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Nondual Highlights Issue #2019 Sunday, January 2, 2005 Editor: Mark
Gate,
Gate...
So long as one does not become simple like a child, one does not
get divine llumination. Forget all the worldly knowledge that
thou has acquired and become as a child, and then will thou get
the divine wisdom.
- Ramakrishna, posted to Alphaworld
"We" have
been Defined
from without
and within
by family and
organized religion;
by culture, society,
our government,
our schools,
and sadly,
"We" accept that
What Fools!
Defined by others
who mold us;
who condition
us to think
we're less
than Who
we are,
impale and jail
our minds
with thoughts that bind
"us" and wind "us"
in webs that suck
'us" dry; filling "us"
with dogma
and words
that tend to
calcify.
But there,
Beneath the waters,
in one's Heart
and in one's Soul,
and Not There
in the outer dross
of those who Think
they Know
and have the right
to inscribe beliefs
upon "our" hearts
and souls
There is
the "Holy Grail!"
There,
within
the sacred
atmosphere
where our True Selves
Can be found
gathering golden
apples from the trees
that there
abound.
But like little children
dressed...for halloween,
we quake, or so...
it would seem.
Douglas E. Fireman, posted to SufiMystic
...because if you believe in something, and believe in it long
enough, it will come into being.
- Rolling Thunder, Cherokee, posted to truevision
Paragate...
who is this existence
who puts sadness
in your heart
who is this soul
who sweetens your grief
as soon as you crawl
the one who first frightens you
with deadly snakes
before opening the treasure vault
who changes a monster
to an angel
a sorrow to happiness
who gives the blind
wisdom and
inner sight
who changes darkness
to light
thistles to flowers
who sheds the sins
of the sinful like
autumn leaves
and puts guilt
in the heart of
its own enemies
who makes them
repent and in silence
says amen and
whose amen brings
inner happiness
and soulful delight
who changes bitter thoughts
to lightness and
joyous zeal
bestows fire
and makes you leap
with unknown joy
the fire that can
make a hero
from a desperate heart
who is this existence
who is this
tell me who
- Rumi, Ghazal (Ode) number 528, from Rumi's Diwan-e Shams,
translation by Nader Khalili, Rumi, Fountain
of Fire, posted to Sunlight
Love Untitled 25
Come, fall with me through the day
like clouds skimming the sky or
river fish streaming in currents
or blood rushing through veins
or darkness falling into light
like silt into a bayou, so fine as
not to be noticed, just a thickening,
a different water taste,
an abrasion against the gills of fish.
Come, fall with me till we flow
into ourselves like tides in
the mouths of rivers where
salt and fresh water move as one,
swirl through mangrove roots
and sawgrass and glisten with
translucent shrimp and red
seahorses and golden apple snails.
Come, fall with me till there
is nowhere else to fall and
we have left ourselves,
shed our skins like snakes or
burst out of cocoons with
drenched wings, spread and
trembling under the sun.
Come, fall with me till my words
run dry and my eyes fail and
I listen for you in the night,
for your steps in bare sand and
your voice in the play of river otters
and the cry of the wintering loon.
© Zen Oleary, January 1, 2005. posted to SufiMystic
Parasamgate...
Say for instance, that you're meditating, and a feeling of anger
toward your mother appears. Immediately, the mind's reaction is
to identify the anger as 'my' anger, or to say that 'I'm' angry.
It then elaborates on the feeling, either working it into the
story of your relationship to your mother, or to your general
views about when and where anger toward one's mother can be
justified. The problem with all this, from the Buddha's
perspective, is that these stories and views entail a lot of
suffering. The more you get involved in them, the more you get
distracted from seeing the actual cause of the suffering: the
labels of 'I' and 'mine' that set the whole process in motion. As
a result, you can't find the way to unravel that cause and bring
the suffering to an end.
If, however, you can adopt the emptiness mode -- by not acting on
or reacting to the anger, but simply watching it as a series of
events, in and of themselves -- you can see that the anger is
empty of anything worth identifying with or possessing. As you
master the emptiness mode more consistently, you see that this
truth holds not only for such gross emotions as anger, but also
for even the most subtle events in the realm of experience. This
is the sense in which all things are empty. When you see this,
you realize that labels of 'I' and 'mine' are inappropriate,
unnecessary, and cause nothing but stress and pain. You can then
drop them. When you drop them totally, you discover a mode of
experience that lies deeper still, one that's totally free."
- Thanissaro Bhikkhu, posted to DailyDharma
If you have realized non-inherent existence well, the experience
of existent objects speaks for itself. That they exist by nature
is refuted by logic, and you can be convinced by logic that
things do not - there is no way that they can - inherently exist.
Yet they definitely do exist because we experience them. So how
do they exist? Merely by the power of name. This is not saying
that they don't exist; it is never said that things do not exist.
What is said is that they exist by the power of name. This is a
difficult point; something that you can understand slowly, slowly
through experience.
First you have to analyze whether things exist truly or not,
actually findably or not: you can't find them. But if we say that
they don't exist at all, this is a mistake, because we do
experience them. We can't prove through logic that things exist
findably, but we do know through our experience that they exist.
Thus we can make a definite conclusion that things do exist. Now,
if things exist there are only two ways in which they can do so;
either from their own base or by being under the control of other
factors, that is either completely independently or dependently.
Since logic disproves that things exist independently, the only
way they can exist is dependently. Upon what do things depend for
their existence? They depend upon the base that is labeled and
the thought that labels. If they could be found when searched
for, they should exist by their own nature, and thus the
Madhyamika scriptures, which say that things do not exist by
their own nature, would be wrong. However, you can't find things
when you search for them. What you do find is something that
exists under the control of other factors, that is therefore said
to exist merely in name. The word "merely" here
indicates that something is being cut off: but that is not that
which is not the name but has a meaning and is the object of a
valid mind. This is not saying that there is no meaning to things
other than their names, or that the meaning that is not the name
is not the object of a valid mind. What it cuts off is that it
exists by something other than the power of name. Things exist
merely by the power of name, but they have meaning, and that
meaning is the object of a valid mind. But the nature of things
is that they exist simply by the power of name. There is no other
alternative, only the force of name. That does not mean that
besides the name there is nothing. There is the thing, there is a
meaning, there is a name. What is the meaning? The meaning also
exists merely in name.
- The Dalai Lama
Bodhi Svaha!!
On Looking for a Hermit and not Finding Him
I questioned a boy under the pine trees. "My Master went
herb-gathering" he says, "He is still somewhere on the
mountain-side, So deep in the clouds I can't tell where."
- Chia Tao
Since everything is included in consciousness, consciousness is
the ultimate, supreme truth (paramartha).
The form of the Self is consciousness alone. Like gold jewellery
(fashioned from gold), objective knowledge is an imaginary
appearance within the Self.
Only consciousness abides as the supreme. The five senses and the
perceptions of the five senses, which are not consciousness, are
false deceptions.
- The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi, recorded by Muruganar and
edited by David Godman, posted to MillionPaths
(Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!)