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You think!! Stop thinking…..and live…..experience things with the heart.
You’re constantly think, think, think, think, think….
Stop this thinking and then you will live in a world of experience yeah?
And then things just fall into place because there is a natural movement of all things.
And all that you do then is just go with the flow.
And then you don’t have to ask all these questions….
Ajahn Martin (scolding a student who was asking too many questions)
@Kerome up to you. I did not watch much of it.
When someone spends an hour on his thoughts on not overthinking, we can infer quite a lot …
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
True! I think his goal for people from his community, for them to become sages was somewhat ambitious…
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“If you prefer smoke over fire
then get up now and leave.
For I do not intend to perfume
your mind's clothing
with more sooty knowledge.
No, I have something else in mind.
Today I hold a flame in my left hand
and a sword in my right.
There will be no damage control today.
For God is in a mood
to plunder your riches and
fling you nakedly
into such breathtaking poverty
that all that will be left of you
will be a tendency to shine.
So don't just sit around this flame
choking on your mind.
For this is no campfire song
to mindlessly mantra yourself to sleep with.
Jump now into the space
between thoughts
and exit this dream
before I burn the damn place down.”
― Adyashanti
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“If you think that people should be nice to one another, then by
all means be nice. But when you project that belief onto the
people and the world around you as if it were an objective reality,
or worse still, as if it were their job to be nice to you, you put
yourself at odds with what is, and suffering will surely follow.”
― Adyashanti, The Way of Liberation
@Kerome said:
True! I think his goal for people from his community, for them to become sages was somewhat ambitious…
If you have sage and union staffing, it must be Christmas. Jingle All The Way …
God Bless Us, Every One. Bodhi TinyTim
[ahem] … and now back to the quotes
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“It is much like when you have a dream at night and are identified with some character and think you are different from all the others. When you wake up from your dream in the morning, you realize that you are not the character in the dream. You are the dreamer. Everything in the dream came from you. This is a metaphor for spiritual awakening, because when you wake up spiritually, you realize you are not the body-mind. But what is usually missed is that you are the ultimate source of the entire dream. I think this is pretty easy to understand. In one sense, you see that you are not anyone, but in the other, you realize that you are the source of all.”
― Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing
@Kerome said:
“It is much like when you have a dream at night and are identified with some character and think you are different from all the others. When you wake up from your dream in the morning, you realize that you are not the character in the dream. You are the dreamer. Everything in the dream came from you. This is a metaphor for spiritual awakening, because when you wake up spiritually, you realize you are not the body-mind. But what is usually missed is that you are the ultimate source of the entire dream. I think this is pretty easy to understand. In one sense, you see that you are not anyone, but in the other, you realize that you are the source of all.”
― Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing
Reminds me of:
Wisdom tells me I am nothing
Love tells me I am everything
Between the two my life flows
Nisargadatta Maharaj
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“The freedom that’s discovered isn’t, “I have attained enlightenment.” The freedom is, “My God, there is nobody here to be enlightened. Therefore, there is nobody there to be unenlightened.” That’s the light. Only the concept “me” thinks it needs enlightenment, freedom, liberation, and emancipation. It thinks it needs to find God or get a Ferrari—it’s all the same thing when you get right down to it.”
― Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing
0
DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
edited July 2021
Yeah, I had just posted and then realised I hadn't copied the right quote and then my daughter started yelling so... Lol. Anywho...
"I had a discussion with a great master in Japan, and we were talking about the various people who are working to translate the Zen books into English, and he said, ‘That’s a waste of time. If you really understand Zen, you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because the sound of the rain needs no translation.'”
– Alan Watts
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Meditative self-inquiry is the art of asking a spiritually powerful question. And a question that is spiritually powerful always points us back to ourselves. Because the most important thing that leads to spiritual awakening is to discover who and what we are—to wake up from this dream state, this trance state of identification with ego. And for this awakening to occur, there needs to be some transformative energy that can flash into consciousness. It needs to be an energy that is actually powerful enough to awaken consciousness out of its trance of separateness into the truth of our being. Inquiry is an active engagement with our own experience that can cultivate this flash of spiritual insight.”
― Adyashanti, True Meditation: Discover the Freedom of Pure Awareness
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“My speaking is meant to shake you awake, not to tell you how to dream better.”
― Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited August 2021
“There is no witness, there is just witnessing.”
— Adyashanti, The Way of Liberation
“The self is the process!”
— anonymous
“The mind is a wave on the ocean, endlessly waving.”
— anonymous
2
DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
"Compassion is not sitting in your room; it’s actually very active and engaging,”
Not so much a quote ...a story....an oldie but goodie "A monk decides to meditate alone. Away from his monastery, he takes a boat and goes to the middle of the lake, closes his eyes and begins to meditate.
After a few hours of unperturbed silence, he suddenly feels the blow of another boat hitting his. With his eyes still closed, he feels his anger rising and, when he opens his eyes, he is ready to shout at the boatman who dared to disturb his meditation.
But when he opened his eyes, saw that it was an empty boat, not tied up, floating in the middle of the lake ... At that moment, the monk achieves self-realization and understands that anger is within him; it simply needs to hit an external object to provoke it.
After that, whenever he meets someone who irritates or provokes his anger, he remembers; the other person is just an empty boat.
Anger is inside me."
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It's seeing through the facade of pretence. It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.”
― Adyashanti
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“We realize--often quite suddenly--that our sense of self, which has been formed and constructed out of our ideas, beliefs and images, is not really who we are. It doesn't define us, it has no center.”
― Adyashanti, The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Let go of all ideas and images in your mind, they come and go and aren’t even generated by you. So why pay so much attention to your imagination when reality is for the realizing right now?”
― Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing
2
DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
edited August 2021
The point is that we can dissolve the sense of dualism between us and them, between this and that, between here and there, by moving toward what we find difficult and wish to push away.
Pema Chodron
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“All that is necessary to awaken to yourself as the radiant emptiness of spirit is to stop seeking something more or better or different, and to turn your attention inward to the awake silence that you are.”
― Adyashanti
1
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
By learning to remain balanced in the face of everything experienced inside, one develops detachment towards all that one encounters in external situations as well. However, this detachment is not escapism or indifference to the problems of the world.
Goenka
4
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“As I often tell my students, the person you’ll have the hardest time opening to and truly loving without reserve is yourself. Once you can do that, you can love the whole universe unconditionally.”
― Adyashanti, Falling Into Grace
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Confusion, I was taught, is the beginning of understanding,”
― Yongey Mingyur, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited August 2021
“I began to see that when the pace of external of material progress exceeded the development of inner knowledge, people seemed to suffer deep emotional conflicts without any internal method of dealing with them. An abundance of material items provides such a variety of external distractions that people lose the connection to their inner lives.”
― Yongey Mingyur, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness
80% of the practice is knowing you should let go of something but you are not able to.
Ajahn Chah
(This gives me hope…..)
4
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited August 2021
“You know death is coming. That is certain. You don’t know when. Every day makes the time that remains shorter. And there is nothing you can do to help. Your body won’t help you. Your possessions won’t help you. Your friends and family won’t help you. Only the spiritual path remains, it is the only thing that makes sense.”
Happy indeed we live,
friendly amidst the hostility.
Amidst hostile people,
we dwell free from hatred.
Dhammapada 15.197
4
DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
"Thinking ‘my group,’ ‘their group’ on the basis of religion, on the basis of color, on the basis of social status—all this is old thinking. We have to think [in terms] of one humanity… That’s my number one commitment: to promote a sense of oneness of seven billion human beings.”
H. H. The Dalai Lama at the Mind and Life Institute
3
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
Getting butter from milk is only possible because milk already contains cream, but no one has ever made butter by churning water.
The gold digger looks for gold among minerals, not among wood chips.
Likewise, striving for pure and perfect enlightenment only makes sense because the enlightened nature is already present in every being.
Without this nature, all effort would be futile.
Recognizing that difficult emotions are common to all humans also seems to arouse immediate feelings of empathy with others. We share our emotions: they are part of our collective karma, the human condition.
—Wes Nisker, “It’s Only Natural”
4
DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
This body of mine will disintegrate, but my actions will continue me. In my daily life, I always practice to see my continuation all around me. We don’t need to wait until the total dissolution of this body to continue - we continue in every moment. If you think that I am only this body, then you have not truly seen me. When you look at my friends, you see my continuation. When you see someone walking with mindfulness and compassion, you know he is my continuation. I don’t see why we have to say “I will die,” because I can already see myself in you, in other people, and in future generations.
Even when the cloud is not there, it continues as snow or rain. It is impossible for a cloud to die. It can become rain or ice, but it cannot become nothing. The cloud does not need to have a soul in order to continue. There’s no beginning and no end. I will never die. There will be a dissolution of this body, but that does not mean my death. I will continue, always.
"Say not that this is yours and that is mine Just say this came to you and that to me So we may not regret the fading shine Of all the glorious things that ceased to be"
~Ven. Narada Thera~ (The Way to Nibbana)
3
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
edited September 2021
That's the most beautiful thing I have read, in a long time.
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Dangerous consequences will follow when politicians and rulers forget moral principles. Whether we believe in God or karma, ethics is the foundation of every religion.”
― Dalai Lama
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Time passes unhindered. When we make mistakes, we cannot turn the clock back and try again. All we can do is use the present well.”
– Dalai Lama
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
― Dalai Lama
1
DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
The true person is not anyone in particular;
But like the deep, blue colour
Of the limitless sky,
It is everyone,
Everywhere in the world.
"You cannot catch hold of it, nor can you get rid of it...In not being able to get it, you get it...When you speak it's silent...When you're silent it speaks"
@コチシカ said:
"The worse it gets, the better I feel."
Ajahn Sona
Tee Hee!
Strangely enough awareness is opened by intensity:
In pain, there is your awareness
Loud noise, there is your awareness
Beautiful sight to behold. Where is your awareness? Right there.
Day dreaming of past, future or what if, there is your delusion/attention/awareness.
Now how are we overwhelmed by touch, taste, smell?
The sense of being wanders from awareness to awareness …
Comments
You think!! Stop thinking…..and live…..experience things with the heart.
You’re constantly think, think, think, think, think….
Stop this thinking and then you will live in a world of experience yeah?
And then things just fall into place because there is a natural movement of all things.
And all that you do then is just go with the flow.
And then you don’t have to ask all these questions….
Ajahn Martin (scolding a student who was asking too many questions)
Most questions are easily answered with a little thought. The problem is most of us over think it. Good quote @Bunks
Oh no, it’s Leo! You didn’t really expect us to watch that hour long video did you @lobster
@Kerome up to you. I did not watch much of it.
When someone spends an hour on his thoughts on not overthinking, we can infer quite a lot …
True! I think his goal for people from his community, for them to become sages was somewhat ambitious…
“If you prefer smoke over fire
then get up now and leave.
For I do not intend to perfume
your mind's clothing
with more sooty knowledge.
No, I have something else in mind.
Today I hold a flame in my left hand
and a sword in my right.
There will be no damage control today.
For God is in a mood
to plunder your riches and
fling you nakedly
into such breathtaking poverty
that all that will be left of you
will be a tendency to shine.
So don't just sit around this flame
choking on your mind.
For this is no campfire song
to mindlessly mantra yourself to sleep with.
Jump now into the space
between thoughts
and exit this dream
before I burn the damn place down.”
― Adyashanti
“If you think that people should be nice to one another, then by
all means be nice. But when you project that belief onto the
people and the world around you as if it were an objective reality,
or worse still, as if it were their job to be nice to you, you put
yourself at odds with what is, and suffering will surely follow.”
― Adyashanti, The Way of Liberation
If you have sage and union staffing, it must be Christmas. Jingle All The Way …
God Bless Us, Every One.
Bodhi TinyTim
[ahem] … and now back to the quotes
“It is much like when you have a dream at night and are identified with some character and think you are different from all the others. When you wake up from your dream in the morning, you realize that you are not the character in the dream. You are the dreamer. Everything in the dream came from you. This is a metaphor for spiritual awakening, because when you wake up spiritually, you realize you are not the body-mind. But what is usually missed is that you are the ultimate source of the entire dream. I think this is pretty easy to understand. In one sense, you see that you are not anyone, but in the other, you realize that you are the source of all.”
― Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing
Reminds me of:
Wisdom tells me I am nothing
Love tells me I am everything
Between the two my life flows
“The freedom that’s discovered isn’t, “I have attained enlightenment.” The freedom is, “My God, there is nobody here to be enlightened. Therefore, there is nobody there to be unenlightened.” That’s the light. Only the concept “me” thinks it needs enlightenment, freedom, liberation, and emancipation. It thinks it needs to find God or get a Ferrari—it’s all the same thing when you get right down to it.”
― Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing
Yeah, I had just posted and then realised I hadn't copied the right quote and then my daughter started yelling so... Lol. Anywho...
"I had a discussion with a great master in Japan, and we were talking about the various people who are working to translate the Zen books into English, and he said, ‘That’s a waste of time. If you really understand Zen, you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because the sound of the rain needs no translation.'”
– Alan Watts
“Meditative self-inquiry is the art of asking a spiritually powerful question. And a question that is spiritually powerful always points us back to ourselves. Because the most important thing that leads to spiritual awakening is to discover who and what we are—to wake up from this dream state, this trance state of identification with ego. And for this awakening to occur, there needs to be some transformative energy that can flash into consciousness. It needs to be an energy that is actually powerful enough to awaken consciousness out of its trance of separateness into the truth of our being. Inquiry is an active engagement with our own experience that can cultivate this flash of spiritual insight.”
― Adyashanti, True Meditation: Discover the Freedom of Pure Awareness
“My speaking is meant to shake you awake, not to tell you how to dream better.”
― Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing
"The group is always wrong"
Sangharikshita
In the case of Sangharikshita, the individual was wrong. Not about everything obviously.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/21/sangharakshita-guru-triratna-buddhist-dark-secrets
“There is no witness, there is just witnessing.”
— Adyashanti, The Way of Liberation
“The self is the process!”
— anonymous
“The mind is a wave on the ocean, endlessly waving.”
— anonymous
"Compassion is not sitting in your room; it’s actually very active and engaging,”
Seems like a plan …
Not so much a quote ...a story....an oldie but goodie
"A monk decides to meditate alone. Away from his monastery, he takes a boat and goes to the middle of the lake, closes his eyes and begins to meditate.
After a few hours of unperturbed silence, he suddenly feels the blow of another boat hitting his. With his eyes still closed, he feels his anger rising and, when he opens his eyes, he is ready to shout at the boatman who dared to disturb his meditation.
But when he opened his eyes, saw that it was an empty boat, not tied up, floating in the middle of the lake ...
At that moment, the monk achieves self-realization and understands that anger is within him; it simply needs to hit an external object to provoke it.
After that, whenever he meets someone who irritates or provokes his anger, he remembers; the other person is just an empty boat.
Anger is inside me."
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It's seeing through the facade of pretence. It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.”
― Adyashanti
“We realize--often quite suddenly--that our sense of self, which has been formed and constructed out of our ideas, beliefs and images, is not really who we are. It doesn't define us, it has no center.”
― Adyashanti, The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment
“Let go of all ideas and images in your mind, they come and go and aren’t even generated by you. So why pay so much attention to your imagination when reality is for the realizing right now?”
― Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing
The point is that we can dissolve the sense of dualism between us and them, between this and that, between here and there, by moving toward what we find difficult and wish to push away.
Pema Chodron
“All that is necessary to awaken to yourself as the radiant emptiness of spirit is to stop seeking something more or better or different, and to turn your attention inward to the awake silence that you are.”
― Adyashanti
By learning to remain balanced in the face of everything experienced inside, one develops detachment towards all that one encounters in external situations as well. However, this detachment is not escapism or indifference to the problems of the world.
Goenka
“As I often tell my students, the person you’ll have the hardest time opening to and truly loving without reserve is yourself. Once you can do that, you can love the whole universe unconditionally.”
― Adyashanti, Falling Into Grace
“Confusion, I was taught, is the beginning of understanding,”
― Yongey Mingyur, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness
“I began to see that when the pace of external of material progress exceeded the development of inner knowledge, people seemed to suffer deep emotional conflicts without any internal method of dealing with them. An abundance of material items provides such a variety of external distractions that people lose the connection to their inner lives.”
― Yongey Mingyur, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness
The only thing we have to do is die.
Everything else is a choice.
Venerable Thubten Chodron
80% of the practice is knowing you should let go of something but you are not able to.
Ajahn Chah
(This gives me hope…..)
“You know death is coming. That is certain. You don’t know when. Every day makes the time that remains shorter. And there is nothing you can do to help. Your body won’t help you. Your possessions won’t help you. Your friends and family won’t help you. Only the spiritual path remains, it is the only thing that makes sense.”
— Atisha, around 1000 AD, slightly paraphrased
Happy indeed we live,
friendly amidst the hostility.
Amidst hostile people,
we dwell free from hatred.
Dhammapada 15.197
"Thinking ‘my group,’ ‘their group’ on the basis of religion, on the basis of color, on the basis of social status—all this is old thinking. We have to think [in terms] of one humanity… That’s my number one commitment: to promote a sense of oneness of seven billion human beings.”
Getting butter from milk is only possible because milk already contains cream, but no one has ever made butter by churning water.
The gold digger looks for gold among minerals, not among wood chips.
Likewise, striving for pure and perfect enlightenment only makes sense because the enlightened nature is already present in every being.
Without this nature, all effort would be futile.
JAMGÖN KONGTRUL LODRÖ THAYE (1813-1899)
—Wes Nisker, “It’s Only Natural”
This body of mine will disintegrate, but my actions will continue me. In my daily life, I always practice to see my continuation all around me. We don’t need to wait until the total dissolution of this body to continue - we continue in every moment. If you think that I am only this body, then you have not truly seen me. When you look at my friends, you see my continuation. When you see someone walking with mindfulness and compassion, you know he is my continuation. I don’t see why we have to say “I will die,” because I can already see myself in you, in other people, and in future generations.
Even when the cloud is not there, it continues as snow or rain. It is impossible for a cloud to die. It can become rain or ice, but it cannot become nothing. The cloud does not need to have a soul in order to continue. There’s no beginning and no end. I will never die. There will be a dissolution of this body, but that does not mean my death. I will continue, always.
"Say not that this is yours and that is mine
Just say this came to you and that to me
So we may not regret the fading shine
Of all the glorious things that ceased to be"
~Ven. Narada Thera~ (The Way to Nibbana)
That's the most beautiful thing I have read, in a long time.
"Mindfulness is the ability to use attention and awareness together in an optimal way"
~Culadasa~
Holding on to anger is like picking up a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else;
....you are the one who gets burned...
~Buddhaghosa~
Even our worst failures and misdeeds point us in the right direction.
—Kurt Spellmeyer, “Helpless, Not Hopeless”
May all creatures, all living things,
all beings one and all,
experience good fortune only.
May they not fall into harm.
AN 4.67
“Dangerous consequences will follow when politicians and rulers forget moral principles. Whether we believe in God or karma, ethics is the foundation of every religion.”
― Dalai Lama
“Time passes unhindered. When we make mistakes, we cannot turn the clock back and try again. All we can do is use the present well.”
– Dalai Lama
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
― Dalai Lama
The true person is not anyone in particular;
But like the deep, blue colour
Of the limitless sky,
It is everyone,
Everywhere in the world.
Dogen Zenji
"The worse it gets, the better I feel."
Ajahn Sona
(?!)
"You cannot catch hold of it, nor can you get rid of it...In not being able to get it, you get it...When you speak it's silent...When you're silent it speaks"
~Chan Poem~
Tee Hee!
Strangely enough awareness is opened by intensity:
In pain, there is your awareness
Loud noise, there is your awareness
Beautiful sight to behold. Where is your awareness? Right there.
Day dreaming of past, future or what if, there is your delusion/attention/awareness.
Now how are we overwhelmed by touch, taste, smell?
The sense of being wanders from awareness to awareness …