Ananda, Bliss is what we so crave as 'spiritual' people. We want to escape the turmoil of this existence and its unenlightened people and hold up in some Nirvana....this is all a huge waste of time! If we think that bliss is forthcoming, that its in some expanded awareness or sense of ourselves, than its not really bliss that we're after. Bliss is only right here, not in some fulfillment of an idea of enlightenment....we are very arrogant in our search for bliss, and also in the thinking that we've found it.
Bliss is the ground on which we all stand, it is not some feeling you get after your chakras are all illumined the right way. Bliss is the ruthless simplicity of this drop of water on this blade of grass. Bliss is not some special state or experience.
Nor is bliss coming and going. If it comes and goes it's not bliss, for bliss is always here underneath every coming and going. This is why when we attach ourselves to a blissful experiences or go chasing a blissful experience we suffer--our suffering is letting us know we're in a fruitless journey, for what we seek is right here before we ever take a step.
My urging to you is to discover yourself to be that Bliss. In order to discover that you must find out what does not come and go. What is both ceaseless and causeless....
A few really huge experiences or a couple hits of samadhi, or some major intuition you may have does not indicate that you've discovered the ground of Being as your own Self. And if you think you've got it and someone else doesn't, the only thing you've got is a delusion.
This causeless, ceaseless Bliss is ruthless--it will consume every image, idea, and identity until only Itself remains.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
Emptiness and Humanness
In our culture and society we put so much attention and energy into becoming somebody, with a deep fear of being nobody. So the most appropriate medicine for many of us is Emptiness, and the realization of no-self. While that might be good medicine for somebody clinging to their somebody-ness, it can be nauseating for somebody who gets stuck in emptiness and thus negates his or her humanness.
With a tight grip on emptiness and no-self life becomes very dreary, grey, and dead...what is needed is the realization of the fullness of emptiness only found within this very life, this very human being. Some "spiritual" people get trapped trying to become nothing and nobody, all the while attempting it with a hollow, miserable sense of self. Or, in avoidance of being a miserable self, we go about trying to become something bigger or better.
There is a space in which we are neither a nobody nor a somebody, right where the Truth of who one really is remains inseparable from this very life. We are neither the absolute nor our human experience, we are both our human experience and absolute existence...holding neither side reveals the true non-duality of our Spiritual nature and human nature.
Finally, Heaven and Earth are not separated at all.
With a tight grip on emptiness and no-self life becomes very dreary, grey, and dead...what is needed is the realization of the fullness of emptiness only found within this very life, this very human being. Some "spiritual" people get trapped trying to become nothing and nobody, all the while attempting it with a hollow, miserable sense of self. Or, in avoidance of being a miserable self, we go about trying to become something bigger or better.
There is a space in which we are neither a nobody nor a somebody, right where the Truth of who one really is remains inseparable from this very life. We are neither the absolute nor our human experience, we are both our human experience and absolute existence...holding neither side reveals the true non-duality of our Spiritual nature and human nature.
Finally, Heaven and Earth are not separated at all.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Total Faith
True and total Faith has nothing to do with beliefs. Total Faith is knowing. The difficulty is in trying to describe what that Faith is or what is known. Total Faith is what relies on nothing at all. Total Faith is what arises when you have discovered your true nature. Awakening erases the believer in us and makes us what we were believing in... from that, Total Faith becomes our life...who we are....what we are. It is a faith that goes beyond the believer and its object of belief. Total Faith ends our belief oriented faith. It takes the whole structure of our belief and turns it around so that we have become what we were believing in.
I cannot say have total faith that you will get everything you want. I cannot say that total faith holds promise for what one is seeking. Total Faith is itself the means and end. It is the deepest desire of the heart, and the fulfillment of all longing. It is Life, unhinged. As Total Faith, we no longer rely on anything either outside ourselves or inside ourselves....Total Faith annihilates all of our conceptualizations and puts our life in direct contact with the Source of all Being. In direct contact with the Source one becomes Faith itself. All need, all desire, all hope is unnecessary because one knows oneself to be the Totality.
I cannot say have total faith that you will get everything you want. I cannot say that total faith holds promise for what one is seeking. Total Faith is itself the means and end. It is the deepest desire of the heart, and the fulfillment of all longing. It is Life, unhinged. As Total Faith, we no longer rely on anything either outside ourselves or inside ourselves....Total Faith annihilates all of our conceptualizations and puts our life in direct contact with the Source of all Being. In direct contact with the Source one becomes Faith itself. All need, all desire, all hope is unnecessary because one knows oneself to be the Totality.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Blown Wide Open
The phrase "blew my mind" is such an accurate description of what occurs when you see who you truly are. What is most immediate about an experience of Truth or God is that you recognize that your mind isn't capable of containing that Presence. You realize that what you're experiencing in that very moment is the Totality of Everything everywhere. The mind, being this little device revolving around 'me' is never gonna get it...the mind is never going to wrap its understanding around the Infinite. Being blown wide open is to have your mind humbled by the vastness of what you are.
For many of us that can be quite a terrifying ordeal because we are so accustomed to being able to understand, relate, and conceptualize our world. Just the slightest kiss of Reality shows you that that's all a big joke. It shows you that what you have held yourself together as is merely an image on the surface of an ocean that is endless.
The ocean that is our own Self is constantly inviting our lives to be blown wide open, but it is our attempt to always put a lid on things and keep them manageable that we avoid this 'being blown wide open'. It may also be that we at some time had this little kiss and because it was so big and huge and held so much energy we're simply not willing to look.
It is very useful to see what prevents your life from being blown open, or what keeps your life from falling apart. It is often the case that what keeps your life from falling apart is the very thing that keeps life feeling fragile, broken, and full of innumerable sufferings. It is not that I, or Life, or the Divine wants your destruction or to blow you up. It is simply that when we hold an idea, image, or belief about what we are, that little 'me' is going to have to be seen through at some point or other because it is ultimately unreal. The Real will eventually erode, blow up, or simply reveal Itself to Itself and make this illusion of who we think we are totally transparent.
Spiritual Awakening is just a possibility to light the fuse, close your eyes, and say good-bye.
Then, you see that you haven't gone anywhere, nor could you go anywhere.
You are Here.
For many of us that can be quite a terrifying ordeal because we are so accustomed to being able to understand, relate, and conceptualize our world. Just the slightest kiss of Reality shows you that that's all a big joke. It shows you that what you have held yourself together as is merely an image on the surface of an ocean that is endless.
The ocean that is our own Self is constantly inviting our lives to be blown wide open, but it is our attempt to always put a lid on things and keep them manageable that we avoid this 'being blown wide open'. It may also be that we at some time had this little kiss and because it was so big and huge and held so much energy we're simply not willing to look.
It is very useful to see what prevents your life from being blown open, or what keeps your life from falling apart. It is often the case that what keeps your life from falling apart is the very thing that keeps life feeling fragile, broken, and full of innumerable sufferings. It is not that I, or Life, or the Divine wants your destruction or to blow you up. It is simply that when we hold an idea, image, or belief about what we are, that little 'me' is going to have to be seen through at some point or other because it is ultimately unreal. The Real will eventually erode, blow up, or simply reveal Itself to Itself and make this illusion of who we think we are totally transparent.
Spiritual Awakening is just a possibility to light the fuse, close your eyes, and say good-bye.
Then, you see that you haven't gone anywhere, nor could you go anywhere.
You are Here.
Change and Transformation
Change doesn't come about through trying to change, change comes about when whatever is standing between you and the change is let go of. For many us what stands in the way is our very own effort to transform. When we attempt to transform or change anything, we automatically set up whatever quality, condition, or circumstance that we are attempting to change as a problem. All problems will increase in degree simply by our desire to change them. To include within oneself whatever it is that one is attempting to change frees the problem from being a problem to get rid of. The problem simply persists out of our resistance, or unwillingness to experience it. In a sense change is impossible until we're no longer wishing for it.
It is a ruthless transformation that unfolds when effort and striving to change have fallen away. The more that we realize our own powerlessness and inability to change ourselves, the more room we actually allow for real transformation. Up til now you thought you could do it, but it is only when you realize that you can't do it that real transformation is possible.
It is a ruthless transformation that unfolds when effort and striving to change have fallen away. The more that we realize our own powerlessness and inability to change ourselves, the more room we actually allow for real transformation. Up til now you thought you could do it, but it is only when you realize that you can't do it that real transformation is possible.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Being Water
Look at the example of water, see how water does not fight for itself. See how it bends and flows, evaporates, and is a total example of non-resistance, non-effort, and non-striving. And--as the Tao te Ching says, "there is nothing so powerful as water to erode a mountain". Water's power lies in its total non-trying and it therefore follows the natural way of all things. Water has no will, nor is it predetermined...it just is as it is when you find it just like it is. Following the example of water we give up both willfulness and no-will. We simply abide in the way things are.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
On the Nature of Thought
First thoughts have no parents,
but all thoughts bare children.
All the offspring have no souls,
because at first there was no ancestor.
Thoughts arise to describe reality--
but it can't be done.
Thoughts are not trustworthy, and thoughts are also not an enemy. Thoughts are just thoughts, they come and they go. They, in and of themselves, have no reality or substance. All thoughts arise first because we identify ourselves as some person, or some thing. When we give rise to a single thought, it rises up first from the sense of 'I'. From 'I' all thinking, conceptualizing, describing, opinions, and evaluations are derived. Without first having that primary 'I' concept, all thoughts are irrelevant to the individual. The only importance or significance that we give to thought is the degree to which we identify with what the thoughts are saying, "their stories". And, actually, the less importance or attachment we give to our thoughts, the less thought runs our lives. When thought is no longer running the life, then one is free from the 'virtual' life, and living in the actuality of things...Reality.
On the other hand, thought is not to be made the enemy, because making thought bad entrenches the thinking even more than identifying with it. It is only a thought that wants to get rid of another thought. It is only an identification that sees a particular thought or concept as problematic. Who you are cannot be determined by a thought, nor can who you are be determined by resisting thought.
It is actually possible to neither identify with thinking nor resist thought- but to simply recognize that thought is thought, it is impermanent, changing and ultimately unreliable.
but all thoughts bare children.
All the offspring have no souls,
because at first there was no ancestor.
Thoughts arise to describe reality--
but it can't be done.
Thoughts are not trustworthy, and thoughts are also not an enemy. Thoughts are just thoughts, they come and they go. They, in and of themselves, have no reality or substance. All thoughts arise first because we identify ourselves as some person, or some thing. When we give rise to a single thought, it rises up first from the sense of 'I'. From 'I' all thinking, conceptualizing, describing, opinions, and evaluations are derived. Without first having that primary 'I' concept, all thoughts are irrelevant to the individual. The only importance or significance that we give to thought is the degree to which we identify with what the thoughts are saying, "their stories". And, actually, the less importance or attachment we give to our thoughts, the less thought runs our lives. When thought is no longer running the life, then one is free from the 'virtual' life, and living in the actuality of things...Reality.
On the other hand, thought is not to be made the enemy, because making thought bad entrenches the thinking even more than identifying with it. It is only a thought that wants to get rid of another thought. It is only an identification that sees a particular thought or concept as problematic. Who you are cannot be determined by a thought, nor can who you are be determined by resisting thought.
It is actually possible to neither identify with thinking nor resist thought- but to simply recognize that thought is thought, it is impermanent, changing and ultimately unreliable.
The Ecstasy of this Moment
Ecstasy is simple, it is when we complicate it by attaching so many expectations and needs on our state that we actually distort the true simple ecstasy that's here now. Expecting ecstasy is to overlook ecstasy, to wait on it is to postpone its right here right now reality. Look for nothing to be better, and find that it is better than we could have made it.
As the 6th Zen patriarch said, The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
If we don't prefer ecstasy over anything else, we experience the ecstasy of this moment. Ecstasy can even look like pain. It can look like sadness. It can look like ecstasy.
Life itself is ecstasy. Not our notion of ecstasy, that's a fantasy.
One cannot find the ecstasy of the present, one can only be it. Finding would require that you were separate from it, but to be it is the simplest thing we could ever do.
As the 6th Zen patriarch said, The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
If we don't prefer ecstasy over anything else, we experience the ecstasy of this moment. Ecstasy can even look like pain. It can look like sadness. It can look like ecstasy.
Life itself is ecstasy. Not our notion of ecstasy, that's a fantasy.
One cannot find the ecstasy of the present, one can only be it. Finding would require that you were separate from it, but to be it is the simplest thing we could ever do.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Green Tea
Awakening is,
my cup of golden green tea
what else?
The Buddha didn't have anything
on my cup of tea--
flower wilts,
green tea strong
my cup of golden green tea
what else?
The Buddha didn't have anything
on my cup of tea--
flower wilts,
green tea strong
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Life and Death
Life and death are the same, birth and life are the same. Birth and death oppose each other, but life opposes nothing. Life just is, it is all that there is. It is a great error to think that you were born, or that you'll die. Just as Life is never born and never dies, so too with you. The body will die. The Self that animates it cannot. The Self and Life are the same.
The fear of death is based on the assumption that because the body will die, you will die. If you were aware that you could not die, what fear could touch you?
If we're really serious about discovering the truth of our existence we must look into this matter of life and death. There is no getting to Nirvana without first holding this great question very dear.
We must proceed beyond, to stare directly at our unborn essence, and to see that death is an imagination created from a primary imagination: a sense of separate self.
To find this separate self is to clear up the matter of life and death. To dig down to the root and find out what this self is made of is to look directly at one's true nature.
In order to live you must first die, and in order to die you must find out what is living.
No birth, no death, no self, no this, no that...only Life.
The fear of death is based on the assumption that because the body will die, you will die. If you were aware that you could not die, what fear could touch you?
If we're really serious about discovering the truth of our existence we must look into this matter of life and death. There is no getting to Nirvana without first holding this great question very dear.
We must proceed beyond, to stare directly at our unborn essence, and to see that death is an imagination created from a primary imagination: a sense of separate self.
To find this separate self is to clear up the matter of life and death. To dig down to the root and find out what this self is made of is to look directly at one's true nature.
In order to live you must first die, and in order to die you must find out what is living.
No birth, no death, no self, no this, no that...only Life.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Reincarnation
As is often the case, words hold within them great truths, but it is our consciousness that must look deeply in order to see what is hidden within the words. I find this word reincarnation particularly useful to reveal a deeper truth within our experience. RE: again INCARNATION: coming into the flesh
We are all familiar with the traditional definitions of reincarnation...we die, we're reborn over and over until we reach liberation, right?
But that is all theory, very few of us have that direct knowledge. There is though, a pointing to our actual direct experience right here, right now. That pointing is to see how we constantly re-identify with our bodies, with our thoughts about our bodies, and the conditions that our bodies live in. And I'm not just talking about superficial identification, "I strive to be attractive". I am talking about the constant binding of 'I' with the body. Our notion of our self is continually tied to the shifting changes of the body.
In deep sleep, or even during an engaging movie, we temporarily drop the identification with the body, only to reincarnate again by re-identifying the body as 'me'. We repeat this cycle a nearly infinite number of times until one day we stop and look, "what am I, really?" If my body changes, and my mind changes, and my conditions change...what is it that does not change?
To find that out is liberation...
The notion of ourselves as body, as mind, as conditions, is liberated from the bind of 'self'.
The cycle of reincarnation doesn't end in the future, it ends when we finally get interested in finding out what's True.
The Truth reveals that there is nothing to reincarnate, and that there is only One that itself incarnates as all things... the reincarnation is not yours or mine.
That which believes itself to be in the flesh must find its non-existence to be liberated, and upon liberation realizes Itself to be that which exists infinitely and eternally.
We are all familiar with the traditional definitions of reincarnation...we die, we're reborn over and over until we reach liberation, right?
But that is all theory, very few of us have that direct knowledge. There is though, a pointing to our actual direct experience right here, right now. That pointing is to see how we constantly re-identify with our bodies, with our thoughts about our bodies, and the conditions that our bodies live in. And I'm not just talking about superficial identification, "I strive to be attractive". I am talking about the constant binding of 'I' with the body. Our notion of our self is continually tied to the shifting changes of the body.
In deep sleep, or even during an engaging movie, we temporarily drop the identification with the body, only to reincarnate again by re-identifying the body as 'me'. We repeat this cycle a nearly infinite number of times until one day we stop and look, "what am I, really?" If my body changes, and my mind changes, and my conditions change...what is it that does not change?
To find that out is liberation...
The notion of ourselves as body, as mind, as conditions, is liberated from the bind of 'self'.
The cycle of reincarnation doesn't end in the future, it ends when we finally get interested in finding out what's True.
The Truth reveals that there is nothing to reincarnate, and that there is only One that itself incarnates as all things... the reincarnation is not yours or mine.
That which believes itself to be in the flesh must find its non-existence to be liberated, and upon liberation realizes Itself to be that which exists infinitely and eternally.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
What is Spiritual Awakening?
Spiritual awakening is the realization that this life that we believe is so real and so unchanging is but a dream. It is the realization that one is not one's body, nor mind, nor circumstances. It is the realization of what has always been here, and what has never left. It is a great mystery, beyond description...there is no proof for it, no sign or pathway to it....it is found only right here, right now.
I may stick out my finger and say there it is, but I will fail....
You may have an experience and say here it is, but you'll lose it....
Spiritual awakening is a moment to moment recognition of the impermanence of all things, the transitory nature of oneself, and the ever present aliveness in the Heart of all beings.
Spiritual awakening is a great paradox, because it happens--and yet it is Here all along. It must be fought for, strived for....but it is already naturally one's own nature.
Waking up is not about living as any other human being has lived, not Buddha, not Christ. It is about living as you, just ordinary, simple you.
It is the discovery of the untouched, incorruptible nature of your Self, and the death of everything that you have believed you were. It is the death of a past and death of a future.
It is you, It is Here, Now.
What else could you want?
I may stick out my finger and say there it is, but I will fail....
You may have an experience and say here it is, but you'll lose it....
Spiritual awakening is a moment to moment recognition of the impermanence of all things, the transitory nature of oneself, and the ever present aliveness in the Heart of all beings.
Spiritual awakening is a great paradox, because it happens--and yet it is Here all along. It must be fought for, strived for....but it is already naturally one's own nature.
Waking up is not about living as any other human being has lived, not Buddha, not Christ. It is about living as you, just ordinary, simple you.
It is the discovery of the untouched, incorruptible nature of your Self, and the death of everything that you have believed you were. It is the death of a past and death of a future.
It is you, It is Here, Now.
What else could you want?
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