Topic: Buddhist sayings

[Jahn]

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.  i]

I laugh together with the universe (i.e. infinity). That is great fun, that I can tell!

[Michael]

Alas, so few are capable of laughing with the universe at ourselves.

[Jahn]

Alas, so few are capable of laughing with the universe at ourselves.

I seldom laugh at my self, though it may happen , I laugh just because a situation is worth a laugh.
But to be honest, my laughs is seldom a straight out  laugh, it is usually only a silent chuckle.

[Michael]

I seldom laugh at my self, though it may happen , I laugh just because a situation is worth a laugh.
But to be honest, my laughs is seldom a straight out  laugh, it is usually only a silent chuckle.

Well Jahn, it is absolutely critical to laugh out loud - a really good belly laugh!
To laugh with the universe, means to laugh at ourselves - that is the final joke.
A silent chuckle is not enough, unless you are at death's door:



It is ultimately critical to laugh at ourselves. To see our life and posturing, our status, standing and personal value as one gigantic ego-joke. This is reserved for those who know, but can be practised any time by everyone. Ultimately, nothing matters. The last laugh is on us, no matter who we are.

Truly, we are all clowns in a circus!

[Nichi]

You have to laugh - no doubt about it.

[Jahn]

Well Jahn, it is absolutely critical to laugh out loud - a really good belly laugh!
To laugh with the universe, means to laugh at ourselves - that is the final joke.
A silent chuckle is not enough, unless you are at death's door:

Then I am at the door of Death. I have no belly laughs to deliver.

It is ultimately critical to laugh at ourselves. To see our life and posturing, our status, standing and personal value as one gigantic ego-joke. This is reserved for those who know, but can be practised any time by everyone. Ultimately, nothing matters. The last laugh is on us, no matter who we are.

Truly, we are all clowns in a circus!

I realize that with my chuckles I was out wrong in this thread about laughs.

Because I am no clown, can't see that vein, but I do know that:
"foe and friend - we were all equal in the end"

Pink Floyd
Two suns in the sunset, Lyrics

In my rear view mirror the sun is going down
sinking behind bridges in the road
and I think of all the good things
that we have left undone
and I suffer premonitions
confirm suspicions
of the holocaust to come
/.../

and as the windshield melts
my tears evaporate
leaving only charcoal to defend
finally i understand
the feelings of the few
ashes and diamonds
foe and friend
we were all equal in the end


 

[erik]

In the West, Tantra has seemed very tempting to the emotionally and intellectually wild.  This has been especially true among those who have inferred indulgence in full-blown hedonism to be the path.  However, although there is some connection with hedonism, with its characteristic quality of not holding back, this view is seriously lopsided.  Tantra is not concerned with seeking extremes.
It avoids utilising experience of any kind as a means of concretely defining the nature of reality.

[erik]

The hell of being a practitioner is the state in which we begin to see through our neuroses, and yet we continue to afflict ourselves with them.
It can only stop through clarity and, to have clarity develop, we need humour.  We have to accept that we are both the dyed-in-the-wool neurotic and the practitioner who is trying to let neuroses go.  That is comical and we have to be fairly light-hearted about it.  With sufficient humour, we can simply be the space that lets these two lunatics dance.

[erik]

Compassion means more than simply being kind. 
Compassion—or active compassion—is how we usually translate bodhicitta or changchub sem.
Compassion includes kindness, but kindness is but part of the spectrum of compassion.
Compassion includes appreciation, admiration, pleasure, wonder, enjoyment, and communication—fierce, florid, and fecund communication.
Compassion is openness to infinite pattern and to embodying any aspect of that pattern for the benefit of everyone, and everything, everywhere.

[erik]

Tantra is very much the ‘middle way’ that characterises all Buddhist vehicles.  The ‘middle way’ might be better translated as: ‘the way that rejects all referential co-ordinates’ – ‘the way that doesn’t seek to locate itself in known or knowable territory’.  This is the way that doesn't hold any kind of position or stance for establishing a fixed definition of being.  It doesn’t say: ‘I am here because that is there’; ‘I am now because I was then, and so I will be in the future’.  It doesn’t say:  ‘I think therefore I am.’  In fact – it simply rejects all ‘therefores’.

[erik]

Awareness is the uncontrived, unattached recognition of the experience of movement – the movement of the arising and dissolving of thoughts in the continuum of Mind, the appearance and disappearance of phenomena in the vastness of intrinsic space.  There is only the sheer exquisiteness of this movement.  This is what we actually are.

[erik]

We need to accept the success or failure of whatever we do with a sense of wryness.  We need to treat these two imposters just the same.  With the discovery of experiential space we can let go of the emotional investment we put into all our plans and efforts.  Things actually become easier when we allow ourselves to play with our situation, rather than having to take it totally seriously.  The lightness of this approach is a manifestation of our developing clarity.

[erik]

Spontaneity is acting in the moment, in accordance with what exists in the moment. But this in no way implies acting without consideration of the future results of one’s acts. For an act to be truly spontaneous, it has to spring from emptiness. Spontaneity is the empty clarity that totally accepts the patterns that are perceived without being conditioned by them.  There is no sense of strategy or manipulation according to concepts of self-enhancement or self-fulfilment

[Michael]

Spontaneity is the empty clarity that totally accepts the patterns that are perceived without being conditioned by them.

Ah, but therein lies the danger. "without being conditioned" is precisely what our fellow humans don't like. In fact, they will go to great lengths to extract any such person from their collective. if you want to work with others in this world, there is no other option than to obscure your unconditioned soul. Spontaneity treads on people's precious toes - in many countries you can die for such liberties.

The correct response is much more difficult. You have to have achieved spontaneity through shedding conditioned beliefs and behaviours, but then you have to conceal the freedom of your light, and tiptoe through the identities of those around you - striving to find the cracks through which that light can glimmer.

[erik]

Cowardice is the belief or faith in the possibility of survival – of the body, or of some aspect of  existence to which we adhere.  It is also a lack of appreciation for oneself which comes from a lack of appreciation for others – and a lack of appreciation for the wider context of being human.  When the need to survive takes precedence over appreciation – cowardice is born.

You could try another approach—but be warned it is far more threatening: Always put the possibility of joy before the need to be safe.