Seeing, Recognising & Maintaining One's Enlightening Potential

[C T]

[silent thunder]

No teaching could be more direct than to just sit down.

Shunryu Suzuki

[C T]

17 hours ago, silent thunder said:

No teaching could be more direct than to just sit down.

Shunryu Suzuki

 

[silent thunder]

Not sitting to meditate.

Not sitting to achieve enlightenment.

Not sitting to avoid anything.

No need to sit at all. 

simple being... as is.

 

this is it.

[Lairg]

Qualifying for enlightenment is not based on posture but rather:

 

- control and refinement of physical, emotional and mental processes

- progressive/sufficient discarding of denser energies from the physical, emotional and mental bodies

- resolution of personal karma

- alignment/transparency to flows of cosmic light

- intent to drive the greater/cosmic good.

 

When those are achieved the human is admitted to the planetary group of enlightened beings and is assisted in gaining greater functionality.

 

I have met perhaps 10 humans at first stage enlightenment or beyond.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 9, 2023 by Lairg

[C T]

 

[C T]

There are many strong and healthy people who die young, while many of the old and sick and feeble live on and on. Not knowing when we’ll die, we need to develop an appreciation and acceptance of what we have, while we have it, rather than continuing to find fault with our experience and constantly seeking to fulfill our desires.

 

~ Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche

[Lairg]

20 minutes ago, C T said:

Not knowing when we’ll die,

 

The humans that I have looked at have their personal death intelligence standing just behind the left shoulder.   In my experience its body language indicates the nearness of death.

 

In one case a fellow's death had him in a headlock and was pulling him out of his body.  He was gone in a week

 

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Lairg

[C T]

"Dance of the evening clouds" 

 

[C T]

[C T]

Any bums in Paris? 

 

[C T]

[manitou]

 

 

From The Four Agreements (Don Miguel Ruiz, Introduction)

 

"Toltec knowledge arises from the same essential unity of truth as all the sacred esoteric traditions found around the world.  Though it is not a religion, it honors all the spiritual masters who have taught on the earth.  While it does embrace spirit, it is most accurately described as a way of life, distinguished by the ready accessibility of happiness and love"

 

(italics mine)

 

 

 

 

Edited April 26, 2023 by manitou

[C T]

Wesak blessings 🙏🙏🙏

 

Visited local Thai Buddhist temple to offer prayers and merit

[steve]

Dzogchen could be defined as a way to relax completely. This can be clearly understood from the terms used to denote the state of contemplation, such as "leave it just as it is" (cog bzhag), "cutting loose one's tension" (khregs chod), beyond effort" (rtsol bral), and so on.

Some scholars have classified Dzogchen as a "direct path," comparing it to teachings such as Zen, where this expression is often used. In Dzogchen texts, however, the phrases "direct path" and "nongradual path" (cig car) are never used, because the concept of a "direct path" implies necessarily that there must be, on the one hand, a place from which one departs, and on the other, a place where one arrives.

But in Dzogchen there is a single principle of the state of knowledge, and if one possesses this state one discovers that right from the beginning one is already there where one wants to arrive. For this reason the state is said to be "self-perfected" (lhun grub).

~ Chögyal Namkhai Norbu

from 'Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State'

 

 

 

[C T]

[C T]

https://fb.watch/kwxcQbvuGo/?mibextid=NnVzG8

[C T]

Honey on the Razor’s Edge

 

We have an illusion of being separate from others, the world and even ourselves, all of which we have unconsciously created. When we’re threatened or when life doesn’t please us, we start worrying, we start thinking about a possible solution. And without exception there is no person who doesn’t do this. 

 

We dislike being with life as it is because that can include suffering, and that is not acceptable to us. Whether it’s a serious illness or a minor criticism or being lonely or disappointed—that is not acceptable to us. We have no intention of putting up with that or just being that if we can possibly avoid it. We want to fix the problem, solve it, get rid of it. That is when we need to understand the practice of walking the razor’s edge. 

 

Spiritual practice is about understanding the razor’s edge and how to work with it.

The point at which we need to practice walking the razor’s edge is whenever we begin to be upset (angry, irritated, resentful, jealous). First, we need to know we’re upset. Many people don’t even know that upset is taking place. When we meditate and begin to know our minds and our reactions, we begin to be aware that yes, we are upset.

That’s the first step, but it’s not the razor’s edge. We’re still separate, but now we know it. How do we bring our separated life together? 

 

To walk the razor’s edge is to do that; we have once again to be what we basically are, which is seeing, touching, hearing, smelling; we have to experience whatever our life is, right this second.

 

If we’re upset we have to experience being upset. If we’re frightened, we have to experience being frightened. If we’re jealous we have to experience being jealous. And such experiencing is physical; it has nothing to do with the thoughts going on about the upset.

 

When we are experiencing nonverbally we are walking the razor’s edge—we are in the present moment. When we walk the edge, the agonizing states of separateness are pulled together, and we experience perhaps not happiness but joy.

 

Understanding the razor’s edge (and not just understanding it, but doing it) is what meditation practice is. The reason it’s difficult is that we don’t want to do it. We know we don’t want to do it. We want to escape from it.

 

If I feel that I’ve been hurt by you, I want to stay with my thoughts about the hurt. I want to increase my separation; it feels good to be consumed by those fiery, self-righteous thoughts. By thinking, I try to avoid feeling the pain. The more sophisticated my practice becomes, the more quickly I see this trap and return to experiencing the pain, the razor’s edge. And where I might once have stayed upset for two years, the upset shrinks to two months, two weeks, two minutes. Eventually I can experience an upset as it happens and stay right on the razor’s edge.

 

And there can be joy in the midst of physical and even emotional pain, it is not a contradiction to say that there can be ease in the midst of even great unease - there can be the taste of honey on the razors edge.

 

Still, it is necessary to acknowledge that most of the time we want nothing to do with that edge; we want to stay separate. We want the sterile satisfaction of wallowing in “I am right.” That’s a poor satisfaction, of course, but still we will usually settle for a diminished life rather than experience life as it is when that seems painful and distasteful.

 

All troublesome relationships at home and work are born of the desire to stay separate. By this strategy we hope to be a separate person who really exists, who is important. When we walk the razor’s edge we’re not important; we’re no-self, embedded in life. This we fear—even though life as no-self is pure joy. Our fear drives us to stay over here in our lonely self-righteousness. The paradox: only in walking the razor’s edge, in experiencing the fear directly, can we know what it is to have no fear.

 

Now I realize we can’t see this all at once or do it all at once. Sometimes we jump onto the razor’s edge and then hop off, like water dropped on a sizzling frying pan. That may be all we can do at first, and that’s fine. But the more we practice, the more comfortable we become there. 

We find it’s the only place where we are at peace.

 

So many people say, “I want to be at peace.” Yet there may be little understanding of how peace is to be found - 

 

Walking the razor’s edge is it.

 

No one wants to hear that. We want somebody who will take our fear away or promise us happiness. No one wants to hear the truth, and we won’t hear it until we are ready to hear it. 

 

If enlightenment is not where you are standing, where will you look?

 

Everyday Zen 

- Excerpts from Charlotte Joko Beck

[C T]

Day of the Dakini: Great Bliss 🔥

 

 

The great bliss state is the state of reality – where we actually are, right here and now. It is not some elaborate place far away from where we are. The wonderful thing about the Buddha‘s revelation, the Buddha‘s insight, is that this reality itself is the great bliss state, that which he first called “Nirvana“, the extinction of all suffering, which he came to describe as “bliss void indivisible.“ 

 

The extinction of suffering and the achievement of perfect happiness and the reality of perfect happiness is the reality of our world. This was the Buddha‘s good news. This is what he realized under the bodhi tree, where he first became enlightened. The bodhi tree was the original wish-granting gem tree. To find happiness or peace or enlightenment, we do not have to create some artificial world, a world apart from this world. We have to understand the nature of this world. And the nature of this world, when we do understand it, is revealed to us through our understanding, not from some other person just showing us something.

 

Our own understanding reveals the nature of the world to us as the great bliss state of emptiness and openness. 

 

The nature of this world is superbliss, intertwined and indivisible.

 

~ Robert A.F. Thurman

Edited May 16, 2023 by C T

[C T]

[C T]

Our Relationships

 

Our relationships with each other are like the chance meeting of two strangers in a parking lot; they look at each other and smile. That’s all there is between them. They leave and never see each other again. That’s life, just a moment, a step, and then it’s gone. 

 

If you understand this, there is no time to fight. There is no time to argue. There is no time to hurt each other. Whether you think of it in terms of humanity, nations, communities, or individuals, there is no time for anything less than truly appreciating the brief interaction we have with each other. 

 

Time is very valuable. 

 

Don’t wait until your deathbed to understand your spiritual nature. If you do it now, you will discover resources of kindness and compassion that you didn’t know you had.

 

~ Chagdud Tulku

[C T]

[manitou]

On 5/15/2023 at 11:08 PM, C T said:

 

 

I need help with this.  It's intriguing.  At first it looked to me that she was wanting something from him, but now I think he wants something from her.  He is representing spiritual knowledge, what with his third eye and the remnants of previous masters hanging on a chain.  He got her attention with the bell.  She is alive, vibrant, and they are sharing breath.  He wants to incarnate into the life she represents, Knowledge is taking the opportunity to go into that body.  The cup in her left hand has something in it - does it represent the ability to multiply life?  And what of the snake?  The artist specifically and intentionally put a glow on the back of the snakes head.  Is that a budding awareness of wisdom?  Or the proximity of death at any time?

[C T]

Those who regard the mundane 
as a hindrance to practice and life
only understand that in the mundane nothing is sacred; 
what they have not yet understood 
is that in sacredness, nothing is mundane. 

 

— Dogen Zenji

 

[steve]

On 5/18/2023 at 12:35 PM, manitou said:

 

 

I need help with this.  It's intriguing.  At first it looked to me that she was wanting something from him, but now I think he wants something from her.  He is representing spiritual knowledge, what with his third eye and the remnants of previous masters hanging on a chain.  He got her attention with the bell.  She is alive, vibrant, and they are sharing breath.  He wants to incarnate into the life she represents, Knowledge is taking the opportunity to go into that body.  The cup in her left hand has something in it - does it represent the ability to multiply life?  And what of the snake?  The artist specifically and intentionally put a glow on the back of the snakes head.  Is that a budding awareness of wisdom?  Or the proximity of death at any time?

 

The two figures are referred to as yab-yum (father mother). The father is the tutelary deity (yidam) and represents method or compassion. The mother is a dakini and represents wisdom, the realization and embodiment of emptiness. Their union represents enlightenment, the pure and perfect nature of mind. The dakini is holding a skull cup filled with blood which often symbolizes immortality and a curved knife which is used to cut through the illusion of samsara. The mala of severed heads usually symbolizes overcoming appearances - seeing the truth behind the appearance, or subduing the ego, something like that. Mind you, I’m no expert but wanted to try and help. I suspect others could give more detailed explanations.