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Nondual Highlights Issue #2788, Saturday, April 14, 2007
I direct you to have no concern for tomorrow. I direct you to
have no anxiety over who you will be tomorrow. You must simply
relax right now and and drop all your conditioned ideas, all your
false beliefs. Oh, listen to this one: don't be concerned over
dropping your fighting spirit. See, all fighting includes fear.
If you were to stop fighting, you couldn't be afraid. and when
you are no longer afraid, you are no longer your spurious wrong
nature, but something entirely new.
I say Drop your artificial nature and have no concern for who you
will be tomorrow, and then you ask, "But please couldn't you
give me a hint of who I'll be? Couldn't you suggest it in some
way so that I will have assurance that I'll have someone to be
tomorrow? So you want me to give you a new set of clothes to
dress your old nature, your old self in? No way, I'm not going to
fall for that and neither should you.
Don't you ask, "Please give me assurance that I'll be all
right?" Well, what do think God is? Isn't God completely
spiritual, completely true, completely reliable, completely
compassionate and loving? See, you don't really trust God. But
all right, I understand that for now. All you have are IDEAS
ABOUT GOD, which fill you with self-doubt and fear that He might
not be who you think He is. All right, but just put all that
aside for now.
I'm instructing you to do something that will put you in a
position where you have nothing but the spiritual life, where IT
controls everything, where there's no time-thinking toward
tomorrow or next week or the next fifty years. There's no concern
in you at all over the [next life] or next thousand years,
because you'll have understood that eternity is now, RIGHT NOW.
That's the reason you don't have to be worried over tomorrow or
ten years or 5,000 years from now.
- Vernon Howard, posted to Adyashantigroup
Sonam: ...I do have an example of having compassion for
myself..heh. Not as easy as one might think.
The other day I had a terrible toothache..I saw the dentist. He
did some work but it still hurt. I walked up to pay and the
receptionist brought to my attention that I somehow owed way more
than I had...I felt disbelief but then surrender and just a huge
urge to cry..I cried.
I watched myself sob and saw that I was not putting myself down
for crying in public. I did not have any anger toward the
receptionist - it was just the energy in my body and i expressed
it. It was an eye-opening experience being in the moment and
feeling enough compassion to allow it to happen.
Tsering:
Emaho! Sonam dear:
That is IT!
In that moment when you sobbed, was there any past, was there any
future, or were you just THERE! In the sobbing!
Free of judgments all around. Gassho!
Being right here, right now, expressing whatever IS. If you had
been before a Zen Master you would have passed the koan:
"Why did the dentist drill with a cat's tail?"
Or the Dzogchen Master who suddenly introduces you to the Nature
of Your Mind...
And you sob.
Free!
Congratulations!
And only when we can do that, express who we are, fully, at any
moment, can we be truly compassionate. When we express ourselves,
let the energy come up, do its things, and die down all by
itself, the strings of thought have been cut.. and when there
ain't no thought... there is only Love...
i am happy for you.
You ought to have tooth pain more often." ,^P
- dg, posted to DailyDharma
I was reading Pamela Wilson in the "Emerging spiritual
Teachers" book last night about the self is found in the
heart. And I've heard it many times before before of course, but
last night entered into it and have been in bliss ever since.
Amazing how everything can feel like heaven on earth until I find
myself listening to the snake in the garden whispering of worry
and fear. I think I understand Papaji's statement that he felt he
had to be viligant. Viligant to what we pay attention to.
I am feeling that coming to rest means coming to sit in one's
true seat.
Last night driving to the dance, I had to stop the car for a
communion with a star, telegraphing our true being. And at the
dance, it was ecstacy. 12 of us ended up on the floor as one
being rolling and moving in concert. One of my best nights there
in 10 years. ; ) So much love I almost popped my cork into
ecstacy beyond embodiment Yes, heaven and hell IS right here now.
Today, I rest in the cave of the heart and all sanctuary is here.
I know you understand. ; ) Pamela is right:
There is a notion that we left paradise a long time ago. But this
secret garden was the Heart, always here, just waiting for our
return." - Pamela Wilson
- posted to Adyashantigroup
Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend,
they never ask questions about what really matters. They never
ask: 'What does his voice sound like?' 'What games does he like
best?' 'Does he collect butterflies?' They ask: 'How old is he?'
'How many brothers does he have?' 'How much does he weigh?' 'How
much money does his father make?' Only then do they think they
know him.
If you tell grown-ups, 'I saw a beautiful red brick house, with
geraniums at the windows and doves on the roof,' they won't be
able to imagine such a house. You have to tell them, 'I saw a
house worth a hundred thousand dollars.' Then they exclaim, 'What
a pretty house!' That's the way they are. You must not hold it
against them. Children should be very understanding of grown-ups.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, posted to Adyashantigroup
Sophia says (well, when she was 4) you can tell a grownup not by
how big they are but by how serious they are.
- Jeannie Zandi, posted to Adyashantigroup
The following is part of a conversation on Nondualitysalon:
No matter how dead, or done you think you are, your reactivity is
still your teacher. Even a dead tree could be swayed by the wind.
I sit at the feet of my reactivity, and watch it like a hawk.
I live in an apartment, and have a parking space assigned to me.
Under a carport roof, it's only a rectangle painted on concrete,
marked with my apt. number.
I don't own a car, so only my visitors park there. I have never
given my parking space much thought. Until, one of my friends
asked me, "Whose is that black car parked on your parking
place, it has been there for the last two weeks?" I had no
idea.
A very nice, 20 year old man lives across from me. He has many
visitors too, which include many beautiful girls, that I admire
with a certain envy when I see them knocking at his door. I asked
my young neighbor, " Does that black car in my spot have
anything to do with you?"
"Oh yea, that's one of my friend's car. He doesn't have the
money to buy a new license plate, so I told him he could parked
there."
"Well, don't you think, it was the right thing to do to ask
for my permission?"
"Oh, yeah, right!" I thought, since you don't have a
car, it was OK with you."
"Well, I have friends too, who park in that spot, so since
he is your friend, not mine, why is he not parked on your space?
" Oh, yeah, right! I'll tell him to do that."
That was two weeks ago. The car is still there.
Two parts of my mind, several times a day, engage in a debate
about what to do. One, feels my rights had been violated, and the
car should be towed away. Another thinks there is no me, so no
rights have been violated, that his friend needs my spot more
than mine, and therefore, the right thing to do is to let him use
it. And that what I really recent is that my neighbor is treating
me as if I don't exist. But why, in the world, would someone who
thinks, he doesn't really exist, recent being treated that way?
Then, there is another part of the mind, which watches the
debate, smiles, and learns.
Pete
_______________________ hahaha pete, friends, this reminds me of
(how else?) a classic nasrudin tale...
The Mulla was thinking aloud: "How do I know whether I'm
dead or alive?"
"Don't be such a fool," his wife said, "if you
were dead your limbs would be cold."
Shortly afterward Nasudin was in a the forest cutting wood. It
was midwinter. Suddenly he realized that his hands and feet were
cold.
"I'm undoubtedly dead," he thought, "so I must
stop working, because corpses do not work."
And, because corpses do not walk about, he lay down on the grass.
Soon a pack of wolves appeared and started to attack Nasrudin's
donkey, which was tethered to a tree.
"Yes, carry on, take advantage of a dead man," said
Nasrudin from his prone position," but if I had been alive I
would not have allowed you to take liberties with my
donkey."
_()_
shabat shalom,
yosy
ps. well, i suggest you kick your "nice neighbour" ass
(not literally, necesserily). those 'very nice people' are often
the worst kind of selfish hypocrites.
___________________________ I love the line:
"I sit at the feet of my reactivity, and watch it like a
hawk," even though for me it is a bit different.
In my own way of responding to such, as long as there isn't any
"actual" inconvenience I would just let it be. Should
there be an actual "rub" though, I would "let my
chemistry solve it". I don't get into thoughts like "I
don't exist so why does it matter?" If the energy system
that vaguely corresponds to what might be taken for a
"me" goes into action I simply watch that (perhaps like
P's "hawk"). There is no right/wrong as far a behavior
of that energy system. It will learn by trial and error (just as
a very young child would). So it is enough to just observe.
It sounds like P isn't having "actual" problems as of
yet... i.e. real inconveniences because a visiting friend cannot
find a space to park.
But suppose I were in a similar situation and it "were"
becoming a rub, say that sometimes visiting friends had to park a
long ways away... I might say, "Whenever X's space is empty,
just park there!" I might not even advise X of that policy.
If he were to ask me about it I'd just say, "Well, since
your friend is using my spot I just assumed it would be OK with
you if a friend of mine were using yours."
Bill
_________________________ Bro' Mark wrote:
Yesterday, I went to my meeting and there she was, at NA. I don't
know if she stayed, or participated, as the NA and AA meetings
are at the same time in different rooms, but I'm going to
continue to make decisions in the moment when she shows up to beg
for help. If I truly don't mind in the moment, I'll help. If it
bugs me to do so and I don't think she really needs help, and
that by helping her by "giving her a fish to eat rather than
demanding she learn how to fish herself", then I won't.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Just taking the above as representative.... I see the spirit of
Mark's comments as much akin to what I was trying to say... no
right/wrong about it...
... and note that there can be a subtle kind of right/wrong
referred to as non-dual/dual. Any "choice" to be
non-dual rather than dual is pure crapola, in my view.
My take is one of simply "letting myself happen" in
whatever circumstance... let the feedback percolate in/around
such that the chemistry self-modulates as it will for the next
splash of life over the bio-chemistry of being-in-action.
There's not a lot to think about in that loop, and whatever
thinking there may be is just more bubbling of the
bio-chemistry... any thinking having no special privilege of
"higher" perspective. Nisargadatta talks about
everything being simultaneously caused by everything... there
being no "special" causes that are key... and in the
same way there is no part of the bio-chemistry of interactivity
in the spash of the moment that is of a special or priviledged
status... be it thought, gut instinct, or the smell of a fart.
Bill
I wonder whether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one
day each one of us may find his own again....the stars, the
desert -- what gives them their beauty is something that is
invisible....It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.
Perfection, then, is finally achieved, not when there is nothing
left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, posted to Adyashantigroup