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#3925 - Thursday, June 17, 2010 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nonduality Highlights
There is neither creation nor
destruction,
neither destiny nor free will,
neither path nor achievement;
this is the final truth.
- Ramana
Maharshi
posted to Along The Way
Although this bodymind was not designed for it or created to do it, it is capable of Waking Up to the Knowing that is radiant as all knowings and knowns. Perhaps not for some, but certainly for me, this is the bright side and it is all around: The bodymind can be used to realize what itself and all beings and worlds in actuality are as the radiance of the luminosity of Awareness in and as itself. This skin bag is thus also the place in which Buddhas and Awakened Ancestors are born. It was through a skin bag sitting down beneath a pipal tree on a cushion of kusa grass that the worm Siddhartha died the Great Death from which arose Sakyamuni Buddha. In the Ariya Pariyesana sutta the Buddha recounts how after Awakening one of his first statements to anyone was,
"I go to the city of Kasi
to turn the wheel of the Dhamma.
In a world gone blind,
I will beat the drum of deathlessness."
And yet some forty years later, Sakyamuni Buddha died with a torrent of diarrhea from eating spoiled pork.
What is this deathlessness, then? Did just the bodymind die? Did Sakyamuni go somewhere else? No. Sakyamuni was never any place at all. He was already beyond reference point, already blown out, already dissolved into nirvana. Did Joshu Dainen roshi die or just the bodymind? Roshi was not anywhere at all. He did not go anywhere. What was called Yasuda Joshu Dainen daiosho or called Sakyamuni Buddha were joyful activities of Awakening enacted through bodyminds that were opened into the Activity of the Aware Space that they arose within. They were called what they were called for convenience. Perhaps the Buddha should have had embroidered on his robe "Ceci n'est pas une Bouddha." Sakyamuni Buddha was just a painted Buddha, not the real Buddha. The real Buddha is not just Sakyamuni Buddha. It is here as you.
-Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi
posted to Daily Dharma by Amrita Nadi
Nature never does a bad thing. There is no such
thing as a bad thing for Nature. It looks unpleasant,
because we are outside nature, psychologically. If
we are one with Nature, we will see nothing improper
taking place. We are looking at things by standing
outside nature. That is why we cannot see things
properly and impartially.
- Swami
Krishnananda
posted to Along The Way
This is what was
bequeathed us:
This earth the beloved left
And, leaving,
Left to us.
No other world
But this one:
Willows and the river
And the factory
With its black smokestacks.
No other shore,
only this bank
On which the living gather.
No meaning but what
we find here.
No purpose but what we make.
That, and the
beloved's clear instructions:
Turn me into song; sing me awake.
~ Gregory Orr ~
(How Beautiful
the Beloved)
Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/This_is_what_was_bequeathed_us.html
Kindness
Before you know
what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn
the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know
kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only
kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase
bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where like a shadow or
a friend.
~ Naomi Shihab Nye ~
(Words From
Under the Words: Selected Poems)
Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/Kindness.html