Topic: Buddhist sayings

[erik]

When we no longer have the context of our physicality, we can be overwhelmed, and experience fear and confusion in relation to the intangible manifestation of disembodied consciousness.

[erik]

Spiritual practice is a worthwhile cause that can succeed. The path is valuable and the goal is achievable.

[erik]

One cannot 'enact' without affecting everything and, at the same time, being affected by everything. Pattern affects pattern, creating further pattern.  Pattern evolves out of chaos and becomes chaos again. Pattern and randomness dance together.

[Michael]

One cannot 'enact' without affecting everything and, at the same time, being affected by everything. Pattern affects pattern, creating further pattern.  Pattern evolves out of chaos and becomes chaos again. Pattern and randomness dance together.

One of the conceptual mistakes pattern-addicts make, when they seek to construct extreme dots together to validate their desire for pattern, is to ascribe the pattern to a human group-agent. Why a group I don't know, because it is certainly more attractive than a single-agent. Nonetheless, the mistake is to leave out of the 'influence dot-construct' the aspect of chaos and general contextual chance. The desire to seek ulterior motive, over-valuates the power of any agent, and under-valuates the constant dance partner of randomness.

This why the attempt of all hidden agenda social groups to manipulate in their self-interest has always finally come undone. Not just because of its imbalanced strategy, but mainly due to the power of randomness flooding at the gates. "The best laid plans of mice and men..."

[erik]

Our being is a brilliant pattern of energies, a spectrum of possibilities. At every moment we have the capacity to experience the open dimension of what we are.

[erik]

One of the conceptual mistakes pattern-addicts make, when they seek to construct extreme dots together to validate their desire for pattern, is to ascribe the pattern to a human group-agent. Why a group I don't know, because it is certainly more attractive than a single-agent. Nonetheless, the mistake is to leave out of the 'influence dot-construct' the aspect of chaos and general contextual chance. The desire to seek ulterior motive, over-valuates the power of any agent, and under-valuates the constant dance partner of randomness.

This why the attempt of all hidden agenda social groups to manipulate in their self-interest has always finally come undone. Not just because of its imbalanced strategy, but mainly due to the power of randomness flooding at the gates. "The best laid plans of mice and men..."

Well said. Chaos, chance, randomness.
No wonder that the best and historically most successful military schools have trained their students to lead troops in chaos, lack of information and constant danger. The basic belief or assumption behind such approach is that a perfect solution or a perfect course of action is completely impossible in war.

Every decision has inherent faults, and what leader needs to do, is to act, continuously re-assess and ajust his course of action, and correct his mistakes faster than his enemy. It has been even stated that it is an ultimate culmination of officer's career if the full responsibility to save the day falls upon him in the most critical and desperate of situations. It is the moment officer has trained and waited for all his life and when he lives to the fullest.

Or so they indoctrinated many of the men who made history and accomplished things considered nearly impossible.

Courage to take action knowing that one has no chance to come up with a perfect solution, speed and decisiveness in implementing taken decision knowing that it could be deeply faulty, and continuous fluid adjustments along the way always dominate over any perfect plan. This is what history of military leadership says after millenia of fighting.

[erik]

Having a good heart goes further than anything in terms of empathising with the nondual state. Intellectual elaborations are not important.  Kindness is something you feel – a warmth and expansiveness which flows from our growing openness.  Kindness is our contact, our strongest link with the nondual state.  So much for law and order.  The essence of Buddhism is similar to anarchism.  Not anarchy in the distorted popular sense in which the word is understood—in the sense of dog-eat-dog-chaos—but anarchism in terms of  ‘no external government’.  Anarchism is the naturally manifesting inner government of awareness – unconditioned, present, direct and utterly responsible.

[erik]

When you accept that sense cannot always be ‘made’, you can begin to appreciate space. We are all confused.  If we were not confused, we would not need to practise. We need to be willing to remain with the taste of our confusion as the texture of life and allow it to be the random pattern of our everyday lives. Confusion is merely the recognition of the amorphous quality of an existence which does not obey the protocol of samsara.

[erik]

The structure of thought, the convoluted geography of our personalities, the world of ideas is complex and subtle.  If we put ourselves in the position of thinking about the way we think, we have a tricky situation to say the least.  We are obviously limited in our thinking, by our style of thinking.  So; something apart from thinking needs to look at thinking.  But what could this be?  Buddhism describes this ‘something’ as the open dimension of being.

[erik]

Tantra is the energy of being; but we experience that energy through dualistic filters.  In this way we divide ourselves from the actual texture of our experience.  We divide ourselves through our attempts to re-construct reality, whilst we’re in the process of perceiving it!  It’s a ludicrously impossible task.  But, it’s a task in which we’re almost continually engaged.

[erik]

What then does responsibility mean in the Buddhist sense of kindness?  It means that we are not separate from our world, or anyone in our world.  We cannot say of anything ‘This has nothing to do with me’.  We are not separate as beings.  This idea of connection is subtle, because our connection can take any form.  Only our innate kindness—liberated through meditation—can guide us to respond accurately.

[erik]

Refuge – what does the word mean in terms of dharma; and what does dharma mean?  Dharma—or chö—means as it is.  As it is is actuality, and to ‘take refuge’ means to establish confidence in actuality.
To take refuge is not to seek safety and assurances. It is to acknowledge that any form of security is illusory.  The pursuit of security is the root of our dualistic dilemma. To live this view in every moment is the goal of practice.

[erik]

Tantra doesn’t exclude hedonism, but neither does it encourage it.  It is very much the ‘middle way’ that characterises all Buddhist vehicles.
Tantra is not concerned with seeking extremes – even though extreme sensation can be cultivated as a powerful aspect of the path.  Fundamentally, Tantra neither seeks extremity nor avoids it.  The intrinsic power of any sensation becomes manifest through our realisation of its empty nature.

[erik]

In the practice of shi-nè—remaining uninvolved—if thoughts come and go, simply allow them to lap like the tide.  If you get caught up in a thought-story and lose the presence of your awareness in the movement of breath –  just return to it as soon as you become aware of having drifted off.  There is no need to get angry or irritated with yourself – these reactions are just opportunities to indulge in referentiality.  Maintain an open, humorous and relaxed attitude.  Expect nothing.  Be attached to nothing.  Reject nothing.  Just be in the present moment.

[erik]

If we cannot laugh at ourselves – we cannot laugh with others or cause others to laugh.  Laughter is a gift – and causing laughter is an act of kindness.  Laughter requires space – space to see the ridiculous in our situations as beginninglessly enlightened beings who create the illusion of duality.  That is really rather funny.  It is also rather sad, tragic – but that very paradox is what puts us at the pivotal point of the precious human rebirth.