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OLDE FART

The most profound reality in Buddhism is that there is
no final, ultimate reality. Perhaps some people think
that the highest truth in Buddhism is Buddha-nature,
True Suchness, which is sometimes referred to as the
True Characteristic of all phenomena. Actually, this is
not the highest truth. Ultimately, there is not even a
Buddha, let alone Buddha-nature or True Suchness.

Yes, emptiness is itself empty.

--Greg


And who is ultimately there to confirm that there is no final, ultimate
reality? To witness that there is no highest truth and no Buddha or
Buddha nature or Suchness?
What would this be? :-)
Love, Mirror

skye: i remember asking you this same question in your
Dan/concerns post when you stated;
Mirror: One is always empty,
skye: and who teaches its emptyness?
but you never replied?
love, skye
----------

OLDE FART:
Why, the same as who asked the question.
----------

Yes I did.
That was the reply.
Love, Mirror
----------

skye: if silence is the answer, then why ask the same
question again? :-)
love, skye
----------

For the fun of pretending not to know. Receiving the same answer over
and over again, never getting bored with it. Same old answer, every
time, so new, so fresh, so lovely. Making noise, emphasizing the
silence.
Love, Mirror
-----------

Yes, Buddha-nature, or unconditioned Love, or God, the Bright, or the
ultimate however you want to name it is the last and final thing we
cling to, the final passion. Why do people stop here? People melt into
the sticky sea of universal love and don't see that it is the final
craving, the final strategem of avoidance. Dying to this, allowing this
craving to die is no different than allowing any other passion to die,
If a person has got to this point, s'he knows all about not clinging,
letting go, there's only one step left, being nothing is only scary
until the last step is taken.

andrew
----------

******************This is slowly dawning on me..........in spite of my
academic and intellectual fascination with the Christian metaphor and
other archetypally and image rich traditions.....I keep wanting to throw
it all out......it's gagging me.......Something simpler keeps
calling.......letting it all go.....the seeking.....coercive
meditation.......just rest and stop thinking....I've been (thinking)
about the fear of psychological death shared in (I think) one of
Nisgardatta's passages you shared............strategem's of
avoidance.....allowing the craving to die........hmmmmm********Love,
Kristi

(-editors note-it was Krishnamurti not Nisargadatta)
------------

Great stuff, y'all. Better than oatmeal. I bow to the glorious
wisdom of each and all expressed here.

Simply out of exhuberence, I submit:

Anything that can be established as an "ultimate reality"
can be dis-established, including establishing that "there is no
ultimate reality". Anything asserted can be denied,
including this assertion. Any denial faces a new
assertion. "Ultimate" is opposed by
"temporary", as "reality" is opposed by "illusion",
as "nothingness" is opposed by "somethingness",
as "opposition" is opposed by "union". And visa versa.

"This" -- "Who I am" is nonopposition (of course, not a nonopposition
that is against oppositions). How will you express Me, how will you
express "Who You Are"? Where and how will you rest in Me? Verily, you
will find Me not, as you have not even Nowhere to stand to
begin to seek Me or express Me! By seeking Me, you oppose Me,
by affirming something about Me, you negate Me. You will not find
Me - even dying to all that is and all that you have will get you
nowhere.
"The foxes have their holes, the birds have their nests, but the Son of
Adam has no place to lay his head".
Love, Dan
________________________________________________________________________


Dear Friends..

I bow my head and enter here, grateful to have this place where my
heart's heart can speak.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. It is the liturgical and gaian
portal into the Still Point of Solstice. It is, for me, a time of
heightened listening, preparation and surrender.

I light the first candle.. a plumish purple colored beeswax candle..
color of sorrow, of royalty, of sobriety, of deep reflection.

I ask.. what wants to be born within me, within this community, within
our world this season? For what and how do I prepare? What needs to be
cleared? What needs to be brought in? In what direction do I gaze and
listen? With whom do I kneel?

Respecting the evolutionary process we participate within, this first
week, I honor and reflect upon the gifts from the Mineral Kingdom.. the
bones of the earth.. the skeletal core of my body.

During the next four weeks, I will listen. And then two more to attend
the Presence.

I am grateful to be amongst your holy Presence in this Advent-ure from
darkness to Light.. rhythm of Infinity. I would love to commune with
others who reflect upon these cycles and the many rituals.. holidays and
Holy days which are as star lights upon the calendar year... Chanukah,
Kwanza, Feast of Saint Nicholas, Santa Lucia, Solstice, Christ Mass and
Epiphany. If any of you have reflections on Christ, I would also love to
hear them (here or privately).

I thank you Jerry.. for creating a space where I can both maintain the
integrity of a seasonal rhythm in conjunction with taking to heart the
words posted today....

Do not bring with you one thought
the past has taught, nor one belief
you ever learned before from anything.
Forget this world,
forget this course,
and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.

Love,
Christiana
------------

Thank you, Christiana, for the coming six weeks of the
presence of suchness and intelligence.

I acknowledge suchness and intelligence. By inquiring Who Am
I?, I acknowledge suchness. By praying to God, I acknowledge
Intelligence.

Suchness is the mark of Intelligence, and Intelligence the
mark of Suchness. Acknowledging Intelligence, the Suchness
is known; knowing Suchness, potential of Intelligence is
known.

Gratitude is not separate from inquiry.

The candle of Suchness is lit. The Gaian Portal of
Intelligence is entered. And everyone's lifeline is long.

Love,

Jerry
----------

OLD HAG

Christiana: "If any of you have reflections on Christ, I would also love
to hear them."

He: And today come walk with me in memory of one of my manifestations.
Why do you holler so when I ask you to carry my cross for such a little
way?

She: Of course! You'll kiss my aching shoulder and make it feel much
better!

He: No, no! No little girl to be fathered any more! Remember? No
parenting, for there are no wounds a mother or father could heal. Only
my wounds that need no healing. My wounds are the marks of Peace.

Take up My Cross a little bit today, Amrita. I promise it won't weigh
too much. Know I love you and let's laugh together.

Only those who take their own suffering so seriously, really believe I
was suffering. As I stumbled up the hill, only peace prevailed. There
was no cross, no nails, no lance, only Joy!

I try to tell them but they do not listen.
They want an excuse for their own crosses, so they invent mine, they
"honor" mine. My crucifixion was a time of expectancy, a much awaited
birth was due. I was going Home, as you often wish to do.

There was no pain.
Who has pain?
Do you have pain?
Not thee who was never born.
Wipe my brow.
Pick up the end of the
dragging wood,
And let's be together -
to play.

from Easter Dialogue: 1982
love,
oh


________________________________________________________________________


...More interesting is that in judging, the subconscious does not
recognize pronouns, so that "he is a ***" and "I am a ***"
are the same, we judge ourselves judging others. This means
that literally, "whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers,
that you do unto me," translates that not only in our actions but
in our thoughts what we judge on others we actually judge to
ourselves, not them. This has become clear like light, whatever
irritates me in another is in me, whatever brings me love and
joy in another is in me.

At UCLA they've done studies which show the brain wave patterns
are the same, exactly for when the energy is of judgement of
another or ourselves. So, that as I release another from
judgement it is I that I release.

Sitting in the sun on the porch in the 70 degree weather
we have here, so beautiful, eating crepes with homemade
raspberry jam someone gave me... rather in awe how
we judge the enlightened path ... tres interesante...

love,

Annette
-------
<snip>
Very interesting stuff. Where are these studies published?
The general point i am almost totally willing to buy. The almost may be
a big sticking point
though. For me it is a psychological truth, one that is well worth
considering in the context of
any judgment, but not a universal truth that subsumes all others. My
master and many others
have not shrunk from judgment in the elucidation of some metaphysical or
psychological point.
Let the flame of my judgment be a double-edged sword that burns at both
ends, lest i pick up
the shitty end.
Love, Sarlo
________________________________________________________________________


Marcia wrote:

I gag myself into silence. I want to live and be alive with
a lust for life
---------------

from Krishnamurti:

Can that "me" die to
one thing? Then it will know what death means. That is, can I die to a
wish? Can I say "I do not want that wish, I do not want that pleasure"?
Can I end it, die to it?

Question:

I have an internal dilemma of understanding that I could use some shared
insight to resolve. Seems the answer is obvious either way so I assume I
have framed the "problem" wrong...but it haunts me and is at the root of
great fear....

1. The issues of desire: some say the root of all suffering some say an
expression of the search for joy

2. To live life with gusto and passion or to let go the attachment to a
desire for gusto and passion so that one may experience gusto and
passion in any situation.

Do we govern our lives according to the desires that spring
spontaneously and lead us to activities and people that bring us joy so
we have joy to share ....or.....

Do we recognize the meaninglessness of all desire and let it be removed
that we may learn to experience and share joy IN ANY SITUATION.......

Andrew, Mira, Greg, Gene, Dan, Xan??????????

Love, Kristi
------------

Do we recognize the meaninglessness of all desire and let it be ...

that we may discover what cannot be learned

that we may know ourselves beyond experience
and irrelevant to situations

All is taken care of through
falling in love with Silent Presence.


xan
------------

Kristi,

You have done a good job of framing the problem in the way it is taught.
Your question represents the pulling together of two different strands
of teaching on desire.

>1. The issues of desire: some say the root of all suffering
> some say an expression of the search for joy

Suffering isn't just a hard life, sickness, death of a loved one, a car
accident, a terminal disease. It is the anguished desire that things be
different from how they now are. The depth of suffering is akin to the
distance between how things are, and how we would like them to be.
That's why they say "pain *and* suffering," because you can have one
without the other.

There *are* teachings that say to reduce desire. These I call
progressive path teachings. They can involve ascetic lifestyles even
out of monastic settings. Lifestyles such as avoiding sex, spicy foods,
too much sun, too much/little sleep, avoiding music with beautiful
melodies or exciting rhythms, etc. The idea is to polish the mirror
until all the specks are gone. Some teachings say this will end up in
realization. Other paths, such as advaita, and Middle Way Buddhism, use
it as a precursor to direct inquiry.

In the advaita tradition, the mirror polishing isn't meant to result in
realizing the Self. (Indeed, the orthodox advaita explanation of this
is, that if the obstructions to clear seeing have accumulated over an
infinitude of lifetimes, then how in the world can we polish the mirror
perfectly clean in *one* lifetime?) Rather, the polishing is a
preliminary technique to direct inquiry, to make the mind and heart
quiet enough so that meditation and deep enquiry can begin. The
meditation and enquiry are difficult enough, but with a desire-filled
mind, even harder. So the progressive path is used for some quiet
space. It *may* even be continued beyond that, but for a different
motive (not goal-oriented at that point, but for celebration, etc.).

This enquiry takes many forms that we're all familiar with, and it is
sometimes called "the direct path." Examples: Ramana's "Who am I,
Advaita's jnana yoga, Nisargadatta's dialogues, and his "Understanding
is All"; and the various reasonings on selflessness of persons and
objects in Madhyamika Buddhism, Krishna Menon's teachings on the
objectlessness of the world, body and mind.

So what about desires? Here's a scenario that I've personally seen
happen to people who have found themselves on the direct path.

The enquiry comes to an end when desires (and other thoughts and
feelings) are seen as nothing but arisings in consciousness, happening
to no one. The supposed owner of the desires is seen as nothing other
than a thought, or another object arising in consciousness.
Consciousness is seen as our nature, not the body/mind complex. So if a
desire seems to arise after that, "it is not taken delivery of," (to
quote Nisargadatta), not taken seriously, not seen as belonging to
anyone. It might have to be inferential at first, like "Oh yeah, that
*can't be a desire, because it's arising and falling in consciousness,
just like its supposed owner." But
this process gathers momentum over time, and kicks in sooner and sooner
with each arising - and life becomes sweeter and sweeter, no matter what
circumstances go on. Even if the bills increase, sickness dawns, loved
ones leave, etc.

In that respect, it is the end of desire, not by being cleaned or
polished, but by being seen.

And Kristie, *that's* where the gusto, verve, joy, lightness and
spontaneity come in. Life is then lived as a celebration of all that
is, of our very Self.

>2. To live life with gusto and passion or to let go the attachment to a
> desire for gusto and passion so that one may experience gusto and
> passion in any situation.

Yes, the desire for joy and gusto are just like any other desires. To
continue in that scenario, the true fulfillment of these desires comes
when desires "end" by being seen as arisings in the Self, occurring to
no entity.

Love,

--Greg
--------------

JAN

<snip>
going after the whims of the mind
is what brought the most violent century in written history
and the way some Christian monks mutilated their bodies in an
attempt to get rid of attachment didn't bring nirvana. It is
sheer ignorance to think one can separate attachment from
passion; behavior isn't necessarily a dial to measure
"realization". The only panacea is *get rid of the "I"
thought*. Regarding this, Ramana Maharshi is the one having
solved that and saying "no compromise" whereas Ramakrishna
(understandably) is moderate.
________________________________________________________________________


> But if I have a use for "another" in order to get love for
"myself", it is not a gift but stolen from Self. <

---
The Self cannot be stolen from. It is eternally whole.
What anyone steals from is themselves, settling for
'using' and 'getting' bits of love from others when
perfect love is already within and all around you.


xan
________________________________________________________________________

OLDE FART

In Buddhism, it is best when there is no thought of
giver, gift, and recipient.

BRUCE

Yes, there is only giving,
which is life itself in
this very moment, the only
real "path" and the sole
abode of the truly sacred.
Everything else is mere
data, symbols and images,
record-keeping.
________________________________________________________________________

<snip>
Although he is sometimes a bit exasperating, Da Free John (as I always
actually call him) is well worth reading. Aside from those first two
books, my favorites are two small gems: The Four Fundamental Questions
and The Liberator (which is a fine meditation manual); and Nirvanasara,
which is a brilliant exposition of the contrasting ways of Buddhism and
Advaita and their transcendence in what he then called Advaitayana
Buddhism. All three of these books date from 1980-82.

Here is a succinct summary which is the entirety of Chapter XXI of
Nirvanasara:

ADVAITA VEDANTA, CLASSICAL BUDDHISM, AND THE WAY OF RADICAL
UNDERSTANDING:

Advaitism: Meditate on (or invert attention upon) the essence of self
(or witnessing consciousness) until all objects are excluded and the
Transcendental is Revealed.

Buddhism: Meditate on (or clearly observe) all presently arising
objects until the self (or the conventional sense of consciousness as
individual and independent of objects) is overcome and the
Transcendental is Revealed.

Advaitayana Buddhism: Understand and directly transcend the contraction
that generates the sense of self and of objects as conventions of
limitation (independent of one another and of the Transcendental), and
so in every moment recognize self and objects (and the binding power of
self and objects) in the Transcendental (or That which is always already
Revealed).

OM shantih,
Bob
-------------
**********
From Method of the Siddhas, Guru as Prophet.......

"People have tremendous reluctance to animate the life of adoration,
service, fullness, happiness. People are super-cool in relation to
God. How many tears have you wept for God? How much suffering have you
done for love of the Guru? How much intense suffering have you felt
relative to your lack of Divine Self Knowledge? Very little. But look
at how many hours you've spent retching over the most idiot bullshit!
Look at how much time you spend defending your own reluctance!
The energy of your life is devoted to this false principle. When
someone stands face to face with God, the Guru, and his or her own
Nature, the person is "cool"! He is she already right there on top of
it. He or she has already got it, he or she is straight, and everything
is all right. And because everything is all right, that person is not
going to lie down at the Guru's foot. He or she is not going to bend his
or her neck to God. He or she is not going to dissolve in the Heart.

If we were not here in Satsang together, what would you be doing?
What is the alternative? What's on television tonight? What could you
possibly do? There is nothing for you to do except for you to perfect
the enjoyment of this Satsang. Such individuals are always happy. They
do not even notice when they die.
----------

More from Method of the Siddhas, chapter "No one survives beyond that
moment."

Truth always appears to the seeker as a kind of 'alternative'. But
Truth is not an alternative. Truth is your 'very' Consciousness, your
very Nature, your very Condition. It cannot be concentrated upon. It
is not an object. It is not something in which you can become
interested. It is not something from which you can be distracted. Your
interests, your distractions, your noticings, your experiencings, are
'all' expressions, or modifications of the fundamental Reality. But you
are not living them as such. Therefore, you are constantly obsessed
with alternatives, with particular distractions, noticings, and
experiencings. Alternatives are all that you have.

When you no longer have any alternatives, when the search has died, then
Truth becomes your real possibility. But Truth is not an alternative.
It is not in the form of an answer to a specific question. It is not
something perceived. It is not something that serves you, the actively
presumed limited and separate subject. It is not something that
liberates you as a separate person. It has nothing to do with you as a
separate one. It cannot be enjoyed by you as a separate one. Truth is
enjoyed only in the instant of non-separation, of perfect equality with
Truth.
-----------

From Method of the Siddhas, Chapter "Walking the Dog"

"What is appropriate is not offense with me, but finally, at long last
to be offended with yourselves. All your lives you have been angry with
various people, dissatisfied with various people, critisizing them. You
have been critical of society, of life and experience, of birth, of
mortality, of politics. You have been capable of anger, of fear, of
doubt as reactions to conditions of life. But it is time to turn all
energy to 'your own' event.

The Guru does not come to satisfy devotees or disciples. A satisfied
disciple is still the one he or she was. The Guru is only interested in
the utter, "radical" dissolution of that whole limitation that appears
as the disciple. The Guru is not here to satisfy that limitation, to
make it feel comfortable. The Guru is here to return people to their
own experience, their always present chronic experience, their dilemma,
their unconsciousness. The Guru is here to return peopel to that, not
to prevent them from seeing it, not to keep them obsessively involved
with symbols, or startegicvally achieved yogic stimulations of light
and sound, or some complex conditional vision of God, or some mere image
of Reality, so they wil never experience and recognize their own state.
The Guru moves by non support. The Guru 'undermines' the disciple. The
Guru skins the disciple! The Guru does not torture the disciple for the
fun, but the Guru undermines that process which is the disciples
suffering.

The Guru assumes that suffering is what brings people to Satsang. But
people in this time and place tend to assume it is their seaarch that
has brought them to the Guru. Arriving at the Guru's feet is a form of
sucess for the seeker. But when such a devotee begins to turn from the
illusions of the search, and the demands for the satisfaction of its
goals, to the sense of his or her actual condition, his or her
suffering, his or her dilemma, then Satsang has truly begun. Until
then, the pretended devotee sits, waiting for satisfaction. He or she
hears what is being said. The suggestion of real spiritual life, or
conscious life, is there, but the pretended devotee supposes that
somehow the search to which he or she has already attached himself or
herself is going to be satisfied.

________________________________________________________________________


The Pathway of Nonduality

by Raphael

Chapter 13

Karma or the Law of Cause and Effect (concluded)

Ignorance is won over by knowledge, inertia by
determination, pessimism by optimism, and hate by love.

The law of karma-nemesis has been laid down by the Sacred
Science.
In order to understand certain things properly one has to
consider that a dense physical form is a complex of energy
with qualities and a producer of causes and effects and that
the individual is a center of consciousness around with
qualified energies generating causes and effects revolve.
Just as studying physics allows us to know how the mechanism
of the law of cause and effect works, so studying the Sacred
Science allows us to understand the manner in which the law
of karma operates.

We must recognize the fact that many events, even negative
ones, to which we are subjected, are not produced by God but
by ourselves, because we are the ones who set the law of
karma in motion. But if we wish to neutralize an energy, we
obviously need another powerful energy to contrast it. This
is where many fail, as they believe they do not possess
sufficient energy capable of producing a contrary cause.

In order to overcome the earth gravity force, man has had to
use not only a force equal and opposite to it, but also an
amount of extra energy by which to transcend it altogether.
The universe, at all levels, is governed by laws (dharma)
and a correct understanding of the law can give the
individual the possibility not only to harmonize with nature
but also -- and this is a consequence -- to positively
affect and harmonize what we call his own destiny.

The sorrow-conflict of the world of men is not brought about
by a capricious and emotional God, but by man himself who
has not yet understood the operative dynamics of some of the
laws governing the universe and the individual.

Man can use, manipulate and direct forces, energies and
therefore, he alone is reponsible for the effects these
actions imply.

The Vedanta, with reference to the individual, names three
kinds of karma: agamin, samcita and prarabdha. Samkara, in
his Vivekacudamani, says: "The prarabdhakarma is too
powerful for the realized being to stop; it will exhaust
with the extinction of its fruit. The other two kinds of
karma, that resulting from previous actions (samcita) and
that whose effects are not mature (agamin), will be burnt to
ashes by the fire of knowledge. However, none of these three
kinds of karma is capable of affecting the ascetic who has
realized Brahman and lives in identity with It."

Prarabdhakarma is the matured kind of karma and is therefore
the current one: having taken on a physical body is a
prarabdhakarma because it is a matured one. The physical
body is here and we cannot destroy it. To have a child is
also a prarabdhakarma because a child, once it has been
brought into being, cannot be sent back.

The other two kinds of karma, not having come into objective
existence, can be stopped and even extinguished or resolved
because the favouring causes have been removed. The cause of
the karmic causes is avidya, the metaphysical ignorance
which concerns the nature of Being; when it is resolved the
karma vanishes and even the prarabdha, for the
jnani-asparsin, is as if it did not exist because it has no
grasp upon his freed consciousness.

"The brahmana, having recognized that the different worlds
are the outcome of the accumulated karma, feels disgusted
with them because by means of what is created one cannot
realize the Non-created..." (Mundaka Upanishad: I,ii,12).
________________________________________________________________________

DAN
<snip>
Then, this attempt to avoid Presence (and my personality itself is
only this attempt, constructed in the pressure of a perceived need to
survive) can only dissolve. Yes, I must admit, my personality is simply
a crazy attempt to survive by modifying Presence, by collecting some of
it and avoiding other of it (as if this could happen!!??).
----------------

Why not discard your personality? Of what use is it to you? You talk
of it apologetically, as if you know it's a stumbling block but somehow
prefer to have the stumbling block there. If you want the truth, have
it. Be a non-entity. Dissolve completely. Aren't you sick of the
hypocrisy of it all?

With Love,

Tim
________________________________________________________________________

OLDE FART
>as long as there is ego it will always get in
>the way; no?

No. Only if it is seen as real, if identity-personality is attached to
it. And in 99.999% of cases, that is the case.

Do you know anybody here who, if you asked "are you a human being?"
would respond in the negative? So what is a human being? The sum total
of everything that happened from birth up to this exact moment. All the
desires, fears, hopes, dreams, attitudes, likes, dislikes, memories.
And it's all gone. It's all in the past, never to return. The
continuity of it is apparent only. Everybody is dead, as a human being,
as a personality. There never was one. And if everything real is a
product of the *now*, then life began this very instant and ended this
very instant.
Just now it began again...

With Love,

Tim
________________________________________________________________________

LARRY

New Word...
Ubiety is the mark of reality for many people, the text and texture of
location. The experience of now is mostly the experience of here,
ubiety. Thoughts have no ubiety, that we know of. Nonduality is ubiety,
ubiety, ubiety.
________________________________________________________________________

What are your empty hands empty of?

xan
------------
They're not empty of anything. They're just empty.

Jerry
------------

But i SAW the shell in your left one!!
,^)) You wouldn't fool an old woman, would you?

love,
oh
------------

<snip> from Adi Da;
The Guru moves by non support. The Guru 'undermines' the disciple. The
Guru skins the disciple! The Guru does not torture the disciple for the
fun, but the Guru undermines that process which is the disciples
suffering....
----------

Kristie; Guru reveals own innate masochistic tendencies. Great approach
for people with strong intact egos who will to the process......I can
imagine nasty consequences for the seeker who's a mess inside.......Hope
all gurus are wise!

-----------

You gotta admit, though, he looks sorta cute in them tight leather
pants, with the studs in his whip whirling all around. ,^))

love,
oh

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