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Nondual Highlights Issue #2818, Saturday, May 19, 2007, Editor:
Mark
'Righteous anger' is in the same category as 'righteous cancer'or
'righteous tuberculosis'. All of them are absurd concepts.
This does not mean that one should never take action against
aggression or injustice! Instead, one should try to develop an
inner calmness and insight to deal with these situations in an
appropriate way. We all know that anger and aggression give rise
to anger and aggression. One could say that there are three ways
to get rid of anger: kill the opponent, kill yourself or kill the
anger - which one makes most sense to you?
- Alan Wallace, from Tibetan Buddhism From The Ground Up.,
posted to DailyDharma
Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all
things.
-Thomas Merton
About this mind... In truth there is nothing really wrong with
it. It is intrinsically pure. Within itself it's already
peaceful. That the mind is not peaceful these days is because it
follows moods. The real mind doesn't have anything to it, it is
simply (an aspect of) Nature. It becomes peaceful or agitated
because moods deceive it. The untrained mind is stupid. Sense
impressions come and trick it into happiness, suffering, gladness
and sorrow, but the mind's true nature is none of those things.
That gladness or sadness is not the mind, but only a mood coming
to deceive us. The untrained mind gets lost and follows these
things, it forgets itself. Then we think that it is we who are
upset or at ease or whatever.
But really this mind of ours is already unmoving and peaceful...
really peaceful! Just like a leaf which is still as long as no
wind blows. If a wind comes up the leaf flutters. The fluttering
is due to the wind -- the 'fluttering' is due to those sense
impressions; the mind follows them. If it doesn't follow them, it
doesn't 'flutter.' If we know fully the true nature of sense
impressions we will be unmoved.
Our practice is simply to see the Original Mind. So we must train
the mind to know those sense impressions, and not get lost in
them. To make it peaceful. Just this is the aim of all this
difficult practice we put ourselves through.
- Ajahn Chah, posted to DailyDharma
I live in a world of realities, while yours is of imaginings.
Your world is personal, private, unshareable, intimately your
own. Nobody can enter it, see as you see, hear as you hear, feel
your emotions and think your thoughts. In your world you are
truly alone, enclosed in your ever- changing dream, which you
take for life. My world is an open world, common to all,
accessible to all. In my world there is community, insight, love,
real quality; the individual is the total, the totality - in the
individual. All are one and the One is all.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta
Maharaj, posted to AlongTheWay
Hi Jodi
For me mystical ecstasy is a feeling and a realization. During
ecstasy I realize how much I can enjoy the world outside of
myself. I realize how much pleasure I can find in listening to
your concerns, and observing the concerns of all other beings.
Mystical ecstasy seems to involve getting free from that part of
myself which continually constructs (conceptualizes) a world
where contentment depends on how well the events of daily life
match the values in the construction I have built. Mystical
ecstasy allows me to "stand outside" that
constructed world. When I am able, I find it more enjoyable to
suspend my constructions and explore the thoughts, values, and
hopes of other beings.
Ecstasy feels good to me, it is pleasure, a bit like eating
chocolate or having sex. But unlike chocolate and sex, it has a
paradoxical dynamic: mystical ecstasy provides me with a deep
residual sense of nearly unshakable well-being in all seasons--
whether I have just tasted sand or chocolate, whether I sustain a
material loss or a material gain, whether my cousin is being
married or my mother has just died, whether I win or lose in my
constructed world of values. When in ecstasy, there is a deep
peace within me during both happy and sad events.
To maintain it, I try to consciously and unconsciously avoid
privileging mystical ecstasy, that is to say, try not to deem it
to have an absolute value above, for example, hedonism. Such
privileging would seem to be a gratuitous construction and I find
that making that judgment reduces my ecstatic potential.
I do see a relative personal difference in value when looking
from a pragmatic view. That is to say that the intensity of
mystical ecstasy is more enduring for me than any type of
hedonism I have tried. For my taste mystical ecstasy is not
holier than hedonism, it is just more enjoyable.
Perhaps needless to say, I do not privilege ecstasy as having
anymore absolute value than small talk.
If I am understanding "goneness" correctly,
ecstasy is what happens to me when I'm gone. Metaphorically
speaking, not ontologically speaking. I know virtually nothing
about the latter.
love, Raymond, posted to NondualitySalon
The day will come when Death will be your constant companion,
your Lover and your intimate friend.
Do not fear this day, this day will be your first day of Life.
Your history will have fled, chasing its own tale;-)
Peace, Anna, posted to SufiMystic