Repeating Why this Blog Exists...

I find it exciting that the internet provides a medium that is stimulating people to think. I have seen a growing group of internet writers who, for example, can intelligently pick apart the mainstream media's ample biases. Now that people are starting their own web newpaper/blog, the net seems to be bringing out scores of decent writers who would otherwise not be writing.

I find it exciting that hundreds of internet writers can intelligently pick apart the mainstream media. There seems to be many natural writers who can address issues with scientific and lawyer-like prowess, and often, a sense of humor to boot.

At the same time I find it disappointing that no one out there seems to be able to discuss the profound questions of our age with the same type of discrimination. The questions about dharma, life's meaning, seem overlooked or ignored. There are other things to discuss besides nihilist issues. The real stuff is sadly missing.

I guess I should say what I am trying to do here.... throw out bones for trans-nihilists to chew on.

Is there a chance that you are blocked from a real path because you have you been Oprafied (shallow-psychological approach)? Are you holding elitist attitudes from college? Still have a hippie's mind? I believe there must be a few exceptional people out there who can think for themselves.

We can get unstuck if we are determined, non-wimpy.

With that, would anyone like to participate in the mystical pursuits of life, or have you assimilated too far into the cult of of the big "N"? Didn't you read (and look at) the posts below? Please, please argue with me and say that nihlism, (the focus on this material life only,) is a good thing.....otherwise, it's too sad.

Part Two: The Eyes Have It

Nihilism is Not OK: Part One

"The nihilist point of view is one of the biggest problems for all beings. Since the nihilist point of view distorts perception through its singular focus on substance, intangible spiritual phenomena cannot be seen clearly and intangible continuous mind cannot be recognized.

We may say we can only believe in what can be experienced or proven, but actually we believe selectively in what we have not experienced or proven as long as it is compatible with our other conceptions. We accept and use intangible abstractions of intangible times, places, and circumstances to support what we think is tangibly true, turning the intangible to the tangible through our conception. Because we are only interested in our own version of reality, we miss the potential opportunity to connect tangible qualities to intangible qualities through wisdom's influence."

from White Sail by Thinley Norbu

New Use of Language: Part 3, Questioning

"These days priests everywhere latch on to phrases such as`everyday mind is the Way,' and set them up as some sort of Ultimate principle.
They tell you that long months last thirty days and short ones last twenty-nine. The fact of the matter is, the whole bunch of them are unable to stand on their own legs. They sit about like disembodied spirits. Clinging onto trees. Leaning onto plants and grasses. Blinded by ignorance, unawakened, they plod their blinkered one-track ways.

"Confront one of them and suddenly ask, `Why does this hand of mine resemble a Buddha's hand?' and he says, `But that's your hand.'

"Ask him, `How does my foot resemble a donkey's?' `That's your foot,' he retorts.

"`Everyone has causes which determine his birth. What are yours, senior priest?' `I am so and so,' he responds.`l'm from such and such province.'

"Now what kind of answers are those? They proceed from a mistaken understanding that should never be allowed. These priests distribute the same teaching to everyone. All you have to do is make yourself one-track like them and remain that way through thick and thin. This, they assure you, is attainment of the final state of complete tranquillity. Everything is settled. Everything is understood. Nothing doubting. Nothing seeking. There is no questioning at all. They will not venture a single step beyond this, terrified they might fall and tumble down into a hole. They tread the long pilgrimage of human life as if they were blind from birth, grasping their staff with a clutch of death, refusing to venture forward an inch unless they have it along to prop them up."

Priest Maido told his students: "Go to Mount Lu [where Shogaku's temple was located] and plant yourselves firmly within the realm of non-doing."

But Torin's descendants have now all disappeared. His line is deader than last night's ashes. For that we must feel intense regret.

Hakuin, trans. Norman Waddell

Countin' Signs

Running on the 14 Line,
Gonna see the morning light real soon.
The bus is cutting fog,
I can see the sunlight dim the moon.

Many a day I’ve been paddling down this creek.
I'll find my way
I’ve been traveling now for weeks.
Ask me where I’m going and why,
I’ll just say, “Well, that’s up to me”...
Cause when I’m traveling the roads and countin' signs
It’s the time when I feel free.

Gonna get my license back
Gonna get a rig with a nice smooth ride
Gonna take a nice long cruise
Gonna have my baby by my side

What I had, what I have and what will be
It's crusin' along, it’s just another highway dream.
Tell me your problems
And you’ll probably think I’m mean,
Cause it’s flowing, it’s coming and going
It was never quite what it seemed.

Fall is coming fast
Ducks landing in a glistening roadside pond.
Earth, water, sun and sky.
If I see much more it might be God.

When I arise I rub my eyes and drink a pot of coffee,
That's the medicine for me.
Taking off with the wind in my face,
Feelin' fine as I can be.
If they want to to know where I went,
I’m out looking for Bobbie McGee,
Cause when I’m traveling the roads and countin' signs
It’s the time when I feel free.

lyric and song, Countin' Signs © 2008, S. T. Triane

If There's No Tear, I Can't Help You

In a day so long,
In a simple song;
Can't you hear it,
More personal than personal,
More emotional than emotion,
A background noise never ending?

If there's no tear, how can I trust you?

The daybreak symphony,
Heartache shellbreak sky
Beyond why.

If there's no tear, how can I trust you?

Tenderness sings
Efforts and more
Door, door, and door
Appearing, fading and clinging.

If there's no tear, I can't help you.

The Zen-Tao Warrior is a Liberal and a Conservative

A Zen Warrior is liberal, in that he can see all points of view and relate to each with an understanding as to why that view exists.

Liberal, in that he spent his past and will spend his future on that which is meaningful, without the fear of fitting in.

Liberal, in that he has recognized a naturalness which is non-judgemental, and therefore hosts a vast and compassionate mind.

Liberal, in playfulness and creativity, never getting caught in temporal cultural or vogue ideas.

Liberal, in giving and in sacrifice, even gladly offering his life, as did his forefathers, in order to benefit beings.

Liberal, with a clairvoyant mind that can perceive others' suffering and can trace it back to its cause: elitism, narcissism, egotism and blame, feeling sad because they are unable to share his sense of joy and freedom.

Liberal, in that he can be conservative too if that is the highest good.

A Zen Warrior is conservative, in his concern about the suffering of the future generations, who will live difficult lives as an effect of the degradation of morality and values.

Conservative about wanting to return to a belief in unlimited human potential.

Conservative, in that, since everyone is connected to spirit, everyone has something to give and should give it, not merely because there's a governmental law mandating it, but as the tradition of sharing and goodness.

Conservative because, since life is the magical and sacred divine creativity, and since bureaucracies tend to displace peoples spontaneous creativity and helpfulness, governments should be minimized so that it doesn't replace the individuals' natural tendencies to help each other.

Conservative, because the mentality that believes that government can make everything good is actually harmful, makes the people poor and causes their creative power to become wasted.

Conservative, in having core values beyond an "anything is OK, no criticism is allowed, all diversity is good" attitude.

Conservative, in stubbornly sticking with whatever is in the highest good, no matter what it takes.

I Believe You are Brainwashed

But not by the administration. Not by the government or by Bush.

People are saying that the government can make things right for you. People are saying that the thing that they sense is wrong is something outside themselves. People feel that the main source of controllable power in the entire universe is the government and the governments of planet earth.

No, not that, but by your own propensities from eons of stupidity you are prone to nihilistic cultural and family lineage views and also to the cult views of egotism (eternalism).

These two basic wrong views hold no basic logic, and you can learn, through amazing methods, how to disprove them through awareness. Beyond the problem of being false, they cause suffering, not just some suffering, but all of the suffering in the world, physical, emotional and mental. Amazing.

Pure Desperation

Kali Yuga. The evil president is busted. Or? Living in the world of half-truths poised as truth. This is hard, but if you have the balls, look at this as a scientific and not a political excercize. What happens next??? Many forces are rumbling together.
Monday, Oct. 25, 2004.

http://drudgereport.com/nbcw.htm

Spontaneity

Stevester and Lucas' meditation song by Sara Evans, "Suds in the Bucket," just hit number one on the country charts. You can't stop the world, resistance to change, shame, surprise, choices, and...that joyful cruise into infinity that music can do so well. What else do you need? Getting a handle on any real honest human feeling, anything could be your opening. Just one speck of honesty might do it.

"Now don't you wonder what the preacher's gonna preach about Sunday morning
Nothin' quite like this has happened here before
Well he must have been a looker - smooth talkin' son of a gun
For such a grounded girl - to just up and run.
A little pony-tailed girl growed up to be a woman,
Now she's gone in the blink of an eye
She left the suds in the bucket
And the clothes hanging out on the line."

New Use of Language: Part Two, It's Too Terrifying

Shoju taught Hakuin and his fellow students in this way:

"Suppose at some future day you men have temples of your own. You receive an invitation from one of your parishioners, asking you to visit him at his home. When you arrive with your head monk and some of your students, you are ushered into a large room, where you find layers of thick, soft cushions to sit upon. Dishes filled with rare delicacies are arranged before you. You sit there in high spirits, partaking of the food without a single qualm, regarding it as your due. When you finish eating, as you are enjoying yourself amid the loud talk and boisterous laughter, one of the people present addresses you, and brings up a difficult point of Zen - the kind that furrows the brows of Zen monks. He suggests casually that you explain it. At that moment, what kind of response will you make? Your heart will probably start to thump wildly in your chest. Your body will break out in a muck of sweat. Your distress will cast a black pall over the entire room.

"So inasmuch as you are members of the Zen school, you should concentrate diligently on your training. If you don't, you will be unwittingly sowing the seeds of your own shame and disgrace. There's no telling when you'll find yourself in such a harrowing situation. It's too terrifying to contemplate."

Realm of a Thousand Buddhas, trans. Norman Waddell

Are You Creating this Mentality?

Political correctness. It's a trick. It is not possible to integrate with the teachings.

The Puyallup School District (search) in Washington State has canceled its annual Halloween parade and banned all other Halloween activities, insisting the costumes may be offensive to real witches and followers of Wicca (search) — a form of Paganism.

A school district spokeswoman, quoted by local KOMO-TV, says, "Witches [masks] with pointy noses and things like that are not respective symbols of the Wiccan religion, and so we want to be respectful."

Everybody Thinks They Don't Have the Time

A new study by the University of Pensylvania shows that the average adult American has 48 hours of spare time per week. When the interviewed people for the study, everyone said they were stressed and too busy and didn't have any time. The director of the study said that they are all wrong, that people really have plenty of time and that its a state of mind. It turns out to be a "busy" mentality.

What is happening is that people are getting wimpier and softer and weaker mentally and physically. They sit in front of the tube for hours a day or waste their time on ridiculous things and, surprise, they feel off and unfulfilled.

(Actually people work less than they did in the 60's with much less housework done today than back then, according to the study.)

In the earlier post "Whoh" Daddy Hakuin says

"Don't think the commitments and pressing duties of secular life leave you no time to go about forming a ball of doubt. Don't think your mind is so crowded with confused thoughts you are incapable of devoting yourself singlemindedly to Zen practice."

I think he would ask what you are doing with your 48 hours.

New Use of Language: Part 1

In order to benefit beings, we should bring them into the secret path. This secret path is difficult to enunciate, just as it is difficult to recognize that one is a magical being. But since we actually are magical, with the right circumstances and without any sort of supposition, we can step forward and demonstrate spontaneous wisdom in whatever we do. Like writing.

So this challenge should be easy since we have spent many hours discussing it, I have demontrated it for years and Sifu Dr. C. has given lectures and has clear CD's available on the topic.

Commentors! Leave one sentence on the following topic.

NEW USE OF LANGUAGE

The Situation in Iraq in New Media

The internet has created a change in how the world is processing info and it blogs and forums are going to change how people get info and I keep repeating. Magic mind melting into itra-net of ideas.

You know, I have always had a deep interest in Iraq and wondered what's really going on over there.

You won't get the "street" information from ridiculously glamorized mainstream media. Does everyone agree that the MSM is distorted and extremely fragmented, and that includes the public ones too.

So if you are interested in a richer, more grounded news in Iraq, for an example of that, go to

http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/2004_10_01_messopotamian_archive.html

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/

Then for an excercise, think if you would be able to get the same feel for things from the MSM (blog-code for mainstream media). We can apply this to any topic. We have to see that the Media, Publishers, Churchs, etc. are, as Alice Baliey used to say, "glamoured." It is our duty to recognize that we do not see things the way they are.

As long as what is natural is obscured, we can't really know what is going on. We listen to Tom Brokaw or PBS like it is the truth. Maybe we should question it much more, like Daddy Hakuin is saying to do. If we can't even see we are being duped and we grab on to nihilists' presentations, how will we in pure vision be able to see our illusory body, the pure lands and the dakinis?

Hope you all can get more grounded.

Whoh

This is the only way its really going to work.....a quote by Master Hakuin, trans. Norman Waddell

WITH GREATEST respect and reverence, I encourage all you superior seekers in the secret depths to devote yourselves to penetrating and clarifying the self as earnestly as you would put out a fire on the top of your head. I urge you to keep boring your way through as assiduously as you would seek a lost article of incalculable worth. I enjoin you to regard the teachings left by the Buddha-patriarchs with the same spirit of hostility you would show toward a person who had murdered both your parents. Anyone who belongs to the school of Zen and does not engage in the doubting and introspection of koan must be considered a deadbeat rascal of the lowest kind, someone who would throw aside his greatest asset. As a teacher of the past said, "At the bottom of great doubt lies great enlightenment ... From a full measure of doubt comes a full measure of enlightenment."

Don't think the commitments and pressing duties of secular life leave you no time to go about forming a ball of doubt. Don't think your mind is so crowded with confused thoughts you are incapable of devoting yourself singlemindedly to Zen practice. Suppose a man was in a busy market place, pushing his way through the dense crowd, and some gold coins dropped out of his pocket into the dirt. Do you think he would just leave them there forget about them and continue on his way because of where he was? Do you think someone would leave the gold pieces behind because he was in a crowded place or because the coins were lying in the dirt? Of course not. He would be down there frantically pushing and shoving with tears in his eyes trying to find them. His mind wouldn't rest until he had recovered them. Yet what are a few pieces of gold when set against that priceless jewel found in the headdresses of kings - the way of inconceivable being that exists within your own mind? Could a jewel of such worth be attained easily, without effort?'

Gab's Missing Post Discussion

Thread Started Unwittingly by Gabrielle:

Steve

I just wanted to share a little something with you - I have been
meditating
on love flowing within and without. It almost feels like the energy of
dissolving. Then when I connect to the Higher Self, it's like boom boom -
there's
much more energy. So my question is this - is the higher self, the Buddha
nature and the stillness between the opposites all one and the same?

Please share your thoughts.

Thanks, Gabrielle

>> Hi Gabrielle,
>> Higher self and Buddha nature are one. Not sure how the point between the
>> opposites fits in, but will give you my two cents when I have info.
>> Steve

Comment from solburger: Wonder when Steve will "have info?" He did get the "book" answer, but that doen't help at the point we are. We have to be clearer.

Gabrielle.....you actually mentioned four things. There are words and there is wisdom and a word can be used to symbolize it. There can be a simultaneous combination of clarity and inaccuracy.

In your case (and your's only):
"higher self" is open awareness with slight confusion about a "self," and
"love within and without" is open awareness with a little confusion called "eternalism. "

Whatever words are used; ie. buddha nature, the "stillness between the opposites, God, HS, etc.; since we immediately add something to what we see, we cannot see them fully yet, but what you call each thing FOR YOU may emphasize an aspect of beingness. That also means different words are useful because they combine for the bigger picture.

You haven't understood the tantras or integrated the teachings about "one and diversity" yet, so this thread (of conversations) can serve as an aspiration to get it and move into a new level of understanding. Right use of language is another topic that has to have some solid new accomplishment at this point.

Who Do You Love?

Who Do You Love?

I walked 47 miles of barbed wire,
Used a cobra snake for a neck tie.
Got a brand new house on the roadside,
Made out of rattlesnake hide.
I got a brand new chimney made on top,
Made out of human skulls.
Now come on darling let's take a little walk, tell me,
Who do you love,
Who do you love, Who do you love, Who do you love.

Arlene took me by the hand,
And said oooh eeeh daddy I understand.
Who do you love,
Who do you love, Who do you love, Who do you love.
The night was black and the night was blue,
And around the corner an ice wagon flew.
A bump was a hittin' lord and somebody screemed,
You should have heard just what I seen.
Who do you love, Who do you love, Who do you love, Who do you love.

Arleen took me by my hand, she said Ooo-ee Bo you know I understand
I got a tombstone hand and a graveyard mind,
I lived long enough and I ain't scared of dying.

Who do you love (4x's)

by Bo Diddley

Question of the Day: Karma or just Do Your Thing?

OK everybody. Is there really karma, or is that idea passe'. Is it something we need to concern ouselves with and if so, how?

I am noticing that sangha basics are weak and people don't consider what the effect of what they do.

Transformational Quickie

http://www.lovestream.com/Our%20Approach%20at%20The%20Lotus.html

Susan, my suggestion is to notice who thinks they're "doing" the
> transformational quickie.
>
> Sol's suggestion to me during the last retreat was to "give up
> transformation for enlightenment." Although transformation techniques can
> be
> very useful, even better is not manipulating.
>
> I told Sol recently that I realized I was a "hopeless manipulator" so I've
> been just trying to "be the manipulator" instead of manipulating the
> manipulation.
>
> Clara



From Gabrielle,

Hi y'all. I find this discussion very interesting particularly since this is an area of frustration for me. To recognize the manipulator in us and see its artful work without attachment is extremely helpful. To manipulate further with transformation techniques is something that I'm not particularly good at - I would argue that it doesn't resonate for me. What I have found is that when I bring the "manipulation" into my higher self or my mandala, it often (not always) dissolves into "non-conceptual space". Of course, that does not mean that the issue or manipulation doesn't come up again at some later time, but generally it is not as energized.

The notion of redirecting our focus from transformation techniques to enlightenment turns me on - is this because I really don't like transformation techniques - partly. However, our manipulations do stand in our way and obscure our vision and therefore our path to enlightenment. So our manipulations do have to be recognized, transformed, let go, or some such thing.

What's your opinion on this Sangha-folk?

Gabrielle

Suzie Makes a Mess

Thanks for the tangle of vines below, Suzie

How precious it is to be able to talk about what we
are seeing. The experience is always fresh. Always trying
to get it right only to remember that right and wrong are
made up. Undoing, redoing and undoing again. As the wheel turns
sounds like quite a soap opera..
These are the days of our lives. How lucky are we to have
found , whatever it is we have stumpled upon.
Clara ..Steve knows the Milarepa stories.
Maybe he could share his favorite.
Bye for now
Suzie

Let's Make a Mess

Even with nothing good to say, you, too, can add to this mess. Reborn as a fox-spirit, Hakuin is spews out endless tangles of new vines every minute.

"Writing is like sex. The more you think about it, the harder it is to do. It's better not to think about it so much and just let it happen." -- Stephen King

This is also good general good advice in how to use your mind. Oops, I forgot you don't have one, you are only "real."

Don't worry, sooner or later it's a unequivical certainty that you will say something stupid and you will be crushed. That's how it's done. Noone has discovered any other way to learn, except that those hoards of the weak minded social-materialists who are quite impressed with themselves having gotten "degrees" and who are mobilizing their cult to control the world for our highest good. Eeech! They really think that is learning, but what matters is WHAT DO YOU THINK? The amount of fun in this discovery about creativity is really so great. If you want to stop missing out, stop sitting on your hands.

Open potential doen't give a hoot what you write but the stench-heap created does makes excellent compost for the sky-flower plantation, and also is a fine nutritional suppliment for the jub jub bird.

Sol is crazy, we will never have a forum.....

This is the place where all things can be made...magic mind melting into computer. It's all o's and 1's they say.

Enlightenment is such a feeble word. I'm lazy but if I work on words maybe some can come together for a zinging effect. There is something special out there thats worth talking about. (Play theme from "Twilight Zone") I kin feel it.

Are we just to em-bare-assed to talk about our feelings and hidden energy?

I bring this up on this first post because I really like my few serious friend practitioners, and here's why: If you say something you will probably mean it. Thats all.

The deal here is that we figure out what the universe is...who is to blame, and then ATTACK.....just kidding. What I really want to know is....who wants to discuss the mindmelting coolness of

Dzogchen
Zen
Mahamudra
Bliss
New All Of The Above
Maestros
Destroying New Age Slime

(maybe not the last one)
Yours Truly,
Solburger
also called Pema Tenzin, Sol Ta Triane or worse

The Amazing Trying to Sleep Stevester

Upon watching the famous

http://www.jibjab.com

you'll have a new clear understanding of where Steve's mind is.

In general thought Steve is sleeping..or at least trying to. See, he has a hard time snoozing so I though if Steve could look into the nature of Sleep and that might be just to trick. Not just to cure insomnia.

Try it and see what happens.

Feelin Good

I just feel good today. I mean in spite of the fact that nobody is discussing anything profound and all these amazing things are here for us to discover. I mean...

There’s a whole bunch of things I need to do before I die:

Feed the chickens
Have more sex
Write a will
Eat a sandwich
Protect my dignity
Prove myself...

But the list is faded
and getting hard to read.
Every day I see a strange character walk by,
But I never get a chance to see his face.

I forgot "have more coffee."