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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3281, Saturday, September 6, 2008, Editor: Mark
All you really wanted
Was enough.
Which is to say
You only wanted more.
Ram Tzu knows this...
What you now have
Is all you'll ever have.
- Ram Tzu, posted to AlongTheWay
Whenever you are able, have a "look" inside yourself to
see whether you are unconsciously creating conflict between the
inner and the outer, between your external circumstances at that
moment - where you are, who you are with, or what you are doing -
and your thoughts and feelings. Can you feel how painful it is to
internally stand in opposition to what is?
When you recognize this, you also realize that you are now free
to give up this futile conflict, this inner state of war.
- Eckhart Tolle, from Stillness Speaks, posted to The_Now2
The whole process of meditation is one of creating that good
ground, that cradle of loving-kindness where we actually are
nurtured. What's being nurtured is our confidence in our own
wisdom, our own health, and our own courage, our own
goodheartedness. We develop some sense that the way we are-the
kind of personality that we have and the way we express life-is
good, and that by being who we are completely and by totally
accepting that and having respect for ourselves, we are standing
on the ground of warriorship.
I've always thought that the phrase "to take refuge" is
very curious because it sounds theistic, dualistic, and dependent
"to take refuge" in something. I remember very clearly,
at a time of enormous stress in my life, reading Alice in
Wonderland. Alice became a heroine for me because she fell into
this hole and she just free-fell. She didn't grab for the edges,
she wasn't terrified, trying to stop her fall; she just fell and
she looked at things as she went down. Then, when she landed, he
was in a new place. She didn't take refuge in anything. I used to
aspire to be like that because I saw myself getting near the hole
and just screaming, holding back, not wanting to go anywhere
where there was no hand to hold.
In every human life (whether there are puberty rites or not) you
are born, and you are born alone. You go through that birth canal
alone, and then you pop out alone, and then a whole process
begins. And when you die, you die alone. No one goes with you.
The journey that you make, no matter what your belief about that
journey is, is made alone. The fundamental idea of taking refuge
is that between birth and death we are alone. Therefore, taking
refuge in the buddha, the dharma, and the sangha does not mean
finding consolation in them, as a child might find consolation in
Mommy and Daddy. Rather, it's a basic expression of your
aspiration to leap out of the nest, whether you feel ready for it
or not, to go through your puberty rites and be an adult with no
hand to hold. It exprsses your realization that the only way to
begin the real journey of life is to feel the ground of
loving-kindness and respect for yourself and then to leap. In
some sense, however, we never get to the point where we feel one
hundred percent sure: "I have had my nurturing cradle. It's
finished. Now I can leap." We are always continuing to
develop maitri and continuing to leap. The other day I was
talking about meeting our edge and our desire to grab on to
something when we reach our limits. Then we see that there's more
loving-kindness, more respect for ourselves, more confidence that
needs to be nurtured. We work on that and we just keep leaping.
So for us, taking refuge means that we feel that the way to live
is to cut the ties, to cut the umbilical cord and alone start the
journey of being fully human, without confirmation from others.
Taking refuge is the way that we begin cultivating the openness
and the goodheartedness that allow us to be less and less
dependent. We might say, "We shouldn't be ependent anymore,
we should be open," but that isn't the point. The point is
that you begin where you are, you see what a child you are, and
you don't criticize that. You begin to explore, with a lot of
humor and generosity toward yourself, all the places where you
cling, and every time you cling, you realize, "Ah! This is
where, through my mindfulness and my tonglen and everything that
I do, my whole life is a process of learning how to make friends
with myself." On the other hand, this need to cling,this
need to hold the hand, this cry for Mom, also shows you that
that's the edge of the nest. Stepping through right there-making
a leap-becomes the motivation for cultivating maitri. You realize
that if you can step through that doorway, you're going forward,
you're becoming more of an adult, more of a complete person, more
whole.
In other words, the only real obstacle is ignorance. When you say
"Mom!" or when you need a hand to hold, if you refuse
to look at the whole situation, you aren't able to se it as a
teaching, an inspiration to realize that this is the place where
you could go further, where you could love yourself more. If you
can't say to yourself at that point, "I'm going to look into
this, because that's all I need to do to continue this journey of
going forward and opening more," then you're committed to
the obstacle of ignorance.
Working with obstacles is life's journey. The warrior is always
coming up against dragons. Of course the warrior gets scared,
particularly before the battle. It's frightening. But with a
shaky, tender heart the warrior realizes that he or she is just
about to step into the unknown, and then goes forth to meet the
dragon. The warrior realizes that the dragon is nothing but
unfinished business presenting itself, and that it's fear that
really needs to be worked with. The dragon is just a motion
picture that appears there, and it appears in many forms: as the
lover who jilted us, as the parent who never loved us enough, as
someone who abused us. Basically wha we work with is our fear and
our holding back, which are not necessarily obstacles. The only
obstacle is ignorance, this refusal to look at our unfinished
business. If every time the warrior goes out and meets the
dragon, he or she says, "Hah! It's a dragon again. No way am
I going to face this," and just splits, then life becomes a
recurring story of getting up in the morning, going out, meeting
the dragon, saying, "No way," and splitting. In that
case you become more and more timid and more and more afraid and
more of a baby. No one's nurturing you, but you're still in that
cradle, and you never go through your puberty rites.
So we say we take refuge in the buddha, we take refuge in the
dharma, we take refuge in the sangha. In the oryoki meal chant we
say, "The buddha's virtues are inconceivable, the dharma's
virtues are inconceivable, the sangha's virtues are
inconceivable," and "I prostrate to the buddha, I
prostrate to the dharma, I prostrate to the sangha, I prostrate
respectfully and always t these three.--Well, we aren't talking
about finding comfort in the buddha, dharma, and sangha. We
aren't talking about prostrating in order to be safe. The buddha,
we say traditionally, is the example of what we also can be. The
buddha is the awakened one, and we too are the buddha. It's
simple. We are the buddha. It's not just a way of speaking.
We are the awakened one, meaning one who continually leaps, one
who continually opens, one who continually goes forward.
- Pema Chodron, from The Wisdom of No Escape, posted to
allspirit
There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth --
not going all the way, and not starting.
- Buddha, posted to Disillation
Every decision you make - every decision - is not a decision
about what to do. It's a decision about Who You Are. When you see
this, when you understand it, everything changes. You begin to
see life in a new way. All events, occurrences, and situations
turn into opportunities to do what you came here to do.
- Neale Donald Walsch, posted to Distillation
Being is the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad
forms of life that are subject to birth and death. However, Being
is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its
innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that
is is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true
nature. But don't seek to grasp it with your mind. Don't try to
understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still.
"I am the awareness that is aware that there is
attachment." That's the beginning of the transformation of
consciousness.
- Eckhart Tolle, posted to The_Now2
Fear
One day
Fear will take you
where you do not want to go,
go anyway...
you can't imagine
what's behind it.
- Anna Ruiz, posted to NondualitySalon
When you realize yourself as less than a point in space and time,
something too small to be cut and too short-lived to be killed,
then, and then only, all fear goes. When you are smaller than the
point of a needle, then the needle cannot pierce you--you pierce
the needle.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to ANetofJewels