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Gill Eardley
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Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 18:28:28 +0100
Subject: [allspiritinspiration] No. 4 - 30th June 2007
From A Taste of Freedom
by Ajahn Chah
http://www.accesstoinsight.org
Right View - The Place of Coolness
The practice of Dhamma goes against our habits, the
truth goes against our desires, so there is difficulty
in the practice. Some things which we understand as
wrong may be right, while the things we take to be
right may be wrong. Why is this? Because our minds
are in darkness, we don't clearly see the Truth. We
don't really know anything and so are fooled by
people's lies. They point out what is right as being
wrong and we believe it; that which is wrong, they
say is right, and we believe that. This is because we
are not yet our own masters. Our moods lie to us
constantly. We shouldn't take this mind and its
opinions as our guide, because it doesn't know the
truth.
Some people don't want to listen to others at all,
but this is not the way of a man of wisdom. A wise
man listens to everything. One who listens to
Dhamma must listen just the same, whether he likes
it or not, and not blindly believe or disbelieve. He
must stay at the half-way mark, the middle point,
and not be heedless. He just listens and then
contemplates, giving rise to the right results
accordingly.
Self-knowledge
... self-knowledge is so important that, even if you were raised right
up to the heavens, I should like you never to relax your cultivation
of it; so long as we are on this earth, nothing matters more to us than
humility... As I see it, we shall never succeed in knowing ourselves
unless we seek to know God: let us think of His greatness and then
come back to our own baseness; by looking at His purity we shall
see our foulness; by meditating upon His humility, we shall see how
far we are from being humble.
~Teresa of Avila
(p. 38, First Mansions, Chapter 2, Paragraph 9)
From To Know Yourself is to Forget Yourself
By Pema Chödrön
at: http://www.shambhalasun.com
There is a Tibetan teaching that is often translated as, "Self-
cherishing is the root of all suffering." It can be hard for a
Western person to hear the term "self-cherishing" without
misunderstanding what is being said. I would guess that 85%
of us Westerners would interpret it as telling us that we
shouldn't care for ourselves-that there is something anti-
wakeful about respecting ourselves. But that isn't what it
really means. What it is talking about is fixating. "Self-
cherishing" refers to how we try to protect ourselves by
fixating; how we put up walls so that we won't have to
feel discomfort or lack of resolution. That notion of self-
cherishing refers to the erroneous belief that there could
be only comfort and no discomfort, or the belief that there
could be only happiness and no sadness, or the belief that
there could be just good and no bad.
But what the Buddhist teachings point out is that we could
take a much bigger perspective, one that is beyond good
and evil. Classifications of good and bad come from lack of
maitri. We say that something is good if it makes us feel
secure and it's bad if it makes us feel insecure. That way
we get into hating people who make us feel insecure and
hating all kinds of religions or nationalities that make us
feel insecure. And we like those who give us ground under
our feet.
When we are so involved with trying to protect ourselves,
we are unable to see the pain in another person's face.
"Self-cherishing" is ego fixating and grasping: it ties our
hearts, our shoulders, our head, our stomach, into knots.
We can't open. Everything is in a knot. When we begin to
open we can see others and we can be there for them. But
to the degree that we haven't worked with our own fear,
we are going to shut down when others trigger our fear.
So to know yourself is to forget yourself. This is to say
that when we make friends with ourselves we no longer
have to be so self-involved. It's a curious twist: making
friends with ourselves is a way of not being so self-
involved anymore. Then Dogen Zen-ji goes on to say, "To
forget yourself is to become enlightened by all things."
When we are not so self-involved, we begin to realize
that the world is speaking to us all of the time. Every
plant, every tree, every animal, every person, every car,
every airplane is speaking to us, teaching us, awakening
us. It's a wonderful world, but we often miss it. It's as
if we see the previews of coming attractions and never
get to the main feature.
When we feel resentful or judgmental, it hurts us and it
hurts others. But if we look into it we might see that behind
the resentment there is fear and behind the fear there is
a tremendous softness. There is a very big heart and a huge
mind- a very awake, basic state of being. To experience this
we begin to make a journey, the journey of unconditional
friendliness toward the self that we already are.
You Suspect This Could Be Yours
Rumi
you suspect this could be yours
with a little contrivance
only death to contrivance
will avail you
something good or bad
always comes out of you
it is agony to be still;
the spool turns
when mind pulls the thread
let the water settle;
you will see moon and stars
mirrored in your being
when the kettle boils
fire is revealed
when the millstone turns
the river shows its power
put the lid on the kettle
and be filled
with the boiling of love.
(translated by Daniel Liebert)
'The Rumi Collection'
Edited by Kabir Helminski
Please feel free to send submissions, comments and suggestions...
Also please forward the newsletter to any friends you think may
be interested in subscribing...
gill www.allspirit.co.uk
Gill Eardley
If you have received this newsletter as a forward,
you can subscribe by going to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/allspiritinspiration/
or send a blank email to:
allspiritinspiration-subscribe.yahoogroups.com
Every person, all the events of your life are there because
you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with
them is up to you.
~Richard Bach From Illusions
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