A lightning flash of awareness that comes in an instant and is gone just like that. What does it reveal, another piece of the cosmic puzzle? Perhaps so, but even more important is the moment of insight when it makes sense if only for that moment alone, before dissolving back into the empty sky of mind from which it arose.
Intuition is essentially having insightful thoughts without having to think or process information. It is this empty awareness of mind, where simplification of life situations is what matters and not creating or getting caught up in endless streams of thinking and infinitely further abstraction.
Open awareness receives cosmic wisdom and is particularly characteristic of the human-divine consciousness, because unlike the computer this human brain is not meant to function and calculate every second it is on... moreover it doesn't need to. The computer can only memorize and process, using linear lower brain functions. Human Beings can intuit simply by turning off the brain, being fully alive, present and conscious, which is really what makes us truly transcendent, highly intelligent spiritual beings.
Where mind is still, quiet and unoccupied, empty of all self conscious and delusional thoughts about self and others, here divine grace descends, often uninvited and unexpected, onto the horizon of human consciousness spontaneously.
No thoughts, No baggage, No problem...
JDZ
Friday, April 30, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Do It Now
To see is to do, like supposing I were to see a poisonous snake inside of a 10 foot radius, only an immediate action/response would exist for me at this moment, with not even a microsecond to sit stop and think. With the perception the immediate thought, intuition/insight, arises as to what I do next... the intelligence to act directly, instinctively, without calculating, reflecting or planning of any kind.
Spontaneous doing means the moment you see or think about some particular thing it is done immediately! It is this affirmation alone that interests me, an earthly existence where every little detail is accounted for and everything gets done. This means not merely to make a long of list of to dos and a system to get them done but getting it done the moment it pops up onto the surface of conscious awareness.
It is bringing the analytical detail oriented mind, which handles all routine practical affairs, into the red hot moment. That which I can do immediately need not get put on the list of unmet responsibilities, and this level of efficiency is at a higher level than all systems we devise for long term planning and task mastery.
There is no need for affirmation where the Heart is concerned, this Truth is already and needs no further mental contrivance. Though the vision be already present, it is ultimately a matter of implementation, of getting the job done so the manifestation is complete and a real masterpiece is created.
JDZ
Spontaneous doing means the moment you see or think about some particular thing it is done immediately! It is this affirmation alone that interests me, an earthly existence where every little detail is accounted for and everything gets done. This means not merely to make a long of list of to dos and a system to get them done but getting it done the moment it pops up onto the surface of conscious awareness.
It is bringing the analytical detail oriented mind, which handles all routine practical affairs, into the red hot moment. That which I can do immediately need not get put on the list of unmet responsibilities, and this level of efficiency is at a higher level than all systems we devise for long term planning and task mastery.
There is no need for affirmation where the Heart is concerned, this Truth is already and needs no further mental contrivance. Though the vision be already present, it is ultimately a matter of implementation, of getting the job done so the manifestation is complete and a real masterpiece is created.
JDZ
Monday, April 26, 2010
Effortless
Must not a definite practice be adopted to put an end to this deterioration, this inefficiency and laziness of the mind?", asked the government official. Practice or discipline implies an incentive, the gaining of an end; and isn't this a self centered activity? Becoming virtuous is a process of self-interest, leading to respectability. When you cultivate in yourself a state of non-violence, you are still violent under a different name.
Besides all this, there is another degenerating factor: effort, in all its subtle forms. This doesn't mean that one is advocating laziness. "Good heavens, sir, you are certainly taking everything away from us!" exclaimed the official. "And when you take everything away, what's left of us? Nothing!" Creativeness is not a process of becoming or achieving, but a state of being in which self-seeking effort is totally absent. When the self makes an effort to be absent, the self is present. All effort on the part of this complex thing called the mind must cease, without any motive or inducement. "That means death doesn't it?" Death to all that's known which is the `me'. It is only when the totality of the mind is still, that the creative, the nameless, comes into being.
"What do you mean by the mind?", asked the artist. The conscious as well as the unconscious; the hidden recesses of the heart as well as the educated bits. - J. Krishnamurti Commentaries On Living Series III
Besides all this, there is another degenerating factor: effort, in all its subtle forms. This doesn't mean that one is advocating laziness. "Good heavens, sir, you are certainly taking everything away from us!" exclaimed the official. "And when you take everything away, what's left of us? Nothing!" Creativeness is not a process of becoming or achieving, but a state of being in which self-seeking effort is totally absent. When the self makes an effort to be absent, the self is present. All effort on the part of this complex thing called the mind must cease, without any motive or inducement. "That means death doesn't it?" Death to all that's known which is the `me'. It is only when the totality of the mind is still, that the creative, the nameless, comes into being.
"What do you mean by the mind?", asked the artist. The conscious as well as the unconscious; the hidden recesses of the heart as well as the educated bits. - J. Krishnamurti Commentaries On Living Series III
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Heart of Being
It is most important to know and see clearly, experience and feel most concretely, the basic essential components of Being (Self), and what is at the Heart of it all. For to know the parts is also to know the error of too often identifying too much with one or the other polarity, with mind or matter. To know a connecting all inclusive factor, that excludes neither polarity (yin/yang), is to find instant correction of all errors, misconceptions, toxic actions and emotional addictions.
The Heart is Master, the Head is Executive Director, the Body is Servant... When the Heart rules all is unfolding in perfect harmony, however hard and long the road ahead may be... when the Head or Body (the intellect or emotions) takes over to try running the show, this is where all mischief and troubles begin.
The Body is also the brain, the physiological/sensory/perceptual faculties, and the imagination born of sense experience perceived and received. What we experience humanly as pleasure, physical love and affection, simple joys of earth and with others, particularly the "significant other".
The Head is that aspect of the brain which is mind, the ... psyche, formed out of bodily/physical experience, in the form of memory, dreams, fantasy and imagination (the Freudian Id)... playing the Ego role, the Man in charge, with Left Brained Capacities to make snap (and long term) decisions, clear headed and present, logical and rational. It is also the *processing* of one's innate cognitive and philosophical capacities in action. The Intellect I equate here with the Head, the rational and functional, clearheaded and cognitive (left) side of human thinking.
Emotions I equate here with Body, b/c the psychological aspect of feeling is always a physically felt awareness, because the very brain that generates emotional response is itself physical, as are our fantasies, dreams, memories based upon previous sensory or earthly experience(s).
"Live from your heart, you will be most effective" - yogi tea proverbs
JDZ
The Heart is Master, the Head is Executive Director, the Body is Servant... When the Heart rules all is unfolding in perfect harmony, however hard and long the road ahead may be... when the Head or Body (the intellect or emotions) takes over to try running the show, this is where all mischief and troubles begin.
The Body is also the brain, the physiological/sensory/perceptual faculties, and the imagination born of sense experience perceived and received. What we experience humanly as pleasure, physical love and affection, simple joys of earth and with others, particularly the "significant other".
The Head is that aspect of the brain which is mind, the ... psyche, formed out of bodily/physical experience, in the form of memory, dreams, fantasy and imagination (the Freudian Id)... playing the Ego role, the Man in charge, with Left Brained Capacities to make snap (and long term) decisions, clear headed and present, logical and rational. It is also the *processing* of one's innate cognitive and philosophical capacities in action. The Intellect I equate here with the Head, the rational and functional, clearheaded and cognitive (left) side of human thinking.
Emotions I equate here with Body, b/c the psychological aspect of feeling is always a physically felt awareness, because the very brain that generates emotional response is itself physical, as are our fantasies, dreams, memories based upon previous sensory or earthly experience(s).
"Live from your heart, you will be most effective" - yogi tea proverbs
JDZ
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Keep it Real
To assert arrogantly the superiority of one's own wisdom, compassion, spiritual development, etc, is really the same as the judging of another as inferior. The moment ego enters the picture *you* have already lost or gone astray. The more I truly learn about life, humankind and all there is in cosmic consciousness to know, the more it becomes clear how much I do not know.
The self-conscious ego has no place here, in fact it is only in the way, just as it is irrelevant during those industrious moments where efficiency (not vanity) is all that is really needed. If I am thinking about myself, then clearly I am neither aware nor connected. In this light, to replace the "lower mind thinking" with "higher thoughts" is the greatest potential delusion of all, for such an individual is merely hiding (not facing) what is real in himself. As Chogyam Trungpa points out in "Meditation in Action", this "manure of consciousness" is the very essence of Bodhi, the Enlightened Mind itself.
So without getting into self-justification and rationalizations of all kinds, truly I have a greater sense of "the God or Goddess in you" with people who are genuine, who keep it real and whom are not full of shallow platitudes to continue hiding the truth, the reality. I may post and read many writings from teachers who've gone way beyond anything I've known or experienced, and yet the underlying truth behind all of it is true *self-awareness*, the antithesis of egoic consciousness and all forms of deluded spiritual materialism.
Better to acknowledge that I am full of the kind of violence that a Lion would display in response to an attack on her cubs... who would un-cinematically rip to shreds anyone that dares threaten me or those I love (in self-defense only of course). While there is nothing enlightened in feeling or thinking this way, I never for a moment claim to be enlightened or beyond the violence within, however well controlled and restrained I remain.. and if I am to say that I love everyone equally and value the welfare of every single sentient being alive, this would be a most obvious (and ridiculous) lie.
I acknowledge, observe and gradually vigilantly chip off pieces of this rock, not by escape into positive thinking but through a direct and honest understanding. All of my shortcomings and imperfections go right to the surface, with nothing to hide.
Joel
The self-conscious ego has no place here, in fact it is only in the way, just as it is irrelevant during those industrious moments where efficiency (not vanity) is all that is really needed. If I am thinking about myself, then clearly I am neither aware nor connected. In this light, to replace the "lower mind thinking" with "higher thoughts" is the greatest potential delusion of all, for such an individual is merely hiding (not facing) what is real in himself. As Chogyam Trungpa points out in "Meditation in Action", this "manure of consciousness" is the very essence of Bodhi, the Enlightened Mind itself.
So without getting into self-justification and rationalizations of all kinds, truly I have a greater sense of "the God or Goddess in you" with people who are genuine, who keep it real and whom are not full of shallow platitudes to continue hiding the truth, the reality. I may post and read many writings from teachers who've gone way beyond anything I've known or experienced, and yet the underlying truth behind all of it is true *self-awareness*, the antithesis of egoic consciousness and all forms of deluded spiritual materialism.
Better to acknowledge that I am full of the kind of violence that a Lion would display in response to an attack on her cubs... who would un-cinematically rip to shreds anyone that dares threaten me or those I love (in self-defense only of course). While there is nothing enlightened in feeling or thinking this way, I never for a moment claim to be enlightened or beyond the violence within, however well controlled and restrained I remain.. and if I am to say that I love everyone equally and value the welfare of every single sentient being alive, this would be a most obvious (and ridiculous) lie.
I acknowledge, observe and gradually vigilantly chip off pieces of this rock, not by escape into positive thinking but through a direct and honest understanding. All of my shortcomings and imperfections go right to the surface, with nothing to hide.
Joel
Awareness
Yoga exercises are excellent; the speaker does them every day, for an hour or more; but that is merely physical exercise, to keep the body healthy, and so on. But through them you can never come upon the other - never! Because if you give them all importance, you are not giving importance to the understanding of yourself which is to be watchful, to be aware, to give attention to what you are doing, every day of your life; which is to give attention to how you speak and what you say, to what you think, how you behave, whether you are attached, whether you are frightened, whether you are pursuing pleasure and so on.
To be aware of the whole movement of thought; for if you are and you are really serious about it, then you will have established right relationship, obviously. Relationship becomes extraordinarily important when all things about are chaotic - when the world is going to pieces, as it is. But when there is this establishment of total relationship, whole relationship, not between you and me, but human relationship with the whole of the world, then you have the basis. From there you can go on to behavior - how you behave.
If your behavior is based on pleasure or on reward, it is not behavior. It is merely the pursuit of pleasure from which fear arises. Relationship, behavior and order, these are absolutely essential if you want to go into the question of meditation. If you have not laid this foundation, then do what you like - stand on your head, breathe in for the next ten thousand years and repeat words, words - there will be no meditation.
Total Freedom
-------------------------------------------------------------
Why is it that we are always asking, begging, wanting, stealing? Because in ourselves there is nothing; inwardly, psychologically we are like an empty drum. Being empty, we try to fill ourselves not only by stealing things, but by imitating others. Imitation is a form of stealing: you are nothing but he is somebody, so you are going to get some of his glory by copying him. This corruption runs right through human life, and very few are free of it. So what is important is to find out whether the inward emptiness can ever be filled. As long as the mind is seeking to fill itself it will always be empty. When the mind is no longer concerned with filling its own emptiness, then only does that emptiness cease to be.
Think on These Things
To be aware of the whole movement of thought; for if you are and you are really serious about it, then you will have established right relationship, obviously. Relationship becomes extraordinarily important when all things about are chaotic - when the world is going to pieces, as it is. But when there is this establishment of total relationship, whole relationship, not between you and me, but human relationship with the whole of the world, then you have the basis. From there you can go on to behavior - how you behave.
If your behavior is based on pleasure or on reward, it is not behavior. It is merely the pursuit of pleasure from which fear arises. Relationship, behavior and order, these are absolutely essential if you want to go into the question of meditation. If you have not laid this foundation, then do what you like - stand on your head, breathe in for the next ten thousand years and repeat words, words - there will be no meditation.
Total Freedom
-------------------------------------------------------------
Why is it that we are always asking, begging, wanting, stealing? Because in ourselves there is nothing; inwardly, psychologically we are like an empty drum. Being empty, we try to fill ourselves not only by stealing things, but by imitating others. Imitation is a form of stealing: you are nothing but he is somebody, so you are going to get some of his glory by copying him. This corruption runs right through human life, and very few are free of it. So what is important is to find out whether the inward emptiness can ever be filled. As long as the mind is seeking to fill itself it will always be empty. When the mind is no longer concerned with filling its own emptiness, then only does that emptiness cease to be.
Think on These Things
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Enlightenment
Zen master Suzuki Roshi spoke of the "enlightenment before enlightenment" which is the state of mind when mindfulness is present, when there isn't a grasping at things being any way at all except the way they are. It's just seeing the present moment, patient and straightforward.
When we employ some method to get us clear, we often dwell in the concept of an enlightened or unenlightened mind. We're still separated from our wholeness, we're still not in the moment. Enlightenment isn't enlightenment. Enlightenment is a word. One of the things that blocks us from whatever this enlightenment might be is our hunger for what we imagine en-light-enment to be. Enlightenment can become our greatest cause of suffering, because it's our greatest longing. It's our greatest "being elsewhere," our greatest vacuum. Enlightenment is freedom, the thought of enlightenment is prison. The truth exists in the moment. If we're anywhere else, seeking something outside of the moment, we're in prison.
I used to think that peak experiences were a sign of attainment. I'd have some new experience and sometime later have some other insight and think, "Oh, it's really paying off, I'm getting closer now!" And then there's be a floating experience and then an intense light experience... and each time the thought "Oh, here it comes!" And then there'd be the "unsurpassable wisdom world" and then "no me at all, anywhere," and then another experience and another and I'd be saying "Boy, it can't be far now!" Then I started to realize that I had thought there were going to be a few dozen experiences and that would be it, all finished, pure awareness twenty-four hours a day. But it turns out there are hundreds and hundreds of so-called "peak experiences." And they're all just experiences.
The value of depth experiences is the purification, the penetration into what is, that occurs in the moment. But clinging to any experience as an accomplishment or captured truth diverts the attention from the reality of the next moment.
No one who wants to be enlightened will ever be enlightened because what we are enlightened from is that someone wishing to be enlightened. Wishing to be enlightened is like the ego wanting toe be present at its own funeral. The imagined self, in attempting to possess enlightenment, doesn't realize that it's committing suicide, for it's the falling away of this separate "I" which allows the experience of our universal nature.
It's a gradual awakening, but, even knowing this, we may at times notice our conditioning snap at a moment of deep peace or clear insight, much like a fish jumping out of the water to catch a bug. We can say to ourselves, don't reach for peak experience because we know they're just part of the passing show, but nevertheless at times we notice the conditioned mind grasping to be something other than it is. But it's only this grasping, this constant becoming, that makes the mind seem unenlightened. When there's no grasping anywhere, that's it--that's the original mind, the essence of mind. Already pure. Already luminous. When we experience that for even a millisecond, it stops the world and allows us to let go of any need to be anywhere but in the perfection of the moment.
Stephen Levine "A Gradual Awakening" (Chapter 14 Snaring Enlightenment pp.76-79)
When we employ some method to get us clear, we often dwell in the concept of an enlightened or unenlightened mind. We're still separated from our wholeness, we're still not in the moment. Enlightenment isn't enlightenment. Enlightenment is a word. One of the things that blocks us from whatever this enlightenment might be is our hunger for what we imagine en-light-enment to be. Enlightenment can become our greatest cause of suffering, because it's our greatest longing. It's our greatest "being elsewhere," our greatest vacuum. Enlightenment is freedom, the thought of enlightenment is prison. The truth exists in the moment. If we're anywhere else, seeking something outside of the moment, we're in prison.
I used to think that peak experiences were a sign of attainment. I'd have some new experience and sometime later have some other insight and think, "Oh, it's really paying off, I'm getting closer now!" And then there's be a floating experience and then an intense light experience... and each time the thought "Oh, here it comes!" And then there'd be the "unsurpassable wisdom world" and then "no me at all, anywhere," and then another experience and another and I'd be saying "Boy, it can't be far now!" Then I started to realize that I had thought there were going to be a few dozen experiences and that would be it, all finished, pure awareness twenty-four hours a day. But it turns out there are hundreds and hundreds of so-called "peak experiences." And they're all just experiences.
The value of depth experiences is the purification, the penetration into what is, that occurs in the moment. But clinging to any experience as an accomplishment or captured truth diverts the attention from the reality of the next moment.
No one who wants to be enlightened will ever be enlightened because what we are enlightened from is that someone wishing to be enlightened. Wishing to be enlightened is like the ego wanting toe be present at its own funeral. The imagined self, in attempting to possess enlightenment, doesn't realize that it's committing suicide, for it's the falling away of this separate "I" which allows the experience of our universal nature.
It's a gradual awakening, but, even knowing this, we may at times notice our conditioning snap at a moment of deep peace or clear insight, much like a fish jumping out of the water to catch a bug. We can say to ourselves, don't reach for peak experience because we know they're just part of the passing show, but nevertheless at times we notice the conditioned mind grasping to be something other than it is. But it's only this grasping, this constant becoming, that makes the mind seem unenlightened. When there's no grasping anywhere, that's it--that's the original mind, the essence of mind. Already pure. Already luminous. When we experience that for even a millisecond, it stops the world and allows us to let go of any need to be anywhere but in the perfection of the moment.
Stephen Levine "A Gradual Awakening" (Chapter 14 Snaring Enlightenment pp.76-79)
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