He talked today about how we go from life to meditation as if meditation is just another thing we frantically try to solve our problems. He suggested that it nor we will not solve our problems. Sickness, old age, and death aren’t solvable. With every breath, we bathe our bodies with oxygen and then exhale crud, over and over again. Going from life through the temple door with the wish to fix something is just another expression of our suffering. So now we mess up meditation just like we messed up lovemaking when we read the book on being a great lover, or we messed up art by going to art school and learning to “do it.” In the end, he suggested to hell with meditation, why don’t we just sit on the cushion in an upright and noble manner and see what happens? (My apologies for taking many liberties with his teaching.)
Monday, January 13, 2020
Sunday, January 12, 2020
Relative and Absolute
I’ve been sitting for a week, which isn’t quite true as I did a lot of work cooking and thinking. I fell asleep next to a swimming pool, and when I awoke, I looked up and realized that all these branches that appear to intersect are not actually touching. In Buddhism, we talk about the relative and the absolute. The relative is what we see from our unique perspective and conditioning, i.e. intersecting branches. The absolute is the world stripped from these delusions, i.e. non-intersecting branches. Actually “what is” is a blending of these two worlds.
Sunday, January 5, 2020
Saturday, January 4, 2020
Friday, January 3, 2020
Thursday, January 2, 2020
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Monday, December 30, 2019
Sunday, December 29, 2019
Saturday, December 28, 2019
Friday, December 27, 2019
Thursday, December 26, 2019
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Monday, December 23, 2019
Sunday, December 22, 2019
Saturday, December 21, 2019
Friday, December 20, 2019
Thursday, December 19, 2019
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