Quotes About Advaita Vedanta
“One thing: you have to walk, and create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path. It is not so cheap, to reach to the ultimate realization of truth. You will have to create the path by walking yourself; the path is not ready-made, lying there and waiting for you. It is just like the sky: the birds fly, but they don't leave any footprints. You cannot follow them; there are no footprints left behind.”
― Osho
“With me, illusions are bound to be shattered. I am here to shatter all illusions. Yes, it will irritate you, it will annoy you - that's my way of functioning and working. I will sabotage you from your very roots! Unless you are totally destroyed as a mind, there is no hope for you.”
― Osho
“Live simply. Deepest joy is like a flower....beautiful in essence.”
― Tony Samara
“Within each of us is a light, awake, encoded in the fibers of our existence. Divine ecstasy is the totality of this marvelous creation experienced in the hearts of humanity”
― Tony Samara
“Your greatest awakening comes, when you are aware about your infinite nature.”
― Amit Ray, Meditation: Insights and Inspirations
“Feel nothing, know nothing, do nothing, have nothing, give up all to God, and say utterly, 'Thy will be done.' We only dream this bondage. Wake up and let it go.”
― Swami Vivekananda
“There is no God separate from you, no God higher than you, the real 'you'. All the gods are little beings to you, all the ideas of God and Father in heaven are but your own reflection. God Himself is your image. 'God created man after His own image.' That is wrong. Man creates God after his own image. That is right. Throughout the universe we are creating gods after our own image. We create the god and fall down at his feet and worship him; and when this dream comes, we love it!”
― Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda: v. 3
“There is neither creation nor destruction,
neither destiny nor free will, neither
path nor achievement.
This is the final truth.”
― Ramana Maharshi, Sayings of Sri Ramana Maharshi
“I am Not, but the Universe is my Self.”
― Shih-t'ou
“I just realized that I don't have to have an opinion about everything--what a relief!”
― David R. Hawkins
“It is only through silent awareness that our physical and mental nature can change. This change is completely spontaneous. If we make an effort to change we do no more than shift our attention from one level, from one thing, to another. We remain in a vicious circle. This only transfers energy from one point to another. It still leaves us oscillating between suffering and pleasure, each leading inevitably back to the other. Only living stillness, stillness without someone trying to be still, is capable of undoing the conditioning our biologoical, emotional and psychological nature has undergone. There is no controller, no selector, no personality making choices. In choiceless living the situation is given the freedom to unfold. You do not grasp one aspect over another for there is nobody to grasp. When you understand something and live it without being stuck to the formulation, what you have understood dissolves in your openness. In this silence change takes place of its own accord, the problem is resolved and duality ends. You are left in your glory where no one has understood and nothing has been understood.”
― Jean Klein, I Am
“A Strange Prayer:
Dear Lord,
I, the self searching illusion, has seen and experienced the outer world:
relationships,
success and failure,
true friends,
strangers and backbiters.
I lived the different emotions
during different seasons;
I witnessed ups & downs,
enjoyed love & hate,
was good & bad,
faced beauty & ugliness.
There were times when I was brave,
there were times when I was a coward.
There were times when I was proactive,
there were times when I was indecisive.
After, flying high in the skies,
and yet being a loser...
After, being nothing & no one,
and yet feeling content..
I have understood
the difference
between lust and love,
happiness and sadness,
selfishness and selflessness.
One often leads to another;
another secretly carries the one!
Yet I am lost
between being and becoming.
An inner voice admits that
my heart is an unexplored realm,
my mind is a prisoner to my wishful thinking,
and the soul is unknown to me.
Setting that unknown free...
now, this is my heartiest wish.
As Saurabh Sharma,
the human being,
I
always
pray to thee, " O lord, set me free.
I don't want love,
I don't want to be loved;
I want myself to be love itself now.
That beautiful, silent and divine existence...!
I want to get merged into that.
Please give me wisdom and courage; Merge me into your supreme kingdom
by setting my soul free.”
― Saurabh Sharma
“The path of awakening
"All of your past selves are walking behind you,
like a shadow, waiting for you to awaken fully.
Waiting for you to return home.
To the Oneness.
To love, wisdom, silence and compassion.
The child you once were is still with you.
It is waiting to receive the unconditional love
and acceptance which it has always wanted
which will finally heal it, calm it
and enable it to relax and surrender
into the vastness of your Being.
Into the light of consciousness.
And it is not just the child
who is walking behind you.
All the identities from past incarnations
are still with you.
The seeker. The pirate.
The highwayman. The sage....”
― Leonard Jacobsonobson Words from Silence
“Om is the things, Om is the ingredient, Om is the container and the content of this universe.”
― Banani Ray, Glory of OM: A Journey to Self-Realization
“You do not need to go to any temple or church to worship God. The whole existence is God’s temple. Your own body is the temple of God. Your own heart is the shrine. You do not need to subscribe to any religion to experience God. The only religion you need to experience God is love, kindness and respect to all beings.”
― Banani Ray, Glory of OM: A Journey to Self-Realization
“Be aware of yourself without thinking or looking in the mirror”
― Bert McCoy
“You do not need any preacher or prophet to learn about God. The teaching is spread on the trees and the mountains, on the stars and the river, on the Sun and the moon. The ultimate teaching is written in your heart. You just need to wake up and see.”
― Banani Ray, Glory of OM: A Journey to Self-Realization
“Om is that God of love. Like a loving mother Om cleans us of our clutters collected through many incarnations.”
― Banani Ray
“what is not true does not exist in this moment.”
― Bert McCoy
t
“To think, or not to think...This is the true question.”
― Bert McCoy
“Advaita” in Sanskrit means “Non-Duality.” This is a difficult concept for most people as we look about us and see multiple objects. But what we see are only transformations not permanent forms, whether we are speaking of a chair, a tree, or a human being. Each exists provisionally, but is certainly not lasting. One day the tree may become the chair and the human body will be eaten by worms. The “I” that observes all this may disappear and become another “I”.”
― Justin Stone
“Om was there in the existence, when no religion was formed or founded. It will be there in the existence, if all the religions are demolished.”
― Banani Ray, Glory of OM: A Journey to Self-Realization
“Who do you love more, your thoughts or God?”
― Bert McCoy
“One thing: you have to walk, and create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path. It is not so cheap, to reach to the ultimate realization of truth. You will have to create the path by walking yourself; the path is not ready-made, lying there and waiting for you. It is just like the sky: the birds fly, but they don't leave any footprints. You cannot follow them; there are no footprints left behind.”
― Osho
“With me, illusions are bound to be shattered. I am here to shatter all illusions. Yes, it will irritate you, it will annoy you - that's my way of functioning and working. I will sabotage you from your very roots! Unless you are totally destroyed as a mind, there is no hope for you.”
― Osho
“Live simply. Deepest joy is like a flower....beautiful in essence.”
― Tony Samara
“Within each of us is a light, awake, encoded in the fibers of our existence. Divine ecstasy is the totality of this marvelous creation experienced in the hearts of humanity”
― Tony Samara
“Your greatest awakening comes, when you are aware about your infinite nature.”
― Amit Ray, Meditation: Insights and Inspirations
“Feel nothing, know nothing, do nothing, have nothing, give up all to God, and say utterly, 'Thy will be done.' We only dream this bondage. Wake up and let it go.”
― Swami Vivekananda
“There is no God separate from you, no God higher than you, the real 'you'. All the gods are little beings to you, all the ideas of God and Father in heaven are but your own reflection. God Himself is your image. 'God created man after His own image.' That is wrong. Man creates God after his own image. That is right. Throughout the universe we are creating gods after our own image. We create the god and fall down at his feet and worship him; and when this dream comes, we love it!”
― Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda: v. 3
“There is neither creation nor destruction,
neither destiny nor free will, neither
path nor achievement.
This is the final truth.”
― Ramana Maharshi, Sayings of Sri Ramana Maharshi
“I am Not, but the Universe is my Self.”
― Shih-t'ou
“I just realized that I don't have to have an opinion about everything--what a relief!”
― David R. Hawkins
“It is only through silent awareness that our physical and mental nature can change. This change is completely spontaneous. If we make an effort to change we do no more than shift our attention from one level, from one thing, to another. We remain in a vicious circle. This only transfers energy from one point to another. It still leaves us oscillating between suffering and pleasure, each leading inevitably back to the other. Only living stillness, stillness without someone trying to be still, is capable of undoing the conditioning our biologoical, emotional and psychological nature has undergone. There is no controller, no selector, no personality making choices. In choiceless living the situation is given the freedom to unfold. You do not grasp one aspect over another for there is nobody to grasp. When you understand something and live it without being stuck to the formulation, what you have understood dissolves in your openness. In this silence change takes place of its own accord, the problem is resolved and duality ends. You are left in your glory where no one has understood and nothing has been understood.”
― Jean Klein, I Am
“A Strange Prayer:
Dear Lord,
I, the self searching illusion, has seen and experienced the outer world:
relationships,
success and failure,
true friends,
strangers and backbiters.
I lived the different emotions
during different seasons;
I witnessed ups & downs,
enjoyed love & hate,
was good & bad,
faced beauty & ugliness.
There were times when I was brave,
there were times when I was a coward.
There were times when I was proactive,
there were times when I was indecisive.
After, flying high in the skies,
and yet being a loser...
After, being nothing & no one,
and yet feeling content..
I have understood
the difference
between lust and love,
happiness and sadness,
selfishness and selflessness.
One often leads to another;
another secretly carries the one!
Yet I am lost
between being and becoming.
An inner voice admits that
my heart is an unexplored realm,
my mind is a prisoner to my wishful thinking,
and the soul is unknown to me.
Setting that unknown free...
now, this is my heartiest wish.
As Saurabh Sharma,
the human being,
I
always
pray to thee, " O lord, set me free.
I don't want love,
I don't want to be loved;
I want myself to be love itself now.
That beautiful, silent and divine existence...!
I want to get merged into that.
Please give me wisdom and courage; Merge me into your supreme kingdom
by setting my soul free.”
― Saurabh Sharma
“The path of awakening
"All of your past selves are walking behind you,
like a shadow, waiting for you to awaken fully.
Waiting for you to return home.
To the Oneness.
To love, wisdom, silence and compassion.
The child you once were is still with you.
It is waiting to receive the unconditional love
and acceptance which it has always wanted
which will finally heal it, calm it
and enable it to relax and surrender
into the vastness of your Being.
Into the light of consciousness.
And it is not just the child
who is walking behind you.
All the identities from past incarnations
are still with you.
The seeker. The pirate.
The highwayman. The sage....”
― Leonard Jacobsonobson Words from Silence
“Om is the things, Om is the ingredient, Om is the container and the content of this universe.”
― Banani Ray, Glory of OM: A Journey to Self-Realization
“You do not need to go to any temple or church to worship God. The whole existence is God’s temple. Your own body is the temple of God. Your own heart is the shrine. You do not need to subscribe to any religion to experience God. The only religion you need to experience God is love, kindness and respect to all beings.”
― Banani Ray, Glory of OM: A Journey to Self-Realization
“Be aware of yourself without thinking or looking in the mirror”
― Bert McCoy
“You do not need any preacher or prophet to learn about God. The teaching is spread on the trees and the mountains, on the stars and the river, on the Sun and the moon. The ultimate teaching is written in your heart. You just need to wake up and see.”
― Banani Ray, Glory of OM: A Journey to Self-Realization
“Om is that God of love. Like a loving mother Om cleans us of our clutters collected through many incarnations.”
― Banani Ray
“what is not true does not exist in this moment.”
― Bert McCoy
t
“To think, or not to think...This is the true question.”
― Bert McCoy
“Advaita” in Sanskrit means “Non-Duality.” This is a difficult concept for most people as we look about us and see multiple objects. But what we see are only transformations not permanent forms, whether we are speaking of a chair, a tree, or a human being. Each exists provisionally, but is certainly not lasting. One day the tree may become the chair and the human body will be eaten by worms. The “I” that observes all this may disappear and become another “I”.”
― Justin Stone
“Om was there in the existence, when no religion was formed or founded. It will be there in the existence, if all the religions are demolished.”
― Banani Ray, Glory of OM: A Journey to Self-Realization
“Who do you love more, your thoughts or God?”
― Bert McCoy
Nondual Quotations – 3These pages contain nondual quotations, many of which I originally posted on the nondual quotes group on Yahoo!From: Zen Wisdom Ed. Timothy Freke
Now. This is it.
The whole purpose and meaning for the existence
of everything.
From: The Gitanjali Rabindranath Tagore
67:
THOU art the sky and thou art the nest as well.
0 thou beautiful, there in the nest it is thy love that
encloses the soul with colours and sounds and odours.
There comes the morning with the golden basket in her
right hand bearing the wreath of beauty, silently to crown
the earth.
And there comes the evening over the lonely meadows
deserted by herds, through trackless paths, carrying cool
draughts of peace in her golden pitcher from the western
ocean of rest.
But there, where spreads the infinite sky for the soul to
take her flight in, reigns the stainless white radiance. There
is no day nor night, nor form nor colour and never, never a word.
Attar (trans Margaret Smith)
From The Jawhar Al-Dhat
Intoxicated by the Wine of Love.
From each a mystic silence Love demands.
What do all seek so earnestly? ‘Tis Love.
What do they whisper to each other? Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts.
In Love no longer ‘thou’ and ‘I’ exist,
For Self has passed away in the Beloved.
Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,
And in the temple of mine inmost soul,
Behold the Friend; Incomparable Love.
He who would know the secret of both worlds,
Will find the secret of them both, is Love.
I am neither ego nor reason, I am neither mind nor thought,
I cannot be heard nor cast into words, nor by smell nor sight
ever caught:
In light and wind I am not found, nor yet in earth and sky –
Consciousness and joy incarnate, Bliss of the Blissful am I.
I have no name, I have no life, I breathe no vital air,
No elements have moulded me, no bodily sheath is my lair:
I have no speech, no hands and feet, nor means of evolution –
Consciousness and joy am I, and Bliss in dissolution.
I cast aside hatred and passion, I conquered delusion and greed;
No touch of pride caressed me, so envy never did breed:
Beyond all faiths, past reach of wealth, past freedom, past desire
Consciousness and joy am I, and Bliss is my attire.
Virtue and vice, or pleasure and pain are not my heritage,
Nor sacred texts, nor offerings, nor prayer, nor pilgrimage:
I am neither food nor eating, nor yet the eater am I –
Consciousness and joy incarnate, Bliss of the Blissful am I.
I have no misgivings of death, no chasms of race divide me,
No parent ever called me child, no bond of birth ever tied me:
I am neither disciple nor master, I have no kin, no friend –
Consciousness and joy am I, and merging in Bliss is my end.
Neither knowable, knowledge, nor knower am I, formless is my
form, I dwell within the senses but they are not my home:
Ever serenely balanced, I am neither free nor bound –
Consciousness and joy am I, and Bliss is where I am found.
Song of the Soul, by Shankaracharya
Living is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
like a squirrel, for example-
I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
I mean living must be your whole occupation.
~Nazim Hikmet
Like water which can clearly mirror the sky and
the trees only so long as its surface is undisturbed,
the mind can only reflect the true image of the
Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed.
~Indra Devi
The nature of mind is the background to the whole
of life and death, like the sky, which enfolds the whole
universe in its embrace.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche Glimpse after Glimpse
Man is a god clothed in rags, he is a master of
the universe going about begging a crust of bread.
He is a king prostrated before his own servants,
a prisoner walled in by his own ignorance.
He could be free. He has only to walk out of his
self-constructed prison, for none holds him there
but himself.
Paul Twitchell
From: Method, Wisdom and the Three Paths by Geshe Lhundrub Sopa
What is ignorance? It is a wrong understanding of the self
and of the nature of all phenomena. Buddhism talks a lot
about the non-self or shunya nature of all things. This is
a key teaching. The realization of shunyata, or emptiness,
was first taught by Buddha, and then widely disseminated by
the great teacher Nagarjuna and his successors, who explained
the madhyamaka or middle way philosophy. Theirs is a system
of thought free from all extremes, that is they hold that the
nature of how things actually exist is free from the extremes
of absolute being and non-being. The things we usually perceive
do not exist as we see them. As for the “I”, our understanding
of its nature is also mistaken. This doesn’t mean that there
is no person and no desire; when Buddha rejected the existence
of a self he meant that the self we normally conceive is not
existent.
Deeper still into Stillness….
This is so simple
The mind can never grok it
Nothing happens Here
No cause and effect
No karma, dharma, drama
Just massive Quiet
Absolutely still
Even in the midst of hell
Stop! Check and see: Peace!
One million tears of agony are nothing!
Give me what I need to remember…
~ Poetry by friends of Vartman
You are the Self, here and now. Leave the mind alone,
stand aware and unconcerned and you will realize that
to stand alert but detached, watching events come and
go, is an aspect of your real nature.
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
When you do something,
you should burn yourself completely,
like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
~Shunryu Suzuki
‘Zen Wisdom’ Ed. Timothy Freke
“‘But great souls resorting to me, the divine nature,
their undivided minds are devoted to knowing
the imperishable source of being.
Always glorifying me and striving with firm resolve
and honoring me with devotion, they worship ever united.”
Baghavad Gita
English version by Sanderson Beck
From: Living Truth Jean Klein
There is nobody to look for something, because it is your
nearness. Nothing can be more near to you than what you are.
It is enough to live with this for some time, not to think about
it, not to manipulate it, but simply to live with it.
In the great Way of the Buddha patriarchs there is always supreme continuous
practice which is the Way without beginning or end.
Arousing the thought of enlightenment, practice, bodhi, and nirvana
have not the slightest break, but are continuous practice which goes
on forever. Therefore, it is neither one’s own effort nor someone else’s
effort; it is pure continuous practice which transcends the opposition of
self and others.
– Dogen (1200-1253)
From The Golden Age of Zen John Wu
Tung-shan asked his master Yun-yen, as he was leaving for good, “After
you have completed this life, what shall I say if anyone asks, can you still
recall your master’s true face?” The Master remained silent for a long
while and then replied, “Just *this one* is.”
…While on his journey, Tung-shan continued to muse on the cryptic words
of his master: “Just *this one* is.” Later on in crossing a stream, he
happened to see his own reflection in the water, and right on the spot he
was thoroughly awakened to the real meaning of “Just *this one* is.” He
epitomized this experience in a *gatha*:
*Do not seek him anywhere else
Or he will run away from you!
Now that I go on all alone,
I meet him everywhere.
He is even now what I am.
I am even now what he is.
Only by understanding this way
Can there be a true union with the Self-So.*
God is Within You
When one realizes God, He grants knowledge and illumination
from within; one knows it oneself. In the fullness of one’s spiritual
realization one will find that He who resides in one’s heart, resides
in the hearts of others as well – the oppressed, the persecuted, the
untouchable, and the outcast.
Sri Sarada Devi
Absolute Consciousness
Ramana Maharshi p145
Whenever a thought arises, do not be carried away by it. You
become aware of the body when you forget the Self. But can you
forget the Self ? Being the Self how can you forget it?
There must be two selves for one to forget the other. It is absurd.
So the Self is not depressed, nor is it imperfect. It is very happy.
The contrary feeling is a mere thought which actually has no
stamina in it. Be rid of thoughts. Being the Self one remains
always realised. Only be free from thoughts.
Absolute Consciousness
Ramana Maharshi p145
Ignorance is the forgetfulness of the Self. Can there be darkness
before the sun? Similarly can there be ignorance before the self-
evident and self-luminous? If you know the Self there will be no
darkness, no ignorance and no misery. The impure mind which
functions in thinking and forgetfulness, alone is samsara, which
is the cycle of birth and death. The real ‘I’ in which the activity of
thinking and forgetfulness has perished, alone is pure liberation,
it is devoid of forgetfulness of Self which is the cause of birth and
death.
This is from a wonderful discourse ‘Vimalakirti’s Gate of Nonduality’
by Abbot John Daido Loori, M.R.O. which can be found at:
http://www.mro.org/zmm/talks/teisho9.htm
We come to practice with these sicknesses of anger and
fear, mistrust, love and hate, and soon they begin to manifest
in the practice itself. We see them functioning in groups, in
families, in nations, in cultures.
Is it possible to function in this life in a nondual way?
Vimalakirti said yes. Buddha said yes. Manjusri said yes.
Countless Buddhas and Ancestors from time immemorial
have said yes.
When you are in the world of the thinking mind, you are
somewhere in the remembered past or the imagined future.
You are in a world of thought, memory, concept, idea,
opinion and belief. You are not here now. What you are
experiencing is not of the present moment. It is not real.
You are in a world of illusion (Maya) and yet you have
come to believe that it real. Almost the entire human
population is lost in this illusion. It is the sole source of
our suffering.
~ Leonard Jacobson
Awareness Itself
The subtle, perfect essence of awareness is basically
spontaneously open and calm, equanimous and
pure, vast as space. It cannot be pointed out in terms of
any concrete form, it cannot be approached in terms of
location. It cannot be entered into by any door or road,
it cannot be depicted or copied by the colors of the
spectrum.
~Wei-tse
From: Teachings of Zen Ed. Thomas Cleary
‘Absolute Consciousness’
Ramana Maharshi
Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything, you are
essentially conscious of yourself.
Hanging Loose
by A.H. Almaas
from Diamond Heart, Book II
When your mind is free, not concerned, or worried, or focused
on anything in particular, and your heart is not grasping or clinging
to anything, then you are free. The most characteristic quality is
that there is no fixation on anything; you’re not focused on any issue
or experience. Whatever is there, is there. So there is a freedom
of mind. The mind is not saying, “I want this,” or “I want to look
at this,” or “It has to be this way.” The mind is loose. The expression
“hang loose” tells us what it means to be liberated.
In the Forest
The community of trees-
thousands of bodies
with a human body among them.
Branches and leaves are waving.
Then the call of the creek,
and my eyes open to the sky of the great Mind.
A smile is seen
on every leaf.
The forest is here,
because the city is down there.
But Mind has gone with the trees
and put on a new green dress.
The sunshine is the leaves.
The leaves are the sunshine.
The sunshine is no different from the leaves.
The leaves are no different from the sunshine.
All other forms and sounds
are of the same nature.
Thich Nhat Hanh
call me by my true names
Silence
A day of Silence
Can be a pilgrimage in itself.
A day of Silence
Can help you listen
To the Soul play
In marvelous lute and drum.
Is not most talking
A crazed defense of a crumbling fort?
I thought we came her
To surrender in Silence,
To yield to Light and Happiness,
To Dance within
In celebration of Love’s Victory!
~ Hafiz, I Heard God Laughing Daniel Ladinsky
You are, in all that you represent, a part of living. Not somewhere
in a corner all by yourself, but like the incense of a burning incense
stick, gradually spreading itself out into infinity. This is the way you
are sharing in living.
~Abbah Frédéric
From: The Sutra of Hui-Neng
Trans. Thomas Cleary
Good friends, let each of you clear your mind to listen to my
teaching. If you want to accomplish all-knowledge, you must attain
absorption in oneness and absorption in unified activity.
If you do not dwell on appearances wherever you are, and you do
not conceive aversion or attraction to those appearances, and nei-
ther grasp nor reject, and do not think of things like gain, success,
or failure, but are peaceful, serene, empty and fluid, tranquil and
calm, this is called absorption in oneness.
If your unadulterated, undivided, straightforward mind does not
move from the site of enlightenment wherever you are, whatever
you are doing, with reality constituting the Pure Land, this is called
absorption in unified activity.
If people have these two absorptions, it is like the earth having
seeds, which it stores and nurtures, and matures the fruits. So it is
with oneness and unified activity: my teaching now is like seasonal
rain moistening the great earth everywhere; your buddha-natures
are like seeds, which will all grow when thoroughly moistened thus.
Those who get my message will certainly attain enlightenment;
those who follow my practice will definitely realize the sublime
result.
Listen to my verse:
The mind ground contains the seeds:
With universal rain, all of them sprout.
When you’ve suddenly realized the blossoming heart
The fruit of enlightenment will naturally mature.
Having uttered this verse, the Master said,
The teaching has no dualism, neither does the mind; the Way is
pure, without any signs. You should be careful not to contemplate
stillness and empty your minds. The mind is originally clean, with
nothing to grasp or reject. Each of you work on your own, going
along as best you can according to circumstances.
Take no heed of time nor of right and wrong.
Passing into the realm of the Infinite, take your final
rest therein.
The Wisdom of Laotse, Pgs. 54-55
Moon Viewing
Thich Nhat Hanh
If there is no self,
there will be no samsara.
Why then do you have to dissolve the self?
Why do you have to stop samsara?
There is no self,
but there is the belief in a self.
There is no samsara,
but there is the idea of samsara.
Is the full moon tonight a self?
No, it is not a self.
Is the moon viewer a self?
No, he is not a self.
How then can the moon viewer enjoy the moon?
It is precisely because the moon has no self
and the moon viewer has no self
that both moon and moon viewer are wonderful,
and that moon viewing is a wonderful thing.
Moon viewing is our practice.
From: my true names – collected poems
“One man cannot do right in one department
of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong
in any other department. Life is one
indivisible whole.”
~Mahatma Gandhi
*To be free from the idea of being someone – that
is illumination*
The human form is a microcosm of the universe. All that
supposedly exists outside us in reality exists in us. The
world is in you and can become known in you, as you.
~ Jean Klein
Who am I?
Krishna said, “When the man or woman of vision sees that
the powers of nature are only actors of this vast drama and
beholds that which is beyond the powers of nature . . . he
comes into my Being . . . and he who with neverfailing love
adores me and works for me . . . passes beyond the three
powers and can be one with the One.”
‘The Truth Will Set You Free’
Svami Purna
Liberation
Let go of all your previous imaginings, opinions, interpretations,
worldly knowledge, intellectualism, egoism, and competitiveness;
become like a dead tree, like cold ashes. When you reach the point
where feelings are ended, views are gone, and your mind is clean
and naked, you open up to Zen realization.
After that it is also necessary to develop consistency, keeping the
mind pure and free from adulteration at all times. If there is the
slightest fluctuation, there is no hope of transcending the world.
Cut through resolutely, and then your state will be peaceful.
When you cannot be included in any stage, whether of sages or
of ordinary people, then you are like a bird freed from its cage.
~Zen Master Yuanwu
Zen Essence – The Science of Freedom Ed. Thomas Cleary
The Way is arrived at by enlightenment. The first priority is to
establish resolve-it is no small matter to step directly from the
bondage of the ordinary person into transcendent experience
of the realm of sages. It requires that your mind be firm as steel
to cut off the flow of birth and death, accept your original real
nature, not see anything at all as existing inside or outside yourself,
and make your heart perfectly clear, without any obstruction, so
all actions and endeavors emerge from the fundamental.
~Zen Master Yuanwu
Zen Essence – The Science of Freedom Ed. Thomas Cleary
Now. This is it.
The whole purpose and meaning for the existence
of everything.
From: The Gitanjali Rabindranath Tagore
67:
THOU art the sky and thou art the nest as well.
0 thou beautiful, there in the nest it is thy love that
encloses the soul with colours and sounds and odours.
There comes the morning with the golden basket in her
right hand bearing the wreath of beauty, silently to crown
the earth.
And there comes the evening over the lonely meadows
deserted by herds, through trackless paths, carrying cool
draughts of peace in her golden pitcher from the western
ocean of rest.
But there, where spreads the infinite sky for the soul to
take her flight in, reigns the stainless white radiance. There
is no day nor night, nor form nor colour and never, never a word.
Attar (trans Margaret Smith)
From The Jawhar Al-Dhat
Intoxicated by the Wine of Love.
From each a mystic silence Love demands.
What do all seek so earnestly? ‘Tis Love.
What do they whisper to each other? Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts.
In Love no longer ‘thou’ and ‘I’ exist,
For Self has passed away in the Beloved.
Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,
And in the temple of mine inmost soul,
Behold the Friend; Incomparable Love.
He who would know the secret of both worlds,
Will find the secret of them both, is Love.
I am neither ego nor reason, I am neither mind nor thought,
I cannot be heard nor cast into words, nor by smell nor sight
ever caught:
In light and wind I am not found, nor yet in earth and sky –
Consciousness and joy incarnate, Bliss of the Blissful am I.
I have no name, I have no life, I breathe no vital air,
No elements have moulded me, no bodily sheath is my lair:
I have no speech, no hands and feet, nor means of evolution –
Consciousness and joy am I, and Bliss in dissolution.
I cast aside hatred and passion, I conquered delusion and greed;
No touch of pride caressed me, so envy never did breed:
Beyond all faiths, past reach of wealth, past freedom, past desire
Consciousness and joy am I, and Bliss is my attire.
Virtue and vice, or pleasure and pain are not my heritage,
Nor sacred texts, nor offerings, nor prayer, nor pilgrimage:
I am neither food nor eating, nor yet the eater am I –
Consciousness and joy incarnate, Bliss of the Blissful am I.
I have no misgivings of death, no chasms of race divide me,
No parent ever called me child, no bond of birth ever tied me:
I am neither disciple nor master, I have no kin, no friend –
Consciousness and joy am I, and merging in Bliss is my end.
Neither knowable, knowledge, nor knower am I, formless is my
form, I dwell within the senses but they are not my home:
Ever serenely balanced, I am neither free nor bound –
Consciousness and joy am I, and Bliss is where I am found.
Song of the Soul, by Shankaracharya
Living is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
like a squirrel, for example-
I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
I mean living must be your whole occupation.
~Nazim Hikmet
Like water which can clearly mirror the sky and
the trees only so long as its surface is undisturbed,
the mind can only reflect the true image of the
Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed.
~Indra Devi
The nature of mind is the background to the whole
of life and death, like the sky, which enfolds the whole
universe in its embrace.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche Glimpse after Glimpse
Man is a god clothed in rags, he is a master of
the universe going about begging a crust of bread.
He is a king prostrated before his own servants,
a prisoner walled in by his own ignorance.
He could be free. He has only to walk out of his
self-constructed prison, for none holds him there
but himself.
Paul Twitchell
From: Method, Wisdom and the Three Paths by Geshe Lhundrub Sopa
What is ignorance? It is a wrong understanding of the self
and of the nature of all phenomena. Buddhism talks a lot
about the non-self or shunya nature of all things. This is
a key teaching. The realization of shunyata, or emptiness,
was first taught by Buddha, and then widely disseminated by
the great teacher Nagarjuna and his successors, who explained
the madhyamaka or middle way philosophy. Theirs is a system
of thought free from all extremes, that is they hold that the
nature of how things actually exist is free from the extremes
of absolute being and non-being. The things we usually perceive
do not exist as we see them. As for the “I”, our understanding
of its nature is also mistaken. This doesn’t mean that there
is no person and no desire; when Buddha rejected the existence
of a self he meant that the self we normally conceive is not
existent.
Deeper still into Stillness….
This is so simple
The mind can never grok it
Nothing happens Here
No cause and effect
No karma, dharma, drama
Just massive Quiet
Absolutely still
Even in the midst of hell
Stop! Check and see: Peace!
One million tears of agony are nothing!
Give me what I need to remember…
~ Poetry by friends of Vartman
You are the Self, here and now. Leave the mind alone,
stand aware and unconcerned and you will realize that
to stand alert but detached, watching events come and
go, is an aspect of your real nature.
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
When you do something,
you should burn yourself completely,
like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
~Shunryu Suzuki
‘Zen Wisdom’ Ed. Timothy Freke
“‘But great souls resorting to me, the divine nature,
their undivided minds are devoted to knowing
the imperishable source of being.
Always glorifying me and striving with firm resolve
and honoring me with devotion, they worship ever united.”
Baghavad Gita
English version by Sanderson Beck
From: Living Truth Jean Klein
There is nobody to look for something, because it is your
nearness. Nothing can be more near to you than what you are.
It is enough to live with this for some time, not to think about
it, not to manipulate it, but simply to live with it.
In the great Way of the Buddha patriarchs there is always supreme continuous
practice which is the Way without beginning or end.
Arousing the thought of enlightenment, practice, bodhi, and nirvana
have not the slightest break, but are continuous practice which goes
on forever. Therefore, it is neither one’s own effort nor someone else’s
effort; it is pure continuous practice which transcends the opposition of
self and others.
– Dogen (1200-1253)
From The Golden Age of Zen John Wu
Tung-shan asked his master Yun-yen, as he was leaving for good, “After
you have completed this life, what shall I say if anyone asks, can you still
recall your master’s true face?” The Master remained silent for a long
while and then replied, “Just *this one* is.”
…While on his journey, Tung-shan continued to muse on the cryptic words
of his master: “Just *this one* is.” Later on in crossing a stream, he
happened to see his own reflection in the water, and right on the spot he
was thoroughly awakened to the real meaning of “Just *this one* is.” He
epitomized this experience in a *gatha*:
*Do not seek him anywhere else
Or he will run away from you!
Now that I go on all alone,
I meet him everywhere.
He is even now what I am.
I am even now what he is.
Only by understanding this way
Can there be a true union with the Self-So.*
God is Within You
When one realizes God, He grants knowledge and illumination
from within; one knows it oneself. In the fullness of one’s spiritual
realization one will find that He who resides in one’s heart, resides
in the hearts of others as well – the oppressed, the persecuted, the
untouchable, and the outcast.
Sri Sarada Devi
Absolute Consciousness
Ramana Maharshi p145
Whenever a thought arises, do not be carried away by it. You
become aware of the body when you forget the Self. But can you
forget the Self ? Being the Self how can you forget it?
There must be two selves for one to forget the other. It is absurd.
So the Self is not depressed, nor is it imperfect. It is very happy.
The contrary feeling is a mere thought which actually has no
stamina in it. Be rid of thoughts. Being the Self one remains
always realised. Only be free from thoughts.
Absolute Consciousness
Ramana Maharshi p145
Ignorance is the forgetfulness of the Self. Can there be darkness
before the sun? Similarly can there be ignorance before the self-
evident and self-luminous? If you know the Self there will be no
darkness, no ignorance and no misery. The impure mind which
functions in thinking and forgetfulness, alone is samsara, which
is the cycle of birth and death. The real ‘I’ in which the activity of
thinking and forgetfulness has perished, alone is pure liberation,
it is devoid of forgetfulness of Self which is the cause of birth and
death.
This is from a wonderful discourse ‘Vimalakirti’s Gate of Nonduality’
by Abbot John Daido Loori, M.R.O. which can be found at:
http://www.mro.org/zmm/talks/teisho9.htm
We come to practice with these sicknesses of anger and
fear, mistrust, love and hate, and soon they begin to manifest
in the practice itself. We see them functioning in groups, in
families, in nations, in cultures.
Is it possible to function in this life in a nondual way?
Vimalakirti said yes. Buddha said yes. Manjusri said yes.
Countless Buddhas and Ancestors from time immemorial
have said yes.
When you are in the world of the thinking mind, you are
somewhere in the remembered past or the imagined future.
You are in a world of thought, memory, concept, idea,
opinion and belief. You are not here now. What you are
experiencing is not of the present moment. It is not real.
You are in a world of illusion (Maya) and yet you have
come to believe that it real. Almost the entire human
population is lost in this illusion. It is the sole source of
our suffering.
~ Leonard Jacobson
Awareness Itself
The subtle, perfect essence of awareness is basically
spontaneously open and calm, equanimous and
pure, vast as space. It cannot be pointed out in terms of
any concrete form, it cannot be approached in terms of
location. It cannot be entered into by any door or road,
it cannot be depicted or copied by the colors of the
spectrum.
~Wei-tse
From: Teachings of Zen Ed. Thomas Cleary
‘Absolute Consciousness’
Ramana Maharshi
Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything, you are
essentially conscious of yourself.
Hanging Loose
by A.H. Almaas
from Diamond Heart, Book II
When your mind is free, not concerned, or worried, or focused
on anything in particular, and your heart is not grasping or clinging
to anything, then you are free. The most characteristic quality is
that there is no fixation on anything; you’re not focused on any issue
or experience. Whatever is there, is there. So there is a freedom
of mind. The mind is not saying, “I want this,” or “I want to look
at this,” or “It has to be this way.” The mind is loose. The expression
“hang loose” tells us what it means to be liberated.
In the Forest
The community of trees-
thousands of bodies
with a human body among them.
Branches and leaves are waving.
Then the call of the creek,
and my eyes open to the sky of the great Mind.
A smile is seen
on every leaf.
The forest is here,
because the city is down there.
But Mind has gone with the trees
and put on a new green dress.
The sunshine is the leaves.
The leaves are the sunshine.
The sunshine is no different from the leaves.
The leaves are no different from the sunshine.
All other forms and sounds
are of the same nature.
Thich Nhat Hanh
call me by my true names
Silence
A day of Silence
Can be a pilgrimage in itself.
A day of Silence
Can help you listen
To the Soul play
In marvelous lute and drum.
Is not most talking
A crazed defense of a crumbling fort?
I thought we came her
To surrender in Silence,
To yield to Light and Happiness,
To Dance within
In celebration of Love’s Victory!
~ Hafiz, I Heard God Laughing Daniel Ladinsky
You are, in all that you represent, a part of living. Not somewhere
in a corner all by yourself, but like the incense of a burning incense
stick, gradually spreading itself out into infinity. This is the way you
are sharing in living.
~Abbah Frédéric
From: The Sutra of Hui-Neng
Trans. Thomas Cleary
Good friends, let each of you clear your mind to listen to my
teaching. If you want to accomplish all-knowledge, you must attain
absorption in oneness and absorption in unified activity.
If you do not dwell on appearances wherever you are, and you do
not conceive aversion or attraction to those appearances, and nei-
ther grasp nor reject, and do not think of things like gain, success,
or failure, but are peaceful, serene, empty and fluid, tranquil and
calm, this is called absorption in oneness.
If your unadulterated, undivided, straightforward mind does not
move from the site of enlightenment wherever you are, whatever
you are doing, with reality constituting the Pure Land, this is called
absorption in unified activity.
If people have these two absorptions, it is like the earth having
seeds, which it stores and nurtures, and matures the fruits. So it is
with oneness and unified activity: my teaching now is like seasonal
rain moistening the great earth everywhere; your buddha-natures
are like seeds, which will all grow when thoroughly moistened thus.
Those who get my message will certainly attain enlightenment;
those who follow my practice will definitely realize the sublime
result.
Listen to my verse:
The mind ground contains the seeds:
With universal rain, all of them sprout.
When you’ve suddenly realized the blossoming heart
The fruit of enlightenment will naturally mature.
Having uttered this verse, the Master said,
The teaching has no dualism, neither does the mind; the Way is
pure, without any signs. You should be careful not to contemplate
stillness and empty your minds. The mind is originally clean, with
nothing to grasp or reject. Each of you work on your own, going
along as best you can according to circumstances.
Take no heed of time nor of right and wrong.
Passing into the realm of the Infinite, take your final
rest therein.
The Wisdom of Laotse, Pgs. 54-55
Moon Viewing
Thich Nhat Hanh
If there is no self,
there will be no samsara.
Why then do you have to dissolve the self?
Why do you have to stop samsara?
There is no self,
but there is the belief in a self.
There is no samsara,
but there is the idea of samsara.
Is the full moon tonight a self?
No, it is not a self.
Is the moon viewer a self?
No, he is not a self.
How then can the moon viewer enjoy the moon?
It is precisely because the moon has no self
and the moon viewer has no self
that both moon and moon viewer are wonderful,
and that moon viewing is a wonderful thing.
Moon viewing is our practice.
From: my true names – collected poems
“One man cannot do right in one department
of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong
in any other department. Life is one
indivisible whole.”
~Mahatma Gandhi
*To be free from the idea of being someone – that
is illumination*
The human form is a microcosm of the universe. All that
supposedly exists outside us in reality exists in us. The
world is in you and can become known in you, as you.
~ Jean Klein
Who am I?
Krishna said, “When the man or woman of vision sees that
the powers of nature are only actors of this vast drama and
beholds that which is beyond the powers of nature . . . he
comes into my Being . . . and he who with neverfailing love
adores me and works for me . . . passes beyond the three
powers and can be one with the One.”
‘The Truth Will Set You Free’
Svami Purna
Liberation
Let go of all your previous imaginings, opinions, interpretations,
worldly knowledge, intellectualism, egoism, and competitiveness;
become like a dead tree, like cold ashes. When you reach the point
where feelings are ended, views are gone, and your mind is clean
and naked, you open up to Zen realization.
After that it is also necessary to develop consistency, keeping the
mind pure and free from adulteration at all times. If there is the
slightest fluctuation, there is no hope of transcending the world.
Cut through resolutely, and then your state will be peaceful.
When you cannot be included in any stage, whether of sages or
of ordinary people, then you are like a bird freed from its cage.
~Zen Master Yuanwu
Zen Essence – The Science of Freedom Ed. Thomas Cleary
The Way is arrived at by enlightenment. The first priority is to
establish resolve-it is no small matter to step directly from the
bondage of the ordinary person into transcendent experience
of the realm of sages. It requires that your mind be firm as steel
to cut off the flow of birth and death, accept your original real
nature, not see anything at all as existing inside or outside yourself,
and make your heart perfectly clear, without any obstruction, so
all actions and endeavors emerge from the fundamental.
~Zen Master Yuanwu
Zen Essence – The Science of Freedom Ed. Thomas Cleary