The Buddha as a Teacher

"He was a practical teacher, full of compassion and wisdom.  He did not answer questions to show his knowledge and intelligence, but to help the questioner on his way realization.  He always spoke to people bearing in mind their standard of development, their tendencies, their mental make-up, their character, their capacity to understand a particular question."

Walpola Rahula
What the Buddha Taught

The Refiner's Fire

Dare you see a Soul at the "White Heat"?
Then crouch within the door -
Red - is the Fire's common tint -
But when the vivid ore

Has vanquished Flame's conditions -
It quivers from the Forge
Without a color, but the Light
Of unannointed Blaze -

Least Village, boasts it's Blacksmith -
Whose Anvil's even ring
Stands symbol for the finer Forge
That soundless tugs - within -

Refining these impatient Ores
With Hammer and with Blaze
Until the designated Light
Repudiate the Forge -

Emily Dickinson
The Poems of Emily Dickinson (Franklin), 401

Nirvana

I find I'm less interested in religious "concepts" than I am in concrete realities.  Nirvana as a philosophical concept leaves me cold, but this description of what Nirvana is supposed to produce in a practicing Buddhist who has attained it is fascinating and suggestive:


"He who has realized the Truth, Nirvana, is the happiest being in the world.  He is free from all 'complexes' and obsessions, the worries and troubles that torment others.  His mental health is perfect.  He does not repent the past, nor does he brood over the future.  He lives fully in the present.  Therefore he appreciates and enjoys things in the purest sense without self-projections.  He is joyful, exultant, enjoying the pure life, his faculties pleased, free from anxiety, serene and peaceful.  As he is free from selfish desire, hatred, ignorance, conceit, pride and all such 'defilements', he is pure and gentle, full of universal love, compassion, kindness, sympathy, understanding and tolerance.  His service to others is of the purest, For he has not thought of self."

Walpola Rahula
What the Buddha Taught

Transcendence

The World is not conclusion.
A Species stands beyond -
Invisible, as Music -
But positive, as Sound -
It beckons and it baffles -
Philosophy, don't know -
And through a Riddle, at the last -
Sagacity, must go -
To guess it, puzzles scholars -
To gain it, men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown -
Faith slips - and laughs, and rallies -
Blushes, if any see -
Plucks at a twig of Evidence -
And asks a Vane, the way -
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit -
Strong Hallelujahs roll -
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul.

Emily Dickinson
The Poems of Emily Dickinson (Franklin), 373

The Audacity of Human Conclusions

Rahula quotes the Buddha as saying:

"Within this fathom-long sentient body itself, I postulate the world, the arising of the world, the cessation of the world, and the path leading to the cessation of the world."

Walpola Rahula
What the Buddha Taught

For me it brings to mind a Quote from Charles Darwin:

"But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"

The Experience of Pain and Shock

After great pain, a formal feeling comes -
The Nerves sit ceremonious,  like Tombs -
The stiff Heart questions, 'was it He, that bore,'
And 'Yesterday or Centuries before'?

The Feet, mechanical, go round -
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought -
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone -

This is the Hour of Lead -
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow -
First Chill - then Stupor - then letting go -


Emily Dickinson
The Poems of Emily Dickinson (Franklin), 372

The Value of Outside Input

"The principle involved is similar to what in go is called 'the advantage is to the onlooker.'  One speaks of 'learning one's faults through contemplation,' but this too is best done by talking with others.  The reason is that when one learns by listening to what others have to say and by reading books, one transcends the limitations of one's own powers of discernment and follows the teachings of the ancients."

Jocho Yamamoto in
Yukio Mishima
The Way of the Samurai

To some degree, this is the raison d'etre of this blog

Labels

“Cliches and stereotypes such as ‘beatniks’ and ‘hippie’ have been invented for the antitechnologists, the antisystem people, and will continue to be.  But one does not convert individuals into mass people with the simple coining of a mass term.”

Robert M. Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Reality and Selection

“We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world.”

Robert M. Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Clashes of Faith

"When you're talking birth control, what blocks it and freezes it out is that it's not a matter of more or fewer babies being argued.  That's just on the surface.  What's underneath is a conflict of faith, of faith in empirical social planning versus faith in the authority of God as revealed by the teachings of the Catholic Church."

Robert M. Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

People who live along the side roads - small town and country life

"The whole pace of life and personality of the people who live along them are different.  They're not going anywhere.  They're not too busy to be courteous.  The hereness and the nowness of things is something they know all about.  It's the others, the ones who moved to the cities years ago and their lost offspring, who have all but forgotten it."

Robert M. Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Simplicity

It's thoughts - and just One Heart -
And Old Sunshine - about -
Make frugal - Ones - content
And two or three - for Company -
Opon a Holiday -
Crowded - as Sacrament -

Books - when the Unit -
Spare the Tenant - long eno' -
A Picture - if it Care -
Itself - a Gallery too rare -
For needing more -

Flowers - to keep the eyes - from going awkward -
When it snows -
A Bird - if they - prefer -
Though winter fire - sing clear as power -
To our - ear -

A Landscape - not so great
To suffocate the eye -
A Hill - perhaps -
Perhaps - the profile of a Mill
Turned by the wind -
Tho' such - are luxuries -

It's thoughts - and just two Heart -
And Heaven - about -
At least - a Counterfeit -
We would not have Correct -
And Immortality - can be almost -
Not quite - Content -



Emily Dickinson
The Poems of Emily Dickinson (Franklin), 362