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To awaken one must only pay attention
to daily life,
the middle way.
Continually feeling gratitude and
awe
in one's present existence brings
enlightenment.
Now at that time
a certain priest had been killed by the
bite of a snake, and when they announced the matter to
The Blessed One, he
said:
"Surely now, 0 priests, that
priest never suffused the four royal families of the snakes with his
friendliness. For if, 0 priests, that priest had suffused the
four royal families of the snakes
with his friendliness, that priest, 0 priests, would not have been
killed by the bite of a snake. And
what are the four royal families of the snakes?
The Virilpakkhas are a royal
family of snakes;
the Erapathas are a royal family of snakes;
the
Chabyaputtas are a royal family of snakes;
the Kanhagotamakas are a royal
family of snakes.
Surely,
now, 0 priests, that priest did not suffuse the four royal families of the
snakes with his friendliness. For surely, 0 priests, if that priest had
suffused the four royal families of
the snakes with his friendliness, that priest, 0 priests, would not have been
killed by the bite of a snake. I
enjoin, 0 priests, that ye suffuse these four royal families of the snakes with
your friendliness; and that ye sing a
song of defense for your protection and safeguard. After this manner, 0
priests, shall ye sing:"
'Creatures without feet have
my compassion,
And likewise those that have two feet,
And those that
have four feet I care about,
And those, too, that have many feet.
'May those without feet harm me
not,
And those with two feet cause no hurt;
May those with four
feet harm me not,
Nor those who
possess many feet.
'Let creatures all, all things that live,
All
beings of whatever category,
See nothing that will bode them ill!
May
naught of evil come to them!"
"Give ear, 0 priests ! The Eternal
Life has been gained !"
"I will
instruct you, and teach you the
Doctrine. If you will live according to my instructions, in no long time,
and in this present life, you shall learn to live for yourselves, and shall
realize and live in the possession of that highest bliss to which the holy life
conducts."
"Let
The Blessed One teach
the Doctrine.
There are some
human beings having but little moral
defilement, and through not hearing the Doctrine they perish.
Some will be found to understand the Doctrine and
they will not perish."
-from the CullaVagga, Buddhist sacred
text
Three Marks of
Existence
(three basic truths about the condition of
life)
Anicca (Sanskrit anitya) defined as "impermanence".
Dukkha (Sanskrit duhkha) defined as "suffering".
Anatta (Sanskrit anatman) defined as "egolessness".
"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but
it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Imagination grows by
exercise and contrary to common belief is more powerful in the mature than in
the young.
The only thing that makes life possible is
permanent, intolerable
uncertainty; not knowing what comes next." - Ursula K. LeGuin
The first mark of existence, impermanence, points to the
fact that everything, every thought, emotion, relationship, or situation,
everything that has a beginning, also has an ending.
Typically, in our search for happiness we
do not live as if impermanence were true.
"When we attracted to
something we tend to exaggerate qualities." - Dalai Lama
If we examine our motivation we find that we are always
attempting to hold onto what we adore
and get rid of what we abhor.
If our situation is
basically acceptable to us we feel secure and good.
We feel betrayed by
our relationships or life itself when our situation changes in a way we didn't
want or expect it to.
We feel circumstances
are preventing us from being happy.
Every moment brings arising
thoughts and feelings and then they fall away.
The simple truth is
that the only certainty following gain is eventual loss.
The happiness or joy we expect
to experience in life cannot depend on holding onto gain if it is to be a
true sustainable
gain.
True sustainable gain we need to
find within.
We age, we become sick, we die.
Pain is unavoidable.
When we
refuse to embrace emotional pain, we
unwittingly screen out a large portion of the range of emotional experiences
that occur in the process of living.
A person who is
alive and sensitive will feel
sorrow.
This is so, not only because of
the amount of unnecessary suffering
produced by the imperfection of our social
arrangements but because of the
reality of human existence.
As living sentient beings we are
aware of the gap between our
aspirations and what can be
achieved.
In this light we
understand that emotional pain is inevitable.
We tend to believe
that the opposite of feeling good is not feeling bad.
To keep ourselves from not feeling bad we
condition ourselves to not feel.
The emotional pain we experience in
everyday life, the open
wound in our hearts, is where compassion
is born.
When
compassion awakens in Sanskrit it is called Boddhicitta or Awakened
Heart.
The greatest
miracle that can ever occur is to have your heart inflamed with compassion
melting away the ice of cold hard hearts.
"When we take a step on the green earth,
we
are aware that we are made of air,
sunshine,
minerals, and
water, that we are
a child of earth and sky,
linked to all other beings." - Thich Nhat Hanh
You have endured many terrible griefs
but you're
still under a veil -
because dying to
yourself
is the fundamental principle
and you haven't
adhered to it.
Your
suffering cannot end
before this death is complete:
You
cannot reach the roof
before climbing up the whole
ladder.
How could you ever experience
your boat's total
shipwreck
before you've loaded it
with the final
weight?
This final weight's essential;
it's a star that summons
night
and it shipwrecks the
boat of error.
When your boat of self-centeredness
is finally
broken and sunk,
reality
becomes like a sun
flooding a cloudless sky with
light.
Rumi
There is a
moment to moment recognition of ego caused by the struggle to stay happy by
holding onto that which we adore and
attempting to prevent that which we abhor.
We perpetuate our emotional suffering by
believing that we are a fixed entity who needs to be saved, protected, and
freed from emotional suffering.
Emotional suffering will persist as long as we
avoid at all costs the fear at the heart of it -
we may not be saved or protected and may
suffer emotionally.
Rather than
experience the fear directly
we attempt to dismantle the fear by con-vincing ourselves that the fear is
unjustified - that we
will be saved, protected,
and freed from emotional
suffering.
People are
terrified that
they may be unable to tolerate a
reality that they have so very little
control over - the culture, nature and the course of
events.
"No man shall attain the shores of the ocean of
true understanding except he be detached from all that is in heaven and on
earth. The flame of utter
detachment consumest veils of idle learning, that
are current amongst men, canst thou behold the resplendent sunrise of
true knowledge." -
Bahá'u'lláh
The first stage of
egolessness is
characterized by the recognition of "the Observer" signified by
a sense of emotional detachment
from passing thoughts and feelings.
In the second stage of
egolessness the notion
of "the Observer" is dropped and there
is no longer any effort to detach from
our impotence in the face of
the awesome power of what is.
We experience life "vividly"
by direct immersion in the process of living.
We cultivate
a practice of living based on direct and
immediate feeling.
We
can tolerate a tremendous range of emotion, and ultimately we must.
This understanding marks
the transition from using
spiritual
knowledge as a remedy or cure for
emotional suffering to developing
the courage to experience life as
it is.
When we imagine what spiritual
awakening must be like we tend to imagine a dramatically relieving
experience.
Sometimes this occurs
but more often what usually occurs is a humbling, a wearing down of the
ego.
When we acknowledge that we are in
emotional pain and
simultaneously acknowledge that we are whole, we become available to others and
are able to meet them
compassionately.
Great emotional pain creates great
tenderness leaving the ego peeled raw reminding us to let go of a need to
control things which are beyond control.
Great emotional pain is not
punishment for being bad.
This is a potent opportunity to have
hearts
open up and burn with fire.
Finding that we can tolerate more
emotional pain than we
imagined possible we find a
previously unrealized depth and breadth of being.
"When compassion beckons follow him,
though his ways are hard
and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
though the sword hidden among his pinions wounds.
And when
he speaks believe in him,
Though his voice shatter your dreams.
As compassion crowns you so shall he crucify you.
As he is
for your growth so is he for your pruning,
as he ascends and caresses
your tenderest branches,
so shall he descend to your roots and free
them of clinging earth.
Like
sheaves of millet he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to
make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He
slaps you to Thinness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his Sacred
Fire,
that you may become
sacred bread.
All these things shall compassion do unto
you
that you may know the secrets of your heart,
and become a
fragment of Life's Heart." - Khalil Gibran
four noble truths of
suffering
1
birth is suffering;
illness is suffering;
aging is suffering;
death is suffering;
desire thwarted is suffering;
union with what is displeasing is suffering;
in brief, these are seven amalgamates of
tenacious suffering.
2
the origin of suffering
3
the cessation of suffering
relinquish desire
cessation of desire
freedom from desire
nonreliance on desire
4
moral action
respectful speech
conscientious opinion
virtuous effort
laudable mindfulness
meritorious concentration
Right understanding: Understanding the Four Noble Truths.
Right thought: Determining and resolving to practice Buddhist faith.
Right speech: Abstaining from slander, gossip,
lying, and all untrue speech.
Right conduct: Adherence to nonviolence (ahimsa).
Right
livelihood: Not engaging in activity
that violates life.
Right mental attitude:
Bypassing combustible
thoughts and emotions.
Right mindfulness:
A clear sense of mental state
and bodily health.
Right concentration:
Meditation to reach the integral
consciousness. |
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This web site is not a commercial web site and
is presented for educational purposes only.
This website defines a
new perspective with which to engage reality to which its author adheres. The
author feels that the falsification of reality outside personal experience has
forged a populace unable to discern propaganda from reality and that this has
been done purposefully by an international corporate cartel through their
agents who wish to foist a corrupt version of reality on the human race.
Religious intolerance occurs when any group refuses to tolerate religious
practices, religious beliefs or persons due to their religious ideology. This
web site marks the founding of a system of philosophy named The Truth of the
Way of Life - a rational gnostic mystery religion based on reason which
requires no leap of faith, accepts no tithes, has no supreme leader, no church
buildings and in which each and every individual is encouraged to develop a
personal relation with the Creator and Sustainer through the pursuit of the
knowledge of reality in the hope of curing the spiritual corruption that has
enveloped the human spirit. The tenets of The Truth of the Way of Life are
spelled out in detail on this web site by the author. Violent acts against
individuals due to their religious beliefs in America is considered a "hate
crime."
This web site in no way condones violence. To the contrary the
intent here is to reduce the violence that is already occurring due to the
international corporate cartels desire to control the human race. The
international corporate cartel already controls the world economic system,
corporate media worldwide, the global industrial military entertainment complex
and is responsible for the collapse of morals, the elevation of self-centered
behavior and the destruction of global ecosystems. Civilization is based on
cooperation. Cooperation does not occur at the
point of a gun.
American social mores and values have declined
precipitously over the last century as the corrupt international cartel has
garnered more and more power. This power rests in the ability to deceive the
populace in general through corporate media by pressing emotional buttons which
have been preprogrammed into the population through prior corporate media
psychological operations. The results have been the destruction of the family
and the destruction of social structures that do not adhere to the corrupt
international elites vision of a perfect world. Through distraction and
coercion the direction of thought of the bulk of the population has been
directed toward solutions proposed by the corrupt international elite that
further consolidates their power and which further their purposes.
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