Saturday, October 18, 2014

Walt Whitman - As One


Lord of the All,

Grant me the vision to see myself and my enemy as one,
Myself in my enemy, my enemy in myself,
One in being, knowledge, and life,
For the One is in us all, the very monad of our being,
The flowering flame that kindles us, 
the life and knowing and being,
And makes us turn our faces ever back to that sun 
that shines in us the light of the Good,
Sets our path back ever back ever sourceward,
Enemy now self and self now enemy,
Not twain ever asunder, but one in all,
For we have but to remember
We are all One.




Huang Po - Mind is Buddha


In the teaching of the Three Vehicles it is clearly explained that
the ordinary and Enlightened minds are illusions. You don't
understand. All this clinging to the idea of things existing is to
mistake vacuity for the truth. How can such conceptions not be
illusory? Being illusory, they hide Mind from you.

If you would only rid yourselves of the concepts of ordinary and
Enlightened, you would find that there is no other Buddha than the
Buddha in your own Mind. When Bodhidharma came from the West, he
just pointed out that the substance of which all men are composed is
the Buddha. You people go on misunderstanding; you hold to concepts
such as "ordinary" and "Enlightened," directing your thoughts
outwards where they gallop about like horses! All this amounts to
beclouding your own minds!

So I tell you Mind is the Buddha. As soon as thought or sensation
arises, you fall into dualism. Beginningless time and the present
moment are the same. There is no this and no that. To understand
this truth is called complete and unexcelled Enlightenment.




Swami Amar Jyoti - Freedom


Freedom is not
arrogance
Freedom is not
self-assertion
Freedom is
where you feel joy.

Without learning anything
you know everything
and having everything
you are bound by nothing;
this is the true nature
of a free soul.

 "In Light of Wisdom"
Swami Amar Jyoti
Truth Consciousness, Boulder, Colorado, 1983 


Rumi - Keep burning....



i want to leave this town
but you've chained me down
stolen away my heart
leaving yourself behind

now i've lost my way
my soul restless and head twisted
all because of those secrets
you once whispered

i only must keep
fasting my heart
to set me free
from sleepless nights

since your only advice
when you saw me in flame
was to keep burning
with you or with your thoughts

words of wisdom
came to me at last
"the beloved you've lost
the one you've been seeking outside
can only be found inside"



-- Ghazal 2582, from the Diwan-e Shams
Translation by Nader Khalili
"Rumi, Fountain of Fire"
Cal-Earth Press, 1995 





Friday, October 17, 2014

Saraha's Dohakosa: The Royal Song



Doha mdzod spyod pa'i glu: Dohakosa nama caryagiti

HOMAGE TO ARYAMANJUSRI!
Homage to the destroyer of demonic power!

The wind lashes calm waters into rollers and breakers;
The king makes multifarious forms out of unity,
Seeing many faces of this one Archer, Saraha.

The cross-eyed fool sees one lamp as two;
The vision and the viewer are one,
You broken, brittle mind!

Many lamps are lit in the house,
But the blind are still in darkness;
Sahaja is all-pervasive
But the fool cannot see what is under his nose.

Just as many rivers are one in the ocean
All half-truths are swallowed by the one truth;
The effulgence of the sun illuminates all dark corners.

Clouds draw water from the ocean to fall as rain on the earth
And there is neither increase nor decrease;
Just so, reality remains unaltered like the pure sky.

Replete with the Buddha's perfections
Sahaja is the one essential nature;
Beings are born into it and pass into it,
Yet there is neither existence nor non-existence in it.

Forsaking bliss the fool roams abroad,
Hoping for mundane pleasure;
Your mouth is full of honey now,
Swallow it while you may!

Fools attempt to avoid their suffering,
The wise enact their pain.
Drink the cup of sky-nectar
While others hunger for outward appearances.

Flies eat filth, spurning the fragrance of sandalwood;
Man lost to nirvana furthers his own confusion,
Thirsting for the coarse and vulgar.

The rain water filling an ox's hoof-print
Evaporates when the sun shines;
The imperfections of a perfect mind,
All are dissolved in perfection.

Salt sea water absorbed by clouds turns sweet;
The venom of passionate reaction
In a strong and selfless mind becomes elixir.

The unutterable is free of pain;
Non-meditation gives true pleasure.
Though we fear the dragon's roar
Rain falls from the clouds to ripen the harvest.

The nature of beginning and end is here and now,
And the first does not exist without the last;
The rational fool conceptualising the inconceivable
Separates emptiness from compassion.

The bee knows from birth
That flowers are the source of honey;
How can the fool know
That samsara and nirvana are one?

Facing himself in a mirror
The fool sees an alien form;
The mind with truth forgotten
Serves untruth's outward sham.

Flowers' fragrance is intangible
Yet its reality pervades the air,
Just as mandala circles are informed
By a formless presence.

Still water stung by an icy wind
Freezes hard in starched and jagged shapes;
In an emotional mind agitated by critical concepts
The unformed becomes hard and intractable.

Mind immaculate by nature is untouched
By samsara and nirvana's mud;
But just like a jewel lost in a swamp
Though it retains its lustre it does not shine.

As mental sloth increases pure awareness diminishes;
As mental sloth increases suffering also grows.
 Shoots sprout from the seed and leaves from the branches.

Separating unity from multiplicity in the mind
The light grows dim and we wander in the lower realms;
Who is more deserving of pity than he
Who walks into fire with his eyes wide open?

Obsessed with the joys of sexual embrace
The fool believes he knows ultimate truth;
He is like someone who stands at his door
And, flirting, talks about sex.

The wind stirs in the House of Emptiness
Exciting delusions of emotional pleasure;
Fallen from celestial space, stung,
The tormented yogin faints away.

Like a brahmin taking rice and butter
Offering sacrifice to the flame,
He who visualises material things as celestial ambrosia
Deludes himself that a dream is ultimate reality.

Enlightening the House of Brahma in the fontanelle
Stroking the uvala in wanton delight,
Confused, believing binding pleasure to be spiritual release,
The vain fools calls himself a yogin.

Teaching that virtue is irrelevant to intrinsic awareness,
He mistakes the lock for the key;
Ignorant of the true nature of the gem
The fool calls green glass emerald.

His mind takes brass for gold,
Momentary peak experience for reality accomplished;
Clinging to the joy of ephemeral dreams
He calls his short-thrift life Eternal Bliss.

With a discursive understanding of the symbol EVAM,
Creating four seals through an analysis of the moment,
He labels his peak experience sahaja:
He is clinging to a reflection mistaken for the mirror.

Like befuddled deer leaping into a mirage of water
Deluded fools in their ignorance cling to outer forms
And with their thirst unslaked, bound and confined,
They idealise their prison, pretending happiness.

The relatively real is free of intellectual constructs,
 And ultimately real mind, active or quiescent, is no-mind,
And this is the supreme,the highest of the high, immaculate;
Friends, know this sacred high!

In mind absorbed in samadhi that is concept-free,
Passion is immaculately pure;
Like a lotus rooted in the slime of a lake bottom,
This sublime reality is untouched by the pollution of existence.

Make solid your vision of all things as visionary dream
And you attain transcendence,
Instantaneous realisation and equanimity;
A strong mind binding the demons of darkness
Beyond thought your own spontaneous nature is accomplished.

Appearances have never ceased to be their original radiance,
And unformed, form never had a substantial nature to be grasped;
It is a continuum of unique meditation,
In an inactive, stainless, meditative mind that is no-mind.

Thus the I is intellect, mind and mind-forms,
I the world, all seemingly alien show,
I the infinite variety of vision-viewer,
I the desire, the anger, the mental sloth -
And bodhicitta.

Now there is a lamp lit in spiritual darkness
Healing the splits riven by the intellect
So that all mental defilements are erased.
Who can define the nature of detachment?

It cannot be denied nor yet affirmed,
And ungraspable it is inconceivable.
Through conceptualisation fools are bound,
While concept-free there is immaculate sahaja.

The concepts of unity and multiplicity do not bring integration;
Only through awareness do sentient beings reach freedom.
Cognition of radiance is strong meditation;
Abide in a calm, quiescent mind.

Reaching the joy swollen land
Powers of seeing expand,
And there is joy and laughter;
Even chasing objects there is no separation.

From joy, buds of pure pleasure emerge,
Bursting into blooms of supreme pleasure,
 And so long as outflow is contained
Unutterable bliss will surely mature.

What, where and by whom are nothing,
Yet the entire event is imperative.
Whether love and attachment or desirelessness
The form of the event is emptiness.

Like pigs we wallow in this sensual mire
But what can stain our pearly mind?
Nothing can ever contaminate it,
And by nothing can we ever be bound.

This song of existential freedom was composed by
the Glorious Master Yogin Saraha.


This Dohakosa of Saraha has been translated by
Kunzang Tenzin in Kathmandu over many years,
finished on the full moon of the seventh month
of the wood-ox year. May all beings be happy!
May all manner of things be well!


download PDF  HERE

Thursday, October 16, 2014

John Greven - Oneness



The Source, The One, God

A Humble Minds Interpretation

Words can never capture that which is beyond all things, but here we go anyway.

The One knows itself as the only reality. This is unquestionable.

The peace, that is the One, is beyond anything that the mind can comprehend. It is absolute. It is a peace born from timeless existence and sole presence that is truly at home with itself. It is a peace that just one taste of would satisfy a human mind for a lifetime. It is a peace so profound that nothing can disrupt it - just as nothing can touch space, nothing can touch this all-prevailing peace. It is vibrant stillness and screaming silence.

The source knows itself as timeless- without beginning and without end. This knowing is absolute. There is absolute certainty in the existence of the One. No question can arise in the One, as all is clearly known. Not a knowing of things, as the human mind collects, (although that is present moment to moment), but a knowing of the single reality, that I Am. The Love and Peace of the One are the same –seemingly different yet in perfect harmony and balance. Nothing moves, while everything is vibrant and seemingly alive.

As seeming individuals, we use a word called love. When speaking of the Love that is the One, the human conditional love is something different. The Love of the One, like the Peace, is absolute and unassailable. It is a Love that is complete and present in a source that is timeless. The mind would draw the analogy to a Love and Peace that have evolved into perfection over a timeless existence. Yet, the word perfection is too limiting.

The One knows itself as all pervading yet without location or space to fill. The One knows itself as absolute power – absolute presence, yet nothing to effect.

The One – as the attempt above describes, is what you are. The One does not exist without what you are and you are not without the One. One presence. One Consciousness. One awareness. There are no individuals within the One.
 
 



Ramesh Balsekar - Why do I bother?


"There is enormous complexity in our day-to-day living that gives rise to stress and strain almost continuously. our present day living has lost all its simplicity and we are bewildered by the complexity and [apparent] multiplicity of choices in almost whatever we do. And yet, deep down it is everyone's experience that while we try to shape our day-to-day living, what actually happens is that events seem to happen in a unique way, which is not explained by our usual reason. And, in that odd moment, the thought occurs: why do I bother? Why don't I just float of living instead of struggling against it?
"It is clearly everyone's experience that all one can do is make a choice and, thereafter in spite of all one's efforts, what actually happens - or does not happen - has never been in one's control."

from his book "Confusion No More"

 

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Rumi - Now I'll make myself mad...




Conventional opinion is the ruin of our souls,
something borrowed which we mistake as our own.
Ignorance is better than this; clutch at madness instead.
Always run from what seems to benefit your self:
sip the poison and spill the water of life.
Revile those who flatter you;
lend both interest and principle to the poor.
Let security go and be at home amidst dangers.
Leave your good name behind and accept disgrace.
I have lived with cautious thinking;
now I'll make myself mad...


Attar - Both a dullard and a sage…




Lost in myself
     I reappeared
          I know not where
a drop that rose
     from the sea and fell
          and dissolved again;
a shadow
     that stretched itself out
          at dawn,
when the sun
     reached noon
          I disappeared.
I have no news
     of my coming
          or passing away--
the whole thing
     happened quicker
          than a breath;
ask no questions
     of the moth.
          In the candle flame
of his face
     I have forgotten
          all the answers.
In the way of love
     there must be knowledge
          and ignorance
so I have become
     both a dullard
          and a sage;

 one must be
     an eye and yet
          not see
so I am blind
     and yet I still
          perceive,
Dust
     be on my head
          if I can say
where I
     in bewilderment
          have wandered:
Attar
     watched his heart
          transcend both worlds
and under its shadow
     now is gone mad
          with love.




Rabindranath Tagore - Light



Light, my light, the world-filling light,
the eye-kissing light,
heart-sweetening light!
Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the center of my life;
the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love;
the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth.
The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light.
Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.
The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling,
and it scatters gems in profusion.
Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my darling,
and gladness without measure.
The heaven's river has drowned its banks
and the flood of joy is abroad.




Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Jeff Foster - You never lose anything Real



You never lose anything real.
You only lose dreams
of “how life was going to be”.
You lose yesterday’s dreams of tomorrow.
You lose imagined todays.
But you didn’t know.
You couldn’t possibly have known.
Healing always involves the courage
to let go of yesterday’s hopes,
to grieve over lost worlds,
to allow the ego to shatter into silence,
to hold the heart so gently as it breaks.
And to turn towards today,
the place where life happens,
the good soil in which gratitude will grow.
You never lose anything Real.

Katha Upanishad - Eternity



"The Self is not seen,
  for it has no visible form.

  Yet, when the mind becomes clear,
  And, the heart becomes pure
then the Self can be known.…

  And those who know it …
enjoy Eternity…’



Monday, October 13, 2014

Randall Friend - Perfect, whole and complete



You are perfect, whole and complete right this very instant. You are the whole itself, Being itself, watching a show in which you are the entire canvas, you are the entire cast - you are literally looking at your Self in everything.
We are seeking something that is already present, already the case. It's as if we held a diamond in our hand while we dig for pennies. Gold itself, taking itself as a mere chain, seeks to find out the truth of this elusive essence called Gold. By what means can Gold find Gold? It can only BE what it already IS - there is no reaching itself through any method.
There is an expression - you can't see the forest for the trees. You're focused on each tree and missing the forest, which is already the case. Each tree IS forest, in expression. Each tree is a manifestation of forest - the collection of trees we call "forest". Each thing IS the whole in expression - but we've given each "thing" an independence of existence. We say it came into existence - we think of "things" this way - this very concept is the obstacle - this way of thinking of reality.
A "thing" is the product of something - it cannot have an independent existence. That is critical to see. It cannot have an independent existence. When we see this, we realize that NOTHING can have independent existence - that existence isn't something that comes in individual parts. Existence IS - all "things" are an expression OF existence or whatever you want to call THAT which IS.
Something IS - that "something" is unformed - undefinable - it takes shape as the tree and the wave and the thought and the body and the supernova. When you see a "thing" you are seeing the whole itself, in expression, yes? You are seeing a form-ation or pattern OF something that exists. That "something" is presently manifesting AS THAT "thing". The present configuration of atoms gives the appearance of that "thing" and we are fooled by that because that's ALL WE KNOW! That's what we SEE, therefore that's how we form our concept of reality.
That "something" also takes shape as this organism, which has the capacity of Consciousness. Through that capacity, this "something" is now aware, aware of its own presence, aware of its existence. Yet the mind, the filter through which this "something" is aware, tells a story of independent existence. It tells a story of this presence as a "Someone" - a someone who came into existence independently - a someone who will, someday, cease to exist.
Maybe that mind, through inquiry or seeking or hardship or grace or some other means, realizes the simple and obvious fact that existence was never and could never be actually divided. If that happens the house of cards crumbles - the façade of individuality is shattered. That organism continues to function yet that filter has fallen away. The trees still sway in the wind but that mind only ever sees the forest in each tree.
That "Something", that Essence that you are, remains as it ever was.
Life - fooled by its own shadow - is seeking to find itself because it takes itself as only a small, insignificant, limited and temporary thing. What an amazing thing that - whether or not it ever realizes what it truly is - it never really is limited, temporary or small.
YOU are that, right this very instant. There is nothing you need to do to reach it or become it. Nothing in the world needs to change - all that may happen is that the mind may realize its mistake.
You remain as you ever are. Perfect, whole and complete.



Amata Natasha Goldie - The Wholeness Love Brings



Love is the undone dress
Left crumpled on the floor,
The tenderness unravelled
Love is the unsung song
The broken lyric
The longing left behind
Love is the crest fallen
The pinnacle descended
And the mourning peak

And yet love is the temple
Of forgiveness and faith
It is the garden of our dreams
Love is the unconditional

Love's mystery directs
Its own course,
Paths undiscovered seek
Resolution in their union
Love is a lament
Of all that could be,
An impulse of desire
That finds its own way
Love surmounts the impossible

Love is the yearned-for promise
Hoped for and delivered
Love is pure and gentle
Love is direct and truthful
Love is a melody of our sameness
And a symphony of our uniqueness
Love brings us unexpected gifts
And delights in the moment
Love is worship, sacrifice and tolerance

Love gives everything
But retains its own identity
Love serves
With no expectation of being returned

Love is the tranquil touch of healing
And the dissolution of pain
Love yearns for perfection
And yet finds beauty in our flaws
Love remembers everything
And gives praise for the learnings

So that the crumpled dress
May be worn with grace and beauty
So that love may complete
The undrawn circle
So that we may exalt
In the wholeness love brings

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche - Go Beyond Concept



By and large, human beings tend to prefer to fit in to society by following accepted rules of etiquette and being gentle, polite, and respectful. The irony is that this is also how most people imagine a spiritual person should behave. When a so-called dharma practitioner is seen to behave badly, we shake our heads over her audacity at presenting herself as a follower of the Buddha. Yet such judgments are better avoided, because to “fit in” is not what a genuine dharma practitioner strives for.
Think of Tilopa, for example. He looked so outlandish that if he turned up on your doorstep today, odds are you would refuse to let him in. And you would have a point. He would most likely be almost completely naked; if you were lucky, he might be sporting some kind of G-string; his hair would never have been introduced to shampoo; and protruding from his mouth would quiver the tail of a live fish. What would your moral judgment be of such a being? “Him! A Buddhist?” This is how our theistic, moralistic, and judgmental minds work. Of course, there is nothing wrong with morality, but the point of spiritual practice, according to the vajrayana teachings, is to go beyond all our concepts, including those of morality.

http://khyentse.org/