*note*...this is about the marvelous Karl Friedrich Alfred Heinrich Ferdinand Maria Graf Eckbrecht von Dürckheim-Montmartin one of a kind...I quote from wikipedia..
quote"Karl Friedrich Alfred Heinrich Ferdinand Maria Graf Eckbrecht von Dürckheim-Montmartin (October 24, 1896 – December 28, 1988) was a German diplomat, psychotherapist and Zen-Master.Life and work
Dürckheim was born in Munich. He was a descendant of old Bavarian nobility whose parents still had a fortune, eventually lost during bad economic times.
In his early twenties, he was reading in the Tao Te Ching of Lao-Tzu.
"Suddenly it happened! I was listening and lightning went through me. The veil was torn asunder, I was awake! I had just experienced 'It'. Everything existed and nothing existed. Another Reality had broken through this world. I myself existed and did not exist..."
"I had experienced that which is spoken of in all centuries: individuals, in whatever stage of their lives, have had an experience which struck them with the force of lightning and linked them once and for all to the circuits of True Life."
Meister Eckhart became very important for him. "I recognize in Eckhart my master, the master. But we can only approach him if we eliminate the conceptual consciousness."
Dürckheim was a professor at Kiel for a few years. Then it was discovered that he had a Jewish grandmother. Eventually he became an envoy for Nazi Germany's foreign ministry under Joachim von Ribbentrop. Before World War II, in 1938, he was sent to Japan, residing there for eight years.
After the war, Tokyo was occupied by Americans. Dürckheim went into hiding in Karuizawa and was arrested on October 30, 1945 by agents of the US Counter-Intelligence Corps[1]. He was imprisoned for a year and a half in Sugamo Prison. "That time of captivity was precious to me because I could exercise zazen meditation and remain in immobility for hours." Graf "Duerckheim" is identified by Albert Stunkard in Zen Teaching, Zen Practice, (Weatherhill 2000) edited by Kenneth Kraft, as the person who suggested to Stunkard that he should visit D.T. Suzuki in Kita Kamakura, not far from the Sugamo prison. That visit started a chain reaction of visitors to the Suzuki residence, one of whom was Philip Kapleau, author of The Three Pillars of Zen and founder of the Rochester Zen Center. Dürckheim thus was directly responsible for launching Zen into the American mainstream.
Along with psychologist Maria Hippius, Dürckheim founded the "Center of existential and psychological formation and encounter" in the early 1950s. It was located in the Black Forest village of Todtmoos-Rutte. His books were based on his conferences, and were influential in Europe.
"What I am doing is not the transmission of Zen Buddhism; on the contrary, that which I seek after is something universally human which comes from our origins and happens to be more emphasized in eastern practices than in the western."
Dürckheim's "Initiation Therapy" dealt with the encounter between the profane, mundane, "little" self — the ego — and the true Self. "The therapist is not the one who heals, that is, who intervenes with his own skills; he is a therapist in the original meaning of the word: a companion on the way.Quotations
"The man, who, being really on the Way, falls upon hard times in the world will not, as a consequence, turn to that friend who offers him refuge and comfort and encourages his old self to survive. Rather, he will seek out someone who will faithfully and inexorably help him to risk himself, so that he may endure the suffering and pass courageously through it. Only to the extent that man exposes himself over and over again to annihilation, can that which is indestructible arise within him. In this lies the dignity of daring."
– from "The Way of Transformation"
"What I am doing is not the transmission of Zen Buddhism; on the contrary, that which I seek after is something universally human which comes from our origins and happens to be more emphasized in eastern practices than in the western."So I changed a little bit the lyrics..it goes like this..
If you knew me Peggy Sue(Friedrich Alfred ) - then you’d know why I feel blue
without Peggy - my Peggy Sue..my beautiful Alfred
oh well, I love you man - yes, I love you Peggy Sue
Why I say that?..first of all,he was realized,and he knew the truth.
Second..he was looking from the bubble of existence from the soul point of view..
That was very unfortunate,because this method would never work,unless there are some old souls,ready.
The true method is from grace,from within out,not from outside in..But I still love you,Peggy Sue,my beautiful Alfred from Germany!
Kisses for him..
_added by danny-
.............
quotes from his works...
BECOMING REAL:ESSAYS ON THE TEACHINGS OF A MASTER http://www.stillnessspeaks.com/assets/books/1/Karlfried%20Graf%20Durkheim%20Becoming%20Real.pdf
THE TRINITY OF BEING
The fall of humanity brought on the unfortunate distresses around which gravitate all of Durckheim's work. They are three in number and are the common denominator of all other suffering:
* the fear of death: a stream cut off from its source ceases to exist, that is a law of nature.
A man cut off from his divine core, from which he receives himself constantly, will
inevitably head toward suffering and death, and his existence is marked by this profound anguish, for everything is hostile and threatning to him;
* the meaninglessness of life: man is created to nourish himself of God and to unite himself to Him. If he does not respond to this fundamental aspiration of his whole being, his life has no more meaning, everything is absurd, and he is never satisfied;
* solitude: man living without God finds himself alone. He identifies himself with his little self and enters into a world of division: life becomes "me against the world." The hypertrophy of the mundane self makes true encounter difficult and solitude inevitable.
Yet this triple distress represents for Durckheim a reality which expresses the whole Bible. Man "in the image of God" is promised from the beginning a triple blessing: delighting in the life of God, possessing the Kingdom of heaven and powers through the gifts of the Spirit. Is it then surprising that Satan tempts Adam and Eve in their very happiness?
Indeed, there are three temptations and they contain all the others (see Genesis 3):
* Adam eats of t he tree of knowledge prohibited by God: he falls therefore into the world of enjoyment without God. But this enjoyment leads straight to death! Freud and his descendants have shown that "man dug his ditch with his teeth" and that the bed of Eros was in reality a tomb. Adam is then chased out of paradise, that is, he loses his interiority since he seeks his pleasure elsewhere, on the outside;
* "The tree was desirable" continues the text of Genesis, and this is the world of
possession without God. We place our desire for infinity into the finite, in that which is mined by erosion and ruin. The richest man in the world is also the saddest man in the world. His golden palace is a prison whose windows open onto the absurdity of life..
and from DIALOGUE ON THE PATH OF
INITIATION
The Life and Thought of Karlfried Graf Durckheim
by Alphonse Goettmann http://authorsden.com/SampleWorksPDF/4581.pdf
It awakens in the disciple a force which annihilates all arrogance and also gives him the courage to look death in the face, the death of all that is not Life, Truth, and Light within. This radiance is not sentimental, but cutting, harsh, and yet full of warmth; the Master can be harsh in order to fill the other with beatitude and freedom. The example of the Master is never offered for imitation. His figure is original, unique, and inimitable like the very Life which he
incorporates. That is what distinguishes him from other false masters.
Through what he says,
his attitude and his way of being, he seeks only one thing: to provoke the disciple to his own reality, to reveal his originality, the inner Master and Being which comes through him. He is not in any way the "good example" or the model, nor someone who knows more, but simply being himself, he witnesses to the transparence of the Transcendent.
Finally, shock is often one of the greatest means which the Master utilizes......
"The man, who, being really on the Way, falls upon hard times in the world will not, as a consequence, turn to that friend who offers him refuge and comfort and encourages his old self to survive. Rather, he will seek out someone who will faithfully and inexorably help him to risk himself, so that he may endure the suffering and pass courageously through it. Only to the extent that man exposes himself over and over again to annihilation, can that which is indestructible arise within him. In this lies the dignity of daring."
– from "The Way of Transformation"
.................
To nourish the vital energy, keep watch in silence;
In order to subdue the mind, act with non-action.
Of movement and stillness, be aware of their origin;
There is no work to do, much less someone to seek.
The true and constant must respond to phenomena;
Responding to phenomena, you must be unconfused.
When unconfused, the nature will stabilize by itself;
When the nature stabilizes, energy returns by itself.
When energy returns, the elixir crystallizes by itself;
Within the pot, the trigrams of kǎn and lí are joined.
Yīn and yáng arise, alternating over and over again;
Every transformation comes like a clap of thunder.
White clouds form and come to assemble at the peak;
The sweet nectar sprinkles down Mount Sumeru.
Swallow for yourself this wine of immortality;
You wander so freely—who is able to know you?
Sit and listen to the tune played without strings;
Clearly understand the mechanism of creation.
It comes entirely from these twenty lines;
A true ladder going straight to Heaven.-Daoist text -
To us all towns are one, all men our kin. Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill. Man's pains and pains' relief are from within. Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !." - Tamil Poem-