Winter
I live in Michigan and we are smack dab in the middle of a pretty cold and snowy winter. As I drove home the other day, and sat in traffic, frustrated, bored and anxious to get home, I became aware of my thoughts and, frankly, I wasn't happy with what i found. I was cursing winter, the whole of it; the snow, the cold, the sloppy wet floors and dogs and salt and ruined shoes and more salt and accidents, spinouts, black ice, and more cold. And then I stopped.
As a child I loved winter--all of it. You could say I lived it because I never once sought to remove myself from the experience. I never got cold, felt sorry for myself, dreaded the snow buried in my boots that rubbed holes in the skin on my ankles. Never wished I was someplace else. All of the things that made winter winter I was ok with. So as I sat there in my car with my thoughts in a holding pattern, I asked, what had changed. Did winter change or did I change? The answer was simple and very obvious, I did.
Winter just is, it's like content that we're exposed to every minute of every day. But the context in which I perceived the winter had changed dramatically. What was once joy now lies buried beneath acres of baggage that I've systematically added; like the chains of Jacob Marley, I forged layer upon layer, year after year, further obscuring the reality of what winter really is. I've placed terabytes of information on top of simple and peaceful in order to make it fit into my current worldview. The current view held by myself was so far removed from the winter I knew as a child that I couldn't even recognize it for what it was. But then I realized it was more than just some vain attempt at trying to regain a lost childhood perception. I had altered my own perception of reality by imposing associations, identifications and all sorts of other brain related functions onto something that was entirely not that at all. Winter just is. I added all the rest.
For the longest time I couldn't find the feelings I once held that told me winter was something more than a massive inconvenience. Every time I got close to re-experiencing those feelings it was time to put my car in gear and move another six inches. After a while, however, I began to relax and slowly let winter back in. But this time I left the baggage behind. I brought it back one aspect at a time by changing the context. I looked at snow without any other thoughts and I saw only snow. Each individual flake was falling in complete perfection. I rolled my window down and felt cold without thinking it was bitter, or frigid or any one of a hundred adjectives. Without my past experience or a ‘pang’ of dread from a potentially unhappy future event, it was just cold. For the first time in years I experienced only cold. Only then did winter slowly begin to come back. And all the while I drove home I held winter in its proper place. Free from all the extraneousness so to behold only that which it really is. Winter.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Compulsive Thinking
Finding true happiness elusive?
Maybe we don’t have the right definition—it’s a syntax error. It could be, perhaps, that we’ve set up conditions for our happiness. Conditions whereby our happiness is guaranteed only ‘IF’ these conditions are present; conditions being what they are, of course, are only conditional—no guarantee there. Or maybe we’ve set up a situation where we expect a certain result. Our expectations, therefore, become just another conditional variable that will trigger a typical binary result—yes or no; either I am happy with the current situation or I am not.
It’s interesting to note, however, that the thought, “I am happy” or I am unhappy” is fairly benign; it’s for the most part electrical. The actual state of ‘being’ either happy or unhappy is ushered in only moments later with the corresponding emotional response. The degree to which the emotional response impacts the present moment is directly proportional to the degree to which we are identified with it. In other words, how caught up am I in the story? If I am mildly caught up, the impact is negligible. If, on the other hand, I am totally caught up in the story, the results can be disastrous. What story am I talking about? The Story of I.
Each one of us is the sum total of every thought and emotional response we’ve ever had. And so the story grows each and every moment we’re alive by the various emotional responses trigged by our precipitous thought patterns. In turn, each emotional response triggers another line of thinking made up a many different thoughts, either about the past or some anticipated future--ad nauseum. The result is a complex web of endless analysis, speculation and imagination that once set into motion is extremely difficult to govern because it takes on a life of it’s own. We’re powerless to stop it because we’re not aware that it’s going on. You don’t know what you don’t know. The net result is what’s known as compulsive thinking.
Compulsive thinking is a disease (dis-ease). It’s an addiction that leaves us unable to function as we were intended. It keeps us from really living and enjoying life because it removes us from the only place where life can be lived--right here in the present moment. Endless thoughts of regret or resentment caused by past events or ideas about what might happen in the future rob us of the opportunity to live a full and meaningful life because the places where we spend the majority of our time are not real—they’re imaginary self preservation devices created by our ego. We only believe them to be real because they are all part of the Story and we ARE the Story.
The places of the Story are fictionalized emotional creations of our mental cogitation we’ve been conditioned to believe to be real. They keep us running like a gerbil on an endless wheel; and we wonder why the scenery never changes. This Story has a name and a face. It gets up every morning and goes to the work or school. It cooks dinner and yells at the dog when there’s no money in the bank. It’s won Nobel prizes and sleeps in dumpsters. It’s us and it’s waiting patiently to escape from the mental prison we’ve unwittingly created for ourselves.
We start by learning to remove ourselves as the main character from the Story; we go from being in front of the camera to behind the camera. By putting ourselves in the director’s chair we’re afforded an entirely new and revealing look at the lead character. A slight change in perspective—as in moving from subject to object, results in an entirely different worldview; one in which things, both good and bad, happen yet we’re left completely untouched by the precipitous events that would normally batter us about like a leaf in a hurricane.
So today you can start by simply being aware of the thoughts that go through your head. An excellent place to do that is sitting in traffic. The next time you find yourself packed into a grid of immovable automobiles, exhale deeply, rest your attention on the road ahead of you and spend a few minutes observing the various thoughts that go through your head. You might be surprised at what you find!
Maybe we don’t have the right definition—it’s a syntax error. It could be, perhaps, that we’ve set up conditions for our happiness. Conditions whereby our happiness is guaranteed only ‘IF’ these conditions are present; conditions being what they are, of course, are only conditional—no guarantee there. Or maybe we’ve set up a situation where we expect a certain result. Our expectations, therefore, become just another conditional variable that will trigger a typical binary result—yes or no; either I am happy with the current situation or I am not.
It’s interesting to note, however, that the thought, “I am happy” or I am unhappy” is fairly benign; it’s for the most part electrical. The actual state of ‘being’ either happy or unhappy is ushered in only moments later with the corresponding emotional response. The degree to which the emotional response impacts the present moment is directly proportional to the degree to which we are identified with it. In other words, how caught up am I in the story? If I am mildly caught up, the impact is negligible. If, on the other hand, I am totally caught up in the story, the results can be disastrous. What story am I talking about? The Story of I.
Each one of us is the sum total of every thought and emotional response we’ve ever had. And so the story grows each and every moment we’re alive by the various emotional responses trigged by our precipitous thought patterns. In turn, each emotional response triggers another line of thinking made up a many different thoughts, either about the past or some anticipated future--ad nauseum. The result is a complex web of endless analysis, speculation and imagination that once set into motion is extremely difficult to govern because it takes on a life of it’s own. We’re powerless to stop it because we’re not aware that it’s going on. You don’t know what you don’t know. The net result is what’s known as compulsive thinking.
Compulsive thinking is a disease (dis-ease). It’s an addiction that leaves us unable to function as we were intended. It keeps us from really living and enjoying life because it removes us from the only place where life can be lived--right here in the present moment. Endless thoughts of regret or resentment caused by past events or ideas about what might happen in the future rob us of the opportunity to live a full and meaningful life because the places where we spend the majority of our time are not real—they’re imaginary self preservation devices created by our ego. We only believe them to be real because they are all part of the Story and we ARE the Story.
The places of the Story are fictionalized emotional creations of our mental cogitation we’ve been conditioned to believe to be real. They keep us running like a gerbil on an endless wheel; and we wonder why the scenery never changes. This Story has a name and a face. It gets up every morning and goes to the work or school. It cooks dinner and yells at the dog when there’s no money in the bank. It’s won Nobel prizes and sleeps in dumpsters. It’s us and it’s waiting patiently to escape from the mental prison we’ve unwittingly created for ourselves.
We start by learning to remove ourselves as the main character from the Story; we go from being in front of the camera to behind the camera. By putting ourselves in the director’s chair we’re afforded an entirely new and revealing look at the lead character. A slight change in perspective—as in moving from subject to object, results in an entirely different worldview; one in which things, both good and bad, happen yet we’re left completely untouched by the precipitous events that would normally batter us about like a leaf in a hurricane.
So today you can start by simply being aware of the thoughts that go through your head. An excellent place to do that is sitting in traffic. The next time you find yourself packed into a grid of immovable automobiles, exhale deeply, rest your attention on the road ahead of you and spend a few minutes observing the various thoughts that go through your head. You might be surprised at what you find!
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Fault vs. Responsibility - Which is the Right View?
Fault vs. Responsibility - Which is the Right View?
by Namja Dharma
by Namja Dharma
His first teachings subsequent to Enlightenment, the Buddha laid down The Four Noble Truths that set in motion what has become known as the first turning of the wheel of Dharma. It was here he outlined the truth of suffering, or Dukkha (Pali), the origins of suffering, the fact that suffering can end, and finally the Path that can lead us out of the woods which is known as the Noble Eightfold Path.
The very first component of the Eightfold path is Right View. The ability to hold a correct view of reality, i.e. Buddha’s teachings, both from a wisdom perspective as well as a more traditional based intellectual understanding, is considered the first step toward reshaping how we perceive and what we tend to believe. The result, of course, is to bring our minds in line with actual reality and ultimately the lessening our karmic debt. And since we all live our lives in the relative half of Buddha’s Two Truths (relative and absolute), making the very best of it while we’re here is certainly a worthy goal.
Initially Right View seems simple enough: to understand the nature of reality we first must see things as they actually are. Change your perception and get a different result. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find Right View can be quite challenging. Some time ago I heard a phrase that has stuck with me and has forever changed my understanding of Right View. To paraphrase, this person said ‘Nothing is my fault, everything is my responsibility.’ At first this seemed to be a rather ludicrous claim, obviously the mad ravings of an over-achiever. But the longer I thought about it the more I saw how tightly wound these two really are and how significant the choice between them becomes when viewed in light of our own behaviors and ultimately--our own happiness.
How does all this relate to our karmic conditioning? One person says, “It’s my fault.” Another person says, “It’s my responsibility.” What’s the difference and why should we care? How do these terms relate, and more importantly, why should we be concerned about the relationship between these two seemingly unrelated nouns? Because understanding the truth behind the ‘why’ which drives the ‘how’ that becomes our various actions and reactions can help us unknot our karmically conditioned existence. And it all starts with recontextualizing how we view our world.
There are two components that make up our perception of reality. The stuff that we perceive is known as content and the framework in which we perceive is known as the context. Try as you might, altering or limiting the content we receive is difficult. We live in an age where the average person is exposed to more on a daily basis than ever before in the history of the world. Of course we all can chose what we see and hear to some degree but to a large extent the choice is often not our own as to what we are exposed. Today’s culture is hyper-kinetic, over stimulated and marred with prefabricated ideas on how we should think and feel. Make one small change in the contextual framework, however, and you can make a monumental change in your ability to move closer to true reality.
Using our analogy of fault vs. responsibility, then, we find that fault remains almost always on the backside of the energy curve. Fault is reactive whereas responsibility is proactive. One cannot accept Fault. Fault places blame and then runs away afraid of what happens next. Responsibility is empowering while fault is disempowering. Fault tends to place blame, especially on others. Responsibility, on the other hand, always accepts ‘that’ for what it is. Someone might say, “It’s my fault that such and such went wrong.” The second part of that statement is “It’s my fault because my father made me sleep in a garbage can.” Responsibility is accepting, even when it demands accountability. Everyone knows someone who refuses to accept responsibility for his or her actions. It’s painful to watch and even dangerous to be around these people as they meander through life constantly spewing a mess in their wake.
Understanding Right View starts with a little housekeeping. Think attribution. How we view things is often times more important than what we are viewing when it comes to understanding and diagnosing our behavior. Thoughts don’t come prepackaged with instruction-sets such as “You must be sad, now!” Thoughts are simply bundles of energy to which we attribute meaning based on past experience. The context in which we position an event within our frame of reference actually determines the meaning we attribute to that particular event and this meaning is what shapes our thought energy, which in turn drives our actions, and so on and so forth.
Many of us spend our time reacting to external events rather than simply being with the event and looking at it as ‘event’. Someone cuts us off in traffic and we explode. We’re denied a promotion at work and we get depressed. We assign meaning such as my fault, your fault, Dave’s fault, somebody else's problem, man. Everything becomes an excuse (which, by the way, is Fault’s next-door neighbor). Excuses fuel more denial leading to more Fault which in turn leads us through a vicious circle that hardens our karmic conditioning and chokes us like a tourniquet on a severed limb.
Using meditation, we can rest with our thoughts and begin to understand them for what they really are, emptiness. Developing a regular practice of simply watching our thoughts come in, stick around for a while and then leave in a vanishing whisper is profound training for truly comprehending Right View. I know no other activity that requires so little effort yet provides such abundant rewards. Most schools of Buddhism recognize both Shamatha, aka Calm Abiding, and Vipassana, or Insight meditation, as cornerstones of a life long practice that will lead us through the maze of clutter and confusion we’ve accumulated through countless lifetimes of sentient living.
Ultimately we get to the point where we are asking, “Do I have the Right View?” And the answer should always be another question--Who is it that’s asking the question, ‘Do I have the Right View’. If we ask and the answer returned is “I have the right view,” then we probably need to keep looking.
So whether your are at Fault or Responsible, whether your glass is half full or half empty, if you are winner or a loser, whatever you think, you are. Perception is reality. Spending time understanding Right View will undoubtedly provide lessons as to who we really are, how we relate to others and ultimately will have a major impact on our overall level of happiness. How we contextualize our world determines both form and function. Since we all have the ability to control reality at this level, why not start now!
Fault vs. Responsibility - Which is the Right View?
©2007 John Roach
The very first component of the Eightfold path is Right View. The ability to hold a correct view of reality, i.e. Buddha’s teachings, both from a wisdom perspective as well as a more traditional based intellectual understanding, is considered the first step toward reshaping how we perceive and what we tend to believe. The result, of course, is to bring our minds in line with actual reality and ultimately the lessening our karmic debt. And since we all live our lives in the relative half of Buddha’s Two Truths (relative and absolute), making the very best of it while we’re here is certainly a worthy goal.
Initially Right View seems simple enough: to understand the nature of reality we first must see things as they actually are. Change your perception and get a different result. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find Right View can be quite challenging. Some time ago I heard a phrase that has stuck with me and has forever changed my understanding of Right View. To paraphrase, this person said ‘Nothing is my fault, everything is my responsibility.’ At first this seemed to be a rather ludicrous claim, obviously the mad ravings of an over-achiever. But the longer I thought about it the more I saw how tightly wound these two really are and how significant the choice between them becomes when viewed in light of our own behaviors and ultimately--our own happiness.
How does all this relate to our karmic conditioning? One person says, “It’s my fault.” Another person says, “It’s my responsibility.” What’s the difference and why should we care? How do these terms relate, and more importantly, why should we be concerned about the relationship between these two seemingly unrelated nouns? Because understanding the truth behind the ‘why’ which drives the ‘how’ that becomes our various actions and reactions can help us unknot our karmically conditioned existence. And it all starts with recontextualizing how we view our world.
There are two components that make up our perception of reality. The stuff that we perceive is known as content and the framework in which we perceive is known as the context. Try as you might, altering or limiting the content we receive is difficult. We live in an age where the average person is exposed to more on a daily basis than ever before in the history of the world. Of course we all can chose what we see and hear to some degree but to a large extent the choice is often not our own as to what we are exposed. Today’s culture is hyper-kinetic, over stimulated and marred with prefabricated ideas on how we should think and feel. Make one small change in the contextual framework, however, and you can make a monumental change in your ability to move closer to true reality.
Using our analogy of fault vs. responsibility, then, we find that fault remains almost always on the backside of the energy curve. Fault is reactive whereas responsibility is proactive. One cannot accept Fault. Fault places blame and then runs away afraid of what happens next. Responsibility is empowering while fault is disempowering. Fault tends to place blame, especially on others. Responsibility, on the other hand, always accepts ‘that’ for what it is. Someone might say, “It’s my fault that such and such went wrong.” The second part of that statement is “It’s my fault because my father made me sleep in a garbage can.” Responsibility is accepting, even when it demands accountability. Everyone knows someone who refuses to accept responsibility for his or her actions. It’s painful to watch and even dangerous to be around these people as they meander through life constantly spewing a mess in their wake.
Understanding Right View starts with a little housekeeping. Think attribution. How we view things is often times more important than what we are viewing when it comes to understanding and diagnosing our behavior. Thoughts don’t come prepackaged with instruction-sets such as “You must be sad, now!” Thoughts are simply bundles of energy to which we attribute meaning based on past experience. The context in which we position an event within our frame of reference actually determines the meaning we attribute to that particular event and this meaning is what shapes our thought energy, which in turn drives our actions, and so on and so forth.
Many of us spend our time reacting to external events rather than simply being with the event and looking at it as ‘event’. Someone cuts us off in traffic and we explode. We’re denied a promotion at work and we get depressed. We assign meaning such as my fault, your fault, Dave’s fault, somebody else's problem, man. Everything becomes an excuse (which, by the way, is Fault’s next-door neighbor). Excuses fuel more denial leading to more Fault which in turn leads us through a vicious circle that hardens our karmic conditioning and chokes us like a tourniquet on a severed limb.
Using meditation, we can rest with our thoughts and begin to understand them for what they really are, emptiness. Developing a regular practice of simply watching our thoughts come in, stick around for a while and then leave in a vanishing whisper is profound training for truly comprehending Right View. I know no other activity that requires so little effort yet provides such abundant rewards. Most schools of Buddhism recognize both Shamatha, aka Calm Abiding, and Vipassana, or Insight meditation, as cornerstones of a life long practice that will lead us through the maze of clutter and confusion we’ve accumulated through countless lifetimes of sentient living.
Ultimately we get to the point where we are asking, “Do I have the Right View?” And the answer should always be another question--Who is it that’s asking the question, ‘Do I have the Right View’. If we ask and the answer returned is “I have the right view,” then we probably need to keep looking.
So whether your are at Fault or Responsible, whether your glass is half full or half empty, if you are winner or a loser, whatever you think, you are. Perception is reality. Spending time understanding Right View will undoubtedly provide lessons as to who we really are, how we relate to others and ultimately will have a major impact on our overall level of happiness. How we contextualize our world determines both form and function. Since we all have the ability to control reality at this level, why not start now!
Fault vs. Responsibility - Which is the Right View?
©2007 John Roach
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Verses on the Faith Mind
Verses on the Faith Mind
by Chien-chih Seng-ts'an
Third Zen Patriarch [606AD]
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia - Southern Summer 1997
The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
The Way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
Be serene in the oneness of things
and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.
When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity
your very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other,
you will never know Oneness.
Those who do not live in the single Way
fail in both activity and passivity,
assertion and denial.
To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality;
to assert the emptiness of things
is to miss their reality.
The more you talk and think about it,
the further astray you wander from the truth.
Stop talking and thinking
and there is nothing you will not be able to know.
To return to the root is to find the meaning,
but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.
At the moment of inner enlightenment,
there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness.
The changes that appear to occur in the empty world
we call real only because of our ignorance.
Do not search for the truth;
only cease to cherish opinions.
Do not remain in the dualistic state;
avoid such pursuits carefully.
If there is even a trace
of this and that, of right and wrong,
the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.
Although all dualities come from the One,
do not be attached even to this One.
When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,
nothing in the world can offend,
and when a thing can no longer offend,
it ceases to exist in the old way.
When no discriminating thoughts arise,
the old mind ceases to exist.
When thought objects vanish,
the thinking-subject vanishes,
and when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.
Things are objects because there is a subject or mind;
and the mind is a subject because there are objects.
Understand the relativity of these two
and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness.
In this Emptiness the two are indistinguishable
and each contains in itself the whole world.
If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine
you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.
To live in the Great Way
is neither easy nor difficult.
But those with limited views
are fearful and irresolute;
the faster they hurry, the slower they go.
Clinging cannot be limited;
even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment
is to go astray.
Just let things be in their own way
and there will be neither coming nor going.
Obey the nature of things
and you will walk freely and undisturbed.
When thought is in bondage the truth is hidden,
for everything is murky and unclear.
The burdensome practice of judging
brings annoyance and weariness.
What benefit can be derived
from distinctions and separations?
If you wish to move in the One Way
do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.
Indeed, to accept them fully
is identical with true Enlightenment.
The wise man strives to no goals
but the foolish man fetters himself.
There is one Dharma, not many;
distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant.
To seek Mind with discriminating mind
is the greatest of all mistakes.
Rest and unrest derive from illusion;
with enlightenment there is no liking and disliking.
All dualities come from ignorant inference.
They are like dreams of flowers in air:
foolish to try to grasp them.
Gain and loss, right and wrong;
such thoughts must finally be abolished at once.
If the eye never sleeps,
all dreams will naturally cease.
If the mind makes no discriminations,
the ten thousand things
are as they are, of single essence.
To understand the mystery of this One-essence
is to be released from all entanglements.
When all things are seen equally
the timeless Self-essence is reached.
No comparisons or analogies are possible
in this causeless, relationless state.
Consider motion in stillness
and stillness in motion;
both movement and stillness disappear.
When such dualities cease to exist
Oneness itself cannot exist.
To this ultimate finality
no law or description applies.
For the unified mind in accord with the Way
all self-centered striving ceases.
Doubts and irresolutions vanish
and life in true faith is possible.
With a single stroke we are freed from bondage;
nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing.
All is empty, clear, self-illuminating,
with no exertion of the mind's power.
Here thought, feeling, knowledge, and imagination are of no value.
In this world of Suchness
there is neither self nor other-than-self.
To come directly into harmony with this reality
just simply say when doubt arises, "Not two."
In this "not two" nothing is separate,
nothing is excluded.
No matter when or where,
enlightenment means entering this truth.
And this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space;
in it a single thought is ten thousand years.
Emptiness here, Emptiness there,
but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes.
Infinitely large and infinitely small;
no difference, for definitions have vanished
and no boundaries are seen.
So too with Being and non-Being.
Waste no time in doubts and arguments
that have nothing to do with this.
One thing, all things;
move among and intermingle,
without distinction.
To live in this realization
is to be without anxiety about nonperfection.
To live in this faith is the road to nonduality,
because the nondual is one with the trusting mind.
Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is
no yesterday
no tomorrow
no today.
by Chien-chih Seng-ts'an
Third Zen Patriarch [606AD]
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia - Southern Summer 1997
The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
The Way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
Be serene in the oneness of things
and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.
When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity
your very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other,
you will never know Oneness.
Those who do not live in the single Way
fail in both activity and passivity,
assertion and denial.
To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality;
to assert the emptiness of things
is to miss their reality.
The more you talk and think about it,
the further astray you wander from the truth.
Stop talking and thinking
and there is nothing you will not be able to know.
To return to the root is to find the meaning,
but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.
At the moment of inner enlightenment,
there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness.
The changes that appear to occur in the empty world
we call real only because of our ignorance.
Do not search for the truth;
only cease to cherish opinions.
Do not remain in the dualistic state;
avoid such pursuits carefully.
If there is even a trace
of this and that, of right and wrong,
the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.
Although all dualities come from the One,
do not be attached even to this One.
When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,
nothing in the world can offend,
and when a thing can no longer offend,
it ceases to exist in the old way.
When no discriminating thoughts arise,
the old mind ceases to exist.
When thought objects vanish,
the thinking-subject vanishes,
and when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.
Things are objects because there is a subject or mind;
and the mind is a subject because there are objects.
Understand the relativity of these two
and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness.
In this Emptiness the two are indistinguishable
and each contains in itself the whole world.
If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine
you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.
To live in the Great Way
is neither easy nor difficult.
But those with limited views
are fearful and irresolute;
the faster they hurry, the slower they go.
Clinging cannot be limited;
even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment
is to go astray.
Just let things be in their own way
and there will be neither coming nor going.
Obey the nature of things
and you will walk freely and undisturbed.
When thought is in bondage the truth is hidden,
for everything is murky and unclear.
The burdensome practice of judging
brings annoyance and weariness.
What benefit can be derived
from distinctions and separations?
If you wish to move in the One Way
do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.
Indeed, to accept them fully
is identical with true Enlightenment.
The wise man strives to no goals
but the foolish man fetters himself.
There is one Dharma, not many;
distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant.
To seek Mind with discriminating mind
is the greatest of all mistakes.
Rest and unrest derive from illusion;
with enlightenment there is no liking and disliking.
All dualities come from ignorant inference.
They are like dreams of flowers in air:
foolish to try to grasp them.
Gain and loss, right and wrong;
such thoughts must finally be abolished at once.
If the eye never sleeps,
all dreams will naturally cease.
If the mind makes no discriminations,
the ten thousand things
are as they are, of single essence.
To understand the mystery of this One-essence
is to be released from all entanglements.
When all things are seen equally
the timeless Self-essence is reached.
No comparisons or analogies are possible
in this causeless, relationless state.
Consider motion in stillness
and stillness in motion;
both movement and stillness disappear.
When such dualities cease to exist
Oneness itself cannot exist.
To this ultimate finality
no law or description applies.
For the unified mind in accord with the Way
all self-centered striving ceases.
Doubts and irresolutions vanish
and life in true faith is possible.
With a single stroke we are freed from bondage;
nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing.
All is empty, clear, self-illuminating,
with no exertion of the mind's power.
Here thought, feeling, knowledge, and imagination are of no value.
In this world of Suchness
there is neither self nor other-than-self.
To come directly into harmony with this reality
just simply say when doubt arises, "Not two."
In this "not two" nothing is separate,
nothing is excluded.
No matter when or where,
enlightenment means entering this truth.
And this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space;
in it a single thought is ten thousand years.
Emptiness here, Emptiness there,
but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes.
Infinitely large and infinitely small;
no difference, for definitions have vanished
and no boundaries are seen.
So too with Being and non-Being.
Waste no time in doubts and arguments
that have nothing to do with this.
One thing, all things;
move among and intermingle,
without distinction.
To live in this realization
is to be without anxiety about nonperfection.
To live in this faith is the road to nonduality,
because the nondual is one with the trusting mind.
Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is
no yesterday
no tomorrow
no today.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Where do ideas come from?
Where do ideas come from? Could there be a big bucket out there just filled with thoughts and concepts that filter through a layer of reality that we cannot even imagine?
If Einstein was right, then we know that time doesn’t really exist. It only co-exists with space. That’s why Physicists only refer to time as ‘space/time’. The two are inexorably linked. You cannot have one without the other. Why? Because without one the other doesn’t exist. Space needs time to complete it’s manifestation. Time needs space as reason for being.
Imagine a world without before and after, outside and inside, black and white. You can’t because our relative minds don’t go there. Assuming one dimension is a dot, two a line and three a cube, the natural extension of that progression is four being time. If you hold time constant all events in the past and the future, including this moment--right now, would happen simultaneously creating an implosion or a singularity of all existence into a single Bucket? But then the idea of a bucket is just an idea.
So where do ideas come from?
If Einstein was right, then we know that time doesn’t really exist. It only co-exists with space. That’s why Physicists only refer to time as ‘space/time’. The two are inexorably linked. You cannot have one without the other. Why? Because without one the other doesn’t exist. Space needs time to complete it’s manifestation. Time needs space as reason for being.
Imagine a world without before and after, outside and inside, black and white. You can’t because our relative minds don’t go there. Assuming one dimension is a dot, two a line and three a cube, the natural extension of that progression is four being time. If you hold time constant all events in the past and the future, including this moment--right now, would happen simultaneously creating an implosion or a singularity of all existence into a single Bucket? But then the idea of a bucket is just an idea.
So where do ideas come from?
Friday, December 30, 2005
Watching our thoughts gives us vivid clues to reality
I started my meditation practice using Vipassana as it is taught in Burma and Thailand. The concept is simple: watch your thoughts arise, watch them as they assume a life of their own, and then watch them fade away just as quickly and assuredly as they arrived--revealing to us that all things are impermanent. Studying the nature of our thoughts gives amazing clues as to how distracted, distraught and downright deranged our minds can be. And the key, as the great masters will tell you, is to neither become attached to, nor find ourselves in identification with, our thoughts. But that's really hard to do because we think that we ARE our thoughts.
My bird needs food, darn I forgot to buy food. The taxes are due, my spouse is an idiot, the car needs gas, the to-do list is endless and then the stories start. It's not my fault the project didn't go well at work, it's his or or her fault. They don't like me and they've already made that clear. Now the boss knows and he doesn't like me. The spiral is endless.
I remember sitting a work sweating that I was about to lose my job over a sale that went bad. I was literally sick over it. My boss didn't talk to me for a week and gave me bad looks in the hall. Then one day my boss came and sat down next to me and said 'There is something we need to talk about." I was about to throw up when he explained how it was his fault the deal got blown because he was getting a divorce and didn't give it the time or attention it deserved. He wanted to make sure I knew it wasn't my fault.
The entire time I thought it was my fault. I acted like an idiot, operating totally on false information. I lost sleep, yelled at my wife, barked at my kids, drank too much, etc., when in fact it was all an illusion. I was delusional and didn't know it. Then I began to wonder how many other aspects of my life I was sure were true, turned out to be totally false, just as this one had.
Sitting for even a brief period of time will reveal how truly discursive our minds are. If you want to seriously improve your life, spend a few minutes every morning watching your thoughts and see what happens with the rest of your day. The change will be remarkable.
My bird needs food, darn I forgot to buy food. The taxes are due, my spouse is an idiot, the car needs gas, the to-do list is endless and then the stories start. It's not my fault the project didn't go well at work, it's his or or her fault. They don't like me and they've already made that clear. Now the boss knows and he doesn't like me. The spiral is endless.
I remember sitting a work sweating that I was about to lose my job over a sale that went bad. I was literally sick over it. My boss didn't talk to me for a week and gave me bad looks in the hall. Then one day my boss came and sat down next to me and said 'There is something we need to talk about." I was about to throw up when he explained how it was his fault the deal got blown because he was getting a divorce and didn't give it the time or attention it deserved. He wanted to make sure I knew it wasn't my fault.
The entire time I thought it was my fault. I acted like an idiot, operating totally on false information. I lost sleep, yelled at my wife, barked at my kids, drank too much, etc., when in fact it was all an illusion. I was delusional and didn't know it. Then I began to wonder how many other aspects of my life I was sure were true, turned out to be totally false, just as this one had.
Sitting for even a brief period of time will reveal how truly discursive our minds are. If you want to seriously improve your life, spend a few minutes every morning watching your thoughts and see what happens with the rest of your day. The change will be remarkable.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Daily Tools - Patience
Today I had an eruption of cosmic proportions. Not since I can't remember when did I experience the kind of frustration and overall angst that occurred mid morning after a 'less than agreeable' client who I consider to be both greedy and short sighted came at me with an expectation that was tantamount to insanity. FIRE THE SOB, I thought to myself. Oh, but I can fire a client, have done so and will continue to do so when it makes good business sense. But this one didn't. I was angry and the client meant a lot to my firm. I needed to get a grip on myself and handle the situation like a pro. But how? I was right and he was wrong. It was so obvious. But that was my first mistake, bringing out the “I”.
I felt violated, angry, self-conscious and totally out of control. Wow, what an emotional ride this morning presented. And it all stemmed from the fact that my ego, my sense of self (ie that which felt violated) reared its ugly head in a most unpredictable and dangerous manner. Imagine if I had a gun.
Life, it seems, is always testing us to see how we react. I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's not how much money one makes, ones social status, or any of the other 'cultural trappings' that seem so damn important while caught up in them; but how we handle ourselves when all things are laid bare and we are exposed to ourselves in the most profoundly naked and disgusting manner: when we get angry.
Patience is called the antidote for anger. And it's much easier said than done for anyone who can even vaguely recollect the feeling of wanting to throttle someone within inches of ones life (to quote from Pink). Finding ourselves amid the flames of anger can be next to impossible. I was quite aware that I was totally out of control this morning but I was powerless to control it. Only time helped me get a grip on things. And since time doesn't really exist, what was it that really helped me get my ego in check? Patience. I found patience. And I think I found it because I had been practicing.
Like someone studying a martial art, performing well in the Dojo is only possible through practice. One can't expect to perform an art form without practice. And patience is an art unto itself. It can turn the most destructive of all human emotions into a distant memory. By practicing patience, one becomes an artist at defusing situations. By practicing patience, one becomes an instrument for the betterment of all mankind. By practicing patience, one becomes a Bodhisattva.
Have a cup of patience today. Or maybe two....
I felt violated, angry, self-conscious and totally out of control. Wow, what an emotional ride this morning presented. And it all stemmed from the fact that my ego, my sense of self (ie that which felt violated) reared its ugly head in a most unpredictable and dangerous manner. Imagine if I had a gun.
Life, it seems, is always testing us to see how we react. I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's not how much money one makes, ones social status, or any of the other 'cultural trappings' that seem so damn important while caught up in them; but how we handle ourselves when all things are laid bare and we are exposed to ourselves in the most profoundly naked and disgusting manner: when we get angry.
Patience is called the antidote for anger. And it's much easier said than done for anyone who can even vaguely recollect the feeling of wanting to throttle someone within inches of ones life (to quote from Pink). Finding ourselves amid the flames of anger can be next to impossible. I was quite aware that I was totally out of control this morning but I was powerless to control it. Only time helped me get a grip on things. And since time doesn't really exist, what was it that really helped me get my ego in check? Patience. I found patience. And I think I found it because I had been practicing.
Like someone studying a martial art, performing well in the Dojo is only possible through practice. One can't expect to perform an art form without practice. And patience is an art unto itself. It can turn the most destructive of all human emotions into a distant memory. By practicing patience, one becomes an artist at defusing situations. By practicing patience, one becomes an instrument for the betterment of all mankind. By practicing patience, one becomes a Bodhisattva.
Have a cup of patience today. Or maybe two....
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