ALIVE OR DEAD?

“Zenfully Quool Quotes”…

Currently featuring “The Art of Living”

By Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

~

When we look at an oak tree,

it may be difficult to imagine that it grew out of an acorn.

Is that acorn still alive?

If it is, then why can’t we see it?

Or does the acorn no longer exist?

If it died,

then how come there is an oak tree now?

The teachings on signlessness help us break free from our

tendency to put things into boxes.

We usually try to fit life into one of four categories:

1. Is it alive?

2. Is it dead?

3. Is it still in the realm of being?

In other words, does it still exist?

4. Has it passed into the realm of nonbeing?

Does it no longer exist?

The truth is that

we can’t fit reality into the categories of “existing” and “not existing.”

Once we’ve touched the ultimate truth,

we see that the categories of “alive” and “dead” don’t apply—

whether it’s to a cloud, an acorn, an electron, a star, ourselves,

or our beloved ones.

Just as we need to liberate ourselves from the idea of

a self, or a human being

that’s different from other living beings,

we also need to liberate ourselves from the

sign and appearance of a life span.

~

Your life span is not limited to seventy, eighty,

or one hundred years,

and that is good news.

Your body is not your True self;

you are much more than this body.

You are life without boundaries.

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Zenfully Quool Quotes Quommantaries by rog

~

I strongly believe in NOT being duped to find solace in this world.

Which apparently goes against how most folks prefer their ‘Bliss’…

But for those that want a deeper more realistic understanding of:

Life, Death, and what’s beyond…

They won’t be satisfied with ‘blind faith’ and being convinced to be

willfully ignorant of life’s most profound aspects.

~

The most popular religions and even the shallow end of Buddhism

Mainly attracts ‘blind faith’ followers.

All these people have been attracted the traditions that

dupe the flock about the most profound aspects of life…

and what’s beyond.

Willingly taking advantage of the mentally vulnerable,

does not do humanity any good service…

In fact,

The harm done is profoundly devastating to any progress

of collectively transcending the human condition towards

a more sustainable world

that strives to live in harmony with each other,

as it reinforces a separateness that leads to “holy” wars

and social discontent.

Pitting one ‘belief’ system against an other in the name of

imaginary ‘sky gods’ and made up myths from the wild imaginations of those

that do not have the higher aspects of a unified humanity in mind.

That all said and stated….

I realized that what Thay (Thich’s friends call him Thay)

and many other wise sages state is beautiful…

but,

Most folks don’t have the deep spiritual background

to even begin to understand these ‘ineffable’ concepts

of our ‘True Self’ and whatever happens after,

especially after a life time of being mislead.

But for those that are not satisfied with a Bliss based on ignorance…

They may hear the calling to undertake a Path into

the ‘deep end’ of spirituality.

The deeper and further along this ‘Path’ one journeys…

The more of a fundamental understanding of the

nature of our True Self and the impermance of all things.

If one has not been duped into misleading commentaries

meant to scare you into blind faith obedience with a fear of a ‘god’

that is supposed to be all loving and pro-life

but will gleefully torture you to death for eons if you piss Him off

by harshing His shallow sensitive fragile egg shell “Divine” imaginary ego.

Then when the time comes when the lessons of Impermanence

are learned by experience of ‘Insights’

after abiding in the higher states of consciousness…

Instead of it being a dreadful experience…

It reveals itself to be Liberating…

A relief to know from the ‘ground of our being’ that…

Everything is Always Already Alright.

To the ‘willfully ignorant’ and mentally vulnerable,

this impermance is a dreadfully horrifying concept…

To misbelieve that we will die and forever cease to exist

as nothing

or worse…

be judged by an angry vengeful ‘god’ that you were told

that if you sinned… He will torture you for countless eons…

is what nightmares are made of for those with this

mistaken identity of being the body-ego-mind with blind faith obedience.

St John of the Cross has written about this extensively in his book

“The Dark Night of the Soul”.

True,

many of the concepts of our True Self, this life, and

how “we” fit into the ‘timeless wonder of it all’…

is the epitome of…

Ineffable. 

Words will never explain it to those

that never question what their traditions mislead them with.

But don’t just take Buddha’s word for it.

There is a psychological change in our mental perspectives that can be observed

when the mind is trained to focus ‘one pointedly’ on only

the object they consciously intend to direct their attention,

and thus their awareness.

Neuroscientists and psychologists have studied how the mind works.

Obviously it’s a very complex process,

but

it can be simplified down to an easy to understand ‘system’.

All of our sense’s ‘report’ to a sort of ‘sub-mind’…

When some object in the peripheral of our awareness

is deemed important enough,

It’s brought to our ‘conscious’ awareness.

Often,

In cases of an emergency,

our sub-conscious tells the hand to let go of the red hot pan

we thought was room temperature…

way before ‘we’ are even conscious of the problem.

This process also allows us to jump out of the way of danger

before it’ too late.

So it is intriguingly so… that

“We” are the last to consciously know what’s going on…

Even though “we” think we are in total control.

When you can get one ‘sub-mind-conscious’

to be ‘on the same page’ as our conscious intentions…

The entire mind system gets more aligned with that conscious intention.

The larger number of sub-minds that are aligned,

then the greater depth of focused concentration one can experience.

During repeated long deep meditation sessions,

The entire mind system is brought closer to ‘Unification’

by achieving an ‘absorption’ of this focused concentration…

Then,

Amazing things begin to unveil themselves.

Such as… for example:

We are all born and raised to misbelieve that there is an “I”

somewhere within “us” that “we” feel is…

in control.

But yet,

Through the use of MRI scanning…

it becomes obvious that “we” are NOT consciously in control of anything.

It has been repeatedly proven that all decisions are made by the sub-conscious

way before they are consciously comprehended.

Through the deep meditative stages,

The mind is pacified to a depth that this fundamental misunderstanding

becomes experimentally shown to …

not exist.

In these deep states of consciousness…

The body and mind and a sense of an “I” within “us” that is in control

becomes sort of “disembodied” from our Awareness.

Repeated practice with these Jhana states of higher consciousness,

reveals a deepening perspective of our True nature. 

The deeper into these states one abides in,

the more liberated one becomes of the pain and suffering caused by

the confusion and ignorance of mistaking our True identity

as a limited ego-mind-body.

Taken to its highest fruition…

The experience leads to a profound Enlightened perspective

that one can never digress back to the old mistaken perspectives

ever again.

This is what all the religions and spiritual traditions originally pointed to…

However,

The most popular path is to dup or be dupped.

By making up myths, magic, and miracles

that obstruct any meaningful progress towards being liberated from

our inherent pain, suffering, and life challenges in this life…

They just make up stories about some sort of imaginary after life

where all will be taken care of and you’ll ether live happily ever after

for the rest of eternity

Or

Be roasted and tortured in a hell realm by an all loving pro-life “god”.

One of the main reasons this absurd option is the most popular of all humanity is…

It’s very simple,

There’s no effort required, nothing to do

but follow along with blind faith obedience.  

If there really ever was something called a sin…

Purposely duping people would be it.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions…

And this dupped-ness is a main factor of such a “hell”… perhaps as destructive as

the millions of people tortured to death to save them from

imaginary devils…

That was so popular with the most popular religion.

Yet,

Even to this day…

Those atrocities are completely over looked by their blind faith followers.

Seems like turning a ‘blind eye’ to the atrocities is a mandatory part of ‘Blind faith’.

It is said that ‘Free Will’ …

Is our Divine right.

How most people use this ‘Divine Free Will’ is nothing less than…

UN-holy.

While people like me that point out the atrocities…

We are considered un-moral because we think torturing one person for “god” is bad.

The torturing to death over 100 million innocents

certainly does not fit their mission statement of being “pro-life”.

Even worse,

Those very same people are now making public policies that affect us all,

especially women.

Use your time in this life for the betterment of all humanity.

Don’t be Duped!

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 “Zenfully Quool Quotes”…

Currently featuring “The Art of Living”

By Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

with my commentary

My aim is to present

a deeper, higher, wider, non-theological perspective

into common sense Spirituality

that most of us folks raised in the ‘west’ never get introduced to,

to fulfill life’s most intriguing questions…