OF YOUR ATTENTION WILL COME
WHEN YOU WILL START SEEING the truth..
Lead me from dreaming to waking. 
Lead me from opacity to clarity.
Lead me from the complicated to the simple. Lead me from the obscure to the obvious. Lead me from intention to attention. Lead me from what I'm told I am to what I see I am. 
Lead me from confrontation to wide openness. Lead me to the place I never left, 
Where there is peace, and peace -from the Upanishads- 
Unless you know the emptiness and bliss inside yourself..you'll be a robot forced by the same emptiness and bliss trying to know itself..by pain..
...inside your self also..trust me!..said the mahayogi! so listen to the mahayogi..,grasshopper from heaven....
In silence there must be movement, and in motion,
There must be silence. A small movement is better than a big one.. No movement is better than a small one..listen! Silence is all the movement's mother.. In Movement you should be like a dragon or a tiger. In non Movement you should be like a Buddha. -- Wang Xiangzhai(November 26, 1885 - July 12, 1963}What is referred to as mindlessness is absence of the human mentality; what is referred to as mindfulness is mindfulness of the Tao. When one is free of the human mentality, the mutual sensing of the earthly and celestial is swift; when one is mindful of the Tao, effective practice endures. Swiftness of sensing comes about spontaneously, without cultivation, without striving; long perseverance comes about through effort, and involves action and striving. Striving and non-striving each has its secret; the distinction is all a matter of the absence of the human mentality and the presence of mindfulness of the Tao. After one has reached complete realization of the universal Tao, neither existence nor nonexistence remain; others and self are ultimately empty, and one enters the state of ultimate truthfulness, like a spirit. Here, it is not only the human mentality that cannot be applied; even the mindfulness of Tao is not applicable." - Liu I-ming
The Conduct of the Moon and Clouds
The consistent conduct of people of the Way is like the flowing clouds with no grasping mind, like the full moon reflecting universally, not confined anywhere, glistening within each of the ten thousand forms.
Dignified and upright, emerge and make contact with the variety of phenomena, unstained and unconfused. Function the same toward all others since all have the same substance as you. Language cannot transmit this, speculation cannot reach it. Leaping beyond the infinite and cutting off the dependent, be obliging without looking for merit.
This marvel cannot be measured with consciousness or emotion. On the journey accept your function, in your house please sustain it. Comprehending birth and death, leaving causes and conditions, genuinely realize that from the outset your spirit is not halted. So we have been told that the mind that embraces all the ten directions does not stop anywhere.
-- Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091-1157)
*note*...this GUY was real..
kiss:)
.........
Comment on the Tibetan Book of the Dead
Meditation and the after death state
As
he is ordinarily, the human being does not realize to what extent, or
in what manner, life and death are closely linked. During his whole
lifetime, it never occurs to him that, at each moment that passes by, he
is in the process of dying. And when the ultimate moment arrives when
he has to leave his body, at the beginning — as stated in various
mystical treatise — he does not know that he is dead. Habit being very
strong, he believes that he still inhabits his physical body.
It
happens so often, particularly in the West where the intellect
dominates, one meets seekers who entertain the vague hope that, because
they have understood intellectually what a spiritual teaching consists
of, all will be well for them when they leave this world and that they
will be able, without doubt, to break the circle of births and deaths
and thus attain liberation.
In
order to understand better what happens at the critical moment of
death, when the future destiny of the deceased is at stake, it is
necessary to draw a parallel between certain stages of the after-death
state, as described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and what occurs
during meditation.
The
citations in the following paragraphs are quoted from the English
edition translated by W.Y. Evans-Wentz and lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup (the
Tibetan Book of the Dead, Oxford University Press).
At
the very beginning of each one of his meditation sitting, for a very
short instant, the aspirant may touch a most particular state of
consciousness which gives him the impression of being simple emptiness
only, but is, in reality, a state of immaculate consciousness of the
highest subtlety and transparency. This state of consciousness which is
so unusual and difficult to apprehend, only lasts for two or three
seconds at first before being replaced by another state which, although
not being his customary state of being, is, nevertheless, no more the
same as what he experienced in himself initially.
Failing
to understand and appreciate the real value of this state of
consciousness— which is so alien to him that, at first sight, it gives
him the impression of being a vacuum without importance—, the seeker
cannot, due to ignorance and lack of practice, find the strength to stay
in it. He loses it very quickly and despite his efforts to continue to
meditate, he descends to another state of consciousness which is not
what he experienced in the beginning.
The
same phenomenon — but on an entirely different scale — arises in a
human being when he leaves his body, a phenomenon of which the
implications prove decisive for his future. In other words, as
explained in the Bardo Thodol (the Tibetan Book of the Dead),
immediately after leaving this world, the deceased is confronted with
the Supreme Consciousness in Its original purity. But, failing to
apprehend It, he descends to lower and lower levels in himself until he
becomes lost in a mental world which manifests itself in the form of a
most impressive panorama, spreading out in front of his mind in such a
spectacular way that, because of ignorance and lack of discernment, he
takes it for being a reality.
To
be able to remain in this primordial state — which the Bardo Thodol
calls either “Clear Light” or “Clear Consciousness” — represents a feat
totally out of the ordinary, which can only be the result of long and
persistent training, in the form of intense meditation practice as well
as other concentration exercises carried out both at home and in outside
active life.
It
is precisely with the help of specific concentration exercises (such as
those given in several of my books) which force the aspirant to remain
intensely present during their execution that he can start to experience
during his daily life moments of very particular self-awareness which
come to him suddenly after varying lengths of time of inner absences.
These moments of self-awareness are accompanied by the beginning of an
inner awakening which he should try, with all his might, to prolong so
that the day will eventually come when he will no longer lose it. At
these moments, which will determine what his future will be, the seeker
should realize that, in the same way he is faced throughout his life
with choices to be made in order to be able to remain in this state of
being and of consciousness which is not habitual to him, after death all
incarnate beings will find themselves in a situation where decisive
choices will be demanded of them.
In
this regard, the Tibetan Book of the Dead continuously emphasizes that
the deceased, after leaving his earthly body, will be faced, on several
occasions, with two lights or two colors between which he must choose.
Unfortunately, owing to ignorance and weakness, he will not be able to
hold himself from turning toward that which is the duller. Thus, unless
he has devoted himself to a relentless spiritual practice during his
life, he will begin to descend helplessly to lower and lower levels of
being and of consciousness in himself, without being able to realize
what is happening to him.
Self-awareness
As
a reward for all the efforts that an aspirant has made to become
detached from himself and remain as concentrated as is possible for him,
both during meditation and during specific concentration exercises at
different moments of the day, sudden returns of self-awareness will come
to him, by Grace, at the most unexpected moments (when he was lost to
himself, engulfed once more in his habitual state of hazy absence), in
order to awaken him again and remind him of the imperative necessity
there is for him to struggle to remain, both in length of time and
depth, as present to himself as he can.
If,
during his life, he does not grasp the importance of the struggle he
must make — right throughout his life if necessary — to try to remain in
this new state of being and of consciousness when it suddenly arises in
him again at various moments during the day, how can he hope not to
feel totally at a loss in the face of death when it stands before him at
this supreme hour, to end irrevocably his days and drag him away into a
world where conditions will be so different from those he has
habitually known and which he will not be prepared to confront?
He
must understand that, in the same way he let pass by and loses these
precious moments of return of self-consciousness which arise so
unexpectedly in him, preferring, unknowingly to him, to turn towards the
states of being which are familiar to him and which require no effort
on his part, after death, he will not be able to find in himself the
necessary strength to seize the possibilities offered him by the Divine
Misericord to free himself from his customary inner world. He will
prefer to turn to what is symbolically represented by duller lights or
colors, rather than towards those that seem to him clearer and stronger,
blinding and troubling him.
Thus,
he will be unable to avoid gravitating towards undesirable levels of
being in himself, becoming prey to phantasmagorical phenomena — in a
rather similar way, but at a much more dramatic scale, to that which
takes place in him during each of his nightly sleeps while he still
inhabits his earthly body.
In
any case, even whilst alive, a non-enlightened person cannot avoid
being prey to each thought, to each desire and to each image which
arises in his mind, and of which, by ignorance, he never puts into
question the reality. At each instant, he gravitates helplessly to a
psychic place which is his alone, in accordance with his desires, his
interests and the manner in which he forges himself during the time
given to him to live.
The beginning of awakeningIn order to bring more light on a subject which is determining for the aspirant’s spiritual evolution, it is necessary to return to the importance of this inner battle which he must undertake whilst still alive. If, after all his meditation practice and certain concentration exercises that he has carried out during his active life, he has really come to recognize in himself a state of being and of consciousness totally different than that in which his existence has passed until then, he must realize, from the depths of himself, the value of this new feeling that he has, by Grace, been privileged to experience. From this day onward when an unhoped door has opened for him, he has to struggle with all his might (like a drowning person to whom one has thrown a rope to rescue him) so as to find again this new state of being and of consciousness, and try to maintain himself in it. It is vital for him to understand that to remain in this state, which is still very fragile, is Life, and that the loss of this state is Death.
He
must appreciate that what has happened to him is the most important
event in his life and look at this new state of being in himself with
veneration and gratitude without limits. From this moment onward — when a
priceless gift has been granted to him — he will find himself placed in
situations where he will have to make continual choices between the
superior aspect of his being which calls him from within and certain
thoughts and desires unprofitable for what he seeks to accomplish in
him, so as to succeed not only to stay in this state, but, even more so,
to deepen it so as to arrive at understanding that it is truly the
beginning of the awakening of which the Buddha spoke.
The
seeker will see, through repeated experiences, how much this state of
awakening in which he tries to maintain himself is fragile. Time and
again, during his meditation practices or his spiritual exercises
carried out during the whirl of external life, in spite of all his
efforts to try to remain inwardly awake, he will not be able to avoid
being taken by surprise at first and finding himself dragged down by his
customary state of being and of consciousness, sleeping internally and
daydreaming.
When
a person is plunged in his night sleep, he is at the mercy of all the
dreams that arise in his mind, whether they are pleasant or
nightmarish. When he wakes up in the morning, the fact that he is
called again to respond to the various necessities of outer life and the
pressing needs of his earthly body, he finds himself, in some way,
sheltered from these night dreams which absorb him the whole time that
they unfold in his being and against which he is in a situation of total
helplessness. However, after death, he will have neither his physical
body to occupy himself, nor the incessant claims of external life which
generally monopolize all his attention. He will then find himself,
exactly as in his night dreams when he was still alive, incapable of
controlling the confused wanderings of his mind, descending — depending
on his level of being — lower and lower in himself, in a world which
will be his alone, full of the most impressive hallucinations, until, as
it is said in the Bardo Thodol, he finishes by becoming incarnate again
into phenomenal existence. And it is in this way that the round of
births and deaths will perpetuate for him.
The importance of recognizing a particular void
If
he aspires to free himself from the prison of his tiny, illusory mental
world, the seeker must arrive at recognizing in himself a very
particular Void — which, contrary to what the common run of humankind
can imagine, is not nothingness, but constitutes, in fact, his
Primordial Essence —, so that, after long and tenacious meditation
practice as well as spiritual exercises carried out in different life
situations, he succeeds to remain in this state after his physical
death, without dreading this condition of being in which he is going,
inevitably, to find himself at this monumental instant.
Because
of its major importance for the aspirant, it is necessary to return
once again to the fact that this Void, or “Shunyata” as it is called in
India, consists in fact of a very particular form of consciousness which
has no common measure with the ordinary consciousness in which human
beings generally pass their life. It is an Immaculate Consciousness of
the highest subtlety which constitutes the very Essence of all beings,
as well as an inviolable sanctuary in which the seeker can take refuge,
not only during the time allowed him to live in this turbulent world,
but also after his corporeal death.
Physically,
it is impossible for him to escape from the force of gravity which,
from his birth, has not ceased to be at work, pulling him ever
downwards, until the day when, by an inexorable law which governs the
whole of the manifest world, he finally loses his body. But, as
previously said, he can escape psychically from this descending force —
in so much as he dedicates his life to this end.
Since
this form of existence is destined from the outset to be only
temporary, should not one in this case infer that it is precisely what
awaits the human being after the dissolution of his earthly body that
proves to be the most important thing?
The hidden desire to stop meditating
At
the beginning of his engagement on the spiritual path, when he is still
struggling with the initial effort to remain as present to himself and
as concentrated as possible during his meditation practice, if the
seeker is honest enough with himself and truly seeks to know himself, he
cannot fail to notice that, after a certain time, or even from the
beginning, he has a hidden desire to stop meditating, and that he is
relieved when that moment arrives. And, what is more, he will discover
that he is even secretly glad to come back to his habitual conditions of
life and to find once again the ease of his customary state of being,
his empty daydreams, his usual feeling of himself and his ordinary
preoccupations, preferring all that — including the turmoils and the
continual worries that this state of being drags in its wake — rather
than having to make the necessary effort to remain concentrated and
inwardly present during the time that he devotes to his meditation. One
can go so far as to say, that, strangely enough, he needs to escape in
his external and internal problems in order to fill a gap in him that,
otherwise, proves to be too intolerable to bear!
He
should arrive to see clearly these subtle refusals which arise in him
while he tries to meditate (and which generally escape his attention),
in order that the reverse attitude can start to take place in him. That
is, instead of secretly wishing to finish his meditation practice
rapidly in order to go back to whatever is drawing him outwardly and
find again the ease of his habitual way of being, he will, on the
contrary, arrive at wanting, as soon as he terminates what occupies him
externally, to return to his meditation and his other spiritual
exercises; failing which, a hidden conflict will always exist in him
while he tries to concentrate, and his efforts will not lead him to the
desired goal: to know the Princely Aspect of his double nature. He can
even end up by being tempted to abandon completely his meditation — as
has happened with so many seekers without them understanding the true
reason. Nonetheless, what has just been explained should not under any
circumstance signify that the aspirant may allow himself to neglect or
badly fulfil his external obligations; because, to be able to rise to
another plane of being and of consciousness in himself, he must use
everything as a means to become more true, more noble and worthy of
being united one day with his Celestial Monarch.
When,
during meditation, the seeker begins to be touched by the radiance of a
superior state of consciousness — in which he will feel mysteriously
metamorphosed into an enigmatic silent Witness — he will start to
recognize, through a tranquil discernment that will have imperceptibly
germinated in him, the futility of the ordinary aspect of his nature in
which he has spent the greater part of his earthly life. From then on,
he will wish to return to this luminous aspect of his being each time he
finds himself separated from it.
This
ineffable state that he experiences at certain privileged moments
during his meditation will become for him the sole reality within the
conditions of the manifest world which, by its very nature, can only be
eternally changing and painful. He will then yearn to be able to
maintain himself in this state of consciousness, which is still not
habitual to him, during his active life as well.
Evolution is recalling
He
will have to understand that his evolution to another plane above time
and space, and his eventual emancipation depend on what he implants in
himself in the present, for he must realize that: evolution signifies
recalling (in other words, a mysterious silent memory arises in a human
being at a given moment of his existence to impel him to take up again
what he has not been able to accomplish in an unfathomable past) and
forgetting signifies involution! Furthermore, he must not lose sight of
the fact that all manifestation in matter, including the Universe
itself, moves towards an inevitable end and that the time allowed to him
to reach this goal, so out of the ordinary, is limited!
A
sincere seeker may have remarked that, at the beginning of his
engagement on a spiritual path, not only his agitated mind refused to
abandon what was preoccupying him, secretly inciting him to stop
meditating in order to return to his ordinary activities, but also that
he was using all sorts of arguments or pretexts to justify stopping his
meditation and get up — invoking the necessity of having first to attend
to all sorts of urgent matters. In fact, what he cannot see in the
beginning of this work on himself, is that he was and still remains
painfully attached to everything that attracts him from outside — and
even, curiously, to unpleasant things.
As
said previously, a reversal of his feelings and of his way of being
during his meditation practices is of extreme importance and should
start taking place in him whilst he is still alive; failing which, in
the same way that, when he tries to meditate, an aspect of himself
refuses to let go of its preoccupations (to which, without realizing it,
he is still very attached), at the crucial hour when he will be
summoned to leave his corporeal envelope, all his being, all his
feelings and all his thoughts will be turned toward the external world
to which he will be on the point of, involuntarily, bidding farewell and
to which he is so desperately accustomed — since that will be all that
he will have known during his life.
His
attention will be directed with an intense painful nostalgia towards
the conditions of life that were familiar to him, towards his unappeased
desires and his unrealized dreams, most of which will only be heavy and
useless baggage, of no help to him during this long solitary journey
for which he will find himself dramatically unprepared. He will then
experience an inexplicable fear which will take the form of a refusal to
be reabsorbed into this mysterious state of being unknown to him until
then; an enigmatic state of the highest ethereal subtlety which will
seem to him to be a mysterious disconcerting void, but which, in
reality, is his true condition of being, the Source from where he and
all living creatures derive their origin.
If,
while he still has a mortal body, he has not arrived at recognizing
this luminous state in himself and has not managed to become familiar
with it — even if only a little — it will no longer be possible for him
to understand it after having left his corporeal form, as the Tibetan
Book of the Dead reminds him: “Up to the other day thou wert unable
to recognize the Chönyid Bardo (the Clear Light), and hast had to wander
down this far. Now, if thou art to hold fast to the real Truth, thou
must allow thy mind to rest undistratedly in the nothing-to-do,
nothing-to-hold condition of the unobscured, primordial, bright, void
state of thine intellect, to which thou hast been introduced by thy guru
(..) This is of great importance. Be not distracted.” p. 157
If
the seeker wishes his meditation to become what it really should be,
that is to say pure in the strictest sense of the term, it is essential
that he perceive clearly the instant when this state of luminous
consciousness, which is not habitual to him, starts again to become
diluted and mixed with his customary state of being. Meditation in its
most authentic signification demands the aspirant’s whole vigilance and
the greatest sincerity.
The
effort which he must necessarily make to remain present and conscious
of himself, even though firm, must be tranquil and approached with
intelligence. In other words, the intensity of this effort must be right
so as not to interfere with the eventual action of a higher force that
may begin to manifest itself in him to help him.
Be not distracted
When
the aspirant undertakes this work on himself, he will remark that
hardly has he touched a higher state in him that his ordinary
individuality and his habitual feeling of himself will immediately loom
up again, like a tidal wave to engulf him. After patient and persistent
efforts, if he can find enough strength to hold to that state which is
not habitual to him for longer periods, he will realize yet more clearly
how difficult it is to retain the quality of this new consciousness of
himself in all its purity for more than a short instant, and in what
manner, before he apprehended what has happened to him, this superior
aspect of his nature will have begun to be adulterated again and mixed
up with his customary state of being and of feeling himself.
The
seeker will notice that because of the instability of his mind, which
has not yet went through sufficient training, the least desire that
arises in him, the least image or thought that crosses his mind or even a
simple word that appears suddenly in him, is enough to carry him away
and make him forget his resolution to remain present inwardly and
connected to the luminous aspect of his double nature.
He
will see that his fall comes from the fact that his interest, which is
not yet strong enough, has changed direction, inevitably carrying with
it his attention to what attracted it. He will have therefore to
acknowledge that he still remains divided between his superior nature
(which does not cease to call him inwardly) and the tangible world that
continues to exercise too strong a pressure upon him. The suffering of
being split between these two worlds will make him realize that, without
rigorous practice to master his rebellious mind, he will remain without
defences to all that may come to his mind.
This
instability of his mind will prove to be an even greater source of
suffering after his death. In this regard, one finds in the Bardo Thodol
the following injunction addressed to the deceased: “Oh nobly born,
thy present intellect in the Intermediate State having no firm object
whereon to depend, being of little weight and continuously in motion,
whatever thought occurs to thee now (..) will wield great power”. (p. 172) And, in another passage of this same book, he is reminded : “Whatever
thou desirest will come to pass (before Thee)… Be not distracted. The
boundary line between going upwards or going downwards is here now. If
thou givest way to indecision for even a second, thou wilt have to
suffer misery for a long, long time. This is the moment. Hold fast to
one single purpose." (p. 177)
How
much these words, addressed to the deceased, must be considered by the
seeker as a precious teaching sent to him by Grace so that, while he is
still alive, he can prepare himself for this monumental hour which
awaits him!
He
must realize that it is only by a constant struggle (which may,
depending on his level of being, last throughout his life) to remain
connected with a completely different state of consciousness in him — a
subtle ethereal consciousness with which he ought to be familiar already
— that he can hope to remain firm and undistracted at this fateful
instant when he is called to leave the sensory world.
Fully
recognizing this transparency of being and of consciousness as the
Source from where he has emerged, is for the aspirant to have found the
secret key with which to open the door of the prison in which he is
enclosed, so as to be able to free himself one day from the tyranny and
slavery of his inferior nature and from duality. From then on, his
purification and his deliverance from all the sufferings — which
necessarily accompany this form of existence and his ordinary
individuality — will have commenced.
This
major discovery will also signify for him the extraordinary hope of
being able finally to conquer death itself — on condition that he
understood what death really is. In other words, in what sense it should
be considered, in what manner one is ordinarily dying at each instant
without realizing it, and which aspect of human nature is subjugated to
it!Article published in the magazine le 3ème Millénaire.
Interview with Edward Salim Michael, Samsara magazine, january 2003 :
Samsara:
You have just published a new book whose title is most intriguing: “To
Awaken: A Matter of Life or Death,” can you expand upon this title ?
Edward Salim Michael:
Yes, with this title, I wanted aspirants who think they have embarked
on a spiritual path to become aware to what point this is something
serious and vital for them. In fact, it is the most important thing
there is, that can give meaning to life and justify our existence on
this Earth. Yet, most people don’t even know what they are really
looking for in a spiritual practice and they often content themselves
with a simple intellectual approach. Additionally, they find it very
hard to understand the nature of the efforts which are required of them,
as well as the type of difficulties they will encounter en route.
Samsara: Is ignorance not the primary difficulty ?
Edward Salim Michael:
This is quite true: in the Dhammapada, the Buddha affirms that
ignorance is the worst of taints. The type of ignorance in question here
is actually not intellectual ignorance of the Buddhist doctrine or any
other doctrine, but ignorance of our true nature, our Buddha Nature
which we all have within us and which we must, through incessant
efforts, succeed in discovering before death takes hold of us.
It
is recognition of this Buddha Nature in us by a direct experience, and
not by an intellectual conviction, which constitutes enlightenment.
Nevertheless, it must be made clear that there exist several degrees of
enlightenment and that enlightenment does not mean liberation. In fact, a
certain degree of enlightenment represents the first crucial step in
starting a true practice, because it is only then that one has clearly
discriminated between the side of oneself which one must abandon and the
higher and impersonal side in oneself towards which one must turn.
However,
even then, it is still a very long road. Indeed, for as long as one is
incapable of remaining all the time with this side of our nature which
is already perfect, one will inevitably sink back into the other side of
self, subject to impermanence and suffering; this lower side of oneself
which is nothing but a jumble of influences and conditioning, as
Buddhism has clearly explained.
Samsara:
The Bardo Thodol (the Tibetan Book of the Dead) speaks about
recognizing the “Clear Light,” is this the same thing as this higher
side you speak of ?
E-S.M.
Exactly. Furthermore, I have covered this matter of death and
confrontation with this Clear Light in an entire chapter of this latest
book. It is because we have this higher side of our double nature in us
that in the Bardo Thodol, the dying person is addressed with these
words: “O, nobly-born.” We are in fact of divine origin.
S.
You said a strange word, and even stranger for Buddhists, the word
“divine.” In your books, you use a vocabulary which is sometimes
completely Buddhist, for instance when you stress the fragility and
impermanence of earthly existence as well as the suffering of this form
of existence, and sometimes, you speak more like a mystic. Do you
consider yourself a Buddhist ?
E-S.M.
I consider myself a Buddhist in that I recognize in Buddhism the most
complete spiritual path which emphasizes simultaneously the importance
of work on oneself in life to transform undesirable tendencies, as well
as intense meditation and concentration which are essential for
discovering this impersonal side in oneself which is beyond time and
space.
If
one only sets out to study the functioning of the constituents of our
ordinary personality, in other words the impermanent and imperfect ego,
one is missing the purpose of a spiritual practice and one will never be
able to attain the higher side that one has in oneself and which is
none other than Being, Consciousness and Bliss.
In
another respect; if one only wishes ardently to seek this higher side
whilst neglecting study of oneself and one’s undesirable tendencies, one
will not be able to go very far and one will always be weighed down by
everything which is untransformed within oneself.
As
you have stressed, my vision of the world merges with the Buddhist one; I
see the impermanence of everything I lay my eyes on as well as the
suffering which afflicts all beings; as their fundamental
dissatisfaction cannot be fulfilled by something belonging to the world
of senses.
Certainly,
I do feel I am a mystic, because, through indisputable experiences, I
know that something exists which is higher than the small ordinary self
of man.
S: Would you say that mysticism exists in Buddhism ?
S.M.: For me, it cannot be otherwise as every true spiritual quest must lead to the experience of Transcendence.
The
religious contexts of the world’s various traditions may be different,
but the inner experience is the same. Catherine of Siena stated, “My me
is God,” a famous sufi was killed for having asserted, “I am God,” and
Ramana Maharshi said, “The Consciousness within purged of the mind is
felt as God.”
Amongst
many Buddhists currently, there is a lack of understanding as to the
aim of their practice, which is most harmful to them and prevents them
from even understanding the sort of effort required of them if one day
they wish to succeed in Awakening.
Indeed,
God is not the venerable old gentleman supported by angels as painted
by Michelangelo on the spectacular ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In the
West, it is hard to free oneself from the word associations due to the
cultural schemas representing an anthropomorphic God.
S: But what religion are you yourself ?
E-S.M.
My parents didn’t practice any religion and, as a child I don’t
remember ever having entered any place of worship. We lived in various
countries of the Middle East where we experienced a fair amount of
tribulations; as my parents were of Anglo-Indian descent, we escaped
massacres perpetrated by religious fanatics on a number of occasions.
From this, I have maintained a deep aversion to any blind belief.
Because
of this particular situation, I never went to school and only learnt to
read and write at the age of nineteen; we had just arrived in England
when World War Two broke out. As a British subject, I was posted to the
Royal Air Force as a simple infantryman. It was there that I met an
extremely kind chaplain who taught me the basics of reading, writing and
arithmetic. This lack of education has always been a serious handicap
for me; and I required the help of my wife grammatically speaking to
complete the translation of the Dhammapada successfully, as well as
writing my books.
S. Can you relate to us the circumstances which decided your spiritual commitment ?
E-S.M.:
A few years after the end of the war, I made the acquaintance of a man
who entertained high spiritual aspirations. It was at his home that I
saw for the first time in my life a statue of Buddha. It was a rather
large statue of a Buddha seated in the meditation position, of almost a
meter in height, inlaid with colored stones which shone in the light.
This serene face with its eyes closed conjured up a feeling in me which
is impossible to describe, as if I wanted to remember something
belonging to an unfathomable past without being able to express it in
words. When I went back home, I felt impelled by I know not what
mysterious force to put myself into the same position as this Buddha: I
closed my eyes and I started to meditate !
Immediately,
I felt the need not only for intense concentration during meditation,
but also during active life, and to succeed in this, I invented all
sorts of concentration exercises. I must say that I had the privilege of
swiftly having powerful spiritual experiences which allow me to state,
without any possible doubt, that something exists in the human being
which escapes him, something which it alone can fulfill him.
The
existence and nature of this Transcendence remain controversial subjects
with those who only have an intellectual approach to Buddhism; but
those who have had this experience to a sufficiently profound degree
recognize it in each other and fully understand the descriptions which
have been made about this down the ages, whether it be by a Zen Master
like Dogen or a Christian mystic such as Meister Eckhart.
One
has to get past the popular misconceptions and aversion (which result
from conditioning) which one can sense towards certain words in order to
understand that the Divine, or the Brahman (a Hindu term), represents
the same experience as the “Buddha Nature.” And this Absolute can and
must be experienced in oneself before death takes us. Is it not the most
extraordinary thing to have, as a human being, the opportunity to make
this monumental discovery ?
Through
intense concentration during meditation, enabling a seeker to detach
himself from his state of being and ordinary consciousness, the Infinite
can be comprehended as a state of Pure Ethereal Consciousness, in which
one loses one’s customary individuality; it is a sacred Emptiness which
is not a nothingness, but the Dharmakaya, this Clear Fundamental Light,
described in the Bardo Thodol in the following terms:
“And
now you are about to experience in its Reality in the Bardo state,
wherein all things are like the void and cloudless sky, and the naked,
spotless intellect is like unto a transparent vacuum without
circumference or center. At this moment, know you yourself, and abide in
that state.”
In
other words, this injunction “know you yourself” associated with “abide
in that state” means that our true self, our true nature is a state, an
impersonal state of the greatest subtlety, which frees us from all the
limitations and imperfections connected with individuality.
S:
The instructions of the Bardo Thodol are read precisely so that people
who did not recognize this Clear Light when they were alive may be
liberated at the time of their death.
E-S.M.
These words must apply not only to the state one knows after death, but
also to the state that one must, with appropriate efforts, succeed in
experiencing during meditation. Although it is certainly important and
necessary to prepare a dying person to turn his thoughts to something
higher at the time he leaves this world, it should be understood, as is
clearly repeated in the text itself and in the commentary of the Bardo
Thodol, that if someone has not recognized, even to a small degree, this
state while he is alive, it will no longer be possible for him to do it
after death.
There
is specific work to abandon the attachment that one has with the
tangible and the world of senses which has to be done whilst one is
still in a body, as well as abandonment of the customary individuality
which people falsely believe to be themselves.
S:
Exactly, what has differentiated Buddhism from Hinduism is the Buddha’s
insistence on the fact that there is nothing permanent which one may
call oneself.
E-S.M.
A clear distinction has to be made between the ordinary self (which
Christianity calls the old man) and the Self, which Hinduism also terms
Atman (and which is equally called soul or spirit in current Christian
terminology).
The
Buddha has to be put back into the Indian context of his era. One has
the tendency to forget that he was Indian and therefore that his
teaching was nurtured by the cultural context of Hinduism.
He
rejected the concept of “jiva,” i.e., the fact that a man, who has come
to the end of his life, remaining what he is, simply casts off his worn
out body to find a new one in an endless series of existences. He
stressed the fact that the human being is changeable from one instant to
another and that his customary individuality, resulting both from the
influences of his environment and the manner in which he has lived,
cannot survive as such after death—a concept which is the wish of many
people and commonly encountered in India and even in the West.
On
the other hand, however, the identity of the Atman and Brahman, i.e.,
the identity between the higher nature of the human being and the
Supreme Divinity is something which was evident in the Hindu cultural
context and was recognized by the Buddha in the sutra, “There is, monks,
an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned. If, monks, there were no
unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, no escape would be discerned
from what is born, become, made, conditioned. But because there is an
unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, therefore an escape is
discerned from what is born, become, made, conditioned.”
(Udhâna, VIII).
One
finds this knowledge present in Christianity when it is said that man
was made in God’s image, and that his soul is immortal. It should be
understood here that this is the impersonal side of one’s being and not,
as people naïvely believe, their ordinary self or ego.
It
is this ignorance of that aspect of their being which is the source of
all the suffering which afflicts human beings; this is why the Buddha
said, “Abandoning this taint, be taintless, O Bhikkhus !”
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(heaven and earth) 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 -
"The center of the cyclone is that
rising quiet central low-pressure place in which one can learn to live
eternally. Just outside of this Center is the rotating storm of
one's own ego, competing with other egos in a furious high-velocity
circular dance. As one leaves center, the roar of rotating wind
deafens on more and more as one joins this dance. One's centered
thinking-feeling-being, one's own Satoris, are in the center only,
not outside. One's pushed-pulled driven states, one's anti-Satori
modes of functioning, one's self-created hells, are outside the
center. In the center of the cyclone one is off the wheel of Karma,
of life, rising to join the Creators of the Universe, the Creators of
us.
Here we find that we have created Them who are Us...
Lilly's Law
"In the province of the mind, what
is believed to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits
to be found experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be
transcended. In the province of the(true mind..added by danny) mind, there are no limits."" -- John C. Lilly -
Unless you know the emptiness and
bliss inside yourself..you'll be a robot forced by the same emptiness
and bliss trying to know itself..by pain..inside your self also..trust
me!..said the mahayogi!
The student asked: “A sage's response to changing conditions
is unlimited. Does he have to study beforehand?”
He should worry only about his mind's not being
clear, and not about the inability to respond to all changing conditions.”
— Wang Yang Ming (1472-1529)
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-
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(heaven and earth) 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 -
"The center of the cyclone is that
rising quiet central low-pressure place in which one can learn to live
eternally. Just outside of this Center is the rotating storm of
one's own ego, competing with other egos in a furious high-velocity
circular dance. As one leaves center, the roar of rotating wind
deafens on more and more as one joins this dance. One's centered
thinking-feeling-being, one's own Satoris, are in the center only,
not outside. One's pushed-pulled driven states, one's anti-Satori
modes of functioning, one's self-created hells, are outside the
center. In the center of the cyclone one is off the wheel of Karma,
of life, rising to join the Creators of the Universe, the Creators of
us.
Here we find that we have created Them who are Us...
Lilly's Law
"In the province of the mind, what
is believed to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits
to be found experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be
transcended. In the province of the(true mind..added by danny) mind, there are no limits."" -- John C. Lilly -
Unless you know the emptiness and bliss inside yourself..you'll be a robot forced by the same emptiness and bliss trying to know itself..by pain..inside your self also..trust me!..said the mahayogi!
The student asked: “A sage's response to changing conditions
is unlimited. Does he have to study beforehand?”
He should worry only about his mind's not being
clear, and not about the inability to respond to all changing conditions.”
— Wang Yang Ming (1472-1529)
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-
