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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.
Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
— Rumi
4
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Perfectionism is a neurosis. It is an illness. And the more you try to become perfect, the more frustrated you will become. The goal of perfection has led the whole of humanity towards madness; the earth has almost become a madhouse. I don’t teach perfection. What do I teach? I teach wholeness, not perfection. Be whole; be total; but don’t think about perfection.
— Osho
3
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Meditation is not a solution to any problem, it solves nothing. It simply helps you to get rid of the mind, the problem-creator. It simply helps you to slip out of the mind like a snake slips out of the old skin.
@Kerome said:
Meditation is not a solution to any problem, it solves nothing. It simply helps you to get rid of the mind, the problem-creator. It simply helps you to slip out of the mind like a snake slips out of the old skin.
— Osho
I quite like this Osho chap....
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
He is very good. Once you look past the reputation in the media at what he is actually saying, it actually makes a lot of sense. You can download a lot of his books and talks from oshoworld.com for free.
The whole treatment in the media is quite disgraceful though... there are a lot of known cases of journalists being told by their editors “go and do a negative piece about Osho”, and the journalist coming back with quite a positive view but being told they will be fired if they try to get it printed.
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
If you love the sacred and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing on the sea of delusion.
— Linji Yixuan
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
You come to me seeking knowledge. You want set formulas so that you can cling to them. I don't give you any. In fact, if you have any I take them away. By and by, I destroy your certainty. By and by, I make you more and more hesitant. By and by, I make you more and more insecure. That is the only thing that has to be done. That's the only thing a master needs to do! To leave you in total freedom. In total freedom, with all the possibilities opening, nothing fixed... you will have to be aware. Nothing else is possible.
— Osho
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited October 2020
The dhamma is revealing itself every second, but only when the mind is quiet can we hear it, for the dhamma teaches without words.
— Ajahn Chah
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
There is no goal of life. Life itself is its goal. It is not moving towards some target. It is herenow, it has no future. Life is always in the present.
He is very good. Once you look past the reputation in the media at what he is actually saying, it actually makes a lot of sense. You can download a lot of his books and talks from oshoworld.com for free.
The whole treatment in the media is quite disgraceful though... there are a lot of known cases of journalists being told by their editors “go and do a negative piece about Osho”, and the journalist coming back with quite a positive view but being told they will be fired if they try to get it printed.
Yeah, it's fairly typical. For whatever reason we are obsessed with the word "Cult" in western society so as soon as any kind of alternative lifestyle or group is created they get this negative tag from day 1.
I am sure it's deserved in a few instances but I think a lot of times it's unfair.
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited October 2020
@Bunks said:
For whatever reason we are obsessed with the word "Cult" in western society so as soon as any kind of alternative lifestyle or group is created they get this negative tag from day 1.
The thing is, cults are usually associated with some element of compulsion among its members (see for example Scientology), and by that definition Osho’s movement wasn’t a cult at all. In the beginning there were communes and centres, later on they transformed into a kind of spiritual resorts, you can still go visit them.
Certainly my experience as a child in the movement was that there was a togetherness, a shared experience, a closeness that you didn’t find with non-sannyasins. But it was carried by a kind of shared spiritual goal which was totally open... you were there because you wanted to be there. It was very similar to groups of buddhists meeting, and quite innocent.
Confess your hidden faults.
Approach what you find repulsive.
Help those you think you cannot help.
Anything you are attached to, let it go.
Go to the places that scare you.
~ Padampa Sangye
(These five teachings are often attributed to Machig Labdron, but it was her teacher, Padampa Sangye, who gave them to her)
2
DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
To see, we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.
The fulfilment of kindness is also the end of romance. This is not a misty process. We have to be able to let each other be changeable.
Otherwise, adulation causes attachment and disappointment.....So the practice of the brahmavihara is very direct. Eventually it’s not even about me and you, but more about how we relate.
Ajahn Sucitto
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Be quiet, don’t think, don’t make effort.
To be bound takes effort, to be free takes no effort.
Peace is beyond thought and effort.
Do not think and do not make effort because
This only obscures That, and this never reveals That.
This is why keeping quiet is the key
To opening the storehouse of love and peace.
— H. W. L. Poonja
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
The function of a master is to give you that which you already have, and to take away that which you don’t have at all.
The English word “mind” has many definitions in today’s modern world, and this can cause so much confusion for many people when they try and study the buddhadharma before they have fully understood what the word “mind” is referring to in the correct buddhist context.
When we talk about the mind in a buddhist context, it can be correctly defined as “clarity” and “awareness”.
This “clarity” refers to the fact that any phenomenon can clearly appear to the mind. This “awareness” refers to the fact that the mind is aware of any phenomenon that is appearing.
It is not as though clarity and awareness are two separate processes, where clarity occurs first, then awareness occurs after. Clarity and awareness are just two definitions describing just the one single process of the mind from two different points of view.
~ Chamtrul Rinpoche
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
You are not what you seem to be. No matter how many times I tell you this, you're still thinking, thinking, judging, judging, coming to conclusions, trying to work out your life. You have to let go. Totally, absolutely, completely. You have to let go so completely that you will feel no body, no mind, no pain, nothing. That is the only time you will make progress. Do not think about this. The thoughts cannot help you. There are no thoughts that can help you realize the Self. It is only a total completely letting go, giving up. What do you give up? You give up the ego, the mind, your opinions about things. That's all you give up.
“We have an opportunity to allow lay people to practice in this tradition. And I think I have a lot to say. Because the people that show up are from the arts class, the intellectual class, the artistic class, philosophical class, the adventurer class, this is who shows up. And I know their illness. I know that their cortex is overworked and anxiety – and you cannot solve the main issue through thinking and discursive activity.
And so, I have two primary approaches to them: one is the breath meditation in order to reduce discursive activity and find out there’s another way to be conscious, wide awake, but not harassed by your own thinking process. And not believing that the entire world is understood through linear thinking processes, that there’s another way to be. And the other structure which I endlessly practice and teach is loving-kindness, or what we call Metta. Metta is a form of a word, Mitta, which is friend. A profound sense of friendship; with beings around you, a friendliness, a concern for the well-being of others and yourself. And this is of course the main issue. Your Self. That’s the problem. That’s the one it’s hard to practice loving-kindness for.
There is something wrong in the structure of society in the way of psychology is formed. There’s a great deal of extraordinary critical faculty, people with above average in every dimension show up at the monastery, and they are also above average in self-criticism. There is nothing wrong with them. They are smarter than the average person, or handsome, or beautiful, or educated, they are talented, they are skilled. And they are extremely harsh with themselves. Something has happened in the whole structure of our culture, this is not an epidemic, it is endemic. It is somehow built into the way we do things. That is the result you get. Because I, as I said at the beginning of the talk, I’ve given over 10,000 one on one interviews in the last 20 years, and I’m not counting anything before that laughs That’s a lot of people to talk one on one with for at least half an hour. And now I usually just jump into the issue, “how do you feel?” and it is just the first that comes out is a really, enormous hostility towards themselves. A huge level of critical accusation. They are their own worst critics.
This is very unfortunate. And this is why we should practice both profound amount of loving-kindness [and breath meditation]. And quite often in the early days, and teachers in the US spotted this and they would start with the formulaic: may I be happy and peaceful. Start with yourselves (...) The way I teach it now is, find any object that you can generate some warmth, friendliness, concern for their safety and well-being, and do what you can. (…) And work with that. I call it making a fire. So, using just drawing paper and twigs. You don’t start with wet logs, and if you are the wet log, don’t start with a wet log. Start getting the feeling of this, and start adding more, that you can easily add to it. If you can never get to yourself fine, but eventually it will encompass you and you will be included in it. (…) The two most important therapies for Western European / American societies are two things: learn how to get outside of your discursive activity as the only possible use of the mind, find out there’s another way to use your mind in a non-discursive way. And secondly, discover the meaning of life through the cultivation of the emotions of loving-kindness. And these are the two things.”
Ajahn Sona (Ho Center for Buddhist Studies, Standford University, 25.10.2016)
When fighting clowns, always go for the juggler.
Darynda Jones
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@lobster said:
Where do you find these spiritual circus performers human beings?
All kinds of varied and interesting places... you seem to look first for controversy, and not for the positives of what people can bring.
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
When you die what happens? What do you want to happen? Who dies? The ego dies. The body dies, but you never die. You'll live forever. Nothing really happens. I know you've heard all kinds of stories about going to different realms and planes of existence. This is all part of the dream. You create these things yourself. You create all these different planes. The subtle plane, the mental plane, the causal plane. All these things you read about in the Yoga text are of the mind. They all belong to the mind. So you believe in these things. You go according to what you believe. It's all created by you. You create your world after you die.
— Robert Adams
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
The only thing that you should do or must do, is not to be in conflict with anything. Do not be in conflict with anyone or anything. When you're not in conflict with any thing, the mind begins to surrender itself and goes back into the Heart, and you become your Self. This is the easiest thing that you ever had to do. It's simplicity itself. It's simplicity itself, because there is nothing you have to do. There is nothing you have to become. There is no one you have to change.
— Robert Adams
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
The worst thing you can ever do is to search for enlightenment, for liberation. This keeps you back. It keeps you back because there is a self that is searching. There is an I that is searching. There is a me that is trying to become something, and the whole idea is to remove something from your consciousness. Therefore, the process of realization is removal, not adding. Removing this and removing that. Removing all concepts and all preconceived ideas. Removing all of your thoughts, no matter what kind of thoughts they are. Good thoughts, bad thoughts, they all must go. And what is left will be nothing—no-thing. You are that.
— Robert Adams
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
"Our journey is about being more deeply involved in life and yet, less attached to it."
-- Ram Das
1
DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
He is very good. Once you look past the reputation in the media at what he is actually saying, it actually makes a lot of sense. You can download a lot of his books and talks from oshoworld.com for free.
The whole treatment in the media is quite disgraceful though... there are a lot of known cases of journalists being told by their editors “go and do a negative piece about Osho”, and the journalist coming back with quite a positive view but being told they will be fired if they try to get it printed.
I quite enjoyed The Man Who Loved Seagulls. I heard about the controversy but don't know too much about it. I wouldn't believe too much of the hype especially after hearing your first hand account on the subject @Kerome . I mean, Penn and Teller did a big "expose" on H.H. The Dalai Lama, accusing him of brutal crimes against humanity. In the same episode they ripped into Mother Theresa pretty good.
That's when I lost all respect for Penn and Teller. I understand they make their living by duping people but that's pretty low.
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@David said:
I heard about the controversy but don't know too much about it. I wouldn't believe too much of the hype especially after hearing your first hand account on the subject @Kerome
Yes, that seems like a good attitude to take. I am very open about what that period of my life was like, what Osho was like for a normal disciple. And I have to say that what Osho said, that people would drag his name through the mud as they did with Jesus in his lifetime, was pretty much right. It’s a dissonance with established power structures.
I do think it was a stroke of genius on the part of the creators of Wild, Wild Country to tell both sides of the story while letting people make up their own minds about events. It moved the discussion into the wider community in a way that would have been impossible if they had chosen one side or the other. And even so, they avoided talking directly about Osho and his teachings.
But it does make you look at the media with a different viewpoint when you live through a series of events like that. There is a kind of herd behaviour that shows up, journalists take up eachother’s stories and bad news sells more than good news.
"Complaining is finding faults, wisdom is finding solutions."
Ajahn Brahm
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited November 2020
“But look within and watch the stuff coming up—restlessness, anxiety, impatience, pain—just watch it come up and don't get involved. Much to your surprise, it will simply go away. It rises, it passes away. As simple as that. There is another word for self-discipline. It is patience.”
― Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Somewhere in this process you will come face-to-face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling pell-mell down the hill utterly out of control and hopeless. No problem. You are not crazier than you were yesterday. It has always been this way and you just never noticed. You are also no crazier than everybody else around you. The only real difference is that you have confronted the situation they have not.”
― Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“No matter how hard you pursue pleasure and success, there are times when you fail. No matter how fast you flee, there are times when pain catches up with you. And in between those times, life is so boring you could scream. Our minds are full of opinions and criticisms. We have built walls all around ourselves and are trapped in the prison of our own likes and dislikes. We suffer.”
As with breathing practice, walking meditation, lovingkindness practice or living in harmony with the precepts, we take refuge over and over again. We make progress, we slip backwards and sideways, we get distracted, we get discouraged, we get elated, and we begin again.
—Beth Roth, “Family Dharma: Taking Refuge (On the Wings of Angels)”
Just as meditation requires ... determination to carry it out, likewise it requires a sense of balance to determine when to push ourselves harder and when to step back and relax where we are.
—Lama Dudjom Dorjee, “Heartfelt Advice”
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Let me first state that in Buddhism mental illness is considered a physical problem (dealing with the brain) and not a mental or spiritual problem (dealing with the mind).”
DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
You are not here to change the world, the world is here to change you.
I HATE quotation. Tell me what you know,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his journal one spring day in 1849. He was talking about a very specific tendency. When we’re faced with an issue that’s meant to be thought provoking (in this particular case, immortality), we reach for the easy way out. “I notice,” he writes, “that as soon as writers broach this question, they begin to quote.” Quotation becomes a way not to add depth to your thinking, but to avoid thinking in the first place. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/opinion/sunday/dont-quote-me-on-this.html
Just try to keep your mind in the present. Whatever arises in the mind, just watch it and let go of it. Don't even wish to be rid of thoughts. Then the mind will return to its natural state.
If I ever find myself alone and feel a pang of fear that I have been cast aside and removed from the world, I can remember that it is not even possible for me to be completely alone. I am inextricably woven into an ever-changing web of connections.
You know, lost souls are not that different from those in the zone. The zone is enjoyable, but when that joy becomes an obsession, one becomes disconnected from life
Moonwind
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
This moment can cause a great revolution in you if you can just taste it’s silence.
“Bodhisattvas fear causes, sentient beings fear results.”
Great Master Yinguang (1861-1940)
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Trying to achieve something in the spiritual world is just as foolish as trying to achieve something in the material world. There's nothing to achieve. There's only letting go. As we let go, more and more, of ego identifications, desires, and support systems, bliss will arise.
— Ayya Khema
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
It is often thought that the Buddha's doctrine teaches us that suffering will disappear if one has meditated long enough, or if one sees everything differently. It is not that at all. Suffering isn't going to go away; the one who suffers is going to go away.
— Ayya Khema
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Unless we practice loving feelings toward everyone we meet, day in, day out, we're missing out on the most joyous part of life. If we can actually open our hearts, there's no difficulty in being happy.
@Kerome said:
Unless we practice loving feelings toward everyone we meet, day in, day out, we're missing out on the most joyous part of life. If we can actually open our hearts, there's no difficulty in being happy.
@Kerome said:
It is often thought that the Buddha's doctrine teaches us that suffering will disappear if one has meditated long enough, or if one sees everything differently. It is not that at all. Suffering isn't going to go away; the one who suffers is going to go away.
— Ayya Khema
This reminds me of Chime Rinpoche ‘we see ourselves in the future, enlightened, with our followers at our feet. The problem with this is when enlightenment happens WE will no longer be there..’.
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Mindfulness is not just a word or a discourse by the Buddha, but a meaningful state of mind. It means we have to be here now, in this very moment, and we have to know what is happening internally and externally. It means being alert to our motives and learning to change unwholesome thoughts and emotions into wholesome ones. Mindfulness is a mental activity that in due course eliminates all suffering.
— Ayya Khema
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
The Buddha has no intention of answering the question about higher states of consciousness yet. He first advocates practicing moral conduct as a foundation for spiritual development.
Comments
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.
Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
— Rumi
Perfectionism is a neurosis. It is an illness. And the more you try to become perfect, the more frustrated you will become. The goal of perfection has led the whole of humanity towards madness; the earth has almost become a madhouse. I don’t teach perfection. What do I teach? I teach wholeness, not perfection. Be whole; be total; but don’t think about perfection.
— Osho
Meditation is not a solution to any problem, it solves nothing. It simply helps you to get rid of the mind, the problem-creator. It simply helps you to slip out of the mind like a snake slips out of the old skin.
— Osho
I quite like this Osho chap....
He is very good. Once you look past the reputation in the media at what he is actually saying, it actually makes a lot of sense. You can download a lot of his books and talks from oshoworld.com for free.
The whole treatment in the media is quite disgraceful though... there are a lot of known cases of journalists being told by their editors “go and do a negative piece about Osho”, and the journalist coming back with quite a positive view but being told they will be fired if they try to get it printed.
If you love the sacred and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing on the sea of delusion.
— Linji Yixuan
You come to me seeking knowledge. You want set formulas so that you can cling to them. I don't give you any. In fact, if you have any I take them away. By and by, I destroy your certainty. By and by, I make you more and more hesitant. By and by, I make you more and more insecure. That is the only thing that has to be done. That's the only thing a master needs to do! To leave you in total freedom. In total freedom, with all the possibilities opening, nothing fixed... you will have to be aware. Nothing else is possible.
— Osho
The dhamma is revealing itself every second, but only when the mind is quiet can we hear it, for the dhamma teaches without words.
— Ajahn Chah
There is no goal of life. Life itself is its goal. It is not moving towards some target. It is herenow, it has no future. Life is always in the present.
— Osho
Yeah, it's fairly typical. For whatever reason we are obsessed with the word "Cult" in western society so as soon as any kind of alternative lifestyle or group is created they get this negative tag from day 1.
I am sure it's deserved in a few instances but I think a lot of times it's unfair.
The thing is, cults are usually associated with some element of compulsion among its members (see for example Scientology), and by that definition Osho’s movement wasn’t a cult at all. In the beginning there were communes and centres, later on they transformed into a kind of spiritual resorts, you can still go visit them.
Certainly my experience as a child in the movement was that there was a togetherness, a shared experience, a closeness that you didn’t find with non-sannyasins. But it was carried by a kind of shared spiritual goal which was totally open... you were there because you wanted to be there. It was very similar to groups of buddhists meeting, and quite innocent.
Confess your hidden faults.
Approach what you find repulsive.
Help those you think you cannot help.
Anything you are attached to, let it go.
Go to the places that scare you.
~ Padampa Sangye
(These five teachings are often attributed to Machig Labdron, but it was her teacher, Padampa Sangye, who gave them to her)
To see, we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.
Claude Monet
The fulfilment of kindness is also the end of romance. This is not a misty process. We have to be able to let each other be changeable.
Otherwise, adulation causes attachment and disappointment.....So the practice of the brahmavihara is very direct. Eventually it’s not even about me and you, but more about how we relate.
Ajahn Sucitto
Be quiet, don’t think, don’t make effort.
To be bound takes effort, to be free takes no effort.
Peace is beyond thought and effort.
Do not think and do not make effort because
This only obscures That, and this never reveals That.
This is why keeping quiet is the key
To opening the storehouse of love and peace.
— H. W. L. Poonja
The function of a master is to give you that which you already have, and to take away that which you don’t have at all.
— Osho
~ Chamtrul Rinpoche
You are not what you seem to be. No matter how many times I tell you this, you're still thinking, thinking, judging, judging, coming to conclusions, trying to work out your life. You have to let go. Totally, absolutely, completely. You have to let go so completely that you will feel no body, no mind, no pain, nothing. That is the only time you will make progress. Do not think about this. The thoughts cannot help you. There are no thoughts that can help you realize the Self. It is only a total completely letting go, giving up. What do you give up? You give up the ego, the mind, your opinions about things. That's all you give up.
— Robert Adams
Extract from a lecture
“We have an opportunity to allow lay people to practice in this tradition. And I think I have a lot to say. Because the people that show up are from the arts class, the intellectual class, the artistic class, philosophical class, the adventurer class, this is who shows up. And I know their illness. I know that their cortex is overworked and anxiety – and you cannot solve the main issue through thinking and discursive activity.
And so, I have two primary approaches to them: one is the breath meditation in order to reduce discursive activity and find out there’s another way to be conscious, wide awake, but not harassed by your own thinking process. And not believing that the entire world is understood through linear thinking processes, that there’s another way to be. And the other structure which I endlessly practice and teach is loving-kindness, or what we call Metta. Metta is a form of a word, Mitta, which is friend. A profound sense of friendship; with beings around you, a friendliness, a concern for the well-being of others and yourself. And this is of course the main issue. Your Self. That’s the problem. That’s the one it’s hard to practice loving-kindness for.
There is something wrong in the structure of society in the way of psychology is formed. There’s a great deal of extraordinary critical faculty, people with above average in every dimension show up at the monastery, and they are also above average in self-criticism. There is nothing wrong with them. They are smarter than the average person, or handsome, or beautiful, or educated, they are talented, they are skilled. And they are extremely harsh with themselves. Something has happened in the whole structure of our culture, this is not an epidemic, it is endemic. It is somehow built into the way we do things. That is the result you get. Because I, as I said at the beginning of the talk, I’ve given over 10,000 one on one interviews in the last 20 years, and I’m not counting anything before that laughs That’s a lot of people to talk one on one with for at least half an hour. And now I usually just jump into the issue, “how do you feel?” and it is just the first that comes out is a really, enormous hostility towards themselves. A huge level of critical accusation. They are their own worst critics.
This is very unfortunate. And this is why we should practice both profound amount of loving-kindness [and breath meditation]. And quite often in the early days, and teachers in the US spotted this and they would start with the formulaic: may I be happy and peaceful. Start with yourselves (...) The way I teach it now is, find any object that you can generate some warmth, friendliness, concern for their safety and well-being, and do what you can. (…) And work with that. I call it making a fire. So, using just drawing paper and twigs. You don’t start with wet logs, and if you are the wet log, don’t start with a wet log. Start getting the feeling of this, and start adding more, that you can easily add to it. If you can never get to yourself fine, but eventually it will encompass you and you will be included in it. (…) The two most important therapies for Western European / American societies are two things: learn how to get outside of your discursive activity as the only possible use of the mind, find out there’s another way to use your mind in a non-discursive way. And secondly, discover the meaning of life through the cultivation of the emotions of loving-kindness. And these are the two things.”
Ajahn Sona (Ho Center for Buddhist Studies, Standford University, 25.10.2016)
Where do you find these spiritual circus performers?
Robert Adams (never heard of him - now you have)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Adams_(spiritual_teacher)#Controversy
Meanwhile a quote 💗
When fighting clowns, always go for the juggler.
Darynda Jones
All kinds of varied and interesting places... you seem to look first for controversy, and not for the positives of what people can bring.
When you die what happens? What do you want to happen? Who dies? The ego dies. The body dies, but you never die. You'll live forever. Nothing really happens. I know you've heard all kinds of stories about going to different realms and planes of existence. This is all part of the dream. You create these things yourself. You create all these different planes. The subtle plane, the mental plane, the causal plane. All these things you read about in the Yoga text are of the mind. They all belong to the mind. So you believe in these things. You go according to what you believe. It's all created by you. You create your world after you die.
— Robert Adams
The only thing that you should do or must do, is not to be in conflict with anything. Do not be in conflict with anyone or anything. When you're not in conflict with any thing, the mind begins to surrender itself and goes back into the Heart, and you become your Self. This is the easiest thing that you ever had to do. It's simplicity itself. It's simplicity itself, because there is nothing you have to do. There is nothing you have to become. There is no one you have to change.
— Robert Adams
The worst thing you can ever do is to search for enlightenment, for liberation. This keeps you back. It keeps you back because there is a self that is searching. There is an I that is searching. There is a me that is trying to become something, and the whole idea is to remove something from your consciousness. Therefore, the process of realization is removal, not adding. Removing this and removing that. Removing all concepts and all preconceived ideas. Removing all of your thoughts, no matter what kind of thoughts they are. Good thoughts, bad thoughts, they all must go. And what is left will be nothing—no-thing. You are that.
— Robert Adams
"Our journey is about being more deeply involved in life and yet, less attached to it."
-- Ram Das
I quite enjoyed The Man Who Loved Seagulls. I heard about the controversy but don't know too much about it. I wouldn't believe too much of the hype especially after hearing your first hand account on the subject @Kerome . I mean, Penn and Teller did a big "expose" on H.H. The Dalai Lama, accusing him of brutal crimes against humanity. In the same episode they ripped into Mother Theresa pretty good.
That's when I lost all respect for Penn and Teller. I understand they make their living by duping people but that's pretty low.
Yes, that seems like a good attitude to take. I am very open about what that period of my life was like, what Osho was like for a normal disciple. And I have to say that what Osho said, that people would drag his name through the mud as they did with Jesus in his lifetime, was pretty much right. It’s a dissonance with established power structures.
I do think it was a stroke of genius on the part of the creators of Wild, Wild Country to tell both sides of the story while letting people make up their own minds about events. It moved the discussion into the wider community in a way that would have been impossible if they had chosen one side or the other. And even so, they avoided talking directly about Osho and his teachings.
But it does make you look at the media with a different viewpoint when you live through a series of events like that. There is a kind of herd behaviour that shows up, journalists take up eachother’s stories and bad news sells more than good news.
"Complaining is finding faults, wisdom is finding solutions."
Ajahn Brahm
“But look within and watch the stuff coming up—restlessness, anxiety, impatience, pain—just watch it come up and don't get involved. Much to your surprise, it will simply go away. It rises, it passes away. As simple as that. There is another word for self-discipline. It is patience.”
― Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
“Somewhere in this process you will come face-to-face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling pell-mell down the hill utterly out of control and hopeless. No problem. You are not crazier than you were yesterday. It has always been this way and you just never noticed. You are also no crazier than everybody else around you. The only real difference is that you have confronted the situation they have not.”
― Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
“No matter how hard you pursue pleasure and success, there are times when you fail. No matter how fast you flee, there are times when pain catches up with you. And in between those times, life is so boring you could scream. Our minds are full of opinions and criticisms. We have built walls all around ourselves and are trapped in the prison of our own likes and dislikes. We suffer.”
― Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
—Beth Roth, “Family Dharma: Taking Refuge (On the Wings of Angels)”
Better than a thousand useless words is one useful word,
hearing which one attains peace.
Dhammapada 8.100
—Lama Dudjom Dorjee, “Heartfelt Advice”
“Let me first state that in Buddhism mental illness is considered a physical problem (dealing with the brain) and not a mental or spiritual problem (dealing with the mind).”
— @Jason in 2006
You are not here to change the world, the world is here to change you.
Shantideva
I HATE quotation. Tell me what you know,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his journal one spring day in 1849. He was talking about a very specific tendency. When we’re faced with an issue that’s meant to be thought provoking (in this particular case, immortality), we reach for the easy way out. “I notice,” he writes, “that as soon as writers broach this question, they begin to quote.” Quotation becomes a way not to add depth to your thinking, but to avoid thinking in the first place.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/opinion/sunday/dont-quote-me-on-this.html
or then again ...
https://bigthink.com/personal-growth/buddhist-wisdom?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1
Wow! That's deep....
Just try to keep your mind in the present. Whatever arises in the mind, just watch it and let go of it. Don't even wish to be rid of thoughts. Then the mind will return to its natural state.
Ajahn Chah
—Lauren Krauze, “Not Alone During the Holidays”
You know, lost souls are not that different from those in the zone. The zone is enjoyable, but when that joy becomes an obsession, one becomes disconnected from life
Moonwind
This moment can cause a great revolution in you if you can just taste it’s silence.
— Osho
“Bodhisattvas fear causes, sentient beings fear results.”
Great Master Yinguang (1861-1940)
Trying to achieve something in the spiritual world is just as foolish as trying to achieve something in the material world. There's nothing to achieve. There's only letting go. As we let go, more and more, of ego identifications, desires, and support systems, bliss will arise.
— Ayya Khema
It is often thought that the Buddha's doctrine teaches us that suffering will disappear if one has meditated long enough, or if one sees everything differently. It is not that at all. Suffering isn't going to go away; the one who suffers is going to go away.
— Ayya Khema
Unless we practice loving feelings toward everyone we meet, day in, day out, we're missing out on the most joyous part of life. If we can actually open our hearts, there's no difficulty in being happy.
— Ayya Khema
Ayya Khema was a truly inspiring teacher.
This reminds me of Chime Rinpoche ‘we see ourselves in the future, enlightened, with our followers at our feet. The problem with this is when enlightenment happens WE will no longer be there..’.
Mindfulness is not just a word or a discourse by the Buddha, but a meaningful state of mind. It means we have to be here now, in this very moment, and we have to know what is happening internally and externally. It means being alert to our motives and learning to change unwholesome thoughts and emotions into wholesome ones. Mindfulness is a mental activity that in due course eliminates all suffering.
— Ayya Khema
The Buddha has no intention of answering the question about higher states of consciousness yet. He first advocates practicing moral conduct as a foundation for spiritual development.
― Ayya Khema