Friday, October 16, 2009

All of us

• I am saying this from a shift in perspective

Regardless of the conditions all of us seem to be subject to suffering, in equal measure. All of us, old, children, young, middle-aged trying to look young, healthy, sick, beautiful ugly—these seem to be the usual demarcations for me—seem to suffer. Now there is some sort of unity, none is superior to another.



Humans articulate suffering and have ‘will’ to make merit and to do wholesome acts. Those with perfected minds achieve liberation, there are some humans who need to do little to come face to face with knowledge while many are under numerous blind folds of ignorance, delusion or greed or anti-lv:) The path is the same for all, again a unity, do wholesome acts of mind, do wholesome acts of body...

lv

Monday, September 28, 2009

Time


And I watched and watched

as the world passed by

and yet didn’t learn.


For it is the depth, not the breadth of experience

that makes truth available.

Another observation that came from reading a meditation book was that learning will keep coming, I don’t have to feel awful about what I didn’t know earlier :)

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It is one of those days when I feel something that points out a larger emptiness. I feel it is because I feel more ‘connected’ to the outer sphere and inner reality, to emptiness itself—anatta. Have been spending hours meditating, had three consecutive holidays and had little else to do. It is still notional though, yet to come as literal experience.


Also, strangely enough my understanding of things have changed without warning. Love is not about receiving any more, but giving. Love is not passion, not in the least bit, but loving-kindness for all. Quite humbling.

Aspirations are linear and not splintered into a thousand mirages. Yet I have come at odds with common notions that take pride in creating a dependency in love. I have to saddeningly cover the grand liberating gifts of dhamma under the shroud of phrases like ‘I am austere’. There is bounty of satisfaction within and that’s reducing my sensory intake of food, pleasant odors, music etc., not any favoritism for a notion of austerity. Sometimes, one meal a day suffices. Fulfilling, but strange for peers who count my rotis. I have seen these phases of little eating come and go, yet to discover why.

May dhamma spread!


Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Rock said

A rock was buried in the bed of a river. With seasons the river changed color. During rains it will be muddy, in summers it will be green with algae and in dark winters when the nearby textile factory is active and there's little water, it looks like a little nullah. The rock, with the little awareness it had, looked around at the changing scenario, constantly flowing, changing colors, odor and hue. The rock felt it was travelling, changing. All the cycles never displaced the rock.


Sometimes, everything around us seems to be changing, and we take it as automatically affecting us. We are not what we react as, never are, for it is a flux. Reactions will come and go like fluids in the river, anger, passion, peace and becoming. This kind of change is not growth, its no-travel. One has to look at internal change, the breath, to understand the internal and the external, to understand if there is a change/progression at all?!

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Joy


‘Cutivating joy' is more about ‘cognition’.

Even when there is anger, impatience, dissatisfaction, some part of me still seeks joy, and finds it.

Joy is independent of ‘pleasure.’ The difference has taken years to trickle down. Joy is a deeper state of mind than pleasure; it is more of a ‘disposition’.

One cant expect to feel joy after killing/stealing/sexual misconduct/intoxication. Such a person, one would say, is not in a state of joy. Joy is bereft of anguish, greed, hatred, or vengeance.

A stainless mind, a fearless mind, a free mind, is joy.


Cultivating joy

It was easy to swap joy for pleasure. Driving back from college with a friend, my favourite song on the radio, I thought to myself- Is this not pleasure? Well, it was an inconstant pleasure, something that wouldn’t last if we were to keep driving and listening to the song for 2 hours, ten hours … there will be a time when it would satiate me and a new desire would come. I’ll need food and that will be pleasure, then sleep, then this, that …endless like a trap! ‘Pleasure’ is certainly not joy, if I look back and answer my own question today. Also, by refuting pleasure as joy, I have more or less sought something deeper at work than a window in time, a meal, a day or a decade of consumerist existence.

To know right direction from wrong is to know joyful states from ones that bring suffering. Craving and aversion bring suffering; equanimity and awareness bring freedom, liberation. One starts appreciating this by experience, and develops morality, calm, compassion, and mindfulness- states akin to ‘joy’.

With constant mindfulness there is a more vigorous feeling of joy, an undercurrent, a more permanent one.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Letter to a non meditator friend III

Constantly making decisions, we constantly face elimination. Should I eat this, and drop this? Should I listen to this song, this person, this idea? It is all a matter of attaching significance.

Kind of worthwhile to understand this mechanism of significance. Where you place your significance would not come to you automatically, if it does then there is no gap between what you want to do and what you are doing right now, your wishes are your reality, you will and you are able to make the changes easily, without resistance from inside.

How to discover significance in our lives?

Significance is more a matter of creation. Look how you are 'making' your choices. You might be living in a world of ideas but your choices are a good reflection of how much the unconscious is operating its hold. You might believe in good food, see if you grab a tea knowing full well the milk might be adulterated. These operant reflexes, as I call them, will show you, help you discover your significance status by scratching some deeper layers. If you are not exercising when you can and no disability hinders you, you have not attached significance. It is a blessing time is a limitation, you can look through your actions during the day (or month) and come to your larger and inner significance barometer because this limitation sets prorities higher, decides what you actually did.

Start making changes from here.

What kind of changes?

Well, again ironically we know the larger things in this case but miss out the last details and that is where all the action happens. You are reading this mail and still wondering why are you not doing the work you had currently planned ... you are doing something that is ruining your larger plan in a small way.
Observe carefully, these larger changes reside in every moment. Small things, but immediate things. Sometimes implementing is not possible--you can not leave the job right away to start implementing changes, even if you can and will do it in future, you cant change everything suddenly to become the ideal person. Come on, lets accept that :) Now these gaps where we fail to implement are places that rot first. So, if you decided to exercise tomorrow, you made this choice thinking I would perhaps buy breakfast and miss reading the paper if I have to but I will exercise. If you dont then you stock some guilt. You become like a trader, first making a trade between exercise and buying breakfast and then between exercise and an opinion on You.
You know, you stop this trade. Become very clean with yourself. If you plan to wake up for exercise, let that come without trading with something else. Bring it as an intention, strong intention and you see you will get up ... things get easier, not difficult or judgemental--do not let the rot come in, just go on constructing.

In a larger context, do not let a failure in the past, a guilt, or a success affect your intentions or affect the significance you attach to something. No failed relationship should come in form of affecting your underlying actions out of habit. I know a girl who does not wear short sleeves because her ex didnt like them. Let there be no 'carry overs'. Once you do this you will find yourself dropping a lot of things, an old song that haunts you will probably lose its strength, will empty some space in your mind. You would be cleaning a cupboard and stacking fresh significance.

Lv

Letter to a non meditator friend II

Good Morning Gracious



Find time to look at the sky, take a walk.

Mind will wander thinking what to do ...

Bring you mind back and embrace the situation. A lot changes with how we deal with the situation. Not in actions but in perspectives, we can take away all the power a situation may have on our minds just by turning our thoughts.

Think of how things happened to us, we are made to do things that have been unpleasant to us. So much is out of control, for a while let go of the idea of what You did, see how it all happened, how it slipped even as we tried our best to save what we held dear.

And then embrace the situation, we already are deep in it, stop struggling for a while, breathe easy and take a walk.

Sending you love

Monday, August 17, 2009

When we love ...


Love can only mean one thing - love

Love is not mysterious for those loving it

Let me dwell upon what love is not:

Love is not 'touching', not 'feeling', love is not co-incidences, love is not rage, love makes existence gentle

Love does not entice you, love does not lure you, love does not overwhelm, love gives ease

Love is not a rumor, love is not limited, love is not miracle, love is real

Love is not mindless, love is not stupid, love is not cupid, love is not delusion, love is mindfulness

Love is not pleasure, love is not pain, love is not 'want', love is not competition, love is equanimity

Love is not spontaneous for most of us, but then love is not tied not impossible, love is not commited to just 'good', love just is, equally, for all!

When love erupts, it more or less cosumes everything else-all sorrow, all hatred, all bitterness everything vanishes in a surge like that of the waterfalls I saw somewhere in South Africa