08 Feb Kotodama 19
With music, I am hear and not here....
06 Feb Way Of Way 247
Everyone is going to heaven. When the pure light beckons us to heaven, we alight Earth and join it. As we become one with the pure light, our self disappears. Then we are in heaven. Heaven has an infinite number of gates. Statues of Jesus, Moses, Mohammad, Buddha, Lao Tzu and others greet us at the gates. At each gate are barkers distributing various religious books. The books are free, but freedom is the price of admission. Once we enter one of heaven's gates, we will spend eternity there. While the heaven behind each gate sounds attractive, we need to choose between them. To choose wisely, look for the souls living lightly on Earth as if they are already in heaven....
05 Feb Koan 57
"What was your original face before your parents were born?" -- Hui-neng (638-713 CE), the Sixth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism in China (predecessor of Zen Buddhism) My original face before my parents were born was my original face before my parents were born; it was what it was whatever it was. Thinking of it otherwise is an illusion. The question declares the answer: What was my original face before my parents were born! Before some thing is a this, that or who, it is unrecognizable and beyond description; a what as in "What is it? What is it!" "What" implies a pre-conceptional reality. The "what" is the soul; what every thing is before and after it is in the now. "Mu!"* My original face before my parents were born was nothing but infinite potentials: the soul. My original face before my parents were born is my true nature: the indescribable peace from oneness with the unmanifested soul. *"Mu" means "no" or "nothing" in Japanese, a common response to koans. "Mu" is a kind of emptiness; not a void, but devoid; like an empty room with the potential to be filled. "Mu" isn't "no", it's challenging the framework of the question....
03 Feb Way Of Way 239
Every thing is beautiful in its own way. Things can only be ugly from our way....
01 Feb Way Of Way 236
Religions are communities living in tall edifices pointing to the sky. Mysticism is the foundation and the space within and without the edifice, the unseen and the indescribable scene framing the seen....
31 Jan Way Of Way 246
The self is who we are in life, not what we are eternally. As all we know is our life, we identity with the self and its various emotions. Yet the self separates us from what we and every thing in the universe is: manifestations of the soul. Enlightenment is self-realization: realizing the self is an illusion. Enlightenment frees us to see the universe as it is, not as our self sees it. Upon enlightenment, every thing is enlightening as all things are expressions of undifferentiated pure light (the initial manifestation of the soul). As what you see is what you are, the enlightened are the pure light. The pure light makes the enlightened lighthearted. They find funny those who are slaves to the self. Their pure light also allows they to enlighten others. They enlighten with words but not sentences; as words emanate light while sentences reflect light and cast shadows.* *For example, the Zen student asks his teacher: "Does a rock have consciousness?" The teacher responds: "Mu", a word meaning "nothing". As a rock is constantly changing (though imperceptibly so) and is nothing before and after whatever it is in the now, it doesn't have an enduring reality that can be described (as conscious or otherwise). It is a manifestation of nothing. Alternatively, the teacher responds: "Who asks?" That is, a rock and consciousness are understandable when you know what you are. Or, famously: "Five pounds of flax." Rocks and pounds of flax, however seemingly unrelated, are temporary manifestations of one thing: the soul. Focusing on philosophical concepts like the consciousness of a rock strays us from coming to know the soul by observing the now. Otherwise, communicating in sentences, many sentences gives agency or reality to a thing (rock) that is everchanging and a concept (consciousness) that is debatable in light of its context....
30 Jan Way Of Way 245
Words are stars illuminating the darkness. Sentences are constellations, reflecting light and casting shadows....