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Monday, April 2


From: 'ZEN Teaching of Instantaneous Awakening' Hui Hai Trans.
John Blofeld contributed by Gill Eardley

A monk enquired, 'How are we to interpret correctly all names,
forms, speech and silence in order to integrate them and realize
a state that is neither anterior nor posterior?'

M: When a thought arises, fundamentally there is neither form
nor name; how can you speak in terms of before and after?
Failure to understand the essential purity of all that has name
and form is the cause of your mis- takenly reckoning everything
in those terms. People are locked in by these names and forms,
and, lacking the key of wisdom, they are unable to unlock
themselves. Those clinging to the Middle Way suffer from Middle
Way psychosis; those grasping at extremes suffer from a dualist
psychosis. You do not comprehend that that which mani- fests
itself right now is the unequalled Dharmakaya. Delusion and
awakening, as well as gain and loss, pertain to the worldly way.
The rising (of the thought) of creation and destruction leads to
the burial of true wisdom; both the cutting off of defilements
(klesha) and the search for bodhi are in direct opposition to
wisdom.'

Allspirit Website: http://www.allspirit.co.uk

_________________________________________________________________________

GILL EARDLEY

Hi everyone

Yesterday I spent a really pleasant afternoon with Gill
Collingwood who came over to visit. I don't have many people
that I can talk to about this is 'real life', so it was good to
meet somebody and get to spend time with them.

Thanks Gill, and thanks Jerry for facilitating the meeting. Keep
up the good work.

love, gill

_____________________________________________________________________

DAN BERKOW

When it is known who has died,
and who yet lives ...

All of these discussions of truth will
be beside the point ...

-------------------------------

One says "relative", the
other "absolute" --

When not caught either
in "absolute" or "relative",
where is one?

Teaching, learning, speaking,
listening ...

___________________________________________________________________________

WHITE WOLFE

dear brothers and sisters....

white wolfe has been a dharma bum and seeker for as long as he
can remember....last week he and his daughter were invited to a
sangha where there we two american guest gurus presiding in the
above tradition, one from france the other from japan....what
struck me most about this particular evening of worship,
meditation and teaching was the fact that when all the surface
was stripped away was that it really was no different that what
true seekers find everywhere....i have had this same experience
in a charismatic 'holy roller' meeting, in a black gospel
church, in a buddhist meditation hall, while saying the
rosary....is it not time that we put down the sparring gloves
and realize that the Beloved manifests Itself in as infinite
ways as their are faces, stars, sands, flowers, trees....Awake,
the Beloved is in all directions....Singing, Laughing, Dancing
for you in me and me in you....Higher Love is everywhere....i
see it because my beloved looks me in the eyes and tells me what
i tell you....You are Beautiful to my precious one, my child....

___________________________________________________________________________

HARSHA

Although all teachers are ultimately false, a good and genuine
teacher can be very helpful on the path. Words can convey
something about the existence of the Truth. The words of the
wise can bring you to the brink but cannot deliver the Truth.
That is because You Are Already the Truth. To Know It with
Supreme Clarity, your sincere longing and aspiration is needed.
It is only due to Grace that one suffers and reflects on the
nature of things. Therefore, one should not feel hopeless and
gradually continue in the company of good people who follow the
teachings of nonviolence.

It is only due to Grace, one comes across the purest teachings.
It is only due to Grace one understands the teachings. Clever
words and arguments involve the intellect. But the highest
teachings is a matter of the Heart and It is Grace It Self. Such
a teaching leads directly to Silence of Self-Knowledge and then
disappears completely. What can one truly say?

--------------------------------------

Anything other than what is already here, no matter how
beautiful and captivating, will always turn out to be a mirage.
A mirage can never satisfy your thirst. Therefore, you have to
truly understand what is already here. What is always here?
People speak of being in the present moment. It is just a way of
speaking. Truly, you are not in the present moment, You Are
Always The Present Moment. You Are the Presence. The
Self-Knowing Clarity, The True Presence, reveals It Self as the
spring of wisdom having no location. Where does it reside other
than where you already are. Is it possible to truly understand
anyone's suffering other than your own? Is it possible to know
anything other than One's Own Self?

__________________________________________________________

GLORIA LEE

Isn't every day April Fool's Day here? :) It may be helpful to
remember that in the original circumstances, Buddha said he was
awake only as way to deny that he was a god or an angel. He was
asked if he was a noun and replied with an adjective. For
example, consider an excerpt from a post to mahamudra.

SUBHUTI: O inseparable friend, consider our gentle Master who
has disappeared so beautifully into pure presence, the
transcendent Tathagata who has gone completely beyond any
conventional view. Where does he stand? How does he stand?

SHARIPUTRA: Nowhere does the wondrous Tathagata stand. Nowhere
does he focus, root, establish or identify himself. Nowhere does
Awakened Enlightenment seek base or support. He is never to be
found, neither within the play of conditions nor within some
separate realm of unconditional reality.

Subhuti discerns that those precious beings who are mature
enough to receive the radical teaching of Perfect Wisdom regard
themselves simply as a display of magical power without any
substantial self-existence. There should be no residual tendency
to hear and grasp as some independent reality the words of the
teaching nor to isolate and reify their meaning nor to
experience as a separate reality whatever they are indicating.

_________________________________________________________

SARLO

There is no way to ask the question that a nondual sophist
cannot twist into anything s/he wants. As Harsha reminded us,
even Mr Clinton has enough nondual lingo to say, "It depends
what the meaning of 'is' is."

This is not the department of straight answers. That's down the
hall. You will have to take these answers for whatever they are,
but even if they are sophistry to a fault, they still might be
coming from Tathagatas, since the awakened one is not obliged to
give straight answers.

______________________________________________________________

HUR

Nisargadatta Maharaj's "I am That" is perhaps the most selling
Advaita book in the West.

Due to the increasing curiousty in this modern Jnani, I asked a
member at the Nisargadatta list to share her experience of
meeting Nisargadatta Maharaj in 1978.

The following is the first installment of her emails.

I hope you'll find them as interesting as I did.

Hur

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In 1976 or 1977 ( I believe) a book review of I Am That appeared
in the Mountain Path Magazine. The Mountain Path is the in house
magazine of Sri Ramanasramam in South India. It was a very
positive and because Maurice Frydman had been associated with
Sri Ramana Maharshi , it carried some weight. This was the first
time I found out that there could be a living Jnani, a realized
Sage of the caliber of Sri Ramana Maharshi. I sent for the book,
read it and was blown away. I wrote to Maurice Frydman and he
began to correspond with me. At some point he asked me to find a
publisher for I Am That in the United States. So I began sharing
I Am that with various spiritual publishing houses. I
specifically sent it to Shambhala, Rainbow Bridge and Unity
Press. They didn't feel it was good fit for their publishing
houses. Then I got a letter from Mr., Dikshit, publisher of
Chetana Press (which is the publisher of I AM That) informing me
that Maurice Frydman had died and my letter had been found on
his desk. So I began to correspond with Mr. Dikshit. I decided
that I really wanted to visit Nisargadatta and started a
correspondence with Mr. Hate (who was Maharaj's son-in-law).
Which brings me to January 1978 when I flew Air India to Bombay
with the intention of meeting Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

We arrived ( my friend Rick and I) around 3 in the morning and
sped at break neck speed from the airport to our hotel. The town
looked like it was littered with corpses because so many people
sleep in the streets. We got to our hotel room by stepping over
the sleeping hotel staff and settled in for a little sleep. At
promptly at six our phone rang, the management requiring our
passports. The din outside our room turned on almost
automatically, traffic racing up from Marine Drive. Across the
street was the gray shiny Arabian sea. I wasn't sure I could
stand our hotel room when we first arrived but after some sleep
and meditation we agreed that it was a good place to stay. Mr.
Hate called and said that he would take us to see Maharaj later
that day. Mr. Hate, who was thin, and wiry with a big smile said
that we should bring an offering when we see Maharaj. So we
drifted through the neighborhood marketplace and settled on some
bananas. The street where Maharaj lived was round the corner
from the Alfred Cinema. The noise in the streets was
cacophonous. We came to his home and stepped in. There was no
formal satsang going on. In fact, Maharaj was getting a shave
from a roving barber. My first look at Maharaj was very intense,
especially because his whole face was covered with lather and
his eyes burned with an intensity that I could not fathom. Was
this love, anger or just total Awareness? I kind of wondered to
myself if this was all a big mistake. Maharaj was about my
height, around 5'3'' give a few inches. So he looked directly
into my eyes. He was so intense. Mr. Hate explained who we were,
were we came from, etc. So much intensity flowed through his
eyes, through his whole being. We were invited to return the
next morning for Satsang.

Satsangs with Maharaj were predominately for western devotees
and his Indian ones who had a discerning, discriminating mind.
Maharaj also gave discourses for his Indian devotees and
performed pujas.

The Satsang room was a loft above the family living area. When I
had read I Am That, I got the picture of Nisargadatta Maharaj
building a little room, probably not tall enough to stand
upright in. However, in reality, the room was spacious at least
10'x20' ( my guestimate.) One had to climb a narrow and sharply
inclined staircase to get to it, but once in,

there was quite abit of room. Of course, when you filled it with
10-20 visitors it would crowded. The room was ringed with photos
and drawings of various gurus. Some I did not recognized, some
were familiar. There was a large photo of Ramana Maharshi which
was up above Maharaj's cushion, Maharaj sat directly below a
mirror and on the opposite wall was another mirror. To the side
of Maharaj was an his portrait. The room

had pictures of the nine Gurus of his lineage and a huge silver
altar with a large photo of Sri Siddharameshwar. On many of the
framed and glassed pictures was a dot of kumkum. Maharaj would
replace the flower garlands and refresh the kumkum. If you
arrived early you could see him engaged in this devotional
activity. Those who think that Maharaj was not devotional would
find out that he was very serious in this.

I think I will send this now and if you have any questions we
can discuss them. Cathy

Reposted from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Nisargadatta

Cathy's meetings are under the subject line "Meeting Maharaj".
You don't have to join the list to search and read the messages
in the archieves. This list also has extensive quotes from
Nisargadatta Maharaj books "I am That" and "Consciousness and
the Absolute."

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