You Are IT

Egoism (selfhood) is the identification of the seer with the instrument of seeing.

The seer is really the Self, the pure one, the ever holy, the infinite, the immortal.

This is the Self of man. And what are the instruments?

The Chitta or mind-stuff, the Buddhi or determinative faculty, the Manas or mind, and the Indriyas or sense-organs.

These are the instruments for him to see the external world, and the identification of the Self with the instruments is what is called the ignorance of egoism.

We say, “I am the mind,” “I am thought,” “I am angry,” or “I am happy.”

Through ignorance, we identify ourselves with the mind-stuff, and think we feel pleasure or pain.

~ Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras

We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infintesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present.

Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience.

We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is.

We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.

~ Alan Watts

I threw a potluck for the gods.
Jesus brought wine.
Buddha brought an empty cup.
Krishna made sweet flute sounds.
What would Shiva bring?
The moon, a polished bowl
full of blackberries.
Their mother came too,
playing her vina, breaking
pomegranates and coconuts open.
Having nothing to offer
but my heart, I held space
for the party, where the path
of this breath ends in a pavilion
garlanded with scarlet blossoms.
If you can find the place,
you’re invited too.
What will you bring?

~ Fred Lamotte

Seeing the emptiness of reason, supreme logic is perfected.

When you know that great and small are groundless, you have entered the highest gateway.

Comprehending beyond good and evil opens the way to perfect skill.

Experiencing the dissolution of duality, you embrace the highest view.

~ Song’s of Milarepa, Response To A Logician

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances.

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.

I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

~ Paul of Tarsus

If you want to feel a great relief from the project of getting enlightened, or saving the earth, just try becoming ordinary. To accomplish this, stop trying to be any-thing. Just Being is enough.

You might look at ordinary objects and say, “There are no miracles.” But in fact, these objects are miraculous – the dandelion, the cloud, the dewdrop, the eyes of a child – for they exist, and Being itself is a transcendental, breath-taking, never-ending miracle.

If you realize that you Are the miracle, you will see everyone as a miracle. That is the only solution to our crisis.

~ Fred LaMotte

Most of our interior work isn’t so much learning new habits as it is unlearning old ones.

Sometimes I think innocence is primarily a lack of cynicism.

Perhaps the first step to regaining one’s innocence and wonder is to practice not being so cynical.

~ Scott Kinnaird

I love you BA
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As our fixed ideas about experience change, we see that up to now we have scarcely appreciated our immediate experience. This lack of attention has reinforced our tendency to live in the past or to seek new experience in the future.

We can change this around through practice. As our experience opens to wider perspectives, our senses, our body, and our consciousness become vibrantly alive.

Patterns of craving and frustration give way to the flowing interaction with the process of living. All imbalances drop away, and whatever satisfaction or healing we need is provided naturally.

This protection, this balance, this genuine self-sufficiency allows us to open to the endless possibility of each moment and to discover the richness and depth of all experience.

~ Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche

The New Testament word repentance is a translation of the Greek word “metanoia,” which denotes a change of mind, a reorientation, a fundamental transformation of outlook. “Meta” means beside or beyond and “noia” means thought or mind. Beyond thought.

One could say repentance is a suspension of current thinking to make room for a totally new way of thinking, to enable a change of course.

I think the poet and theologian Fred LaMotte put it really well when he said, “to repent is to transcend the intellect, to go into the silence beyond thought, beyond ideology, even beyond religion. That’s where the forgiveness is.”

That’s where the forgiveness is. I love the imagery in that sentence.

Too many times we equate repentance with regret. And, we come by it honestly, because Matthew 27:3 uses the Greek verb metamelomai in stating that Judas “repented himself” after he saw Jesus being led away. In this context, metamelomai denotes “painful sorrow” or “remorseful regret.”

But, we should remember the remorseful shock Judas felt isn’t the only form of repentance available to us. We should also celebrate the liberation of repentance, of changing our mind and suspending our thinking for an opportunity to try something new and better.

Repentance can provide relief from the suffering, confusion and exhaustion we experience from clinging to tired habits, close-mindedness and fear. All of which can be replaced with the joy, contentment and encouragement of the Good News.

~ Scott Kinnaird

“Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.”

~ Shunryu Suzuki

It’s so difficult for people to understand that it is our unmet expectations which cause us to think no thing can be perfect. The truth is, reality is always perfect, simply because it is what actually is.

The idea of proximity unlocked this for me. Are the sun and stars perfect? Sure. Is that ocean wave or that cloud perfect? Yep. Are the deer running through the forest doing it right? Of course they are.

But, why? Probably because those things are so distant from me. I don’t perceive them as affecting me. If I think about them at all, whatever it is they’re doing usually meets my expectations.

But, the closer things get to me, my expectations and my judging mind take over and I begin to choose this-over-that and very few things are ever quite right.

But, outside of my judgmental mind, they are perfect, because they are real.

I woke up to the fact that perfection does indeed describe reality. And, I can choose to sit with that perfection in contentment or chafe with contention, but it doesn’t change the perfection of what is.

To me this is what Suzuki was describing.

~ Scott Kinnaird