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Siddhartha
Gautama
gave his dharma to
mankind,
so
humans can
awaken into enlightenment.
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.
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".
impermanence
"If
you suffer, it is not because things are
impermanent.
It is
because you believe things are permanent.
Remaining aware of impermanence you
become compassionate and wise.
Impermanence is an instrument for
True Liberation.
It is safe
to enjoy what is around you and within you as long as you are aware of its
nature of impermanence.
When you are
thirsty, there is nothing wrong in enjoying a glass of water.
In
fact, to truly enjoy it, you have
to dwell in the
present moment.
When a flower
dies, we don't cry. We know it is impermanent.
If we practice
awareness of the nature of impermanence,
we will suffer less and enjoy life more.
If
we know things are impermanent, we
cherish them in the present
moment.
We know that our loved ones are of an impermanent nature, so
we do our best to make them happy right now." - Thich Nhat Hanh
The
first mark of existence, impermanence, points to the simple reality that
everything - every thought, emotion, relationship, or situation - everything
that has a beginning, also has an ending.
Nothing with a beginning is
permanent.
In the search for
happiness we pay no attention to impermanence.
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 we typically feel secure and good.
We feel
betrayed by individuals with which we have relationships or by life itself when
or if things change in a manner we didn't want or expect.
We feel situational 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 range of emotional experiences that occur in the
process of living.
A person who is
alive and sensitive will
feel sorrow.
This
is so because of the amount of
unnecessary suffering produced by the imperfection of social arrangements and
because of the reality of existence.
Sentient beings are aware of the gap between
aspirations and
actualities.
In this light we understand 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.
Everyday emotional pain,
open heart wounds, is
where compassion is born.
In Sanskrit awakened compassion
is called Boddhicitta or Awakened Heart.
egolessness
charlatans see egolessness as a depersonalization
disorder
"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
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.
two stages of
egolessness
"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.
More
often what usually occurs is a humbling, a wearing down of the
ego.
(If you experience
a dramatically relieving
mystical experience in Western culture and attempt to share it
you will be
diagnosed schizophrenic.)
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.
1
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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forged a populace unable to discern propaganda from reality and that this has
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encouraged to develop a personal relation with the Creator and Sustainer
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