The Story

Micro Story: awaken, realize yourself, climb the mountain and reach the top, become enlightened or translucent...

Macro Story: live your life, play the game of life and being human, show the way by following the way, be the way, walk down from the mountain and enter the marketplace, spread the Dharma, enable other people to awaken, go about your business...

Meta Story: Evolution! evolution of consciousness, conscious contribution to the evolution of mankind/planet/universe...

This is your universe and just as the scientist's presence in the lab will influence the result of the experiment, changing yourself will surely change the whole universe. When you want to create change, will you try to change the projection (universe/world) or the projector (self). Clearly, changing the projector will change the projection.

Some thoughts inspired by the book The Translucent Revolution

Murky

From an email I wrote:

Life is murky and unclear and subjective. Everything is connected. Nothing stands clearly illuminated by itself. This world is a matrix of dependency. We try to isolate ideas or elements, to understand them or to find a way to use them, but they don't act the same in isolation and are quick to mix and morph. Nothing is pure. Black and white don't stand alone... there are a million shades of grey in between them. I am glad that your conclusion is now a lot closer to 'I just don't know'.

Rome

From an email to a friend:

I think I could stop playing guitar, but why would I want to.
To me it would be like having a great realization and no longer sitting zazen...
We don't sit to become enlightened, but because it refreshes us. Just as I tune the strings of the guitar I feel that I am tuned in turn by sitting zazen.

Yesterday I tried to think of every quality I associate with myself... and realized I am not holding on to them anymore. They are not important, in fact they are quite meaningless. Just as a signpost that points to Rome is not the city of Rome, anything associated with me (either by myself or by family, friends or fans or the press) is not me.

Words

It is unfortunate that we have attached a sense of finality to Enlightenment. We think of it as a stage to be reached, a mission to be accomplished. It is often seen as a target, whereas I prefer to think of it as an arrow.

Love has no defining end. Most of us would not imagine that Love could possibly have an end to it. Music, creativity, compassion... there is always more... however far you go down that road, there will always be more, an endless supply....

Enlightenment is like that... just as you can always summon more creativity, love deeper, be more compassionate, you can also get more enlightened.

That's bad news for those people who would like to reach a brass ring and be done with it...

Perspective

A slightly different angle shifts the perspective from a dark pool of water to a bright reflection of the sky, from a dark contained hole to an open and inclusive wonder...

August

Genpo Roshi will be in Santa Fe August 26-28 to do the Big Mind process at Upaya.
To give him a break from talking I will play guitar on Saturday evening. I imagine this will happen in the zendo, un-amplified.

Current reading: the Translucent Revolution(How People Just Like You Are WAKING UP and CHANGING the World) and the classic Moon in a Dewdrop written 800 years ago and brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

Accidents

Last week I received an email regarding an accident that involved an SUV getting rear-ended. A passenger from that SUV wrote that they were happy that they were not traveling in a Prius as the damage or injury might have been larger.

I realized that it is all simply a matter of perspective. What if the SUV gets rear-ended by a Hummer? What if the Hummer gets rear-ended by a delivery truck? What if the delivery truck gets hit by an 18-wheeler? What if the 18-wheeler gets crushed by a 20,000 pound boulder?

We don't pick and choose who rear-ends us, do we. Unless we cause the accident ourselves by making a driver-error, we don't have any control over it. Therefore it really doesn't matter whether we ride in a tank or in a Mini or Pruis. You can drive along the highway to Taos, feeling safe in your giant SUV, but when a 20,000 pound boulder comes rolling down that mountain - you are toast.

In other words, you can keep your SUV, and I'll stick with my Prius.

I will leave you for today with a story about luck:

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. "Such bad luck," they said sympathetically. "May be," the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed. "May be," replied the old man. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. "May be," answered the farmer. The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. "May be," said the farmer.

I searched for this story as I had heard it before and found it HERE.

Interdependency

Rigpa: On Interdependency

In today’s highly interdependent world, individuals and nations can no longer resolve many of their problems by themselves. We need one another. We must therefore develop a sense of universal responsibility . . . It is our collective and individual responsibility to protect and nurture the global family, to support its weaker members, and to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live.
- The Dalai Lama
(via Glimpse @ Rigpa)
(Via coolmel)

Moving Target

One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.
Henry Miller

There is no destination. There is also no permanent way of looking at things. The point of view changes constantly. It flickers like an old TV set. There is no heaven and there is no hell, because there is no fixed state. Everything is relative to everything. There is no absolute good and no absolute evil, as the serial killer helps an old lady across the street.

Or, Heaven = Hell, because to be stuck in Heaven is the same thing as being stuck in Hell. To be stuck is Hell. Therefore to be stuck in Heaven is Hell also...

My grandfather used to say:

You won't find me in Heaven. I can't stand the singing and lyre-playing of the angels. There is a pub in purgatory - that's where you will find me, at the bar, drinking a pint.

Form and form-less dance and mingle. Hindus say that the universe (Form) is simply an out-breath of Brahma. With the in-breath it all disappears (Formless).

We toggle between form and formless. To be attached to the formless is just as foolish as to be attached to form.

As my heart beats and I breath in and out, my point of view changes constantly. As I learn/experience a new point of view, that understanding/experience enables me to see the next point of view. If I get attached to a point of view I get stuck.

And when you get stuck your cup is full:

A professor went to visit a Zen master. While the master served tea, the professor talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor's cup to the brim, and then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself. "It is full! No more will go in!" the professor blurted. "You are like this cup," the master replied, "How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup."

And all these words are simply another story/concept/point of view/way of looking that needs to be let go NOW.

PS: The Integral point of view is just another story, another finger pointing at the moon. If you get stuck, if you stare at the finger, you still won't see the moon. Sure, Ken has created an exquisite system, flexible and multi-faceted, but some people will stick to the system like flies on fly-paper - and still miss the point. It's only human.

Reason

The other day I heard a snippet from a song by Annie Lennox. All I heard was a line that went something like: Everything happens for a reason, sung in that beautiful voice of hers.

There is a brain playing tricks, I thought... Finding reason in things that happen around us or to us is like watching TV with the sound off while listening to a music CD...

Or watch a river while listening to music... the waves always makes sense and are synchronous with the music!

Our brain will always find a correlation! That's what a brain does 24/7 - creating connections, correlations etc... The brain is desperate to create a connection, even if there is none. Even if you know that the Pink Floyd album you are listening to is not at all connected to the visuals on the telly, your brain will still try to make it work... it's funny really...