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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.
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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.

Alan Watts – Conversation With Myself August 28, 2007

Posted by Kedar in alan watts, atheist, buddha\, buddhism, conservation, eastern, hindu, hinduism, karma, mahayana, maya, oriental, philosophy, spiritual, spirituality, tao, yang, yin.
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Here is Video 1,

Video 2,

and Video 3

The story of Tao January 8, 2007

Posted by Kedar in atheism, atheist, buddhism, east, eastern, hindu, hinduism, mahayana, maya, oriental, philosophy, spiritual, spirituality, tao, yang, yin, zen.
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One day I asked myself an important question “Why do I want what I want?”.

Whenever I wanted something, I almost took granted that I am justified in wanting and pursuing it. I explored the world to find fulfillment. However rarely I had explored the intricate world of my desires.

And I thought the story of Tao.

Tao is a person just like you and me. When the story starts, Tao is living in the land of normal people. He is just living normal life. His rating for the world as interesting place to live is 5 on the scale of 1 to 10. 10 is heaven, 1 is hell.

Tao lives in a civilized society, but Tao harbors wild desires in his mind. Desires to have sex with women without their consent. Desires to just overpower people and rob their money. Desires to kill the people he does not like.

Tao’s mind turns in evil machine. One day Tao finds a beautiful woman alone in corner and rapes her. He is prosecuted, but there is not enough evidence. Judge asks him, “Do you want to confess?”

Tao thinks about his options. If he confesses, he has to go to jail. That means wild people, bad food, confinement. If he denies the charge, he walks free. That means free society, good food, no confinement.

Tao lies and says he is innocent.

Next day Tao robs another person.

Again arrest and prosecution. Again not enough evidence. Again Tao refuses to speak the truth and avoids punishment.

Now Tao is so happy. This seems like a good world. You can get everything and do not have to pay for anything. Tao rates the world as 10 , the most interesting place to live.

But now Tao wants more because he thinks he can have more. If the world improved from 5 to 10 in last few years, why should it not improve from 10 to 15? He asks a wise man “How to get more of what I want?”

“You have to be in company of people who think like you” the wise one answers back.

Tao logs on Internet and finds about land of wild people. He boards a boat and lands in the land of wild people. At the first moment, he sees a beautiful woman. He looks around to make sure no cops are in sight. Suddenly he remembers reading that there are no cops in the land of wild people. “Perfect” he smiles to himself and grabs and rapes the woman. “Don’t even have to worry about cops here. What the nice place this world is.” He does his evil routine.

Whistling, he is walking on the street. Couldn’t have been happier.

Suddenly his eyes are covered by somebody’s hand. He is overpowered.

Next thing he knows is he is raped, robbed and beaten.

Lying in dust, he is shocked. He never experienced something so demeaning to human body. Nobody told him anything about this. He was never expecting to get raped.

He blames God. He rates the world, as -10.

The story does not end. In fact the story never ends. Sorry, let me correct. The story does not end unless Tao wants it to end.

Let us take a look at what happens when the story takes another turn.

Variation number 2:

When he is asked to confess his crime, Tao thinks “what is right thing to do?”

His mind answers “Right thing to do is take the punishment”

Tao takes the punishment. He goes in jail, where people rape him, rob him and beat him. Tao comes out of jail. He still wants to be wild. But he knows a lot more about being wild. He does not need to look up on Internet. He knows exactly where is the land of wild people.

He also rates the world as 5.

He goes to the land of wild people. He has fun robbing, raping and beating others. And one day comes his turn. He is robbed and raped and beaten. He lies in dust.

He gets up and walks away. He was never expecting NOT to get beaten, robbed or raped.

Variation number 3:

Tao is still practicing wild desires in the world of normal people, still avoiding punishment. One day Tao goes for cut. A memory cut. People get a choice to decide what memories to keep and what to get rid of. To start fresh life, people get rid of memories but keep desires. Because growing desires from scratch is a lot of work.

Tao takes memory cut. Now he does not remember anything in the past. He still has wild desires. He reads about land of wild people on Internet and takes a boat there. This time, right on the first step, he gets insulted, beaten, robbed.

He lies in dust cursing God. “This is unbelievable. How could this happen to me? What have I done wrong? I don’t remember anything that makes me deserve such atrocities”

Variation number 4:

Same as story number 3 above. But this time Tao has taken his punishment before going for memory cut. He still retains his desires, but now he is not wild about “wild” world, but knows how to live there in case he lands there.

And eventually when he lands there, he does not expect NOT to get raped, beaten or robbed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The story explains in oversimplified terms how the balance and equilibrium between Tao and the world is maintained without any enforcer. Tao chooses conditioning his mind receives and also he chooses the company he wants to keep. If he walks in wild society with a mind conditioned in civilized society, he finds big surprises and extreme drama in this world. If he walks in wild society with his mind conditioned for wild society, he finds harmony and balance and peace of mind even in the midst of hell.

The story creates basis for my further interrogation of the question ‘Why do we want what we want”? Why does Tao want what he wants? For one moment let us keep aside the debate of free will and consider what we want or at least the part of it, our will, has to do with what we are doing.

Tao wants material pleasures. He wants gratification. That is no problem, till he starts wanting things that are essentially in conflict with each other. He wants honor and respect in civilized society without caring to reciprocate those gestures. He wants to think that such a thing is possible and sustainable. From such confusion he eventually finds himself in a situation where he cannot get all what he wants. He creates kind of lose-lose situation for himself.

Next time you find yourself in a situation where you did not have enough good choices, do not blame the world for putting you in trouble. Instead ask yourself how did you end up wanting more than this situation has to offer.

The Duck In The Bottle December 18, 2006

Posted by Kedar in brahma, buddha\, buddhism, east, eastern, hindu, hinduism, india, mahayana, maya, oriental, philosophy, spiritual, spirituality, yang, yin, zen.
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A group of people went to meet a Zen teacher while he was walking in a park. “We want to know about Zen. Please tells us about it.” The most enthusiastic one asked.

The teacher said, “Let me tell you a story.”

“I had a small duckling. I kept it in a bottle. I fed it and kept the bottle clean and took good care of it. The duck grew and grew. One day I realized that the duck has grown too big and I cannot get it out unless I hurt it seriously or break the bottle. So now what should I do if I want to get the duck out, but I still want the bottle intact?”

People started scratching their heads and talking to each other. Time went by. Once in a while somebody would come up with a solution. Teacher would smile and show his disagreement.

After a while teacher called a small girl playing nearby and asked her the same question. “Just break the bottle.” The girl replied without hesitation.

The teacher nodded in agreement and patted her on back. He smiled at the bunch of perplexed faces in front of him and walked away.

I know what you are all thinking. You are wondering if I am suggesting the girl’s answer is the correct one. If I am, then you are ready to pound on me saying “But the teacher clearly said he does not want to break the bottle.”

The girl’s answer is perhaps not correct by definition. Yet she sees something the group of grown-ups fails to see. She sees that it is impossible.

It is impossible to save the duck and save the bottle as well. Yes, people can come up with solutions. Perhaps a machines can be invented to expand the bottle and get the duck safely out, or to tele-transport the duck the way they show in Star trek, or perhaps surgical procedures can be performed that would cut the duck to pieces inside the bottle and join all the limbs again when out.

Yet, we would do a lot of damage by the time we achieve that. To invent such a machine and test it, money worth a lot of bottles would be spent. To come up with perfect surgical procedures, a lot of ducks will have to die in experiments. Usually that’s how we tend to solve problems in our daily life. We isolate the problem from rest of the universe and solve the problem, making a lot of assumptions about the rest of the world.

Can you save both the duck and the bottle by going to extreme means? Yes. Are you really living in better universe after that feat of achievement? Most likely not.

The little girl, who was not yet conditioned by civilization, immediately saw futility of this conquest. She did not convert it in an intellectual challenge. She felt compassion even for the fictional duck. She did not mind ignoring the instructions and risking to look foolish. Her problem is very clear and solution very simple. If the duck is stuck, break the bottle and get it out.

The truth here is that conflict is inherent to life.

We go on telling ourselves that if there is a conflict, then there is something wrong, something needs to be improved, optimized, changed. For example, healthy food usually does not taste good. Tasty food is mostly bad for health. So there is a conflict. Food that is healthy as well as tasty will cost you a lot more, thus conflicting somewhere else. Chase one conflict out, and the other one sneaks in.

We treat these conflicts as aberrations or mistakes. We believe in existence of a physical and mental state eternally free of all conflicts and we continuously strive for such a state.

The truth is, it is impossible to achieve such a state of mind and body by pursuit of material goals.

This is the lesson 101 of Zen Buddhism and overall oriental philosophy. Disillusion of material goals. Rather than shunning these conflicts and trying to impose order on life, ancient Eastern philosophers tend to honor them by calling it the game of Bramha and Maya, or the dance of Yin and Yang. They tend to view the world as the continuous and endless play between two forces, eternally at conflict with each other. Sometimes the duck wins, sometimes the bottle. Sometimes it’s Bramha, sometimes Maya. There is no purpose, there is no end.

This Yin vs. Yang struggle is present in our life as short term goals vs. long term goals, emotions vs. logic, ideology vs. practicality, aggression vs. defense, hate vs. love. Sometimes we swing this way, sometimes that way. That swinging is us, not the swing. The motion is us, not the pendulum.

Initially it might sound depressing. What’s the point in such a broken life if we cannot fix it?

But once we let it sink in, we find a huge sense of liberation. Suddenly it is not necessary to fix things before you enjoy them. Fix it if you like fixing. Enjoy it if you like enjoying.

Once we get it, we stop subordinating this present moment for that fictitious moment of fulfillment in future. We begin honoring the present for what it is. We stop life as an exercise in managing consequences and we start life as spontaneous expression. We stop seeing ourselves as a player. Instead we see ourselves as the game, the motion itself. We stop living in fiction, we start living in reality.

Because Destination is a fiction, only journey is a reality.