“Zenfully Quool Quotes”
Currently featuring “The Art of Living”
By Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh
When you are facing a great challenge or difficulty in your life,
it may not be easy to get in touch with the simple joys
that are inherent in our True Nature.
You may find yourself wondering,
“What is the meaning of it all?”
You may ask this when you are sick, or
when a loved one is sick or passing away, or
when you are overwhelmed by despair
and life seems to have lost all its meaning.
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Zenfully Quool Quotes Quommentary – by rog
Challenges in this life are inherent to all of us
in this ‘here & now’ existence.
The things we can easily manage…
It’s best to not allow them to take from us
more than required to deal with the issue.
Note that:
If it takes ‘so much’ energy to simply get the job done…
But,
If you agonize and dread this task and spend time ruminating on it…
It will certainly take from you much more than necessary.
If the challenge is obviously far to big and deep for us to manage or change…
Like the death of a loved one…
Something that has a certain finality to it…
Then,
All we can do is surrender…
let go of all harmful and unproductive thoughts.
No amount of worry and anxieties
will change and unchangeable issue.
Every being created strives to want to learn more about
the significance of their life,
The whole aspect of all life and
what connection do we have with it all.
There are two basic aspects of these contemplations…
One is a purely, matter of fact philosophical pondering…
And,
The other becomes a religious theological ‘belief’ system
or
Somewhere between the two are:
non-theological common sense spiritualities.
The difference is like:
If you were compelled to experience a tropical island like Hawaii.
A belief system is like taking someone else’s word for how it is…
Someone that hasn’t experienced themselves but…
Read about it in a pamphlet many years ago.
The non-duel spiritual Path is like
actually traveling to Hawaii and personally experiencing it.
In life, it’s best to obtain
a balanced psychological and philosophical perspective
on the most important aspects of this life.
Like:
What is my True Nature?
What is my place in this life…
And what happens with “I” die…
Is there a ‘God’?
When one ponders such classic philosophical questions…
These are questions that have no ‘black and white’ answers…
They are essentially…
Ineffable… beyond words.
The best way to get a better understanding of ‘Such’ things is…
Self-Inquiry.
Through negative deduction, ‘neti-neti’ in Hindu…
You can peel away the things that you can know …
That are NOT ‘you’.
Most people spend their whole life misbelieving
that they are their ‘ego-mind-body’.
They then deepen this misbelief with another misbelief that ‘they’ …
This ego-mind-body
will go somewhere special after death
and live for eternity in this imaginary place in the sky with an imaginary personal ‘God’.
They imagine…
That ‘heaven’ is real.
Based on a projection from an archaic guy that
imagines there is a place called ‘heaven’…
With no more proof than claiming to have
read a pamphlet about ‘heaven’ any years ago.
This is a profound dis-service and very harmful to
actually learning the Absolute Truths…
Even if they are ineffable.
Although most people believe all of this…
And they say… it brings them a sort of imagined peace and comfort…
But,
Most rational people don’t want to be duped or fooled…
And
Fooling people into believing in a ‘belief’ system
that is based on nothing, but someone’s wildest imagination is…
Fooling people into a bliss…
A bliss based on ignorance.
There is a better way.
But,
For those suck at lower human growth level…
This is all they can hope to comprehend.
All they think they need to know about
Grace, Divinity and what they call ‘God’
is just to say “yup” at the “pearly gates.
Which completely astounds me…
They spend their entire lives proudly boasting of being so into ‘God’…
Yet,
They have no volition or motivation to take the effort to
really find out more about what they pretend to hold so sacred.
There is a certain type of person that has a lack of mental capacity
that can be content with a bliss based on ignorance.
Then,
There is the rest…
Although much smaller in proportion…
Mainly because there is a lack of exposure to a
Higher, Wider, Deeper understanding of ‘Such’ things.
When one is curious enough…
The inspiration will arouse a volition
an ambition to answer those classic philosophic questions.
All of the non-theological common sense spiritual traditions
are in agreement with science in that basically
our bodies are eternal…
In that,
matter never dies…
It simple becomes a different form.
Water doesn’t die when it evaporates up to a cloud.
The cloud doesn’t die when it rains down to the earth…
Flows to a river…
The river doesn’t die when it flows into the ocean.
A new leaf on a tree will turn older, fall to the ground
and become compost that will help the tree make more leaves…
There is a natural cycle of things.
As pointed out in the
Tao, I-Ching, Confucius, Yin Yang, Zen, Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta…
And all of the
non-duel non-theological spiritual traditions.
Our bodies will do the same…
So
That’s how our material bodies are eternal…
Not with an imaginary ‘heavenly body’.
But…
We are not our bodies…
Perhaps there’s an eternal part of ‘us’ that continues…
Like a consciousness, Pure Awareness…
But
It has nothing to do with our ego, mind, or thoughts.
It’s pure energy.
When a Spiritual aspirant
gets to the deep end of their Path of Self Inquiry…
It becomes known experientially that:
We are not our bodies,
Not our body parts… like heart, brain…
Nor are we the by products of the brain like
thoughts, emotions, egos…
Neti-Neti…
“we” are not this and not that.
What ever is left to go on…
can no longer be thought of an individual ‘soul’
as pointed out in the Buddha’s teachings of Anatta.
No self… no soul.
It is said that our True Eternal Nature is
Pure Awareness or Consciousness…
However,
When contemplated deeply…
There is no individual consciousness.
Best way to describe our “selves” is with a rain drop.
In this life,
‘we’ misbelieve that our body outlines … ‘us’.
Just like a rain drop that is released from a cloud…
It appears to have the outline of an individual rain drop…
But,
Once its “life” comes to and end…
And it falls into the ocean of consciousness…
It flows inseparably with all that is…
This is the non-duel perspective…
There are no individual separate beings…
In the deepest of ‘Insight meditation’…
Is where an aspirant of ‘Self’ inquiry becomes… Realized.
An experience arises in which it becomes very clear that…
Who ever ‘we’ thought we were…
The ‘self’ that ‘we’ assumed is calling all the shots…
The ‘self’ that we assume is in control…
This ‘self’ looses all reference to the experience.
During this ‘experience’, there are no thoughts.
No feeling like there is a ‘self’ that’s in control and calling the shots.
In fact,
it’s not until long after this ‘experience’ and the Parvastha ‘after glow’ fades…
when the thinking mind collects back into awareness
and the experience can be contemplated.
Essentially what happens during this ‘breakthrough’ experience is:
In one timeless moment…
There is a bliss beyond measure… raptures, joy, love…
These are aspects of our True Nature.
This effortless experience then seems to revel that…
“God” is being witnessed…
Then,
it is felt that ‘we’ are at one with ‘God’…
then,
‘we’ feel that WE are ‘God’…
Then,
The aspect of there being a ‘self’ dissipates…
The realization of there ever being a self …vanishes…
Along with the feeling of there being a separate entity we once called…
‘God’.
All of those perspective dissipate…
An all that’s left is the glowing feeling of…
Love.
