The Four Seals

All compounded things are impermanent.
All emotions are pain.
All things have no inherent existence.
Nirvana is beyond concepts.

— Siddharta Gautama (Buddha) – The Four Seals of Dharma

If you cannot accept that all compounded or fabricated things are impermanent, if you believe that there is some essential substance or concept that is permanent, then you are not a Buddhist.

If you cannot accept that all emotions are pain, if you believe that actually some emotions are purely pleasurable, then you are not a Buddhist.

If you cannot accept that all phenomena are illusory and empty, if you believe that certain things do exist inherently, then you are not a Buddhist.

And if you think that enlightenment exists within the spheres of time, space and power, then you are not a Buddhist.

— Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche – What Makes You Not A Buddhist

A happy new year 2012 to all readers of the blog. Thank you!

The conflicting images one creates of others

How can one be free of the images that one has? First of all, I must find out how these images come into being, what is the mechanism that creates them. You can see that at the moment of actual relationship, that is, when you are talking, when there are arguments, when there are insults and brutality, if you are not completely attentive at that moment, then the mechanism of building an image starts. That is, when the mind is not completely attentive at the moment of action, then the mechanism of building images is set in motion. When you say something to me which I do not like — or which I like — if at that moment I am not completely attentive, then the mechanism starts. If I am attentive, aware, then there is no building of images.

— Jiddu Krishnamurti – The Awakening of Intelligence – Page 337

Work is love made visible

And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart,
even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection,
even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy,
even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead
are standing about you and watching.

[…]

Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste,
it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple
and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference,
you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes,
your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels,
and love not the singing,
you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

— Khalil Gibran – The Prophet – Work

The dungeon of true being

“He whom I enclose with my name is weeping in this dungeon. I am ever busy building this wall all around; and as this wall goes up into the sky day by day I lose sight of my true being in its dark shadow.
I take pride in this great wall, and I plaster it with dust and sand lest a least hole should be left in this name; and for all the care I take I lose sight of my true being.”

— Rabindranath Tagore – Gitanjali – XXIV

Wanderlust

“Our task now is to learn that if we can voyage to the ends of the earth and find ourselves in the aborigine who most differs from ourselves, we will have made a fruitful pilgrimage. That is why pilgrimage is necessary, in some shape or other. Mere sitting at home and meditating on the divine presence is not enough for our time. We have to come to the end of a long journey and see that the stranger we meet there is no other than ourselves.”

— Thomas Merton

Exchanging Self and Others

95.
When both myself and others
Are similar in that we wish to be happy,
What is so special about me?
Why do I strive for my happiness alone?

96.
And when both myself and others
Are similar in that we do not wish to suffer,
What is so special about me?
Why do I protect myself and not others?

120.
Thus whoever wishes to quickly afford protection
To both the self and other beings
Should practice that holy secret:
The exchanging of self for others

129.
Whatever joy there is in this world
All comes from desiring others to be happy,
And whatever suffering there is in this world
All comes from desiring myself to be happy.

— Shantideva – Verses from the Chapter 8 of the Bodhicharyavatara

The Purifying Waters of Heaven

The Sunrise on the Ganga River in Varanasi.

I come to you as a child to his mother.
I come as an orphan to you, moist with love.
I come without refuge to you, giver of sacred rest.
I come a fallen man to you, uplifter of all.
I come undone by disease to you, the perfect physician.
I come, my heart dry with thirst, to you, ocean of sweet wine.
Do with me whatever you will.

— Jagannatha – Ganga-Lahiri

The Root of All Fear

“The craving to become causes fear; to be, to achieve, and so to depend engenders fear. The state of non-fear is not negation, it is not the opposite of fear nor is it courage. In understanding the cause of fear there is its cessation, not the becoming courageous, for in all becoming there is the seed of fear. Dependence on things, on people or on ideas breeds fear; dependence arises from ignorance, from the lack of self-knowledge, from inward poverty; fear causes uncertainty of mind-heart, preventing communication and understanding. Through self-awareness we begin to discover and so comprehend the cause of fear, not only the superficial but the deep causal and accumulative fears. Fear is both inborn and acquired; it is related to the past and to free thought-feeling from it the past must be comprehended through the present. The past is ever awaiting to give birth to the present which becomes the identifying memory of the ‘me’ and the ‘mine’, the ‘I’. The self is the root of all fear. To inhibit or suppress fear is not to transcend it; its cause must be self-discovered and so understood and dissolved. In becoming aware of craving and its dependence, in observing with kindly detachment its ways and actions, fear yields to understanding.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti – The Mirror of Relationship (1944)

Taming the wild agitated mind

“In the ancient meditation instructions, it is said that in the beginning thoughts will arrive one on top of another, uninterrupted, like a steep mountain waterfall. Gradually, as you perfect meditation, thoughts become like the water in a deep narrow gorge, then a great river slowly winding its way down to the sea; finally the mind becomes like a still and placid ocean, ruffled by on the occasion ripple or wave.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche – The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

What is love?

“Put away the book, the description, the tradition, the authority, and take the journey of self-discovery. Love, and don’t be caught in opinions and ideas about what love is or should be. When you love, everything will come right. Love has its own action. Love, and you will know the blessings of it. Keep away from the authority who tells you what love is and what it is not. No authority knows; and he who knows cannot tell. Love, and there is understanding.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti – Commentaries on Living – Series III Chapter 39 ‘What is Love?’