|
* ATTD News Letter Number 104
Sunday, April 15, 2007 *
|
|
|
|
Question: When reading the 'Hsin Hsin Ming' * this caught my critical eye!
Let go of longing and aversion,
and everything will be perfectly clear.
So, if 'we' 'let go' of longing and aversion, everything will be perfectly clear! Does this mean some forms of 'doing' are ok and others not?
It reminds me when I was talking to a Buddhist nun once and she said how relieved she was to be out of the worldly play. I queried whether she may in fact have substituted the old play for a new one.
* One of many translations can be found in news letter number 14.
Answer: All words appear in duality and are not able to express non duality properly. As such they are simple pointers, and the invitation is to see to what hey refer. What is being communicated here is not that one type of doing is ok and another type of doing is not, but that there is in fact no independent character to be a doer.
When this is not seen, then it is like what you describe: The 'world play' gets replaced by the play of no play, and the doing gets replaced by the 'act' of non-doing. This still leaves the idea of the seperate person intact; whether as a doer or as a non doer, whether as having volition or as not having volition.
Now even this idea of being the doer is not of 'our' doing. It arises out of Source just like the apperception that there is no one to do anything. Prior to its conceptual translation into I AM there is Presence (or pre-sense). At present it appears as these words and as the immediate awareness in which they appear. It knows the reading without postulating an "I' that does the reading. For this 'I' to appear, the reading has to be interrupted by the thought 'I read.'
This direct knowing, prior to a translation into concepts, can be called 'the ultimate-subject which cannot be made into an object.' It cannot be reached, nor can it be left behind. It appears as everything and nothing. It appears as, and at the same time it is beyond, this duality we can speak of. IT is not what you will become: IT is what you always and already are.
You see, subtly the words deviate from what they try to point at. Here 'I' say "IT is what you always and already are." When this sentence is taken apart, there is the assumption of time in the word 'always' and the assumption of a 'you' that is doing the being. When the mind goes quiet, even for a moment, the beingness is still there, but no time, no 'me' being something, and no conceptual labels.
What can be said about this without an inbuilt contradiction? And yet, this contradiction is itself a clue, inviting 'us' to forget the words and to be (or see that we are) the knowing space in which they appear and disappear.
|
| | Letting go |  |
|
This was mailed to me by Carolyn in remembrance of her friend Douglas:
A heartwarming story of friendship and acceptance.
I had a very close friend here, Douglas, an elderly gentleman...
we meditated together with a group and often later on in our friendship on complete silent nights would meet early
to do our yoga first together in silence...
I remember the first time we really talked outside the center..he came to where I worked...and right in front of a client he said, "Well, I thought it was time we met in daylight, instead of our weekly silent dark evenings.." I instantly turned red and he loved it!!!
we became great buddies...privately we would go out for coffee/juice and just hang out at special
times with friends..
a couple of years ago right before I made my yearly 3 weeks away to work the
Vegas show..he came to tell me he thought he had cancer...tests were made
and the results would not be known until the time I was away...
I tried to call him a time or two from Vegas but only got his answering
machine..
after I got home he showed up here at work, to see if I could go out for coffee
and since nobody was here to watch the store...we just went outside to talk and sat
under the magnolias with juice .....He told me he had cancer all
over...BUT we would not tell anybody! Instead he would have one surgery on
his throat so he could eat a little better....but instead of telling and
being sad we would live each Moment to the fullest in fun and excitement...
He swore me to this silence....as his deepest desire to live fully with him
his last days..
oh...how hard that was...at the time..
when I became sad...he exclaimed to stop..!!!
that I could even die before him....we all do not know...and in truth all
are dying too...
finally he started to tell others and then one Saturday he stopped by.. not
to sit at the computer with me to see Wayne live...but to tell me, Kevin
and another friend who was here that he would not drive any more as he was
now on strong pain meds..
where we meditate people were so surprise to find out as Douglas was always
so full of happiness and life...and still insisted that he "was exactly
where God wanted him!"
a neighbor of his who also came to meditation with us started to drive him
still no sadness displayed to him would he allow from me..!
Douglas had been a hospice volunteer for years and years...and only stopped
when he no longer could drive...
so all hospice volunteers asked to please be allowed to sit with him...and
many he himself had trained!
He "let go" at his home in his living room...curtain fully open looking at
his beloved lake..
and I heard he was comforting the hospice caretaker with him that all is
just as it is to be...
love..
Carolyn
|
| | Awakened Poetry |  |
|
Buddha in Glory.
Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet--
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.
Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,
a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.
|
|
| | Quote of the Moment! |  |
|
The moon's the same old moon,
The flowers exactly as they were,
Yet I've become the thingness
Of all the things I see!
~ Bunan ~
Art by: R.C. Gorman Title: 'Moon Flower'
Found at: http://www.yahtaheygallery.com
Fair Use Notice
|
| | Smile of the Moment! |  |
|
Heaven?
A couple made a deal that whoever died first would come back and inform
the other of the afterlife. Their biggest fear was that there was no
afterlife.
After a long life, the husband was the first to go, and true to his word
he made contact, "Mary. Mary."
"Is that you, Fred?"
"Yes, I've come back like we agreed."
"What's it like?"
"Well, I wake up in the morning to a beautiful ocean view, I have sex, I have breakfast, off to the golf course, I have sex, I bathe in the sun, and then I have sex twice.
I have lunch, another romp around the golf course, then sex pretty much
all afternoon.
After supper, golf course again. Then have sex until late at night. The
next day it starts again."
"Oh, Fred you surely must be in heaven."
"Not exactly dear, I'm a rabbit at Bermuda's Mid-Ocean Golf Course."
|
| | ATTD Links |  |
|
Questions, jokes, quotes or suggestions for the news letter?
Please send them to news@awakeningtothedream.com.
You are invited to use the Awakening Forum at:
http://www.awakeningtothedream.com/forum1/
Here you can respond to the contents of this newsletter or start your own topic.
To subscribe or unsubscribe
click here.
If you do not see a link go to:
http://www.awakeningtothedream.com/
and click on the newsletter link.
Awakening to the Dream web site: http://www.awakeningtothedream.com/
In legal terms: This news letter may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner.
The material in this news letter is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.
On a more personal note: It has often been difficult to contact the artists or copyright owners of the art in the news letters in a timely manner. I hope you consider it a compliment that your work has been selected and that it pleases you to have an extra link (or free add) to your web site. If not, please contact me at news@awkeningtothedream.com and I'll replace your material.
|
|