Being nothing, you are everything

You live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality, but you do not know this.
When you understand this, you will see that you are nothing.
And being nothing, you are everything. That is all.

- Kalu Rinpoche

Emptiness

Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.

Clouds appear, change and dissolve in the sky. Behind the gray clouds, the sky is there, ever present. Without the sky, there cannot be clouds.

Our thoughts and emotions are the clouds in the sky which is our awareness.

Picture frames of a movie are projected on a screen. Likewise, thoughts, emotions, sensations and moods are projected on the screen of awareness. Even when all we experience is the drama of our lives, the thoughts appear, change and dissolve in the awareness. Without awareness, there cannot be thoughts.

Forms appear out of emptiness. Clouds in the emptiness of the sky, thoughts in the emptiness of awareness.

By realizing the presence of awareness and the impermanence of all it witnesses, one can start to tame the mind, learning to detach from the drama and rest in the awareness itself. Memories, plans, thoughts and emotions stop solidifying into "who we are" but become clouds witnessed by our awareness. This way, we stop being egocentric and separate.

Patience and perseverance

From there, one can start to change the contents of the mind and nurture positive states. One practices cultivating lovingkindness and compassion.

Like any skill, practicing positive mind states takes patience and perseverance. Lovingkindness and compassion bring inner and outer peace.

Inspired by Tenzin Palmo's dharma talk about emptiness

Meditation

An old Chinese Zen Master once said, "Some of you are taking me literally when I say, 'Don't think,' and you are making your minds like a rock. This is a cause of insentiency and an obstruction to the Way. When I say not to think, I mean that if you have a thought, think nothing of it."

Right Speech

The criteria for deciding what is worth saying

[1] "In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be unfactual, untrue, unbeneficial (or: not connected with the goal), unendearing & disagreeable to others, he does not say them.

[2] "In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, unbeneficial, unendearing & disagreeable to others, he does not say them.

[3] "In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, beneficial, but unendearing & disagreeable to others, he has a sense of the proper time for saying them.

[4] "In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be unfactual, untrue, unbeneficial, but endearing & agreeable to others, he does not say them.

[5] "In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, unbeneficial, but endearing & agreeable to others, he does not say them.

[6] "In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, beneficial, and endearing & agreeable to others, he has a sense of the proper time for saying them. Why is that? Because the Tathagata has sympathy for living beings."

— MN 58

The Fisherman

An American businessman was standing at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.

“How long it took you to catch them?” The American asked.

“Only a little while.” The Mexican replied.

“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” The American then asked.

“I have enough to support my family’s immediate needs.” The Mexican said.

“But,” The American then asked, “What do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, señor.”

The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds you buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats.”

“Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own can factory. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But señor, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”

“But what then, señor?”

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”

“Millions, señor? Then what?”

The American said slowly, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos…”

ID Please!

Taxonomy - the orderly classification of plants and animals.

Yesterday, I attended a conference given by a pastor/botanist. When asked "what could be done for the general public - and especially the youth - to be more responsible about protecting biodiversity?" he replied the following :

"I would tell them to associate taxonomy and observation of nature. People must learn to identify and recognize what is out there. Identifying plants, birds. If a name cannot be given to an object, no relationship can establish itself between the observer and the observed. To identify a plant makes a big difference. If a person walks past a stranger, he will not respond the same way as if he walks past a person that has been introduced and whose name is known. There is an emotional response that stems from recognizing the person."

Identification and naming can have a powerful effect. It might be the royal road to a stronger sense of connection with nature. Memory and the intellect could be the first step to being more fully cognizant, i.e. emotionally and spiritually.

Life - Lessons from Biodiversity

Diversity and an "intelligent, organized" chaos encourage life.
A rich ecosystem is full of symbiotic relationships between species. There is self-regulation and coevolution.

Uniformity, squareness weaken and destroy life.
A poor ecosystem promotes parasitic relationships between species. The system is out of balance and self-destroys in an attempt to steady itself.


Diversity and an "intelligent, organized" chaos in diet encourage health.
Diversity and an "intelligent, organized" chaos in physical activity encourage health.
Diversity and an "intelligent, organized" chaos in the one's activities and interests encourage mental health.

Uniformity in diet, physical, interests, daily activities destroy health and life.

Similarly, diversity and an "intelligent, organized" chaos in communities, societies, nations encourage harmony. There is self-regulation and "coevolution".

Uniformity, too much regulation, too much systematic organization, weaken and destroy communities, societies, nations, the environment. There are parasitic relationships. There is gradual destruction - including the environment's - in an attempt by Gaia to steady itself.

Lovingkindness - The Metta Sutta

This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born,
May all beings be at ease!

Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.

Layers

There once was a princess – Ar – who lived with her parents, the king and queen. The king and queen had overextended themselves, and had for some time relied on loans they obtained from a dragon who lived in the area, dragons having lots of gold and such.

The time came for the king and queen to pay the dragon back, but they didn’t have the money to do it. So they met with the dragon to see what could be worked out. As was the way in those days, they told the dragon that the only thing they had left was their daughter, Ar. The dragon thought about it for a few minutes, and said that he’d accept their offer, would take the princess as his wife, and would become a part of their family.

The daughter was as distressed as you might imagine, but showed more wisdom than her parents. She fled the city to a village on the outskirts of the forest, to a hovel where an old, wise woman lived. She told the old woman of her plight. When she was done with her story, the woman said, “Don’t worry so much. Here’s what you should do…”

Ar listened carefully, and when the old woman finished her instructions, Ar thanked her, and returned home.

Soon enough the wedding day came, with lots of celebrations and toasts and talk and ceremony. Ar was nervous, but dressed for the wedding, as the old woman had instructed her. Ar and the dragon were married. After the dinners and toasts and talk were all done, Ar and the dragon withdrew to their wedding chamber, and Ar said to the dragon, as the old woman had instructed, “Would you like me to undress, so we can consummate our marriage?” The dragon, responded, “Yes!” Ar then said, “One more thing – it would be fitting for you to remove as much as I do. Do you agree?” The dragon, highly motivated, agreed quickly.

Ar then began removing her wedding gown, and the dragon removed such trappings as he’d put on in honor of the occasion. But as Ar removed her gown, there was another gown beneath it. She looked to the dragon, and began to remove her second gown. The dragon, having only put on one layer of clothing for the event, began to peel off its skin. Dragons, like snakes and lizards, sometimes shed their skins, so it wasn’t too painful to do so. But as Ar removed her second gown, there was a third beneath it. The dragon, seeing this, used its claws to carve away its scales. Beneath Ar’s third gown was a fourth, and a fifth, and more – she had followed the old woman’s instructions to put on ten gowns. As she removed each gown, the dragon clawed off more and more.

As she took off her gowns, and as the dragon carved away more and more, Ar saw that his shape began to change. By the time that Ar had removed her tenth gown and stood before the dragon uncovered, the dragon carved away his tenth layer and stood before Ar, now a beautiful young man.

-As told by Jack Kornfield

Moving On

"There is a rather nice story of two monks walking from one village to another and they come upon a young girl sitting on the bank of a river, crying. And one of the monks goes up to her and says, 'Sister, what are you crying about?'. She says, 'You see that house over there across the river? I came over this morning early and had no trouble wading across but now the river has swollen and I can't get back. There is no boat.' 'Oh', says the monk, 'that is no problem at all', and he picks her up and carries her across the river and leaves her on the other side.
 
And the two monks go on together.
 
After a couple of hours, the other monk says, `Brother, we have taken a vow never to touch a woman. What you have done is a terrible sin. Didn't you have pleasure, a great sensation, in touching a woman?' and the other monk replies, 'I left her behind two hours ago. You are still carrying her, aren't you?'

That is what we do. We carry our burdens all the time; we never die to them, we never leave them behind."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti, Freedom From the Known

Heaven and Hell

A big, burly samurai comes to a Zen master and says, "Tell me the nature of heaven and hell."

The Zen master looks him in the face and says, "Why should I tell a scruffy, disgusting, miserable slob like you? A worm like you, do you think I should tell you anything?"

Consumed by rage, the samurai draws his sword and raises it to cut off the master's head.

The Zen master says, "That's hell."

Instantly, the samurai understands that he has just created his own hell - black and hot, filled with hatred, self-protection, anger, and resentment. He sees that he was so deep in hell that he was ready to kill someone. Tears fill his eyes as he puts his palms together to bow in gratitude for this insight.

The Zen master says, "That's heaven."

The view of the warrior-bodhisattva is not "Hell is bad and heaven is good" or "Get rid of hell and just seek heaven." Instead, we encourage ourselves to develop an open heart and an open mind to heaven, to hell, to everything.

Only with this kind of equanimity can we realize that no matter what comes along, we're always standing in the middle of a sacred space. Only with equanimity can we see that everything that comes into our circle has come to teach us what we need to know.

-Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty

Wendell Berry Interview

Keith Jarrett - Autumn Leaves

Short & Educational - The Problems with Consumerism in a Nutshell

Our enormously productive economy... demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption... we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate - Victor Lebow (1955)

Kant - What is Enlightenment?

Immanuel Kant, symbol of German Idealism, wrote an essay in 1784 answering the question: "What is enlightenment?". The text is essentially giving individuals exhortation to use their own reasoning instead of remaining the idle believers and followers of men of authority.

It is a beautiful hymn to freedom.

Short excerpt of the English translation :

"
Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! “Have courage to use your own understanding!” — that is the motto of enlightenment.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a proportion of men, long after nature has released them from alien guidance (naturaliter maiorennes), nonetheless gladly remain in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians. It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for me. The guardians who have so benevolently taken over the supervision of men have carefully seen to it that the far greatest part of them (including the entire fair sex) regard taking the step to maturity as very dangerous, not to mention difficult. Having first made their domestic livestock dumb, and having carefully made sure that these docile creatures will not take a single step without the go-cart to which they are harnessed, these guardians then show them the danger that threatens them, should they attempt to walk alone. Now this danger is not actually so great, for after falling a few times they would in the end certainly learn to walk; but an example of this kind makes men timid and usually frightens them out of all further attempts.

Thus, it is difficult for any individual man to work himself out of the immaturity that has all but become his nature. He has even become fond of this state and for the time being is actually incapable of using his own understanding, for no one has ever allowed him to attempt it. Rules and formulas, those mechanical aids to the rational use, or rather misuse, of his natural gifts, are the shackles of a permanent immaturity. Whoever threw them off would still make only an uncertain leap over the smallest ditch, since he is unaccustomed to this kind of free movement. Consequently, only a few have succeeded, by cultivating their own minds, in freeing themselves from immaturity and pursuing a secure course.
"

Gesundheit! :-s

Market punishes good deeds :(

This is a 'Yes Men' prank, the dude doesn't work for DOW :D The company's stock lost 3 billion dollars when people thought they were going to do the right thing. It went right back up when stockholders learned that DOW wasn't going to pay a cent. Bit of a hit for capitalism if you ask me - nice on paper, not so cool in practice.

more info here: http://www.poptech.org/popcasts/?viewcastid=254

Wendell Berry - Eating is an Agricultural Act

A Canadian WWOOFer introduced me to Wendell Berry. I cannot wait to read his books.

Every once in a while we find people who become spiritual companions and guides, kindred souls who share similar intuitions and thoughts. These people can dispel the ominious sense of isolation arising from the frustration of not sharing the same views as peers or mainstream culture. Thoreau, Spinoza, Epicurus, Patanjali, Masanobu Fukuoka, Michael Pollan, Michel Onfray are a few in my Pantheon. They will certainly have to make a little room for Wendell Berry very soon.

"His nonfiction serves as an extended conversation about the life he values. According to Berry, the good life includes sustainable agriculture, appropriate technologies, healthy rural communities, connection to place, the pleasures of good food, husbandry, good work, local economics, the miracle of life, fidelity, frugality, reverence, and the interconnectedness of life. The threats Berry finds to this good life include: industrial farming and the industrialization of life, ignorance, hubris, greed, violence against others and against the natural world, the eroding topsoil in the United States, global economics, and environmental destruction. As a prominent defender of agrarian values, Berry's appreciation for traditional farming techniques, such as those of the Amish, grew in the 1970s, due in part to exchanges with Draft Horse Journal publisher Maurice Telleen. Berry has long been friendly to and supportive of Wes Jackson, believing that Jackson's agricultural research at The Land Institute lives out the promise of "solving for pattern" and using "nature as model."

The concept of "Solving for pattern", coined by Berry in his essay of the same title, is the process of finding solutions that solve multiple problems, while minimizing the creation of new problems. The essay was originally published in the Rodale Press periodical The New Farm. Though Mr. Berry's use of the phrase was in direct reference to agriculture, it has since come to enjoy broader use throughout the design community."

The teachers are everywhere. What is wanted is a learner.

Eating is an agricultural act.

The most alarming sign of the state of our society now is that our leaders have the courage to sacrifice the lives of young people in war, but have not the courage to tell us that we must be less greedy and less wasteful.

Reductionism (ultimately, the empirical explanability of everything and a cornerstone of science), has uses that are appropriate, and it also can be used inappropriately. It is appropriately used as a way (one way) of understanding what is empirically known or empirically knowable. When it becomes merely an intellectual "position" confronting what is not empirically known or knowable, then it becomes very quickly absurd, and also grossly desensitizing and false.

We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all— by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians— be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us.

We need to confront honestly the issue of scale. Bigness has a charm and a drama that are seductive, especially to politicians and financiers; but bigness promotes greed, indifference, and damage, and often bigness is not necessary. You may need a large corporation to run an airline or to manufacture cars, but you don't need a large corporation to raise a chicken or a hog. You don't need a large corporation to process local food or local timber and market it locally.

Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.

What I stand for
is what I stand on.

Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.

The Problem With Philosophy

What is considered a philosopher nowadays?

1. A person who has read the books on the official syllabus of the department of philosophy of his university.


2. A person who had to clearly define which current of philosophy he belonged to in order to be acknowledged.


3. A person who had to learn how to publish a university paper with the proper form.


4. A person who publishes and teaches.


5. A person who is a philosopher from 8 to 12 and 2 to 5, on week days only, and who stops being a philosopher when he comes home and when he takes a vacation.

"Philosopher" has become a profession/career in academia.

A philosopher is not a person who leads a life of wisdom anymore. He is not a person who tries to embody values or a worldview. He is simply a person who has learned concepts, writes papers for his peers and teaches.

The philosopher has dissociated philosophy - the love of wisdom - from his lifestyle.

In ancient Greece, a Cynic, a Stoicist, an Epicurean, a Pythagorean, a student of the Academy or the Lyceum could be recognized in the streets of Athens. Philosophy permeated all the aspects of their lives. By the way a person was dressed, by the way he made decisions and by his behavior, one could easily identify which school of philosophy he adhered to. Each was free to find a lifestyle congruent with their temperament.

A Stoicist would show rigorous asceticism. An Epicurean would strive for a wise balance of pleasure. A Cynic would show no consideration for social convention. In this way, simply by observing how each would eat, how each would sleep, how each would interact with others, it was possible to determine their worldview.

Families often fail at giving guidance and providing answers.
Schools usually fail at giving guidance and providing answers.
Religion often fails at giving guidance and providing answers.
Ideology fails at giving guidance and providing answers.
Society as a whole has failed at this task.

People throughout the world are aligning their behavior. The way they eat, the way they dress, the type of art they appreciate, what they buy, what they dream about. Uniformity has killed initiative, intuition and creativity in man.
Philosophy has become inaccessible to humanity, it is held hostage by academics. For centuries, Church has hijacked the role of beacon in the West. An intellectual elite has favored the complex conceptual form of philosophy. A form which keeps out all who have not gone through the tedious process of breaking through curtains of concepts and poor syntax.

Philosophy should not be intellectual exercise or a profession. It should offer everybody the means to emancipate. It should help them find balance in their lives. It should give them a coherent way of looking at the world they are living in. It should give them the intuition of what is a proper way of behaving in it.

Most people - at least at some point in their lives - want to learn about philosophy, about psychology, about spirituality, about political science. Unfortunately they do not feel capable to explore these fields. They have been given a complex by their families, their schools, their religion, their society. They end up by rejecting the possibility to emancipate in their frustration.

May the situation change.

WWOOFing Chronicles - Tenth Week Poise

As I am gathering skills and experiencing many new situations, there is an euphoric sense of growth and purpose.

This week, I have been receiving too much attention, too much trust, too much praise. Even April, the stubborn, unpredictable horse is treating me with respect and is cooperatively following my orders. In the fields, Marco and I have been working very efficiently, the farming was late on schedule, we managed to make it so we are slightly ahead of schedule. Efficient coordination of efforts, the proper balance of initiative and caution, a silently shared trial, silently shared satisfaction after work well done. It was supposed to take three days to get the permaculture garden back in shape, he did it one. It was supposed to take two days to plant the amount of potatoes I planted in an afternoon. It was supposed to take several days to sow the seeds we got ready in the greenhouse in a scorching afternoon.

A few nights ago, John, enthusiastic with my capacity to teach him philosophy, organized a "philosophical evening" I was to lead. The next evening, I talked and talked, they listened, took notes, some faces lit up, most seemed deep in thought. At the same time, Tom was improvising on oriental scales with his flute. Then, I listened to them, gave them metaphors, fables, parables and aphorisms to back up or nuance their ideas. We shared laughs, sighs and respect until very late at night.

It is all simply intoxicating. The six young Swedish carpenters left. Men separated by age, language, background, were hugging, dancing, singing, sharing warmth for hour upon hour. We were all filled with a Dyonisiac sense of immediacy. Nietszche makes much more sense all of a sudden.

Is it Spring?

People never really deeply change, I have simply been exposed to new situations. The events we experience reveal aspects of who we are. We are not our minds separated from the physical world. Our minds adapt to the what our senses pick up from what surrounds us. Imbalances are sometimes increased, other times reduced. Many parameters have an influence : season, weather, age, food, people around us, house we are living in, sounds around us, amount of sleep, type of food, physical activity, natural cycles, music listened to earlier, conversations recently involved in, etc.

Finding balance brings poise.