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ATTD News Letter number 19
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Saturday, November 22, 2003
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Table of contents.
Q & A | From the book 'Awakening to the Dream.' | The cage of self-centeredness | Awakened Poetry | Quote of the moment! | Smile of the moment! | Links |
Q & A
Question:
Everyone says that it's consciousness that seems to appear as everything.. I want to ask what is it that makes this consciousness ...this oneness... manifest itself in so many forms. what is it that makes the ONE appear to be many..
I would like to know ur reasons behind it. Please don't speak from books bcoz i've read many myself.. tell me what u know ..that which u have experienced.
Answer: The One appearing AS the many is Self-Originating. It is the Causeless-First-Cause; the Sourceless-Source. It is THAT which brings forth time and space and is ItSelf prior to time and space. It has no why, nor when, nor location and IT IS, without a reason for being. We could say IT is ItSelf the very reason for all being and non being.
No label sticks to it and therefore it has been called the void. Even calling it the void is again a label and again just words. Whatever I answer will be words and apparently you have found words to be unable to convey the answer you're looking for.
You ask what my experience is. When you read the book 'Awakening to the Dream' and the answers in the other news letters, you'll find that I do not call this 'understanding' an experience for someone, but point to the realization that there is no individual that can have such an experience.
IT is not something that can be put in plain words, so no one can tell you what IT is. It is like asking about the taste of an apple: it can not be explained. Not because it is something complex, but because words are always symbols for something; they are never the thing itself.
In the case of the apple, words can point you to an apple seller or an apple tree, but the tasting can only be done by you. With your question there can only be a pointing back to the Livingness that allows 'you' to ask this question.
One taste from 'the apple of enlightenment' will dissolve the taster and only taste remains.
author@awakeningtothedream.com
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From the book 'Awakening to the Dream.'
The ego is not capable of total acceptance, but is included in it. It hopes in vain that, through its efforts to become more and more accepting, it will reach the exalted state of enlightenment. This, in turn, is expected to result in eternal bliss, peace, and the experience of unconditional love. This prize the ego is after is, however, not an experience one can have, nor is it a state that one can be in. On the contrary, enlightenment is the evaporation of the illusion that there is an individual to experience it, which is why it has been called the "stateless state."
Total acceptance, unconditional love, and bliss are in fact just three more pointers to the clear space of Pure Awareness from which the pointing is done-the realm beyond zero and one. In this purity, without qualifications or form, even the concepts of the witness and the witnessed, of the mirror and its content, must dissolve.
We may call it bliss, as nothing can disturb it.
We may call it total acceptance, as nothing is rejected by it.
We may call it unconditional love, as everything is embraced by it.
This magnificent simplicity, this open secret, this intimate clarity is all there is. It is yourself welcoming you home. You are this.
The eBook can be found at: http://www.awakeningtothedream.com/purchase.html
Painting: Still of Night--Copyright 2001 Lernie Beulert
Visit him at: http://www.lernie.com/art4.html
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The cage of self-centeredness
The cage of self-centeredness which I build around myself, a cage of words, is a phantom.
It does not exist!The cage door is open right now. As a matter of fact, the whole cage can be seen to be what it is and will fall away.
Right now.
The cage of limitations. Words. Good, bad, pleasant, painful, positive, negative, possible, impossible. All words. The word is not the real. You can say water, water for the rest of your life. Try and drink the word! The word is a symbol for something else. It is not the real.
And yet when I say, 'I'm no good' or 'I have low self esteem'. What reality has it got? Or look at it the other way, 'I'm superior, I'm better'.
Is that what you are?
What does that symbolize? Can it be there at all if there is no living-ness? Instead of trying to come up with an answer in the mind, wouldn't it be wise to just be with this living-ness? To be with this being-ness, to settle down with this presence.
Watch how it is expressing. Feel it shining through your eyes. Lighting up your face. Feeling the breath. Seeing it as it is. Marveling at the very fact of 'seeing'.
Visit him at: http://members.austarmetro.com.au/~adamson7/index.html
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Awakened Poetry
Free & Easy
By Venerable Lama Gendun Rinpoche
Happiness cannot be found
through great effort and willpower,
but is already present, in open relaxation and letting go.
Don't strain yourself,
there is nothing to do or undo.
Whatever momentarily arises in the body-mind
has no real importance at all,
has little reality whatsoever.
Why identify with, and become attached to it,
passing judgment upon it and ourselves?
Far better to simply
let the entire game happen on its own,
springing up and falling back like waves--
without changing or manipulating anything--
and notice how everything vanishes and
reappears, magically, again and again,
time without end.
Only our searching for happiness
prevents us from seeing it.
It's like a vivid rainbow which you pursue without ever catching,
or a dog chasing its own tail.
Although peace and happiness do not exist
as an actual thing or place,
it is always available
and accompanies you every instant.
Don't believe in the reality
of good and bad experiences;
they are like today's ephemeral weather,
like rainbows in the sky.
Wanting to grasp the ungraspable,
you exhaust yourself in vain.
As soon as you open and relax this tight fist of grasping,
infinite space is there--open, inviting and comfortable.
Make use of the spaciousness, this freedom and natural ease.
Don't search any further.
Don't go into the tangled jungle
looking for the great awakened elephant,
who is already resting quietly at home
in front of your own hearth.
Nothing to do or undo,
nothing to force,
nothing to want,
and nothing missing----
Emaho! Marvelous!
Everything happens by itself.
Found at: http://hjem.get2net.dk/civet-cat/poetry-stories.htm
By Venerable Lama Gendun Rinpoche
Happiness cannot be found
through great effort and willpower,
but is already present, in open relaxation and letting go.
Don't strain yourself,
there is nothing to do or undo.
Whatever momentarily arises in the body-mind
has no real importance at all,
has little reality whatsoever.
Why identify with, and become attached to it,
passing judgment upon it and ourselves?
Far better to simply
let the entire game happen on its own,
springing up and falling back like waves--
without changing or manipulating anything--
and notice how everything vanishes and
reappears, magically, again and again,
time without end.
Only our searching for happiness
prevents us from seeing it.
It's like a vivid rainbow which you pursue without ever catching,
or a dog chasing its own tail.
Although peace and happiness do not exist
as an actual thing or place,
it is always available
and accompanies you every instant.
Don't believe in the reality
of good and bad experiences;
they are like today's ephemeral weather,
like rainbows in the sky.
Wanting to grasp the ungraspable,
you exhaust yourself in vain.
As soon as you open and relax this tight fist of grasping,
infinite space is there--open, inviting and comfortable.
Make use of the spaciousness, this freedom and natural ease.
Don't search any further.
Don't go into the tangled jungle
looking for the great awakened elephant,
who is already resting quietly at home
in front of your own hearth.
Nothing to do or undo,
nothing to force,
nothing to want,
and nothing missing----
Emaho! Marvelous!
Everything happens by itself.
Found at: http://hjem.get2net.dk/civet-cat/poetry-stories.htm
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Quote of the moment!
All phenomena are like a dream,
an illusion, a bubble and a shadow,
Like dew and lightning.
Buddha in the Diamond Sutra
All phenomena are like a dream,
an illusion, a bubble and a shadow,
Like dew and lightning.
Buddha in the Diamond Sutra
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Smile of the moment!
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ATTD links
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