mind? what mind?

It is hard to be born as a human being and hard to live the life of one. It is even harder to hear of the path and harder still to awake, to rise, and to follow. Yet the teaching is simple: "Cease to do evil, learn to do good. And purify your mind."

- Dhammapada

I just – finally – took a quick look at a book Barns & Noble is peddling — “Sh*t My Dad Says”.

Science and Mother Nature are in a marriage where Science is always surprised to come home and find Mother Nature blowing the neighbor.

There’s a word for people like that…No, I’m saying, there’s a word and I don’t know what it is. I’m not being fucking poetic.

Calm down. You don’t just grab a ruler and tell everyone to whip their dicks out. You stuff your crotch and keep your pants on.

No, I’m not a pessimist. At some point the world shits on everybody. Pretending it ain’t shit makes you an idiot, not an optimist.

And, since my birthday is already past (besides, I’ve a few years yet to go before I’m 74), here’s another…

No presents goddamit. I’m turning 74. I don’t need you to commemorate that with a fucking Barnes and Noble gift card.

… and I do like those B&N gift cards.  Keep ‘em coming, so I can buy the book!

The mind is restless, unsteady, hard to guard, hard to control.  The wise one makes it straight, like a fletcher straightens an arrow.

How good it is to rein the mind which is unruly, capricious, rushing wherever it pleases.  the mind so harnessed will bring one happiness.

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.  A well-directed mind creates more happiness than even the loving actions of your parents.

    - Buddha Shakyamuni

A questioner asked the Buddha: "Life seems a tangle— An inner tangle and an outer tangle. This generation is hopelessly tangled up. And so I ask the Buddha this question: Who will succeed in disentangling this tangle?" The Buddha replied: "When a wise one, thoughtful and good, Develops a greater consciousness, He will understand the tangle. As a truth follower, ardent and wise, He will succeed in disentangling the tangle."

- Samyutta Nikaya

Whip up the waves of non-being and wash me away!
How long will I walk up and down the shore in fear?
- Jalal-ud-Din Rumi
(Translated by Andrew Harvey from A Year of Rumi)

Non-being.  A core understanding and belief of the Buddhist philosophy (and others?),  Does that mean non-existence?  Existence without form?  I’ve read in texts that it is both, and neither.  How’s that for definitive?  At a gut level, I am not certain how I feel about not “being”.  As a life-long sufferer of severe depression and other ailments, non-being has had it’s attractiveness for certain.  But as a somewhat-practicing-follower-of-Buddhist-thought, the steps that need to be taken to “get there” will take someone like me many, many… no, uncountable eons of lifetimes to achieve this state, and that, my friends, is scary.  Which is why I, like Rumi, wonder “how long will I walk up and down the shore [of non-being] in fear”?

There are a myriad different ways to search, but the object of the search is always the same. Don’t you see that the roads to Mecca are all different? One comes from Byzantium, another from Syria, still others wind through land or across the sea. The roads are different; the goal is one.
- Jalal-ud-Din Rumi
(Translated by Andrew Harvey from A Year of Rumi)

If you really want freedom, happiness will arise
From happiness will come rapture
When your mind is enraptured, your body is tranquil
When your body is tranquil, you will know bliss
Because you are blissful, your mind will concentrate easily
Being concentrated, you will see things as they really are
In so seeing, you will become aware that life is a miracle
Being so aware, you will lose all your attachments
As you cease grasping, so you will be freed.

- Digha Nikaya

It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance.

- The Dalai Lama

The whole of humanity is one human family. This planet is our only home.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

I’m an avid reader of science fiction books, as well as a person that enjoys SF movies the most.  Usually, in these stories (or accounts of possible futures, as some call them in not-so-tongue-in-cheek manner) humans –excuse me, “hupersons” (don’t want to be called a sexist!) strive to find or make new homes among the planets of our solar system, or out among the stars.  As families generally do, they splinter off, finding or building new homes.  Can you imagine attempting to build a house to fit all the billions of your brothers, sisters, cousins, parents, grand-parents, and children, all descendants from the single mother that at least some geneticists claim we all share?  Before long, even that immense house will become to crowded, too limiting for our sanity.

Home is not where we hang our metaphorical hat, it’s where we come from; and for our species that is this small, insignificant ball of matter and energy that we call “Earth” or “Terra”.  As when each of us grows up and moves out of our parents houses (huts, tents, igloos, caves, or whatever) we remember where we grew up.  Usually, we think of that as “home”: “I’m going ‘home’ to visit my family”, “I’ve just gotten a letter from ‘home’”, etc.  And so, what H H the fourteenth Dalai Lama says is true.  We humans (excuse me again, “hupersons”), according to the geneticists, are one family and this planet is our Family Home.

Now listening to:

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced - Third Stone From The Sun

Remember these teachings, remember the clear light, the pure shining white light of your own nature.  It is deathless.

 

 

    - From the Bardo Thodul, otherwise known as the Tibetan Book of the Dead.