Did Buddha have 'a Black Heart'?

lobster

The Black Light, Black Heart, Station of hauteur, Fana-il-Fana, annihilation in annihilation, is a profound enlightenment in Islamic mysticism.

Bodhi Rabia was asked, "Do you love God?" She answered "Yes." "Do you hate the devil?" She answered, "No, my love of God leaves me no time to hate the devil."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fana_(Sufism)
Basically she was full of it . . . God that is . . .

In Dharma the Buddha did not generally perform miracles or interfere too much in local politics, though he did chat with the leaders of two opposing armies one time . . .
He provided an austere and focussed Middle Way for those prepared to abandon the lights and twinkling samsara world. Gods? Not required . . . well in the higher stations of mysticism even notions of God are Void . . .

So is the 'top of the mountain' empty of All or Full of Nothing . . . so to speak . . . ?

http://www.goldensufi.org/a_suffering_and_realization.html

TWEEDIE: The Beloved is a great emptiness! It is a void, terribly frightening to the mind, but responsive. It is at the same time absolute fullness, absolute light. It is the nothingness where everything is. It is the fullness where nothing exists. It is the fullness of love.

silver

Who or what is Tweedie?

...never mind!

DairyLama

@ lobster Er...translation please?

lobster

Irene Tweedie started the Golden Sufi Order, the quote is from the link provided.

@SpinyNorman said:
@ lobster Er...translation please?

I will do me bestest but remember these are two very different approaches and this is a profound mystical state in Sufism.

Extinction, emptiness, void or the condition before the 'I Am', 'Let there be light' is symbolised by Silence and Darkness.

In Buddhism this ineffable condition is the Buddha at the point of finality, perhaps that of entering Paranirvana.

In terms of meditation it might equate to spaciousness without dimensions or time of entering or leaving. Perhaps enlightenment with a depth of realisation entering Noble Silence not as a skill but as a Being.

Not sure if that is any clearer?

DairyLama

"All things are the primal void" as one translation of the Heart Sutra says. Something like that? Sunyata? I've experienced timelessness and great spaciousness but I'm not sure if that's what you mean?

David

If there is a before everything, still, there must have been the potential for everything.

What is potential but the emptiness of form?

Perhaps better than nothing?

DairyLama

Oi dunno

lobster

@SpinyNorman said:
Oi dunno

Yes that might be it too, beginners mind, or chopping wood again . . . perhaps Sunyata, the primal void. It is a Buddha mind state that is not a closing of light, many Zen people are like this, it is a cessation of Bodhisattva qualities.

So it is not expressed in terms of qualities but is rather a void which the light fills . . .

zenff

The Black Light, Black Heart, Station of hauteur, Fana-il-Fana, annihilation in annihilation, is a profound enlightenment in Islamic mysticism.

I think it's beautiful!

lobster

@SpinyNorman said:
"All things are the primal void" as one translation of the Heart Sutra says. Something like that? Sunyata? I've experienced timelessness and great spaciousness but I'm not sure if that's what you mean?

One of the reasons Mystics in particular use poetry to express or allude to a range of potentials is to overcome this inability to speak the unspoken

When you talk about very real mind states or experiences, in essence this is a form of being. However the Black Heart shines but is not filled with light.

I would say the experiences have something of the taste of being. The taste without tongue is not within the culinary range of dharma stir fry.

In Buddhist terms it might be called 'the unborn' but what is the 'nature' of the unborn that births itself?

how

@Lobster
In Buddhist terms it might be called 'the unborn' but what is the 'nature' of the unborn that births itself?

Perhaps this is a conjurer's way but is not presenting

assumptions of the unborn's "nature" & "birth", from the personifications of our own ego's dream, like setting a dog in chase upon it's own tail.

No less of a miss direction than asking where a candle flame travels to when extinguished.

Is this a wrestling of ones intellect down to the mat through mental isometric exercise?

lobster

We wrestle the mind ... perhaps mindlessly. Nothing worth pinning down.
We still the heart. She shines Still.

We empty hell, samsara and the Purelands.
They remain full.

Nature, nurture Unborn.

... and back to an unlit flame ...

reb1220

Its the moment when we realize that everything is connected, and cease to view ourselves as "ourselves". I had a moment like that when I practiced Sufism, at first it scared the hell out of me. To someone who always viewed themselves as having a self, feeling that self "drain away" can literally frighten someone like nothing else can. But then felt natural. Every path has that moment though, or at least its adherents say they do. I think it is when we finally drop all the dogma and see with clarity. A place without heavens, without hells, without dieties per say, just a place of unending unfolding and inter connection, late to find that there is no real connections, its just one event.
I now have a headache, back to coffee and shining my boots.

silver

@reb1220 sez 'Its the moment when we realize that everything is connected, and cease to view ourselves as "ourselves". I had a moment like that when I practiced Sufism, at first it scared the hell out of me. To someone who always viewed themselves as having a self, feeling that self "drain away" can literally frighten someone like nothing else can. But then felt natural. Every path has that moment though, or at least its adherents say they do. I think it is when we finally drop all the dogma and see with clarity. A place without heavens, without hells...'

You said that really well. I had one of those 'void' type moments and it did scare the H outta me...then a couple days later, a cyber friend had a very similar type experience.

lobster

Fear as in, 'Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom' is more akin to awe or perhaps the understanding of ones nothingness (in a mystical rather than inadequte sense).

Monkey mind can get scared when entering peaceful, rested, calm states but then monkey is always jumping through emotional ups and downs ...

Breath, cycles, zen zero:
http://www.azc.org/dharma/one-nature/

Shim

Oh why do the Sufis get all the pretty words & religious terms while we keep revolving around such killjoys like "cessation" or "dependent-arising"?

lobster

^^^ we have simple fun too
http://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/pure-land-buddhism/index.html

... However I started this thread so we do not dismiss Christians and Muslims as all a bunch of Purelander/paradise cravers.

One of our moderators @Jason has an understanding of sutta and follows mystical Christian teaching. Mystics/developed Buddhist practitioners are not phased by labels, religious fundamentals. They are moving towards their own inner 'darkness'/Peace of Heart, rather than being cut up over others methodology ...

Live in Joy, In love, 
Even among those who hate. 

Live in joy, In health, 
Even among the afflicted. 

Live in joy, In peace, 
Even among the troubled. 

Look within. Be still. 
Free from fear and attachment, 
Know the sweet joy of living in the way. 

~ 

There is no fire like greed, 
No crime like hatred, 
No sorrow like separation, 
No sickness like hunger of heart, 
And no joy like the joy of freedom. 

Health, contentment and trust 
Are your greatest possessions, 
And freedom your greatest joy. 

Look within. Be still. 
Free from fear and attachment, 
Know the sweet joy of living in the way.

from the Dhammapada, Words of the Buddha
http://www.sapphyr.net/buddhist/buddhist-quotes.htm

Jason

One of the things I found the most surprising when I started studying Christianity and Islam is how similar their mystical traditions are to Buddhism, at least on a certain level. All seem to speak about the realization of selflessness, for example. Buddhism speaks of the aggregates being anatta, not-self. Christianity talks about 'dying to self.' And Sufi Islam uses the term fana, which means 'passing away [before death].' In addition, all speak paradoxically about the fullness of emptiness, of peeling away the conditioned and apprehending something deathless.

Although the dominant belief in Theravada, with its focus on cessation, is that there's no self to be found (effectively putting an injunction on all positive language of realization), and the Dhamma and experience of nibbana are both talked about in impersonal terms, neither of the latter is said to be impermanent, and each contains aspects and functions commonly attributed to God. Moreover, other traditions do have teachings about our buddha-nature (tathagatagarbha) or true self, which is a positive expression of emptiness. While paradoxical, it's not unlike the way Erigena approached the paradoxical nature of God:

Erigena used the dialectical method of Denys in his own discussion of God, who could only be explained by a paradox that reminded us of the limitations of our human understanding. Both the positive and the negative approaches to God were valid. God was incomprehensible: even the angels do not know or understand his essential nature but it was acceptable to make a positive statement, such as "God is wise," because when we refer it to God we know that we are not using the word "wise" in the usual way. We remind ourselves of this by going on to make a negative statement, saying "God is not wise." The paradox forces us to move on to Denys's third way of talking about God, when we conclude: "God is more than wise." This was what the Greeks called an apophatic statement because we do not understand what "more than wise" can possibly mean. Again, this was not simply a verbal trick but a discipline that by juxtaposing two mutually exclusive statements helps us to cultivate a sense of the mystery that our word "God" represents, since it can never be confined to a merely human concept.

When he applied this method to the statement "God exists," Erigena arrived, as usual, at the synthesis: "God is more than existence." God does not exist like the things he has created and is not just another being existing alongside them, as Denys had pointed out. Again, this was an incomprehensible statement, because, Erigena comments, "what that is which is more than 'being' it does not reveal. For it says that God is not one of the things that are, but that he is more than the things that are, but what that 'is' is, it in no way defines." In fact, God is "Nothing." Erigena knew that this sounded shocking and he warned his reader not to be afraid. His method was devised to remind us that God is not an object; he does not possess "being" in any sense that we can comprehend. God is "He who is more than being" (aliquo modo superesse). His mode of existence is as different from ours as our being is from an animal's and an animal's from a rock. But if God is "Nothing" he is also "Everything": because this "super-existence" means that God alone has true being, he is the essence of everything that partakes of this. Every one of his creatures, therefore, is a theophany, a sign of God's presence. Erigena's Celtic piety—encapsulated in St Patrick's famous prayer: "God be in my head and in my understanding"—led him to emphasis the immanence of God. (A History of God, 198-99)

I find the similarities between the two ideas interesting, at least, and I suspect that mystics as a group tend to share a common point of view and experience of the transcendent that's often overlooked because of the divergent terms and concepts these ideas and experiences are filtered through. I don't think that all religions are one, but I'm starting to think that all religious truths are, or at least they're pointing towards the same proverbial moon. As I wrote the other day after coming back from a six-day retreat at a Trappist monastery about such similarities:

In essence, [Buddhism and mystical Christianity] are exploring the mystery of consciousness, something that's notoriously hard, if not impossible, to objectify; and ultimately pointing towards what I believe to be a unitive and even psychologically-healing experience piercing the illusion of our dualistic way of thinking, the illusion of separation between subject and object, between the non-spiritual and the spiritual, between matter (body) and spirit (mind). These stories first and foremost attempt to illustrate that what we call God or awakening isn't something outside of us, something 'otherworldly'—it can be experienced right here, right now. The Pali Canon talks of "touching the deathless element with the body" (AN 6.46). Jesus says "the kingdom of God is among/within us (Luke 17:21); and Paul writes that "your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you" (1 Cor 6:19-20). Are they all delusional? Perhaps. Or perhaps they're talking about a shared reality/experience—a unifying awareness, a heightened state of consciousness, a glimpse through the veil of ignorance and into the absolute, a realization of the luminosity within us.

lobster

^^^ thanks @Jason I appreciate that very much ...

... the 'black heart' is an advanced 'station' or condition in Sufism.

Here is something about the Sufi methodology that may be of interest ...

http://ikbalalishahfakir.blogspot.co.uk/2011_05_01_archive.html

DairyLama

@Jason said:In essence, [Buddhism and mystical Christianity] are exploring the mystery of consciousness, something that's notoriously hard, if not impossible, to objectify; and ultimately pointing towards what I believe to be a unitive and even psychologically-healing experience piercing the illusion of our dualistic way of thinking, the illusion of separation between subject and object, between the non-spiritual and the spiritual, between matter (body) and spirit (mind). These stories first and foremost attempt to illustrate that what we call God or awakening isn't something outside of us, something 'otherworldly'—it can be experienced right here, right now. The Pali Canon talks of "touching the deathless element with the body" ([AN 6.46]

I've had some involvement with the Quakers and the practice of "silent worship", which is meditative contemplation aimed at experiencing "the God within". The language and assumptions are quite different to those involved in Buddhist meditation, but there seem to be similarities in terms of the actual experience involved.

DairyLama

@Shim said:> Oh why do the Sufis get all the pretty words & religious terms while we keep revolving around such killjoys like "cessation" or "dependent-arising"?

We do have amata, the deathless, which sounds like a pretty cool destination.

lobster

@Shim said:
Oh why do the Sufis get all the pretty words & religious terms while we keep revolving around such killjoys like "cessation" or "dependent-arising"?

Tee hee

Primarily because Sufism is heart based and Buddhism is wisdom or mind based. However Heart is accessible and expounded in Dharma. Here is the Heart Sutra from those maverick Mahayanists:

http://www.zen.ie/downloads/Heart_Sutra_with_notes.pdf

no ignorance and no end of ignorance, and so on up to no aging and death, and no end of aging and death;
no suffering, accumulation, cessation, or path; no wisdom and no attainment.

[Lobster faints] ... Sounds pretty paradoxical, mystical and awesome to me ...

DairyLama

@lobster said:In terms of meditation it might equate to spaciousness without dimensions or time of entering or leaving.

The first formless jhana involves the experience of infinite space.