A person carries an image of himself.  Whenever we act in a way that is outside of this image, if we get angry or upset somehow, we go and apologize to someone.  "I'm sorry.  THAT is not how I am.  It was a weak moment." 

Actually if we consider it honestly, we are not really apologizing.  If we really repented, really felt sorry for being angry, we would not do it again!  We are really just repairing our self-image.  A good person will not be angry, violent, sexual and weak!  So we apologize to bring our egos back in check.  "Look!  I have apologized.  I am a humble person.  I didn't mean it.  It was a rare moment.  Really I am a glory of spiritual strength!"

The appearances are not always so, appearance is not reality.  We feel now just if we repent we are now clean to do it again tomorrow.  We live very protective of our egos and beneath we are fragile to the core.  We are always building fences, walls to guard us and keep us safe, allowing some in and many out! 

Those that support our ego are in!  And those that do not are out!  We do this filtering with everything, not just people.  What we read, what we hear, what we say and believe all are filtered to support the ego.

Chances to grow and change are happening every day!  Again and again we get chances to see ourselves honestly and grow, but we do not see or hear them.  We are thinking something else inwardly, and what is being said on the periphery is not heard.  We reject it as "not us."  By rejecting our fragility, we also reject our growth.

Keep it always in mind.   It is not an insult to know this.  When you accept your fragility, you can grow, you can then see the way that can assist you in becoming strong.  Then you can truly, honestly repent anger, you really repent.  You never do it again.  You see it as your weakness, your fragility..and in this moment you become stronger, more responsible. 

If you continually shore up the ego, you can never truly see what you are.   Learning to listen and accept that we are in some places fragile to the core!...and I said 'some' just to be kind...not to hurt the ego too much (big smile). 

It is beautiful to be honest and see ourselves truly. 

It seems our entire lives are based on "if."  'If such and such a thing happens in a certain way, then happiness will be mine.'

No matter our life condition about one thing is clear: happiness is possible, only the conditions for it need to be fulfilled.

But the funny thing is anyone who makes terms and conditions in life can never attain happiness.

Only a person who realizes the truth that happiness is not possible in this world will find happiness.

A person who thinks that it is simply a question of managing certain conditions in order to find happiness, will only find newer and newer sorrows.

The very word 'if' becomes the block.  A person who talks like this, who is driven to meet all these conditions have yet to have their desires and aspirations shattered.  It is the shattering of the dreams, illusions and desires that reality can dawn.

This realization happened to Lord Buddha.  He realized that having a kingdom was futile, that searching for happiness in this world is futile, that even seeking the beyond is futile.

Seeking is futile.

Happiness can be attained only by those free of 'if.'  Whatever preconditions that lie are the very blocks to the happiness you seek.

It is when a person drops all 'ifs' and preconditions that they will realize they have the kingdom and all its joys and pleasures right here, right now.

In the West, we have inquired into every possible way to free ourselves from anxiety.  And the more we search there appears to be no way out.  No visible way.  Not that a way does not exist.  The way does exist.  

Here in the West, man is now very educated on being in the now.  Man is lodged into the moment.  And this movement has been beneficial.  Nothing happens accidentally in the universe.  Even when a flower blossoms, there is a long chain of reasons behind it.  And that the West has been taken by the power of now has a universal significance. 

Yet this revelation cannot be taken as the path.  We must not become victims to any guru who labels his or her inquires and questions as answers and assumes his ignorance is wisdom.  

The purpose of man is to continually reach beyond himself.  Man's potential is to go beyond himself.  If we look at man from the animal side, then he appears to have evolved.  And if we look at him from the godly side, he appears to be diseased.   

Nietzche says, "Unfortunate will be the day when man gives up his desires to go beyond himself.  Unfortunate will be the day when the arrow that takes man beyond man will not be drawn on this bow.  Unfortunate will be the day when man will be satisfied with just being a man."   

Man is not the resting place.  He must transcend himself.   We must not take the 'now' as our ultimate goal, but our own transcendence of the intense anxiety and inner despair. 

The fact of our growth is it is only when you fall into a state of intense despair does a path begin to appear.  Your very efforts to search for the light in this dense, deep darkness is the growth.  

The path is not laid out clear for anyone.  Each person's path is unknown, without a map.  It is unchartered, one has to discover it and walk.  One has to create the path by walking it.  And there are all the mistakes and errors, and every possibility of going astray on the path.  But it is those who walk, those who go astray, who become lost, who fall down, suffer and go through pain - at times intense pain - that reach.  

And it is in this pain, in this reaching that it becomes clear whether or not the desire for light is connected with profound courage, an intense aspiration and a tremendous determination or whether one is going to become adjusted.   

It is in intense crisis that one becomes eager for integration.  It is your courage, intensity and determination that will determine your growth.  It will not be the marvelous truths of the Gita, the Bible, Koran, the Tao Te Ching, the Power of Now that will transcend you.  It will be your courage, intensity and determination to find light.  

Your very life is the preparation to take you beyond.  Its every step is a preparation for encountering supreme truth.   

And a person who is unable to gather the strength and courage to encounter their life will seek two option: to entirely escape or become adjusted to the crisis.  And the latter, to me, is far more dangerous.  We go on adjusting ourselves up to the last moment, until death is knocking at our door.  We reconcile ourselves and no revolution takes place.  

Don't go on adjusting yourselves.  It is the one who struggles and goes through the fire and heat of this world and comes out with total understanding, transcendence, that is utterly worthy to be called "Spiritual Master."

Life is challenge every moment.  Whatever that challenge may bring, whatever that challenge may unfold, wherever that challenge may lead, it is accepted.

Life is a challenge every moment, and the one who does not accept this is dead - even though he is still living.  Many die years ahead of their burial!

Living means accepting the challenges every moment. But this challenge can also be accepted in two ways: it can be with anger, and then it becomes a reaction; or the acceptance can be with happiness, delight and joy and then it becomes a response.

Be ready for the call, for the challenge, that comes from the whole.  Your everyday is a calling, a calling to meet the challenge.  Be willing, even to fight (!), be willing to live whatever your day as brought as an instrument of existence. 

And if you know yourself as an instrument of existence, then it is right even if you meet defeat.  You can rejoice even in your defeat, if you are acting as an instrument of existence.

Pure love is a very small percentage of what one experiences in love affairs.  A very small percentage is pure love.  The larger part of love is fighting, insecurities, anger, jealousies, possessiveness.  Before you can experience pure love, you must go through many purifications. 

In love affairs, the larger part crushes the small percentage of pure love that is existing in the heart.  And after a few experiences, after one has been burnt a few times, one becomes very weary, tired. One begins to feel it is not worth the hassle to enter and allow themselves to be in love again. 

So to avoid love people start moving toward pure sex because sex does not give you the same problems, the same hassle. It seems far more convenient and you are not taken to such hells as you are in love.  But of course you also do not experience the beauty of love.

To enter into sex with someone is easy.  Being in love is not so easy.  But that is because your heart is involved.  And it is immensely significant when you start having your heart stir, when you are experiencing a true movement within your heart, because the heart is yours. The heart is what cannot be borrowed or sold. It is the gateway to your being.  The head is not yours.  It was given to you by society.  The head is a utility, a good mechanism for survival.  But you cannot enter yourself through it.

If you put an armour around your heart you block the emotions. Then the 'other', the lover, the friend remains distant.  Even if there is sex, even if you say to one another 'I love you."  There is no meeting.  You remain isolated as ever.  If you take that armour down your heart will melt, it will melt into the other, and the two hearts commune. 

Everybody has suppressed so much emotion, so much hurt, resentment, sadness, pain, anger, sexuality.  All these negative emotions crushing the love.

And it is only a matter of intelligence that we would be tired of this, feel the fear of entering again.  We get very nervous.  And we get nervous because love comes from the unconscious. And the unconscious is 99 percent of you.  Only one percent is conscious.  We try to stay in the one percent to avoid the 99.  We are more comfortable staying with knowledge than with the unknown.  And love arises from the deep unknown, from your unconscious and we don't know how to handle it. Yet this is where LIFE comes from.  This is where the adventure comes from - entering the unknown - the unknown self.

This is why people become dull and dead.  They are afraid of love, afraid of the unconscious.  When the unconscious arises there so much confusion.  Your nice orderly way of being is put into chaos.  You cannot control the unconscious. 

Allow it.  Allow it.  Otherwise you live life as a Pinochio...not yet a real boy.

And, of course it is good to have conscious control and order, it is good to have the head to maneuver.  But also allow yourself to enter the unknown.  LIfe consist of both. It takes a very courageous person to enter love, to allow the unconscious to rise.  You must be willing over and over to allow.   To enter love means to enter insecurity.  You don't know what will arise. Yet if you remain aware you get wonderful opportunities every moment to purify your heart of all the other rubbish that is suppressed and one day you experience life with pure love.  The one percent is now 99. 

Then your love is open...

"What is truly needed is a circumcision of the heart." jesus

You have separated the wheat from the shaft.

Your heart

is open. 

Your love is pure.

 

 

Bodhidharma's name stands out amongst all the Buddhist enlightened people second only to Guatam Buddha.  I met this man when I was about 18.  I fell deeply in love.  He stays in my heart at every moment.  I love him so deeply, I fall into silence just to hear his name.   He is my hero.  "I will stand by you forever.  .....my hero."

I had wished to share a little about the man and in the below blog,"The Practice You Cultivate Doesn't Exist Apart from Your Mind" some about his teaching.

Bodhidharma was born fourteen centuries ago as a son of a king in the south of India.  He was born into a big empire, the empire of Pallavas.  He was the third son of his father, and a man of great intelligence.  He was not against the world, but he was not ready to waste his time in mundane affairs. He renounced the kingdom.  His whole concern was to know his self-nature, because without knowing it you have to accept death as the end.

His father was hoping he would be the successor to his empire.  And at that time times were quite beautiful in the east.  But Bodhidharma renounced the kindgdom saying to his father, "If you cannot save me from death, then please don't prevent me.  Let me go in search of something that is beyond death."  The father thought for a moment and he said, "I will not prevent you, because I cannot prevent your death.  You go on your search with all my blessings. It is sad for me but that is my problem; it is my attachment."

Bodhidharma was a follower of Gautam Buddha.  And even though Guatam Buddha was quite reluctant to initiate women, Bodhidharma believed strongly that women could become enlightened.  He was even initiated by an enlightened woman named Pragyatra.  It was she who ordered Bodhidharma to go to China.  Bodhidharma was courageous enough to be initiated by a woman on the path of Guatam Buddha.  There were other enlightened people, but he chose a woman for a certain purpose.  And the purpose was to show that a woman can be enlightened.  Not only that, her disciples can be enlightened.

Bodhidharma did not accept many disciples.  He was a very choosy man.   Of the two million Buddhist in China at that time, he accepted only four worthy to be accepted as his disciple.  And it is a matter of fact that upon entering China he sat looking at a wall for nine years!  Nine years facing a wall.  He made it a great meditation.  He would just simply go on looking at the wall.  He declared to the audience that would sit behind him "Unless somebody who deserves to be my disciple comes, I will not look at the audience."

So people used to come and sit behind him, not knowing what to do.  Yet Bodhidharma would not turn to face them.  He said, "The audience hurts me more, because it is just like wall.  Nobody understands, and to look at human beings in such an ignorant state hurts deeply.  But to look at the wall, there is no question; a wall, after all is a wall.  It cannot hear, so there is no need to be hurt.  I will turn to face the audience only if somebody proves by his actions that he is ready to be my disciple."

Nine years passed.  People could not find what to do, what action would satisfy him. They could not figure it out.  Then came this young man, Hui Ko. He cut off one of his hands with a sword, and threw the hand before Bodhidharma and said, "This is the beginning. Either you turn, or my head will be falling before you.  I am going to cut my head too."

Bodhidharma turned and said, "You are really a man worthy of me. No need to cut the head, we have to use it." This man, Hui Ko, was his first disciple.

One day when he intended to leave China he called his four disciples to question them and decide which one would be his successor.  After questioning them he chose Hui Ko as his successor.  But in the night Bodhidharma was poisoned by some disciple as a revenge, because he had not been chosen as the successor. So they buried him.  And after three years a governmental official came upon Bodhidharma barefoot walking out of China towards the Himalayas with his staff in his hand and one of his sandals hanging from the staff.  The official had known him, and loved him deeply.  He asked, "What is the meaning of this staff, and one sandal hanging from it?"  Bodhidharma said, "Soon you will know.  If you meet my people just tell them that I'm going into the Himalayas forever."

The official reached the monastery where his people resided.  And there he heard that Bodhidharma had been poisoned and he had died.  And the tomb was there.  He said, "My God, but I have seen him, and I cannot be deceived because I have seen him many times. He was the same man, those ferocious eyes, that same fiery and wild look, and on top of that, he was carrying on his staff one sandal."

The disciples opened the tomb.  And all they could find there was only one sandal.  Then the official knew the meaning of the words, "You will find out the meaning of it; soon you will know."

We have heard about Jesus' resurrection, but not much is said about the resurrection of Bodhidharma.  There is no other knowledge of him after his departure to the Himalayas.  He must be buried in the eternal snows of the Himalayas somewhere.

  "Am I in too deep?  Have I lost my mind?".....

"And would you save my soul tonight?"....

I had wanted to share about Bodhidharma, first the man and now briefly some of his message.    

These quotes I have taken from different talks Bodhidharma gave to his disciples.  They are not given to you in the order he said them.  I have chosen to place them in a certain order to concentrate the point I wished to share:

 The Practice You Cultivate Doesn't Exist Apart from Your Mind

Quotes of Bodhidharma:

"Everything good and bad comes from your own mind."  "All karma, painful or otherwise, comes from your own mind.  If you can just concentrate your mind and transcend its falsehood, the suffering of existence will automatically disappear.  And once free from suffering, you're truly free."  "Don't cling to appearances.  Wherever you find delight, you find bondage." "If you seek direct understanding, don't hold on to any appearance whatsoever, and you'll succeed.  I have no other advice." "No advantage in fooling yourself.  Good and bad are distinct. Cause and effect are clear to see." 

What Bodhidharma is telling us is that thinking gives you a limit.  Whatsoever you think, this becomes your reality, your experience.   Thoughts come from your mind, every thought you have is a by-product of your mind.  It is your attitude, your speculation, your reaction, your prejudice, but it is not existence itself.  It is not reality with the big "R".  It is your limited reality.  And you cannot experience anything beyond your own thoughts.  You are trapped by your own thinking.  When you have a certain thought, that thought becomes your barrier between you and reality.  People believe that they can simply rearrange the furniture, rearrange their thought system and be free, and this is not true.  Any thought system that you hold becomes a limit, becomes an entrapment.  Sooner or later one wishes to be totally free.

To become religious means that now you are going to give up your limited thinking, your limited view.  Becoming religious means that you are not satisfied with the reality you are projecting, that you are ready now to know the truth of your being, to see reality as it truly is. Being religious means that now you are ready to face your eternal body, to face eternal reality.  Everybody says they want the truth, but nobody really wants it.  To become religious means you are now going to live without 'your' mind.  You will surrender and become empty.   You will not cling to any appears that you have produced from your thinking.  

Bodhidharma says:  (and again I have taken these quotes and placed them in a certain order) "To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss."  "People are deluded.  They are unaware that their own mind is the buddha.  Otherwise they wouldn't look for a buddha outside the mind."  "If people weren't deluded why would they ask about something right in front of them?"  "Awareness is not hidden. But you can only find it right here and now." "You should realize that the practice you cultivate does not exist apart from your mind." "Whoever talks about leaving the mind doesn't get very far." "People who don't see their nature and imagine they can practice thoughtlessness all the time are liars and fools."  "Using your mind to look for reality is delusion.  Not using the mind to look for reality is awareness."  "The buddha is your real body - your original mind."

The body is not only the body, a deeper body is the mind.  Body consists of matter, mind also consists of matter - subtle, more refined, but still matter.  We can detach from the body easier because of its gross form, but the mind is more difficult to detach from because of its subtle nature.  Bodhidharma says "Mind is subtle and hard to see."  Mind is your inner layer.  It is very near to you.  Please remember both body and mind are not you.  The body will die, but the eternal you will not die.  In death your outer body drops, but you carry the inner, subtle layer with you.  You are so attached to it that even at death you are not separated from your mind, from the subtle body.  And not only is the mind of this life contained within your body, but your past lives also. Layers and layers of subtle mind within you. You are so attached to them that you never lose the grip.  In death the outer dissolves, but the vibration of your mind, your thought vibrations carry with you and you create and enter a new body according to the thought pattern.

That's why meditation is considered an even deeper death than the physical death.  And there is a deep fear to transcend mind, even deeper fear than losing the body.  People can easily become detached from body, but not so easily from their mind.  Great courage is needed to be empty, without any support.  You must die to your mind, allow it to dissolve and melt.  You must have courage to die.  And once you die to your mind, you are born anew, you are resurrected, a new person.  You cannot even find a trace of the old.  Now you will never again be identified with the old mind.  You will use the mind, but you will never again become identified with it.  It will become an instrument.  Right now you are the instrument and the mind is the master.  You believe and do whatever it says.

"To give up yourself without regret is the greatest charity."

So if you are truly interested in Reality, in knowing the truth of your existence there is no other place to seek outside of your mind.  So many people say they are interested in meditation, but that interest is not very deep because no one is being transformed by it.  No one wants to let go of themselves.  That means we are deceiving ourselves, hoping we can find some way to rearrange the mind and feel blissful, liberated.  "Not to be subject to affliction is what is meant by liberation." 

The new mind cannot be a continuity with the old mind.  The old must discontinue, must go.  Only then can you experience the new come into being.  But we are afraid.  We want to be transformed but at the same time, we want to remain the old, we want to cling to mind and what we know as true.  This is the deception.  This is why so few become transformed by meditation, by practice. 

Sometimes mind is so cunning that it will create superficial interests so we can say to ourselves, Look!.  I am changing, I am transforming...meditating, doing whatever I can do.  And we remain the same.

"You cannot know your real mind as long as you deceive yourself.  As long as you are enthralled by a lifeless form, you're not free." "Once you stop clinging and let things be, you'll be free, even of birth and death.  You'll transform everything.  You'll possess spiritual powers that can't be obstructed.  And you'll be at peace wherever you are."

"...the practice you cultivate doesn't exist apart from your mind." "If you have not awakened to this great truth you'd better look for a teacher on earth or in the heavens.  Don't compound your own deficiency."

May every being be at peace wherever they are!

The practice you cultivate does not exist apart from your mind. 

Thank you, Bodhidharma.

  

Being in love is embarrassing.  There's a subtle bondage when in love.  Yet it is absolutely necessary if you want to grow, become deeply yourself, authentic.

I say love is embarrassing because when you feel authentic love, you go to give this love, and suddenly you are so surprised, so much else is coming out...anger, childishness, frustration, insecurity.  Oh!  Not exactly what you had in mind to express your love.  Yet if you do not express these feelings, you cannot express the love.  They are intrinsically interrelated.  A person who cannot express their anger, their childish feelings, cannot express love.  They are the same energy.  It's You.  It's what you have been carrying around in you, in your soul.  At first it is embarrassing, but you will mature!  Love helps one mature...and there's a feeling of freedom and blissfulness from knowing and becoming truly who you are.

You cannot express just what you want.  Either you have to express all or repress all.  The choice is not what to express or repress.  The choice is rather will you express or repress your whole being.  You cannot separate who you are into good and bad, acceptable and nonacceptable.  So to avoid this pain of being authentic, of looking so immature, of showing what you really are, we protect ourselves by becoming superficial, but it is at a great cost.  You miss the very truth of yourself that is within you and the release that acceptance and love can bring.

When you go deep into love you become so wild.  Only god knows what will come out of you!  You lose your civilized way of being and you can find out that you are mad.  The madness just hidden beneath the surface.  It is true for most everyone. So we must stay superficial, or else....or else you are very embarrassed!!!  How to explain this?  It is love.  I love you....now here I am, here I come.  One trembles in their boots.  You know you're not acceptable.  Yet love always says yes...yes....yes...I accept this.  I love you.  To know another is very exciting.

In this way love is a liberation.  When love comes to deep acceptance there's an ecstasy, you are known and loved.  You come to know another and love them deeply, the anger, the frustration, the laughter, the tears, all is allowed, both in yourself and in the other.  Acceptance is love.

But it takes a very mature love for this to happen.  Usualy love is codependence.  That is what the majority of lovers are experiencing.  Two people dependent on each other, clinging and demanding.  Another kind of love is where the two stay very separate, two independent people staying themselves but sharing.  This kind of love is better maybe - I say maybe - but still there is misery, something is missing, a lack of depth.

The mature kind of love, the love that brings the most satisfaction is one of interdependence.  It does not happen often, but it can.  When two people, neither dependent nor independent find a tremendous harmony, synchronicity, as if each is breathing for the other.  They somehow complete each other.  They are still someone utterly themselves, yet one with each other.  This I call love.  This I call love.  This love has a strong spiritual quality, a blissfulness.  It creates a center within and one experiences a certain peace.

And this kind of love does have a certain feeling of bondage, a subtle feeling of not being totally free.  You're not totally independent, but not dependent.  Yet I have learned that you cannot get anything for free.  You must be willing to give of yourself.  Nothing is free. And the more willing you are to give, the more you get out of it.  And if you are willing to risk everything, you will get a glimpse of meditation.  If you can give yourself totally you get a glimpse of no-mind.  Love gives you a glimpse of no-self, no mind.  Love can show you the bliss of being without self, surrendered, a total yes.....oh, I love being a total yes!

And that to me is the ultimate growth - to be able to say yes, yes, yes.  When you can say yes to life, to love, there's a tremendous freedom and joy.  No hesitation, no strings.  Just purely..I love you.  Just simply...I love you.  Living and learning along the way.  It brings a great sensitivity to your being.  You become mature.  And with that you feel blissful, yet with a great sensitivity, you also feel the pain, the suffering.

Oh, again, Love is very embarrassing.  Love does a work on you!  You don't have to try or do the work.   The work comes from your very being.  You just being you, and love does its work on you.  But you must be unafraid - risk and explore and go deeply into the adventure, into the darkness of yourself and the other.

Love is searching the unknown of one another...the bliss is being known and loved for who you are.

To know someone deeply is so beautiful.....

You are so beautiful