Egolessness means
less "maniac-ness", in some sense --- free form being an egomaniac.
Real peace is
nonaction; that is the source of all action.
We have to learn how to be a rock in order to be a tree or a flower or
wind or lightning or a typhoon. We have
to be still, then we go beyond that.
Therefore sitting practice is very important.
Vipashyana begins
once we have developed substantial shamatha discipline of being precise and
mindful, on the spot, all the time. In
shamatha, sound, smell, feeling, thought process, and everything else are
looked at, but with such precision that they are nothing other than stillness.
Usually, memory is
predominant in everything you experience…. Through shamatha you are capable of
looking at these experiences as individual entities, without referring to the
past and without thinking about where they are going, or what they are going to
do to you. Everything is without
beginning and without end, just on the spot.
People have
difficulty beginning a spiritual practice because they put a lot of energy into
looking for the best and easiest way to get into it.
The survival
struggle is regarded as a steppingstone in the practice of meditation. Whenever you have the sense of the survival
instinct functioning, that can be transmuted into a sense of being, a sense of
having already survived.
When we encounter
anything, the first flash that takes place is the bare sense of duality, of
separateness. On that basis, we begin to
evaluate, pick and choose, and make decisions, execute our will. The abstract watcher is just the basic sense
of separateness -- the plain cognition of being there before any of the rest
develops.
Mindfulness of body
creates the general setting; it brings meditation into the psychosomatic setup
of one's life. Mindfulness of life makes
meditation practice personal and intimate. Mindfulness of effort makes meditation
workable; it connects the foundations of mindfulness to the path, to the
spiritual journey.
Real bare attention
is being there all at once.
Mindfulness is the
act as well as the experience, happening at the same time.
Mind only functions
in relation to a reference point.
Mind is very simple
perception: it can only survive on
"other".
Mind cannot exist
without the projection of a relative reference point; on the other hand, mind
also cannot exist if it is too crowded with projections. That way it also loses its reference point.
There is another
level of experience which still has a reference point, but it is a reference
point without demand, a reference point that does not need further reference
points. This is called nonduality. This does not mean to say that you dissolve
into the world or the world becomes you.
It's not a question of oneness but rather a question of zeroness.
The truth has never
come from the sky; it has always come from the human condition.
Working with the
world requires some kind of practical intelligence. We cannot just be "love-and-light"
bodhisattvas. If we do not work
intelligently with sentient beings, quite possibly our help will become
addictive rather than beneficial.
Compassion is the
heart of the practice of meditation-in-action, or bodhisattva activity. It happens as a sudden glimpse --
simultaneous awareness and warmth.
Looking at it fully, it is a threefold process: a sense of warmth in
oneself, a sense of seeing through confusion, and a sense of openness. But this process happens very abruptly.
Kalpa means "a
historical era". The
"kalpa-ending fire" in Indian mythology is an explosion of the sun,
which burns up the solar system and brings an end to the kalpa.
The "charnel
ground" refers to the basic space in which birth and death, confusion and
wakefulness arise -- the ground of coemergence.
To experience
mahamudra is to realize that the literal truth, the symbolic truth, and the
absolute truth are actually one thing, that they take place on one dot, one
spot.
The bliss of
mahamudra is not so much great pleasure, but it is the experience of tremendous
spaciousness, freedom from imprisonment, which come from seeing through the
duality of existence and realizing that the essence of space, is available on
this very spot… This type of joy is not conditioned by even the experience of
freedom itself; it is self-born, innate.
Any real healing has
to come out of some kind of psychological openness. There are constant opportunities for such
openness -- constant gaps in our conceptual and physical structures.
Openness seems to be
the only key to healing. And openness
means we are willing to acknowledge that we are worthy; we have some kind of
ground to relate with whatever is happening to us.
The role of the
healer is not just to cure the disease; it is to cut through the tendency to
see disease as an external threat.
It is not the
sickness that is the big problem, but the psychological state behind it. We could not have gotten sick in the first
place without some kind of loss of interest and attention. Whether we were run down by a car or we
caught a cold, there was some gap in which we did not take care of ourselves --
an empty moment in which we ceased to relate to things properly.
It seems that we
generally avoid our psychological responsibility, as though diseases were
external events imposing themselves upon us…. Our bodies demand our attention;
our bodies demand that we actually pay attention to what is going on with our
lives. Illness brings us down to earth,
making things seem much more direct and immediate.
Disease is a direct
message to develop a proper attitude of mindfulness.
Human essence is
compassion and wisdom…. You have it already.
It has nothing to do with mystical experience or any kind of higher
spiritual ecstasy; it is just the basic working situation.
To be healed,
ironically, means that a person is no longer embarrassed by life; she is able
to face death without resentment or expectation.
Fearless willingness
to be intelligent about what is happening in the face of the unknown is the
very energy of transmutation.
You should sit
more. That is the whole idea. Particularly when you feel depressed or when
you are too excited, you should sit more, because then you have something to
work with.
Joy means that our
perception of the world can be clarified.
