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#3353 - Monday,
November 17, 2008 - Editor: Gloria Lee
Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
First, announcing an amazing website...
"Believe
Nothing. Explore Everything."
Ostensibly devoted to Alan Watts. http://www.dedroidify.com/index.htm
http://www.dedroidify.com/vids/
Hundreds of an incredible video
cornucopia, including Tolle, Ramana
Maharshi, Alex Grey, Deepak Chopra, Hopi, Terrence McKenna,
George
Carlin, Puppetji, Wayne Dyer, 2012, Timothy Leary, Osho.
If I had another 10 lifetimes, there wouldn't be enough time to
see
them all.
Happy browsing, I'm sure there's something for everyone.
posted by Anna
Whoever
knows that the mind is a fiction and devoid of
anything real knows that his own mind neither exists nor
doesn't exist. Mortals keep creating the mind, claiming
it exists. And arhats keep negating the mind, claiming it
doesn't exist. But bodhisattvas and buddhas neither
create nor negate the mind. This is what's meant by the
mind that neither exists nor doesn't exist...
from The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma,
translated by Red Pine (North Point Press, 1987)
---
gill
http://allspirit.co.uk
Despite
traditions to the contrary, there simply cannot be true jnana
without true bhakti, there cannot be the ultimate
understanding without the ultimate surrender. Certain
personalities will try to avoid one or the other under the guise
of some higher wisdom, but always at the cost of wholeness.
There is a tradition that jnana is the higher path because
the bhakta relies on a belief in someone or something to
be devoted to, whereas the jnani knows there are neither.
But true bhakti knows no object; and the true jnani
knows nothing.
David Carse
Source: Perfect Brilliant Stillness, Page: 49
posted to Wisdom-l by Mark Scorelle
Becoming
Becoming, which results from clinging, involves the idea of having or being something more satisfying than at present. We want to become a very good meditator, or we want to become spiritual, or more learned. We have all sorts of ideas but are all bound up with wanting to become, because we are not satisfied with what we are. Often we do not even pay attention to what we are now, but just know that something is lacking. Instead of trying to realize what we are and investigating where the difficulty actually lies, we just dream of becoming something else. When we have become something or someone else, we can be just as dissatisfied as before.
-Ayya Khema, When the Iron Eagle Flies
QUOTE: "The question is not
'what is the point of Zen' but rather,
why do something that has no point, no rationale, no
reason? Why do
something whose value is beyond value and worthlessness?
Why do
something that is pointless as far as I can understand it to
be?"
Hiya -----!
I appreciate your inquiry here, and I feel it is very sincere and
appropriate, and so I'll offer some ramble for your
consideration.
Many people take up certain spiritual practices without
questioning
their deepest motivation, their own heart's primal mandate, and
so
miss the entrance door right from the beginning. This is
unfortunate,
since spiritual practices themselves are actually of no value,
unless
informed from the very beginning by heart honesty. What they have
instead are self-based schemes and un-inspected strategies,
usually
fabricated on second-hand rumor and hopeful fantasy.
Initially, we all assume that there are innumerable options in
life,
and so we experiment with this and that, but inevitably we may
find
that none of the options are truly satisfying. This recognition
is a
crucial turning point. As long as we believe that some method or
other, some achievement or relationship or acquisition or
manipulation of circumstances has the possibility of happiness,
we
will pursue it and invest our time and attention delving into it.
Why? Everyone wants to be happy. However, only when we realize
(or at
least intuit) that none of these options contains the possibility
of
true satisfaction and peace at heart, are we ready to take up the
practice of liberation.
Zen is just another word for liberation practice, and so
practicing
Zen authentically is practicing liberation from this underlying
chronic dissatisfaction that influences all the various choices
we
seem to make in life, choices pushing us here and dragging us
there,
so that we never come to rest. If one is feeling satisfied with
things as they are in their life, then they won't have much
interest
in a deeper inquiry. Still, if they were to examine their sense
of
current satisfaction, they would likely realize that it is
dependent
on certain factors that are temporary, and hence such provisional
satisfaction is standing on shaky ground. Things change, and even
the
most thrilling moments give way to the less thrilling.
Impermanence,
eh.
So, the heart has this deep primal yearning, and will not let us
rest
until it is quenched. Anything less than complete liberation will
always come up short at the heart, and no matter how much we
avoid
this truth, the heart will find a way to remind us, by simply
reflecting back to us our fundamental dissatisfaction and the
conflicted sense of dilemma that permeates the ongoing narrative
of "our life".
Now, I'm going to say something that a lot of people here may not
agree with, but what the hell -- Rinzai and Soto and all that
other
tradition business is just a load of desperate dreaming, and
really
no different than any of the other vain pursuits, until one
awakens
to their own heart. And one cannot awaken while the mind is
occupied
with dreaming. Liberation is the end of dreaming, but who truly
wants
the dream of "me" to end? After all, it's the only
story we've really
been interested in, so for that to dissolve terrifies us, and
provokes a persistent reluctance to continue the inquiry, despite
our
best intentions. If we examine this dream story of self more
closely,
however, we can notice something critical about it, and that is
-- it
does not satisfy. Once all that is not true, not satisfying, is
discarded, then there is the possibility of waking up to what is
true, what is satisfying, and what constitutes true peace at
heart.
So Zen practice actually begins with this process of eliminating
what's not true. One might even say that's the real point --
surrendering what's not true, all of it. Letting go of
everything.
Why? Because the heart will not be satisfied with anything less
than
the full revelation of its primordial limitless nature, which is
freedom, even in the midst of any apparent limitation. Zazen is
the
revelation, not the means to the revelation. As long as it is the
means, it cannot be the thing itself, so to speak. We cannot
become
happy. We can only be happy. Zazen is not a position, but
beingness
itself -- awake awareness -- beyond but inclusive of both being
and
nonbeing, motion and rest. It's the happiness of the heart,
plunged
deep in itself, emerging as itself -- not as a person, not as
anything with name or form, dogma or platform -- untethered, just
free.
posted by Bob O'Hearn