Saturday, December 28, 2013

John O’Donohue - from "To Bless the Space Between Us"



"To all that is chaotic in you, let there come silence. Let there be a calming of the clamoring, a stilling of the voices that have laid their claim on you, that have made their home in you, that go with you even to the holy places but will not let you rest, will not let you hear your life with wholeness or feel the grace that fashioned you. Let what distracts you cease. Let what divides you cease. Let there come an end to what diminishes and demeans, and let depart all that keeps you in its cage. Let there be an opening into the quiet that lies beneath the chaos, where you find the peace you did not think possible and see what shimmers within the storm."

~ John O’Donohue, from To Bless the Space Between Us



Thursday, December 26, 2013

The Tao of Kung Fu - "Fear is the only darkness."


Mooji - A Christmas message


Tozen - The Dharmakaya Sutra



THE DHARMAKAYA SUTRA

The author: Fluent in several languages, Tozen presently resides in Sweden and established Thirteen years ago the Zen school of the Unborn Mind, a virtual sangha of genuine spirituality. Tozen’s aim in the formation of this school is to provide a safe haven for some few good dharma seeds to grow amidst the present darkness of this age; according to Tozen, during this age the true buddhadharma will be as rare as a flower atop a great snow-filled mountain and the false paths of Mara are as dangerous as the vast sand dunes of the Sahara desert–beautiful and inviting at first, but full of death traps once one becomes lost without a skillful guide. His pinnacle work, The Dharmakaya Sutra, is a real authentic breakthrough in genuine mystical zen buddhism.
The Dharmakaya Sutra can be found here in the “texts page” as a PDF
It is also available as a Deluxe Size Paperback Edition at LuLu Press:
As also viewed in its entirety on YouTube:


 Tozen: Facing the dilemma of the fourth noble truth

“Master, please tell me. What is the difference between the material body-mind
and the spiritual one? I know I am supposed to cut through the dialectical mind
with your koans, directly seeing for myself what truth is, but I would
appreciate a basic simple explanation to my dilemma, which i share with my
lesser able brothers and sisters in the sangha. Is a fair answer to this inquiry
possible at all?”

“You pose a fair question which deserves a good answer.

Lets see now…(ponders a moment)…In this mind-field our samsaric consciousness
reveals a seamless frame by frame realm and body that is both frightening and
yet very alluring . It is one that resonates faster than our senses can notice.

We are basically walking around in a deep dream because we are dealing with a
spiritual being caught up in the biological imperative. In other words, we
as spiritual beings are caught in the matrix of the skandhas, dealing with
something that demands constant attention or action, granting pleasure and
pain depending on concurrent conditions very hard to see through for what they
are. Pure illusion.

This is an evil circle. One created by the evil one (Mara) where some of us
strive to desperately break free from. Luckily others, before us, have done just
that by the direct realization of their true self-nature. This great awakening
is produced by a force (of Buddhas) that is immaterial. It is uncreated, unborn
and as such free from any mark of corruption or decay that signifies all
phenomena.

Among us, whom by the aid of this pure light of the Unborn Mind (The Mind of the
Buddhas) have broken free from the shackles of the evil one, we return
to samsara, now fully conscious of our true body of pure spirit/light
(Bodhi-sattva) which is free from the previous psychophysical one.

We can now as a self awakened fully self-aware spirit (maha-bodhisattva) steer
around the biological suit or in special cases myriad suits, like it /they were
a robot/s, driven by virtue of a good remote (right thought) among sentient
beings caught in the spiritually numbing consciousness of their own “biological
suits”.

We become thus bringers of light, arised from the noble wisdom found in this
deathless body of truth. We fulfill in a way a beginningless vow to those
shining ones that aided us in our struggle to break free and awake and in this
awakening and cultivation of the deathless principle that guides all things in
any universe, aid sentient beings in a myriad ways, although in truth there
are no actual sentient beings to save.

As the Lankavatara sutra states to us whom solved its mystery; It’s all illusion in the great mind field of the One Mind. Thus we call our profound dharma, one of Mind Only. The last four words effectively solving the raised dilemma each practitioner encounter in the last of the four noble truths.”


~~~

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Rupert Spira - The Most Precious Gift


The Most Precious Gift

I am reading, I am sitting, I am thinking, I am young, I am hungry, I am tired, I am dreaming, I am English, I am in love, I am excited, I am sad, I am lonely, I am tall, I am thirty seven, I am happy, I am sick, I am healthy, I am wealthy, I am studying…….it goes on and on, ad infinitum.

What is it that remains present throughout all experience? Obviously the I amness that I am. And this I amness that I am is not buried deep behind or within experience, just as the screen is not buried behind the image, or sunlight is not buried deep within nature. The I amness that I am is shining in the midst of all experience.

And how is it that we can assert, “I am reading, I am sitting, I am thinking, I am young, etc.”? Obviously, because we know the experience to which we are referring. “I know that I am reading, sitting, thinking etc.” And if I know that I am reading, sitting, thinking, etc., I must know the I am that runs throughout all these experiences.

And what is it that knows the I am that I am? It is I that knows that I am. And obviously the I that knows I am is the same I that I am. That is, it knows itself. This knowing of our own being is the only element of experience that is ever-present; it is thus the only ‘thing’ (that is not a thing) that is worthy of the name ‘I’.

This knowing of our own being – the knowing of the I am that I am – is the fundamental element of all experience, and it never ceases to be and know itself. In fact, all that it seems to know that is other than itself, is simply a modulation of its knowing of itself.

All that is required is to give the I am, that knows itself to be, the attention it deserves. But who would give it attention and what would the attention be that would be given to it? It is already the source and substance of all attention.

This I am, that knows itself to be, can only shine the light of its attention on something that is seemingly other than itself. It is too close to itself to shine its light on itself, just as the sun cannot shine on itself. Thus to attend to itself, it only has to relax the focus of its attention from things that are seeming other than itself – such as the experiences of reading, sitting, thinking, being young, hungry, tired, English, in love, excited, sad, etc., all of which are extraneous to itself – and allow its attention to fall back itself.

This falling back into itself, the knowing of our own being, is itself the experience of peace or happiness. It is the heart of all spiritual knowledge and practice. It is what is meant by meditation, self-enquiry, self-remembering, the practice of the presence of God, sinking the mind into the heart, etc.

‘I am’ is the first name of Christ. “Before Abraham was, I am”. Christmas is the Mass of Christ, that is, the remembrance and celebration of the I am that I am, and that knows itself to be. Instead of stories of children, mangers and sheep, it is this I am that I am, and that knows itself to be, that should be proclaimed from our churches. To know the peace that passeth understanding and the unconditional happiness that accompanies it, it is only necessary to know our own being – the I am that I am, and that knows itself to be – as it is.

To indicate that is the most precious gift that anyone can impart or receive.

Happy Christmas! That is, be happy in the remembrance and celebration of your own being – its knowing of itself.
 

Awareness is Never Not Present 

 


Monday, December 23, 2013

Longchenpa - we are free from the start.



"Freedom attends reality:
free at the core, any effort is wasted;
timelessly free, no release is needed;
free in itself, no corrective is possible;
directly free, released in the seeing;
completely free, familiarization is redundant;
and naturally free, freedom cannot be contrived.

"Yet 'freedom' is just a verbal convention,
and who is 'realized' and who is not?
How could anyone be 'liberated'?
How could anyone be lost?...
Reality is free of all delimitation!

"Freedom is timeless, so constantly present;
freedom is natural, so unconditional;
freedom is direct, so pure vision obtains;
freedom is unbounded, so no identity is possible;
freedom is unitary, so multiplicity is consumed.

"Conditions are released as conditions,
and so I am free of all constructs;
objects are released as objects,
so I am free of dualistic perception;
a cause is liberated as the cause itself,
so I am free of the duality of samsara and nirvana;
all events are released as phenomena,
so I am free of all verbal convention...

"Like washing off dirt with dirt,
purity is released by purity,
every poison cured by poison.
Iron bars are cut by iron,
stones smashed by stone,
wood burned by wood--
each is its own nemesis,
or there could be no release in the moment.

"There is no freedom through striving--we are free from the start." 



From Old Man Basking in the Sun by Longchenpa, translated by Keith Dowman.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Wu Hsin - “Nothing appears as it seems”


Wu Xin (无心, aka Wu Hsin)

It is widely believed that Wu Hsin (the name itself means No-Mind) was born during the Warring States Period (403-221BCE), postdating the death of Confucius by more than one hundred years.
He offers a highly refined view of life and living. When he writes “Nothing appears as it seems”, he challenges the reader to question and verify every belief and every assumption.
Brevity was the trademark of his writing style. Whereas his contemporaries were writing lengthy tomes, Wu Hsin‟s style reflected his sense that words, too, were impediments to the attainment of Understanding; that they were only pointers and nothing more.
He repeatedly returns to three key points. First, on the phenomenal plane, when one ceases to resist What-Is and becomes more in harmony with It, one attains a state of Ming, or clear seeing. Having arrived at this point, all action becomes wei wu wei, or action without action (non-forcing) and there is a working in harmony with What-Is to accomplish what is required.
Second, as the clear seeing deepens (what he refers to as the opening of the great gate), the understanding arises that there is no one doing anything and that there is only the One doing everything through the many and diverse objective phenomena which serve as Its instruments.
From this flows the third and last: the seemingly separate me is a misapprehension, created by the mind which divides everything into pseudo-subject (me) and object (the world outside of this me). This seeming two-ness (dva in Sanskrit, duo in Latin, dual in English), this feeling of being separate and apart, is the root cause of unhappiness.
The return to wholeness is nothing more than the end of this division. It is an apperception of the unity between the noumenal and the phenomenal in much the same way as there is a single unity between the sun and sunlight. Then, the pseudo-subject is finally seen as only another object while the true Subjectivity exists prior to the arising of both and is their source.
 
zen statue by alex algo
 
 From: The Lost Writings of Wu-Hsin: Pointers to Non-Duality in Five Volumes, translated by Roy Melvyn
 
 Wu Hsin

Milarepa - Songs of Renunciation


The way of the world is illusion:
I strive after true reality.
To be moved by earthly possessions is illusion :
I endeavour to rise above duality.
To be the world’s servant is illusion:
I wander in the mountains alone.
Wealth and possessions are illusion:
I renounce for the sake of the faith any I may have.
External things are illusion:
I contemplate the mind.
Distinctive thought is illusion:
I follow after sapience.
Conditional truth is illusion:
I dispose the absolute truth.
The printed book is illusion:
I meditate upon the counsels of the ear-whispered tradition.
Philosophical argument is illusion:
I study at length that which is unfeigned.
Both birth and death are illusion:
I contemplate the deathless truth.
Ordinary knowledge is illusion:
I exercise myself in wisdom.
The delight of mental thought is illusion:
I dwell in the state of reality.

~~~


From the Songs of Milarepa (Dover Thrift Editions)