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Nondual Highlights Issue #2387, Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - Editor: Mark
Bone-chilling snow
On a thousand peaks
Wild raging wind from
Ten thousand hollows
When I first awaken,
Deep beneath my blanket,
I forget my body is
In a silent void.
- Han-shan,possibly from the book, The Collected Poems of Cold
Mountain., posted to DailyDharms
Problems need to be dissolved, not
solved, because there is no solution. The
only way the problems get dissolved is, as
soon as they arise, they are merely witnessed.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar, posted to AlongTheWay
John Blofeld:
"Venerable, please don't laugh at me. I accept your teaching
that true sages have but the one goal. Still, here in China,
there are Buddhists and there are also Taoists. Manifestly they
differ; since the goal is one, the distinction must lie in their
methods of approach."
Tseng Lao-wenga:
"So you are hungry not for wisdom but for knowledge! What a
pity! Wisdom is almost as satisfying as good millet-gruel,
whereas knowledge has less body to it than tepid water poured
over old tea-leaves; but if that is the fare you have come for, I
can give you as much as your mistreated belly will hold. What
sort of old tea-leaves do Buddhists use, I wonder! We Taoists use
all sorts. Some swallow medicine-balls as big as pigeon's eggs or
drink tonics by the jugful, live upon unappetizing diets, take
baths at intervals governed by esoteric numbers, breathe in and
out like asthmatic dragons, or jump about like Manchu bannermen
hardening themselves for battle -- all this discomfort just for
the sake of a few extra decades of life! And why? To gain more
time to find what has never been lost! And what of those pious
recluses who rattle mallets against wooden-fish drums from dusk
to dawn, groaning out liturgies like cholera-patients excreting
watery dung? They are penitents longing to rid themselves of a
burden they never had. These people do everything imaginable,
including swallowing pills made from the vital fluids secreted by
the opposite sex and lighting fires in their bellies to make the
alchemic cauldrons boil -- everything, everything except -- sit
still and look within. I shall have to talk of such follies for
hours, if you really want a full list of Taoists methods. These
method-users resemble mountain streams a thousand leagues from
the sea. Ah, how they chatter and gurgle, bubble and boil, rush
and eddy, plunging over precipices in a spectacular fashion! How
angrily they pound against the boulders and suck down their prey
in treacherous whirlpools! But, as the streams broaden, they grow
quieter and more purposeful. They become rivers - ah, how calm,
how silent! How majestically they sweep towards their goal,
giving no impression of swiftness and, as they near the ocean,
seeming not to move at all! While noisy mountain streams are
reminiscent of people chattering about the Tao and showing-off
spectacular methods, rivers remind me of experienced men,
taciturn, doing little, but doing it decisively; outwardly still,
yet sweeping forward faster than you know. Your teachers have
offered you wisdom; then why waste time acquiring knowledge?
Methods! Approaches! Need the junk-master steering toward the
sea, with the sails of his vessel billowing in the wind, bother
his head about alternative modes of propulsion -- oars, paddles,
punt-poles, tow-ropes, engines and all the rest? Any sort of
vessel, unless it flounders or pitches you overboard, is good
enough to take you to the one and only sea. Now do you
understand?"
- from The Secret and Sublime Taoist Mysteries and Magic,
by John Blofeld, posted to NondualitySalon
Just Watch
These two words are the condensed essence of all the ancient
spiritual wisdom of India. Shiva, Buddha, Osho and many great
masters have based their teaching on this basic method of
transformation. 'Just watch' means conscious observation of
reality as it is, without any subtle attempt to change it. This
passive awareness of your inner and outer worlds leaves the ego
unemployed. Life happens and is watched or witnessed with
equanimity. As simple as this method sounds, it is rarely
practised, even by seekers who have heard teachers recommend it
for decades. For the ego will also subtly stake its claim in
‘my watching’ and has great difficulty remaining
passively aware of your reality. Your ego is programed to achieve
and improve things for you. Self-improvement develops a positive
ego that provides an essential foundation for spiritual growth,
but it is useless for finding real freedom; the ego always
survives through its subtle involvement in changing things for
the better. Even if you try to surrender, again it is the ego
that tries and survives in its identification with 'my
surrender'. Everything is as it should be. Finally, when the time
is right, you start to apply the wisdom of the alchemy of
transformation. By sitting silently for several hours a day, just
watching your inner processes unfold, the miracle of rapid growth
happens. With the silent energetic support of a living buddha,
this transformation process is intensified and accelerated; he
keeps reminding you every time your ego wants to change things:
Just watch. Watching gradually opens the secret door to the
divine light of the witness. As your meditation deepens, the
light grows stronger and starts to pull you up towards it. This
inexorable pull into the divine light of awareness purges the
darkness and negativity from your heart and mind. Soon the light
becomes the greatest attraction in your life. As you continue
opening and merging with the light, you begin to disappear in it,
until finally the benediction of enlightenment embraces you.
Beloveds, when your destined time of conscious let-go and
surrender arrives, this message will provide you with the support
to face yourself as you are, without your ego subtly trying to
improve itself.
- from UNITY -The Dawn of Conscious Civilization by
Maitreya Ishwara, posted to consiouconeness
This Supreme Divinity ..
Of which the sun is only an 'image' ..
Where has it its dawning?
What horizon does it surmount to appear?
It stands immediately above the contemplating spirit ..
Which has held itself at rest towards the vision ..
Looking to nothing else than the good and beautiful ..
Setting its entire being to that in a perfect surrender ..
And now tranquillity filled with power
And taking a new beauty to itself,
Gleaming in the light of that presence.
This advent, still, is not by expectation:
It is a coming without approach;
The vision is not of something that must 'enter,'
But of something .. that is ..
Present before all else.
- PLOTINUS, posted to Poetic_Mysitcism