art Khusro Sabzwari
The sea will be the sea, whatever the drop's philosophy...
Saturday, May 27, 2017
Friday, May 26, 2017
Rupert Spira - The Unknowable Reality of Things
I take my pen from its sheath
And offer its sharp, linear blackness, unknowing,
To this open expanse of empty white
And give the world time to find itself,
Inviting it to unravel the lineaments of fields
And rivers and seas and skies and minds,
To wrap in abstract gestures
The shape of silent things
That cannot be told,
To weave its searching thread on the page
Like a trail of smoke in an empty sky,
To trace the residue of its waiting,
Making known the unknowable
Reality of things
With its fading line,
To invite the shapelessness of things
To take shape
And to make a vessel
From which to taste itself.
And as I turn the page,
The world again closes its eyes
And untangles
The unwoven fabric of its dreaming,
Giving itself back in silence,
To the bright, empty,
Unknowable reality of things.
Although each of us
Has the deep intuition that what I am
Is eternal, infinite,
Without limits, ever-present,
We have imagined that what we are
is a finite object
And therefore, ‘I am going to disappear’.
At some point, we turn ‘round.
We ask ourselves
‘What is this one
Who is seeking, searching?’
And when we look for it
We don’t find the entity
Around whom our entire lives
For 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years
Have been revolving.
~ ~ ~
And offer its sharp, linear blackness, unknowing,
To this open expanse of empty white
And give the world time to find itself,
Inviting it to unravel the lineaments of fields
And rivers and seas and skies and minds,
To wrap in abstract gestures
The shape of silent things
That cannot be told,
To weave its searching thread on the page
Like a trail of smoke in an empty sky,
To trace the residue of its waiting,
Making known the unknowable
Reality of things
With its fading line,
To invite the shapelessness of things
To take shape
And to make a vessel
From which to taste itself.
And as I turn the page,
The world again closes its eyes
And untangles
The unwoven fabric of its dreaming,
Giving itself back in silence,
To the bright, empty,
Unknowable reality of things.
Although each of us
Has the deep intuition that what I am
Is eternal, infinite,
Without limits, ever-present,
We have imagined that what we are
is a finite object
And therefore, ‘I am going to disappear’.
At some point, we turn ‘round.
We ask ourselves
‘What is this one
Who is seeking, searching?’
And when we look for it
We don’t find the entity
Around whom our entire lives
For 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years
Have been revolving.
~ ~ ~
thanks to Amaya Aum for transcript
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Vimala Thakar - The Lovely State of Observation
There are two parts of life. Motion and motionlessness. Movement is one part of life but to be in a state of no movement is also a substantial part of our life. Speech is one aspect, one part of life, unconditional silence is also a substance of life. Form and formlessness, sound and silence, motion and motionlessness, light and darkness, birth and death, the two together constitute the wholeness of life. Man has created a contradiction between the two, man looks upon them as an opposition to life. Is there a contradiction between birth and death or is life a continuity, an eternal ocean of ISNESS on which there are bubbles of birth and death?
Silence is as much a substantial part of our lives to which we are not introduced. Motionlessness is a state of our being to which we are not introduced, The way we live, we go on collecting things on the material level, knowledge on the intellectual level, experience on the sensual and psychological level. We go on acquiring and the I, the Me, the Ego that goes on acquiring becomes stronger by every experience, with every achievement and we create an enclosure around us by our own knowledge, experience, possessions. In that enclosure we live and we feel secure in that, We live secluded, isolated from the Whole, because of the sense of possessions.
Meditation is a way of living that introduces us to that other part of our life. The silence, the motionlessness, it introduces us to our pure ISNESS which have never been conditioned and shall never be conditioned. […]
Meditation is coming home, to relax, to rest. If that takes place and one finds that though one has withdrawn and retired from activity, the inner movement goes on, thoughts come up, memories come up, then you begin to observe them. Till now you were busy carrying out functional roles, you were either the doer or the experience. From these two roles you have set yourself free voluntarily. You are now the observer. The inner movements come up, the involuntary movement comes up though the voluntary has been discontinued. You sit there quietly, you do not prepare to see, but if thoughts appear, then they are seen by you. It is a lovely state, the state of observation.
--Vimala Thakar, from "Meditation In Daily Life"
Silence is as much a substantial part of our lives to which we are not introduced. Motionlessness is a state of our being to which we are not introduced, The way we live, we go on collecting things on the material level, knowledge on the intellectual level, experience on the sensual and psychological level. We go on acquiring and the I, the Me, the Ego that goes on acquiring becomes stronger by every experience, with every achievement and we create an enclosure around us by our own knowledge, experience, possessions. In that enclosure we live and we feel secure in that, We live secluded, isolated from the Whole, because of the sense of possessions.
Meditation is a way of living that introduces us to that other part of our life. The silence, the motionlessness, it introduces us to our pure ISNESS which have never been conditioned and shall never be conditioned. […]
Meditation is coming home, to relax, to rest. If that takes place and one finds that though one has withdrawn and retired from activity, the inner movement goes on, thoughts come up, memories come up, then you begin to observe them. Till now you were busy carrying out functional roles, you were either the doer or the experience. From these two roles you have set yourself free voluntarily. You are now the observer. The inner movements come up, the involuntary movement comes up though the voluntary has been discontinued. You sit there quietly, you do not prepare to see, but if thoughts appear, then they are seen by you. It is a lovely state, the state of observation.
--Vimala Thakar, from "Meditation In Daily Life"
Brandon Lott - Nothing Matters
Out of the earth we arise to re-present the infinite … infinitely.
Flesh of the earth breathing with a beating heart that communes with the inexhaustibly incomprehensible … intimately.
Listen to the pulsating rhythm of the unknown as it is drummed by the hands of omnipresence.
There is no essence. There is no source. Naturally, this pathless Way utilizes no force.
Magic is … allow it.
It is the uncontrollable substance … let go.
The space in-between is not … for there is only space … space for eternal, boundless, creativity.
This incessant magical display allows the immaterial to materialize so that in our meditative reflection we realize that
… nothing matters.
Flesh of the earth breathing with a beating heart that communes with the inexhaustibly incomprehensible … intimately.
Listen to the pulsating rhythm of the unknown as it is drummed by the hands of omnipresence.
There is no essence. There is no source. Naturally, this pathless Way utilizes no force.
Magic is … allow it.
It is the uncontrollable substance … let go.
The space in-between is not … for there is only space … space for eternal, boundless, creativity.
This incessant magical display allows the immaterial to materialize so that in our meditative reflection we realize that
… nothing matters.
Miriam Louisa - Emptiness
Since this enigmatic word turns up in the title of this blog it’s important to be clear about what it means in the context of these notes.
Emptiness, for this writer, equates to the ineffable, immeasurable, movement of Creation.
This is an emptiness that isn’t empty – which sounds very illogical indeed. Buddhists are familiar with the concept of an effulgent emptiness, and that’s the way the word is used here although the writer isn’t a Buddhist.
It might be helpful to think of this emptiness as the quantum field of potential and possibilities that our quantum physicists describe. The illustration above is actually a photograph of the kind of activity these physicists observe within a tunnel called a Bubble Chamber. As you can see, there’s a lot going on and it’s far from empty.
Some teachings avoid the word emptiness because it tends to be taken literally when not deeply explored. This can cause some brain operating systems to fall into the trap of nihilism, non-existence or voidness, which can be hard to escape. Other words for this Emptiness include Pure Awareness, Beingness, God, sunyata, Tao. “A rose by any other name …”
However, a conceptual idea of Emptiness isn’t Emptiness. It’s a description; it might be a useful pointer, but the point is still missed. When enough Emptiness flows into Awareness thanks to the vacating of mental activity, it is discovered for oneself that this Emptiness is what one actually is – and always has been. One had simply overlooked a too-simple-to-be-accepted actuality.
This much the woman on the zafu has understood. Now she’s getting to grips with what that means in her ho-hum daily life. Tricky, subtle business this; this is where all the stories emerge from wherever in brainspace they are archived, and raise their voices in protest. She listens to them. She finds they vaporize into Emptiness when viewed from Emptiness. Slowly Emptiness teaches her the way of Emptiness. Slowly her heart melts into long-forgotten Love. She begins to be at ease with not-knowing and not-doing.
She keeps sitting, breathing, scribbling.
Emptiness, for this writer, equates to the ineffable, immeasurable, movement of Creation.
This is an emptiness that isn’t empty – which sounds very illogical indeed. Buddhists are familiar with the concept of an effulgent emptiness, and that’s the way the word is used here although the writer isn’t a Buddhist.
It might be helpful to think of this emptiness as the quantum field of potential and possibilities that our quantum physicists describe. The illustration above is actually a photograph of the kind of activity these physicists observe within a tunnel called a Bubble Chamber. As you can see, there’s a lot going on and it’s far from empty.
Some teachings avoid the word emptiness because it tends to be taken literally when not deeply explored. This can cause some brain operating systems to fall into the trap of nihilism, non-existence or voidness, which can be hard to escape. Other words for this Emptiness include Pure Awareness, Beingness, God, sunyata, Tao. “A rose by any other name …”
However, a conceptual idea of Emptiness isn’t Emptiness. It’s a description; it might be a useful pointer, but the point is still missed. When enough Emptiness flows into Awareness thanks to the vacating of mental activity, it is discovered for oneself that this Emptiness is what one actually is – and always has been. One had simply overlooked a too-simple-to-be-accepted actuality.
This much the woman on the zafu has understood. Now she’s getting to grips with what that means in her ho-hum daily life. Tricky, subtle business this; this is where all the stories emerge from wherever in brainspace they are archived, and raise their voices in protest. She listens to them. She finds they vaporize into Emptiness when viewed from Emptiness. Slowly Emptiness teaches her the way of Emptiness. Slowly her heart melts into long-forgotten Love. She begins to be at ease with not-knowing and not-doing.
She keeps sitting, breathing, scribbling.
Monday, May 22, 2017
Jon Bernie - Surrender
pic Martin Stranka
So we sit down, we’re quiet for a while.
And gradually the unwinding happens –
of the mind, and the body, and the heart.
And then maybe we get a glimpse, or a taste, of freedom;
and if we do, then we give our attention to that.
We surrender to that presence.
Dropping out of our heads and surrendering to stillness,
one-pointed presence, effortless vastness.
We let it take us, completely.
That’s what surrender is.
And gradually the unwinding happens –
of the mind, and the body, and the heart.
And then maybe we get a glimpse, or a taste, of freedom;
and if we do, then we give our attention to that.
We surrender to that presence.
Dropping out of our heads and surrendering to stillness,
one-pointed presence, effortless vastness.
We let it take us, completely.
That’s what surrender is.
Ordinary Freedom
Huang Po - No self and no other
Let there be a silent understanding and no more. Away with all thinking and explaining. Then we may say that the Way of Words has been cut off and movements of the mind eliminated. This Mind is the pure Buddha-Source inherent in all men. All wriggling beings possessed of sentient life and all the Buddhas and Boddhisattvas are of this one substance and do not differ. Differences arise from wrong-thinking only and lead to the creation of all kinds of karma.
All the visible universe is the Buddha; so are all sounds; hold fast to one principle and all the others are Identical. On seeing one thing, you see ALL. On perceiving any individual’s mind, you are perceiving ALL Mind. Obtain a glimpse of one way and ALL ways are embraced in your vision, for there is nowhere at all which is devoid of the Way. When your glance falls upon a grain of dust, what you see is identical with all the vast world systems with their great rivers and mighty hills. To gaze upon a drop of water is to behold the nature of all the waters of the universe.
Only come to know the nature of your own Mind, in which there is no self and no other, and you will in fact be a Buddha.
All the visible universe is the Buddha; so are all sounds; hold fast to one principle and all the others are Identical. On seeing one thing, you see ALL. On perceiving any individual’s mind, you are perceiving ALL Mind. Obtain a glimpse of one way and ALL ways are embraced in your vision, for there is nowhere at all which is devoid of the Way. When your glance falls upon a grain of dust, what you see is identical with all the vast world systems with their great rivers and mighty hills. To gaze upon a drop of water is to behold the nature of all the waters of the universe.
Only come to know the nature of your own Mind, in which there is no self and no other, and you will in fact be a Buddha.
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