Most of us on the spiritual path have been on it for
longer than we care to admit. At least that is the case
with me. Suffering, sorrow and struggle have taken
their toll. I am now willing to admit something--there
is only everything.
Apparently I wasn't wise enough to come to this
conclusion any earlier. Like Irina Tweedie, who wrote
Daughter of Fire, my inner sheik has been holding my
feelings to the fire for far too long. But I `m now
willing to admit it.....there is only everything.
In spite of having mystical dreams and synchronistic
situtations, it just wasn't enough for me. I wanted
cosmic visions and the rarity of sat-chit-ananda. It
wasn't to be.
Instead I got I-opening sorrow, self-searing
introspection and many dark nights of the soul. Some
got so dark I bumped into the universal furniture until
my shins were blue.
But just lately, I am opening up to a wider
wisdom...there is only everything. And it seems that
everything is enough. The Popsicle Man comes along the
street with his truck full of colorful flavors and we
think we must make a decision. Do I want lime or grape
or cherry enlightenment? The mind must have its favorite
flavor. So we let it do its thing. My advice: Pay the
Popsicle Man and get on with your life.
My life is currently breaking down and I am seeing that
this is freeing. Like a little child, all the flavors
of life have stained my white shirt and there seems to
be little chance that I can get the stains out on my
own....for there is no "my own." There is only
everything.
It didn't have to be so hard. I could have had my flavor
of the day and every other flavor to boot. My choices
were not mine anyway--they belonged to the mind which
is now falling away as fast as I can allow it.
The wisdom of life is inherent in unity and only in
unity. But we can only arrive there when we understand
that there never had to be a problem in deciding what
flavor of life we wanted that day. Everything comes in
an astonishing variety....and everything is all there
really is.
Who is a master? He is the Self after all. According to
the stages of development of the mind the Self
manifests as the master externally. The famous ancient
saint Dattatreya said that he had more than twenty-four
masters. The master is one from who one learns anything.
The Guru may be sometimes inanimate also, as in the
case of Dattatreya. God, Guru and the Self are
identical.
A spiritually-minded man thinks that God is all-
pervading and takes God for his Guru. Later, God brings
him in contact with a personal Guru and the man
recognises him as all in all. Lastly the same man is
made by the grace of the master to feel that his Self
is the master.
The big new news is we are getting very close to
announcing the "Large Incense Bowl."
This has been a collaboration on the part of several
people. I want to thank Janine who posted the idea of
lying sticks flat on top of the ash. This made me think
we needed a bowl that would work for a complete stick.
I also wanted a bowl that we could burn the large
incense coils in.
But most importantly I want to thank Mark Ambrose &
Stephanie who gave me copies of Silivio Bedini's "Trail
of Time" and "Scent of Time" Since that time I
have been
studying the Incense Clocks and Incense Trails, and the
Vairocana sutra and Garbhakosa mandala that are closely
related.
There are others who helped also, they know who they are
and that I am grateful.
Two days ago I completed a press for the "Shou"
(Long-life) pattern to fit the new bowls, and ran the
first test. For some reason I decided to light the
"beginning" and "ending" sides at the same
time, and as
I watched the trails of smoke head toward each other I
thought about Roshi's teisho's on birth and death, and
expansion and contraction. Both arising at the same
time, both expanding and contracting simutaenously.
The trails reached the point where they almost merged
before expansion began and they moved away from each
other. Then like consciousness itself contraction again
occurred, and then expansion; and as the trails wove in
and out, and back and forth the inevitable became
obvious. In the last wonderful moment, the eternal
moment, they came together as one.
I don't know if anyone else will be as excited as I am
about this new Incense bowl as I am. Perhaps it's not
even about a bowl but the creative process and
relationships that went into it.
from Contemplation, A Christian Path by Willigis Jager,
OSB
There was once a village in China that had received no
rain for many months. Its crops were failing, its
animals dying, and its people on the verge of
starvation. All of their prayers and petitions went
unanswered: the heavens remained closed. At last, in
desperation, the village sent for the great rain maker.
When the rain maker came, he asked for a hut at the edge
of the village and for bread and water for five days.
Then he told the villagers to go home and go on with
their daily lives at work in their houses and fields. On
the morning of the fourth day, it began to drizzle, and
then the heavens opened at last and the rain came
pouring down. The whole village came running out into
the downpour and gathered before the rain maker's hut to
thank him.
"How did you make it rain?" they asked in amazement.
"I
can't make it rain," he replied. "But it IS
raining,"
they insisted.
"Yes," the rain maker answered. "When I first came
to
your village I saw all the disorder in your fields, your
houses, and your hearts. And so I went into this hut and
put myself in order. Once I came into order, you came
into order. Once you came into order, nature, came into
order. And once nature came into order, it rained."
I'm reminded today of my first satsang. It was so
simple....so quick.
My first satsang took place in an elevator in Dallas, as
I was returning to work from lunch one day. I found
myself riding 'up' with a rather ordinary looking older
woman. We didn't speak. I don't recall that we ever made
eye contact.
I simply stood next to this stranger for a minute or
two.
I remember thinking I didn't know what it was about her,
but I wanted nothing more than to just extend that
moment ....to keep standing next to her. And I remember
that I said to myself that I wanted to BE just like her.
I have no idea if she ever intended to impact my life in
such a way. I suspect she was just going about her
affairs... running errands.....and Existence saw fit to
put us together, in an elevator, for one moment in time.
Funny how one moment is enough to make such an imprint.
We tend to think we have to make it our lives 'work' to
be God's helpers, but really.....
it only takes one moment....a moment in which we likely
will never know how, and in what way, God has used us to
Speak to others.
Maybe the reason I've never felt the impulse to travel
to someone's formal satsang is because God, in Hir
wisdom, has always seen fit to bring satsang to me
....in the most unexpected of ways.
And maybe there are those who benefit from the costumes,
staging, and such that comes with a more formal satsang.
I'm reminded of those churches nowadays that rock the
walls with their music and stage production. I've sat in
the 'audience' and watched people totally forget
themselves for a minute.....and just 'let loose'.
I see that those music productions really do 'serve' the
congregation every bit as much as (or more than) the
sermons that follow.
Not to say there is anything "wrong" with using the
mind
or practices or discussing with concepts - still these
are all merely pointers pointing to what cannot be
grasped by the mind. The mysterious unknown, by whatever
name it is called, can only be distorted in the effort
to do so. Zen refers to a transmission outside the
mind, an absence of conscious mind, as revealing what
is forgotten, not developing something new. A recovery
of "original face", though it has been with us and in
us, not lost. Thus years of training in skills of
archery are intended to result in shooting as
thoughtlessly and naturally as a child dropping his
mothers hand to run.
Buddhas and sentient beings both grow out of One Mind,
and there is no other reality than this Mind. It has
been in existence since the beginningless past; it knows
neither birth nor death; it is neither blue nor yellow;
it has neither shape nor form; it is beyond the category
of being and non-being; it is not to be measured by age,
old or new; it is neither long nor short; it is neither
large nor small; for it transcends all limits, words,
traces, and opposites. It must be taken just as it is in
itself; when an attempt is made on our part to grasp it
in our thoughts, it eludes. It is like space whose
boundaries are altogether beyond measurement; no
concepts are applicable here.
This One Mind only is the Buddha, who is not to be
segregated from sentient beings. But because we seek it
outwardly in a world of form, the more we seek the
further it moves away from us. To make Buddha seek after
himself, or to make Mind take hold of itself--this is an
impossibility to the end of eternity. We do not realize
that as soon as our thoughts cease and all attempts at
forming ideas are forgotten the Buddha reveals himself
before us . . .
That followers of Zen fail to recognize the Buddha is
due to their not rightly recognizing where their own
Mind is. They seek it outwardly, set up all kinds of
exercises which they hope to master by degrees, and
themselves work out diligently throughout ages. Yet they
fail to reach enlightenment. No works compare with an
immediate awakening to a state of mushin ["no-mind"]
itself.
from HUANG-PO'S SERMON, FROM TREATISE ON THE ESSENTIALS
OF THE TRANSMISSION OF MIND ' (DENSHIN HOYO) in Manual
of Zen Buddhism by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki
ITALA'S TRANSFORMATION
Experiencing The Work of Byron Katie
by Kriben Pillay
A 36-minute video-taped interview with a woman who
underwent a remarkable transformation after experiencing
The Work of Byron Katie.
"In February, 2002, Itala participated in a two-day
workshop on Transformative Training and The Work of
Byron Katie, in Windhoek, Namibia, facilitated by Dr.
Kriben Pillay. Coming from a background of severely
traumatising life situations, it was pointed out that
Itala might find the process too unsettling. But in the
space of three months The Work too over Itala's inward
journey the led to a remarkable transformation." --from
the CD insert and website:
<http://users.iafrica.com/n/no/noumenon/video.htm>
--------------------------------------------------------------
Itala's Transformation, by Kriben Pillay
A Review
This attractively produced movie by Dr. Kriben Pillay,
introduces the significance, meaning, impact and power
of Byron Katie's Work. Itala tells how she used the Work
to the point where everything, all unnecessary baggage,
as she calls it, had fallen away.
One can feel Itala coming from the stillness, the space
of freedom, as she speaks. Some fragments:
"Everything is a story." "My history has
disappeared."
"Nothing matters. Everything is perfect." "Words
have
not been created for this." "I have nothing to
say."
The interviewer asks, "Who is seeing this?" Itala:
"I
don't know. And it doesn't matter. Nothing matters."
"You had a fairly traumatized past," the interviewer
begins. "How do those events appear to you now which for
an average person would be very, very traumatic ... in
fact could turn many a person into the extreme of mental
insanity or even suicide."
Itala: "... it's my wisdom ... all of that has been my
wisdom and the wise steps bringing me to this point."
Itala responds to the interviewer's question about how
she relates to the perpetrator of her traumatic
experiences: "(I had this) extreme feeling of 'thank
you' for giving me your wisdom. It was a total loving of
this person, of 'you are my wisdom'."
She talks about the difference realization has made in
her life. She speaks of family, career, the future. We
hear a bottom line statement: "I see perfection. And
stillness. I have stillness. An immense, immense
stillness."
The reader should be aware that this movie does not give
examples of Itala actually going through The Work.
I thoroughly enjoyed the movie (even more the second
time) and the time spent with one whose history has
disappeared, and the timeless scenes and sounds of
Namibia.
--Jerry Katz
ITALA'S TRANSFORMATION
Experiencing The Work of Byron Katie
by Kriben Pillay
