Chapter Seven – YOU!
Chapter Six- The Apointment
Chapter Five – The Meddliing
Chapter Three – It’s Coming!
Chapter Two – The Great Matter
The Red Reticule, Works in Process
Create the Condtions
We might mistake this instruction Create the Conditions to represent a makeover of our house, a clean out of things in the closets and dresser drawers or a pledge to fix things up. No. It is not like that at all. Although it is true, cleanliness is next to godliness, it is not the material conditions we need to focus on to make the spiritual climb. We can give a nod to order, and simplicity and even owning and having less but I assure you those conditions are not what we need to create.
We are encouraged to remember the path of Shakyamuni as the exemplar of what we need to do. Our struggles come to awaken us. Buddha struggled and it was in that struggle he began his search for God, the Dharma. He was a Hindu. A Prince. A father. A man saturated in a spiritual history. But he, himself, struggled. When we can see our struggle as a clarion, a loud and clear trumpet sound of something is amiss, we seek something to remedy it. We look within. We catch that wave and turn it. This turning is turning the Wheel of life and death. And it is, in fact, a matter of life and death.
Something changed Shakyamuni when he saw the suffering from his palace windows. What was it? He realized he, too, was subject to suffering. It was there he turned. He became a seeker. It is what we, each one of us, need to be. A seeker: a big, open-heart seeker.
Once he saw that something was amiss, he was willing to give up everything to find it. He left his wife. His newborn son. His palace. He followed through. Found teachers. Practiced. Awakened.
It was a big makeover. A big emptying out. Each seeker, in his circumstances does a similar thing. It may start small…it may begin with painful struggle that prompts you to seek, to hear and read the teachings. But even a small beginning of seeking requires an emptying out, a makeover of time, commitments, and activities. We must make room for contemplation like we make room to learn anything. Something must give, for the help to come.
We choose to create the conditions in our mind. Even before we learn anything, we must decide we want to learn. We must choose to want to hear and listen in order to turn and face the light. This step is a beginner’s step, but woe to those who skip it.
We take to heart the teachings. Assess them in our own way. We seek help. We study ourselves.
Here is an exercise you might try. Study what you find yourself getting involved in during the day. And pay close attention to the responses that show up inside of you as you meet the many things that come up.
Are your responses an array of attachment; hate and fear? If yes, you know the non-self (ego) is attempting to get hold of things. Stop and ask yourself if it was the non-self (ego) that got involved in the first place.
In other words, were there strings of attachment, hate and fear tied to your involvement from the get-go? If yes, then the effects will be coming accordingly. You may feel edgy, anxious, off kilter from even the tiniest grasp of the non-self.
This cause-and-effect cycle will continue on and on until enlightenment….in the meantime, turn towards the Light when the effects arrive which is a sure-fire way to dissipate the shadowy effects that have come. In a visual sense place your mind above, on the high bird until there is only ONE bird in the tree…which is after all is your True nature. STOP the mind reaching for or pushing away something you want or do not want. All happiness is in the High bird. And the High bird does not get involved with things with strings.
For Those Who Know the Story of Angulimala – Remember: What did Buddha STOP when he encountered the finger necklace thief? Buddha stopped the pleasures and pains of the non-self, leaving only the flow of Light which shines on everything without discrimination.
CAUTION: If you pretend to be the High bird, trouble of all sorts will follow.
Author: FaShi Lao Yue
If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching, please contact the editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com
How to Survive the Collapse of the Silver Lining
Only the Truth and Nothing But the Truth…
So Help Me
All created things are impermanent.
That’s really quite a mouthful. But I’ll continue.
All created things are suffering.
Well, that too is true.
I am a created thing.
Do you know that is true for you.
I am impermanent.
We constantly forget about our upcoming death.
I am suffering.
When I foolishly attach to all these temporary things such as mind and body.
Huh.
Stick with this.
So revealed.
Read it again.
A liitle gasp.
That is to be.
And then, well there you have it.
Confession at last.
And like a bag of hot air deflated.
Humph.
So, NO worries.
It’s time to go to work.
Walk.
Sit Down.
Breathe.
Lungs fill and empty.
Chest moves.
Hands tap the keys.
Head a little tilted.
Smiling now.
All accepting.
www.asinglethread.net – www.zatma.org
If you want to chat or ask a question, write to yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com.
May you be willing to study your actions and practice.
All One Cloth
We all are powered from somewhere else. Consider it.
All one power grid or separate bits and pieces of power grids?
Are you a separate being or part of a whole?
Do we share the power of existence or not?
We act as though we are separate, different and worst of all, measurable. This type of separation and discrimination leads to what we call the rat race.
Competition follows.
The rat race requires competition for power, wealth and the various trophies of success. We view the other as a rival. This race is not based on how you play the game, no, it is based on the desire to win the prize of the game no matter what.
It is a terrible way to live.
We have been conditioned to think that there is not enough to go around and that there is never enough power and wealth. We are conditioned to train and compete for as many prizes as we can get.
It rests on an every one for himselfattitude.
The question to ask is “to what end?”
Ambition is a desire to achieve and attain something in the material world over and above the the other. We seek to be triumphant; to get a piece of the pie. We are conditioned to use our innate desire to achieve and attain some type of success. Thinking otherwise, one is labeled as lazy, negligent, slothful.
There is another approach. An approach that relies on the recogntion of the truth of the human condition. It is hard for us to imagine living a life without a desire to achieve, attain and acquire, but it is not impossible.
There is a way to live that rests on a purpose that is a rational and spiritual understanding of our existence and not on the three ambitions, to achieve, attain and acquire material and ego-centered success. It rests on an understanding of our situation that is everpresent but overlooked and buried by the predominance of human ambition and conditoning.
The other way requires that we humans turn away from the controlling ambitious-seeking lifestyle. It requires that we study ourselves with a serious consideration of the reason for our existence.
Is it really to live to achieve, attain and acquire or is there a reason, an intention and a different motivation that is buried beneath this main principle of getting and having things and dominating others?
This turning away requires a willingness to study our life against the stream of acquisition and acheievements. A willingness to purify our mind is most important.
It requires that we realize the four truths of our existence. These truths are everpresent and obvious.
The Inevitables: Birth. Aging. Sickness. Death.
A body is born of life, changes over time, gets sick or injured and eventually dies.
What part of life suffers the inevitables? All of life suffers from these powerful forces. No life exists outside them. Existence is all one cloth. Our failure to know this for ourselves rests on the covering of conditioning. We are conditoned to seek from the external world – the apparent reality. Our focus is on the surface and outward appearances. But in so doing, we fail to realize the importance of the inevitables and think of ourselves as separate from existence.
Our true nature does not suffer from the inevitables.
We are not manufactured although the current view is to see life as one would see a machine; but we are not mechanical, digital or artificial.
The Essence: Spiritual. Whole. Nonmaterial. Immutable. Unborn. Undying.
Our death and rebirth come in every moment, but we may miss it because we attend to the unreal, material things. We hurry and worry about in reckless wishes that we will go on here forever. We flop into a hazy, laziness simply because we forget to listen, to understand and to know that there is THAT which is spiritual, whole, nonmaterial, immutable, unborn, and undying.
There are a few simple questions worth asking and studying for ourselves.
Do you know that you suffer birth, aging, sickness and death? Or do you ignore it?
Do you know that all life suffers birth, aging, sickness and death? Or do you not care?
Do you know your true nature? Or do you think of yourself as a mechanical body and mind that is a single entity made of manmade material that disappears at death?
The work is to give your very best without seeking a reward.
We are one cloth, powered from somewhere else. Consider it.
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