Click here to go to the next issue.

XAN

free and easy:
a spontaneous song of indestructible
wisdom
by Gen'dün Rinpoche

happiness is not to be found
through great effort and willpower
it is already present in open
relaxation and letting go

don't strain
there's nothing to do or to undo
whatever momentarily and
adventitiously arises in body-mind
has no real import at all
has very little reality at all
why identify with it and become attached to it,
passing judgement on it and on yourself and others?

far better simply
to just let the entire game happen on its own
springing up and falling back again like waves

without 'rectifying' or manipulating things
just noticing how everything vanishes
and then magically reappears, again and again and again
time without end

it's only our searching for happiness
that prevents us from seeing it
like a vivid rainbow one runs after but can never catch
or a dog chasing its own tail

though peace and happiness have no existence
as some actual place or thing
they are forever at hand -
one's constant companion at every instant

just don't be taken in by the apparent reality
of good and bad experiences
they're like today's passing weather
like rainbows in the sky

wanting to grasp the ungraspable
you exhaust yourself in vain
but as soon as you open up and relax the tight fist of
grasping
infinite space is right there - open, inviting, comfortable

use this spaciousness - this freedom and natural ease
don't look anywhere else

don't go off into the tangled jungle
searching for the elephant of great awakenedness
when he is already at home
quietly resting in front of your own hearth

there's nothing to do or to undo
nothing to force
nothing you have to want
nothing missing

emaho - how marvellous

everything just happens of itself

__________________________________________________________________

TIM HARRIS

God is 'power'.
Power is it and all.
What form does 'power' take?
Infinite 'energy' forms.
Some 'worship' the power.
Some 'shun' the power.
Some 'seek' the power.
Some 'run' from the power.
Power, then is the 'will'.
Power 'of' the 'will' or
the will 'in' the power.
Power preceded you and
will go on before you.
You are this/that power.
'Made' of the power consumed 'in' the power
and creation 'with' power.
God is 'with' you always.
And, I, am 'with' God.

____________________________________________________________________

XAN

The swimmer, Curiosity,
wants to hear about deep water
from other swimmers.
Meanwhile vast ocean
waits beneath
as Now
______________________________________________________________________

JERRY

No answer can be given to anyone. But the right questions
can be asked. And how you address them can be discussed and
futher questions asked. Everyone on this List is carrying
out the function of the Guru. Each one of us, without
exception, is Grace itself. You sign up for this list, you
are the Guru.
____________________________________________________________________

DAN

Awakeness involves "the entire field". Thus, there is no
question about any entity which is "to be awakened", neither
a sentient nor nonsentient entity.

Suffering is relevant in the context of the belief in the
existence of an entity that could "be awakened". It is the
ending of this misperception that has been discussed as the
"ending of suffering".

_____________________________________________________________________

NEO

I have had difficulty reconciling the experience of the Void
with this experience of Pure Love. Is it possible that
there is a God that is formed from pure awareness and is not
separate from pure awareness but united with it?

I would appreciate any thoughts related to this experience,
to the Void, to God, and what I believe to be Buddhist
thought that there is no God.

XAN

Dear neo You seem to be blessed with experiences that don't
fit into your conceptual frameworks. Glory be! It occurs
to me that trying to figure it all out may be a major trap
for you. If you want to know about God and the void, why
would you be discussing it with humans? If you want to know
about the ocean deeps, avoid boats. Become a diver. There
is no substitute for leaving behind attempts to reconcile
ideas and discovering for yourself what Is.

JAN BARENDRECHT

You are pure consciousness, without beginning, middle or
end, not separated from anything but encompassing all. This
is not something to be limited to one or more experiences,
but can be all day reality and when so, it is perfectly
normal, because it is unchanging, independent of the fate of
the mind-body.
As long as the limitation of experiences continues, the
desire to describe, name and classify will continue, but
what does that solve? When the drop of water found its way
to the ocean, how can it know anything else but water?
Does water change if described by a physicist instead of a
biologist?:)

____________________________________________________________________

JAN BARENDRECHT

Reading about Ramakrishna could make things clear for you;
he had almost every possible religious experience (samadhi)
and came to the conclusion, that all paths will lead the the
same (Unnameable). A rather clear label for it is
Sat_Cit_Ananda which means Being_Consciousness_Bliss, these
3 aspects not being separated but a whole and these aspects
are innate. A classification of experiences is given, among
others, in classical yoga but the yoga sutras of Patanjali
(much shorter read) will give enough insight and a summary
is, that these experiences are a composition of 1.
cogitation, 2. reflection, 3. bliss and 4. I_am_ness.
When bliss is involved, the sense of love will dominate the
experience, when I_am_ness is involved but bliss is absent,
the sense of void will dominate the experience.

XAN

This is one of Ramakrishna's legacies. He lived at time in
India when there were two strongly opposing Hindu factions -
one that advocated consciousness of Brahman, the formless,
and the other that was passionately blissful in union with
favorite forms of God. His ecstasy in Divine Mother and his
frequent samadhis in emptiness bridged a false division. He
refused to give up either one for the other.
____________________________________________________________________

JOHN METZGER

THE GREATER SEA, Kahlil Gibran

My soul and I went to the great sea to bathe. And when we
reached the shore, we went about looking for a hidden and
lonely place.
But as we walked, we saw a man sitting on a grey rock taking
pinches of salt from a bag and throwing them into the sea.
"This is the pessimist," said my soul, "Let us leave this
place. We cannot bathe here."
We walked on until we reached an inlet. There we saw,
standing on a white rock, a man holding a bejeweled box,
from which he took sugar and threw it into the sea.
"And this is the optimist," said my soul, "And he too must
not see our naked bodies."
Further on we walked. And on the beach we saw a man picking
up dead fish and tenderly putting them back into the water.
"And we cannot bathe before him," said my soul. "He is the
humane philanthropist."
And we passed on.
Then we came where we saw a man tracing his shadow on the
sand. Great waves came and erased it. But he went on
tracing it again and again.
"He is the mystic," said my soul, "Let us leave him."
And we walked on, till in a quiet cove we saw a man scooping
up the foam and putting it into an alabaster bowl.
"He is the idealist," said my soul, "Surely he must not see
our nudity."
And on we walked. Suddenly we heard a voice crying, "This
is the sea.
This is the deep sea. This is the vast and mighty sea." And
when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned
to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its
murmur.
And my soul said, "Let us pass on. He is the realist, who
turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies
himself with a fragment."
So we passed on. And in a weedy place among the rocks was a
man with his head buried in the sand. And I said to my
soul, "We cannot bathe hear, for he cannot see us."
"Nay," said my soul, "For he is the most deadly of them
all. He is the puritan."
Then a great sadness came over the face of my soul, and into
her voice.
"Let us go hence," she said, "For there is no lonely, hidden
place where we can bathe. I would not have this wind lift
my golden hair, or bare my white bosom in this air, or let
the light disclose my sacred nakedness."
Then we left that sea to seek the Greater Sea.
____________________________________________________________________

TIM GERCHMEZ

It has been said that the realized being is utterly
unpredictable -- yet the tendency is there to follow the
natural laws (nonharming, etc) because something other than
personality is operating.

KKT

It reminds me some passages in the book "Truth is a Pathless
Land - A Journey with Krishnamurti" by Ingram Smith.

Sometime after five o'clock a stream of buses, overloaded
with office workers, came roaring past us. I was intrigued
to notice that as each bus approached from behind, Krishnaji
reacted in a different way. Sometimes he would walk right
on and the bus would go around him; at other times he would
quickly cross to the other side of the road; occasionally he
would leap over the irrigation ditch running between the
road and the rice paddy and walk there while the bus went
by. With no two buses did he react in the same way . There
seemed to be no habit pattern whatsoever.

As I watched, I realized that in some extraordinary way he
was responding to the attitude of each bus driver. He
stepped aside for the agressive driver, and let the
accommodating driver adapt his driving to us. He seemed to
move in relation to the intention of the man behind the
wheel, to be an integral part of the whole movement, of the
subtle interplay . Yet each was doing exactly what he
intended: Krishnaji walking briskly for an hour, and the bus
drivers reaching their destinations in whatever way they
chose to drive . It didn't matter to Krishnaji whether he
was walking on the road or off it--it was the exercise, the
oxygenation of the blood, the freedom of body movement that
mattered.

A flock of scheeching parrots rocketed across the road
directly in front of us. Krishnaji's reaction was
instantaneous and dramatic.
He physically shuddered as though the birds had flown
through him, then continued on as if nothing untoward had
happened.

Our speed in this slow-moving island made us objects of
whimsical interest. Villagers stood and watched us as we
strode by . Occasionally, as we paced through a village, a
pariah dog would burst out snarling or barking. Krishnaji
responded differently to each dog. As one approached he
would shout, "Get back"; to another he would call softly and
let it run alongside him, even patting it. Sometimes
children would race up beside us. From one he would
distance himself, another he would permit to jog for a while
at his side or between us. Again, different responses,
always patternless, his action relating completely to the
present situation. It was a tremendous learning experience
to observe such freedom from habitual reactions.
__________________________________________________________________

GEN

hello list hearts you are all in my heart today.
in my heart also are, and hear i become the nonreal
dualizer:
--kids who have no food to eat today
--working people who make barely enough to pay for the
clothes they wear to work
--people who sleep in the street because they have no money
--people of colour who are in prison for crimes they did not
comit
--visionaries who are committed to institutions because they
are "harmful to society

oh there are so many more to think of. the most "outthere"
patient i shared hours with in the hospital spoke a kind of
word salad. .
.seemingly disjointed and confused, but interspersed with
constant repetitions of "Jesus is the reason for the
season."

got milk? got ears?
i knew it!
i love you gen :-)(-:

__________________________________________________________________

TIM HARRIS

And by the way... the movie Matrix was an 'extreme
disappointment'. The dialouge, although loosely littered
with nondual reference was lame and melodramatic... the
special effects were fantastic...
but all in all, I give it 5 yawns out of 5... :oO...

GREG GOODE

The Matrix film has a great irony. Some of its spiritual
references are about levels of reality, levels of
experience. About 3 levels, as I remember. Oddly enough,
however, the higher up you go in the Matrix universe, the
grungier it gets. The lowest, most deluded level is the
most pleasant, like a 50's TV show world. And the higher is
ugly, with rusted megalithic structures housing pods of
oozing protoplasm. It was the unpleasantness of the higher
levels that spurred the computer folks on to create the
lower, more pleasant game-realities. So for game-characters
working their way upwards through levels in Matrix-world, it
was hard work like sadhana often is. But the result was an
ugly and sad wisdom, not freedom, bliss or enlightenment.

It revolves around the question:

Would you prefer the red pill or the blue pill (I might have
got them switched)?

Red pill: Know the truth, but the truth is painful and ugly
Blue pill: Be blissful and ignorant

____________________________________________________________________

ANDREW

There is a mystery which always remains a mystery.
Realization is acceptance that this mystery remains mystery,
is never understood. It is no flaw or imperfection that
this mystery remains. The mystery is perfect. It is
essential.

DAN

Not claiming to know what this means.
Just knowing it's beautiful.
An open-ended mystery -- the kind that invites endlessly,
the kind that infiltrates the very air we breathe.
Not baffled at all here, simply breathing the mystery.

Salaam aleichem.
____________________________________________________________________

HARSHA

Now we continue with the essential teachings and techniques
given by Sri Ramana in the Forty Verses on Reality. Each
verse is pregnant with method, meaning, and indicates the
Truth of the Self.

26. If the ego is, everything else also is. If the ego is
not, nothing else is. Indeed, the ego is all. Therefore
the enquiry as to what this ego is, is the only way of
giving up everything.

27. The State of non-emergence of 'I' is the state of being
THAT. Without questing for that State of the non-emergence
of 'I' and attaining It, how can one accomplish one's own
extinction, from which the 'I' does not revive?
Without that attainment how is it possible to abide in one's
true State, where one is THAT?

28. Just as a man would dive in order to get something that
had fallen into the water, so one should dive into oneself,
with a keen one-pointed mind, controlling speech and breath,
and find the place whence the 'I' originates.

29. The only enquiry leading to Self-realization is seeking
the Source of the 'I' with in-turned mind and without
uttering the word 'I'. Meditation on 'I am not this; I am
That' may be an aid to the enquiry but it cannot be the
enquiry.

30. If one enquires 'Who am I?' within the mind, the
individual 'I' falls down abashed as soon as one reaches the
Heart and immediately Reality manifests itself spontaneously
as 'I-I'. Although it reveals itself as 'I', it is not the
ego but the Perfect Being, the Absolute Self.

____________________________________________________________________

NEO

I am very familiar with the Ramana, Papaji, Gangaji
lineage. There is at least one person that knows Gangaji
personally and has known her from her early days who is a
follower of Sai Baba.

As I have said before my spiritual quest has been a solitary
one for most of my life. The ideas that we are discussing
on this list were ideas that were so foreign to people
around me that I wondered most of my life if I was partially
insane. A number of years ago I was given an audio tape of
Gangaji. She was a guest on a radio show somewhere in the
southwest. For the first time in my life I heard someone
speaking the thoughts that by now I kept private. There was
a tremendous resonance.

I then ordered additional audio tapes, then videotapes, and
then arranged to go on a retreat with her in Colorado.
After that I went on to retreats with her in North Carolina
and again in Hawaii.

The last two retreats were with both Gangaji and her husband
Eli. In the first of these retreats she told me that there
was nothing else that she could do to help me and that the
rest was up to me. In the second retreat she would not even
let me speak.

To answer your question she spoke the Truth more clearly
than I had ever heard it before or since. In addition, the
structure of her retreats I found particularly helpful,
especially the silence.

_____________________________________________________________________

UROBOROS

Ken Wilber's early works give a good understanding of
non-duality.
He speaks of the evolution of consciousness within
phenomenality as going from pre-personal, to personal, to
transpersonal. Since pre-- personal states are prior to
subject-object duality and w/o linear time as are
transpersonal states, the two can easily be confused.

Looking at my own situation i can observe that i have never
had a solid sense of self. The Buddhist concept of anatta
can lead one to justify their pathologies by thinking they
are being led to transpersonal awareness, when in reality
perhaps they are weighted down by pre-personal issues.

This reminds me of the story of how only a ripened fruit can
fall. Does anyone agree that it may be important to develop
a healthy identy, a strong sense of self, before
Undrstanding can occur?

TERRY MURPHY
(note: this is the last few paragraphs of a very lengthy but
important post. Please see the full post in the Nonduality
Salon archives.)

1) It is important for children to have a healthy
self-identity and good moral values, before being gradually
taught that love of all beings equally should guide one's
judgment; and that ultimately an intuition of what is right
for everyone will take the mind beyond judgment altogether,
to a state of non-doing and pefect harmony.

2) A person who has reached adulthood in a condition of
pathological self-loathing or narcissism needs special
treatment by trained professionals, probably including
drugs.

3) Adults who are as yet unenlightened should find their
way somehow to the Path - which is usually right under your
nose and so obvious that it is ignored because it doesn't
seem sufficiently 'sexy' or exciting. There is nothing so
good as water for the thirsty. Steady, slow progress on the
path gradually lifts the delusions and weakens the
illusions, regardless of whether these are regarded by the
'false ego' as healthy or unhealthy.

It is often very gratifying to oneself and others to promote
the idea of a 'healthy ego,' by which term we are referring
to self-esteem. People like to be stroked and often form
mutual stroking societies, or will pay people or reward them
in other ways for giving them believable flattery.
People may even develop vested interests in such self esteem
efforts and conditioning, and will develop all sorts of
encouragements and even entire philosophies to justify what
they are doing. Thus they may argue passionately for such
views.

In my view, children may be encouraged or discouraged in
terms of self-esteem for doing what they do, as they have no
individual judgment they can rely on to provide them with
such self-awareness. Mentally ill people may need special
care.

Ordinary adults should be encouraged to practice love, and
honor truth and wisdom; and should discouraged from hatred,
anger and abuse. Their egos should be left alone. The less
attention that people's egos get, the more those false
selves tend to simply dry up and blow away. (Things aren't
always quite that simple, and if you have a guru or
'teacher' that person may elect to use a different
strategy. The Tao Te Ching states, "That which is to be
diminished must first be allowed to fully expand." Under
special circumstances what would naturally happen on its own
rather slowly may be accelerated.)

___________________________________________________________________

GREG GOODE

You heard about Joseph Goldstein (I think it was)?, who
after almost 20 years of teaching Vipassana-type meditation,
finally went to a therapist to work on issues with his
mother. I think it was a 2-year stint, and he said he was
very glad he'd done it.

It seems that some kind of self-protective superiority is
found in all paths, sort of built in to the teachings, not
to mention the teachers.
It's easy to spot in the crystallized religions, harder in
the newer, less orthodox teachings. A charitable
interpretation of the built-in superiority might be that it
keeps folks on the path, lessens the tendency to go
spiritual shopping. There comes a time when some people
will turn away from a path regardless of (or because of) the
superior stance. And other people might benefit from
staying on the path, shedding the self-promotional stuff.
And still others will internalize the self-promotional
stuff.

I found this happening with me in Christianity. When I was
first saved years ago, I loved everyone, felt united with
everyone of every religion.
A real fellow-feeling, as though I was thinking, "Wow! THIS
is what you guys have been talking about while I was an
atheist. It's great!" But then as I grew further
inculturated in my particular denomination, I started to
internalize their superior stance vis-a-vis other religions
and even other Christian denominations. I found myself
feeling superior to those others, and I started to be
vigilant about it, knowing is was one of the occupational
hazards of formal religion. My church was a Black church,
African American. I was the only white member. Once a
missionary told me, "Dr. Goode, you talk SAVED, for a
*white* person." This was only because I had picked up and
mimicked that denomination's ways of expression, which in
the context was just right.
____________________________________________________________________

Adi Da's First Talk:

There is a disturbance, a feeling of dissatisfaction, some
sensation that motivates a person to go to a teacher, read a
book about philosophy, believe something, or do some
conventional form of Yoga.
What people ordinarily think of as Spirituality or religion
is a search to get free of that sensation, that suffering
that is motivating them.
So all the usual paths - Yogic methods, beliefs, religion
and so on - are forms of suffering. Ultimately, all the
usual paths are attempting to get free of that sensation.
That is the traditional goal. Indeed "all" human beings are
seeking, whether or not they are very sophisticated about
it, or using very specific methods of Yoga, philosophy,
religion and so on.....

As long as the individual is simply seeking, and has all
kinds of motivation, fascination with the search, this is
not understanding - this is dilemma itself. But where this
dilemma is understood, there is the re-cognition of a
structure in the living consciousness, a separation. And
when that separation is observed more and more directly, one
begins to see that what one is suffering is not something
happening "to" one but it is one's own action. It is as if
you are pinching yourself, without being aware of it...Then
one sees that the entire motivation of life is based on a
subtle activity in the living consciousness. That activity
is avoidance, separation, a contraction at the root, the
origin, the 'place', of the living consciousness....

There is first the periodic awareness of that sensation,
then the awareness of it as a continuous experience, then
the observation of its actual structure, the knowing of it
all as your own activity, a deliberate, present activity
that "is" your suffering, that "is" your illusion. The
final penetration of that present, deliberate activity is
what I have called "understanding".

April 25, 1972, Hollywood, CA.
____________________________________________________________________

TIM

Some dreams are nightmares. I've never had a nightmare I
could say I was grateful for...

XAN

I've had nightmares I became grateful for once the worst was
over, because of the kick-in-the-butt I got to give up yet
another bit of my foolishness.

DAN

I've found every dream is a potential gift if unwrapped
lovingly. Nightmares are the processing of difficult
emotions, often deep-seated fears, anxieties, strong anger
or desire. The nightmare is a signal to find ways to
communicate and express, to digest what hasn't been
digested.
Perhaps if this world sometimes seems nightmarish, it is the
attempt to digest who we are, which work involves our full
awareness, as full as possible, each and every/only "now".
____________________________________________________________________

NEO

There seems to be quite a bit of discord here between
different aspects of ourself. For our benefit I would
suggest that each party apologize to the other and ask for
their forgiveness. If that is not possible and you feel you
have to get the last word in, you do us all a disservice.
At the very least, just do not respond to the next attack.

DAN

Now, neo, have you made yourself one of the "parts"
attempting to suggest how the other "parts" would relate
beneficially?
That may work, but how well and how long will that work?

If there are no parts in reality, then how is it that so
much verbiage is strewn about this garden, as if to raise
one part up higher, place another lower, to affirm the
existence of one part as special for knowing it doesn't
exist, or to affirm the special nonspecialness of a part for
knowing pure existence? I suggest that all of this
haphazardly strewn verbiage eventually decomposes and
becomes the fertilizer for organic verbiage that is
beneficial and cleanses the air.

Gene seems to have proposed a theory that might help make
sense of the verbiage garden that grows here.

GENE

I am attempting to point out that for most humans, all
decisions are made on the priority of _keeping the original
_identity_. This original identity (not to be confused with
'original nature', which itself preceeds identity)
is our 'ticket of acceptance' to family and to society. To
lose identity is equated with psychosis; it is probably the
most stress-producing event a person can experience.

DAN

So, some may be evading personality/identity disintegration
while being attracted to the philosophy of
personality/disintegration. Others may be building a
personality on ideas about no-personality, an identity of
specialness based on the idea of having no identity. Still
others may be maintaining an "I am right" identity by taking
the position of ultimate truth, or being beyond relative
true or false. Yet all of these poses are simply the human
being attempting to avoid disintegration, perpetuate
existence, and achieve significance. Very natural. The
breaking apart of self and world can only occur as a chick
breaks out of the egg - when the shell has weakened
sufficiently, the newborn feels strong enough, and there is
readiness. So all of the thrashings and strewn verbiage can
be viewed as pangs of birth.

GENE

Yes. Held criteria validate the 'owner'. Remember that the
'owner' is a character in a dream, and because the identity
of the 'owner' is valid only in the dream, the 'owner' is
heavily invested in maintaining the dream. Hitting upon
others with emotion-producing word-attacks is the attempt to
include others in one's 'family way' trance. Once this
family is properly identified, the 'father' and the
'scapegoat' instantly materialize; the vertical rankings of
family hierarchy will appear, to the extent that each member
reacts in such a way as to stabilize or protect identity.

DAN

We do see attacks and counter attacks that create emotional
"pull"
and a family scenario with roles based on words. This does
not seem far-fetched here.

GENE

Your statement of 'hypnotic trance' is accurate; world-dream
identity (which is the only kind of identity) depends NOT
ONLY upon individual trance, but also, on the cooperation of
all other dreamers to _remain in trance_. It is only the
collective trance which can be called the 'world-dream'.
The world-dream is a transpersonal trance, and the 'vast
tacit conspiracy' to maintain this collective dream, is what
we call 'society'. Historically, we see vivid examples of
what happens to anyone who attempts to awaken masses of
people, let alone individuals. That is why I favor the idea
of 'awakening to the dream' rather than 'awakening FROM the
dream'. As is cogently pointed out in several spiritual
traditions, there is no-one to awaken 'from the dream'.

DAN

The idea that one must awaken is part of the trance. The
intent to stay asleep is part of the trance. Only awakeness
is non-trance.
Many verbal formats are ways to keep the trance going, to
reinduct those whose trance slips. Some verbal formats move
toward awakeness and back toward trance in the same
paragraph. No verbal format can serve fully as catalyst to
awakeness, as processing verbal statements requires a degree
of trance, even to "get" the meaning. However, words are
great catalysts because they are so integral to the trance.
Of course, many other non-word events can be great
catalysts, too. Timing and readiness are more important
than the particular catalyst.

GENE

Aware of the factors of identity-trance, both individual and
collective, our movements become guided less and less by
_criteria_ and become more and more a matter of conscious
choice. Eventually, we become aware that the pain of the
sufferers within the trance of the world-dream, is an
emanation of the original agreements which resulted in
_accepetance_ into family and society. Acceptance of an
_arbitraily assigned position of inferiority_ is a bad
agreement to make. Acceptance of the 'scapegoat' position
is even more painful.

DAN

And the orginal trance factor - acceptance of the idea of
"positioning", that there is a body and space-time within
which a self can be positioned.
That trance factor is the basis for the development of the
rest of the trance reality.

GENE

Certain cultures maintain 'rites of passage', in which the
painful submissiveness of the child is exchanged for
equality in the world of aware adults. Our western cultures
seem to lack this event of disposing of interim identity,
thus dooming members of our cultures to perpetual warfare in
the fight for dominance. Remember, it is one who assumes
the reality of identity, who seeks to change that identity.
We can fight among ourselves for the identity of supremacy,
OR we can give up the need for identity.

DAN

Yes, that very struggle is evident here as in the rest of
the human community.

NEO

To me attack is not justified in any form.
Perhaps we can agree to disagree on this one.

DAN

Attack, counterattack, fantasies of revenge, fantasies of
superiority, the wish for invulnerability, the desire for an
unassailable being. These arise together. It's not so much
a matter of justification, although rationalizations abound
(of dual and nondual persuasions). It's more a matter of
awareness.
If awareness is attached to a position, how can it *not*
function defensively, in one way or another?

Thanks to Gene and Neo for useful comments and insights.
___________________________________________________________________

SKYE CHAMBERS

when the concept of attack is no longer held nor the
opinions that fan it (agreeing or disagreeing) one *IS*
one's true self nature, a nonretaliating buddha. Fine
beliefs are the but the stepping stones across the river but
must be dropped to see the dream for what it is, or one
remains suspended over the river unable to make the final
leap, cherishing instead the dream made of finely woven
beliefs.
___________________________________________________________________

DAVID HODGES

A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day.
"In English," he said, "A double negative forms a positive.
In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double
negative is still a negative. However, there is no language
wherein a double positive can form a negative."

A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."

top of page