Rant 37

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

Rant 37
Amaravati

,ÄúIt is neither the same nor different.,Äù

,ÄúIt truly exists! It truly doesn,Äôt exist!
The fools get caught up in these extremes.,Äù
-Nagarjuna (Verses from the Center /Mulamadhyamakakarika)

,ÄúYou don,Äôt need truths that you have to uncover or look for. Truths are always right here.,Äù
-Hugh,Äôs mentor

,ÄúThe future of every experience is its disappearance.,Äù
-Buddhist chant

You always have a choice despite what you or others may trap you into thinking. You have the innate capacity for freedom. Instead of actually living that way, you worship an abstract concept of freedom while remaining zombie-slaves to your habitual cravings. No amount of knowledge can add to what you already know deep down inside at the present moment. If you seek to learn what type of being you are, you need look no further than the mirror of your own meditation.

All of your grasping after metaphysical consolations and comforts can not take away the  very real embodied anticipation and anguish over the fact that death is certain. You will not survive this life. Even the energy and the projects you commit yourself to in this life will eventually be dispersed into other things. In the dispersal there are new combinations and conditions that arise. It is a cosmic dance that never ends. Despite the cares, worries, and pretensions of individual dancers, they pass in and out of the flux. They are the flux.

The purpose of this realization is not to say that life is meaningless. It is to shock us out of our complacency and smug denials. When we realize the truth of our own impermanence and the impermanence of everything of which we can know or feel, we then can open up to the meaning of life. The downside of this is that our moments of pleasure are ephemeral. The upside of it is that our moments of pain are also ephemeral. We gain perspective on our concerns, schemes, life-stories, melodramas, and of our attempts at manipulating people and things around us. Think of this: If you love someone while realizing their impermanence, you can cherish them in ways you would have never imagined before,Ķinstead of treating them as a means to your end. Or instead of seeing others as simply characters in your life-story. You also start to realize who you are and many of the formerly inexplicable hidden psychological reasons for your actions become clear to you.

Everything is impermanent. Therefore you have all the time you will ever need in the present moment. You can experience the eternity you seek only by being aware of the present moment. Meditation practice is merely the warm-up exercise for this awareness in daily life. States of bliss or states of mental anguish are not necessarily conditions upon which you must base your happiness. Living life with this approach is the central path that the Buddhists talk about.

Theravada sutras state that one who is aware for even one night has lived in eternity. The deathless taste of freedom can only become an embodied experience once you have both pierced through the delusions of belief  in which you feed yourself in consolation and once you have seen the dreamlike quality of existence.

Everything is impermanent, even the gods,Ķeven all of those countless immaterial beings which humans have experienced and speculated over throughout time. Deep down inside we know this to be the truth and it may be why so many people are attracted to beliefs and stories of dying gods. If even the gods are impermanent, then what can you rely upon? Possibly the only reliance you may be able to hold is the knowledge of that very impermanence.

Seeing this impermanence, we can then realize that our habitual desires, our beliefs, our self-images, and all those of everyone else, are also impermanent. Thus there is room for change. There is always a choice. You can grow and become more than just some neurotic bundle of thoughts and feelings fixated upon your own schemes. And why waste time trying to reify a self-existence that is already apparent?

You don,Äôt have to take existence so personally. With this approach you obviously won,Äôt escape from the pains of life, but neither will you complicate them by being attached to them, or in mindless attempts to avert them. In fact you will have more space to ease the pains or to enjoy the pleasures. It is probably our nature to seek happiness and to escape suffering, but there is no need to create any more suffering in ourselves and in others in accomplishing this. Attaching ourselves to what makes us happy eventually thwarts our ability to feel happy and closes us off to the myriad of other things and conditions in our world in which we could find some happiness. A myriad far vaster than anything we could imagine.

Being aware of impermanence keeps us light-hearted while appreciating life and those around us in a very intensive way. It is best to take it easy and be able to let go, since everything we try to hold on to will be separated from us, like water through our fingers. To be desireless means that you lack nothing. Lacking nothing, you then have the real-world freedom to seek your happiness. And perhaps you will discover the mind shattering truth that you can find contentment no matter the outcome of your search.

(Discord 16th, 3170 / March 30th, 2547 BE, 2004 CE)

[eighteen buddha strike]

This inspires me to thievery. I hope this is not contrary to your intentions.

[Horab Fibslager]

i realized the same thing while sitting under an elm tree whiel meditating on the field before me as it was devoured by locusts during a spectacular sunset.


or a preverb(er parable i mean)

teh sage sat down in a huff, a lowly commoner asked him, "oh wise man, what is the matter?"
the sage replied "i jsut got back from a very long journey thatwas for all for nought"
"what were you looking for?"
"for truth and beauty,but msot of all truth. i waxed and waned and searched hi and low and beneath and above, within and without, and everywhere i coudl look."
"you did not find it?"
"yes i did, unforunately. that is why i am so sore"
"where was it then?"
"where it had been all along, right unde my nose"
and with that the sage guffawed a mighty chuckle, frightening a little old lady and causing the commoner swear off talking to sages.

[Trollax]

Seeing as how I have yet to fully conceptualise my reactions to your speech I will simply nod and smile...

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

Seeing as how I have yet to fully conceptualise my reactions to your speech I will simply nod and smile...

Mahakasyapa, huh?

[Trollax]

Seeing as how I have yet to fully conceptualise my reactions to your speech I will simply nod and smile...

Mahakasyapa, huh?

That's one way of looking at it.

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

Goody gumdrops.

I have been slacking off on this rant thing lately.