posted March 28, 2008 08:49 PM         

quote:

---

I agree. You are lazy and depressed. (and afraid too)
That you, with your intelligence, honestly believe peyote will help you with these issues just amuses the hell out of me.

---

I'm glad you are amused.

I hope this is making you feel better about yourself.

posted March 28, 2008 08:55 PM         

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.

All wise men everywhere understand this.
This knowledge is beyond time, long or short,
This knowledge is eternal. It neither is nor is not.
Everywhere is here and the smallest equals the largest.
Space cannot confine anything.
The largest equals the smallest.
There are no boundaries, no within and without.
What is and what is not are the same,
For what is not is equal to what is.
If you do not awaken to this truth,
do not worry yourself about it.
Just believe that your Buddha Mind is not divided,
That it accepts all without judgment.
Give no thoughts to words and speeches or pretty plans
The eternal has no present, past or future.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Doesnt sound like your cup of tea either, TINK.

posted March 28, 2008 09:12 PM         

quote:

---

awww don't be bitter. Lighten up once in while, steve. It's all good.

---

I'm not bitter.
You just disappointed me.
I thought you were someone else.

And lightening up is exactly what I was doing
before you showed up with your wet blanket dharma.

posted March 28, 2008 09:43 PM         

I'm not bitter.
You just disappointed me.
I thought you were someone else.

posted March 28, 2008 10:14 PM         

... and in the end, we're all our own form of God...

.. if we can lose our egos in the process...

posted March 29, 2008 12:19 AM         

Mention of the Patriarch is bound to call me from my sleep

When one touches the Buddha Mind and transcends duality, then all of these discussions do become moot. That is the state and station the Patriarch is describing.

In that state, indulgence (use of drugs) or abstinence (aceticism) have an identical result. Simply, no result.

In general, and directed to no one in particular:

The attachment to something is an attachment to a result. The attachment to a result brings fear that the result will be "taken away".

The fear of something is the rejection of and fear of a result. The rejection of the result or fear of a result brings attachment to a position of "righteousness".

And so the ball bounces from one court to another.

Here is the test. When you use all/any drug and have no result and fear no result, then you have achieved the Buddha Mind that the Great Patriarch is describing (may his memory and service be santified).

Peace and Blessings
Meili

posted March 29, 2008 12:39 AM         

It has been said...i think....somewhere...that

at a certain point...

drugs do not have any effect on an individual. enlightening effect or otherwise.

at a certain point.

how about that?

posted March 29, 2008 01:01 AM         

(can you see it HSC? She's good! )

posted March 29, 2008 09:26 AM         

God, I need a man.

Not just any man either....someone on my freakin' wavelength....if such a thing is possible.

I am tired of everything, tired of all the separation in the world.

I feel I want to be in the womb again.

I want to feel the energy rising between me and another, to feel our heads explode as we lay helpless in each other's arms.....

I want to escape from this world.....

But I feel so unattractive right now.

Its no good living a life of abstinence, of celibacy, of purity....
I want to live
I want to experience oneness
I want to lose myself in music both gentle and energetic
I see God in everything,
In violins and butterflies
And guitars and in lightening.....

I feel tired of searching
I want to lose myself
In love
The deepest feeling of love imaginable

I'm an alien
An alien on planet Earth
I'm nothing like my family
I'm wandering,
Forever searching
Searching for something-
But what?

Its so tiring
I just want to sleep,
To slip away into warmth, and safety

I can't escape the nightmare of daily living
I want to make love
I don't belong anywhere
I don't belong with him

I want to escape
To break free
The silence is paralyzing me
I need music
Sweet music full of life

I want to dance, with others
Like beams of light
In their own kind of symphony
Embracing in
Their love and light

I've flown too close to the Sun,
Its making me crazy
I want to close my eyes
And just forget now

Please send me someone soon
Someone to hold me
I need to feel peace in their arms
To quiet this storm and this rain.....

Or else let me lie down
And rise
To be free of this earthly body,
This prison

For I hate this veil.

posted March 29, 2008 10:38 AM         

TINK isnt telling me anything new.
She isnt providing reasons or arguments
which I dont already reflect on ten times a day,
with even more force and self-castigation than she can muster.

The difference is that she is ignorant of and/or insensitive to
all the other considerations I take note of in my waking day.
Her broken record approach isnt doing anything but driving me more insane,
and giving me more excuses to do drugs and withdraw from people.

Might I refer you to your own words, TINK:

quote:

---

Revulsion. Of course. This goes without saying. The question is what will be the second reaction. Or, indeed, will there be a second reaction. Therein lies the rub, yes?

---

Indeed. *toke toke*

quote:

---

I tried very much not to apply shock tactics on you. I'm not yet properly trained in that exact science. In unskilled hands this approach almost always does more harm than good. Of course, occasionally we get lucky ... but who would knowingly chance the well-being of another soul?

---

Umm... TINK would.

quote:

---

Once again I'm reminded of the importance of skilled hands.

---

Me too.

All day long, I am telling myself how lazy I am.
What makes anyone think it will come as a revelation when they say it?
And that, all of a sudden, I will stop being lazy?

Its much easier for people who arent lazy,
and who were rasied with some kind of work-ethic,
to look down on people like me and make demands.
Just be careful you dont end up in my situation next time around,
on account of all the judgments you feel free to unleash on me.

Do you have a first house Moon and is Venus closely conjunct your Sun?
These are the two "laziest" positions I have heard of,
(also, two of the most sensitive and loving)
and I have them both in my chart; do you have even one of them?

How about a Pisces South Node?
Anybody want to tell me how to handle that?
And compare their own struggle to mine,
without taking any of this into account, lol?

Anybody else with a first house mars/uranus want to
tell me how they possibly managed to cultivate bravery, lol?
What a stretch that must have been for you.
Now try to cultivate some lunar and venusian qualities,
and tell me how easy and necessary you find that.

Incidentally, along with that laziness and love of pleasure,
there comes a hightened sensitivity to beauty and an artistry
which, I dare say, not one of you can match. So there.

If you are allowed to boast of your gifts,
and judge me for not being like you,
then I guess its okay for me to do likewise.

And while you struggle to put your heads in order,
and to untangle a few dozen thoughts or points of view,
and boast about what hard work it was (but you did it!),
go ahead and judge me, and try not to imagine
what it must be like to make order out of a head
that has ten times as many ideas and perspectives inside it.

But, guess what? I dont do that,
because, unlike you, I see how relative it all is.

Everyone is different
and everyone's lessons are different.

If you need to look down on me,
to feel like you are making progress,
then something is wrong with you.

It only pushes me to reflect more and more on zen and toaist thought,
which, in my interpretation, suggests that what you are serving
is not the great and indivisible Absolute Truth,
which has no need of you or your service, --
but, your own egos.

You may very well be building towers of Babel,
and monuments to your own ego and its "progress".

For all you know, I have been where you are,
and it has lead me to where I am.
But you think you know better than me,
and have circumferenced these mysteries,
just because you swallow someone else's teaching whole.

As for certainty... none of us are certain.
If you were certain, TINK, you'd be a Buddha.
In the meantime, we can all get hurt when our beliefs are criticized.
We can all feel them being weakened or called to account.
And if you can't feel that, its because you are unconscious of it,
and unwilling to admit your own doubts to yourselves.

Maybe all of this is ego and vanity.
Maybe everything TINK and Meili says is ego.
Maybe the path they proudly defend is ego.
Maybe the only thing that changes,
and makes "progress", is the ego.
Maybe you are all just filling time.

Maybe your insistence on "do-it-yourself"
is an insistence on "my-ego-did-it".

Maybe you just have a different path than me.
Maybe your ego, or instrument, is designed
to explore and express other things.

Maybe every one of us is a question posed by God.

Maybe the mysteries are greater than the "answers".

Maybe you are terrified of a world of possibilities,
that doesnt fit inside rudimentary lines of dharma.

Maybe you are terrified of that emptiness,
which is the thing you are both seeking
and struggling endlessly to protect yourselves against.

Maybe the words of the Patriarch are indeed a lesson,
as they undeniably appear to be,
and not just a weather report from the mountain.

Thats all I have to say.

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities,
but in the expert's there are few."
~ Suzuki Roshi

"Truth is communicated like the fragrance of the rose.
Any effort to assist merely scatters it to the winds."
~ Mohandas K. Gandhi

posted March 29, 2008 12:14 PM         

Into deep darkness fall those who follow action.

Into deeper darkness fall those who follow knowledge.

One is the outcome of knowledge,
and another is the outcome of action.

Thus have we heard from the ancient sages who explained this truth to us.

Those who know both knowledge and action,
with action overcome death,
and with knowledge reach immortality.

Into deep darkness fall those who follow the immanent.

Into deeper darkness fall those who follow the transcendent.

One is the outcome of the transcendant,
and another is the outcome of the immanent.

Thus have we heard from the ancient sages who explained this truth to us.

Those who know both the transcendant and the immanent,
with the immanent overcome death,
and with the transcendant reach immortality.

posted March 29, 2008 01:24 PM         

For obvious reasons, I will limit my comments to your quotes and elaboration on your quotes. In general, and contrary to the scorps inclinations,there is little to be gained by an exchange of personal opinions that are not based on experience.

With that disclaimer , lets look at trancendence and immanence.

la illah ilallah

There is no god but God

First, transcendence:

"There is no god"

Nothing exists and all is an illusion,or creation by you for you. Even the faculty that is engaged in the creation, your mind, or nafs...even these are not real but merely illusions. This is the Great Teaching of the Patriarchs, saints and sages of the far east.

As the sufis might say, you knock on the door and are asked "who is it?", you reply "me". The answer comes, "you cannot enter, because there is no place/room for "me" and "you" here. The moment that the man becomes aware that there is no "me" and "you" is the moment that complete trancendence is experienced and understood.

"but" then the immanence

God

This is the affirmation of all existence, the affirmation of the Presence of God. This Presence announces itself in all manifested and unmanifested Creation. This is the Great Teaching of the saints and sages of the Indian Subcontinent.

Where ever you turn there is the face of God. Or, as the Sufis might say "A fish does not know he is in water". Ask a fish "where is the water" and he will be unable to tell you. The moment the fish becomes aware of the water is the moment that complete immanence is understood and experienced.

Moses (AS) taught and transmitted the teaching of trancendence.

Jesus (AS) taught and transmitted the teaching of immanence.

I will spare you the quotes that might illustrate this since I am sure you are very familiar with the Torah and Gospel.

posted March 29, 2008 01:27 PM         

quote:

---

with the immanent overcome death,
and with the transcendant reach immortality.

---

Interestingly, the Law of One (Ra material) teaches that once we get so far in our development here, we have more of a choice over our incarnations....When you get so far in "polarizing" love through action, you get to move onto the next level of "density" after this One, eventually leading back to the Infinite Creator......

quote:

---

Those who know both knowledge and action,
with action overcome death,
and with knowledge reach immortality.

---

posted March 29, 2008 01:52 PM         

You better not be talking about me with that first house Uranian Mars crap. I'll kick yer ass. I do have the first house moon and the Sun/Venus conj so I guess I only half suck??? And

I'm sending you an email to yell at you.

It starts with this:

"For the record, I do not intend any of my small scale protests as personal attacks on the unsuspecting (abusers*), or even on the corrupt fools who lead them by the nose. Everyone is operating at their own level of evolution, and nobody can be blamed for that. Nevertheless, there are realities which we all (especially the people directly involved in this debacle) need to wake up to, and come to terms with. I will not parse words about that, and if I think shock value has the potential to wake people up, I'll employ it. After all, I'm Uranian, and its no coincidence that the planet which rules brotherhood, progress, and awakening, is also known to act suddenly, and in a manner that frequently disrupts the status quo and upsets people. I happen to think it is worth it."
-HSC

*The original quote said "soldiers" but I replaced that word with "abusers". I say "abusers" in reference to all substances used in excess that cause problems, and then are still "used" again repeatedly. I abuse sugar and television and message boards and I eat meat. (Hi, my name is Melody and... I'm human. Please help me.)

Isn't that what LindaLand is..? A giant support group? Take it easy all. And a big dedication from the ethers goes out to everyone here (me included)...

Oooh--
I can see that you've got fire in your eyes
And pain inside your heart
So many things have come and torn your world apart
Oh baby, baby, baby, don't give up, don't give up
don't give up
If you want love
If you want love, you've got to give a little
If you want love
If you want faith, you just believe a little
If you want love
If you want peace, turn your cheek a little
Ohhh, you've got to give
You've got to give
You've got to give.....to live
An empty hand reaching out for someone
An empty heart takes so little to fill
It's so much easier to push instead of pull
Oh baby, baby, baby
Don't give up, don't give up, don't give up
If you want love
If you want love, you've got to give a little
If you want love
If you want faith, you just believe a little
If you want love
If you want peace, turn your cheek a little
Ohhh, you've got to give
You've got to give
You've got to give....to live

Each man's a country in his own right
Oh, every body needs a friend
One friend, one God, one country
No man need defend
I believe in fate and destination
But so much of that lies in our own hands
If you know what you want, just go on out and get it
Oh baby, baby
Don't give up, don't give up
Yeah, yeah
If you want love

posted March 29, 2008 01:59 PM         

I agree.

You explained it fairly well,
although I've done it much better.

Does this suggest that my experience of it is deeper?
I'm not sure, but I dont think so.
No doubt you've already formed your own conclusion.

I only disagree with your assessment of biblical scripture.

Jesus taught both immanence and transcendance.

I am familiar enough to perceive that much.

And everybody thinks their opinions are experientially based,
because everyone forms their opinions by interpreting experience.

Nothing teaches, and nothing prejudices, like experience.

The opinion is nothing,
the experience is nothing.
The interpretation is the thing.

Btu if you really think the experience is "yours"...

I'm not so sure about that one either.

posted March 29, 2008 02:02 PM         

The truth
is a brilliant, many-sided diamond.
The great life fills this gem and colors from every side.
Mystics, messengers, and sages and teachers of all ages, races and beliefs have spoken of a different face of this common Eternal Truth.
http://www.researchersoftruth.org/StoaLessons.htm

posted March 29, 2008 02:07 PM         

HSC, how about calling tink a troublemaking mirror ...

Indeed *toke toke*

The Master Jesus has an anedote for that malaise by changing the toke to yolk:

"Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

------------------
~
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~