"It is the nature of our unawakened minds to be bothered about something."
Money, sex, war, karma
"Awakening too is a shunya concept. Nirvana is not something objectively real, for the distinction we make between samsara and nirvana is another example of dualistic thinking that we project onto our experience. Instead, Nagarjuna referes to nirvana as "the end of prapanca (conceptual elaborations)", which includes the end of such dualistic ways of thinking. I experience the world as it really is when I let go of the ways of thinking that I am normally stuck in.
Nagarjuna never actually claims that "samsara is nirvana". Rather, he says that no diferrence can be found between them. The two terms simply refer to different ways of experiencing the world. Nirvana is not another realm or dimension but the deep peace experienced when our mental turmoil ends, because the objects that we have been tryng to identify with - including the sense of self - are realized to be shunya. If things arise and pass away according to conditions, they have no reality of their own that we can cling to. When we do not cling to names and concepts, we can experience things as they are. This includes buddhist names and concepts, even the concept of nirvana and the very notion of "a Buddha".
Lower truths are needed to point to the "higher truth". Yet, as Wittgenstein put it, after you have climbed up the ladder you must kick it away. Fortunately, buddhism is very good at helping us let go of such ladders."
Nagarjuna never actually claims that "samsara is nirvana". Rather, he says that no diferrence can be found between them. The two terms simply refer to different ways of experiencing the world. Nirvana is not another realm or dimension but the deep peace experienced when our mental turmoil ends, because the objects that we have been tryng to identify with - including the sense of self - are realized to be shunya. If things arise and pass away according to conditions, they have no reality of their own that we can cling to. When we do not cling to names and concepts, we can experience things as they are. This includes buddhist names and concepts, even the concept of nirvana and the very notion of "a Buddha".
Lower truths are needed to point to the "higher truth". Yet, as Wittgenstein put it, after you have climbed up the ladder you must kick it away. Fortunately, buddhism is very good at helping us let go of such ladders."
Money, sex, war, karma
"People confuse two different levels of truth, the relative (or conventional) and the ultimate (or absolute). The conventional is not ultimately true, but it's needed to point to the ultimate, and the concept of shunyata is one of the conventional truths that help us realize the ultimate, which is something that cannot be expressed in words. In other words, shunyata is itself empty: it has meaning only in relation to something that is not-empty - that is, it is useful only for pointing out that things have no self-existence, to help pry us free from our attachment to things. Ultimately, there are no such things and therefore no shunyata either. We need to let go of the concept of shunyata too, just like the Buddha's raft."
Money, sex, war, karma
"Shunyata does not mean non-existence, or a void, nor does it describe some transcendent reality such as God or Brahman. Acording to Nagarjuna, shunyata simply refers to the fact that things have no essence of self-being of their own. All things arise and pass away according to causal conditions, which means they are dependent on other things that also arise and pass away."
Money, sex, war, karma
"[Nagarjuna] does not try to replace our deluded ways of thinking with the correct way of thinking, for there is no correct understanding that we should identify with. Identifying with any conceptual understanding is what gets us into trouble. Instead, the true nature of things (including ourselves) becomes apparent when we let go of our delusions, including the ones embedded in our ordinary language. Our emotional and mental turmoil is replaced by a serenity that cannot be grasped but can be lived."
Money, sex, war, karma
"For Buddhism our real problem isn't inability to keep living forever. The more basic problem is right here and now: that our sense of self isn't real, which gives us, again, a sense of lack that manifests as insecurity and ungroundedness. Since we don't feel real enough, and nothing we acquire ever makes us feel real enough, we long for immortality as a kind of substitute reality that can postpone the problem indefinitely."
Money, sex, war, karma
"Buddhism distinguishes two truths, the relative (conventional) truth and the ultimate (absolute) truth. Since samsara, the world of suffering, is not different from nirvana, the relative truth does not refer to a different reality than the ultimate truth does. The relative truth is the way we usually experience the world, as a collection of separate things - including us - that arise and pass away. This occurs in time that is experienced as objective and external. The ultimate truth is realizing the way things really are, that they are not separate from each other and therefore are not really things in the usual sense."
Money, sex, war, karma
"Buddhism is about awakening, which means realizing something about the constructedness of the sense of self and the nothing at its core.
Usually that void at our core is so uncomfortable that we try to evade it, by identifying with something else that might give us stability and security.
The point isn't to get rid of the self: that's not possible, for there never has been a self. Nor do we want to get rid of the sense of self: that would be a rather unpleasant type of mental retardation. Rather, what we work toward is a more permeable, less dualistic sense of self, which is more aware of, and more comfortable with, its empty constructedness."
Money, sex, war, karma
"If my sense of self is actually composed of habitual ways of perceiving, feeling, thinking and behaving, then karma isn't something I have, it's what I am.
I change my karma by changing who I am: by reconstructing my habitual ways of perceiving, feeling, thinking and behaving.
Karma is about how habitual ways of thinking and acting tend to create predictable types of situations."
Money, sex, war, karma
"The past and the future are obviously thought created, since all remnants of what has been or what will be cannot be found except through rumination.
Nothing could possibly be outside Now because it is the only place life can occur.
The closer we move into Now, the more spontaneously awareness arises, until finally we see that full awareness and Now are one and the same."
The closer we move into Now, the more spontaneously awareness arises, until finally we see that full awareness and Now are one and the same."
Stepping out of self-deception - p. 216, 217
"We can think of ourselves spiritually as being somewhere on a continuum between one and zero. One is the full embodiment of the "I" separate from all things, and zero is emptiness and the unconditioned. Spiritual practice is supposed to move us from one to zero.
This continuum can also be thought of in terms of time, with zero abiding within the timeless and one firmly entrenched within the ideas of past and future."
Stepping out of self-deception - p. 215
"Buddhism in its final summation is about abiding in the Now, and buddhist practice encourages and cultivates skillful states of mind to make that entry easier. It is a straightforward process of surrendering that occurs when the mind is calm, serene and equanimous, because those states arise from a lack of mental resistance and bring the person of awareness closer to Now."
Stepping out of self-deception - p. 215
"A mature relationship with life no longer looks for perfection within form.
If we become judgemental, we will find fault or praise, action will be set in motion, sides will be taken, wars will be fought, someone excluded and other included. Form is imperfect by definition, and manifestation will follow suit."
Stepping out of self-deception - p. 215
"The Buddha says, "However we perceive a fact, the truth is other than this", and this may be his final pronouncement on maturity. He seems to be telling us there is no correct mental orientation to experience, and all perceptions are only relatively true. He is asking us to release all ideas that assert a polarity of views. "Nonidentification with anything has been declared by the Blessed One"."
Stepping out of self-deception - p. 214
"The mind attempts to assume spiritual authority over the heart. The leadership of the "I" makes a compelling case as it measures what it has, figures out what it needs, sets down an agenda, and progresses toward its goal. It knows exactly where it is going, what it still lacks, and how to achieve the desired result, all in quantifiable terms. But if the mind has never been where it is going, how could it possibly have any idea how to get there, or even what "getting there" looks like? The mind has a blueprint for its salvation but all its maps are in abstract form, and over time we give less and less credibility to anything but the wisdom derived from direct experience."
Stepping out of self-deception - p. 168
"We" do not have a mind. The mind has created the sense of "you" and "me" from the way it perceives reality. "We" are a part of the mental processing of the mind. The thoughts of the mind and the sense-of-I are not two separate events. We exist only because the mind thinks us into creation.
Stepping out of self-deception - p. 166
"Thought holds an alternative to what is. Thought says, "This doesn't have to be this way, other possibilities would improve this situation." Thinking forms a horizontal view that is constructed from the endless choices conceived by the mind, and we invest in the truth of those possibilities as a way out of Now. But reality does not hold a substitute for Now; there is only what is. In order to surrender, we have to see the choices offered by thought as pure fabrication. When we perceive the unreality of thought, the view and sense-of-self constructed from these thoughts end. Surrender is the collapsing of alternatives into reality."
Stepping out of self-deception - p. 126
"All emotions are observed as experiences only, pointing nowhere, implicating no one, and signifying nothing.
Emotions need observation and allowance, not our analysis or fixation.
We allow the emotion to return to nothing by adding nothing to it all along the way."
We allow the emotion to return to nothing by adding nothing to it all along the way."
Stepping out of self-deception - p. 58, 60
"Thought is often a reaction to an emotion and is an attempt to justify the experience of an emotion.
The thinking is trying to solve the emotion, but the emotion is unconscious, so the thinking continues to spin out of control. An emotion is not caused by an external event; the mind assigns an emotion to an external event. The confusion is resolved when we focus on the emotion and let it be what it is, while at the same time releasing the need to think our way out of the emotion."
Stepping out of self-deception - p. 55
"[Mindfulness] is simply the practice of bringing ourselves fully into the present moment and continuing to bring ourselves back to it whenever we notice we've drifted away.
All of our training relies on these two practices: mindfulness and awareness. Awareness is our consciousness of being in the present. Mindfulness means "to remember" or "not to forget" to watch the mind and see when it drifts away from the present.
Of the two, mindfulness is usually emphasized more because it's responsible for maintaining the continuity of our awareness. Mindfulness means to remember again and again."
Rebel Buddha - p. 69
"We struggle here and there in our life with the same unconscious patterns of aggression, desire, jealousy or denial, until we're caught in a web of our own making. These are precisely the things from which we work to free ourselves on the buddhist path: the habitual patterns that dominate our life and make it hard to see the awakened state of mind.
Buddhism is primarily a study of mind and a system for training the mind. It is spiritual in nature, not religious. Its goal is self-knowledge, not salvation; freedom, not heaven. It relies on reason and analysis, contemplation and meditation, to transform knowledge about something into knowledge that surpasses understanding.
Although Buddhism can be practiced religiously, in many respects, it isn't really a religion. Because of its emphasis on questioning and working with the mind, it is spiritual in nature. But because it relies on logical analysis and reasoning, as well as on meditation, many buddhist teachers regard Buddhism as a science of mind rather than a religion.
Our confusion is created by our own mind, and it can only be transformed by our mind. So the most powefull entity in the buddhist path is the mind."
Although Buddhism can be practiced religiously, in many respects, it isn't really a religion. Because of its emphasis on questioning and working with the mind, it is spiritual in nature. But because it relies on logical analysis and reasoning, as well as on meditation, many buddhist teachers regard Buddhism as a science of mind rather than a religion.
Our confusion is created by our own mind, and it can only be transformed by our mind. So the most powefull entity in the buddhist path is the mind."
Rebel Buddha - p. 20, 24
"Ironically, what blocks your view of your mind's true nature - your buddha mind - is also your own mind, the part of your mind that is always busy, constantly involved in a steady stream of thoughts, emotions and concepts. This busy mind is who you think you are.
You identify yourself with the contents of this busy mind - your thoughts, emotions, ideas - and end up thinking that all of this stuff is "me" and "how I am"."
Rebel Buddha - p. 11
"Mindfulness is attention to experience as it is happening - that is, in the present moment. p. 9
Can you separate your conceptual framework from your experience? If you can, what would you see? p. 9
Mindfulness is a tool we can use to examine conceptual frameworks, to lessen the influence of preconceptions and to experience "what is" by choice rather through drugs or neurological damage. p. 10
Minfulness is the art of observing your physical, emotional and mental experiences with deliberate, open and curious attention. p. 11
By practicing present-time awareness, even in the midst of a difficult situation, you can become aware of your impulses (your reactive patterns), stop, perhaps take a breath, and respond skillfully in a way that does not lead to more harm. p. 15
Mindfulness is an accepting and kind attitude toward yourself and your present-moment experience. p. 16
When you are aware of the present moment in a kind and curious way, accepting it as it is, then you have the direct experience of mindfulness. p. 16
Judgments arise unbidden in our minds, so we don't need to judge our judgements! Instead, recognize them for what they are: thoughts passing through your mind. p. 16
It is simple to be mindful, but remembering to be mindful can be very difficult. p. 17
With mindfulness, we simply notice. We become aware. p. 20
In meditation we use an anchor to keep our minds from being tossed and turned by the ocean of thoughts, stimuli, sensations, sounds and emotions. In the mindfulness practice taught in this book, we use the breath as our anchor, although it is possible to use other anchors, such as sounds or bodily sensations. Other meditation practices use an image, a candle flame, another body part or mantra (a repeating word). p. 45
The key to mindfulness in breathing practice is feeling the breath. p. 47
When you have ideas about pain, you may be so caught in the ideas that you miss the reality of the experience (and this is true in general of bringing mindfulness to any experience). p. 87
Mindfulness is about being present in a curious manner with whatever emotion arises - good or bad. p. 97
The mindful approach to emotions is neither expressive nor repressive per se; the mindful approach is to recognize your emotions, feel them fully, and then let them go so that they don't control you or lead you to act in ways that are harmful to others. p. 111
The mindful approach: don't get on the train [of thoughts]. p. 184"
With mindfulness, we simply notice. We become aware. p. 20
In meditation we use an anchor to keep our minds from being tossed and turned by the ocean of thoughts, stimuli, sensations, sounds and emotions. In the mindfulness practice taught in this book, we use the breath as our anchor, although it is possible to use other anchors, such as sounds or bodily sensations. Other meditation practices use an image, a candle flame, another body part or mantra (a repeating word). p. 45
The key to mindfulness in breathing practice is feeling the breath. p. 47
When you have ideas about pain, you may be so caught in the ideas that you miss the reality of the experience (and this is true in general of bringing mindfulness to any experience). p. 87
Mindfulness is about being present in a curious manner with whatever emotion arises - good or bad. p. 97
The mindful approach to emotions is neither expressive nor repressive per se; the mindful approach is to recognize your emotions, feel them fully, and then let them go so that they don't control you or lead you to act in ways that are harmful to others. p. 111
To learn working mindfully with emotions, RAIN: p. 112
- Recognition: in the midst of an emotion, you may find that by identifying and labeling it you are not so overwhelmed by it.
- Acceptance: from the perspective of mindfulness, whatever you are experiencing is okay.
- Investigation: to investigate an emotion is to feel it in your body, discovering how it manifests itself.
- Non-identification: it means not taking your emotions so personally, having some space around them. With it, you have come to the point with your emotions where they have stopped being your emotions that are causing you so much suffering and become instead the emotions - that is, something that is passing through you ("energy in motion").
The mindful approach: don't get on the train [of thoughts]. p. 184"
Fully present: the science, art and practice of mindfulness
"Sitting zazen, you really become intimate with the limitations of language, of narrative, of thought itself. With every thought there’s a “Yes, but....” With every idea comes another idea. This is the labyrinth of thought. Ultimately, you realize that “truth” is not to be found in words."
No words - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review - Winter 2009
"One of the radical aspects of Buddhist meditation is that it invites us to suspend the habit of reflexively ascribing existence to everything experienced and return to the perceptual simplicity of a phenomenological view. When we attend merely to what appears, as the famous teaching to Bahiya puts it, then “in the seen there will be just the seen, in the heard just the heard, in the felt just the felt, and in the thought, just the thought.” (Udana 1.10) As even a passing encounter with meditation will demonstrate, it does not take long in this mode for the reality of the external world to dissolve into irrelevance amid a swirling sea of changing phenomena. The appearances are so apparently real, insofar as they arise and pass away with such astonishing immediacy, that the question of whether or not they are “really real” becomes a mere conceptual curiosity, more distracting than meaningful."
Appearance And Reality - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review - Fall 2009
"When we hear the word consciousness in English, we immediately speculate that there is a person to whom this consciousness belongs, an agent who wields it, or a self that consists of it. Yet early Buddhist texts speak of consciousness only as a process unfolding when certain conditions are met: “In dependence on an organ and an object there arises consciousness.” (Samyutta Nikaya 35.93) Or, more specifically, “When internally the eye is intact and external forms come into its range, and a corresponding conjunction occurs, then the manifestation of a corresponding instance of consciousness occurs.” (Majjhima Nikaya 28)
The role of consciousness is to serve up an appearance, either from the incoming data of the sense doors or from internal channels of memory, imagination, or conception. Backing this appearance up with a constructed sense of reality is a flourish added by perception. Consciousness is merely an event—the awareness of an object— while perception is the fabrication of an accompanying image or interpretive marker. Both are impersonal activities that occur naturally under certain conditions, and both the agent behind consciousness and the reality behind appearances are convenient but illusory concoctions of the mind."
The role of consciousness is to serve up an appearance, either from the incoming data of the sense doors or from internal channels of memory, imagination, or conception. Backing this appearance up with a constructed sense of reality is a flourish added by perception. Consciousness is merely an event—the awareness of an object— while perception is the fabrication of an accompanying image or interpretive marker. Both are impersonal activities that occur naturally under certain conditions, and both the agent behind consciousness and the reality behind appearances are convenient but illusory concoctions of the mind."
Appearance and reality - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review - Fall 2009
"Causality lies behind this structuring of events into plots. We arrange our lives into stories by positing causal relationships between the things that happen to us. And, as Western philosophers like David Hume and Immanuel Kant have been pointing out since the eighteenth century, causality is not present in the world as we perceive it directly with our senses; it’s a structure we apply when we think about what we’re seeing and make sense of it. We might go further and say that causality is a tool of the storyteller’s art."
Being Somebody, Going Somewhere - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review - Spring 2011
"Don’t believe your mind when it structures the brute stuff of the events in your life into a meaningful, coherent sequence with a protagonist at its center, struggling with problems, successes, and failures, influencing and being influenced by events, moving meaningfully from past to future in a narrative arc."
Being Somebody, Going Somewhere - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review - Spring 2011
"We might view Buddhist awakening, then, as seeing through the lies of stories. Enlightenment is a flight from the shifting, anxious, fundamentally dishonest ground of stories and the historical, linear narrative sense of time, to the pure wholehearted honesty of the eternal now, where thoughts and sensations just rise and fall without needing to mean anything beyond themselves, and we are free to be nobody, going nowhere."
Being Somebody, Going Somewhere - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review - Spring 2011
"Por natureza-própria não se entende algo substancial. Não se trata do último resíduo que fica depois de se eliminar tudo o que é relativo ou condicional da noção de ser individual. Não é o eu (self), nem a alma nem o espírito, como se costuma considerar. Não é algo que pertença a qualquer categoria do entendimento. Não pertence a este mundo de coisas relativas. Nem se trata da realidade suprema atribuída a Deus, Atman ou Brahma. Não se pode descreve-la ou defini-la de modo algum, mas sem ela não existiria o mundo que vemos e usamos no cotidiano.
A natureza-própria é a natureza de Buda: aquilo que constitui o estado de Buda. É o vazio absoluto.
Quando a natureza-própria em-si é reconhecida, essa compreensão leva imediatamente a pessoa ao grau de Buda."
A natureza-própria é a natureza de Buda: aquilo que constitui o estado de Buda. É o vazio absoluto.
Quando a natureza-própria em-si é reconhecida, essa compreensão leva imediatamente a pessoa ao grau de Buda."
A doutrina zen da não-mente - p.103, 107
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