Good times with the Wheel of Samsara
Use the Tao to create anything you want
“[The Tao] is always present within you.
You can use it any way you want.” ~Tao Te Ching
The Tao is also known as pure attention, pure faith, emptiness, darkness. If you look deep down within, under the core of who you think you are, you may feel a small tingle, a quiet buzz. Underneath this buzz is nothing – that nothing is what we’re talking about here: the nothing, the space is what allows all to be created. Its energy is inexhaustible and can be used to create all things. You can use it to create whatever you want in life – in fact you have used it to create everything in your life that you are experiencing right now: the good, the bad, and the ugly. With this awareness, the mind suddenly believes it can now go in and radically change its experience to a real life Disneyland. Unfortunately the mind doesn’t understand that the mind is also one of these creations. We must look even deeper than the mind to see what it is that we are creating; to see what it is that we really want to create. Once this is found, you may be surprised to find that there’s really nothing that needs changing – everything’s happening exactly as you want it.
Allowing everything to be as it is. . .but no, really.
What happens when we begin allowing our false sense of self just be as it is? This has always been a good idea in theory for me, but not so easy in practice. Yet, this week this is the focus.
Normally in spirituality, we learn wonderful concepts about suffering and then spend a great deal of time attempting to avoid this suffering based upon our recently acquired awareness. For instance, in Buddhism it is taught that desire creates suffering, attachment to stressful thoughts about the future and past creates suffering, and allowing the ego to reign creates suffering. One is often then inclined to stop desiring, stop attaching to stressful thoughts of the past and future, and keep one’s ego in check. And does it work? Sometimes, but it is a great deal of work and underneath all this work towards ending personal suffering, there is a trend in the opposite direction. The trend is again towards suffering and is itself caused by the *desire* to stop suffering. So thus we see a subtle desire underneath, forgetting of course the basic premise that desire itself causes suffering. Overall, these are cycles of continual and constant traps along the path.
So this week: allowing desires to arise. . . .allowing stressful thoughts of future and past to be entertained . . . allowing the ego to rise and fall as it pleases. Overall . . .allowing everything to be as it is. . .really.
what is true love?
Twenty monks and one nun, who was named Eshun, were practicing meditation with a certain zen master.
Eshun was very pretty even though her head was shaved and her dress plain. Several monks secretly fell in love with her. One of them wrote her a letter, insisting on a private meeting.
Eshun did not reply. The following day the master gave a lecture to the group and when it was over, Eshun arose. Addressing the one who had written her, she said, “If you really love me so much, come and embrace me now.”
——–
Infatuation, desire, longing . . . compare this to unconditional love. Does true love really need to be hidden or masked? Does true love need anything from the object of its attention? Or does true love simply love all the objects of its attention because it can do nothing less?
What we often call love, is really yearning, longing, desire. There’s of course nothing wrong or bad about this – but calling it something which it isn’t can surely lead to confusion and eventually pain. Why not just call a spade a spade and be honest about it? At least this way we have a chance at freedom. Freedom from what? Freedom from the object of our desire – for only when we are free from the objects of our desire can we truly love and appreciate them.
Where do you lay your treasures?
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” ~Jesus
Or as the Buddha said: “All conditioned things are impermanent.”
Where is your attention the majority of the time? Where your attention is, this is where you place your treasures. Is your attention “on earth”, always looking outward? Or is your attention “in heaven,” the realm of within?
If your attention is always without in the conditional world where all things constantly decay and rust. . . great suffering results. If you can manage to bring more and more of your attention within to the condition-less realm of heaven, where no-thing decays or rusts, you’ll find more and more peace, stillness, freedom.
let your enemies win
If you’re smart, you’ll let your foes completely obliterate you. If you’re lucky. . .they will.
Insignificance?
Only when we are willing to accept our complete insignificance do we have even the slightest chance of seeing our immensity:
“With such a small life, with such a small energy source, it is simply stupid to waste it in sadness, in anger, in hatred, in jealousy. Use it in love, use it in some creative act, use it in friendship, use it in meditation: Do something with it which takes you higher. And the higher you go, the more energy sources become available to you. At the highest point of consciousness, you are almost a god.” OSHO