Simply This: suffering

12/12/2010

Reality Check

"All there is, is Reality,

and any illusion, any appearance, any shadow,

cannot but be a reflection of that very Reality.

Illusion cannot have an independent existence."

~from Peace and Harmony in Daily Living by Ramesh Balsekar

12/07/2010

Never Mind

"Do you want to know my secret?…
My secret is that I don't mind what happens."
~J. Krishnamurti

I love quotations. So far most of the entries on this blog feature quotes, especially ones that point to nondual awareness like the one above. Some of the posts talk about there being "no problem," about "not cherishing opinions," or "being at peace with what is." Many readers who follow world news or politics could easily conclude that quotes such as these are outdated, insensitive, or downright crazy. It does seem like a paradox for everything to be "perfect as it is" while there is so much pain and suffering going on in the world. I don't mind if readers think I'm nuts, but I would prefer that they not feel I don't care about the suffering of others. I do care.

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Because I like the way he puts things, the remainder of this post will be excepts from the book Never Mind by Wayne Liquorman. The following passages address how one can be in acceptance with "what is" while still having preferences.

Life is the movement between polaric opposites...when the Third Zen Patriarch said, "The Great Way is not difficult for those who hold no preferences" he was talking about the involvement in the movement. In fact the same translator of the little Hsin Hsin Ming book did a retranslation some thirty years later and in his new translation he changed the line from "The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences" to "The Great Way is not difficult for those not attached to preferences." Huge difference, you see.

What this Advaita teaching points to -points to- is that life and death happen; health and sickness happen. They come, they go, as part of this miraculous movement of the universe...In the acceptance of the underlying reality that it's all part of a perfect functioning, your resistance to what is happening eases and the suffering attendant to what is happening lessens. You still have all the same issues. You still have to deal with the problems in your life. However, without this feeling that what is happening is a flaw in the Universe, there is more strength, there is more energy, there are more internal resources to deal with whatever life brings. Sometimes what life brings is not pleasant. In fact, sometimes it is terrible, but what we call "suffering" is a result of the belief that what is happening should not be happening.

The acceptance that I'm talking about is not approval. It doesn't mean you are required to like what is happening or refrain from doing something to change it...We can have a preference for one condition over the other, but when one over the other is deemed to be the only thing that should exist, then suffering is inevitable.