Delusion within delusion and Enlightenment within Enlightenment

Time to go is soon upon me. Received a haircut this morning, still haven't gotten a response from my requests on couchsurfers.org and though I've figured out most of what I'm taking, I haven't figured out how it is going to go on the bike for easy access.

My mother asked me if I am excited to go on this trip. I haven't been, yet. I work to keep my attention in the present moment and since I have no clue whatsoever of where I'm going or what I'm going to do, there isn't anything to "look forward" to, though I will do my best to honor my life by being fully present with whatever presents itself. I've been caught in the land of the "Pain Body", as Eckhart Tolle calls it, for the past two months. That state of mind is definitely NOT pleasant. However, my sense of presence is coming back and I have reason to believe that the Pain Body will be much weaker after this episode.

While I was in the Great Vow Zen Monastery, one chant we did mentioned, "delusion within delusion and enlightenment within enlightenment." I asked the abbot what that meant. He replied that "delusion" is the idea that we are all separate and "delusion within delusion" are those who seek to harm themselves or others. Enlightenment is that understanding of our True Nature, which can only be pointed to but never understood with the mind. "Enlightenment within enlightenment" is when the realization of oneness has permeated the entire mind/body system of a individual's life. One may get a flash of Reality, which is a nuclear experience. It explodes conditioning of one who experiences it. However, just as there are often survivors in massive natural or man-made disasters, there are parts of conditioning that survive exposure to the Truth of Enlightenment or Awakening.

I found one such surviving delusion recently with the unexpected help of an honored teacher. I had no clue that such pain and delusion still survived within me. However, it is all a part of life and if we remain open and present to the experience, even if we cannot always control our own responses, we eventually allow the awakening to mature and integrate throughout the system thus becoming "Enlightened within enlightenment"...or so I am told and in the process of verifying within my own experience. Hogan Bays, the Abbot of GV, is one such person, I believe.