Barn’s burnt down-
Now I can see the moon.
-Masahide
Archive for the ‘Samsara’ Category
Today
Monday, October 6th, 2008Am I ready to Hear?
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
The truth is so simple
We make it so complicated
Inviting dread
Friday, August 8th, 2008
The ultimate turnaround is to begin again, to forget what I’ve learned, to stand there, naked, hands to the side, and allow the fire to burn. I notice it burns anyways (sometimes). Resisting that only makes things worse (it seems).
But, wait. Why would that be a good idea? “I don’t ever want to suffer like I did before” turns around to “I’m willing to suffer like I did before” and “I look forward to suffering like I did before.” Isn’t it so that a sane mind doesn’t suffer, ever? Something doesn’t add up here, it seems.
Except for when it does. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life running away from my thoughts, and I notice that I still do that, sometimes. So practicing being willing and looking forward to the worst that can happen allows me to catch up with myself, to recognize the parts of me that I sometimes miss. Once seen, they can be met with understanding. It doesn’t matter what it is: if it’s part of me, I want to love it. And what would escape the world of what’s for me to love?
Besides, I’m not superstitious. Inviting dread doesn’t bring it to my life. It just means I’m open to it, and when this is so what appears to be dreadful is simply not so. The whole thing is pregnant with paradox:
Resisting dread is dreadful in the extreme
So I welcome it, open to it
Then I can’t find any
Even as it comes and swallows me alive pinching my every nerve
I look around and it’s all open space.
What is there to fear?
As I write this my computer interrupts me to inform me that “new processes have been scanned” and that my computer is hence free from adware and spyware.
For now 
Don’t even try to read this
Saturday, July 26th, 2008
Why would I want it to stop
and miss the lessons it brings?
Ahh, the “stabilization” process
Friday, July 25th, 2008
Coming back to life
having never died
it is the strangest thing.
It is all of course a lie
yet a complete delight
Even when it does not appear to be so.
It really is the strangest thing.
Easy to overlook
Sunday, May 4th, 2008
The pockets of life in between the sadness
actually comprise everything.
It’s good to notice.
Writing on the Wall
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
The trust that has been placed on me by my teachers
I shall not defraud
Nothing special
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 
Caught in a self-centered dream, only suffering.
Holding to self-centered thoughts, exactly the dream.
Each moment, life as it is, the only teacher.
Being just this moment, compassion’s way.
-From the Ordinary Mind Zen school chant book
Not enough disgust with the world of Samsara
Saturday, August 4th, 2007
A few Sundays ago as I was taking a shower I had the courage to admit to myself the unadmittable: that I still loved my drama. I have been reading over the last few months in several of Adyashanti’s writings about the fact that the reason that we humans still identify with the notion of a separate Me is that we think it is fun to be a Me. If we didn’t think there were any benefits, why would we do it? And if we did not identify, how could we suffer? So to the extent that I still feel entangled in my life I can open my eyes and, well, begin to take inventory of all the benefits I think being a Me brings.
And the insights I got from this kind of honesty to myself are too numerous to count and even to describe, although I will try my best.
- I found a freedom that was at the same time deep and very ordinary, that simply comes from the realization that it is okay that I love my drama, when I do, because that’s what is.
- Loving what is, no matter what it is, does not take me to the land of the metaphysical fairies, it brings me to now, now, now. Where else would anyone think it was going to take me? It’s all reentry, all the time. And this is the best news.
- I notice an ease to deal with the “curveballs” in life that I fall in love with more and more with with each day that passes by.
- I am more loving and accepting to myself than before. I don’t have to wait to be “enlightened” to really love and admire the way I live. I can be more loving and accepting of it now instead. And whatever parts I don’t love yet, I can love and accept that I’m not there yet. It REALLY is okay.
- My favorite way of saying it, for now: I still have problems. It’s just not a problem that I still have problems. I don’t need to be problem free to be happy or at least to be at ease with the conditions in my life, or at least to have the integrity to be present with my suffering, when it comes. And sometimes it does.
- Further, I see the advantages of still “having problems.” Judging from all I’ve learned from my old problems, and knowing the value of those lessons, wow, I can’t imagine what good could come from what is left of my problems. So I look forward to them. They are welcome here. Not because I’m masochistic, but because, well, they may come anyways. I am open to the wonders they bring. In the end it becomes difficult to call them problems anymore, and I notice that I still do, sometimes. I’m working on it.
- The real end is that I don’t care much anymore about whether there is an end or not, because either way, I know how to deal with what comes. And even if I forget how to deal with it, I’m never too far from Home. Not far at all.
- And that, as far as I can see, is the real freedom, the one that is independent from conditions. It’s what’s meant in Buddhism by the expression “Samsara is Nirvana,” as far as I can see.
But, please, don’t take it from me: I may just be full of hot air. That could be as true, or truer :).
