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Wisdom Forum

"The greater our imperfections, the more we are inclined to see the faults of others, while those who have gained deeper insight can see through these faults into their essential nature. Therefore the greatest among men were those who recognized the divine qualities in their fellow-beings and were always ready to respect even the lowliest among them." Tomo Geshe Rimpoche as quoted by Lama Anagarika Govinda, The Way of the White Clouds.

"The absence of the spoken word...can bring about a deeper awareness and a directness of experience which generally is drowned by the incessant chatter under which human beings hide their fear of meeting each other in the nakedness of their natural being." Lama Govinda, The Way of the White Clouds, pp. 13, 14.

January 1, 2010 - Bob has been studying (among other works) the writings of Herbert V. Guenther, an adept philosopher and linguist (he mastered Chinese and Sanskrit by high school graduation, then learned 10 other languages, not counting others learned just for enjoyment - read about him at Wikipedia). Bob offers here two excerpts from Guenther's book The Life and Teaching of Naropa that help us recognize the nature of what we consider "reality":

"...a dream is not a passive surrender to a stream of images of which the dreamer is unwitting plaything and that it also cannot be judged as complimentary to and compensatory for the waking state. This at once disposes of the dream theories of Freud and Jung. There is no sharp division between waking and dreaming. On the basis of a strictly phenomenological investigation Medard Boss can say, 'Yet, so far, we have been unable to determine a criterion whereby the essence of our dream life as a whole could be distinguished from waking life.' Further on he declares: 'Neither waking nor dreaming can be adequately described as independent interconnections of experiences or conceptions. Whether man is awake or dreaming he always fulfils one and the same existence.' A dream is as much an immediate reality as is the waking state." -The Life and Teaching of Naropa, translated from the original Tibetan with philosophical commentary based on the oral transmission by Herbert V. Guenther, 1963, Oxford University Press, p. 183; Medard Boss, The Analysis of Dreams, Rider, London.

As always, comments and insights on these topics are welcome through our contact page.

November 17, 2009 - Vedantic Shores Press has offered the following Q and A to share with wisdom-seekers:

Questions from Spiritual Seekers

Answered by Dr. Paul Hourihan

Student: In a Zen text representing a sage’s opinion, we read that everything is perfect just the way it is; hence, there is no necessity of struggle. Could you comment on this?

Paul Hourihan: “Everything is perfect just the way it is.” This is a profound observation, undoubtedly. Certainly from the standpoint of a Buddha or the All-Knowing Intelligence, everything is all right the way it is, surely. All is evolving as it should, but built into Buddha before his enlightenment was the need to surpass himself, the need to transcend himself. Unless he had struggled all those years, he never would have attained the serenity of that moment when he said everything is fine the way it is. The two are true, but from different points of view. The observation that everything is fine and perfect the way it is—is from the supreme standpoint of a saint like Buddha. But from any other standpoint, it is inadequate. It was not true of Buddha himself until he reached his enlightenment. His mortifications and struggles are even terrifying to contemplate. He was driven as few men have ever been, and having been so driven, he then reached the Buddha state. Christ also presumably had that state and would know as much as Buddha did, and yet his Sermon on the Mount, his central utterance—as Gandhi, and all of us have recognized―is full of urgency. There is the same eternal urgency about his teaching: Awake! Awake! You must push on.

So the observation is right, but from the standpoint of a realized soul. We have not reached that state, therefore we must struggle to remove the obstructions that are preventing our own realization. So in some way both are true. Everything is moving along as it should but this also presupposes that at each stage we are burning with a desire to advance. That is part of the rightness of everyone being in their right place; without this part of our being that desires to advance, we would be static.

Student: It’s been said that attaining enlightenment is really much easier than we had been led to believe, that it is as simple as falling off a log. Is this true?

Paul Hourihan: Whatever the path is that we are taking to find out who we are, apparently when we come into that realization, the ecstasy is not only the ecstasy of joy and freedom, but the ecstasy of unbelief: “How could I have missed this? It was here all the time. The truth that I have now experienced was with me and was me all along. It was the Truth of my life. There was no other Truth in my life but that, and yet I had ignored it and paid attention to everything else but that. And now that I have found it, how could I have ever missed it?” So this is the statement of the realized soul who comes into himself or herself for the first time. We are not in that position. We are in the earlier state of taking the unreal for the Real.

Again, as in the first question, this is a statement of experience by a realized soul. But, we have lived so long in a state of misdirection that it is hard to conceive that we will come to the Truth like falling off a log.

To benefit from more of Dr. Hourihan's writings about mysticism and spirituality, visit VedanticShoresPress.com.

It is our hope that the following excerpts and contributions offer clarity to spiritual aspects and precepts, as well as to recommend works from teachers who benefit us. Additions will expand over time.

Here is a now expanding list of topics you may scroll down to:

Grasping and Clinging

Compassion

Mantras

Delusion

Warriorship

Symbols, Mandalas and Deities

Bob's Challenge

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Grasping and Clinging:

"To cling to a particular concept is like a bird that flaps its wings and tries to fly but cannot, because it's bound by a chain. The training in the true view is not a training in holding concepts, even the subtle types. It is a matter of recognizing what already is, by itself. Our nature of mind is naturally empty and cognizant; it is not of our making. There is no need to hold a concept about it. In other words, when you remember to recognize, you see immediately that there is no thing to see. That's it. At other times one has forgotten, and it is lost.

"First we need to recognize self-existing wakefulness. Slowly, slowly, we need to repeat the instants of uncontrived naturalness, developing the strength of the recognition. Once we reach stability, there is non-distraction day and night..."

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, As It Is, Vol. II, Rangjung Yeshe Publications, 2000, p. 146. Visit rangjung.com.

Compassion:

"It is only when there is benevolence and interest in others' happiness that the more active compassion (karuna) can operate, although 'more active' does not mean that benevolence is a mere 'passive' sentiment. Compassion makes the heart of good people beat more quickly when they see the misery and plight of other fellow-beings, and so it attempts to dig out the roots of misery that it may be destroyed forever. In this way compassion is like a stream that turns to all who are afflicted and like rain pours relief on them. Compassion is therefore a steady current which carries all misery away with it. It is a feeling which is unable to bear the misery of others and it manifests itself in such a way that no annoyance can befall people. Thus the basis on which compassion operates for the well-being of sentient beings is an awareness of the helplessness and desolateness of all those who are afflicted by misery. But compassion also has its negative side. While on the positive side through compassion all that annoys us is removed, on the negative side it is the futile crying and whimpering over the misery of the world. Therefore the very fact that the misery and frustration we observe everywhere makes us sad and depressed, it is the proximate enemy of compassion. So depression is something we have to guard ourselves against and in spite of the saddening things we see we should strive to have all beings liberated from misery."

Herbert V. Guenther, Philosophy and Psychology in the Abhidharma, Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1976, pp. 107, 108.

"'An effortless compassion can arise for all beings who have not realized their true nature. So limitless is it that if tears could express it, you would cry without end. Not only compassion, but tremendous skillful means can be born when you realize the nature of mind. Also you are naturally liberated from all suffering and fear, such as the fear of birth, death, and the intermediate state. Then if you were to speak of the joy and bliss that arise from this realization, it is said by the buddhas that if you were to gather all the glory, enjoyment, pleasure, and happiness of the world and put it all together, it would not approach one tiny fraction of the bliss that you experience upon realizing the nature of mind.' [Nyoshul Khenpo, as quoted in the following citation] To serve the world out of this dramatic union of wisdom amd compassion would be to participate most effectively in the preservation of the planet....As a famous Tibetan teaching says: 'When the world is filled with evil, all mishaps should be transformed into the path of enlightenment.' The danger we are all in together makes it essential now that we no longer think of spiritual development as a luxury, but as a necessity for survival."

Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, HarperSanFrancisco, 1994, p. 363.

Mantras:

"Properly used, under competent guidance, mantra is an effective instrument for dispelling the ignorance on which our anxious lives are founded. It can lead the practitioner to a realization of the true nature of mind, for mantra is not a form of magical incantation, but rather a scientific method for bringing the mind into harmony with subtle levels of awareness and reopening avenues of communication that otherwise remain closed."

Yeshe Tsogyal with contributions by Tarthang Tulku, Padmasambhava Comes to Tibet, Dharma Publishing, 2009, p. 201.

Delusion:

"Suffering comes from not recognizing the emptiness of things, which results in our attributing to them a reality that they don't actually have. This grasping at things as real subjects us to painful experiences.

"We can get a better understanding of this by using the example of a dream. When someone has a nightmare, that person suffers. For the dreamer, the nightmare is real; in fact, it is the only reality the dreamer knows. And yet the dream has no tangible reality and is not actually 'real'; it has no reality outside of the dreamer's own conditioned mind, outside of the dreamer's own karma. From an ultimate perspective, it is in fact an illusion. The dreamer's illusion is in failing to recognize the nature of his experiences. Ignorant of what they actually are, the dreamer takes his own productions--the creations of his own mind--to be an autonomous reality; thus deluded, he is frightened by his own projections and thereby creates suffering for himself.** The delusion is to perceive as real what actually is not....The nature of all things and all appearances is like the reflection of the moon on water....It can really help to understand this, because, although they have no true existence, we attach to all of these things as though they were real. The objective of Buddha's teaching is to dissolve this fixation, which is the source of all illusions and is as tenacious as our own karmic conditioning."

Kalu Rinpoche, Luminous Mind, Wisdom Publications, 1997, p. 42.

**Remember: You who are reading this on your screen right now -- the experience you are having is no different than last night's dream.

"When hearing about awareness or primordial wisdom, it's very easy to think, 'Oh, what kind of a special consciousness is this? What kind of a wonderful thing is it? Where is it? What is it worth? How much would I have to spend to acquire it?' In comparison to awareness, even a trillion dollars is nothing special; it's just paper. Awarreness, on the other hand, is the cause of omniscience. The awareness in question is simply natural, ordinary awareness without any type of modification, without any fabrication. It is without beginning; it is without birth, remaining, or cessation. Failing to recognize its nature, we enter into dualistic grasping, grasping onto ourselves, grasping onto others, grasping onto our own personal identity, grasping onto the identity of other phenomena. In this way we grasp onto that which is nonexistent as being existent. As a result of that, we continue to wander in the cycle of existence."

Padmasambhava, Natural Liberation, Wisdom Publictions, 2008, excerpt from commentary by Gyatrul Rinpoche, p. 124.

Warriorship:

"Our subject matter is warriorship. Anyone who is interested in hearing the truth, which in Buddhism we call the dharma; anyone who is interested in finding out about him or herself; and anyone who is interested in practicing meditation is basically a warrior....The warrior tradition we are discussing is a tradition of bravery. You might have the idea of a warrior as someone who wages war. But in this case, we are not talking about warriors as those who engage in warfare. Warriorship here refers to fundamental bravery and fearlessness.

"....Experiencing the innermost core of their existence is embarrassing to a lot of people. Many people try to find a spiritual path where they do not have to face themselves but where they can still liberate themselves--liberate themselves from themselves, in fact. In truth, that is impossible. We cannot do that. We have to be honest with ourselves. We have to see our gut, our real shit, our most undesirable parts. We have to see that. That is the foundation of warriorship and the basis of conquering fear. We have to face our fear; we have to look at it, study it, work with it, and practice meditation with it."

Excerpts from "Facing Yourself," Introduction by Pema Chodron, based on Chogyam Trungpa's Smile at Fear, appearing in the November, 2009 issue of Shambhala Sun, p. 50.

Symbols, Mandalas and Deities

We include this topic as part of launching "Signposts on the Way" because it may be helpful to offer insights from a beloved scholar and author now departed who was English, yet who was drawn to Buddhism while still a child, studied with teachers of varying sects in pre-Communist China for twenty years, and eventually held a university post in Bangkok where he worked with the United Nations. Translator of classic Ch'an and Zen texts into English, John Blofeld was adept at translating Eastern concepts for Western understanding.

The symbols, mandalas, and particularly the deities encountered in Tibetan Buddhist practices can perplex some meditators and students. Here are two excerpts from one of his books (a text that traveled all over the U.S. with me and with the help of tape, hasn't fallen apart in some thirty-seven years):

"The ancient yinyang symbol of the Chinese Taoists makes a useful introduction to what will be said about the Tantric symbols, because it illustrates how conclusions arrived at by experimental science have sometimes been anticipated by ancient sages who reached them intuitively by delving deep within their consciousness; moreover it leads up to the principle underlying the Tibetan mandala. Indeed, for that reason, it is widely known in Tibet as well as China. Though antedating Buddhism, it is in perfect harmony with the Tantric conception of the universe and, as what it symbolizes has been largely corroborated by modern physicists, it is germane to our thesis, which is that such symbols are not arbitrary creations but arise spontaeously from the depths of consciousness."

"...by and large, the Lamas are not concerned with such metaphysical arguments but with practice leading to Enlightenment. They employ the mandala to illustrate existence at whichever level is best suited to the intelligence of the disciples they are instructing. In considering Buddhism in general, but especially Tantric Buddhism, it should be remembered that the prime concern is practice. If something is conducive to spiritual advancement, it is good; whether the theory behind it is properly understood or not matters much or little according to the extent to which that understanding affects the quality and direction of the practice. True, Buddhism is a religion that vaunts reason, but it is reasonable for a man to use the electric light in his dwelling whether he understands how the current is produced or not. In my view, this analogy is very pertinent to the evocation of Tantric deities. Their power is there to use whether we understand their nature or not."

These two excerpts represent John Blofeld's overview in thirty-one pages, Chapter IV, "Psychic and Material Symbols" that unfolds a panorama of symbology ranging from the practical to the profoundly mystical. These include mandalas and their deities, both peaceful and wrathful; the vajra or adamantine sceptre; the wheel of life; the chorten, also called the stupa; and more. Recommended reading for in-depth consideration.

John Blofeld, The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet, E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1970, pp. 99 and 113.

Bob's Challenge:

Can you be this? Guarantees full enlightenment -- realization of the 'true nature' of apparent reality, within this 'lifetime.'

Mahamudra or Dzogchen

It is:

Too close to be recognized

Too deep to 'grasp'

Too easy to believe

Too amazing to be intellectually understood

The mind of immediacy - (the 'ordinary' mind):

1) No contrivance - Leave the mind as it is, no preferences or resistances; no trying to produce, alter, or improve the present apparent state of mind. No interference with thoughts, emotions, etc.

2) No distractions - (identifications, graspings, or fixations) on any thoughts, emotions, forms, sensations or anything else. No loss of awareness (sleepiness).

3) No structured meditation technique - Leave the mind as it is, in its natural state, without straining; unimpeded, empty awareness (detached observations with no 'one' doing 'anything').

The practice is doing-being in this state (which is really not doing, is it) over and over and over, moment to moment, increasingly all the time.

It works and can be done!

All above with much help from the Very Venerable Kalu Rinpoche.

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July 28, 2009: Announcing an open invitation from Lily and Bob:

Practitioners of all Buddhist traditions are invited to offer comments and/or questions about their practices and meditation. We anticipate that your comments will encourage and lend dimension to personal aspects of fitting meditation and practice of spiritual methods into our daily lives. Wisdom seekers and explorers of methods to evolve along life's pathways can also add valuable perspectives. We do not expect to have answers for all questions, but we do hope to launch a network of practitioners and teachers from various Buddhist traditions right here on this page. Please join us in this exciting opportunity! Just click on the rose above to offer your contribution.

A companion page is also now up, for wisdom-seekers and also for those of us who need a refresher on schools of thought within the Buddhist tradition. This additional page presents a very condensed overview of Buddhism historically as well as approaches taken by many schools of practice. Just click on "Buddhist Traditions" at left of screen for this reference.

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In response to topics of spirituality which appear on the Blooming Rose Press web site, viewers and practitioners offer their perspectives and feedback. We don't subscribe in all cases to every view expressed here, but we do invite their expression. (Rose photographed by Vicki Brenner.)

After decades of inner searching through higher spiritual paths, with particular focus in Tibetan Buddhism's school of Vajrayana, a few fundamental truths have found clarity at a pivotal time of age and spiritual development in my life.

When I "discovered" Buddhist thought, teachings and practices it was the early 1970s. At that time, some texts were being translated and made available in the West; however, these were not plentiful, nor easily found. Were it not for John Blofeld's works, largely The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet, I wouldn't have even known to do three traditional prostrations to my first Buddhist teacher Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche when he greeted me for our private meeting in 1975. It was, in fact, a little perplexing that he urged me to stop in the middle of two. (Maybe he didn't want to embarrass me by chuckling at my clumsiness.) He had so successfully blended Tibetan and American that he was the most non-traditional teacher I've known.

The reason for my reflections about then and now is in part revealed by reading a blog found at Evolver.net: http://www.evolver.net/user/bodhimind/blog/becoming_buddhist_pagan

Not only the blogger's remarks, but the comments offered, reveal aspects of the younger (at least younger than I am now) Western mind. Tendencies to resist discipline and structure are reflected here. This blog also causes me to ponder universal consciousness. Naturally, we each have characteristics and karmic influences that result in our personal resonance with an array of spiritual paths or disharmony with others. Of all people, believe me, I deeply understand how fundamental truths, universal truths, remain the same while their expression through various filters can either repel or make sense. When they work they resonate to the point that we accept them as basic tenets. My experiences, having been born and raised in a strict Christian tradition, were repressive. Those first twenty years of my life opened up into a rebellion and a personal journey through an array of spiritual systems that could be described as discovery of a treasurehouse of precious gems.

An example referred to in the blog comments is the concept of heaven(s) and hell(s), where there is an overlap between Christianity and Buddhism. To me, the key word related to such a discussion is "fear." It doesn't matter how our spirituality directs us -- if our practice is fear-based, we're out of touch with fundamental, universal energies. Transformation in our deepest realms of existence and in our outer-evolving-behaviors transmutes fear into all the qualities of wisdom, compassion, kindness and love for all beings and for our planet that connect us directly with the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha and Jesus the Christ.

The blogger remarks: "Tibetan Buddhism is deeply steeped in ritual but my experience was that I could never really connect with them in a deep way because the symbols and images did not speak to me at a subconscious level. The degree of dogma that has crept in over the years is also unfortunate in my view because I don’t believe that in any way reflects the Buddha’s teaching but rather the use of Buddhism as a means of societal control much the way Christianity has been used by the powers that be. Much of what passes for Buddhist teachings today seems very far from what I feel the Buddha was trying to communicate, again the same way that much of Christianity is out of touch with the core teachings of Jesus. This is solely my opinion and I don’t mean to offend anyone, just my personal experience although I don’t think I’m alone in it."

These remarks are similar to what I might have written at age 21 about Christianity. What is important here is how effectively we each become centered in what really matters and in the highest methods and bodies of knowledge that impel us into daily practice on the cushion, in daily lifestyle, and in the natural realm. What is important is to keep a sense of not wasting time dabbling in a scattered fulfillment of the senses or being driven by ego; to recognize our methods of practice that work, and to EVOLVE. Enlightenment for all beings here and now! Practice like our hair's on fire!

COMMENT FROM BOB:

The goal is the mind of immediacy;

-No distraction

-No contrivance

-No meditation (the natural mind - as it is)

Paraphrased from Kalu Rinpoche and Gampopa

Comments from you? Click on the blooming rose above.

The following, though a little off-topic, was submitted for comment on June 23:

Wisdom comes from understanding the meaning of ancient texts and civilizations in a modern interpretation.

Eternal Recurrence & The Big Bang -

The Big Bang is not a one time event. It re-occurs as often as necessary to meet the demands of our insistence that illusion is real.

Driving the Big bang -

If the Big Bang was slowed sufficiently it would be seen as just one 'switch'. Imagine that you are in control of this switch and could speed it up or slow it down as you wished. You would notice your observation of the switch changing as the speed increased; it would appear that the faster it moved the more complicated the emergent patterns became (just as a light in the dark). You would also become aware that these patterns were seducing you to enter into experiences that could distract you into forgetting your own information. This is disconcerting because you already know that it is all an illusion being created from a single switch doing nothing more than flipping on and off. There is only one repetitive action, yet you feel a growing seductive force as you increase the throttle (accelerator). In spite of this, and because you remain firmly aware, you do not relinquish your position to any seduction. Instead, you slow the switch down and diffuse all the complicated patterns to an observable movement once again. Anyone who remembers the truth of the switch has the power to drive it; the power to choose experiences at will without sacrificing power. Each of us is the switch-master, but when we forget who we are the switch takes control. As our acquiescence grows it feeds the fire of destructive negativity that becomes the bursting sores of war, genocide and all other forms of atrocity and discontent everywhere. There is no isolated experience. It is our need to control (denial of who we are) that is the measure of our personal contribution to negativity - the true measure of our spirituality. As we sell our souls to the lesser prize we descend into the common soup thereby coming under the control of a force of such magnitude that through all of time we have not yet even established its existence - such is its power over us. Our position in relation to this hidden force is analogous to what a pebble of sand is to a beach. We are as sparks to this entity's fire and whether a small spark or a large spark the fire owns all. This is our greatest secret never known; the greatest deception since time began. When we know who we are we will drive our energy to become it.

Excerpt from Eternal Recurrence-A Step out of Time, by Tom Kitt

Ref.: www.onepositive.com __________________________________________________________

May 31, 2008

Reflections from Lily:

The year of 1972 was waning. My partner and I had been on the road full-time for over a year, as sales agents for imports and cottage-manufactured items. We called on a range of shops and boutiques. This meandering route throughout the U.S. led us to explore nature's beauty as well as to discover gems of wisdom in unlikely places along with happenings that would otherwise be unavailable to us.

My spiritual path expanded at the time through an exploration written by Ralph Metzner called Maps of Consciousness. Of the six traditions richly detailed in his book, it was initially the section on I Ching that provided the platform for the next stage of journey into deep spiritual practice, not just for its role in understanding fundamental unity of all, and recognition that there's no need to go "anywhere," that opening to inner awareness is the key...but more, this paragraph in Metzner's Notes and References introduced me to one who became fundamental in my discovery of dharma: "The more recent version translated directly from the Chinese by John Blofeld, The Book of Change (London: Allen & Unwin; New York: E. P. Dutton, 1965), is much briefer because it omits the philosophical commentaries entirely and restricts itself to elucidating the practical use of the I Ching in divination. Blofeld is a distinguished orientalist with both experiential and scholarly knowledge of Zen, Tantras, and Taoism. His version has much to recommend it and his introduction and explanatory chapters are especially admirable."

Soon I acquired Blofeld's translation -- in Washington, D.C., if memory serves. Somewhere in Virginia I was able to glean yarrow stalks along the roadside which I dried and used for sorting. The yarrow stalks have long since disintegrated, but John Blofeld's translation is still with me, kept wrapped in a silk scarf and stored on a high shelf according to tradition.

Here is how that path wended: Blofeld conveyed to me a potent motivation toward absorbing the living spirit of mysticism. His were the texts I sought out. They traveled with me and pushed out my spiritual boundaries with fundaments of Zen through his superb translations; I learned of his lifetime in the Orient through his biography The Wheel of Life (my copy is stamped with the shop's name, "Freak Imports, Fort Worth, Texas"); and most instrumental of all, I soon acquired the book that would strike such deep inner chords that they continue to resound in these late years of my life: The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet, John Blofeld's splendid coverage of the Vajrayana or Adamantine Vehicle, a school of Mahayana Buddhism.

Now I have belabored you with all this history because it was then, in the early '70s, when I came to recognize the splendid spiritual methods preserved by the lamas and people of Tibet...and learned about the Tibetan take-over and ensuing brutal regime. Although it had been in 1959 that His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with urging from the Nechung Oracle, fled into exile, as early as 1950 Chinese intentions toward the country of Tibet were clear.

Most people are aware of the uprisings in and around Tibet since March 10, 2008. It is important to be cognizant of the Middle Path when responding, each in our individual ways, to these conflicts. We recommend His Holiness' official website as a deeply helpful source to maintain clarity about these matters. Here is a page from that site with his personal message to Tibetans: http://dalailama.com/news.222.htm

We also recommend www.savetibet.org for suggestions about how we can help.

With deep respect, Lily G. Stephen

"It seems that Eternal Recurrence will be the final theory of everything. The interested reader should have a look at http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0612053 in which Eternal Recurrence is found to be the only self-consistent model of the universe." -G.C.

Our reply: The almost impossible way out is the same for any theory or whatever it is we buy into. To realize the true nature of mind and the origin of a self "concept" with all that produces. Just check in with the highest wisdom teachers on this planet. For example...

"As long as we think there is any 'I' to recur or reincarnate, there is a misconception. The entire body of the teachings of the Buddha is concerned with alleviating this erroneous view. The realization of the true nature of mind must be accomplished." -Kalu Rinpoche

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From Bob and Lily: A contact through this site on January 23, 2007 elicited our thoughtful response. Several efforts to send this reply have indicated a faulty email address and have been undeliverable. Due to the nature of this visitor's inquiries, here are her questions and our responses:

"OK, I believe the concept, but I'm having a hard time with, why do we do this to start with? Why if we are all spirit, and perfect ones at that, and at death remember everything, what's the point in coming here, earth, and experiencing this??when it's all an illusion." -J

Hi J, Thank you for your curiosity. It is all too rare.

This may be disjointed, but it's an attempt to answer your comment, to an admittedly limited extent.

Spirit -- a term used by people trying to label what is beyond conceptual thinking -- has never been very helpful in a practical way.

Remembering at death is usually but not always short-lived. All major life experiences are "stored" as mental image pictures in the surrounding subtle energy fields (auras) of the body. A common example occurs in near-drowning experiences as the consciousness is leaving the denser physical focus moving through the higher frequency auric fields -- etheric, astral, mental, etc. This makes up in different guises a "life review." If someone is heavily medicated, for example, or has a very traumatic death, no "review" may be experienced.

Now the "we" or "I" -- what is that? As Lao Tzu said (paraphrased), "the tao that can be explained or described is not the tao." Gurdjieff said, "All our problems come from the wrong concept of 'I'". The "I" that we call ourselves really does not exist. It comes from the mind not realizing its true nature as emptiness. So due to this fundamental ignorance, an "I" concept, or self, is experienced. This of course is accompanied by "other than self" (subject-object). The mind's "awareness" of this duality produces likes and dislikes (desires and aversions), so of course, actions follow -- producing what can be called "karma" because action produces apparent results. This is a very self-perpetuating scenario so that "rebirths" occur over and over on some level or other. Wow! So a "we" or "I" seems to be on this earth level going through all this..."illusion"...YES! Easy to escape from -- NO...but possible.

We need a METHOD to realize "true nature." The most expedient is meditation, using breath, mantra, visualization, a combination of these, or simply the following: just sit and watch the mind, back straight, no direction; just observe the constant arising and passing away of thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc. Just keep withdrawing attention from grasping or attaching to any of it. Over and over, watching it all come and go, if attention is not allowed to connect, to "go" with any of it. (Start with five minutes whenever you can, or longer, if possible.) This is how the essential emptiness of the mind is recognized -- what "we" are -- beyond any conceptual terminology.

Please let us know if this helps. It's a tough one. Most will never make the needed effort. It is always "tomorrow."

Love from Bob and Lily

Dear Friends,

Today I’ve been thinking about these young men and women who have humiliated and terrorized Iraqi prisoners. "What’s wrong with this picture," I ask. Our highest leaders are apologizing, seemingly because of pressure to do so and not necessarily due to honest sorrow. I question whether our president is sorry for what’s happening any more than a young child is sorry for getting caught. In fact, my guess is that young children may feel more honest regret over wrong-doing than our president whose primary goal seems to be maintaining a sense of order, control, and dignity.

Kerry keeps making statements finding fault with how our president is doing things, yet I have not heard him say anything particularly unique about how he would do things differently. In fact, I haven’t heard him say anything that gives me hope that he is significantly different in his approach to life than our current leader. Does he have anything substantial to offer regarding U.S. economic policies, military policies, how the behavior of citizens of our country affect each other and how we affect the well-being or harm of other peoples?

I have an uncle, my father’s brother, named George Kraemer who believes that Jesus’ words should be taken literally, "Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If a Roman soldier orders you to carry his goods one mile, go with him two miles…Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven." Perhaps Jesus greatest demonstration of non-violence was praying for his tormentors from the cross, "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing."

I saw a bumper sticker recently that read, "Would Jesus bomb Iraq?" Another said, "Which enemies was Jesus talking about?" I don’t think a non-violent approach to evil has ever been tried. Most of us obviously don’t believe that such an idea makes any sense. I would like to make a proposal. How about if we all try a non-violent approach to human evil for one hundred years and see what happens? If someone flies a plane into one of our tall buildings, instead of demanding justice and retribution, we’ll call for peace meetings to try to understand why anyone would be so desperate to engage in such behavior. We’ll chant or pray or meditate for peace and try to give forgiveness and mercy instead of hatred and vengeance. We’ll call all the top leaders together to mourn for the loss of life, for the loss of human dignity expressed by the attackers, and for the loss of loved ones and human potential.

For one hundred years we’ll see if evil people could be shamed into being good, not shamed by attacks from others, but shamed by the kindness and forgiveness of others toward their inhumanity. Perhaps human tears of sorrow might replace human sacrifices motivated by hatred. I teach seven and eight year olds. Children are quickly broken by the sadness of those they hurt. When a child who has been harmed, either accidentally or on purpose, does not fight back, the natural response of the perpetrator is one of regret. If the child harmed attacks back, either verbally or physically, the perpetrator is now justified in his or her own mind and fights still harder. The cycle is without end. Both children’s feelings of hatred escalate until they attempt to destroy each other. Ghandi said, "An eye for an eye results only in human blindness." If children’s violence can be quelled by one child’s self-control, then it seems reasonable that the same principle holds for adults. After all, adults are really not that much different than children.

Frequently, people are willing to kill others because they are afraid of dying themselves. What if the reality of life is that death is not something to be feared, but simply a transition from one life into another? What if killing someone produces a living death? Has the killer preserved his own life or has he taken his own life in an attempt to save it? Perhaps our purpose in life is not so much what we accomplish in the material sense, but who we become in the spiritual sense. Perhaps Jesus words would make more sense if we believed that our lives are about becoming kind, becoming merciful, patient, forgiving, loving. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

And back for a moment to these 20-25 year olds who have been caught humiliating Iraqi soldiers. These are very young adults. Only a few years ago, they were smoking pot behind the bleachers. Now we put them into war. We train them to kill people and to not let the killing upset them. We dehumanize the "enemy." We send out our children to do our dirty work. Lest we think they are not children, look into their eyes. Their eyes are red from lack of sleep, from living in a human hell day after day without hope of it ending. They have watched their friends be blown up into pieces. They have run around picking up the body parts of their best friend and weeping into that friend’s gaping wounds. Now, take that same person, commanded to kill in one moment, and then because he takes the enemy as prisoner, commanded to obey the laws of the Geneva Conference on the treatment of prisoners the next.

And while our children are killing other people’s children, our president has reportedly discouraged the showing of the names and faces of those coming home in coffins. "What is wrong with this?" I ask again. What is going on? Why does our president not want the names and pictures of these young people who have died in combat being shown on television? It’s obvious. He doesn’t want us to be touched by the reality of war. He wants us to just keep paying for this war without facing the reality of war. It’s terrible that our soldiers have humiliated and abused Iraqi soldiers, but is it better to just kill them? Is shooting them and bombing them acceptable, but humiliating them, abusing them not acceptable? Isn’t the entire battle humiliating and abusive?

And if, the purpose of life is to become a loving, caring, merciful, forgiving human being, made in the image and likeness of his or her Creator, then why kill people anyway? Would it not be better to die with all the character intact given by the Creator than to live with all the character in shambles? How much is so-called freedom worth? Even less honorable, how much is oil worth? Human kingdoms are worthless in the eternal. Greater is the one who has accomplished nothing of physical value who loves deeply than the one who has built kingdoms out of mud and straw. King Solomon, in all his glory and power and splendor, said, "Meaningless, Meaningless. All is meaningless."

Let’s try non-violence for a hundred years. That will cover at least your and my lifetimes and if each generation tries non-violence for a hundred years, there will be very little war and very much peace. For peace will not be the enforced control of human peoples, but the inward condition of the human heart. Peace on earth will be the outward visible reality of peace internally. The condition of my heart, whether it be one of hatred or love, vengeance or forgiveness, retribution or mercy, anger or kindness, this is what I must live with. This is my heaven or my hell. And this is what I will take with me into the next world, nothing more and nothing less. This is what our lives are meant to be and this is what real life is. There is no other. I would rather die and live than kill and thus die.

Brian, 5/9/04, Pasadena, CA. Email: linus_blanket_2001@yahoo.com

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I have only recently discovered your site and must tell you that I believe I have recently had an "awakening" or what feels more like a rediscovering of myself. I was raised and educated as a Roman Catholic but once reaching teenage years I began to find it flawed and rejected it. I went through several phases, I was kind of lost as to what to believe, should I be an atheist, agnostic, I never really felt like taking anything at face value, and all this blind faith nonsense, well really. I sought answers elsewhere, fantastic thinkers, the people who entertain us with "wild" ideas of alternate realities and the such. A few years ago I began to experiment with pyschotropic substances, LSD, but mostly Magic Mushrooms, through gradual sessions of heavy tripping, I began to devise theories on existence, and reality, and then I noticed certain things, which if explained to any one could possibly make me sound mad. In conclusion I ended up forming a theory of who I was, and what reality was, and most importantly I discovered that there is no such thing as death of the consciousness, only of what we percieve to be the physical. These thoughts I had discovered by myself through inner exploration. I felt alone in my thoughts, the only things that agreed with my beliefs were the odd science fiction or fantasy story. But then I started to search around and Woah, suddenly I'm not so alone, and hey these aren't new ideas after all, they outdate Christianty! Plato, Baudrillard, Aristotle, they all concurred with my beliefs. Not only that but now more and more everything seems to make sense. Through looking at things with the view that everything is interconnected I can put reason behind most things and I am at peace with myself. I don't need to worship, I don't need temples, or churches, My only commandment is to respect life, my own and others. I don't even feel the need to try to convert others because it is my belief that the truth can only be discovered within. Now, surely, if everyone had that belief the world would be a greater place.

Richard - U.K. 4/29/04

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I used the idea of eternal ocurrence as a lense to observe my life, both the daily cycle and the life long cycle, and certainly came to the conclusion that I simply revolved in mechanical cycles--always the same gestures, thoughts, actions, ideas, words, the same decisions over the length of my life, the same problems the same idiocy. I was a pattern of existence. I received an interesting shock from all this, certain "facts" as Ouspenski might have said, manifested themselves, so to speak.

Ouspenski once wrote that, to paraphrase, "if only the "fact" of consciousness out of the body could be proven then..." And indeed it has, hasn't it? Well it has for me, at least, I have experienced it personally, as they say. Does that mean upon death that this other 'body' will perhaps live for longer than the physical body?

Obviously the whole problem of understanding has to do with the 'level' of the person seeking understanding.

Your level of being is connected with your understanding, after all. So we have people who know certain 'facts' seeking answers and other people who know nothing, personally experienced that is, also seeking answers. There is the higher and the lower. A person who has seen with all their being a UFO has different questions to the person who has never seen a UFO.

A person who has "remembered" themself, whilst plodding around on the surface of Earth in the middle of their particular society, needs a deeper reality, dimension, to their search. And of course one cannot simply pour understanding or personal experience from one full mouth to one empty one. Personal gnosis is, or telos is, what it's all about. What does a dead man know of life?

A person who wakes up in this life, knows that there was a before and after before this life, and many other things to boot. The whole of the understanding is the key. The answers to questions of recurrence may be located behind doors with different labels.

Victor Manukian - 4/3/04
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Recurrence to me, eternal recurrence the concept or theory proposed in much detail throughout the writings of P.D. Ouspenksy, seems to me to make so much sense and to be the one hopeful "theory" regarding the question "why we are here." I just tonight read in Jung's "synchronicity" essay that Jung thought deja vu to be explained by prior dream material, which does not jibe with my personal experience. However, when you take a look at deja vu experiences in the light of 'eternal recurrence' the 'seen before' been here, done that experience makes a whole lot of sense. I have been working on a novel for some years that involves recurrence, which my literary agent now has got a publisher interested in reading. This is probably due to the fact that I have had half a dozen celebrity biographies published in the past few years but could be the synchronicity that I have anticipated because I have already done a rewrite of much of the manuscript, preparing it for that fateful day when it will be read by someone other than my circle of friends.

Have you read Ouspensky's 'novel' or kini script as he called it titled the Strange World of Ivan (the last name eludes me at this late hour) Sorokin or Osakin perhaps? he's not a very good fiction writer and didn't spend a whole lot of time honing his dialogue skills or anything and the book merely emphasizes what he says in his lectures about the fact that simply knowing about recurrence does not change anything. Without the intense self-work in an established "school," he says in his lectures, self-improvement is simply not possible. Well, he didn't live in the new age where many people aim to be on a path of enlightenment, possibly even self-remembering and so on, and today this theory of how reincarnation within this same lifetime might possibly be what is going on here in this life fits in with many of the positive thinking models that have become available as the age of Pisces passes and the age of Aquarius begins.

Anyhoo I am interested in just how many people might be thinking of their existence in these terms and will log onto to your site again and check out what responses you have had and what people might be up to as far as information sharing goes. Best, JB - Vancouver BC 01/02/04

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HIGHER AWARENESS

This morning I read in the New York Times about how the White House continues to withhold demands from the federal commission investigating the 9/11 incident. Chairman of the commission Thomas Kean states, "As each day goes by, we learn that this government knew a whole lot more about these terrorists before September 11 than it has ever admitted." They are on the verge of issuing subpoenas and beginning a high profile courtroom showdown with executive branch agencies.

A little later I received a forwarded email message from my 75-year-old mother about Lisa Beamer, the widow of Todd Beamer, one of the heroic passengers who thwarted the mission of the hijacked plane headed for D.C. on 9/11. Her account of a lesson she was taught about the importance of the (seemingly) small things in life hit a cord. (See below.)

These two related info-bits gave me pause here on this global-warming-induced, unseasonably warm Sunday in San Francisco.

Here we are in late 2003: we are living in the "end times" that have been foreseen by sensitive and astute observers for many centuries. This is the turning point, the portal of transformation for the globalized, internet worked human species. Will the transformation be an "evolutionary bounce" (to use Duane Elgin's phrase), where we transcend the competitive, war-faring model of civilization into a new integrated global culture of distributed collaboration...or will it be a crash and burn scenario?

While attending one of the anti-war protests here in San Francisco with my daughter prior to Bush's invasion of Iraq, I came across the comic-book format publication "Addicted to War." This highly accessible and fact-packed 69-page booklet brings home the reality of war and conquest as the foundation of our modern American empire. It struck me that for all the benevolent, evolutionary fruits of this empire -- the life-enhancing inventions, systems, schools of knowledge -- there remains a powerful life-threatening force at work in every aspect of our society. We are essentially a collective Luke Skywalker, discovering, to our horror, that the "Axis of Evil" itself -- Darth Vader -- is our own father. It's a paradox that lies deep within our collective psyche: the thrust of Western civilization to the Promised Land brought with it a philosophy and tactical strategy of deception and conquest.

The 7th generation of surviving Native Americans now looks with hope to the prophecy of transformation in this time. And now, in late 2003, the interdependent world community is finally exhausted with America's worship of war -- from the Trade Wars against the Third World, to the Drug War against the Human Rights of millions, to the World War of ecological devastation, to the War on Terrorism against ourselves. We are operating on a fatally flawed foundation: the codes of civil and corporate reality are obsolete and must be completely rewritten.

How?

We can move beyond the paradox. We have been, as a tribe, working through the karma. Now, awareness alone can transform us. Humans are connected by more than the telephone, the Internet, and the international banking system.

We are connected by the "innerenet" of DNA-antenna-genes and resonating memes: what we recognize as relevant, significant, or "cool" can be transformative on a vast scale. It is cool to be aware now. The leaders and institutions of the prevailing order have let us down. We have no choice now but to think for ourselves. To participate in a reinvention of human culture and civilization. And it is already happening, big time. The tools are in place. The knowledge is accessible. Awareness -- and the actions that follow -- will transform us and our world toward a new level of complexity. A new order IS emerging.

To enjoy each day, as Lisa Beamer's touching story conveys, is to be fully alive. Awareness of the little things, those simple but profound manifestations of divine creation that compose our everyday reality, is what really counts in life. Certainly, this is a deep truth, a core revelation of religious seeking: "chop wood, carry water." But thanks to our emergent noosphere -- the sphere of mind that Teilhard de Chardin predicted -- we are capable of, in fact compelled to, a higher awareness. Not only of our social reality, but of our planetary and cosmic realities. This is the awareness that will push evolution forward, take us up a turn on the spiral. Higher:" more encompassing, more complex, more transcendent. Awareness alone will transform the human species at this critical moment in history.

I hope the gross events of these days, the economic and ecological troubles, the political and corporate systemic breakdowns, the human misery...will inspire a broader vision in us, a view from above. We can see from the point of view of the Earth, which IS us, that all life herein is a delicately balanced dance moving up an ever-enfolding spiral; we can see from the point of view of the Sun, the one Sol which IS us, that our planetary system dances within the Galactic plane of subtle energetic exchanges; we can feel in this higher awareness realms of experience that call to us, call us to rise above our material grasping and virtual realities and dpower games...to the cosmic life that is our true foundation.

M. Gosney 10/26/3 San Francisco

(Forwarded email message) Lisa Beamer on Good Morning America - If you remember, she's the wife of Todd Beamer who said "Let's Roll!" and helped take down the plane that was heading for Washington D.C.

She said it's the little things that she misses most about Todd, such as hearing the garage door open as he came home, and her children running to meet him. She's now the Mom of a beautiful little girl, Mary.

Lisa recalled this story: I had a very special teacher in high school many years ago whose husband died suddenly of a heart attack. About a week after his death, she shared some of her insight with a classroom of students. As the late afternoon sunlight came streaming in through the classroom windows and the class was nearly over, she moved a few things aside on the edge of her desk and sat down there. With a gentle look of reflection on her face, she paused and said, "Class is over. I would like to share with all of you a thought that is unrelated to class, but which I feel is very important.

"Each of us is put here on earth to learn, share, love, appreciate and give of ourselves. None of us knows when this fantastic experience will end. It can be taken away at any moment. Perhaps this is the Power's way of telling us that we must make the most out of every single day."

Her eyes beginning to water, she went on, "So I would like you all to make me a promise. From now on, on your way to school, or on your way home, find something beautiful to notice. It doesn't have to be something you see, it could be a scent, perhaps of freshly baked bread wafting out of someone's house, or it could be the sound of the breeze slightly rustling the leaves in the trees, or the way the morning light catches one autumn leaf as it falls gently to the ground.

"Please look for these things, and cherish them. For, although it may sound trite to some, these things are the 'stuff' of life. The little things we are put here on earth to enjoy. The things we often take for granted. We must make it important to notice them, for at any time it can all be taken away."

The class was completely quiet. We all picked up our books and filed out of the room silently. That afternoon, I noticed more things on my way home from school than I had that whole semester. Every once in a while, I think of that teacher and remember what an impression she made on all of us, and I try to appreciate all of those things that sometimes we overlook.

Take notice of something special you see on your lunch hour today. Go barefoot, or walk on the beach at sunset. Stop off on the way home tonight to get a double dip ice cream cone. For as we get older, it is not the things we did that we often regret, but the things we didn't do.

If you like this, please pass it on to a friend. If not just delete it and go on with your life! Remember, life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

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"I enjoyed perusing your web site. For what it's worth, I think Gurdjieff would have been an avid computer user once the Internet came along; I see the web as it is today as the exponential growth of interlocking neural pathways mirroring the same type of pre-natal development which takes place in a fetus' brain as it grows towards human consciousness and awareness of 'I'.

"It is my belief that the development of the Net signifies one of the last stages of growth of the gaia fetus, soon to be born in an unprecedented phase transition as a unified world consciousness in which all of us (seeming) individual humans become aware of and are moved by the superconsciousness which has been growing as the boundaries of time and space have shrunk with this modern age.

"I feel the act of tapping into the Net's growing akashic-record-like storehouse of knowledge, expression and communication to be a fundamentally spiritual act. When the day comes when we are all wired and connected on the physical plane, the same will be manifested on the parallel planes of mind and spirit.

"As above, so below; as without, so within."

-J.S., Sebastapol, CA.

"I am amazed at the utter insufficiency of most everything spiritual around me. It is painfully obvious that a very large part of what is masquerading as spiritual realization is simply modified ego and does not represent vibrantly alive transformation in any way. Yet in a mysterious manner, this then turns into a form of service for me, as it unleashes a discontent of tremendous proportions, the kind of discontent that makes me want to lie down and not get up until there is nothing but the complete and unceasing presence of the Divine.

"The mind is a formidable trickster. It goes along with everything as long as it is allowed to continue to exist. It says, 'You want to be spiritual? No problem. Here it is. Now, I am spiritual. Now I am a seeker of mystical knowledge. Now I am an advanced initiate.'

"As long as the mind is allowed to continue to emit notions of who we are, everything is okay. What happens is that the materially oriented ego has modified and turned into the spiritually oriented ego. And in that manner, survival is guaranteed and illusion, in the name of clarity -- is maintained. And this glamorous comedy can go on forever.

"I can think of only two things that seem potent enough to break the vicious circle of ongoing self-delusion: radical and ruthless observation and witnessing of one's thought processes, a continuous stream of bringing oneself back into the moment and -- Grace.

"What is Grace? Grace can come with lightning speed. One moment we are standing in the kitchen, the mind chattering away, the next moment -- it strikes. All of a sudden, there is a tremendous spaciousness. There is complete stillness. There is no thought. There is complete absence of any sense of 'I.' The insight is pure and undiluted and there exists nobody to have the insight. The perception of reality just is, without a perceiving agent. There is a tremendous relief.

"A glimpse occurred. And the path of realization is filled with these glimpses, moments where the Eternal Here and Now truly opens up and reveals its profound emptiness and stillness. Mile stones. Gifts. Grace. And when the soul is not anchored in this manner (please note the duality-supporting quality of the English language), when separation and duality have returned, there exists a silent kind of torture, the memory of what is one's true state and the knowledge that nothing else will do. Everything, one knows, is just a smoke screen, mysteriously preventing insight into the true nature of one's reality. And at this point the experience of longing becomes profound."

-Andreas Mamet, Mount Shasta, CA.
http://amamet1000.tripod.com/thereflectionsofandreasmamet/
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