Pure Being can be experienced within the phenomena of our own human beingness and within the phenomenological events of the Being of our world.
In a word, this early Dzogchen text understands that All Being is Profoundly Personal. The Being of human beings is profoundly personal. The Reality of Being is profoundly personal. This phenomenological ontological view is not the impersonal transcendental dissociative approach to self -liberation that so many eastern and western philosophical traditions have embraced for centuries.
Being as Who-ness
Our own personal Being is Being itself and our direct non conceptual knowingness of Being is our own Who-ness. The Being of our Knowingness is Who-ness. We do not simply know with our mind alone, we also know with and through our Being. Our mind knows phenomena and our mind even knows the essence of phenomena. Yet our mind does not know Being. Our awareness knows Being. And to become aware of our own awareness is to become aware of Being. Our Awareness is the
knowingness of Our Being. Our Being knows Being as awareness and through awareness. To become aware of our awareness is to become aware of Being. Awareness is Being. Awareness is Being’s knowingness. Awareness is an intrinsic quality of Being. The direct non- conceptual Knowingness of Awareness as Awareness is an essential quality of Being. Moreover, our experience of our awareness as Being is our Who-ness. Our Awareness is Who-ness. Who-ness is not simply psychological as some would think. Who-ness is our ontological knowingness.The knowingness of our mind is psychological. The knowingness of our awareness is ontological. Knowingness as awareness reflects an essential quality of our Beingness.
This distinction between the knowing of mind knowing phenomena and the knowing of awareness knowing Being is foundational and an essential distinction in Dzogchen and in Continental Phenomenology.
Our own Being’s knowingness is our own innermost Who-ness. Who-ness is our own primordial awareness which is primordial Being itself self manifesting as us, manifesting as our Who-ness. Our own primordial awareness is our own Who-ness and our Who-ness is the self manifestation of the Ground of Being. Our own Who-ness is the manifestation of the Ground of Being. Our Who-ness is within the Ground of Being as the Ground of Being.
The Ground of Being as Who-ness
To experience our own inner most primordial awareness is to experience our manifestation of and as the Ground of Being. This is Longchenpa’s foundational Dzogchen teaching found in his wonderous text The Precious Treasury of Genuine Meaning. For many Longchenpa is the greatest of the Dzogchen Masters. Although he wrote in the 14th century his writing is contemporary both in style and in language.
The dramatic understanding of this 14th century text is that there is no ontological difference between Phenomena and the Source of Phenomena. The transcendental traditions are based upon the profound ontological difference between Phenomena and the Source of Phenomena. This ontological difference between phenomena and the primordial Source is
the foundational prejudicial understanding within dissociative transcendental philosophy and its dissociative praxis.
In the Dzogchen Tradition of Longchenpa there is no ontological difference between phenomena and our primordial ground of Being. Within the Dzogchen tradition there is no ontological difference between phenomena and source. The pervasive union and indivisibleness between the source of phenomena and phenomena as appearance of source reflects the profound luminous understanding of the philosophical Immanence of Pure Being of beings.
Phenomena as the Self Manifestation of Ground of Being
This oneness of phenomena with and within the source of Being is the essential understanding of both ancient Dzogchen and Contemporary Existential Phenomenology. There is the ancient Dzogchen prayer that says “May I experience all phenomena as the Dharmakaya”. The Dharmakaya is the Ground of Being. May I experience all phenomena as the Ground of Being. This ontological understanding of the oneness of phenomena with, and as the Ground of Being is beautifully and wonderfully articulated by the 14th century Dzogchen Master Longchenpa in his many profound and luminous texts.
There is ontological oneness and there is ontological sameness between the Ground of Being and our own innermost awareness, our innermost Who-ness. There is ontological oneness and ontological sameness between the All-Creative Primordial Source and all Phenomena. The Primordial source self-manifest as all phenomena. All phenomena are the self-manifestation of the field of Being. Don Scotus the great medieval western philosopher called this ontological oneness of the Being of beings Univocity.
Who-ness As Our Ontological Knowing of Being
Our Who-ness was, and is our human experience of our primordial awareness as the Phenomenological Field of Being. Who-ness was, and is the one who experiences our ordinary life world known within Dzogchen as the Nirmanakaya. Who-ness was, and is our luminous experiencer of our Imaginal Archetypal Symbolic Reality Dimension known within Dzogchen
as the Sambhogakaya Realm. And Who-ness was, and is our primordial experiencer of our cosmological source of Being known in Dzogchen as Dharmakaya and expressed by Longchenpa as the Ground of Being.
Our direct experience of knowing the Ground of Being is our non conceptual pre-reflective direct knowing of our innate Who-ness of Being. Our Ontological Who-ness is infinite in its horizons, and reflects the multidimensional Beingness of Being. This Dzogchen understanding and language of the Ground of Being is the very same language and understanding of Contemporary Existential Phenomenology. This phenomenological ontological understanding is expressed by Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau- Ponty among other contemporary existential phenomenologists. The theologian Paul Tillich in his existential phenomenological Theology continuously used the language of the Ground of Being as Primordial Source.
The Personalization of Being: Ontic Experience and Ontological Experience
This primordial Who-ness of Being is the ontological source and is archetypally personified as the Who-ness of Samatabhadra. Our existential and phenomenological experience of our Personalization of the Being of our world and the Beings of the world is foundational for our phenomenological lived experience of our Being in the world. This personalization reflects our psychological ontic experience of phenomena and our simultaneous ontological lived experience of the ontological Being of Phenomena.
Our mind’s psychological knowing phenomena and the essence of phenomena is an ontic experience. Our awareness directly and pre reflectively and non -conceptually knowing Being is our ontological
knowingness and is a ontological experience. We have two ways of knowing, ontic and ontological. In Dzogchen this direct pre-reflective ontological knowing is called Gnosis or Jnana or Semde or Yeshe (Wisdom). This ontological knowing is not earned but is naturally given within us as ordinary human beings.
Our Ontic knowing and Our Ontic experience reflects the nature and the Ontic qualities of Phenomena. Our Ontological knowing and Ontological experience expresses the nature and qualities of the Being of Phenomena. Our ontic experience expresses the essence of the nature and qualities of phenomena. Our ontic experience expresses our psychological sense of “I” ness of our phenomenological mind and our Ontological experience expresses the nature of our Being as profound Who-ness.
Our sense of “I” ness reflects our phenomenological psychological sense of self. Our profound sense of Who-ness reflects our experiential Ontological Sense of our Being as Ontological knowingness and as Ontological sense of self. We have an ontic sense of self and an ontological sense of self. Many of us only experience an ontic sense of self which is a psychological sense of self. This psychological sense of self is most often our sense of our mind experienced as our sense of self. I am the I ness of my mind! The “I” ness of my mind is myself.
Ontological Who-ness
Our Ontological Who-ness unfolds within us and around us and ultimately expands into our cosmologically lived experience of the infinity of Ontological Beingness. Ontological Who-ness reflects the experiential vastness of the infinity of Timeless Awareness in Time.
Within our experience of Ontological Who-ness is our experience of and as the Ground of Being. The Ground of Being is often experienced as Timeless Awareness within time. This Who-ness is an unearned experience of the Givenness of Pure Being as our own Being just as we are. The Ground of Being is our innermost Timeless nature manifesting in time. Our innermost nature is the Timeless Ground of Being as our own Innate awareness as the Field of Being. We are the Field of Being.
“I” ness
Our sense of “I” ness is an ontic experience. When there is no experiential basis of Being supporting and infusing “I” ness, the “I” ness is without the experiential foundational of ontological Presence of Pure Being. Psychological “I” ness is then permeated by the felt sense of the absence of Being, the voidness of Being and the absence of the actuality of existing-
ness. Without our felt sense of Being, there is no true sense of actuality or true sense of Reality.
In this Being-less context, phenomena is experienced “as if” and phenomena is experienced as illusionary and as unreal lacking the actualness of reality. This experience of ontological lack reflects the terror of annihilation and the agony of Being- less -ness. This dreadful experience of Beingless-ness is often the Existential depression beneath psychological depressions! This dreadful empty presence of Ontological Depression often underlies psychological depressions and suicidal preoccupation.
Absence of Beingness
Early Buddhism as articulated by Gautama perceived all of phenomena as emptiness of Being. All of phenomena was perceived in early Buddhism as Beingless. All of phenomena had no basis within Being as Being. Without the ontological basis of Being, phenomena does not experience the sense of existing in actuality. The sense of “I” ness is an ontic sense and thus, the sense of “I” ness can be without Beingness. This is an empty state of selflessness. When our psychological ontic “I” ness is supported by our ontological sense of self as Being, then there is this profound ontological sense of ongoing continuous ontological Beingness of our Being as Who ness.
In this absence of Being the context of our sense of self is simply our sense of ontic mind. Thus, our sense of self is experienced as if, and our sense of self is Beingless and lacks the depth and breathe of reality and actuality. Our sense of self lacks the profound foundational sense of ontological Who-ness infinite in its horizons and vast and multidimensional.
Without the experiential ontological basis of our Being-full-ness as Who ness, all phenomena is felt as illusionary, and all phenomena seems to be an unreal experience. Such Who-less and Beingless phenomena does lack the felt sense of Being-full-ness and Luminous Lived experience. This is the Anatman existence. The experiential lack and absence of self as the absence of the sense of ongoing continuity of Being is Being-less-ness. This Being-less-ness is an ongoing ontological state of human despair.
The Experience of The Absence of Self as Ontological Despair
This is the Anatman selfless experience and beingless experience and who- less experience of early Buddhism. This anatman existence results in Gautama exclaiming All life is suffering. This is the profound human agony of our who-less-ness of Being-less-ness. This is existential ontological depression and ontological despair. Many philosophies and many religions foster this Beingless experience of our human experience and life. This empty experience of ontological absence is both sad and ignorant. This is Ma Rigpa. Ma Rigpa means ignorance of Being.
The Who-ness of Being-full-ness
Our own awareness is our ontological experiential knowing of Being fullness. Our own innermost awareness is our ontological experience of our Who-ness as our Being-full-ness. There is the direct ontological knowing of our inner most awareness which directly knows our Being as Being itself. Our own innermost awareness is Pure Being. Our innermost awareness is our Pure Being’s knowingness of Being. Our innermost awareness is our Being’s knowingness of Being. Our innermost awareness as Being’s knowingness is our inner most sense of Being, our innermost sense of self.
Our awareness as Who-ness knows directly the Being of our own Being. Our innermost awareness as Who-ness knows the Being of other beings. Our innermost awareness as Who-ness knows the Being of the World. Our innermost awareness as Who-ness knows Pure Being in and of itself. Our innermost awareness as Who-ness is our Being knowing Being. Our own awareness as Who-ness is our Pure Being knowing Being.
Within the Dzogchen foundational text of the All-Creative Source, the translucid Being of our ordinary life world can be metabolized and assimilated within own personal field of primordial awareness which is of the Rigpa of our own awareness. Rigpa is the direct knowing and the direct experiencing of Pure Being.
The Dynamic Energy of Being.
In Dzogchen Prajna is the dynamic energy of Being. Prajna is the dynamic energy of our luminous awareness. As our awareness becomes aware of awareness, this awareness is Rigpa. As our awareness become aware of awareness, we become aware of our Being as awareness. In becoming aware of our awareness, we become aware of Being. Awareness is Being, awareness is the knowingness of Being knowing Being.
Our Openness of our awareness knowing awareness is the doorway of entering into our Being as the Being of our own awareness, which is Rigpa. Awareness is the Luminosity of Being and our own awareness is the Vital Energy of Being self-manifesting the Indestructible Life Force of Being. This life force is Prajna. In Shavism this life force is Shakti.
Our own Being is Being itself and our knowingness of Being is our own Who-ness. We do not simply know Being with our mind alone. With our mind alone we know phenomena. Within the union of our mind within our awareness we know phenomena and the Being of phenomena.
Our awareness as who-ness knows the Being of phenomena. Our mind as “I” ness knows phenomena and our awareness as who-ness knows the Being of phenomena. We are ontic ontological Beings. We are ontic ontological knowers of phenomena and the Being of phenomena.
As Heidegger so artfully describes Human Beings have an openness to Knowing Being. He calls this openness Da Sein. Dzogchen calls this openness Rigpa. Our profound Openness of our own Being to Being itself is our profound sense of our own Being as the Who- ness of Pure Being.
Our sense of Being is personalized. Our personal sense of self is ontological. Our personalized self is our ongoing continuity of Being. Our sense of self is our sense of our ongoing continuity of Being. This sense of self is ontological and not simply psychological. Our psychological sense of self is ontic. A person feels they are only their thoughts, or they are only affective states of mind. They are only their sensations.
There is a concreteness of experiencing when experience does not take place within the field of awareness which is the field of Being. The
experience is as if our affects are empty of presence, and our thoughts are empty of presence.
Ontic Ontological Beings
Dzogchen calls the phenomenological knowing of our mind ‘sems’ and our direct knowing of Being through our experiential primordial awareness ‘semde’ or Yeshe (wisdom). Sometimes this direct knowing of Being is also called jnana or gnosis.
This distinction between our two ways of knowing is of great and essential importance both in Dzogchen and in Continental Phenomenology. Husserl explored our phenomenological knowing of our mind knowing and intuiting
the essence of phenomena. Heidegger explored our awareness’s phenomenological knowing of Being and the Being of phenomena. Human Beings are phenomenological ontological Beings. Human Beings are ontic ontological Beings.
“I” ness and Who-ness
The knowing of our mind is our knowing of “I” ness. And the knowing of our awareness is our knowingness of Who-ness. The knowing of I ness is our psychological knowing of mind. The knowing of Who-ness is our ontological knowing of Being.
Human Beings are ontic ontological Beings. Human beings have the sense of “I” ness as their mind. Human beings identify with their psychological mind as “I” ness. Human beings have a sense of Who-ness as their awareness of their Being and the Being of the world. Human beings experience their ontological Being of awareness and their ontological awareness of their Being as Who-ness. Who-ness is an ontological experience of ontological awareness. Ontological Awareness is Being and is the manifestation of Pure Being as the Ground of Being.
When we integrate the knowing of our mind within the knowing of our awareness, we can experience the two modes of knowing simultaneously in this mysterious union. We can know the essence of phenomena and the Being of phenomena simultaneously. The union of these two modes of knowing is the direct path of self-liberation. We can know the duality of
difference and the oneness of Being simultaneously. Our union of ontic knowing and ontological knowing is the path of natural liberation. Just as we are! We are ontic ontological beings and being free is our nature.
We can integrate our psychological sense of “I” ness and our ontological sense of Who-ness. I ness is our thinking, feeling, sensations, memory, fantasy, and our intuition of phenomena. Our Who-ness is our direct non
conceptual sense of personal Beingness. Our Who-ness opens for us our experience of the Who-ness of Being of the World and the Who-ness of our Cosmological Universe. Our Who-ness opens for us the ever- unfolding experience of being the Ground of Being.
Ontological Knowing
In becoming aware of our own awareness, we become aware of our own Being because awareness is Being. Awareness is Being’s knowingness of Being. Upon become aware of awareness, we become aware of the field of Being in its self-arising and self-manifestation. In experiencing our own awareness, we experience our own Being as awareness. As we remain within awareness as the field of Being. We first experience awareness within us as Being within us.
As we sustain our experience of our field of Being within us and through us, we begin to experience ourselves within the field of Being surrounding us and going beyond us. We begin experiencing the self-manifestation of Being beyond us, around us, and through us. We begin to live within the field of Being.
And then, in time we begin experiencing our ontological self as the field of Being. We begin experiencing our self as the field of Being and as the self manifestation of Being. We then begin experiencing our self as the different dimensions of Being. We experience ourselves as our Being in the world. And we then experience our-self as the archetypal dimension of Being as we experience the imaginal direct perception of the archetypal dimension of our own Being and Being itself. And then we begin to have the profound experience of our self as the Ground of Being. We experience our self both as the manifestation of the Ground of Being and as the Ground of Being.
This happens just as we are. The experience of being the Ground of Being is forever unfolding, infinite in its horizons, vast and multidimensional.
Da Sein
Our direct knowing of Being is what Heidegger calls Da Sein. As we become aware of our own awareness, we become aware of our Being, the events of Being, and Being in and of itself. As we become aware of our own awareness, we become aware of our own Who-ness of Being as Being. As we enter the field of awareness which is the field of Being we experience within us the vast infinity of our own Who-ness of Being within our own Being. We experience our lived experience of own profound Who ness of Being as Being itself. This ontological experience of Who-ness is Empowering and Freeing.
Amazingly as we experience the ontological dimension of our pervasive primordial awareness, there arises spontaneously within us the ontological experience of Who-ness which is vast, and multidimensional and infinite in its horizons. Our profound sense of the Who-ness of our Being is the profound experience of Timeless Awareness within in time as time. Timeless Awareness is the experience of Ground of Being.
Our Experience of Who-ness
This Who-ness can be the amazing and the wonderous experience of profound openness, profound trans -lucidity, profound vitality, and a sense of the unbound compassion of generativity. This ontological Who-ness provides an ongoing sense of continuity of Being life after life and death after death! Unborn and undying is the experience of ontological Who-ness! Our Who-ness is our experience of the Ground of Being as the Ground of Being. We are simultaneously the Ground of Being and the self manifestation of the Ground of Being.
This is most important. Our Who-ness is our experience of the Ground of Being as the Ground of Being. We are the manifestation of the Ground of Being. We are the Indwelling of the Ground of Being in Being. This is the
essence of Dzogchen as elaborated by Longchenpa. This is also the Phenomenological Ontology of Maurice Merleau Ponty and M. Heidegger. This ontological understanding of Who-ness as self is also the essence of the Tantric Philosophy of Kashmir Shavism as expressed by Swami Muktananda and Abhinavagupta.
Dzogchen describes this experience of Who-ness as our experience of our Being as Who-ness. Our sense of self is no longer our psychology of mind alone but now our sense of self shifts from our sense of “I” ness of mind alone to our sense of Who-ness as our ongoing continuity of Being. We are the manifestation of the Ground of Being. We are the indwelling of the Ground of Being. Our sense of self shifts from being only psychological to becoming ontological, to becoming Being. Our sense of self becomes the ongoing continuity of Being life after life and death after death!
This experience of ontological who-ness is of importance in the mystical Islamic tradition of Il Arabi and Suhrawardi. This experience of ontological who-ness in Daoism is expressed by Dr. Yan Xin. In our psychoanalytic understanding in light of Donald Winnicott, our primordial sense of self is our ongoing continuity of Being. Our sense of self is our embodied sense of Being as our being.
Dzogchen describes this experience of Who-ness as our experience of our Being! Our sense of self is no longer our psychology of mind alone but now our sense of self shifts from our sense of “I” ness as mind to our sense of Who-ness as our ongoing continuity of Being life after life and death after death. The experience of Being is profoundly personal.
If we can become aware of our own awareness which awareness is the knowingness of our field of Being, there arises naturally our own innermost sense of Who-ness which is profoundly personal, profoundly unbounded, and profoundly brings forth naturally a multidimensional sense of the vastness of the Being of our being. This vastness of Being is the Timeless awareness of Being manifesting in time as us.
Intertwining
We do not simply have this primordial awareness, we are this primordial awareness, which is Who-ness vast and multidimensional and infinite in its
horizons. Our sense of Luminous Who-ness can infuse our “I” ness of mind and the functions of our mind as “I” ness. Our ontological sense of Our Being as who-ness can infuse our experience of Being in the world and infuse our experience of the Being of others.
We live in the Sea of Being as the Being of a being. We live in the Sea of Being as luminous Who-ness. This is the experience of natural self - liberation available to everyone just as we are. This experience can be immediate and continuous. And this experience can be forever and ever, life after life and death after death.
We are simultaneously both the ontic knowing of our mind and the ontological knowing of our Being as primordial awareness experiencing the indivisibleness of our Nondual experience of Being and the Being of beings. We are simultaneously the Who-ness of our Being and the “I” ness of our Minds. Many people only experience the “I” ness of their minds and the Who-ness of their Being is experientially foreclosed. This can result in an ontologically Beingless existence lacking the depth and breathe of the fullness of Being.
The Mysticism of Ontological Who-ness
Our ontological sense of Who-ness is not the narrow sense of “I” ness which is often contextualized as a kind of witness consciousness or the narrow self-object viewing through the narrow knowing of our mind and the various functions of our mind. The sense of “I” ness of our mind as witness consciousness is an objectified knowing of mind staring into the phenomenological facticity of factual self and factual otherness. This is a form of ontic knowing. This is more often than not, an objectified and objectifying state of existing-ness
This “I” ness of mind alone knowing phenomena is for many of us a sense of the absence of Beingness as reflecting our absence of our direct knowingness of Being. Our “I” ness can become a felt sense of our conceptualizations about our self, and even the judgements about our conceptualizations of our self, and even the judgements about our affective states of experiential “I” ness of mind. This “I” ness easily becomes a self-
conceptual-ness. Our sense of self becomes an enduring thought. Our sense of self becomes mentalistic.
The absence of Beingness is experienced as emptiness of self and emptiness of Who-ness. What remains is only the “I” ness of mind that lacks Being-full-ness.
The unhappy experience of our ontological empty state of Being-full-ness reflects our absence of our profound experiential ontological Who-ness. With the absence of ontological Who-ness there is the corresponding absence of a vital sense of ontological aliveness. Many human beings live in “I” ness of mind and lack the profound sense of the Who-ness of their Being. They lack the vital aliveness of Being. Some people may experience the ongoing lived experience of continuous deadness.
“I” ness as Mind alone is without the depth and the breath of primordial skylike awareness which is our human openness to Being and is our direct immediate non conceptual pre reflective knowing of Being as Being. This knowing of Being brings forth for us our innermost sense of Luminous Presence. The sense of Presence is our own inner experience of the radiance of Who-ness. Who-ness is our ongoing continuity of Being. To live in the Luminous Translucid Presence of Who-ness is to experience self liberation in spite of and in light of whatever Context or Eventfulness in which we find ourselves. We can live in the resonance of Who-ness as the Ground of Being forever and ever.
Who-ness is our experience of our Beingness of our luminous translucid Being. Our sense of self is our sense of our experience of our own Beingness of our Being and the radiance of our own Being and the spaciousness of our own Being and the vitality of our own Being. To be absent of Being is to be absent of our ontological sense of self. To be absent of the ongoing continuity of Being is to be absent of the profound foundational sense of embodied Who-ness, embodied Presence and embodied Awareness. Our embodied sense of personal presence is the experience of our embodied radiance of Being as Who-ness.
Gautama himself suffered this anatman experience continuously and so he would naturally and painfully exclaim that all life is suffering and any desire
for happiness whatsoever is both hopeless and only increases suffering. This is the personal phenomenology of ontological despair of being human, of Being Who-ness.
Of course, early Buddhism did not experience who-ness and did not experience the ontological sense of Beingness as their own Being. Early Buddhist understanding embraced the anatman experience of non self, non-who-ness and non- Beingness. Everything was illusion and lacked the actuality of Being. The only way out was to transcend and detach and go beyond, and go beyond personal consciousness into the emptiness of no where-ness and no-who-ness. Our profound who-ness in essence is the Ground of Being. Our profound sense of who-less-ness is our experience of the absence of our Being-full-ness.
The personal despair of human existing-ness is held by many religious traditions both eastern and western as the only reality. This is both sad and existentially and ontologically untrue. These various forms of Patriarchal Religious experience do not reflect our human ontological sense of self. This self is our ongoing sense of continuity of Being, the Pure Being of continuous Who-ness, life after life and death after death.
Many of these Patriarchal religions are focused within their Patriarchal formulations of Being the One Who Knows Absolutely in which they consistently and relentless invoke the master slave relationship focused on themselves or their Institution as The One Who Knows Absolutely.
Moreover, the Patriarchal experience of domination and submission consistently and relentlessly projects the master slave relationship on to their Patriarchal “God” who is Absolute In Being and is The One Who Knows Absolutely and Omnipotently, and who eternally Punishes those who are not Obedient and Subservient to the Patriarchal declarations of Patriarchal Will and Desire. This understanding is both sad and untrue.
Lacan the great French Symbolic Psychoanalyst describes this Ancient and Ever present archetypal Patriarchal drama as “In the name of the Father”. Papal declarations of Roman Catholic infallibility reflect this illusionary experience of absolute knowledge and domination. The cultic statement about “outside the church there is no salvation” is the confirmation of this illusionary grandiose and distorted omnipotent ideation.
Fundamentalistic Religions and Fundamentalistic Traditions play this Sado Masochistic Drama Forever and ever and ever. This liberation through domination is focal in both in eastern religious traditions and western religious traditions. When the Dali Lama was in Washington DC a few years ago, he was presenting the great and magnificent Kalachakra Tantra. He dramatically spoke about Lamaism as a Patriarchal Clerical illusion, and that Lamaism with its illusion of omnipotence and omniscience could destroy Tibetan Buddhism.
Our profound Who-ness is the essence of the Ground of Being. Our Who ness is not simply “in” the field of Being. Our Who-ness is in the vast field of Being and our Who-ness is the field of Being. It like our Who-ness is in the baseball field of Being and simultaneously our Who-ness is the baseball field of Being. Our Who-ness is not simply in the field of Being. Our Who ness is not simply a place or ‘loca’ within the field of Being. Our Who-ness is the field of Being. Our Who-ness expands in time and through time. Our Who-ness is timeless awareness manifesting in time. This is the profound nature of our human beingness- awareness continuum.
Our Who-ness expands in timeless awareness and is the spaciousness of vast awareness. Our Who-ness can be in total oneness within infinite numbers of Who-ness and still be separate. Our Who-ness may forever be unfolding infinite in its horizons vast and multidimensional.
Our Who-ness is completely and profoundly personal and yet our Who ness is not an entity. Our person is our Who-ness within form. Our Who ness is also completely formless. Our Who-ness is our singular knowingness of our Being as the field of Being. Our Who-ness reflects the different dimensions of Being. There is our formless Who-ness as the Ground of Being. There is our subtle form of Who-ness as the singular formulations of the archetypal dimension of Being, and there is our Who ness who is the singular form of manifestation in our human realm of Being, life after life and death after death.
We will end with the biblical memory of Moses going up the Mountain to meet God and Moses comes upon a Burning Bush. And he says to the Burning Bush who are you. And the Bush Replies “I am Who I am.”
Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D. Diplomate in Clinical Psychology, A.B.P.P.
Washington Center for Consciousness Studies and The Washington Center for Phenomenological and Existential Psychotherapy Studies
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The All Creating Source or Kunjed- Gyalpo
There are a number of translations with different titles of this 8th Century Text, The All Creating Source.
1.The Supreme Source, Tanslated by Namkai Norbu and Adriano Clemente.Snow Lion Press,1999.
2.The Sovereign All Creating Mind, The Motherly Buddha by.E<K. Neumaier Dargyay. Suny University Press.1999.
3 The All Creating Kind by Christopher Wilkinson.2019.Independently Published.
4.The Kunjed Gyalpo Series, Translated by James Valby Publications.Shelburne Falls ,Mass,
These are all great translations with different nuances