Symbolic Transmissions
By Rudolph Bauer, Phd Thu, Feb 23, 2012
Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D. Author, Erin Johannesen, M.A., M.D. Editor
The Net of Indra and Lamps of Experience
1. “Beyond words and letters there is a transmission; it does not belong to any tradition. It is the very nature of human awareness, and that is the Buddha.” – Bodhidharma Just as true, there is a transmission through words and letters, [through] forms and sounds, and a transmission through actions and circumstances. This transmission is the samadhi of syllables, the samadhi of sublime vibration becoming sound, and of words becoming signifiers; infinite levels of syllables creating infinite places of awareness, infinite locations of signifiers – signifiers both of worlds and of the meaning of various worlds.
2. The capacity to extend the field of awareness is wonderful and amazing and brings benefit for ourselves and others.
3. There are infinite methods of transmission. There are transmissions through touch, sound, taste, smells, and gesture. There is transmission that takes place through the symbolic dimension, through iconic transmissions [iconic doorways], through pictures, paintings, and symbolic text. There is transmission through the drama of tantric text, through rituals and symbols. Transmissions are received through gazing with the whole body, gazing through awareness into awareness.
4. ‘Symbolic’ here does not mean cognition, but rather translucidity, translucent transparency. ‘Symbolic’ as used here is the openness of phenomena, the manifestation of light and energy, of knowledge, gnosis. ‘Symbolic’ here means translucent, translucidity, vehicles and doorways, windows of light and energy, openings of archetypical energies. The symbols we see here and feel here are like doorways – iconic sources of energy and light…clear light. Everything is a manifestation of light and energy, and the intensity of light varies from one symbol to another, from one person to another, from one circumstance to another, from one epoch to another, from one lineage to another, and from one tradition to another. 5. ‘Symbolic’ used here means doorways or windows that bring forth the invisible into visibility by ‘shining through,’ and by the radiance of symbolic forms, personal forms, cosmic forms, iconic forms, divinity becomes manifest. The method is gazing into the gazer, then gazing ‘inside to inside.’
6. In a sense, as you and I become aware of awareness, aware of the field, we are more able to perceive the field through various forms, including through pictures, letters, gestures, and symbols. In the truest sense, primordial awareness manifests these forms, and these forms are the doorways of experience. The signification, or signifier, is not the associative meanings of the forms, but rather the direct experience of light and energy informing the forms, informing us, infusing us with experiencing the cosmological Shaktis or primordial powers or qualities; [infusing us] with experiencing the pervasiveness of Psyche of the infinite qi. [And the infusing, the informing, takes us] from the mediated to unmediated experience, from indirect to direct knowingness that sees through, experiences through, phenomena. [These infused forms] are not experienced as flat objects, which are simply associative in nature. They are not simply signifier for mind associations, but rather are signifiers for invoking, for bringing forth, the field dimension of phenomena; awakened awareness meeting awakened phenomena; awakened awareness invoking awakened phenomena.
7. Through the transmission and receiving of transmissions, we embody the energy and the light of the kayas; we experience and embody the multiple dimensions of the awareness field. Actually, the three kayas are infinite…infinite dimensions. There is the pure light of the Dharmakaya dimension, which is experientially without reference and is described as timeless awareness.
There is the pure light of the vortextual, luminous energies and archetypical forms, which are described as the dakinis, devas, and deities. These forms are apparent manifestations of the beingness of Being, which we are able to experience within the apparitional dimension, which called the…Sambhogakaya.
There is the pervasive pure light of this world and of all the human and sentient beings of appearance, and the realm of this pure light is called Nirmanakaya.
8. And so there are different forms of symbolization: Nirmanakaya symbolization, sambhogakaya symbolization and dharmakaya symbolization. And there are combinations of these dimensions within each other.
9. To enter into the dimensions of symbolic function, one must enter through transitional space, or through that in-between area of experiencing, or through simply becoming aware of awareness. In and through this state of ‘in-betweenness’…you suspend your mind just a bit, and through this suspension, you free awareness to gaze into its own self. In gazing, you are eventually able to gaze within and through the whole body as awareness. In psychoanalytic thinking, through and within transitional awareness, the archetypical dimensions appear and manifest. These archetypes are symbolic, not simply in terms of signifiers and the necklaces [or connected strands] of signifiers, but ultimately, as dimensions of the field, for signifiers both invoke translucidity and are directly perceived through translucidity. There is imagination or the imaginary realm, and there is the symbolic realm, the realm of the real.
10. By entering into the symbolic dimension, we are able to embody the symbolic dimension, [and so] sambhogakaya, the realm of light, [is] embodied as the vajra vase body of light. There are different dimensions of the symbolic: The symbolic as nirmanakaya, the symbolic as sambhogakaya and the symbolic as dharmakaya.
11. Imagination can contribute and lead us into the symbolic, but symbolic is beyond imagination. In this language [of the symbolic], there are realms within realms.
12. One can, however, stay in the imagination, or in fantasy, and think this [realm] is symbolic function, but if the imagination is too strong, or too confining, or too possessing, then the symbolic may not manifest. The symbolic utilizes everything; utilizes all forms, including forms of the imagination, forms of the vibrational syllables, and forms of appearance in the relational world. The samadhi of syllables is within the symbolic realms. The samadhi of syllables is another language for the matrika shakti...the sublime vibrations manifesting as various worlds.
13. The rupakaya [realm] is all arrangements of light: Divine light manifesting as appearance, divine light manifesting asapparitional, and divinity as unmanifest dharmakaya.
14. We are loci, or places, of manifestation. Human beings are places. And it is amazing, but one place can enter into another place…one place may pass through another place; one place may have infinite placements.
15. Signifiers can organize fields of awareness as well as organize the mind’s associations. Mind can organize symbolic fields, and symbolic fields can organize mind. The symbolic takes the human mind beyond the lack of experience, beyond the lack of awareness. 16. Between fantasy and reality, between thinking and memory, between affect and sensation is the intermediate area of experiencing. This [intermediate area] is the doorway into the kayas. Within this place, within the intermediate area of experience, the field is completely manifesting, and so the dimensions of awareness can come into experiential beingness, and the apparitional archetypical dimension arises within you.
17. The mind and the functions [of the mind] are different from awareness. Awareness is ‘base as place’ that opens up into the symbolic realm, which is the sambhogakaya. There is also the symbolic opening up to and within the nirmanakaya and dharmakaya. The mind can be integrated into awareness, and the mind can support being in awareness. The mind can also usurp and foreclose awareness by confusion…Which is stronger…awareness or mind? [And so, depending on one’s base,] signifiers can open up the different dimensions, or foreclose the experience. At times, the field of mind is not the field of the awareness field, and at times, the mind is within the field of awareness as awareness itself. Ultimately, the mind is the manifestation of awareness.
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