posted September 20, 2008 09:16 PM            

"I am tired of fighting.... from where the sun now stands, I will fight no more. "

~ Chief Joseph, Nez Perce

posted September 21, 2008 07:04 AM            

For the skeptic, having set out to philosophize with the object of passing judgement on the sense-impressions and ascertaining which of them are true and which false, so as to attain quietude thereby, found himself involved in contradictions of equal weight, and being unable to decide between them suspended judgement; and as he was thus in suspense there followed, as it happened, the state of quietude in respect to matters of opinion. For the man who opines that anything is by nature good or bad is forever being disquieted: when he is without the things which he deems good he believes himself to be tormented by things naturally bad and he pursues after the things which are, as he thinks, good; which when he has obtained he keeps falling into still more perturbations because of his irrational and immoderate elation, and in his dread of a change of fortune he uses every endeavor to avoid losing the things which he deems good. On the other hand, the man who determines nothing as to what is naturally good or bad neither shuns nor pursues anything eagerly; and, in consequence, he is unperturbed.

The Skeptic, in fact, had the same experience which is said to have befallen the painter, Apelles. Once, they say, when he was painting a horse and wished to represent in the painting the horse's foam, he was so unsuccessful that he gave up the attempt and flung at the picture the sponge on which he used to wipe the paints off his brush, and the mark of the sponge produced the effect of a horse's foam. So, too, the Skeptics were in hopes of gaining quietude by means of a decision regarding the disparity of the objects of sense and thought, and being unable to effect this, they suspended judgment; and they found that quietude, as if by chance, followed upon their suspense, even as a shadow follows its substance.

posted September 22, 2008 05:59 PM            

I like this passage:

quote:

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Wisdom gives humility, peace, poise and strength; its owner ceases to be afraid, to be rushed, sickly, worried, ambitious, emotional, sentimental or changeable. His voice is resonant, neither shrill nor grating, and his presence is never exhausting.

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posted September 24, 2008 12:10 AM            

quote:

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Men have always realized the mystery of silence; they have ever been haunted by the feeling that silence and stillness are full of potent and vital Something that is lost during activity and noise.

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I think that's where genius comes out. This is why our work, tvs, computers, cars, and even significant others can be such a hindrance.

posted September 30, 2008 08:54 PM            

Swimming upstream, or going with the flow

posted September 30, 2008 09:07 PM            

But it seems to me that we are different animals, with different ways...

The chameleon changes color, the armadillo curls under his armor...

People with Mars conjunct Saturn work hard...

People with Mars trine Jupiter have another tack...

We speak our own truth, and we always seem to contradict one another.

But, perhaps, what works for me would do you in...

What works for you might do me in...

Your flow is upstream...

Mine is down..

I do not subscribe to what I see as rigid, dogmatic spirituality...

But another person would find comfort and security in that solid frame...

I just think we need to be careful...

We begin with a point of view...

And we meticulously fill in all the blanks...

We have an answer for everything...

Our religion becomes a closed system, an echo-chamber...

We deny the right of others to practice in alternative ways...

We must conclude that they are in error...

But the truth may be that we would be in error if we followed their path...

While they are perfectly in harmony with their own guiding spirit...

And they would be in error if they tried to live as we do...

I do not pretend to have the answers...

I know that one great truth is contradicted by another great truth..

But I seem to be in harmony with a certain tradition...

Which is not ascetic, but is primarily mystical..

If Sosan (or Seng T'san) posted his "Book of Nothing" here in Yellow Wax, how would we receive it?

If we read the following words, how deluded and complacent would we judge them to be?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hsin Hsin Ming (The Book of Nothing)

By Seng T'san, 3rd Zen Patriarch

Its not difficult to discover your Buddha Mind
But just dont try to search for it.
Cease accepting and rejecting possible places
Where you think it can be found
And it will appear before you.

Be warned! The slightest exercise of preference
Will open a gulf as wide and deep
as the space between heaven and earth.

If you want to encounter your Buddha Mind
Dont have opinions about anything.
Opinions produce argument
And contentiousness is a disease of the mind.

Plunge into the depths.
Stillness is deep. Theres nothing profound in shallow waters.
The Buddha Mind is perfect and it encompasses the universe.
It lacks nothing and has nothing in excess.
If you think that you can choose between its parts
Youll miss its very essence.

Dont cling to externals, the opposite things,
the things that exist as relative.
Accept them all impartially
And you wont have to waste time in pointless choosing.

Judgments and discriminations block the flow
and stir the passions.
They roil the mind that needs stillness and peace.
If you go from either-or, this and that,
or any of the countless opposites,
Youll miss the whole, the One.
Following an opposite youll be led astray,
away from the balancing center.
How can you hope to gain the One?

To decide what is, is to determine whats not.
But determining whats not can occupy you
so that it becomes what is.
The more you talk and think. the farther away you get.
Cease talking and thinking and youll find it everywhere.

If you let all things return to their source, thats fine.
But if you stop to think that this is your goal
And that this is what success depends upon
And strive and strive instead of simply letting go,
You wont be doing Zen.
The moment that you start discriminating and preferring
you miss the mark.
Seeking the real is a false view
which should also be abandoned.
Just let go. Cease searching and choosing.
Decisions give rise to confusions
and in confusion where can a mind go?

All the opposing pairs come from the One Great Buddha Mind.
Accept the pairs with gentle resignation.
The Buddha Mind stays calm and still,
Keep your mind within it and nothing can disturb you.
The harmless and the harmful cease to exist.
Subjects when disengaged from their objects vanish
Just as surely as objects,
when disengaged from their subjects, vanish too.
Each depends on the existence of the other.
Understand this duality and youll see
that both issue from the Void of the Absolute.

The Ground of all Being contains all the opposites.
From the One, all things originate.
What a waste of time to choose between coarse and fine.
Since the Great Mind gives birth to all things,
Embrace them all and let your prejudices die.

To realize the Great Mind be neither hesitant nor eager.
If you try to grasp it, youll cling to air
and fall into the way of heretics.
Where is the Great Dao? Can you lay It down?
Will It stay or go?
Is It not everywhere waiting for you
to unite your nature with Its nature
and become as trouble free as It is?

Dont tire your mind by worrying about what is real
and what isnt,
About what to accept and what to reject.
If you want to know the One,
let your senses experience what comes your way,
But dont be swayed and dont involve yourself in what comes.
The wise man acts without emotion
and seems not to be acting at all.
The ignorant man lets his emotions get involved.
The wise man knows that all things are part of the One.
The ignorant man sees differences everywhere.

All things are the same at their core
but clinging to one and discarding another
Is living in illusion.
A mind is not a fit judge of itself.
It is prejudiced in its own favor or disfavor.
It cannot see anything objectively.

Bodhi is far beyond all notions of good and evil,
beyond all the pairs of opposites.
Daydreams are illusions and flowers in the sky never bloom.
They are figments of the imagination
and not worth your consideration.
Profit and Loss, right and wrong, coarse and fine.
Let them all go.
Stay awake. Keep your eyes open.
Your daydreams will disappear.
If you do not make judgments, everything will be
exactly as it is supposed to be.

Deep is the Tathagatas wisdom,
Lofty and beyond all illusions.
This is the One to which all things return
provided you do not separate them,
keeping some and casting others away.
Where can you put them anyway?
All things are within the One.
There is no outside.

The Ultimate has no pattern, no duality,
and is never partial.
Trust in this. Keep your faith strong.
When you lay down all distinctions theres nothing left
but Mind that is now pure, that radiates wisdom,
and is never tired.

When Mind passes beyond discriminations
Thoughts and feelings cannot plumb its depths.
The state is absolute and free.
There is neither self nor other.
You will be aware only that you are part of the One.
Everything is inside and nothing is outside.

posted September 30, 2008 09:25 PM            

It is so superficial, it cannot be said to exist at all.

He joked that his wisdom was so deep no person could comprehend it.

What he meant was that it was so shallow, it could not be grasped.

All things, he says, are in flux...

Adherence to one way of seeing is folly.

Nietzsche writes,
"Every philosophy is a philosophy of the moment...
I learned to walk; since then I have let myself run.
I learned to fly; since then I do not need to be pushed in order to move from a spot.
Now am I light, now I fly, now I see myself beneath myself,
now a god dances through me -- Thus Spoke Zarathustra"

And Rumi writes,
"Advice is not for lovers.
This is not the kind of mountain stream
you can build a damn across."

But if we decide that there is one form of enlightenment, that one size fits all...

If we preconceive enlightenment, and conclude that a man who flys is not enlightened,
that enlightenment is to be grounded, and to exhibit, first and foremost, the most earthy qualities...

Then we say that all enlightened people are grounded and earthy...

And we give examples of the earthy people whom we predetermined to call "enlightened"...

And we ignore the firey types, becuase their values are not our values...

We do not see the ultimate truth, but only a reflection of our own truth.

What if I said that only someone who produces poetry of the caliber of "Zarathustra" is enlightened?

And I deny that the qualities you value belong to the truly enlightened man...

What if I say that, to be enlightened is to soar, and sweep, and descend at high speeds...

To be one with the ebb and the flow of Being, and not detached somewhere in non-being...

Perhaps the enlightened person is not detached at all!

Perhaps he has sacrificed cool detachment for something deeply, profoundly human...

Really, it is not something we can argue at all.

It is simply a matter of taste. Purely subjective.

Perhaps the cool and detached guru, though peaceful, speaks untruth...

Perhaps the burning one burns with a thousand firey truths...

Perhaps my enlightenment is not your enlightenment.

3 Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him.

5 One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

14 I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.

posted October 01, 2008 12:42 AM            

All thirteen of them.

They deserve a thread of their own.

Seriously, though...

Dont you think its a little odd to comandere a thread like that?

Especially after all thats gone on between us,
and how we have agreed to stay out of each other's hair?

I mean, I hesitated to even offer my condolences on your thread,
because I worried it might upset you just to see my username,
and that you might be suspicious of me and think my praise insincere.

But, hey, its no big deal.

Its not like I can get offended.

I mean, this is a difficult time for you.

So, I just have to grin and thank you for repeatedly insinuating
that I am just a lazy, deluded, immmoral, sentimental fool, embarrasing myself here.

lol

Seriously, though, thanks for setting me straight.

Where would I be without Saturn's heavy hand to guide me?

Chillin. Just chillin.

Making my own mistakes and finding my own way home.

Crafting comforting words of peace and love and freedom.

And leaving the disciplinarian stuff for someone else.

Teaching what I am here to teach.

Jesus, its like you came into my art class and started teaching economics.

Are you even so sure that your way is absolutely correct?

The one and only way to God?

Sosan doesnt seem to agree with you.

Lots of mystics dont seem to agree with you.

Why couldnt you just start your own thread?

Instead of trying to upstage and publicly humiliate me in no uncertain terms?

Do you really think you are so calm and collected?

I see passive-aggressiveness all over your posts.

I hate to imagine how it could errupt someday.

There is more I'd like to say to you, but this is already pushing it.

I really dont want to upset you.

Why dont you do what you originally suggested,
and keep clear of my path?

I think that would be healing for both of us.

posted October 01, 2008 12:57 AM              

Maybe there's a way NosiS can move these posts into a seperate thread???

quote:

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So, I just have to grin and thank you for repeatedly insinuating
that I am just a lazy, deluded, immmoral, sentimental fool, embarrasing myself here.

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I'm not sure what you are talking about?

quote:

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Jesus, its like you came into my art class and started teaching economics.

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Oh?

i don't understand!

quote:

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The one and only way to God?

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posted October 01, 2008 01:03 AM            

With me?

With yourself?

quote:

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Maybe there's a way NosiS can move these posts into a seperate thread???

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I'd say the damage is done.

quote:

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I'll continue to stay out of your threads. Sorry.

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Yes, thank you.

posted October 01, 2008 01:08 AM            

No problem.

I'm sorry too, if I was harsh.

I really want nothing but peace for you.

I admire you very much.

But I think we get in each other's way somehow.

I will make an effort to give you space,
and I appreciate you doing the same for me.

posted October 01, 2008 01:15 AM            

quote:

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By all means! I will go out of my way...to step out of our ways!(?)

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That sounds awful cryptic to me, T.

I'm just trying to talk strait to you.

I dont need the last word.

But I want us to be plain.

posted October 01, 2008 01:26 AM              

Reading back on that, I can pull a few different meanings out of it though. What did I mean...?
I dont know...and many things now i suppose...I guess I'm saying to myself that I will step out of my own way and telling you that I will respect your wishes too. I often listen to what people say as if it is myself talking to/ teaching me something. So I'll see how I have to step out of my own way and avoid you too. Which I thought I had been doing. I didnt think you would react like this. I thought you might be interested in reading the book after reading the exerpts. That's all.