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#1952 - Sunday, October 17, 2004 - Editor: Gloria
everything he does is worship
Surrendering all thoughts of
outcome,
unperturbed, self-reliant,
[the sage] does nothing at all, even,
when fully engaged in actions.
There is nothing that he expects,
nothing that he fears. Serene,
free from possessions, untainted,
acting with the body alone,
content with whatever happens,
unattached to pleasure or pain,
success or failure, he acts
and is never bound by his actions.
When a man has let go of attachments,
when his mind is rooted in wisdom,
everything he does is worship
and his actions all melt away.
Bhagavad Gita Josie from
MillionPaths
Walk the Talk
Are there steps to be
taken in order to walk the talk instead of
talk the walk or even talk the talk of nondualism? As
a beginner of
nondualism, how can I live nondual way in a world of
duality? Please
forgive me for my two basic questions above.
~ Andy
dear Andy:
great questions.
(no apologies required)
what if your life is the answer?
what would be the difference you would notice
between someone that you labeled as walking the
talk and someone that was talking the walk and
talking the talk?
when you look inside, is it possible to see
anything that is not lived as non-duality in
a world of "duality"?
what if true non-duality includes everything?
what if true nonduality holds on to nothing,
no concepts, dogmas, steps, ways, talks or walks?
what if therefore one cannot meet this moment
knowing anything? what if truly living in
non-duality therefore means one is always a
beginner? new. fresh. wide open. innocent.
what if you may never need more than who you
are right now?
can you be other than someone who is this already,
as you refer to yourself as a "beginner/novice
in nondualism"? what if you're already here?
today i too had a question. i wondered is it possible
for anything to really be other than inquiry? and it
struck me that absolutely everything is inquiry and
inquiry manifested. every movie, every life, every
theory, every possible variation experiencing itself
as this. including anything one can label and all the
nuances and inbetweens. and then it was clear, that
inquiry is simply one name, i can as well say what is
not love? or what is not of source? what is not in
consciousness? what is not here? and i could find
nothing excluded. not even "nothing". that all is
being.
no separation between the stillness, the agony, the bliss,
the simpleness, presence, silence or the desire to word.
namaste,
--josie--
from nondualnow
Welcome to the new
Nonduality Salon
Have you noticed the latest catch-phrase and credential in
the world of spirituality these days? It is "Former Zen
Monk," or "Former Zen Priest." Or "Former
Buddhist Nun." If someone's a Former Zen Monk, suddenly
they're a god. If they're a Former Buddhist Nun, suddenly
a saint. It's as though the designation is dangled like
a promising gemstone in front of the consumer
hungry for spiritual gems.
I, too, have decided to get on the bandwagon. I am now Jerry Katz, Former Zen Monk. That's right. Admit it. For a second I made you think I held some inner secrets or something. Right? And, I mean, who's gonna check? I can tell them I was in some monastery in wherever the hell they have monasteries. And that suddenly I saw the limitations of the monastery life and stood in my own freedom. Or something like that.
But don't get me wrong. I do my research. I actually considered going the route of Former Catholic Priest. I mean, I love Thomas Merton, who was never a Former Catholic Monk. So I went to Google and plugged in "Former Catholic Priest," just to see what I'd be getting into if I went that route. What I found for headlines in the top twenty listings wasn't pretty:
--Former Catholic Priest Pleads
in Grand Theft, Tax Fraud
--Former Catholic Priest Arrested - The Daily Utah Chronicle -
World
--Former Catholic Priest Convicted of Pedophilia.
--Former Catholic priest Robert Burkholder, 82, admited he has
had homosexual
--Father Seromba, a former Catholic priest at Nyange Parish,
Kibuye Province, surrendered
to UN authorities in Italy
--Officers from the Oxnard Police Department arrested former
Catholic Priest, Father George
--Former Catholic priest Charles F. Dearing pleaded innocent
yesterday in Jefferson
Circuit Court to a charge of sexually abusing a girl
Damn. I'm sure there are wonderful Former Catholic Priests, but this ain't a good time to be a Former Catholic Priest. Nope. I don't think so. And I got a website to run, ads to sell, and organic vegetables high in anti-oxidants to buy. I can't align with that crap. So I followed my impression that it was totally cool to be a Former Zen Monk. I went back to Google and plugged in "Former Zen Monk." Sure enough, I found the following headlines in the top twenty listings:
--A former Zen priest and
survivor of “terminal” cancer, she uses meditation and
other self-healing modalities in her practice and teaching. ...
--Edge’ Voices from the
Edge Speaker Series will present "The Transcendent Unity of
Science, Art and Spirituality," a forum with a former Zen
priest from Japan
--I was given this book as
reading for a course in Japanese religion taught by a former
zen monk who had become a professor of Japanese religion after
marrying ...
--MEDITATION AS A HOBBY, NOT A
CAREER. Former Zen Monk Advocates Self-Study.
"To meditate…doesn’t require that you have a
teacher…. ...
--Also the author of The Wooden
Bowl: Simple Meditation for Everyday Life, and a former
Zen monk, Clark Strand has here written a book that is as much
about Zen ...
--A former Zen monk, Mu Soeng
takes us back in an extensive introduction to the beginnings
of Buddhist sutras and traces their development up to the
appearance ...
Yup. Definitely. I was convinced to go the route of Former Zen Monk. And that was that. I'm on the bandwagon.
Not that I'm not a little sad. It should just as beautiful to be a Former Catholic Priest. It should be JUST as beautiful. There are men who have been Catholic priests who have seen a bigger picture to life and have left the priesthood. They're as wonderful as Former Zen Monks and Buddhist Nuns, if not more exemplary. They don't flash their title to consumers of spirituality. They don't sell it. HEAR THAT, Former Buddhist Nun? In fact, the more I think about it, the more I say screw this Former Zen Monk stuff. Just call me what I am: Jerry Katz, Former Hebrew School Student Who Failed Every Test Because He Never Listened, He Was Staring Out the Window At Buses As They Went By And Wishing He Could Be Out On The Street.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NondualitySalon/
Buddha image from www.nashvillezencenter.org/
Typed from: Old Path White Clouds, Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha, Thich Nhat Hahn
Chapter Eighteen, pages 119-124
Through mindfulness, Siddhartha’s
mind, body, and breath were perfectly at one. His practice of
mindfulness had enabled him to build great powers of
concentration which he could now use to shine awareness on his
mind and body. After deeply entering mediation, he began to
discern the presence of countless other beings in his own body
right in the present moment. Organic and inorganic beings,
minerals, mosses and grasses, insects, animals, and people were
all within him. He saw his own past lives, all his births and
deaths. He saw the creation and destruction of thousands of
worlds and thousands of stars. He felt all the joys and sorrows
of every living being—those born of mothers, those born of
eggs, and those born of fission, who divided themselves into new
creatures. He saw that every cell of his body contained all of
Heaven and Earth, and spanned the three times—past, present,
and future. It was the hour of the first watch of the night.
Gautama entered even more deeply
into meditation. He saw how countless worlds arose and fell, were
created and destroyed. He saw how countless beings pass through
countless births and deaths. He saw that these births and deaths
were but outward appearances and not true reality, just as
millions of waves rise and fall incessantly on the surface of the
sea, while the sea itself is beyond birth and death. If the waves
understood that they themselves were water, they would transcend
birth and death and arrive at true inner peace, overcoming all
fear. This realization enabled Gautama to transcend the net of
birth and death, and he smiled. His smile was like a flower
blossoming in the deep night which radiated a halo of light. It
was the smile of a wondrous understanding, the insight into the
destruction of all defilements. He attained this level of
understanding by the second watch.
At just that moment thunder crashed,
and great bolts of lightening flashed across the sky as if to rip
the heavens in two. Black clouds concealed the moon and stars.
Rain poured down. Gautama was soaking wet, but he did not budge.
He continued his meditation.
Without wavering, he shined his
awareness on his mind. He saw that living beings suffer because
they do not understand that they share one common ground with all
beings. Ignorance gives rise to a multitude of sorrows,
confusions, and troubles. Greed, anger, arrogance, doubt,
jealousy, and fear all have their root in ignorance. When we
learn to calm our minds in order to look deeply at the true
nature of things, we can arrive at full understanding which
dissolves every sorrow and anxiety and gives rise to acceptance
and love.
Gautama now saw that understanding
and love are one. Without understanding there can be no love.
Each person’s disposition is the result of physical,
emotional, and social conditions. When we understand this, we
cannot hate even a person who behaves cruelly, but we can strive
to help transform his physical, emotional, and social conditions.
Understanding gives rise to compassion and love, which in its
turn give rise to correct action. In order to love, it is first
necessary to understand, so understanding is the key to
liberation. In order to attain clear understanding, it is
necessary to live mindfully, making direct contact with life in
the present moment, truly seeing what is taking place within and
outside of oneself. Practicing mindfulness strengthens the
ability to look deeply, and when we look deeply into the heart of
anything, it will reveal itself. This is the secret treasure of
mindfulness—it leads to the realization of liberation and
enlightenment. Life is illumined by right understanding, right
thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right
effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Siddharta
called this the Noble Path: aryamarga.
Looking deeply into the heart of all
beings, Siddharta attained insight into everyone’s minds, no
matter where they were, and he was able to hear everyone’s
cries of both suffering and joy. He attained to the states of
divine sight, divine hearing, and the ability to travel across
all distances without moving. It was now the end of the third
watch, and there was no more thunder. The clouds rolled back to
reveal the bright moon and stars.
Gautama felt as though a prison
which had confined him for thousands of lifetimes had broken
open. Ignorance had been the jailkeeper. Because of ignorance,
his mind had been obscured, just like the moon and stars hidden
by the storm clouds. Clouded by endless waves of deluded
thoughts, the mind had falsely divided reality into subject and
object, self and others, existence and non-existence, birth and
death, and from these discriminations arose wrong views—the
prisons of feelings, craving, grasping, and becoming. The
suffering of birth, old age, sickness, and death only made the
prison walls thicker. The only thing to do was to seize the
jailkeeper and see his true face. The jailkeeper was ignorance.
And the means to overcome ignorance were the Noble Eightfold
Path. Once the jailkeeper was gone, the jail would disappear and
never be rebuilt again.
The hermit Gautama smiled, and
whispered to himself, ‘O jailer, I see you now. How many
lifetimes have you confined me in the prisons of birth and death?
But now I see your face clearly, and from now on you can build no
more prisons around me.’
Looking up, Siddharta saw the
morning star appear on the horizon, twinkling like a huge
diamond. He had seen this star so many times before while sitting
beneath the pipalla tree, but this morning it was like seeing it
for the first time. It was as dazzling as the jubilant smile of
Enlightenment. Siddharta gazed at the star and exclaimed
out of deep compassion, ‘All beings contain within
themselves the seeds of Enlightenment, and yet we drown in the
ocean of birth and death for so many thousands of lifetimes!’
Siddharta know he had found the
Along the grassy riverbank, colorful
flowers blossomed in the early morning sunlight. Sun danced on
leaves and sparkled on the water. His pain was gone. All the
wonders of life revealed themselves. Everything appeared
strangely new. How wondrous were the blue skies and drifting
white clouds! He felt as though he and all the universe had been
newly created.
Just then, Svasti appeared. When
Siddharta saw the young buffalo boy come running towards him, he
smiled. Suddenly Svasti stopped in his tracks and stared at
Siddharta, his mouth wide open. Siddharta called, ‘Svasti!’
The boy came to his senses and
answered, ‘Teacher!’
Svasti joined his palms and bowed.
He took a few steps forward but then stopped and gazed again at
Siddharta in awe. Embarrassed by his own behavior, he spoke
haltingly, ‘Teacher, you look so different today.’
Siddharta motioned for the boy to
approach. He took him into his arms and asked, ‘How do I
look different today?’
Gazing up at Siddharta, Svasti
answered, ‘It’s hard to say. It’s just you look so
different. It’s like you were a star.’
Siddharta patted the boy on the head
and said, ‘Is that so? What else do I look like?’
‘You look like a lotus that’s
just blossomed. And like, like the moon over the
Siddharta looked into Svasti’s
eyes and said, ‘Why, you are a poet, Svasti!’ Now tell
me, why are you here so early today? And where are your
buffaloes?’
Svasti explained that he had the day
off as all the buffaloes were being used to plow the fields. Only
the calf had been left in the stall. Today his only
responsibility was to cut grass. During the night he and his
sisters and brother were awakened by the roar of thunder. Rain
pounded through their leaky roof, soaking their beds. They had
never experienced a storm so fierce, and they worried about
Siddharta in the forest. They huddled together until the storm
subsided and they could fall back asleep. When day broke, Svasti
ran to the buffaloes’ stall to fetch his sickle and carrying
pole, and made his way to the forest to see if Siddharta was
alright.
Siddharta grasped Svasti’s
hand. ‘This is the happiest day I have ever known. If you
can, bring all the children to come see me by the pippala tree
this afternoon. Don’t forget to bring your brother and
sisters. But first go and cut the Kusa grass you need for the
buffaloes.’
Svasti trotted off happily as
Siddhartha began to take slow steps along the sun-bathed shore.