roshi--@hotmail.com

söndag 27 juli 2008

Man himself is the truth

Man himself is the truth
In a moment of total presence, in a moment of total silence,
in a moment of no grasping or rejecting
- it is suddenly obvious.
It has been there all the time, silently waiting.

Truth is very respectful. It does not interfere.
It can wait for eternity. As long as we are busy
...looking...for the truth, it waits until
we are ready to dissolve and be it.

It is not a verbal, and a intellectual understanding;
it is a shift in consciousness,
a chang of a reference point.
Instead of living as a separate individual that is aware,

suddenly you realize that you are awareness itself.

Nukunu

tisdag 22 juli 2008

Jean Klein

Jean Klein was a "teacher" who past away some years ago. Some Quotes of him:

"Let's say you are looking at a sculpture from Angkhor Buddhism. The smile on the face of the Angkhor statue is particularly beautiful. When you attitude is receptive, you may be completely taken by this smile...The smile captures you and you feel yourself smiling."

In a similar way, the teacher/guru/master embodies the quality that one is seeking and thus helps to bring it out in the seeker. But since this quality is our true nature, it cannot be given or transmitted from one to another. It can only be pointed to by one who already manifests it.

"All objects point to the Ultimate, and a real work of art actively brings whoever sees or hears it to his real nature, which is beauty. The difference between an ordinary object and a work of art is that the object is passive in its pointing towards the Ultimate whereas the work of art is active."

"You are primal awareness. Life is only primal awarenss. Between two thoughts or two perceptions you are. You know moments in your life when a thought completely disappears into silence, but still you are."

"My master always pointed out to me during our life together that all perceptions need an Ultimate Perceiver. The ultimate perceiver can never be the object of perception. Once false identification with the body is understood, we are led to the question 'Who am I?'--and the one who asks is himself the vivid answer. The searcher is himself that which is sought."

He describes a "glimpse of oneness or self-awareness" that occurred when he was 17:

"I was waiting one warm afternoon for a train. The platform was deserted and the landscape sleepy. It was silent. The train was late, and I waited without waiting, very relaxed and free from all thinking. Suddenly a cock crowed and the unusual sound made me aware of my silence. It was not the objective silence I was aware of, as often happens when one is in a quiet place and a sudden sound throws into relief the silence around. No, I was ejected into my own silence. I felt myself in awareness beyond the sound or the silence. Subsequently, this feeling visited my several times."

Jean Klein

tisdag 15 juli 2008

Dolano about the truth

Here are some words from Dolano about truth:

With an empty mind and open heart, out of not knowing you know. You are Truth itself, it is your very, very nature.

What is called Truth is That which is always and does not change. It is That which is before, during and after experiences; That which remains the same. It is That which does not come and go.

You are Truth itself.

Source is Truth, pure intelligence and clarity. Its nature is emptiness and openness. Truth is the light, the power, which removes lies and confusion. When you bring light into a dark room, darkness disappears naturally, without ever needing to touch or analyze darkness. You are the light.

When Osho says, "be a light unto yourself", he points to "who you are".

You are the light; who else will ever recognize if not YOU, Truth itself? Truth recognizes Truth-itself by itself.

It is That, which cannot be seen or experienced, because it is YOU. You can't see your own eyes, because they are too close to you. But "who you are" is not even close to you, it is YOU.

No beginning no end --- is always and has been always. You have only overlooked.

OM-shanti

dolano

fredag 11 juli 2008

Quotes from Susanne Segal

-The mind can have an extremely strong reaction to that which it cannot understand. And that those reactions, such as fear, do not mean for an instant that we are not the Vastness.

-(about Susanne) She wanted her life to convey that everything is here in this Vastness, nothing is excluded, and that everything is as it is...that's her core message.

-There is no end point in all this. We are talking about the Vastness. It is very large. It continues to show Itself and show Itself.

-I call it only the "naturally occurring human state," because this is who everyone is. The most obvious thing to this view of the Vastness is that it is who everyone is. And so to call IT something like "enlightenment" or "awakening"...well, maybe. The Infinite does become something that is forefront in the awareness, so I guess you could call it a "waking up" to That. But it is not like you become something else once you see That. It is who you are. It is always who you have been. So, it is the seeing of what you have always been.

-The recognition doesn't change who you really are, ever. You have always been That. And yes, there is a way that the Vastness Itself can perceive Itself so directly, without any fogging or shading or taking anything else to be who you are. I guess you could call it a waking up, but what seems most important to convey is that this is who everyone is all the time, whether the direct awareness of it is there or not.

-These "doing" questions are the ones that I have wanted to address the most, particularly in this Western culture which is so strongly based on doing in order to accomplish something. From the point of view of the Vastness, doing something is slightly absurd. First of all, who would be doing the doing? And secondly, That which is doing has always been doing, and will spontaneously continue to do. The only answer the Vastness has been able to come up with in terms of anything resembling an answer to this question would be to see things for what they are.

-Seeing things for what they are means purely that. The Vastness that we all are is like an ocean that exists in relation to everything--as the Infinite noticing of everything being just what it is--Itself included. It sees thoughts for thoughts and feelings for feelings and sensations for sensations. There is never a desire or request that anything be anything but what it is. The Vastness knows that everything is there just as it is, so the desire for something to go away, or be something different doesn't occur.

Let me get real specific in terms of what we were talking about. A few minutes before we started taping, we spoke about the "I" construct that passes itself off as who you are, as your reference point. From the view of the Infinite, of the Vastness, that construct is seen for what it is--a construct, an idea. And an idea can only be what it is; it can only be an idea. When an idea is seen for what it is, there is a way that it empties itself of what it appeared to be full of--some defining determinant of who you are. And when the perception is emptied and seen as what it is--just a concept, a construct, an idea--it ceases to act as any sort of compelling screening of this Infinite Presence which you actually are. This seeing things for what they are is occurring all the time. That's another thing that doesn't just start at some point.

-Something happens. It seems like most of this occurs within the mind. In the Western culture, which I am most familiar with, the mind is trained to adopt a personal construct as the reference point. It just believes that there is a personal doer. It's made to believe that you have to "make something of yourself." The Western mind believes that you have to be a certain way and you have to figure out how your life is going to go in order for it to be successful, in order for it to happen the way you want it to.

Everything that you hear in the culture, in Western psychology in particular, is all based on the assumption that there is a personal doer that has to be the best one it could possibly be. So there is all this work that is brought to bear on it. It is like the work on the mind that is asked to happen within the mind. The mind has to go in and look at itself and try to see how it needs to be changed around, how the furniture needs to be moved around in the house of itself.

-The view of the eyes of the Vastness is hard to describe as it is brought to bear on anything because it isn't perceived through the mind. And it isn't perceived through the perceptual apparatus of the circuitry. The view of the Vastness, the eyes of the Vastness, exist within the Vastness Itself. It has its own sense organ that permeates it and exists at every point in it that is always seeing things for being what they are and seeing Itself for what it is.

And yet, it does seem that what happened when I was standing at that bus stop included the mind, and its circuitry became a participating portion of that sense organ of the Vastness. It's like the mind and circuitry joined into the sphere of the Vastness. Another way to describe this is that the way the mind and circuitry are always permeated with the sense organ of the Vastness must have come foreground and then that took over as the main perceptual stance or position, a position of placeless origin.

-Seeing something for what it is implies seeing with the eyes of the Vastness.

-Question: How does one shift from seeing through the personal eyes to seeing through the eyes of the Vastness?

SUZANNE: Your question is contrary to how the Vastness actually exists, which is that it is always perceiving things for what they are from within Itself. The implication that one should figure out what to do in order to see with the eyes of the Vastness implies that that isn't already constantly occurring, and you have to do something to connect with that. I have always hesitated to say, "do this or do that." I say only "see with the eyes of the Vastness," which is already happening, because this leaves the mind confounded about what to do.

-The mind needs to recognize that it doesn't know. The mind needs to see that there is nothing for it to do. It is not the doer and it doesn't have to find the correct position. It's like, That which has been happening all the time and which has always been the doer, finally shows Itself to Itself for what it is.

-That showing Itself to Itself just happens. It just happens and it is always happening. There is this wave of constancy of the Vastness perceiving Itself that is always going on and the mind can say, "How am I going to do that? How am I going to perceive that? How am I going to perceive that wave of perception that is always perceiving itself? How am I going to connect with it? What can I do in order to see with those eyes that are seeing all the time?" All of those questions are just thoughts in the mind. In seeing things for what they are, the Vastness is doing the very thing that the mind tries to figure out how to do.

-If I gave a practice, it would be colluding with that same construct that passes itself off as the doer.

-Spiritual practices imply that something has to be done in order to become the Vastness or in order to see that the Vastness has always been the doer. That is part of what I think this life of Suzanne has just been arranged to convey--that this is always who everyone is, nothing changes. This is always who the doer has been. It is seeing itself all the time, in every moment.

-The truth of this life is interested in showing everyone that things are what they are and that is the relieving of suffering. You don't have to make something look different in the world in order for suffering to be relieved. It is that which everyone is, seeing everything for what it is, that makes it impossible for anything to be seen as suffering. It is simply and completely what it is; it is going on all the time.

-The mind has a very strong reaction to this which it can't grasp, and which is basically structured in a mystery that is so completely confounding.

-The mind exists within the Vastness, so how could the mind comprehend it?

-You know that you don't know and you know that the Vastness is experiencing Itself. These two experiences are going on simultaneously, seeing the construct of the "I," the personal reference point, and seeing that it is empty of what it was taken to be full of. Simultaneity is very much the experience of the Vastness perceiving Itself, by the way, because that is what is always occurring.

-There is the arising of appearances, which actually do appear, and there is also the recognition that there is nothing really there. The emptiness I am is what they are made of.

-"How am I going to get anything done when there is no one here to do it?" "If there is no one here to do, how is anything going to get accomplished?" Then it became so clear that that which had always been doing had always been taking care of everything. So, nothing really changed.

-The real doer is so unimaginable, so completely mysterious. Everything that has been calculated as the next thing to happen is calculated in that mystery. If it waited for the mind to figure out what the next thing to do was, then, well, I don't think we would have what is naturally occurring as the planet and its seasons.

If everything waited for the mind, do you think that we would have all these trees and sky and planets and stars and human bodies? It would really be a bummer if it waited for the mind to imagine it, in order for it to be there. So, doing and accomplishing continues as before, and as a matter of fact, is even more fully accomplished, even more fully doing. There is not ever a screen or a question of how things are going to happen; they just happen.

-Question: Is it true that relationships are always serving that non-personal desire of the Vastness to know Itself?

SUZANNE: Yes. Just as it is true that there has never been a personal doer, that has always been true.

-I see this as always occurring, that no one changes when what is, is seen to be what it is. I also think that meditation is fine, but who is it that would stop the mind? And, stopping the mind is something that is not required, because the Vastness doesn't use the mind to perceive itself. Also, the "I" that would be brought to bear to try to make the mind stop doesn't really exist. If it is obvious to meditate, then that is what you are going to be doing.

If it is obvious to not do that, then it is obvious to not do that. Again, I see how trustworthy the Vastness is, and it shows Itself in this obviousness all the time. You don't need any reasons for living by what is obvious. This is just what you do. You meditate, you don't meditate.

-That everything is there too, and it is what it is. This means that looking for life to be a certain way comes completely out of the mind and its ideas of how things are supposed to be.

-The fear didn't change the recognition that there was no personal reference point.

-The mind is not the central doer. The mind isn't needed for what it previously thought it was necessary for. I think that is the most important thing that this life is conveying. There has never been a personal doer. The seeing that there is no personal doer is not when it starts that there is no personal doer. This gets into something that I actually want to convey. This is the kind of thing you want to mention, that seeing everything is being done by a non-personal doer is not the same as nothing being done. The obvious will still always be showing itself. It is really ultimately unavoidable to live by the obvious because it is always showing itself.

Susanne Segal (1955 -1997)

söndag 6 juli 2008

Susanne Segal

Quotes from Susannes book "Collision with the Infinite".

"This life is now lived in a constant, ever-present awareness of the infinite vastness that I am."

"The presence of any thoughts, feelings, or actions is never interpreted to mean anything other than that they are present."

"... no judgment about good or bad or right or wrong ever arises; everything is simply what it is."

"Once the mind admitted to the parameters of its own sphere and stopped pathologizing what lay outside it, the non-personal, indescribably joyful flavor of the vastness experiencing itself moved radically to the foreground forever."

"...life as usual continues to unfold; everything gets done, just as it did before the realization of the vastness occurred. Since there has never been a personal doer in any case, the realization of this truth does nothing to change how functioning occurs."

"To live in the vastness of the naturally occurring state is to bathe in the ocean of non-personal pleasure and joy. This joy and pleasure, which belong to no one, are unlike any joy or pleasure that appear to refer or belong to a someone. The emptiness is so full, so total, so infinitely blissful to itself."

"In no way...am I suggesting that practices should not be done, only that there is no practitioner who is the doer behind them. This is true of every activity. ... Just because there is no practitioner (and never has been)) does not mean that practice will not take place. If it is obvious for a particular spiritual practice to occur, then it will."

"In fact, there is no individual 'I' who can figure out how to find the infinite again. More importantly, where would the infinite go? I mean, we aren't talking about something that could hide under the rug. If you could see things as only and exactly what they are, you would see that the 'you' that is seeing is the vastness itself."

"The 'character work' prescribed by psychotherapy, as well as by some spiritual traditions, including Zen Buddhism, leads to a similar trap created by not seeing things to be simply what they are. A relaxation of being naturally arises if one is not seduced into taking ideas to be truth. This relaxation is antithetical to 'character work', with its clear position about how we would be if our characters were worked on. When we knock on the door of 'character work', we are invited into the labyrinth of futurity. It is inherently impossible to arrive at a goal that is predicated on an 'I' that will get us there. Character work is based on the same erroneous belief that there is an individual doer who runs the show of life and can train itself to be a better 'I'.

"...I can no longer call what I do psychotherapy, since it in no way adheres to any standard principles of psychological theory or intervention. My goal for everyone is freedom -- total freedom. I don't want them to change how they feel, work through childhood trauma, or get symptoms to stop. I want them to be free by seeing that things are just what they are."

"Who distinguishes between the true and the false (self)? And true and false for whom? Thoughts, feelings, sensations, and energetic frequencies do not mean anything about some imaginary someone; they simply are what they are."

"We are the vastness, and we contain everything -- thoughts, emotions, sensations, preferences, fears, ideas, even identifications. Nothing has to go anywhere. In any case, where would it go?"

"The purpose of human life has been revealed. The vastness created these human circuitries in order to have an experience of itself out of itself that it couldn't have without them. "

"The substance of the vastness is so directly perceivable to itself in every moment that the circuitry at times requires another adjustment phase to get used to more infinite awareness. When asked who I am, the only answer possible is: I am the infinite, the vastness that is the substance of all things. I am no one and everyone, nothing and everything -- just as you are."

"We have become convinced that the presence of particular thoughts, feelings, or actions is the only way we can really know if someone is enlightened. The checklist of enlightened attributes is both lengthy and complex. Is this really love, we ask, in the presence of a supposedly enlightened being? Or bliss? Do they still have thoughts, we want to know, since we have heard that a mind empty of thoughts is surely a sign of spiritual advancement? And what is this? Is fear present? Well, the presence of fear proves they couldn't possibly having a true spiritual experience. In fact, however, the presence of fear means only that fear is present, and nothing more."

Suzanne Segal

Suzanne Segal died of a brain tumor in 1997 at the age of 42.

fredag 4 juli 2008

The shift

Consciousness is present in its purity before the mind arises. What is before a thought appears? To realise that is to realise a gap, a discontinuity and in that moment there is a shift in consciousness, which we call an awakening.

The shift is very radical. In the state of ignorance consciousness has identified itself with a fragment of itself; that fragment is what we call ego – the experience of being a separate entity, the world and me as two things. In the moment of awakening consciousness realizes that it is both the ego – the me, and the world. That is the experience of one-ness.

In reality there is only one actor-consciousness. There is only consciousness playing all the roles, world and me. Awakening is to realize that I am consciousness whatever form and name it has.The deluded consciousness is the state in which I believe that I am an individual in the world. The awakened state knows the whole world is in me.

So there is no personal Enlightenment. There is not an individual that arrives to some fantastic state called Enlightenment. The individual dissolves as a separate entity and appears again as consciousness.

Everything is pure consciousness. When it takes form of something experiences arises. Thoughts, feelings and perceptions are expressions of pure consciousness. So are chocolate, soap powder, vomit, cars, trees, people, shit, sky, sea and so on! Everything is it.Waking up you “know” this and even if the whole world denies it, it will still be so.

Since everything is consciousness there is no matter. Matter is just another appearance of consciousness.

Nukunu

torsdag 3 juli 2008

Zenstory

There is a Zen story about a seeker that comes to the Master asking for guidance. The Roshi gives him a spiritual praxis and asks him to report back regularly about his progress on the spiritual path.

After a short while the first letter arrives saying. “I am sitting in pure bliss”. The Master throws the letter in the waist bin.

Another letter arrives after some weeks reading, “everything is beautiful and perfect”. The Master hardly reads it and throws it away.

Again some time is passes and another letter arrives reading, “There is only oneness”, the Master doesn’t even open the letter.

Long time is now passing and no letters, finally the Roshi writes the disciple reminding him about their contract.

Again a long time is passing and no answer. The Roshi sends another letter.

When the Roshi has nearly given up ever hearing more form the disciple a letter arrives with a short message, “who bothers”.

The Master is overjoyed.”