No One Should Love Me

I just realized i wasted almost an entire day. There are three books that i have set aside where i read one entry each and every morning. It's usually the first thing i do after breakfast. Today i read two of them but set one aside so i could take care of some other 'stuff.' It's now dinner time and i decided to read it before cooking something to eat. How could i have know that i could have had an entire day to mull this over had i read it this morning like i was supposed to?

Today's entry in Venkatesananda's commentary of the Bhagavad Gita, The Song of God, is one of those that gives you an entire 24 hours worth of food for thought. If you can read past the "God" word, and understand what he is really pointing out, enjoy this:

"No activity will lead you to God, yet you cannot remain without action even for a second. Life itself is action. Actions arise in God's nature and that nature carries on the world-play. Therefore, work—but 'work for me'—realizing that God is the source of action. 'I' am not the doer at all. God is your supreme goal, but let not this idea tempt you to neglect your duties.

"Knowing that God, is in all, that God is the all, be devoted to the welfare of all beings. Beware, however, lest you should get attached to them. You love them—no, not 'them', but the God in them.

"This non-attachment, in its turn, has one peril. It may lead you to a life of isolation, a dread of people and of living with them and serving them. It may even make you feel that the world and its peoples are your enemies who will lead you astray, so that you should avoid them like poison! If you entertain this idea, you will be throwing the child away with the bathwater. You will be shutting the omnipresent God out of your heart.

"The perception of truth or the reality transforms the world into the love of God without touching it or wanting to change it. In the delicate art of loving all and yet not becoming attached to them (loving them); of loving God in them, and yet not regarding 'them' as different from God—lies the secret of self-realisation."

Look around, wherever you happen to be sitting or standing right now. See everyone around you, hear all the sounds floating around, smell all the smells in the air. Do it without thinking, without judging, without preferences, without hopes, desires, without wanting anything to be in any particular way. Just Be there. Just Be there Now.

Can you see that which is in all, which enlivens all, yet is bigger than all? Can you see that which is more than everything and yet less than nothing?

You Who Know

Say I Am You

I am dust particles in sunlight.
I am the round sun.

To the bits of dust I say, Stay.
To the sun, Keep moving.

I am morning mist,
and the breathing of evening.
I am wind in the top of a grove,
and surf on the cliff.

Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.

I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.

The musical air coming through a flute,
a spark of stone, a flickering in metal.
Both candle and the moth crazy around it.
Rose, and the nightingale lost in the fragrance.

I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy,
the evolutionary intelligence, the lift, and the falling away.

What is, and what isn't.

You who know, Jelaluddin,
You the one in all, say who I am.
Say I am you.

Rumi


How I love those words.....

Here's the video version:




"Say who I am. Say I am you." And while Rumi could have said it, he wanted more than just words; He wanted to see. Like all good pilgrims, he went Looking For Your Face and when he found it, told us of this wonderful experience:




Beyond ecstasy
Each breath each heartbeat is all
Face to face with mu

Hanging On

Lao, you got a minute?

Sure, what's up Dave. Haven't talked to you in a while.

Yeah, i was out of town a lot this spring; on Shikoku for two and a half months and then a couple of weeks this summer on my bike. It was nice.

Great, glad you enjoyed the trips. How was Shikoku this time? Learn anything?

It was different, i can't deny that. Guiding someone and being completely focused on their needs certainly changed the nature of the walk, but, yes, i still learned a lot.

Such as?

That i'm still an egotistical fool and have a lot of baggage to throw out.

Good lesson. But, that's not why you're here i would guess.

No. I've been reading your blog and just don't understand what you're trying to say. On the one hand, there is an objective reality "out there." On the other hand, everything is a creation of our mind. I just can't see past that contradiction.

Look around the room, Dave. Point out one thing that you are absolutely certain exists.

You.

Who is that?

You? Lao Bendan. The stupid old man from Lockport.

That's it?

Older than young, male, retired, or semi-retired as you like to say, balding, what's left is greying, clean shaven about half the time, athletic, likes to ride his bike and run, loves to travel, loves even more to read.

If i changed my name, would that change who i am?

No, of course not.

No, my name is just a mental tag we all use to individuate who i am so we all know who we are talking about. So that is a creation of my, and your, mind. Stupid old man?

:-) No, that's not true in the first place, so yes, that too is a creation of our minds.

It is true, and if you don't see that, you've missed the point of a great many of my blog posts. But, let's save that for another discussion. Maybe over a few beers some evening. What about old? Male? Retired? Actual facts? Or creations of our minds?

Well, you're certainly not a spring chicken. You definitely quit your job. And, i'd bet that if i snuck in the bathroom while you were in the shower i could verify that you are, most definitely, a male.

Would the 100+ people living on Okinawa say that i am old?

Of course not, they'd say you're still young.

So that isn't an objective fact. That label is one you created in your mind. The same with retired and male — you can point to an objective fact out there, but the label you stick on it, the meaning you give it, the way you interpret it, is created in your mind. Not everyone in the world, looking at the same fact you do, will apply the same label or interpret it the same way.

But what about the absolutely objective facts, like the sun rise this morning at 5:30?

Did the sun really rise?

No.

At the time you saw the sun clear the horizon, would everyone in the world agree that it was morning? Or that it was 5:30?

No.

So all of that is a creation of your mind only. Listen, i'm not saying that there isn't an objective universe, that the sun didn't get higher and higher above the horizon throughout the day, or that it wasn't 5:30 when it happened. I'm simply saying that absolutely everything about the way you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel that objective universe, the way you interact with it, with no exceptions, is filtered through your mind. And since everybody's mind is different, everyone has a different interpretation of that objective universe.

So what? That is all trivial? What does it matter that the people in Australia call my summer, winter? Or that people in Okinawa consider you young when i think you're old? All you're saying is that everything is relative.

No i'm not. Far from it. Yes, these examples are trivial, i don't deny that. But what i want you to do is realize, at the very core of your being, that you can't find anything that isn't filtered through your mind. Everything is a creation of your mind. That table is only a table because you say it is. That person is only a saint because you say she is. A planet is a planet only because you say it is. I am only good because you have decided that i am.

So?

So everything you think you know as FACT, indisputable, certainly true, is also a creation of your mind. There is nothing that you know, that you own, that you think, that you use, that you believe, that you worship... that is what you think it is. That exists in any certainly verifiable way that is unaffected by your mental processes.

So?

So stop judging people because you, or your group, has labeled them good, bad, or indifferent. Stop fighting because somebody wants something that you call yours. Stop putting people to death because you have decided that they are criminals and don't deserve to live. Stop being nice to one neighbor because she's beautiful and snubbing another because she's not. Stop loving one person because that person fulfills some of your needs and hating others that don't. Stop believing your dogma and vilifying others because they don't agree with your version.

No one can do all of that.

Wrong. Most people don't want to do all of that. It's not that they can't. Why don't they? Because that would mean giving up the belief that everything they think they are is necessarily true, is certain fact. Most people don't have the guts to do that. They want to see themselves as right. As good. As fair. As friendly. As beautiful. As successful. As smart. As inventive. As sexy. As macho. As any number of things. They have invested countless years trying to convince the world and their friends that they are the story that they have invented, when in fact it is only a story. Most people don't have the courage to throw the story away and see the being that exists underneath all of that. They can; they just don't want to.

And how would i be better off if i did? I don't see how i could function in the world if i did that.

The world would still be here. Your job would still be here. Your friends would still be here, if they keep you as a friend after you change. Your house, your car, your body, your brain, your ability to think, see, hear, etc. It would all still be here. Functioning as if nothing happened. BUT, and this is the huge but, your relationship to all of that would have changed in unimaginable ways. You would still be the same person, but "you" would no longer be there.

If i wanted to see this, how would i go about it?

Sit on your butt. To start. Sit until your mind settles down for extended periods of time. It could take hours to get there or it could take years. Maybe decades. Depends on the person and the sincerity they bring to their practice. Then when all is calm, crawl into that eternity existing between two thoughts. Crawl into that space where you, 'out there,' and any relationship between them all cease to exist.

You're describing a vegetable.

Don't stay there permanently. Stay for some fixed amount of time. Then when the meditation timer goes off, get up, and go about your normal life. The life defined by "Dave." Wash, rinse, and repeat every day. Day after day. Year after year.

And?

That is for you to find out. You will change. You will evolve. You will mature spiritually. You will begin to see with more than just your eyes. If you are patient and persistent, you will see. And you will be thankful you persisted. Promise. OK, i need to take a shower. We'll talk again later.

Crossing Uncrossable Chasms

I love quotes; have collected them for years decades. If pressed, it would be hard to choose a favorite even though i have probably quoted T.S.Eliot hundreds of times more than any one else.

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.

I live by that quote in every aspect of my life: personal, professional, mental, spiritual, physical. And even though it has caused me countless amounts of grief as i hit walls that stop my progress even though i want to push further, i still find myself living by its rule.

And yet...

And yet, when i sit down and consider it, i have to admit that the quote i would want on my gravestone (if i wasn't going to be cremated) isn't that, but this one by Marcel Proust:

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

If this one sentence was widely understood, truly understood, and adopted by the world's population, the world would be a different place.

For most people, the world is, and always will be, divided into me & you, me & the world, inside my head & outside my head, my life & everybody else's life. The world is divided up into three separate camps, with uncrossable chasms separating them: subject (me), object (the rest of the world), and the relationships between them.

Everything we do, everything we think, everything we say originates from the "me" camp. No matter how subtle, everything starts from our desire to make "me" feel better. Even our spiritual journey starts from the desire to alleviate "my" suffering, or the desire for "my" ability to help "others."

If you are a serious practitioner, however, there is a better path; one where you actively and persistently work at noticing how often, and how subtly, what you do/think/say originates with the concept that "I" am separate from "everything else."

The path i'm talking about doesn't exist above the normal categories of subject, object, and relationship, it doesn't try and unify them — it dissolves them. Completely. The signposts along this path all ask you to stop, take a breath, and realize that everything you see, hear, taste, touch, and smell is filtered through your mind. That all perceptions, hence everything about that "out there" that we think we know, is filtered through our beliefs, ideologies, fantasies, education, etc. In other words, through all that conditioning we have taken on board since the moment of our birth.

As you do this often enough, persistently enough, and for long enough periods of time you come to understand that everything is a creation of your own mind. Every thing that you think you know, every thing that you think you are has been made up by your mind. Yes, the physical world is real and "out there," but so are you. Not you, that bag of skin and bones, but you, the being that you really are. You come to understand that everything, with no exceptions, is a constituent part of who and what you are; that you are a constituent part of every one and every thing out there.

A sense perception hits your eyes. A sight consciousness arises. So far, completely neutral in meaning and value. Then the mind gets involved and all of the sudden there is a 'you,' an 'it,' and some relationship between them. If you can learn to get around this step, the object, the subject, and any relationship disappears and there is simply 'everyday mind.'

As the frequency and duration of this openness, this emptiness, increases, it begins to bleed over to the way your every day discriminating, thinking mind works and interacts with the world and the word 'experience' begins to take on new meanings.

Just For Fun...

Sipping something sweet
Savoring seraphic sights
Shikoku's shadow

Only When Empty

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

Ralph Waldo Emerson



"The wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass and he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving."

Kahlil Gibran


"Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater." But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy. Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced."

Kahlil Gibran

Into The Water

Tonight I was going to write about what perceiving everyday mind throughout the entire world means to me. But, i'm reading on my iPad and not my laptop, so will write something tomorrow when I have my laptop (with it's bigger keyboard) out.

However, i'll throw out there that the thought on the tip of my tongue is a poem I posted a while ago:

The Swan
This clumsy living that moves lumbering
as if in ropes through what is not done,
reminds us of the awkward way the swan walks.

And to die, which is the letting go
of the ground we stand on and cling to every day,
is like the swan, when he nervously lets himself down
into the water, which receives him gaily
and which flows joyfully under
and after him, wave after wave,
while the swan, unmoving and marvelously calm,
is pleased to be carried, each moment more fully grown,
more like a king, further and further on.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Robert Bly

Dōgen said that unifying 'learning through the mind' with 'practice through our body' IS the perception of everyday mind throughout the phenomenal world. He didn't say that when we harmonize the practice of enlightenment with our body the entire world CAN be seen in its true form, he said it WILL be. Do we believe him?

Unity be damned
Doing that is laughable
Show me that i'll bow



Bowing low to that
It can not be unified
It is just bowing