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MELODY
~~~~~~~~~~~

Imprisoned.

Walls made of concrete.

I cannot escape,

and I cannot see
what lies beyond.

Banging my knuckles
against it

year after year,
I struggled to be set free

from my captivity.

Until finally
the skin is scraped clean.

And
the bleeding begins....

a hemmoraging of life's substance,
and yet I do not care.

Bleeding, lifeless, with no more
will to struggle

for a freedom
I cannot imagine,

stillness surrounds me
like vultures waiting for supper.

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

ERIC

...And breaking that ice, smashing right through,
*I* gladly dine on cadavers' substance,
Gladly dine on *you*

Bleed, bleed it all!!!

Freeheart.
__________________________________________________________________

LARRY

Dear All,

LOOK at every state of mind as it arises.
SEE that you are not that.
KNOW that you are only awareness (of that).
type on, Larry--not here, not now
___________________________________________________________________

XAN

Stop looking at yourself
Stop looking at another

What remains?


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

Each of us has our challenges of mind and emotion. Some are
more obvious than others, some more complex. The real game
is solitaire - just you in the human story coming home to
the simplicity of You.
___________________________________________________________________

ERIC

Wow! It is amazing how there is no hidden laundry, What a
thing Here! Jerry, Maybe Tim's authenticity in giving his
all, no matter how unrefined, or culturally
*unenlightened*,... in other words:
His being with who he is, is difficult for all to handle.

Seems like 'the' hot potato, but thank goodness, no one's
dropped it.

I personally wish Tim omnipresence, to hear all these words,
for his most humble gift to all. He's already offered:
Satsangh with Tim. Now who's humble enough to sit, or even
to report on that?

If it is to be held, it must first be swallowed.

Freeheart

__________________________________________________________________

ANDREW

If this was a game between Petros and Tim, and a game with
mirrors as was pointed out, which seems accurate, since each
was turning the others aggression back against himself, then
the ultimate goal must be not to defeat the opponent, but to
see the opponent as oneself. The game is won if the
doublesided mirror breaks and each player sees his own true
face looking back at him instead of the reflection of his
own projection.


__________________________________________________________________

LYNNE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

USELESSNESS

An ancient gnarled tree:
Too fibrous for a logger's saw, Too twisted to fit a
carpenter's square, Outlasts the whole forest.

Loggers delight in straight-grained, strong, fragrant wood.
If the timber is too difficult to cut, too twisted to be
made straight, too foul-odored for cabinets, and too spongy
for firewood, it is left alone. Useful trees are cut down.
Useless ones survive.

The same is true of people. The strong are conscripted.
The beautiful are exploited. Those who are too plain to be
noticed are the ones who survive.
They are left along and safe.

But what if we ourselves are among such plain people?
Though others may neglect us, we should not think of
ourselves as being without value. We must not accept the
judgment of others as the measure of our own self-worth.
Instead, we shoud live our lives in simplicity.

Surely, we will have flaws, but we must take stock in them
according to our own judgment and then use them as a measure
of self-improvement. Since we need not expend energy in
putting on airs or maintaining a position, we are actually
free to cultivate the best parts of our personalities.

Thus, to be considered useless is not a reason for despair,
but an opportunity. It is the chance to live without
interference and to express one's own individuality.

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

>From "365 Tao: Daily Meditations," (c) 1992 by Deng Ming-Dao

__________________________________________________________________

SKYE

Anger still arises in me too, but so rarely now and when it
does i immediately look for its source which is usually some
impatience or frustration at not getting the understanding
or thing i want NOW. A momentary baby tantrum which makes
me mentally laugh. Simultaneously i feel the dagger of it
in my own heart which wipes the smile of my face! so i
dissolve it promptly. It all happens in a nanosecond.


I don't have the mechanism to hold anger any longer, just
the ghost of a trigger remains. I have naughtily used that
trigger to feign anger to diffuse someone's growing
irrationality like a bolt of electricity, as a last resort.
Its an artificially charged anger, a spark that i am not
moved by it at all, its purpose is to bring peace. It lasts
a split second and it is expelled mainly through my eyes and
voice with intensely intergrated force. I am extremely
careful with it. I slam on the breaks with highly
concentrated calm immediately after. Whoever i'm diffusing
is usually struck dumb. A bit like a mel gibsons fake
madness attack. They're so astounded they forget *they*
were the one losing it. My return to stability is so
immediate and complete they can't continue their
irrationality. Then we can get down to discussing the
difficulties calmly, rejoice and continue playing together.


Applied non-duality has stabilized my temperament so much
that i'm a curiosity to my colleagues. They hang out to see
a mood swing but it never happens. (the above has only ever
happened in private personal confrontations). In the depths
of my being i feel as though i am in a constant prayer of
peace. I first became aware of it around 7yrs old, when a
sunday school priest pulled me aside as we were filling into
church, saying - as though it was important to mention "you
are most fortunate, you have been blessed with a very happy
spirit". Maybe it reinforced something, who knows, i've
often wondered how it was visible in one so young. As i
grew older i realized he had seen something few people i
meet have. My inner prayer for peace carries with it an
enormous gratitude and love for life and has brought me
tremendous happiness, which i share with everyone i meet.

___________________________________________________________________

LARRY

I've been trying to sort out a muddle that's been in my mind
for a long time. It's a muddle between yogacara and
madyamika, awareness and emptiness, and it goes like this.
Emptiness (I think?) is The Leap Of Synthesis. By that I
mean if you put two things together, any two things. you
get something else. A thing is not only more than the sum
of its parts; it is OTHER than the sum of its parts. But it
is dependent on the sum of its parts. Somehow or another
this must apply to both physics and perception. Now the
Doctors Of Emptiness say that awareness is empty, meaning it
is synthetic. The Doctors of Awareness also say awareness
is empty. But they mean awareness is empty of
phenomenality, it has no parts. Therefore, there is a
distinct difference of meaning of "emptiness" as it applies
to awareness. Is this correct? Is there a doctor in the
house?


XAN

Dear Larry

No doctor, just patience.


First of all - 'muddle' is a symptom of a condition common
to humans called "Trying to understand conceptually that
which is non-conceptual." Treatment:
Stop.

Secondly - Applying a program to physics and perception will
have no effect whatever on awareness itself. (Of course,
neither does anything else.)

Third - The terms "awareness" and "emptiness" are both
attempts to point to essential reality which is undefinable.
Any attempt to explain the nature of Beingness will result
in discomfort known as "a rash on the mind" - an
unscratchable itch.

The only cure is to stop everything.

Side effects of this cure have been reported as:
peace that passeth understanding laughter for no reason at
all love being Beingness

____________________________________________________________________

JAN

My unwritten course in applied nonduality says:
Procedure Sat_Cit_Ananda
1. Don't blame, don't forgive.
2. When angry, pet the cat or go for a walk.
3. Any stimulus generating an undesirable reaction is a
reminder of incomplete transformation so practice
transformation with zeal; surrender.
4. Goto 1. until 3. no longer applies
5. ++++ Unconditional Sat_Cit_Ananda +++++

SKYE

An unwritten course in applied nonduality, huh, cute.
On re-reading what i have written i think a lot of you may
be familiar with what i am about to share. And the ego
traps it can bring of course :-).


JAN

Is has to remain unwritten because everything that is
written down as a seeming set of rules or principles will
degenerate into blind beliefs or mechanics if the originator
no longer is around to clarify things. Simple as it seems,
obvious ego traps will be revealed easily :). For instance
when blaming behavioral weirdness on upbringing, one is
blaming already and when apologizing, one is blaming
oneself. Which only leaves to express things "as perceived"
instead of "as interpreted". When this "peel of the onion"
has disappeared, another layer follows like for instance the
influence of "things as perceived / conditions of living" on
mood or "outlook of life".


In general, many living in Western type of society don't
have an idea what the potential to suffer can bring as a
result of "conditions of living".

When a Westerner is physically or psychically suffering and
no improvement is possible, there is the option of the early
escape from life whether prohibited or not. Persons having
suffered severely from abuse will probably have considered
the option at least once. For good reasons, one of my
dictums is "things can always get worse" and that was
referring to the fact that probably nothing is "worse" that
taking leave from life. But it CAN get worse...

Once in a bar at Ribeira Grande, a little girl about 10
years old entered.
Her face was wearing an expression of agony and her eyes
were like black holes of grief from where no escape is
possible. The bartender immediately bought a bushel of
herbs from her and without saying a word, she hastily left.
I asked the bartender for an explanation and he said
(expressed in my words):" Once a week, on Saturday, those
who have nothing, go on a tour of begging and even the poor
will give what they can miss. The mother of the little girl
died recently, she doesn't know her father, she doesn't have
family living here and now she has to take care of all her
younger sisters and brothers." This little girl doesn't even
have the option of an early escape; the responsibility she
feels for brothers and sisters is a burden that won't end
and when she will be about 14, there is no choice but to
offer her body to the first man who promises to take care of
her and her family. Without children of her own, no one
will take care of her when old.
In continental Africa, due to aids, the above story is a
frequent one.

The potential to suffer is also one of those "peels of the
onion" and a very tough one. It is a collective to which
can be added (violence) and subtracted (nirvana).

___________________________________________________________________

ANDREW

I've heard it said that life keeps on teaching the same
lesson over and over until you learn it. Failure to practise
yama (restraint) results in slavery to the cycle of birth
and death, with rebirth into the lowest of states.

"Insanity is universal. Sanity is rare." Nisargadatta

_____________________________________________________________________

CHRISTIANA

what if:
those within this community who have the aperture of their
'lens of perception' so honed to this list that they are
reacting/responding daily (or 10 times daily)

were to:
relax their field..
breath into spaciousness...
observe the responsive habit pattern, yet were to restrain
from writing for, say a week or so.
deepen observation of the force behind the habit 'abide'

what if:
from the Silence held by the 150 other members.. a new
landscape emerged

__________________________________________________________________

PHIL

Good evening, everyone. I have a new website feature to
announce.

It is called 'Being the Ocean.' It is a written 'meditation'
in hypertext and under construction. Hypertext is a way of
reading something the way one normally browses the web.
Various keywords in the text are linked to other pages.

It is under construction. There are only two pages there
now. If you want to you can bookmark and come back now and
then to see the changes. I plan on adding and updating on a
daily basis. (Good way to hone writing skills).

http://www.well.com/~phi/bto0001.html

Hope you enjoy.


------------------------------------------------------------------------Nonndual\
ity
Salon Website has been updated.

The following URL links to the pages mentioned below:

http://www.nonduality.com/new.htm

November 13, 1999

Linked Bruce Morgen's listing to his new website. Bruce is
the number one person behind the scenes to provide ideas and
information for this website. There are many others. I
will make a greater effort to acknowledge everyone. I'm
also bound to forget to acknowledge. If I do, please send
me a note so I can make it up to you.

Added original writings to the bottom of M's webpage.

Added William James to Greg Goode's Non-dualism and Western
Philosophers page.

Added Sages and Buddhas Chat Community to Nonduality Lists
page. Thanks to OmShanti

Added link to Inner Directions' Gathering 2000: Pathways to
Awakening on the Home Page. Thanks to Rob Rabbin for the
info.

Added Eckhart Tolle | William Samuel | Maitreya | Jim
Dreaver to the Realizer/Confessors List. Thanks to Sandy
Jones and Judas Thomas and others on the Nonduality Salon
mailing list.

______________________________________________________________________

This concludes the chapter on Don Quixote. Thanks again to
Bob Bays.


ZEN IN ENGLISH LITERATURE (1941)


R.H. BLYTH

Selections from Chapter 14: Don Quixote (concluded)


Yet Cervantes does not commit the error of making Don
Quixote superhuman. He is a man of like passions with
ourselves, who feels the pangs of hunger and the smaller
pains of the body. Like Christ, he is often peevish,
unreasonable, expecting too much of human nature, and
himself finds often that discretion is the better part of
valor. Yet for all he can say of himself, as Christ also
could have said, a wilful wrong

"voluntarily and knowingly I never committed to anyone."
(Part One Ch. 47).


Among many others, there is one especial point of
resemblance between Don Quixote and Blake. Just as in his
visions Blake saw and talked with many of the ancient
worthies, so Don Quixote describes the face, figure and
character of the persons of the Romances:


"'This is another mistake,' replied Don Quixote, 'into which
many have fallen, not believing that such knights-errant
ever existed in this world. The truth is as certain that I
may say I have seen Amadis of Gaul with those my own eyes.
He was of great stature, fair of face, a well-clipped
beard,...his face at once fierce and gently, of few words,
slow to anger and easily pacified.'"


A small but interesting example of Sancho's Zen, quite
accidental and natural, of course, but none the less the
real thing, is given in the 2nd Part of Don Quixote, Chapter
28, after Sancho has been soundly beaten in the previous
chapter, by the townsmen of Reloxa. The pain is so great
that he turns on his master and for a whole page pours out a
torrent of vituperation on his own folly for following him,
with no profit and every kind of loss imaginable. Don
Quixote then says (remember this is the Don Quixote of the
Second Part who is here simply Cervantes speaking,)


"'I'll wager,' said Don Quixote, 'that at this moment while
you are going on like this at pleasure, that you don't feel
a bit of pain anywhere.'"


We feel pain when we think of it; while we forget it, from
danger, anger, or any other reason, we feel no pain
whatever. So Blake says,

"The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of
instruction."


It was the power of Zen that enabled Latimer to "receive the
flame as it were embracing him. After he had stroked his
face with his hands, and (as it were) bathed them a little
in the fire, he soon died (as it appeared) with very little
pain or none." It was the power of Zen that enabled Drake to
finish his game of bowls and then defeat the Armada.


The humour of Don Quixote, its pathos, -- in what does it
consist? Lockhart says:


"He is the type of a more universal madness -- he is the
symbol of Imagination continually struggling and contrasted
with Reality -- he represents the eternal warfare between
Enthusiasm and Necessity -- the eternal discrepancy between
the aspirations and the occupations of Man -- the
omnipotence and the vanity of human dreams."


With such a view of life, a kind of spiritual
Zoroastrianism, we can understand nothing at all. We cannot
understand the spider catching the fly, the shining of the
sun, the fall of the spow, -- not even the simplest things
are comprehensible by this kind of dualism, let alone such a
lofty creation as Don Quixote.


Once we divide the world into ideal and real, imagination
and reality, everything becomes a meaningless struggle,
there is no central unity to be seen, it is simply a vast
tragedy of Nature making a fool of Man. The humour of Don
Quixote is the contrast between Reality and Unreality,
between the ideals (that is to say the vision of Truth, the
apprehension of Eternal values,) and the inadequate methods
of Don Quixote takes to put them into practice. It is a
contrast between Wisdom and Folly, between Perfection of
motive and Imperfection of means, between good aims and bad
judgement.


Notice that these opposites are not dualistic in character,
though they sound so. Reality and Unreality, Wisdom and
Folly, are names for the same one thing. We use them to
explain the humour of Don Quixote, as lying in the contrast
between Pure Truth and Impure Application, but actually
these two are one. Defect of application means defect of
vision. When a man sees the Truth of things, all his
actions are perfect. Perfection means, not perfect actions
in a perfect world, but appropriate actions in an imperfect
one.
Don Quixote's are inappropriate, but not, as in our case, as
a result of defect of will, but of defect of judgement. He
lacks the Confucian virtue of Prudence, the balance of the
powers of mind.


The pathos of Don Quixote derives from the same source as
the humour, but with the addition that we ourselves, as we
read the book, have an underlying sense of shame that our
lives are directed to the acquisition of all the things Don
Quixote so rightly despised. No man can read Don Quixote
without a feeling of self-contempt. To forget this, many
laugh at him that they may not weep at themselves.


The life of Don Quixote was a life of Zen; indifferent to
the opinions of his fellows, without a single thought of
self, of self-aggrandisement or self-expression, he LIVED
twenty four hours every day, following his instincts (his
ideals) as wholeheartedly, as truly, as naturally, as the
blooming of flowers in spring, as the falling of leaves in
autumn.

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