Welcome to today’s issue of the Highlights. Featured are an interview with Shi Guolin, haiku by Miriam Louisa, and an offering from David Hodges on the nonduality of Star Wars.
First, a reminder that Nonduality Network Talk Radio will be airing Wednesday, December 18, from 12:30 to 1:30PM EST. My guests will by Scott and Kim MacInnis. Scott is a facilitator and leader within our Nonduality Satsang meetup group in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and this will be his first exposure to a broader audience. You might want to hear how he speaks about things. His wife Kim is a sage in her own right, though seeming to prefer a lower profile. Mark your calendar and listen to our show at ckdu.ca.
SHI GUOLIN
Venerable Guolin, abbot of the U.S. Shaolin Temple and President of the Shaolin Temple Overseas Headquarters, was converted to Buddhism at the age of 15. Since then he has dedicated himself whole-heartedly to learning, practicing, spreading and developing the Shaolin tradition for more than 20 years and won the reputation of Iron Arhat. Shi Guolin is well versed in Taoism and Confuscianism as well as Buddhism. He was the head coach of martial arts at the Shaolin headquarters in China. He is the successor disciple of the present abbot Master Monk Yong Xin and wa s assigned to be the inheritor of the 34th generation of the Shaolin tradition.
Fascinated by the diversities of culture and religion in the United States, he decided to share the Shaolin heritage with people living in this country and came to New York in 1992. Since then the number of his disciples and students has increased and is still increasing with each passing day.
The website of the Shaolin Temple is www.shaolin-overseas.org/index.html
Excerpt from an interview with Nonduality Magazine
NDM: What is enlightenment in the Shaolin tradition?
Sifu Guolin: You see these prayer beads that I’m holding. What are these prayer beads used for?
NDM: For counting?
Sifu Guolin: This is used for stilling your mind. A clean mind. An enlightened mind. Ok. This enlightened mind is clear, together. Sometimes if it’s not clear. This will make it together in one line. It will make it very clear. This is enlightenment.
NDM: So you’re saying that enlightenment is when your mind is clear all the time?
Sifu Guolin: All the time. Maybe for you like this you have been meditating for a long time. Right. In your meditation, you are very clear. Out of meditation you go back, not clear. Sometimes clear, sometimes not clear. (Laughter) You go back to the meditation, enjoying. This feels good but it’s not very good. You go back. When you finish meditation and are outside in life, when you can keep your life like it is when you are in meditation, that is good. Then sometime for a long time you are dreaming. (Laughter) So you cannot pass this one. (Pointing to the knot in the beads)
NDM: And the goal is to?
Sifu Guolin: To keep clear. If you just keep going around the beads and you don’t know how many circles you have made, you are like a machine. Like a machine, it’s no good. That’s why when you make one circle, you have to know its one circle to keep enlightenment.
NDM: So do you use some kind of visualization like light to help it go through? Or like a yin and yang symbol in your mind?
Sifu Guolin: You don’t have to use yin and yang means. Relax and tighten is yin and yang, inhale exhale is yin and yang. When your mind don’t move or moves is yin and yang there are many yin and yangs.
NDM: Empty/full.
Sifu Guolin: Yes.
Nicole: So you don’t visualize anything going through, you just think relax?
Sifu Guolin: Just take care of your training and your mind.
The complete interview may be read here:
http://www.nondualitymagazine.org/nonduality_magazine.7.shiguolin.htm
from http://echoesfromemptiness.com/2013/12/12/three-haiku-for-the-road-ahead/
three haiku for the road ahead
by miriam louisa
xxii
How to heal a
heart:
stand alone, drop your stories,
fall in love with this.
xxiii
When my
aloneness
smiled with simple contentment
love loosed its wild song.
xxiv
Now that I’m
clueless,
emptiness dances naked
wherever I gaze.
~ ~ ~
Life moves. It’s taking itself off the mountain and into the marketplace again. Who knows what will unfold? The only thing I’m certain about is that gratitude and fulfillment go with me – one’s my left leg, the other my right…
David Hodges posted http://www.reddit.com/r/nonduality
Star Wars: is the Force a sci-fi representation of NonDuality? (self.nonduality)
The force is an energy field crated by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together. –Obi-Wan Kenobi
“The ways of the Living Force are beyond our understanding… But fear not. You are in the hands of something much greater and much better than you can imagine.” ―Qui-Gon Jinn”A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense. Never for attack.” ―Yoda
“It has been said that anyone who knows the ways of the Force can set her- or himself up as a King on any world where only she or he knows the ways of the Force. Any Jedi could do this. But the Jedi, fools that they are, adhere to a religion in which the Force is used only in the service of others. How shortsighted of them. Is that not why they lost the galaxy to the dark side?” ―Palpatine, in The Weakness of Inferiors
“Jedi refer to the ‘light side’ and the ‘dark side’, but really, these are only words, and the Force is beyond words. It is not evil, just as it isn’t good—it’s simply what it is.” ―Barriss Offee
“Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.” ―Darth Vader to Admiral Conan Antonio Motti, referring to the Death Star
“I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.” ―Obi-Wan Kenobi, referring to the destruction of Alderaan
“The Force is a river from which many can drink, and the training of the Jedi is not the only cup which can catch it.” ―Luke Skywalker
(Quotes from the Wookiepedia article about the Force: Wookiepedia)