The Truth is Not Out There

from JoeUser Forums
With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,



There are times when we recognize that our lives have been very difficult. We may feel burned out. We may feel empty. We may feel we have nothing left to offer. When I feel this way, I notice first that I am exceedingly tired. I just want to lay down and go to sleep.



This sort of sleep is not for refreshment, however. It is for escape. And while it may be refreshing for my body, it is not what I really need. What I really need is a renewal of my spirit.



Its as though the candle oil has been consumed.



Where do we go for oil?



Some may say we should go to rest and recreation for oil. Or art. Or poetry. Or seek someone to give us oil. Some may say we should go to God for oil.



If we go anywhere we will be on a fruitless journey. There is no place outside of us that will provide us with the oil we need. Seeking is delusive journey. It assumes an outside and an inside. It assumes all these things are somewhere and we only need but to find them and everything will be whole and wonderful again. Not so.



Everything we need is right here within us. Everything. We are complete and whole. We are completely renewable.



God, for example, cannot enter us. He is already there, always. The Universe is boundless. When we really see clearly, we see what this actually means.



When we feel empty it means we have closed our eyes because keeping our eyes open hurts too much.



Somehow we have come to a place where we believe pain is just too challenging to accept. This closure of our eyes is like that valley of the shadow of death. Light doesn't come close to us. It cannot penetrate our eyelids, so tightly closed they are.



The best medicine for this condition is zazen over time. When we sit still, upright, facing the wall of ourselves and the universe, we see its true nature. We see its boundlessness, our boundlessness, God's boundlessness, because in zazen we exist in boundlessness.



The pain we suffer is from experience past. We already have 'been there and done that'. So, there is nothing really to fear. There is just the memory, painful as it might be, but I must ask, what is the source of this pain? We cannot believe we did this or that? We cannot believe someone could hurt us like that? Well we did, they did. That is all. It means no more than what we make it mean, so stop making it mean things that are not useful and make it mean something good.



We are partners with the Universe, the Infinite and we are One, this is our Buddha Nature. Let us repair ourselves.



Be well.
religion
2,266 views 7 replies
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
Yes, God as a concept, separate from anything, is a product of deluded thought. That which we call something, anything, is not that thing, it is only what we call it.
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Aren't you adding to the delusion/confusion by bringing God into the mix? He is just a stumbling block, right? So is the universe, and so too is our Buddha nature, right?

And I wanted to ask. If the first tenant is that pain exists, how does that really work if all is just a perception, deluded thought?

Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
Dear Contego,

Thank you for asking. We live in a Judeo-Christian/Western context here in the United States. Sometimes we can make our points more accessable when we speak in the language of that POV. Please keep in mind Zen Buddhism has no position regarding the existance or non-existance of God, either way. His/Her/Its existance or not is not really useful to our practice. However, when attempting to understand the Two Truths of Buddhism, the Truth of the Relative (Small Mind) and the Truth of the Absolute (Big Mind) concepts such as "God" the "Infinite" etc. can be useful, just as wave and water are fingers pointing to that moon. So, on the one hand you are correct, concepts of any sort are stumbling blocks, yet we live in a conceptual world for the purposes of communication.

The first tenent is not pain, it is suffering, "dukkha." Suffering is different from pain. Buddhist Scripture is poorly translated even with that. Dukkha is more like a wheel out of balance. So, the Buddha taught that life, in the relative truth sense, is out of balance. Be that as it may, sensations are real, just as our bodies are real. What they are not is subtantive in the sense of have an independent existance, nor are they permenent.


Zen Buddhism is more a practice than anything else and I would invite you to forget or not pay any real attention to what I say. Instead, take up its practice. Investigate its truth for yourself.
I hope this helps.

Be well.
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
How is it that the waves and water are fingers pointing to the moon? Are you talking about the graviation pulls of the waves? It shouldn't. It's not really the moon that is force, but rather the gravitational pull. And it's not really the waves at all that can be attributed to the moon, but instead the tides that come and out. In fact, the surface waves (visible ones) are caused by wind and earthquakes. If you don't like my wiki link Link , then I'm sure I can find the appropriate sources. And you'll have to explain how the water in general works.

Suffering. Interesting word. The Buddha came upon this revelation when he was out on his trip away from home, right? He saw the old man, the sick man, the decaying corpse, and the ascetic, right?

"Suffering is different from pain. Buddhist Scripture is poorly translated even with that. Dukkha is more like a wheel out of balance." --Would expound more on this for me? How is suffering different from pain? Does one who suffers not do so from pain or painful things? And you said that it is poorly translated...I work with that a lot in what I do. Where can I find a reference on that? I had learned dukkha as suffering. And I think extrapolating that in Buddhist terminology, wheel out of balance is good to describe things as well. But that's a new one on me. Could you cite that?

"Buddha taught that life...is out of balance." -- Please expound, which sutra was this? I thought he taught that we are all suffering, everything is suffering, and must escape the wheel of samsara (Platform Sutra).

And I also thought that the Buddha taught that all of this suffering is just an illusion, as is the world, and even these bodies.

I thought that Zen was one of the sudden enlightenment schools, so I didn't practice mattered.

"Investigate its truth for yourself." -- Precisely what I'm doing here, investigating the truth for myself. I go to the source of Buddhism, for the moment, you. If you can't directly answer my questions, I don't mind you asking someone else and then getting back to me. No problem at all. I do that a lot. I love research. But first hand is best.