Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
There are great advantages
to getting involved in this kind of process in the middle of a city.
For so many reasons.
The city is such a chaotic life
and you have the oppotunity to be exposed to such chaos.
Don't let your preference for avoiding what is unpleasant
cloud your perception.
It can be an enormous opportunity
because your silence is something that needs to be tested.
And the more that it is tested and you find that you are getting disturbed,
is the more it is an indication that you are not yet well established within yourself.
And think about it in this way -
suppose in your experience
you perceive everything as one fundamental energy
then how are you going to draw any dividing lines
between what is "good", what is "bad",
what is "right", what is "wrong"
what is "sacred", what is "not sacred"
what is "pure", what is "impure" ?
Everything in existence reveals itself to be
the same snake swallowing its own tail -
the same energy expressing itself in many different forms.
If this is your living experience,
then right now as you have been talking to me
and I am talking to you
you are not perceiving me as separate from you.
I am just "you", but in another form
as far as energy is concerned.
Or in another way, you can look at it like this -
since everything is happening within the field of your own awareness
then you have never had any other experience except your own awareness.
Does that make at least a bit of logical sense ?
As far as the source of your experience is concerned
it is all being manufactured from within.
So every kind of experience you are having in life
is just happening within the field of your own awareness
When you wake up and hear the birds chirping in the morning,
you're not hearing the birds "out there" in the trees.
Where are you hearing it ? From within yourself.
You are driving down the road and you see a mountain in the distance.
Where are you seeing the mountain ?
The mountain is also within you.
But that is not the way that you are perceiving things right now
because you are making these discriminations with your intellect.
You're having attraction towards what you like and aversion from what you dislike.
So your ego interferes into the process.
But without the interference of the ego into the process
your awareness is just like a mirror.
whatever comes in front of the mirror
the mirror never judges.
It never says, "this is so beautiful, I want to preserve it."
it doesn't say, "this is so ugly, it needs to be condemned."
The mirror is just pure energy.
Simply reflecting
That is the quality of a meditative consciousness
Its not something that you can do.
We talked about this so many times.
You cannot meditate but you can become meditative.
When you are meditative
your meditation is inescapable.
Whatever you do, at whatever time, at wherever place
everything that comes out of your being will be an expression of your meditation.
In zen monestaries, the whole system of training in zen
is intended to bring about this experience.
Because in zen, meditation is not just about sitting meditation.
It is not limited to that alone.
We talked once about why the monestary has been invented in zen
because it was found that if your whole practice is limited to sitting meditation
your mind tends to become so passive that you are no longer deeply involved,
this is an unintegrated state of being.
You want to be meditative and yet active at the same time.
Some meditators have experienced this -
they will become so deeply meditative but it is at the expense
of being active in the world.
There are some yogis who can sit in very deep states of samadhi.
In their perception time has disappeared,
space has disappeared,
in their inner experience, they are just engrossed in the very source of creation.
But they are unable to get up and do very ordinary things
as if they are dysfunctional in the world.
Yes, they are absorbed in their fundamental nature
but your fundamental nature is everywhere and nowhere, right ?
If your very fundamental nature is flowing throughout all things
then it must be everywhere.
Its not just the source of your being,
it is the source of the whole creation.
This is why it has always been said, "sarvam brahmasmi" -
"Everything is divine."
Or what has been said in the Bible - God is everywhere.
What are these kinds of statements indicating ?
They are saying your fundamental nature is not something personal,
it is impersonal,
beyond time and space, flowing through all things.
So whether you are absorbed in your innermost samadhi
or whether you are living in the so called "relative" world,
still, you are experiencing one and the same thing.
Don't create these divisions in the mind between
the "absolute" and the "relative",
the beyond and the ordinary,
the mundane and the supermundane.
In zen and amongst the Buddhists
there is a very insightful statement.
They said "Samsara is Nirvana, and Nirvana is Samsara."
Have you ever heard that statement ?
With Samsara, they are referring to the cycle of birth and death.
Don't look at it in metaphysical terms,
you can just understand it as the "relative" world, time and space
and how nature is always recycling its energies throughout existence
that is Samsara.
Nirvana is that which is beyond the limitations of time and space.
So what they said is that there is no distinction between the two.
They are equated.
Samsara is Nirvana, and Nirvana is Samsara,
it is all one and the same fundamental nature.
The moment you create any division
now you are caught up in a dualism.
Once there is a dualism, that means there is division.
Once there is division, now there is conflict.
Don't you see this ?
As long as in your perception there is a division,
not in the sense that you cannot perceive things as separate from you,
it is necessary for you to be able to discriminate between things,
but you dont get entangled in this belief that you are separate from the whole.
Once that comes now you are struggling against the whole universe.
That is a never-ending struggle.
It takes a little bit of time, effort, and energy
to learn how to integrate your meditation.
But thats the beauty of meditation, it can be done anywhere.
It all has to do with the inner atmosphere you are carrying within you.
There was a disciple who went to see a zen master and said,
"Please, teach me meditation."
So he sat in the lotus posture and was waiting to receive the teaching.
The first question the master asked him was,
"What do you want to get out of sitting meditation ? What's the point ?"
The disciple said, "I want to become a Buddha. I want to realize my true self."
This is the way of zen, it doesn't want to waste time with words
it just wants to strike directly to the essential.
The master picked up a brick and started polishing the brick.
So the disciple, being very confused, asked
"Master, what do you think you are trying to do ?"
The master said, "I'm trying to create a mirror."
The disciple laughed and said, "How on Earth can you make a mirror by polishing a brick?"
Then the master said,
"In the same way, how can you expect to be a Buddha through sitting meditation alone ?"
"If you really want to know the true spirit of meditation, the real essence of meditation,
"you should know that meditation is without any fixed form."
So its not about sitting meditation.
Seeing - but your flame of wakefulness is burning within you -
this is "seeing meditation".
Hearing - but still that undercurrent of awareness remains undisturbed -
this is "hearing meditation".
Smelling becomes smelling meditation.
Walking becomes walking meditation.
Lying down becomes lying down meditation.
It becomes a natural expression of your being.
It takes a bit of effort in the beginning
because the whole key is just this -
if you can just take a mental note and stick with this one key -
Its so simple but appears to be very difficult
this is the fundamental thing : self remembrance.
Which means an effort to remember to bring your attention back into the present moment.
When you find your mind has drifted off
thats the nature of the mind, at least of a clouded mind
its always entangled in imagination or the memories of the past
So when you find your mind has drifted off,
it could be for whatever reason
In that split moment - bring your attention back into the present moment.
You will find the more and more this self remembrance happens
where you are bringing your attention again and again and again,
there comes a point where now it becomes an automatic process.
You no longer have to initiate an effort.
It starts to become a part of your very nature.
I don't want you to be discouraged by whatever obstacles you may be experiencing.
Let's say you have heaps of obstacles along the way
but if you keep on moving in one direction, without being discouraged, and with perseverance
Moving in one direction, sooner or later a breakthrough is bound to happen.