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.
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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.
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.
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.
My Lessons from The Story of Tao January 17, 2007
Posted by Kedar in atheism, atheist, buddha\, buddhism, east, eastern, hindu, hinduism, india, mahayana, oriental, philosophy, spiritual, spirituality, tao, zen.add a comment
If you have not yet read my previous post, please read it here.
Following are the important lessons I should learn from the story of Tao
Not knowing what you are being punished for is perhaps part of your punishment.
The story of Tao tells us one important thing. When I come across a conflict, I can believe that the universe is unbalanced and unjust and can go berserk. Or I can believe that I am failing to see some part of the whole chain of events. The immediate next question is why am I failing to see part of that chain. Perhaps by my own direct or indirect choice of ignorance.
We are unhappy, it is not because out will is not getting fulfilled. But it is because we do not know which of our will is getting fulfilled. Not knowing for what you are being punished, is part of punishment.
If we don’t know, than it is our choice.
And why did we not know for what we are being punished? Because we did not want to know. How this component gets added in punishment? By our choice. We chose to forget things in order to feel surprised later and bring some drama to our life.
If Tao had chosen to face punishment while he retained memories of his crime, he would have gained knowledge and seen harmony. Instead he chooses to limit his perception so that he can believe world can be cheated. This way he pumped up his “High” feelings and kicks. He chose the belief that ‘world need not be balanced’. This belief will cause him as much trouble later as he avoided by creating this belief.
Getting closure is previlege. It needs to be earned.
May it be our crusade to be rich or may it be the agony we felt when our money was stolen. What we are looking for is closure. That’s why we need every book and every movie to start with a conflict and end in “happily thereafter”. It is not the pains or atrocity we are afraid of. We are secretly afraid of not having closure, not seeing the victim get punished, not seeing our efforts rewarded.
In case of Tao we see that conflict is property more of Tao’s perception than that of the material universe. And so is closure. Getting closure is a privilege, not birthright. That needs too be earned by facing the truth, taking pains to form a right perception. You deserve closure only if you earned it.
Earning closure points comes with it’s own costs. More we see closure, more we see harmony. More we see harmony, more we lose drama in this world. Which one is better? I don’t know. I guess when your time to seek harmony comes, you seek harmony.
One thing I know for sure is that the harmonious world really looks serene and beautiful.
A Poem By Dalai Lama January 15, 2007
Posted by Kedar in Blogroll, buddha\, buddhism, east, eastern, india, mahayana, oriental, philosophy, spiritual, spirituality, tao.1 comment so far
A beautiful poem. Got it in email. Claimed to be from Dalai Lama, but could not verify it. The last two lines make me wonder if Dalai Lama would write some lile like “Hit Delete”, which is targeted specifically for email. But nonetheles, a beautiful poem.
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In our times,
Height of skyscrapers increased, but did that of humanity decreased?
Rodes widened, but did the viewpoints narrowed?
Expenses increased, but did the savings dwindled?
Expanded homes, but small families.
Pleasures increased, but the fun reduced.
Free time increased, but the fun reduced.
Degrees and diplomas increased, but wisdom went down.
Mountains of information, but noone to point the correctness.
Lot of medicines, but less health.
Ownership increased, values went down?
We talk a lot, love less and hate easily
Standard of life increased, but life became poorer.
We added years in life, but not life to those years.
We visited the moon, but we are not visiting the neighbor.
we are winning outside, but losing within.
We are trying to purify air, but our soul suffocates.
Income increased, but honesty decreased.
This is time of more tall people, but less towering characters.
Tons of profits, but less of relations.
Talks about world peace, but fights in home.
Time at hand, but fun already lost.
Lots of foods, but no taste.
More people earning, but divorces increased.
Houses decorated, but homes devastated.
Lots of showpieces in windows, but rooms empty.
There is technology today,
to make this letter reach to you.
And you still have freedom,
To take a serious look,
If you want to change something, change,
Or just forget it and hit delete.
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