363 From: "ilgu99" <ilgu99@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu Mar 17, 2005 0:08am
Subject: It was all ONE event. ilgu99
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-- It was all ONE event. --
If one compares the dates of holy men on earth, one will notice some
coincidences. For example, centering around 2,500 years ago, there
were
the following religious/philosophical leaders (with their central
doctrines), spanning around 500 years plus or minus:
1) Buddha (Don't do evil, but do good. Thus keep your Mind clean.)
2) Christ (Love your neighbor, forgive your enemy; and, Heaven will
love you.)
3) Confucius (Conformity of word and deed, leading to that of Heaven
and Earth)
4) Lao-tzu (Practise the Tao by becoming ONE with it.)
5) Socrates (Know yourself.)
The state-of-the-art with Internet is such that there is now an almost
instantaneous connection of audio/video all around the globe (the
world
is getting smaller). And the kids love to spend hours at their
computer
games of space travel. We could make a space travel (at the speed of
light, or even faster) to a destination 100,000 light-years away. Once
there, we could travel in time (into the past or future), to
synchronize
the time aboard the space ship with the time of 2,500 years ago on
earth. And, using a very powerful telescope, start looking in the
direction of the Solar system.
There is a good chance that you would see, all of a sudden, a big ball
of fire, or burst of light, emanating from the planet Earth and
filling
the whole Universe. And you might recognize the event as the "Arrival
of
Wisdom". And this Wisdom will reach you as ONE single
message: "Recover
the Angel in yourself". You will see it as one event only: You will
not
be able to notice variations of 500 years or 10,000 miles apart.
Now, here is a choice to be made: You could make a "mortal" (5-feet
9-inches tall) out of you, and say "These are all different. Mine is
the
only Religion." Or, you could make an "angel" or a star (filling the
sky) out of you, and remain silent. Or, what? ... Is there some other
way?
Where is Buddha? Where is Hinayana? Where is Mahayana? Where is
Zen? ...
At this moment, where is your MIND? And, what is it that you SEE?
(What is this?)
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-- Harmonization exercise --
If you are looking at your computer screen right now, try this
"Harmonization" exercise (to harmonize ordinary perceptions with
extraordinary):
Instead of looking at "one thing at a time", try to look at
"everything at once" (all those things within your eyes' reach as a
whole at the same time -- your computer, monitor, keyboard, desk,
walls, floor, ceiling etc.). Now, where is your MIND at that moment?
And, what is it that you SEE? (What is this?)
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-- How to practise Zen --
At the beginning of the Platform Sutra, Hui-neng gave us the
"Summary of Sudden Enlightenment":
"Self Nature, which generates Bodhi, is originally clean and pure;
Just use this [deluded] Mind to attain Buddhahood directly."
Hui-neng also said (Platform Sutra):
"Although there are those who practice non-moving;
Just do not see the faults of all other people,
This, then, is the Self-nature [your Original Nature] not moving.
Original Nature is of itself pure and of itself in samadhi.
Not to be separated from Self-nature is achievement."
Do not strive to find the Self-nature: Just do not lose your own
Self-nature which is already in Samadhi (and already in Nirvana).
If you do not see others' faults, i.e. if you do not separate the
seer (you) from the seen (others), you become your own teacher.
(There is only ONE. So who is fooling who?) This is what "Zen
practice" is all about, and that's where the Zen is.
All this was turned into a single line of instruction by Zen Master
Fo-yen Ching-yuan (1067-1120):
(Thomas Cleary, "Instant Zen: Waking Up in the
Present", North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, 1994)
"JUST LET GO, THEN STEP BACK AND LOOK..."
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-- What is ONE? --
True Zen is a practice of no practice. "Ordinary mind is the Way".
And "Suffering is happiness".
Why? Because ordinary mind has the nature of the Way imbedded in
it (vice versa); and suffering has its imbedded happiness (vice
versa). This is the meaning of Non-duality. There is only ONE.
In physics, the "wave-particle duality" asserts that the wave
and particle aspects cannot be observed simultaneously. In Zen
however, the Non-duality of True Reality assures us that these
can be simultaneously observed. So, "Wave IS particle", and
"Hatred is love".
(So "who" is hating who? And who is loving who? "Love without
loving" is true love.)
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-- Liberation and Awakening --
The following texts were quoted to serve as our "Zen story":
(Alan W. Watts, "The Way of Zen". Vintage Books, New York, 1957.)
1) Peace of mind:
<< ... Hui-k'o [486-593, Second Zen-Patriarch] again and again
asked
Bodhidharma for instruction, but was always refused. Yet he
continued
to sit in meditation outside the cave, waiting patiently in the snow
in the hope that Bodhidharma would at last relent. In desperation he
finally cut off his left arm and presented it to Bodhidharma as a
token of his agonized sincerity. At this Bodhidharma at last asked
Hui-k'o what he wanted.
"I have no peace of mind," said Hui-k'o. "Please pacify my mind."
"Bring out your mind here before me," replied Bodhidharma, "and I
will pacify it!"
"But when I seek my own mind," said Hui-k'o, "I cannot find it."
"There!" snapped Bodhidharma, "I have pacified your mind!"
At this moment Hui-k'o had his awakening ... >>
2) Liberation (Moksha):
<< ... The Fourth Patriarch, following Seng-ts'an, is believed to
have been Tao-hsin (579-651). When he came to Seng-ts'an he asked,
"What is the method of liberation?"
"Who binds you?" replied Seng-ts'an.
"No one binds me."
"Why then," asked Seng-ts'an, "should you seek liberation?"
And this was Tao-hsin's satori [Awakening]. >>
3) Awakening (Bodhi):
If you have closely followed the above stories, then you would
have no difficulty in "figuring out" what Awakening is all about.
So, what IS Awakening?
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-- ilgu
http://www.itsmysite.com/yourpage 367 From: <return2reason@ev1.net>
Date: Thu Mar 17, 2005 9:18am
Subject: Re: It was all ONE event. return2reason
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> If you have closely followed the above stories, then you would have no
difficulty in "figuring out" what Awakening is all about.
Being a westerner, the study of eastern religious concepts are very
confusing because it involves learning a voluminous amount of new
terminoligy, however one could learn the concepts when they are presented in
plain english and there is a large enough word-meaning network and an
adequate explanation or definition for all the various foreign terms.
One would have to learn a whole new language, if you will, to understand
terms like:
Hinayana
Mahayana
Seng-ts'an
Sutra
Bodhi
Bodhidharma
Zen
Hui-neng
Buddha
Buddhahood
Moksha
Samadhi
Tao-hsin
Satori
> So, what IS Awakening?
Awakening is probably synomynous for enlightenment which is a descriptive
term used to describe a sudden and radical change of ones mental world model
or mental framework, often with the feeling or perception that all of the
sudden he "get's it" or, even more radically, "now I get it all, I
understand everything, everything makes perfect sense"
374 From: "ilgu99" <ilgu99@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu Mar 17, 2005 3:39pm
Subject: Re: It was all ONE event. ilgu99
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--- In AYPforum@yahoogroups.com, <return2reason@e...> wrote:
> > If you have closely followed the above stories, then you would
have no
> difficulty in "figuring out" what Awakening is all about.
>
> Being a westerner, the study of eastern religious concepts are very
> confusing because it involves learning a voluminous amount of new
> terminoligy, however one could learn the concepts when they are
presented in
> plain english and there is a large enough word-meaning network and
an
> adequate explanation or definition for all the various foreign
terms.
>
> One would have to learn a whole new language, if you will, to
understand
> terms like:
>
> Hinayana
> Mahayana
> Seng-ts'an
> Sutra
> Bodhi
> Bodhidharma
> Zen
> Hui-neng
> Buddha
> Buddhahood
> Moksha
> Samadhi
> Tao-hsin
> Satori
>
> > So, what IS Awakening?
>
> Awakening is probably synomynous for enlightenment which is a
descriptive
> term used to describe a sudden and radical change of ones mental
world model
> or mental framework, often with the feeling or perception that all
of the
> sudden he "get's it" or, even more radically, "now I get it all, I
> understand everything, everything makes perfect sense"
----------------------------------------------------
Thanks for your interest. While visiting the website (see below), get
all the webpages printed out on paper, and study it calmly "at your
leisure". You will appreciate it better that way.
Once you realize you have been driving a square peg (yes-or-no type
approach: "Does God exist or not?", "Why am I here?", "Am I
enlightened or not?", ... etc.) in a round hole (true reality), you
will be able to answer all your questions yourself.
Good luck.
-- ilgu
http://www.itsmysite.com/yourpage 376 From: "jim_and_his_karma" <jim_and_his_karma@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu Mar 17, 2005 4:23pm
Subject: Re: It was all ONE event. jim_and_his_...
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--- In AYPforum@yahoogroups.com, <return2reason@e...> wrote:
> Being a westerner, the study of eastern religious concepts are very
> confusing because it involves learning a voluminous amount of new
> terminoligy
.....
>
> One would have to learn a whole new language, if you will, to understand
> terms like:
>
> Hinayana
> Mahayana
> Seng-ts'an
> Sutra
> Bodhi
> Bodhidharma
> Zen
> Hui-neng
> Buddha
> Buddhahood
> Moksha
> Samadhi
> Tao-hsin
> Satori
To play devils advocate (I do this a lot, I hope nobody finds me too annoying), I don't think
the learning curve you describe delays the seeker. Each of those terms is rife with subtlety,
and even if you happen to speak fluent Sanskrit and understand the gross meaning of
such terms, one must still dive into the task of comprehending their deeper meaning. That
very task is The Work itself.
For sure, such terms present a serious obstruction to those who'd like to make a breezy
read through the literature. But a breezy perusal can't get you very far, anyway. The work
of deeply understanding the concepts and resonating their wisdom within yourself is a
long and painstaking process (much longer than "learning a whole new language"), and
those for whom a term like "satori" rolls of the tongue have no advantage. In fact, there
may be a disadvantage, as there's baggage they must drop in order to dive deeply into
concepts they'd previously thought they glibly understood. Probably better to come fresh.
