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HIGHLIGHTS #1308 - Friday, January 3, 2003 - Edited by Gloria Lee

Jerry Katz
NDS  

One thing interesting to see is where people are coming from. Almost everyone
on these 50 or so lists (not everyone) is a caricature of him- or herself.
Some take a part of their persona or personal power and blow it up like a
balloon which has a message written upon it. The message is always the same.
The seeker migrates toward the most magnetic balloon, not the message. That
is not seeking. Rather, it is being drawn. Seeking is an intentional look at
suchness. It's quiet and attentional.

If a person is drawn toward another, that needs to be looked at, because a
personal power could be involved in creating that draw and, in a sense, that
is a violence, an abuse. Still it's good to keep company of others of like
mind.

If a seeker is drawn to personal power or to the fireworks of a personality,
then one needs to be aware of that, going in. The same is true for the
fireworks of personal experience. If one is drawn to spiritual or mystical
experiences because of some wonder they seem to hold, then it is a dynamic of
strong seduction that requires attention.

What is the nature of reality? The Avadhuta Gita says, "If the yogi is always
related to knowledge and perception, to duality and unity, how can he be free
here? How can a yogi be natural and free from attachment here? He is the
enjoyer of pure, stainless, and homogeneous Being. ... Where one knows
nothing, there is verily no versification. The supreme and free One, pure of
thought, absorbed in the consciousness of the homogeneous Being, prattles
about the Truth."

Reality is plain, stainless. It has no draw on anyone. It is not magnetic.
Personalities and experiences are magnetic or repelling. Facing reality is a
quiet attentional gesture neither toward nor away from anything. Everything
else is prattle.

Jerry http://nonduality.com

Mark Otter
NDS  

A little prattle poem:

Judgement seeds the cloud of judgement rain.
I seem to seek my source again.
I fall and fall and still I fall
Though soil and roots and oak trees tall
Do slow the downward motion -
I still will find the ocean.

V.Srinivasan
Advaitin

"Peace IS Presence Love IS Ineffable" wrote:
dear friends, does anyone know of a Living Sage alive in the flesh Presently? i appreciate all your help...

Namaste ,

Everyone in this group is a sage, the closest but looks farthest one
for you is the real you... Its up to you to bring out the sage in you
or look at the sage in others...

I can search for a friend or a parent or a spouse or a Guru
outside...but its the very me which has to bring out those qualities
in me to realize it..

Pranams
V.Srinivasan

____________________________________  

Jerry Katz NDS  

Jerry (umbada@ns.sympatico.ca) has sent the following story to you
from seattlepi.com.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Hundreds pray and chant for peace on New Year's Eve
As the last rush-hour traffic of 2002 whirred around Green Lake
last night, hundreds of men, women and children gathered at the
water's edge to take time out for peace.

* Read the full article at:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/102361_medidate01.shtml

---------------------------------------------------------------
Keep track of what's happening around the Northwest, the nation
and the world at http://www.seattlepi.com/ -- updated as news
breaks.

Terry Murphy
Sufi Mystic

from Master Ni's 'Hua Hu Ching' (in "The Complete Works of Lao-tzu")

forty-eight

"Venerable Teacher," said the prince, "I now understand that there are two
approaches to true spiritual cultivation. One is the affirmative approach
which accepts and includes everything with a positive attitude. From an
ethical point of view, it means expanding universal virtue to all, regardless
of any external condition. This is different from the relative, affirmative
attitude that is expounded by religions and which includes some things or
people and excludes others. According to the Universal Way, the affirmative
approach excludes nothing.

"The other approach to spiritual cultivation involves the denial of all
things external to one's own true nature. This includes the denial of all
creations, all individuality, and all conditions. Only by denying these
things can you unveil and unfold layer after layer of illusion. Finally,
after all the layers have been peeled away, one comes to see the integral
universal truth.

"This may seem paradoxical, but the attitudes of affirmation and denial
amount to the same thing. We accept all and deny all at the same time. If you
deny all that is external to your true nature, you eliminate all mental
entanglement and contamination and thereby raise your spirit and achieve
crystal clarity. But the same thing happens by accepting all things without
any partiality toward one particular thing. Both aspects are equally
important, like the right and left hands. In this way *yin* and *yang* assist
each other in order to transcend duality and achieve integral awareness.

"All of a person's viewpoints, concepts about life and religious convictions
are a manifestation of his energy. If one's mind is strongly conditioned, it
is as if one measures everything with a crooked ruler; he can never measure
anything accurately. If one's aim, however, is to know the truth, then one
must straighten and refine one's measuring instrument, for if the instrument
is faulty, one cannot perceive reality precisely.

"When the nervous system of a human being is restored and refined, one
becomes calm and objective. One can then see clearly and discover that
although there is diversity in the universe, there is unity behind that
diversity. One may intellectually learn, understand and accept the unity of
the universe, but this is very different from arriving at the unity through
personal spiritual purification. Struggling to achieve unity is not as
natural as the spontaneous experience of and participation in unity itself.
One cannot perceive the unity of the universe in terms of subject and object
and still call it unity."

"Kind prince," said the master, "to the Universal One there is nothing to
call unity and nothing to call diversity. There is nothing to call subject
and nothing to call object. These are merely labels created by the dualistic
mind."

Frances Hunter
Daily Dharma 

"Many sensations come, many thoughts or images arise,
but they are just waves of your own mind,
To realize pure mind in your delusions is practice.
If you try to expel the delusion it will only persist the more. 
Just say, "Oh, this is just a delusion."
And do not be bothered by it." ~Shunryu Suzuki

From the book, "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind," published by Weatherhill, Inc.

kaleidoscope

____________________________________ 

Gill Eardley
Allspirit 

Dear Fellow Reader:

The January TAT Forum is now available at
http://www.tatfoundation.org/forum.htm.
[ Editor's note: If that link won't work for you, try the main index, and look for latest forum #8] 
http://www.tatfoundation.org/index.htm

This month's contents include:

The Path (part 3) by Richard Rose | Who Am I? by RF Hay | Listening Attention
Commentary by Bob Fergeson | Little Book of Life and Death reviewed by Gary
Harmon | Do We Have to Give up S-E-X? from The Zoo Fence | Poems by Shawn Nevins
| The Natural Koan by Shawn Nevins | Inspiration of Hopelessness by Bob Cergol |
Humor

We hope you'll find them inspiring.
The Forum staff

 ____________________________________ 

image from the TAT Forum 

Terry Murphy
Sufi Mystic    

from "The Way of Chung Tzu," trans Merton:  

*Where is Tao?*  

Master Tung Kwo asked Chuang:
"Show me where the Tao is found."
Chuang Tzu replied:
"There is nowhere it is not to be found."
The former insisted:
"Show me at least some definite place
Where Tao is found."
"It is in the ant," said Chuang.
"Is it in some lesser being?"
"It is in the weeds."
"Can you go further down the scale of
    things?"
"It is in this piece of tile."
"Further?"
"It is in this turd."
At this Tung Kwo had nothing more to
    say.
But Chuang continued, "None of your
    questions
Are to the point.  They are like the
    questions
Of inspectors in the market,
Testing the weight of pigs
By prodding them in their thinnest parts.
Why look for Tao by going 'down the
    scale of being'
As if that which we call 'least'
Had less of Tao?
Tao is Great in all things,
Complete in all, Universal in all,
Whole in all.  These three aspects
Are distinct, but the Reality is One.  

"Therefore come with me
To the palace of Nowhere
Where all the many things are One:
There at last we might speak
Of what has no limitation and no end.
Come with me to the land of Non-Doing:
What shall we there say -- that Tao
Is simplicity, stillness,
Indifference, purity,
Harmony and ease? 

All these names leave
    me indifferent
For their distinctions have disappeared.
My will is aimless there.
If it is nowhere, how should I be aware of
    it?
If it goes and returns, I know not
Where it has been resting.  If it wanders
Here and there, I know not where it will
    end.
The mind remains undetermined in the
    great Void.
Here the highest knowledge
Is unbounded.  That which gives things
Their thusness cannot be delimited by
    things.
So when we speak of 'limits,' we remain
    confined
To limited things.
The limit of the unlimited is called
    'fullness.'
The limitlessness of the limited is called
    'emptiness.'
Tao produces both renewal and decay,
But is neither being nor non-being.
Tao assembles and it destroys,
But it is neither the Totality nor the
    Void."

Al Larus
Harsha Satsangh    

Sshhh      

Waking up after the storm.
I found it had been told.  

So quiet,
we could be covered by white ashes.  

Whatever happens
in a long dark night.  

At last the dreamer 
is consumed..  

It is all on fire,
each word written  
in the heart.

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