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Saturday, July 20, 2013

Story of my life!..Phra Ajaan Sao


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*...is very interesting..be careful what this Phra Ajaan Sao says on the end,.."After he had left this level of concentration and came to see Ajaan Sao, he was told, "This level of concentration is fixed penetration (appana samadhi). You can rest assured that in this level of concentration there is no insight or knowledge of anything at all. There's only the brightness and the stillness. If the mind is forever in that state, it will be stuck simply on that level of stillness. So once you've made the mind still like this, watch for the interval where it begins to stir out of its concentration. As soon as the mind has a sense that it's beginning to take up an object — no matter what object may appear first — focus on the act of taking up an object. That's what you should examine.""
The more you care for a person..the more they(or you) think is something MORE than a
circumstance/situation ..etc..
So do NOT take it personal..for it never is.
Is like riding a wave..
BUT if you are a condor..who cares?..
kiss and love:)
ps..so from now on I'll be like this guy..
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/phut/sao.html
Danny
.............

In our day and age, the practice of going into the forest to meditate and follow the ascetic dhutanga practices began with Phra Ajaan Sao Kantasilo, the teacher of Phra Ajaan Mun and, by extension, Phra Ajaan Singh and Phra Ajaan Lee. Phra Ajaan Sao was inclined to be, not a preacher or a speaker, but a doer. When he taught his students, he said very little. And those who studied directly under him are now elders who speak very little, who rarely preach, having picked up the habit from their teacher. Thus, as Phra Ajaan Sao was not a preacher, I would like to tell you a little of the way in which he taught meditation.
How did Phra Ajaan Sao teach? If it so happened that someone came to him, saying, "Ajaan, sir, I want to practice meditation. How should I go about it?" he would answer, "Meditate on the word 'Buddho.'"
If the person asked, "What does 'Buddho' mean?" Ajaan Sao would answer, "Don't ask."
"What will happen after I've meditated on 'Buddho'?"
"Don't ask. Your only duty is simply to repeat the word 'Buddho' over and over in your mind."
That's how he taught: no long, drawn-out explanations.
Now, if the student was sincere in putting the Ajaan's instructions into practice and was persistent in practicing the repetition, if his mind then became calm and bright from entering into concentration, he would come and ask Ajaan Sao: "When meditating on 'Buddho' my state of mind becomes such-and-such. What should I do now?" If it was right, Ajaan Sao would say, "Keep on meditating." If not, he would say, "You have to do such-and-such. What you're doing isn't right."
For example, once when I was his attendant novice, a senior monk of the Mahanikaya sect came and placed himself under his direction as a beginning student in meditation. Ajaan Sao taught him to meditate on "Buddho." Now, when the monk settled down on "Buddho," his mind became calm and, once it was calm, bright. And then he stopped repeating "Buddho." At this point, his mind was simply blank. Afterwards, he sent his attention out, following the brightness, and a number of visions began to arise: spirits of the dead, hungry ghosts, divine beings, people, animals, mountains, forests... Sometimes it seemed as if he, or rather, his mind, left his body and went wandering through the forest and wilderness, seeing the various things mentioned above. Afterwards, he went and told Ajaan Sao, "When I meditated down to the point were the mind became calm and bright, it then went out, following the bright light. Visions of ghosts, divine beings, people, and animals appeared. Sometimes it seemed as if I went out following the visions."
As soon as Ajaan Sao heard this, he said, "This isn't right. For the mind to go knowing and seeing outside isn't right. You have to make it know inside."
The monk then asked, "How should I go about making it know inside?"
Phra Ajaan Sao answered, "When the mind is in a bright state like that, when it has forgotten or abandoned its repetition and is simply sitting empty and still, look for the breath. If the sensation of the breath appears in your awareness, focus on the breath as your object and then simply keep track of it, following it inward until the mind becomes even calmer and brighter."
And so the monk followed the Ajaan's instructions until finally the mind settled down in threshold concentration (upacara samadhi), following which the breath became more and more refined, ultimately to the point where it disappeared. His sensation of having a body also disappeared, leaving just the state in which the mind was sitting absolutely still, a state of awareness itself standing out clear, with no sense of going forward or back, no sense of where the mind was, because at that moment there was just the mind, all on its own. At this point, the monk came again to ask, "After my mind has become calm and bright, and I fix my attention on the breath and follow the breath inward until it reaches a state of being absolutely quiet and still — so still that nothing is left, the breath doesn't appear, the sense of having a body vanishes, only the mind stands out, brilliant and still: When it's like this, is it right or wrong?"
"Whether it's right or wrong," the Ajaan answered, "take that as your standard. Make an effort to be able to do this as often as possible, and only when you're skilled at it should you come and see me again."
So the monk followed the Ajaan's instructions and later was able to make his mind still to the point that there was no sense of having a body and the breath disappeared more and more often. He became more and more skilled, and his mind became more and more firm. Eventually, after he had been making his mind still very frequently — because as a rule, there's the principle that virtue develops concentration, concentration develops discernment, discernment develops the mind — when his concentration became powerful and strong, it gave rise to abhiñña — heightened knowledge and true insight. Knowledge of what? Knowledge of the true nature of the mind, that is, knowing the states of the mind as they occur in the present. Or so he said.
After he had left this level of concentration and came to see Ajaan Sao, he was told, "This level of concentration is fixed penetration (appana samadhi). You can rest assured that in this level of concentration there is no insight or knowledge of anything at all. There's only the brightness and the stillness. If the mind is forever in that state, it will be stuck simply on that level of stillness. So once you've made the mind still like this, watch for the interval where it begins to stir out of its concentration. As soon as the mind has a sense that it's beginning to take up an object — no matter what object may appear first — focus on the act of taking up an object. That's what you should examine."
The monk followed the Ajaan's instructions and afterwards he was able to make fair progress in the level of his mind.
This is one instance of how Phra Ajaan Sao taught his pupils — teaching just a little at a time, giving only the very heart of the practice, almost as if he would say, "Do this, and this, and this," with no explanations at all. Sometimes I would wonder about his way of teaching. That is, I would compare it with books I had read or with the Dhamma-talks I heard given by other teachers. For example, Phra Ajaan Singh wrote a small handbook for the practice of meditation, entitled, Taking the Triple Refuge and the Techniques of Meditation, and in it he said that in practicing meditation you must, before all else, sit with your body straight and establish mindfulness directly in front of you. That's how he put it, but not how Ajaan Sao would put it. Still, the principles they taught were one and the same, the only difference being that Ajaan Sao was not a preacher, and so didn't make use of a lot of rhetoric.
As he explained to me: "When we make up our mind to repeat 'Buddho,' the act of making up the mind is in itself the act of establishing mindfulness. When we keep thinking 'Buddho' and are not willing to let the mind slip away from 'Buddho,' our mindfulness and alertness are already healthy and strong, always watching over the mind to keep it with 'Buddho.' As soon as our attention slips away, so that we forget to think 'Buddho' and go thinking of something else, it's a sign that there's a lapse in our mindfulness. But if we can keep our mindfulness under control and can think 'Buddho, Buddho' continuously, with no gaps, our mindfulness is already strong, so there's no need to go 'establishing mindfulness' anywhere. To think of an object so that it is coupled with the mind is, in and of itself, the act of getting mindfulness established." That was how he explained it to me.
This was one instance of how I saw and heard Phra Ajaan Sao teaching meditation, and should be enough to serve us all as food for thought.

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