Zentio

June 27th, 2008

From ‘The Wisdom of No Escape’
by Pema Chodron

Now. That’s the key. Now, now, now.
Mindfulness trains you to be awake
and alive, fully curious, about what?
Well, about now, right? You sit in
meditation and the out-breath is now
and waking up from your fantasies is
now and even the fantasies are now,
although they seem to take you into
the past and into the future. The
more you can be completely now, the
more you realize that you’re in the
center of the world, standing in the
middle of a sacred circle. It’s no
small affair, whether you’re brushing
your teeth or cooking your food or
wiping your bottom. Whatever you’re
doing, you’re doing it now.

Our life’s work is to use what we have
been given to wake up. If there were
two people who were exactly the same-
same body, same speech, same mind,
same mother, same father, same house,
same food, everything the same-one of
them could use what he has to wake up
and the other could use it to become
more resentful, bitter, and sour. It
doesn’t matter what you’re given,
whether it’s physical deformity or
enormous wealth or poverty, beauty or
ugliness, mental stability or mental
instability, life in the middle of a
madhouse or life in the middle of a
peaceful, silent desert. Whatever you’re
given can wake you up or put you to sleep.
That’s the challenge of now: What are you
going to do with what you have already-
your body, your speech, your mind?

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The Bodhisattva

June 1st, 2008

allspirit : Message: The Bodhisattva

From ‘The Wise Heart’
by Jack Kornfield

*The problem with the world is that we
draw our family circle too small.*
-Mother Teresa

*Bodhisattva* is the Sanskrit word for
a being who is devoted to awakening and
to acting for the benefit of all that
lives. The way of the bodhisattva is one
of the most radical and powerful of all
Buddhist forms of practice. It is radical
because it states that the fulfillment of
our happiness comes only from serving the
welfare of others as well as ourself. Our
highest happiness is connected with the
well-being of others.

The bodhisattva’s path is a striking
contrast with the common Western modes
of therapy that so often reflect the
excessive individualism of our culture.
Everything can get focused around me: my
fears, my neurosis, my happiness, my needs,
my boundaries.We can get so caught in our
own drama that we stop our own growth.
Reflective self-absorption can be valuable
for a time, but we don’t want to stop there.
Therapists talk about how clients eventually
become sick of listening to themselves, which
is actually a good sign. It means we are moving
beyond the identification with our personal
suffering. We are ready to care for a world
larger than our own.

Every wisdom tradition tells us that human
meaning and happiness cannot be found in
isolation but comes about through generosity,
love, and understanding. The bodhisattva,
knowing this, appears in a thousand forms,
from a caring grandmother to the global citizen.
Meditators often recite the bodhisattva vows
when they sit, offering any benefit of their
practice for the sake of others: “Sentient
beings are numberless; I vow to bring liberation
to us all.” Like the ancient Hippocratic oath,
the vow to serve the sick taken by every physician,
the bodhisattva vows to serve the welfare of all.
In a more poetic fashion, the Dalai Lama takes
bodhisattva vows based on the words of the beloved
sixth-century sage Shantideva:

*May I be a Guard for those who need protection
A Guide for those on the path
A boat, a raft, a bridge for those who wish
to cross the flood
May I be a lamp in the darkness
A resting place for the weary
A healing medicine for all who are sick
A vase of plenty, a tree of miracles
And for the boundless multitudes of living beings
May I bring sustenance and awakening
Enduring like the earth and sky
Until all beings are freed from sorrow
And all are awakened.*

Psychologically this is an astonishing thing to
say. Does this mean that I am going to run around
and save six billion humans and trillions of other
beings? How can I do so? When we think about it
from our limited sense of self, it is impossible.
But when we make it an intention of the heart, we
understand. To take such a vow is a direction, a
sacred purpose, a statement of wisdom, an offering,
a blessing. When the world is seen with the eyes
of a bodhisattva, there is no I and other, there
is just us.

Posted in All, Awakening, Bodhisattvas, Buddhism, Jack Kornfield, Nonduality, Wisdom | Comments Off

Holiday Without Limits - Rumi

May 30th, 2008

allspirit : Message: Holiday Without Limits - Rumi

Holiday Without Limits
Rumi

Going into battle, we carry no shield.
Playing in concert, unaware
of the beat or the melody.

We have become grains in the ground underfoot,
fold on fold, layers of love, nothing else.

Obliterated, as when the eye medicine
is no longer even a powder.
Then it cures sight.

An accident gradually gets accepted
as the thing that needed to happen.
Sickness melts into health.

There is nothing worse than staying congealed.
Let your liver dissolve into blood.
Let your heart break into such tiny pieces
it cannot be found.

The moon orb wanes.
Then for three days you could say
that there is no moon.

That is the moon that has drawn
so close to the sun,
it is nowhere, and everywhere.

Send us someone who can sing music
for the soul, though we know
such longing cannot rise from a lute
or a tambourine, not from the sun,
or Venus, or any star.

As day comes, give back
the night-fantasy things you stole.
Admit your arrogance as the stars do at dawn.

When the sun goes down, Venus begins bragging,
claiming light, arguing her loveliness
over the moon’s. Jupiter lifts a gold coin
from his bag. Mars shows his blade
to Saturn. Mercury sits on a high throne
and gives himself successive titles.

That is how it goes in the middle
of the night. Then dawn. Jupiter
is suddenly poor. Mars and Saturn
have no plans. Venus and the moon
run away, broken and terrified.

Then the sun within the sun enters,
and this night-and-day talk
seems a meaningless convention,
the lighting business.

A true holy day for a man or a woman
is the one when they bring themselves
as the sacrifice.

When Shams shone his light from nowhere,
I felt a holiday without limits begin
where once was just a person.

From ‘Rumi - Bridge to the Soul’
Coleman Barks

Posted in All, Light, Longing, Mysticism, Poetry, Rumi, Sacrifice | No Comments »

Love is an endless mystery

May 30th, 2008

allspirit : Message: Love is an endless mystery

From ‘Perfect Brilliant Stillness’
by David Carse

“Love is an endless mystery
for it has nothing else to explain. it.”
- Tagore

“whisper words of wisdom: Let it be,”
- Lennon/McCartney

IN THE BEGINNING OF HIS BOOK, The Final
Truth, Ramesh writes,

“The final truth cannot be accepted unless
the mind is empty of the ‘me’ and the heart
is full of love.”

And a few days ago, in our conversation, he
told me, “david - do you want to know how to
live life? Let it be! Let it happen. Everything
that everyone is ‘doing’ - let it happen!
“Be still, ‘do’ whatever ‘you’ want, and don’t
bother about the world!

[...]

“You stand inside me naked infinite Love …
we’re lost where the mind can’t find us,
utterly lost” (Ikkyu)

—

Posted in Advaita, All, Love, Mysticism, Truth | No Comments »

Dissipation

May 30th, 2008

allspirit : Message: Dissipation

From ‘The Spirit Of Tao’
Translated and edited by Thomas Cleary

Sayings Of Ancestor Lu

Dissipation

The human body is only vitality,
energy, and spirit. If you do not
care about your vitality and waste
it arbitrarily, that is like putting
water into a leaking cup; it will not
fill the cup, but will gradually leak
away. Finally it will be all gone, not
a drop left. If you do not care about
your energy but let it go whichever way
it will, that is like placing incense
on a red-hot brazier, letting it burn
away; add more fuel and fire, and the
incense will become ash. If you do not
care about your spirit and dissipate it
arbitrarily, that is like placing a lone
lamp in the wind, letting it be blown by
the wind, uncovered, so that it goes out.

Posted in All, Mysticism, Taoism, Teachings | No Comments »

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 32

May 30th, 2008

allspirit : Message: Tao Te Ching, Chapter 32

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 32

Ursula Le Guin:

The way goes on forever nameless.
Uncut wood, nothing important,
yet nobody under heaven
dare try to carve it.
If rulers and leaders could use it,
the ten thousand things
would gather in homage,
heaven and earth would drop sweet dew,
and people, without being ordered,
would be fair to one another.
To order, to govern,
is to begin naming; when names proliferate
it’s time to stop.
If you know when to stop you’re in no danger.
The Way in the world
is as a stream to a valley, a river to the sea.

The second verse connects the uncut, the
uncarved, the unusable, to the idea of the
unnamed presented in the first chapter:
“name’s the mother of the ten thousand things.”
You have to make order, you have to make
distinctions, but you also have to know when
to stop before you’ve lost the whole in the
multiplicity of parts. The simplicity or
singleness of the Way is that of water,
which always rejoins itself.

Feng/English:

The Tao is forever undefined.
Small though it is in the unformed state,
it cannot be grasped.
If kings and lords could harness it,
The ten thousand things would come together
And gentle rain fall.
Men would need no more instruction and
all things would take their course.
Once the whole is divided, the parts need names.
There are already enough names.
One must know when to stop.
Knowing when to stop averts trouble.
Tao in the world is like a river flowing home
to the sea.

–

Stephen Mitchell:

The Tao can’t be perceived.
Smaller than an electron,
it contains uncountable galaxies.

If powerful men and women
could remain centered in the Tao,
all things would be in harmony.
The world would become a paradise.
All people would be at peace,
and the law would be written in their hearts.

When you have names and forms,
know that they are provisional.
When you have institutions,
know where their functions should end.
Knowing when to stop,
you can avoid any danger.

All things end in the Tao
as rivers flow into the sea.

Posted in All, Mysticism, Taoism, Understanding | No Comments »

Disorientation

May 30th, 2008

allspiritinspiration : Message: Disorientation

From ‘The Spirit Of Tao’
Translated and edited by Thomas Cleary

Sayings Of Ancestor Lu

Disorientation

The emotions are a huge bolt, and craving
is the lock on the bolt. When you cut through
the lock and take away the bolt, you can get
beyond the barrier and go in peace, freely,
without hindrance. Mastering understanding
of the ultimate Way, you then ascend to
exalted reality. I pity people who create all
sorts of demons and obstacles because of
craving. They are confused and disoriented
all their lives, rarely taking stock of themselves.
Even when people of high attainment try to
enlighten them, it is like beating a drum for the
deaf, like presenting a lamp to the blind. After
all they do not wake up. What a pity! Still they
feign interest in the Way, but their interest is
misguided - what they seek is immortality. This
is like opening Pandora’s box-it’s not that they
don’t find anything, but there is harm in it.

Posted in All, Awakening, Emotions, Peace, Reality, Taoism, Understanding | No Comments »

The Seed of Emotions

May 30th, 2008

allspiritinspiration : Message: The Seed of Emotions

From The Spirit Of Tao
Translated and edited by Thomas Cleary

Sayings Of Ancestor Lu

The Seed of Emotions

Because of the six organs, people
produce the six consciousnesses;
and because of the six consciousnesses
they produce emotions. They hardly
realize that emotions confuse them in
regard to fundamental reality. Once
fundamental reality is lost sight of,
then emotions run wild. But the seed
of all emotions is craving. Why is
this? Because craving is at the root
of emotions. If you don’t crave any-
thing, you don’t want anything; if you
don’t want anything, how can you be
attracted to anything? If you are not
attracted to anything, you are not
repulsed by anything; if you have neither
attraction nor repulsion, what anger can
there be? When there is no anger, fear
does not occur; without fear, sadness
disappears.

So we know that craving is the root of
emotions. If you try to control emotions
forcibly without extirpating the root,
you control nothing but outgrowths. This
is like a flood of water: if you try to
dam it without stopping the source or
clearing the flow, eventually you’ll be
drowned. It is also like a blazing fire:
if you try to beat it out without removing
its fuel or cutting off its path, you’ll
just increase the force of the flames, so
that you’ll be threatened at every turn.
It is also like the waves of the ocean,
one following another endlessly.

Feeling emotions and evoking them, they
all accompany the mind, growing according
to circumstances. Only developed people,
knowing the seed, use the sword of wisdom
with great aspiration and fierce determination
to cut through the root and sprouts, extirpate
undesirable syndromes, and prevent emotions
from growing on them like parasites.

Posted in All, Consciousness, Emotions, Taoism, Wisdom | No Comments »

Perception

May 28th, 2008

allspirit : Message: Perception

From ‘The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching’
by Thich Nhat Hanh

To perceive always means to perceive
something. We believe that the object
of our perception is outside of the
subject, but that is not correct. When
we perceive the moon, the moon is us.
When we smile to our friend, our friend
is also us, because she is the object
of our perception.

When we perceive a mountain, the mountain
is the object of our perception. When we
perceive the moon, the moon is the object
of our perception. When we say, “I can see
my consciousness in the flower,” it means
we can see the cloud, the sunshine, the
earth, and the minerals in it. But how can
we see our consciousness in a flower? The
flower is our consciousness. It is the
object of our perception. It is our perception.
To perceive means to perceive something.
Perception means the coming into existence
of the perceiver and the perceived. The
flower that we are looking at is part of
our consciousness. The idea that our
consciousness is outside of the flower has
to be removed. It is impossible to have a
subject without an object. It is impossible
to remove one and retain the other.

The Source of our perception, our way of
seeing, lies in our store consciousness.
If ten people look at a cloud, there will
be ten different perceptions of it. Whether
it is perceived as a dog, a hammer, or a
coat depends on our mind _ our sadness, our
memories, our anger. Our perceptions carry
with them all the errors of subjectivity.

Posted in All, Buddhism, Consciousness, Perception, Thich Nhat Hanh | No Comments »

Quintessential Zen

May 28th, 2008

allspirit : Message: Quintessential Zen

From ‘Teachings of Zen’
Edited by Thomas Cleary

Since time immemorial, when buddhas or
Zen masters have dealt with sharp and
clear people with the keen faculties
appropriate to the higher vehicle, they
have simply required transcendence of
feelings, detachment from views, and
liveliness of functions, knowing something
before it’s brought up, understanding some-
thing before it’s said, cutting through
appearances, never pursuing thought in the
conceptual faculty, making body and mind
empty, immaterially spiritual, serenely
sublimated, inwardly clarifying independent
individual perception, outwardly unattached
to anything at all. When inside and outside
are clear, there is only one true reality:
not being companion to myriad things, not
congregating with the thousand sages, you
are independently liberated, transcendent,
independent, and free.

~Sung-yuan

Posted in All, Buddhism, Detachment, Feelings, Freedom, Thought, Zen | No Comments »

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