True Spirituality Starts With Using Your Intelligence and Critical Mind
“Zenfully Quool Quotes”
By Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh
~
At the time of the Buddha,
there were countless religious and spiritual teachers,
each advocating a different spiritual path and practice,
and each claiming their teachings were the best and the most correct.
One day a group of young people came to ask the Buddha,
“Of all these teachers, whom should we believe?”
“Don’t believe anything, not even what I tell you!” replied the Buddha.
“Even if it’s an ancient teaching,
even if it’s taught by a highly revered teacher.
You should use your intelligence and critical mind
to carefully examine everything you see or hear.
And then
put the teaching into practice to see if it helps liberate you
from your suffering and your difficulties.
If it does,
you can believe in it.”
If we want to be a soulmate of the Buddha,
(or in the True ‘spirit’ of Christ Conscious…)
we need to have a discriminating,
critical mind like this.
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rog note;
Not much has changed with religions and traditions
these days since the Buddha made this statement.
For anyone inspired to learn the Ultimate Truths of the
perennial philosophic questions of life…
Like:
What is the meaning of Life?
What is the meaning of my life and
the relationships of all life past, present and beyond this life? ….
One must use their own intelligence and critical thinking.
Then,
Put those lessons into a ‘Life Practice’…
If it bears the Fruit of Full Enlightenment
and thus
Liberation from the inherent pain and suffering caused by the
ignorance and confusion of mistaking our True Self
with our ego-mind-body…
Then,
and only then, can an aspirant conclude that…
They have found the ‘skillful means’ of a ‘Right Way’.
Even then,
Know that there are an infinite number of of ‘Right Ways’…
The one that is best for you, is the one that bear’s fruit.
Any religion or belief system that tells you that
only their way is the only way…
Then know…
That religion or belief system is very wrong.
And if they are wrong about that statement…
Ask yourself:
“What else are they wrong about”.
~
Most reasonable folks think that torturing to death someone is…
wrong.
Then,
Torturing over 100 million people for a religion or
their projection of ‘god’ should be considered…very wrong.
Again,
If a religion or a belief system is wrong about their history of atrocities
of torturing to death others while insisting that they are
‘pro-life’… is an obvious contradiction…
wrong twice in one statement.
Ask yourself,
“What else are they wrong about?
~
For those that are truly inspired to learn more about their
‘Divine’ connection to ‘all that is’…
They will not be so inclined to
simply take someone else’s word for it.
There will be one of two paths that must be considered.
One path,
the path that most folks tend to take for various convenient reasons is:
A belief system,
In which one is instructed NOT to find their own
personal connection to ‘Divinity’,
they must take someone else’s word for it.
Just have ‘Blind Faith’ that
the imaginations of those who made all this up was correct
despite all the obvious contradictions and atrocities
that were committed in their past.
~
There are many reasons why this is still the most popular choice…
The church instilled a very deep sense of fear into their flock.
The fear that the all loving pro-life ‘god’ will tortured you for eternity if you piss Him off.
Most people seem to have a strong ‘superstition’.
Even those that are not normally taken in by naïve superstitions…
Go along with the fear factor… “Just in case”… they’ll say.
Fear, along with ‘tradition’ are two powerful influencers of
what was supposed to be “Divine Free Will’.
There is no such thing in an organized religion,
but the church will make you ‘believe’ there is
at the same time they are denying you from it.
So,
If a certain religion was a dominating factor in your family, town or country…
Then,
There is no free will to intelligently use critical thinking and
to actually make an informed choice in the matter.
Wars were fought between Christians over this… ‘tradition’
when one country wages war against another country
just over which denomination is more all loving, pro-lie and …
POWERFUL !
It’s even more insidious when a country wages war on it’s own people
for the same insane reason.
;-o
A good percentage of those that are drawn towards a ‘belief system’
embraces ‘willful ignorance’ and or denial.
They are willfully ignorant of the contradictions of their religion and or
in denial that such horrid atrocities were committed.
It’s no coincidence that demagogue politicians hold a similar sway over their supporters
like a bad religion does…
especially when that religion considers this pathetic excuse for a human
to be their guiding light…
their new messiah, the 2cd cumming of Jesus :-O
Despicable!
Philosopher Ken Wilber points out that
the depth of one’s evolution determines the direction of their spiritual pursuit
or lack of a meaningful Spiritual endeavor,
preferring a belief system …
that is about as opposite of True Spirituality as it gets.
~
The next popular reason to meander down this path…
Is basically… Laziness.
Most folks that blabber on & on about how they are sooooo into ‘god’,
Yet,
Absolutely refuse to find the volition to engage the ‘Right Effort’
to actually find out for themselves,
right now in the ‘here & now’ time on Earth.
They are perfectly content to wait until they die…
Get to the “pearly gates” and just say one syllable
when asked the big question from St. Peter…
“Yup”…
That’s all they think they have to do.
Because it’s a whole lot easier than…
The other Path.
~
The other Path:
Is to begin learning about a broad spectrum of knowledge
from those that have personally attained what would seem like
a ‘Divine essence’.
It’s one thing to state that the churches’ flock
must blindly follow their tradition,
but yet quite another for one to
“Walk the Talk”.
Then,
After an aspirant learns Wisdoms from an ever-increasing circle of
Spiritually inspiring people
that have put in the ‘Right Effort’ to gain what will be noticed as a
‘Divine Essence’…
Then take note of the ones that may be teaching or practicing these
Spiritual lessons in different ways, but yet,
all point towards the same outcome with an
undividable and un-differing understanding.
This Spiritual “Path” consists of basically
‘Three Pillars’ of development.
The lessons one learns in a conventional manner
will instill a common theme of:
Morals, Virtues, compassion, Joy, Bliss and unconditional love
for all humanity.
Not just for the folks at their particular church, but for…
all humanity.
Also to be learned by ‘conventional wisdom’ is:
Spiritual philosophy, and
a balanced psychological perspective.
These all combine to help form
spiritual intelligence and critical thinking.
One metric for one’s progress at this point is:
The ability to take the perspectives of others into consideration.
Lower psychological developed people can’t do this,
they are stuck in a self-centered narcissistic way of
looking at themselves and all others.
The 2cd aspect of the “Path” is:
Meditation.
The ancient Christian mystics, like the Desert Fathers and
St. John of the Cross used to do a lot of the same Spiritual inquires
in deep states of meditation very similar to the other Spiritual traditions like
Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, Zen, Tibetan Bon, Dzogchen…
But,
The church realized that allowing individuals
to find their own path to Divinity
would eliminate their ‘middleman’ operation
and would cut into their mandatory tax free donations…
So,
Meditation was adamantly discouraged.
Although a unique austere form of the Catholic church called
the Trappists,
were allowed to spend most of their time in deep contemplative meditation,
that very much resembles Vipassana insight meditations the
Buddhist and Hindu traditions do…
Mainly because these were all dedicated monks…
not the general flock.
But those ancient Christian monks that practiced this form of meditation
experienced the same states of consciousness
that all the other deeply meditative traditions did.
So,
Here’s how ya do it:
In order to achieve
the highest states of consciousness a human can attain,
starts with basic meditation.
This trains the mind to focus attention and thus directing awareness
deliberately on the object of their conscious choice
as opposed to allow our monkey mind to jump around like…
caffeinated monkeys.
Neuroscience further explains this process by
outlining the various ‘sub-conscious’ minds
that do most of the processing our brains do.
Our conscious mind…
is actually the last step in a “thought process”…
In other words,
“We” are the last step in knowing what’s going on.
The 3rd aspect or “Pillar of Wisdom” is:
Insight meditation.
Once the mind is pacified, or purified so that
it does not waiver from our intended object of focus…
Then amazing things happen in meditation.
We can then begin to enter the higher states of human consciousness.
During these states:
There is no thinking going on…
Just awareness.
As this process develops,
A deepening sense of
Joy, Happiness, Bliss and then Equanimity is experienced.
Within this process,
one learns by experience a sort of disembodied awareness.
The feeling of having or being “the body”
loses its grasp on our perspective.
While in these states…
There is no conventional thinking goin on…
It’s just a Joy, that turns into a Happiness, that turns into a Bliss …
Then all that gives way to
the boundless spaciousness of Equanimity.
A feeling that nothing is desired or drawn to
because everything one can desire is Always Already Alright…
at least in this state.
~
Only when this state is over can the meditator even begin to
Contemplate on that experience.
With time and practice,
the sense of being an ego-mind-body is replaced with
the Enlightening aspect of “Self-Realization”.
Pursued to it’s fullest Fruition of Enlightenment,
one is never again confused by mistaking themselves to be
a limited ego-mind-body and one is forever Liberated from
the inherent pain and suffering resulting from the
consequences of that ignorance.
This Liberation is boundless.
It also takes away the fears of all life’s concerns and
even the concerns of what happens after the story of ‘us’ ends
with the death of the body.
And,
One can enjoy a perpetual solace of knowing that
all our transcended loves one are also
Always Already Alright.
So,
For those that have the ability to exercise their ‘Divine Right of Free will’…
The two paths of Life become…
Simply obvious.
But,
Just because it’s simple…
Doesn’t mean that it’s easy.
Amen, Namaste, Peace.
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“Zenfully Quool Quotes”…
Currently featuring “The Art of Living”
By Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh
Non-Theological Common-Sense Spirituality Commentary by rog