The Pot On The Table May 19, 2008
Posted by Kedar in alan watts, atheism, atheist, buddha\, buddhism, conflict, east, eastern, enlightenment, hindu, hinduism, karma, mahayana, oriental, philosophy, relativity, religion, spiritual, spirituality, story, tao, zen.add a comment
This one is a well known Zen story.
One day one teacher decided to throw a puzzle at his students. When everyone assembled in the lunch room, he took a clay pot and kept in on the table in front of everyone.
“Without using any of the attribute such as color, material, shape, describe to me what is that on the table.” He challenged.
Nobody spoke for a while.
One student demanded more clarification.
“Simply tell me what it is without using any of it’s name.” Said the teacher.
At that point the cook came forward. He pushed the pot from the table. The pot fell on the ground and broke into pieces.
“It was what it is not any more.” Said the cook.
It is so true for so many things in our life. We recognize their existence, their importance only when they are gone. Because human mind is very good in grasping sensation, but not so good in noticing harmony. We can understand things only relative to the change they undergo. We fail to understand those things that are always with us.
When I dig deeper into this, I can see why Alan Watts , in his book “The way of Zen”, says Not only ear makes sound, but sound makes ear too.” Because we have ear, we know that there is something called sound. So ear makes sound. But if there was no sound, we would never know we have an organ called ear that is capable of hearing something called sound. So in a way, collectively, the sounds make ear.
The Color Of The Wildflower May 6, 2008
Posted by Kedar in atheism, atheist, buddhism, desire, east, eastern, enlightenment, hindu, hinduism, india, karma, mahayana, maya, oriental, philosophy, religion, spiritual, spirituality, story, subjective, subjectivity, tao, theory, zen.4 comments
Two people were waiting on the bank of a river. They were waiting for the ferry to take them to the other side of the river. To kill the time, they started talking.
“I am a lifelong student. I have spent all my life searching for the truth.” The first one said.
“I feel I am about to find it.” He continued. ” I have been told that there is a teacher on the other side of the river who is very knowledgeable and insightful. If I get to meet him, he will help me get enlightened.”
“Very nice.” The second one said. “But are you sure you want to get enlightened? Are you sure that it will end all your problems?”
“Seems to me that you know nothing about enlightenment. It is eternal bliss. It is death of deaths. It is escape from the cycles of life. It is attained by only the most knowledgeable.” The first one replied.
“Indeed. I don’t know enough about enlightenment.” Said the second person. “But let me ask you a simple question. “
“Look at that.” Pointing to a wildflower at some distance , he said ” What color is that flower?”.
“That is a blue wildflower.” Said the first one.
“I wonder what color it will look to you when you are enlightened.” Remarked the second one.
That was the moment of enlightenment for the first person.
—
Substitute “enlightenment” with any other accomplishment you have in your mind, graduation, job, finding love or winning lottery, and you will realize that no matter what you achieve, a blue wildflower will always look blue.
No matter how big accomplishment you achieve or no matter how badly you fail, a big part of your life will remain the same. The color of the sky, taste of water, sensation of hot and cold will be the same. Mountains and rivers will look the same, breeze and sunlight will always feel the same.
So put every accomplishment, every pursuit in right perspective. Do not hold your entire life hostage to your pursuits.
Even the small part that changes as a result of culmination of pursuits is most of the times in our mind. Say you get a million dollars right now. All that changes is how you look at the world. Not the world. A million dollars will save you from some dangers, not all. It will not save you from earthquake.
This disillusionment is the beginning of spiritual journey.
A Tale Of Radha Krishna And Uddhava- II January 22, 2008
Posted by Kedar in atheist, buddhism, eastern, hindu, hinduism, india, karma, oriental, philosophy, religion, spiritual, spirituality.Tags: radha krishna uddhava mahayana soul tao zen spititualit
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It was early morning. The world was slowly coming to life.
As the morning breeze rattled tree leaves , meek chirpy whistles came out from the nests . Slowly, cows and cattle were standing up in their stable. The bells in their neck rung intermittently. The soft rays of morning sun made their first appearance and the dew on tree leaves sparkled like pearls. Far off somewhere a rooster made it official. It was morning.
Knock Knock!!
The sound of knocking broke the silence.
The door of Radha’s house cracked open. Once again Uddhava was greeted with warm smile. Once again he was welcomed in.
The front yard was cleaned, the plants were watered and a lamp was lit under the Tulsi Vrindavan. So Radha was already awake.
Uddhava freshened up and finished his glass of fresh milk, as Radha finished some morning chores. She lit the fire and sat next to him.
“So Uddhava, I hear you are Maharishi now?”
“Yes. I am afraid so.”
Both of them laughed.
“So what’s the message for me today?”
She still had that mischievous smile.
“Today I come with no message. Only questions.” Uddhava said as he fidgeted with his fingers.
“Still today I lay back on my bed in night, I think of what you said. I try to link it to what I learned. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t.”
He paused for a moment. The crackling sound of firewood only highlighted the silence in that moment.
“I think of the day I left from Dwaraka, feeling weird that Krishna has not given any message for you. My intentions were honest, yet I ended up doing something very foolish. If such a circumstances may arise in future, what should be the course of my action? What is the right thing to do? All my knowledge seems to have failed this simple test Krishna gave me.”
“Sitting in the chariot, I tried to fake a message. That was a mistake, and standing before you, I looked foolish , that was the retribution. Don’t you think so?”
Radha did not say anything for a few minutes. She rearranged the logs in the fire. The smoke reduced and the flames showed up again. Finally she spoke in the same soothing tone.
“You see this firewood, Uddhava? In a few minutes this will be reduced to ashes. Then I will throw the ashes in the trees. They will go into soil. One day a new tree will come out of the soil. There will be new trunk, new branches, new leaves. One day those branches and leaves will collapse and will burn again somewhere.”
“Is there a right way of going from firewood to ashes? Is there a wrong way of going from ashes to soil? The truth is Uddhava, the words wood, soil and ashes have no meaning an inch outside of your head. They exist only in your thoughts, your mind. In reality there is no wood, no ashes, no soil and no tree. There is only journey from wood to ashes to soil and to wood again.”
“Has she read Gita?” Was Uddhava’s first thought. He remembered Krishna’s description of journey of soul.
“What I hear you saying is the entities and their relationships exist in my perception. May be this is true, but this does not answer my question.” Uddhava said.
“If I apply what you said to me, then it means that my ego is an fictional entity. In such a way you can argue that every entity like ego, person, family, village community, an empire and humanity is more of a convention, not a reality.”
“If all these are convention, then what should be the foundation of morality? The mother nurses the child. Can she just turn away from the child thinking that the child, the ego of the child is just another convention? “
Uddhava let off his steam and fell silent. Radha was still calm, still smiling. Slowly she began.
“Uddhava, if you cross the fence and go to the next door, you will indeed find a mother nursing her daughter. She is not the only one to nurse her kid. All the mothers in the village do. And why village, all the mothers in the universe, animals and humans alike, have nursed their kids from the beginning of the time and will do so till end of time.”
“So if each and every mother does it, then may be it is not the person, the identity, the ego, the individual. It’s the nature. Nature nurtures nature itself, through the mother and through the child. Nature kills nature itself, through the winning warrior and through the losing warrior.”
“The one who sees the world as such, will not think of himself or herself as the driver of this world. Rather the person would see himself/herself as the vehicle, an agent, through which the nature drives a giant game. “
“We are all part of this game, we always were and we will always be. Sometimes we are the nature, sometimes we are the individual. Sometimes we play dead, sometimes we play alive. Sometimes we are happy, sometimes we are sad. Uddhava, a being is not any of its state, it is the going, the motion. A person or an individual is not the one who is happy or the one who is sad, a person is who goes from being happy to being sad and from being sad to being happy.”
“Such is the game of world. Happiness always gives birth to grief and grief always delivers happiness. There is no end. They have alternated since the beginning of time and will continue to do so. Those who realize this will not worry about being happy or being sad. They will not resist nature, instead realize that they are part of it. Thus they will stop living artificial, manipulated life and start living natural, easy life. Thus they will stop being something else and be themselves.”
The Unspoken Beliefs July 24, 2007
Posted by Kedar in atheism, atheist, buddha\, buddhism, conflict, conservation, desire, east, eastern, hindu, hinduism, karma, mahayana, micro, objective, oriental, spiritual, spirituality, tao, theory, uncertainty, world.2 comments
Remember the last time you were disappointed and frustrated? You thought “I am unhappy because I do not have that job/car/house”.
There is another way to look at it. The reason for your unhappiness was not that ‘you did not have something’. Instead the reason you are unhappy is ‘you had something (else)’. What you had was the belief that ‘you need that something to be happy’. Get rid of this belief and you will be happy even without that thing. Once we imagine ourselves as the master of the belief and not the slave, we realize that it is our choice not to let go this belief and agonize ourselves.
We all have these unseen, unspoken beliefs that we are not aware we carry. We fail to grasp their existence, because do not know the world without them. After grasping this as a belief, we can change the way we define self.
Old definition:
Imperfect myself + good job = perfect myself
New definition:
Perfect myself + belief of (incompleteness without job) = imperfect myself.
Almost never we abstract ourselves away and look at our beliefs as our extensions. If I ever got handle of all my believes and I defined them all as an extension of my true nature, I will end up abstracting a truly natureless nature.
When all the Zen books are talking about not associating yourself with your mind and body and thoughts, and identifying your true nature, it is that “Perfect myself” nature they are talking about. As perfect myself, I am indeed free of all insecurities, desires and fears. Yet we never grasp it, because we have never seen the world without it.
There is a small story Catherine Ingram, the Dharma teacher, tells. One day a small fish goes to his grandpa fish and asks him “What is it they call water, everybody is making so much fuss about? I searched everywhere but I did not find it”. The grandpa fish says “Son, not only the water is all around you, but good amount of you yourself are water”
Our mind is full of such ungrasped believes and ideas. In fact that’s what makes our mind. Our aware self is floating in sea of such beliefs that we will never notice till we peek out.
How did these believes come in there? We ourselves picked them on the way. And we have forgotten how and when.
If we create many of these believes, then our will bounces from belief to belief and then we call it double mind, anxiety, fear and many other things.
If we ever peek inside this maze, we find interesting things. The very moment we identify a belief, we empower ourselves to make choice about existence of that belief.
When I am writing this, I have tones of beliefs in me. I believe somehow someday somebody will read this.
I also believe that I am great and very important person. I believe that my country and my religion are great. I believe that my friends and family are great. I believe that everything I am part of deserves special attention from this universe because it is related to me. I believe that by making choices, I can make tomorrow better than today. I believe that if something happened two times, it will happen third time. I believe that ten times of anything is ten time better than one time of that thing. I believe that I have a right to expect the better things in this world. I believe that I have right to expect better behavior from people and I believe that I know the best about this world.
Sometimes the world does not support my believes and sometimes it does. I am insulted by my boss. I feel the insult because the reality clashes with my belief.
Have you ever felt “I need more money so that I will feel free to do things I want” ?. What money brings is the sense of freedom without having to bring a change within you, your belief system. The very feeling mentioned above stands on a set of believes we never bother to put in words. I want to become millionaire because then I can only do what I want. Thus I will spend more time in doing things I like and spend less time reacting to the insecurities and fears I feel. Thus I will spend more time acting and spend less time reacting. This is core of our idea of freedom, which we rarely bother to put in words.
Whose Experience Is Right? April 26, 2007
Posted by Kedar in buddha\, buddhism, eastern, hindu, hinduism, karma, mahayana, philosophy, spiritual, spirituality, subjective, subjectivity, theory, zen.2 comments
Whose theory is right? depends on assumptions.
Whose assumptions are right? depends on experiences.
Whose experiences are right?
There is no way to tell,
That’s why the wise one maintains silence.
A Tale Of Radha , Krishna and Uddhava April 5, 2007
Posted by Kedar in brahma, buddha\, buddhism, desire, east, eastern, hindu, hinduism, india, karma, oriental, philosophy, spiritual, spirituality, story, zen.Tags: krishna, radha
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Uddhava, the apprentice of Krishna, one day expressed his dis-satisfaction to Krishna that in-spite of studying all Vedas ,Upnishadas and Sutras, he still was not recipient of the title “Maha-Rishi”, meaning the great sage. He indirectly suggested that Krishna should use his weight in the council of wise men to honor him with the title.
Krishna sensed the ego and pride of Uddhava. He smiled and asked Uddhava if he thought his study was complete. Uddhava answered a confident yes. Krishna did not say anything. He just told Uddhava to come and see him the next day.
The next day Krishna asked him a for a favor. He asked Uddhava to visit Vrindavan, where Krishna’s soul mate Radha resided, and to give her a message. Uddhava gladly agreed. After all, getting to do a special assignment for no one else but Krishna, the divine one, was an honor. When he was ready to leave, Krishna smiled and waved him goodbye. Uddhava asked about the message and Krishna said he had none.
Uddhava was surprised. He sat in chariot and started on his way, but he could not help wonder what would be Radha’s reaction. He was sure Radha would be very angry at this. He did not want to see a problem in Radha and Krishna’s relationship. So just before he entered Vrindavan, he got a parch-paper and wrote a hi-hello message to Radha and forged to look like it came from Krishna.
On reaching Vrindavan, he did not have problem finding Radha’s house. She gave him a warm welcome. After he settled, he handed over the message, hoping she would not examine the message in too much detail.
For a moment Radha stared at the parch-paper and then she started laughing hysterically. Uddhava was confused. He asked Radha what was the matter. She said the message Krishna wrote was funny. Uddhava pretended surprise and asked what was the message.
“The message says Uddhava’s study is still not complete.” replied Radha.
On listening this, Uddava was stunned.
‘How could she have known this?’ he wondered.
Radha calmed him down.
“I love Krishna and trust Krishna in ways beyond you can imagine.” She said “We are two bodies but same soul. There is nothing to be said in between us. We have walked the path of trust, love, devotion and sacrifices for so long that there are no boundaries in my being and his. He does not need to send me messages. He is my message. He is my love letter from the universe.”
“But Uddhava, you have not learned to trust Krishna. You have not learned to give up your self, your ego, and stop your manipulating mind. You ego stands between you and the truth. Between you and the supreme awakening.”
“Erasing the sense of duality and being one with the universe, being one with the one who beholds universe, is this not the jist of the sacred ancient texts, Uddhava?”
Uddhava was speechless. Within a minute, Radha had explained the the deepest mysteries of life. He just wanted to stand there and listen.
He spent the whole day at her house. She talked about life in layman’s terms of love and truth. But Uddhava found answers to his most profound questions in philosophies he learned all this life.
“How did you get so much knowledge staying in this village and living life doing chores?” He asked.
“Each moment makes you take sides. If you always take side of truth and love, you will gain insights. Each insight awakens you from the illusion and takes you a step closer to the supreme awakening.”
“How can you be in Love with Krishna and still remain free from bonds of life ?”
“There is distinction between the love that results from insecurity and the love that results from faith. The former results in bonds. The later results in freedom. The former gets lost, the later transcends. The former leads to fear of death and abandonment. The later leads to Nirvana, to enlightenment that is death of death, to realization that Radha and Krishna are just ripples and love is like the water, eternal and infinite.”
“How can you get awakened without leaving the society and becoming a monk?”
“Where a man reaches by renouncing the world, a woman reaches by embracing the world in its wholeness.” Said Radha.
“Is there no point in pursuit of knowledge? Then what is the meaning of life?”
“Your ability to give it any meaning, is the meaning of life. ” Ansewred Radha. “And about the pursuits, pursuit of currency is not the same as pursuit of wealth, pursuit of sensation is not pursuit of happiness, pursuit of titles is not pursuit of knowledge. These pursuits are in synergy for some time, and they are at conflict later. You must wake up, and open your eyes.”
Radha’s answers turned all of Uddhavas learning upside down and inside out and presented to him as a paradox, a paradox his doubting mind could never grasp. Uddhava’s ego surrendered. The constant chatter of thoughts at the back of his mind stopped and he saw a totally new world at the same place. An eternal, peaceful world where everything seemed OK.
On his way back to Dwaraka, Uddhava sensed a big change within him. He sang to himself. He offered lift to a sick man. He appreciated the sunset in the Western sky. He did not feel rush to get home and work on getting his title.
Next day he met Krishna. Krishna sensed the change too.
Krishna smiled and said “So let’s talk about your title Maha-rishi.”
“I am not that interested in the title anymore. ” replied Uddhava and bent to touch Krishna’s feet.
Krishna rose from his throne. He hold on to Uddhava’s shoulders and smiled at him.
” Your journey is complete. You have arrived. Uddhava, I bestow you the responsibility of writing down my teaching in simple language for all those who do not have luxury of spending their life trying to be Maha-rishi. You will share the gems of knowledge that do not belong to any title such as Maha-rishi. “
“And for this great contribution to humanity, hereafter you shall be known as Maha-rishi.”
[This post is being moved to http://kedarsoman.wordpress.com/2007/04/05/a-tale-of-radha-krishna-and-uddhava/
This blog overall is being moved to kedarsoman.wordpress.com/zen
Thanks to all, see you there.]
Flower Blooms – A Zen Poem February 19, 2007
Posted by Kedar in atheism, atheist, buddha\, buddhism, cycle, east, eastern, hindu, hinduism, india, karma, mahayana, oriental, philosophy, tao, zen.add a comment
Flower blooms for it wants to bloom,
Spring comes for it wants to come,
Play of mind sees cause and effect,
Mind plays for it wants to play.
Macro Micro Conflict January 29, 2007
Posted by Kedar in atheism, atheist, buddhism, conflict, east, eastern, heisenberg, hinduism, karma, macro, micro, objective, objectivity, oriental, philosophy, quantum, relativity, spiritual, spirituality, subjective, subjectivity, theory, uncertainty, unified, world, zen.add a comment
Long back when astronomers were looking at the stars and planets, and calculating ‘path of revolution of stars around the earth’, they ran into several discrepancies. So they came up with more complicated equations to explain those discrepancies. That gave rise to more discrepancies. So they came up with even more complex equations.
At last Copernicus stood up and said “Wait a minute guys. It doesn’t have to be this complex. The mistake might be in our assumptions, not theories. May be the earth is not the center of the universe.”
Thus began a revolution in modern astronomy. The revolution continued with Galileo, leapfrogged with Newton and exploded with Max Plank. Then came Einstein and said “Wait a minute, still something is weird. May be the world has no center, no absolute frame of reference at all. Everything is just relative to each other.”
To put relativity in simplest form, imagine you are hanging in deep black space everywhere around you, and your friend is also hanging in deep black space everywhere around her. Suddenly your friend starts moving towards you with great speed. You shout at her to watch out and not to move so fast. She shouts back at you the same thing. Nobody can decide who is moving and who is still. Only thing that can be said is that relative to one, the other is moving.
Is this the time for us to ditch the last assumption of science- that the knowledge is objective and no matter who is trying to know it (or knows it), it is same?
Today, one of the most interesting quests in Cosmology seems to be reconciliation of Quantum Theory and Theory of relativity. To quote the simplest explanation in Briane Greene’s book “The Elegant Universe”, Quantum Theory explains the phenomena at the micro level and Theory of Relativity explains the events and things at macro level. At some points there is a strong mismatch in results provided by Quantum Theory and Theory of Relativity.
On a totally different track, imagine the question “Wasting one minute in life is OK, but wasting one million minutes is not OK. Where is the line? Wasting exactly how many minutes is OK and wasting one more than that limit is not OK?”
The same question can be asked about wasting one dollar or wasting one million dollar, or almost anything at small level and large level. The answer is that there is no answer. There will always remain a conflict between answers when events are considered at micro level and at macro level. A macro-micro conflict. The same thing applying to cosmology, there will always remain a conflict that cannot be solved.
Or let me rephrase this. The macro-micro conflict cannot be solved at objective level. The conflict can be solved at subjective individual level. If we insist on solution, it can be solved, but answers would differ from individual to individual with no possibility of reconciliation.
Let me explain a bit more why I am saying the conflict can only be solved at subjective level.
So far science has treated consciousness or awareness or aliveness in general as mere neuro-chemical anomaly. But without acknowledging it as such, science has made room for the ‘knower’ in one of the very important theories. Heisenberg Uncertainty. If somebody tries to know the position of electron, it introduces uncertainty in the position of electron. So in inverse, we can say that if there is found an unsolvable uncertainty, it must be because of presence of some knower.
In this case, it’s us. The Quantum theory and Theory of Relativity cannot reconcile because of “Us”. Because we are present. The quantum theory predictions can only be verified for “observed electrons”, which have knower induced uncertainty in them. But the object dealt with by theory of relativity are big and human existence cannot induce any uncertainty in them. Thus the conflict.
If we insist on solving, the uncertainty induced by each person, or each knower will be different. So different people trying to solve this will come up with different answers.
Kind of the same thing happens when we tackle the one-minute million minute question. Depending on who is answering it, what does that person want, believe, etc. the answers will be different if forced to answer.
Reminds me of a story.
After a long speech by a zen master, a person walked up to him with lots of notes and books. He told the master that some statement made in the speech was wrong and went on to prove it using his notes and books. The master simply smiled and told him “Yes, you are right.” and walked away.
The person got confused. He again followed the master and said “So I just proved that all what you said was wrong?”
The master smiled and said ” No, you proved that what you heard was wrong.”
Between what I say and what you hear, what I write and what you read, there stands a giant layer of subjectivity of your and my interaction. More often than not we are in denial of this subjectivity. However the fact remains. Your world and my world will never be 100% reconciled. There will exist a point where both of us will be right, yet we might be in conflict with each other.
Cycle of Will January 18, 2007
Posted by Kedar in atheism, atheist, conflict, cycle, desire, east, eastern, hindu, hinduism, india, karma, oriental, philosophy, spiritual, spirituality, zen.add a comment
Every day we are walking new paths in the material world. But in emotional world, persons and families and societies are walking the same paths for centuries. Same play, different actors. Same story new characters.
It begins with a conflict. Conflict brings a sense of agony, where we know we want change, but we can’t figure out what. It’s a first vague reaction. This agony when simmers for some time, gives rise to desire where we know what change is required. Yet we don’t know how. Desire stays at the back of our experience and being. Slowly by osmosis, it permeates into our perceptions. Now we have a mind. Reflexes are built in. Habits are forged. It results into sponteneous action. Finally it leads to knowledge and fullfillment.
Any attempts to reach quick gratification leads to faulty perception of this world, which leads to believing into mirages. Believing into mirages leads to more conflicts.
Howmuchever we hate conflicts and agony, we cannot deny their rightful place in our emotional cycle. No conflict, no experience of desire.
Walking in circles, walking in circles, it’s a mad mad world.
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