| The Prince and the Magician. Once upon a time there was a young prince who believed in all things but three. He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands, he did not believe in god. His father the king told him that such things did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father's domains, and no sign of god, the prince believed his father. But then one day the prince ran away from his palace and came to the next land. There to his astonishment from every coast he saw islands and on these islands strange and troubling creatures whom he dared not name. As he was searching for a boat a man in full evening dress approached him along the shore. 'Are those real islands?' asked the young prince. 'Of course they are real islands,' said the man in evening dress. 'And those strange and troubling creatures?' 'They are all genuine and authentic princesses.' 'Then god must also exist!' cried the prince. 'I am god,' replied the man in evening dress with a bow. The young prince returned home as quickly as he could. 'So you are back,' said his father the king. 'I have seen islands, I have seen princesses and I have seen god,' said the prince reproachfully. The king was unmoved. 'Neither real islands nor real princesses nor a real god exist.' 'I saw them.' 'Tell me how god was dressed.' 'God was in full evening dress.' 'Were the sleeves of his coat rolled back?' The prince remembered that they had been. The king smiled. 'That is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived.' At this the prince returned to the next land and went to the same shore where once again he came upon the man in full evening dress. 'My father the king has told me who you are,' said the prince indignantly. 'You deceived me last time but not again! Now I know that those are not real islands and those are not real princesses, because you are a magician.' The man on the shore smiled. 'It is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father's kingdom there are many islands and many princesses, but you are under your father's spell, so you cannot see them.' The prince pensively returned home. When he saw his father he looked him in the eyes. 'Father, is it true that you are not a real king but only a magician?' The king smiled and rolled back his sleeves. 'Yes my son, I am only a magician.' 'Then the man on the other shore was god?' 'The man on the other shore was another magician,' said the king. 'I must know the truth, the truth beyond magic,' cried the prince -- the truth beyond magic, remember these words. 'There is no truth beyond magic,' said the king. The prince was full of sadness. He said, 'I will kill myself. If there is no truth beyond magic, then what is the point of going on living? I will kill myself, and I am saying to you, honestly.' The king, by magic caused death to appear. Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince. The prince shuddered. He remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses and then he said, 'Very well. I can bear it. If everything is magic and nothing is beyond magic, then I can accept death also.' 'You see my son,' said the king. 'You too now begin to be a magician.' Now this parable is very very significant. It is very easy to change one magic for another. It is very easy to change one ideology for another. It is very easy to become a Christian from a Hindu, or a Hindu from a Christian. It is very easy to change from the world and move to a monastery, or from the monastery come back to the world and get married. It is very easy. But you are moving and changing nothing but magical worlds. Unless you realize who you are, unless you come to the point... who is this one who is deceived? Who is this consciousness upon which this whole play of illusion goes on working, enchanting, hypnotising? Who is this basic consciousness? Yes, a dream can be untrue, but the dreamer cannot be untrue. Even for the dream to exist, a real dreamer is needed. This is the conclusion of the whole eastern search for truth. Let it be clear to you. In theday you live in a world; you think it is real. Your thinking does not matter much, because in the night when you are asleep you forget this real world completely. Not only do you forget about it, you don't even remember that ever you knew about it. This whole reality simply disappears. In the dream world you start thinking dreams are real. The dream when it happens is as real as this world. Now, right now you are sitting before me. Is there any way to decide whether you are really listening to me or you are dreaming about me? Is there any criterion to decide? You may be simply asleep and dreaming. Or maybe I am asleep and dreaming about you, or maybe it is true. But how to decide? Just the feeling that it feels real cannot make it real, because in a dream it feels that the dream is real. So just your feeling cannot be enough guarantee for reality. Because you feel it looks real does not make any sense, because in a dream you feel absolutely that it is real. You have never doubted in your dream. Of course you doubt when you are out of your dream, but that is not the point. If someday this dream that you call your waking life is broken -- and it is broken one day, that is the meaning of becoming a Buddha -- when this waking dream is broken and suddenly one realizes that it all was just magic, illusion, a dream that you were living through, then it becomes unreal. Just as every morning you wake up and the whole night and the dream world disappears, and suddenly you realize -- there is nothing. In the night the dream looks real, in the day whatsoever you call reality looks real, but they are suspicious, because in the night the day reality disappears, in the day the night reality disappears. And you have never been able to compare them because you cannot have them both together. Comparison is possible only when you can have on one side a pile of dreams, on the other side a pile of your so-called reality. Then you can compare. But you cannot have them both together. When the dream is there reality is not there, your so-called reality I mean. When the reality is there, the dream is not there. How do you compare? There is no way to compare. So the eastern sages have been saying that there is no need. The only thing which is real, or about which you can be certain, is you; not what you see, but the seer. One can be certain that for a dream to exist -- the dream may be unreal or real, that is irrelevant – but for a dream to exist, even if it is unreal a real seer is needed. In the night, YOU were real, the dream was unreal. In the morning, the dream is no more there, only YOU are there. Again another dream unfolds. When one becomes enlightened even that dream disappears, but you are again real, you are still real. There is only one reality and that is your inner consciousness, your witnessing soul. Everything else may be real, unreal, and there is no way to decide it. - The Discipline of transcendence vol.1 (Osho) 1. The Magus – John Fowls 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magus_(novel) 3. The Discipline of transcendence vol.1 - Osho |
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Insight Jill Bolte Taylor (/ˈbɒlti/; born May 15, 1959) is an American neuroanatomist, author, and public speaker. Her training is in the postmortem investigation of the human brain as it relates to schizophrenia and the severe mental illnesses. On December 10, 1996, Bolte Taylor was experiencing a stroke. The cause was bleeding from a vein in the left hemisphere of her brain. Three weeks later, on December 27, 1996, she underwent major brain surgery to remove a golf ball-sized clot that was placing pressure on the language centers in the left hemisphere of her brain. Following her experience with stroke, Bolte Taylor wrote the best-selling book ‘My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey’, about her recovery from the stroke and the insights she has gained into the workings of her brain because of it. “It was 7:00 am on December 10, 1996 I awoke…….. I sluggishly awoke to a sharp pain piercing my brain directly behind my left eye. I closed the bedroom window blind to block the incoming stream of light stinging my eyes. I decided that exercise might get my blood flowing and perhaps help dissipate the pain. Within moments, I hopped on to my "cardio-glider" (a full body exercise machine)…………… Immediately, I felt a powerful and unusual sense of dissociation roll over me. I felt so peculiar that I questioned my well-being. Even though my thoughts seemed lucid, my body felt irregular. As I watched my hands and arms rocking forward and back, forward and back, in opposing synchrony with my torso, I felt strangely detached from my normal cognitive functions. It was as if the integrity of my mind/body connection had somehow become compromised. Feeling detached from normal reality, I seemed to be witnessing my activity as opposed to feeling like the active participant performing the action. I felt as though I was observing myself in motion, as in the playback of a memory. My fingers, as they grasped onto the handrail, looked like primitive claws………..My perception of these automatic body responses was no longer an exercise in intellectual conceptualization. Instead, I was momentarily privy to a precise and experiential understanding of how hard the fifty trillion cells in my brain and body were working in perfect unison to maintain the flexibility and integrity of my physical form. Through the eyes of an avid enthusiast of the magnificence of the human design, I witnessed with awe the autonomic functioning of my nervous system as it calculated and recalculated every joint angle……………As the language centers in my left hemisphere grew increasingly silent and I became detached from the memories of my life, I was comforted by an expanding sense of grace. In this void of higher cognition and details pertaining to my normal life, my consciousness soared into an all-knowingness, a "being at one" with the universe, if you will. In a compelling sort of way, it felt like the good road home and I liked it. By this point I had lost touch with much of the physical three-dimensional reality that surrounded me. I sensed the composition of my being as that of a fluid rather than that of a solid. I no longer perceived myself as a whole object separate from everything. Instead, I now blended in with the space and flow around me………..” Reference: 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Bolte_Taylor 2. http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html 4. My Stroke of Insight - Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor Eat when hungry- sleep when tiered. Layman Pang lived during the latter half of the Eighth Century, a golden age for Chan. He was an educated family man - he had a wife and a son and daughter - and was well-enough off financially to be able to devote his time to Buddhist studies. He got the idea that a person needed solitude in order to meditate and ponder the Dharma, so he built himself a little one-room monastery near his family home. Every day he went there to study and practice. His wife, son and daughter studied the Dharma, too; but they stayed in the family house, conducting their business and doing their chores, incorporating Buddhism into their daily lives. Layman Pang had submerged himself in the sutras and one day he found that he, too, was in over his head. He hadn't learned to swim yet. On that day, he stormed out of his monastery-hut and, in abject frustration, complained to his wife, "Difficult! Difficult! Difficult! Trying to grasp so many facts is like trying to store sesame seeds in the leaves of a tree top!" His wife retorted, "Easy! Easy! Easy! You've been studying words, but I study the grass and find the Buddha Self reflected in every drop of dew." Now, Layman Pang's daughter, Ling Zhao, was listening to this verbal splashing, so she went swimming by. "Two old people foolishly chattering!" she called. "Just a minute!" shouted Layman Pang. "If you're so smart, tell us your method." Ling Zhao returned to her parents and said gently, "It's not difficult, and it's not easy. When I'm hungry, I eat. When I'm tired, I sleep." Ling Zhao had mastered Natural Chan. Layman Pang learned a lot that day. He understood so much that he put away his books, locked his little monastery-hut, and decided to visit different Chan masters to test his understanding. He still couldn't compete against his own daughter, but he was getting pretty good. Eventually he wound up at Nan Yue Mountain where Master Shi Tou had a monastic retreat. Layman Pang went directly to the master and asked, "Where can I find a man who's unattached to material things?" Master Shi Tou slowly raised his hand and closed Pang's mouth. In that one gesture, Pang's Chan really deepened. He stayed at Nan Yueh for many months. All the monks there watched him and became quite curious about his Natural Chan, his perfect equanimity. Even Master Shi Tou was moved to ask him what his secret was. "Everyone marvels at your methods," said Shi Tou. "Tell me. Do you have any special powers?" Layman Pang just smiled and said, "No, no special powers. My day is filled with humble activities and I just keep my mind in harmony with my tasks. I accept what comes without desire or aversion. When encountering other people, I maintain an uncritical attitude, never admiring, never condemning. To me, red is red and not crimson or scarlet. So, what marvelous method do I use? Well, when I chop wood, I chop wood; and when I carry water, I carry water." Master Shi Tou was understandably impressed by this response. He wanted Pang to join his Sangha. "A fellow like you shouldn't remain a layman," said Shi Tou. "Why don't you shave your head and become a monk?" The proposition signaled the end of Pang's sojourn with Shi Tou. Clearly, he could learn no more from this master. Pang responded with a simple remark. "I'll do what I'll do," and what he did was leave. He next showed up at the doorstep of the formidable Master Ma Zu. Again he asked the master, "Where can I find a man who's unattached to material things?" Ma Tzu frowned and replied, "I'll tell you after you've swallowed West River in one gulp." In grasping that one remark, Pang was able to complete his enlightenment. He saw that Uncritical Mind was not enough. His mind had to become as immense as Buddha Mind; it had to encompass all Samsara and Nirvana, to expand into Infinity's Void. Such a mind could swallow the Pacific. Layman Pang stayed with Master Ma Zu until he discovered one day that he had no more to learn from him, either. On that particular occasion, Pang approached Ma Zu and, standing over him, said, "An enlightened fellow asks you to look up." Ma Zu deliberately looked straight down. Layman Pang sighed, "How beautifully you play the stringless lute!" At this point, Ma Zu had confirmed that there was no difference between human beings, that they were truly one and the same individual. As Pang had looked down, Ma Zu would look down. There was no one else to look up. But then, unaccountably, Ma Zu looked straight up and broke the spell, so to speak. So Layman Pang bowed low and remained in that obeisance of finality as Ma Zu rose and began to walk away. As the Master brushed past him, the Layman whispered, "Bungled it, didn't you... trying to be clever." One day, as he listened to a man who was trying to explain the Diamond Sutra, he noticed that the fellow was struggling with the meaning of a line that dealt with the nonexistence of the ego personality. "Perhaps I can help you," Pang said. "Do you understand that that which is conditional and changing is not real and that which is unconditional and immutable is real?" "Yes," replied the commentator. "Then is it not true that egos are conditional and changing, that no ego is the same from one minute to the next? Is it not true that with each passing minute, depending on circumstances and conditions, we acquire new information and new experiences just as we forget old information and experiences? "Yes," agreed the commentator. "But what is there about us that is unconditional and unchanging? Asked Pang. "Our common Buddha Nature!" replied the commentator, suddenly smiling, suddenly understanding. "That alone is real! The rest is mere illusion!" He was so happy that he inspired Pang to write him a poem: Since there is neither ego nor personality Who is distant and who is close? Take my advice and quit talking about reality. Experience it directly, for yourself. The nature of the Diamond Wisdom Is truth in all its singular purity. Fictitious egos can't divide or soil it. The expressions, "I hear," "I believe," "I understand," Are simply expedient expressions Tools in the diamond-cutter's hands. When the work's done, he puts them down. - EMPTY CLOUD - THE TEACHINGS OF XU YUN Share
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AuthorI am Indiran, an Engineer with 26 years experience in Construction and Project Management. More about me in http://kolappanindiran.weebly.com/ Archives
February 2015
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