No Mind's Land: 2012-11-25

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Zazen

Zazen

There is nothing to achieve in Zen meditation. To have a goal or target is to imagine something, and to strive for it. Trying to achieve is what we call busy-ness of mind. Trying to achieve is not Zen meditation.
So do we sit zazen without care, without interest? To take up the posture in this way, also cultivates an active mind. Daydreams, fantasies, and memories fill the posture.
Sit zazen simply—unadorned by goals and ideas. How is this possible? It is possible when effort transforms into wholehearted participation in this life. Zazen is full participation in posture without ideas of me or posture.
With thorough straightforward interest, we do not find a self with which to identify. Nor do we find an activity to call mine. We do not set ourselves out in array with goals and agendas, but fully participate in a life so vast, so thorough, that goals, reasons, and explanations can find no space or purchase. Thoughts flash, float, and fade without fully forming, without becoming fixed. The fabricated counterfeit known as my mind has faded a w a y … no trace.
How then, do we live life in the world of beliefs … including the one of self and other? Very carefully. As compassion.
Life is constantly expressing—unhindered and without regard for our beliefs. This can be known directly in meditation, but meditating to know, will not bring knowing.

source

Catherine Ingram - The Quiet That Contains the Mind

"Thoughts are not necessarily a distraction. Nor is the body. Thoughts are arising in this present awareness and dissolving back into it. The silence remains untouched, unstained, immaculate. Thoughts are only a problem if you are preoccupied with them, giving them all your attention, believing in the entity of "me" around which the thoughts swirl. But thoughts in and of themselves are not some kind of enemy. Thoughts can be very useful, functional, and even entertaining. They are allowed in this vast clearing. No problem"

also interview on conscious tv here

Rumi - Beginning of me

"If you find me not within you, you will never find me.For, I have been with you, from the beginning of me."

Friday, November 30, 2012

John Wheeler from "Clear in Your Heart"

John Wheeler
from "Clear in Your Heart"
The Radiant Mirror of Self-Shining Awareness

Awareness and your nature as that are self-evident. This

cannot — and need not — be known or proved in terms of

subject/object knowledge. Keep in mind that all the pointers

to what is ultimately real are simply descriptions of you,

what you presently are. You are present now and aware of the

fact of being conscious. This is self-evident. You cannot grasp

‘yourself ’ or your innate being as some ‘thing’ ‘out there’. Yet

who would be foolish enough to deny themselves, their own

existence? This non-conceptual being-awareness is entirely

evident, but cannot be grasped objectively in dualistic experience.

The point is that non-dual awareness does not know

itself as some object or experience, which would turn it into

an experience in duality (that is, ‘I’ and awareness). The ‘I’

and awareness are not two things, one to be the object of the

other. On the other hand, awareness is not unknown either.

Your presumption is that it is currently unknown and must

be known somehow. This is wrong. Awareness cannot be

known objectively because it is not an object, but neither can

it be unknown — for the same reason. It is the very presence

enlivening and making possible all knowing. It is you, your

natural state.

Question:

How can I go beyond the ‘I am’ sense in practice?

J.W.

Who is going to go beyond? This is still talk in relation to

the notion of a person. You are still giving credit to that. All

the questions come from that. Who is this ‘I’ that needs to

understand, go beyond the ‘I am’ and so on? Your nature is

that which is prior to consciousness. It already is that. You are

getting misdirected by granting reality to the individuality.

You are not a person in need of something in the future. You

are reality itself. Why is reality asking for understanding and

applications? Do not ask ‘How do I ...?’ Instead see what you

already are. How can I give guidance or methods to an ‘I’

that is a total fi ction? I see you as the supreme reality itself.

The notion that you are not that needs to go. See that all your

questions are in relation to a person that never existed.

Listen to John Wheeler - podcast

Chuck Surface - Alone Out Here

I thought I was alone out here,

Out in the Wild.

How sweet to find you in this Vastness.

Are you mad, as well?

If not, you will be.

Free at last from “sanity”.

So few leave the village of the Great Teachings,

And wander Here, Alone.

The few I've met have been driven by Life,

To push open the village gates, and abandon all knowledge.

What drove you to such desperation,

Taking those fearful steps into the Inconceivable?

There are no concepts here for one seeking knowledge.

Your teacher, The Unknowable, will remove all certitude.

And don't worry about arrogance,

That's not possible here, in the face of… This.

You will never understand this Vastness,

Write a book, and offer guided tours.

Such a din in the spiritual marketplace.

While here, butterfly wings are raucous within the Silence.

I walked the Path of the Idiot to get here,

Burning scriptures for warmth, along the way.

Now I have become…

Wildness.

The Timeless Eternality,

The Spaceless Infinitude,

The Objectless Wholeness,

The Fullness and Completion,

Existence, Consciousness, Bliss.

Chuck Surface

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Rumi - Dying to Love

Dying to Love

Die! Die!

Die in this love!

If you die in this love

your soul will be renewed

Die! Die!

Don't fear the death

of that which is known

If you die to the temporal

you will become timeless

Die! Die!

Cut off those chains

that hold you prisoner

to the world of attachment

Die! Die!

Die to the deathless

and you will be eternal

Die! Die!

and come out of this cloud

When you leave the cloud

you will be the effulgent moon

Die! Die!

Die to the din and the noise

of mundane concerns

In the silence of love

you will find the spark of life

Liz Jones - Meaningless Words/Life and Death

Meaningless Words

Everything is dual.

Nothing is non-dual.

But nothing appears as everything,

So what is dual is really non-dual,

Which means what is dual can't be dual...

Everything is non-dual.

Nothing is dual.

But everything appears to be nothing,

So what's non-dual is really dual,

Which means that what is non-dual can't be non-dual...

Life and Death

Life – still, soft and crystal clear,

Dies laughing as it finds its

source.

Death – smiling, sheds a happy

tear,

Discovering that it’s life, of

course.

from 'Simply This' by Liz Jones.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Nisargadatta Maharaj - intuitive understanding.

My present outlook is without limitation, total freedom.
Ultimately one must go beyond knowledge, but the knowledge must come, and knowledge can
come by constant meditation. By meditating, the knowledge "I Am" gradually settles down and
merges with universal knowledge, and thereby becomes totally free, like the sky, or space.
Those who come here with the idea of getting knowledge, even spiritual knowledge, come here
as individuals aspiring to get something; that is the real difficulty. The seeker must disappear.
When you know your real nature the knowledge "I Am" remains, but that knowledge is
unlimited. It is not possible for you to acquire knowledge, you are knowledge. You are what you are seeking.Your true being exists prior to the arising of any concept. Can you, as an object, understand
something that existed prior to the arising of a concept? In the absence of consciousness is there anyproof of the existence of anything? Consciousness itself is mind, is thought, is all phenomena, all
manifestation. Apprehending this is being dead to "I am the body" while alive. This kind of
knowledge comes only in a rare case, and is a very elusive kind of knowledge where no effort is
necessary; in fact, effort itself is a hindrance. It is intuitive understanding.
Questioner:
Then should all spiritual disciplines be dropped?
Maharaj:
At the highest level this is so; at the earlier levels you have to do your homework.
Those who are able intuitively to grasp this lose their interest in worldly affairs. Having lost it,
what will they get? Whatever they have lost, they will have lost as an ordinary person, but what
they get in return will be fit for a King. Those who have comprehended and who have reached a
certain stage will not ask for anything, but everything will come to them spontaneously. There will
be no wish for it; nevertheless, it will be there.
This does not happen for an individual — it happens for the universal manifestation, or for the
one who has become one with his true nature. For the jnani, only witnessing is taking place.

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Neither time...

Neither time...

Neither time nor space exists for the man who knows the eternal. Space and time are real for the man who is yet imperfect and space is divided for him into dimensions, time into past, present and future. He looks behind him and sees his birth, his acquisitions, all that he has rejected. That past is being continually modified by the future which is ever being added to it. From the past man turns his eyes to the future where death, the unknown, the darkness, the mystery, await him. Fascinated by these he can no longer detach himself from them. The mystery of the future holds for him the fulfillment of all his desires, which the past has denied to him, and in his dreams he flies to that brilliant horizon where happiness must exist, where he must seek it. No one will ever pierce the infinite mystery of the future - impenetrable in its evanescent illusion - neither magician, prophet nor God! But on the contrary it will be the mystery which will engulf man, which will not let him escape, which will break the mainspring of his life. Life is not to be approached through the past, nor through the mirage of the future. Life cannot be approached through intermediaries, nor conquered for another. That discovery can only be made in the immediate present - by the individual for himself and not for others - by the individual who has become the eternal "I". That eternal "I" is created by the perfection of the self - perfection in which all things are contained, even human imperfections. Man, not yet having achieved that condition of life in the present, lives in the past which he regrets, lives in the future where he hopes, but never in the present which he ignores. This is the case with all men.
Balanced between the past and the future, the "I" is poised as a tiger ready to spring, as an eagle ready to fly, as the bow at the moment of releasing the arrow. This moment of equilibrium, of high tension, is "creation." It is the fullness of all life, it is immortality. The wind of the desert sweeps away all trace of the traveller. The sole imprint is the footstep of the present. The past, the future... sands blown by the wind.