Knowledge

 

Knowledge does not distance the mystery. It is not uncommon that physicists are properly in awe of the unknown for they are amongst the few who experience the limits of the known. Knowledge brings us closer to the Mystery by obliterating opportunities for mythologizing and donkey-tail pinning. The greater our penetration into the perceptible, the more obvious it becomes that the perceptible is the surface of a sublime Mystery the center of which is the substance of ourselves.

The Spacious Mind

 

A mind has limited space, and like a a closet, or a garage, or a barn we can jam it 'till the doors won't shut. When we are in the habit of keeping things and making them ours, what then.

Meditation is the exercise by which we clear the mind of the detritus of our human existence, and create spacious living quarters for the Pristine Awareness which is the essence of all life.

Expectations

What do we expect to come from our study of Zen? Supposing we should domesticate the animal that was born to the earth and become the child of the Universe, do we suppose we will be the same person on some higher level of awareness? In overcoming sorrow we have overcome joy. Do we suppose the same things will move us, call to us, motivate us? Please us?

What then?

Tests of Being

 A great difficulty with Enlightenment is that the unenlightened imagine something that happens to a person. Enlightenment happens when the "person" dissolves into the sea of awareness while retaining the discipline that enables self purpose.

Without the familiarity with silence and emptiness that comes with the exercise of meditation the sudden breakthrough by accident might leave an otherwise newborn child of the Universe in a straightjacket.

About Becoming

 

We will never be what we can become 

until we see what we are.

The Gift of the World

 

The "Gift of the World" is that we will never know any peace except through self discovery.

Enlightened

There is a tendency to think of Enlightenment as an amendment to our being, not so. Enlightenment is when our being shakes off amendments.

Rain Drop

Let us give a drop of rain an intellect and an imagination.  What is this raindrop to think concerning rejoining the ocean?

The Qualities of Force

People are qualities


The dissipation of entropy concentrates force

Unintended Consequences

When I began my exploration in Zen I was 25. I had discovered Buddhism while in Japan some 5 years earlier, but the sect in which I had enlisted did not reveal to me the core of my Self. My search continued and I looked into every system I could find, looking for the essence of my Being.

It was the Koan exercise and the insistence of Enlightenment in Zen that finally struck a chord.

I am now 75. In my early survey of Taoist and Zen literature, for all its charm, there were anecdotes that mystified me. Lao Tsu: why did he leave the kingdom to live out the rest of his life in obscurity amongst the barbarians? Would not his enlightenment have been of great value in his homeland? He knocked out the "Tao Te Ching" at the request of the gate keeper on his way out, never to be heard from again. And the Zen masters who came to live under bridges or to dwell in some rustic hideout. Would not their presence in community have been of great value?

Well, now I understand the why of all that just plain as day.

Chocolate Buddha Box

The mind is the "Chocolate Buddha Box"

Imagine That

In great measure it all comes down to the use of the imagination. The imagination must be brought to heel like a well trained dog. The "freedom" of the wild animal is all very nice in a pre-civilized romantic sort of way, and there exists a culture to celebrate this sort of lack of self awareness and civil restraint. But this freedom is actually that of a soul enslaved to an animal.

The freedom that accompanies Enlightenment is one in which the animal, and therefore the imagination, serves awakened Awareness.




This is the difference between a ball-and-chain and a magic carpet.

What Buddhism is All About

Awareness is the stuff of which we are made. Intelligence is the ordering principle that by its exercise determines efficacy of Awareness.

There is an inherent blind spot in the existence of creatures which makes instinct the base-line of consciousness, this shifts intelligence toward the natural opacity of the animal. 

The maturation of Intelligence will result in the same un-carved Pristine Awareness anywhere that it arises in the fabric of Existence. And this is what Buddhism is all about.

Existence

Existence has three elements: Emptiness (sunyata), Lucency, and Being. Though colloquially identifiable these are not individuated, and Existence is the essence and the fact of Eternity.

Being does not displace Emptiness. Being is woven of Emptiness and charged with Lucency.

By discovering the colors of Being, Lucency emerges as the fount of all colors, and Emptiness is revealed as the meaning saturated gestalt.  

About Being Understood

It is not necessary to be understood. What is necessary is to come to understand oneself. And if you come to understand your Self you will come to know how ludicrous it is to expect to be understood in a world where one who knows the Self is seldom encountered.


What is possible is to be kind and considerate.

Under the Streetlight

Perhaps you are familiar with the joke concerning the fellow who searched for his keys under a streetlight after losing them in the dark "because there is more light here". Well that is the perfect analogy for those who seek Enlightenment in the domains of the personality.

The Field of Enlightenment

The field form which is the substance of our individual awareness exists between "things". The thing we are born into has a library of forms that is ancient and sufficient to its natural needs. In the process of maturation this library of forms is enriched through the vehicle of experience, and experience exists as field shape in the tissue of the brain. Memory is an assuming by the field of awareness, previously known shapes using the architecture of the brain as a frame to stretch upon. Intuition is the action of forms suggesting themselves by association and by force of subtle external emanations.

The Enlightenment sought in Buddhism is no less than this field awakening and becoming the seat of Identity. The field of Awareness is not a material thing and exists in the space between things.