Bodhisattva

"I Whistle a Happy Tune

Whenever I feel afraid
I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune
So no one will suspect
I'm afraid.

While shivering in my shoes
I strike a careless pose
And whistle a happy tune
And no one ever knows
I'm afraid.

The result of this deception
Is very strange to tell
For when I fool the people
I fear I fool myself as well!

I whistle a happy tune
And ev'ry single time
The happiness in the tune
Convinces me that I'm not afraid.

Make believe you're brave
And the trick will take you far.
You may be as brave
As you make believe you are

You may be as brave
As you make believe you are"

-Oscar Hammerstein II

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GermanIntellect

beautiful.... now can someone explain what a persons super ego is?

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and

We have something they can never take away...

Ego Tripping

http://peace.saumag.edu/faculty/Kard...goIDSuper.html

The superego consists of two parts, the conscience and the ego-ideal. The conscience is the familiar metaphor of angel and devil on each shoulder. The conscience decides what course of action one should take. The ego-ideal is an idealized view of one's self. Comparisons are made between the ego-ideal and one's actual behavior. Both parts of the super-ego develop with experience with others, or via social interactions. According to Freud, a strong super-ego serves to inhibit the biological instincts of the id, while a weak super-ego gives in to the id's urgings. Further, the levels of guilt in the two cases above will be high and low, respectively.

In other words, it's your Free Will. Evolution says it occurs 'by accident' (or without any information being put into the system...no design) yet we're the only (and youngest) species to develop it.

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Sans & a half

First haven't been here in a bit. Good to see some of the biguns still here hedons rev. . Forums have changed a bit.
But anyways. I was gonna say. That the greatest knowledge is that you know nothing. You say faith is the only important thing. How do you KNOW? Super idealogical christians will say the only way is through jesus. How do they KNOW? Same is true for every religious belief. But also the same holds true for atheists. They know there is not a god? But how do they KNOW? The only belief in my book (granted my book, i know nothing) that has any real basis is agnosticism. Which is basically saying you don't know and are searching for what is true. To say that the only truth is this or that is completely baseless bullshit. Because no one really knows.


On a side note to discredit myself. Someone may actually have had a visit from god or spoken to god or gods. So my previous statement is a completely human construct to explain why people try to explain the unexplainable. :P I hope you guys know what i'm saying cause i kinda do .

P.S. One idea that always creeped me out. Is what if I am all that exists and all you people are just a construct of my imagination. Naturally you will think this is rediculous. But then again what if I'm just in your imagination? NOBODY knows what's real. That's what's both scary and exciting about life.

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Life's a trip, make it a vacation. -Sans-

Governor

"To enjoy the flavor of life you must take big bites. Moderation is for monks"

egoless.....smegoles s


FEED ME!

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"Fuck the monkeys" Ken Gorman
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420 Medicine

Bodhisattva

We are all doing the same thing in different ways with faith, no matter how different what we are believing is, we do it for the same reason, we are all trying to save ourselves from falseness.

I like the whole 'i don't know because i cant' thing, but its still faith. Its really only open-minded to open-mindedness, to highlight why, 'i don't know: and neither do you!'. That is not to say it cant be accompanied with 'maybe you do', just not when its thought that 'i don't know' is a superior opinion to 'i know', then its always 'neither do you', or 'i know you don't know', but if it were 'maybe you do', it would truly be not knowing, like as in ignorance, if you really don't know, you cant have a reason and logic to support it.


Much Metta,
-bodhisattva

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Bodhisattva

"I want to talk today about beginner's mind. The first book of Suzuki Roshi's teaching was named Zen Mind, Beginners' Mind. He founded two temples. One of them is named "Zen Mind Temple" (Zen Shin Ji, Tassajara) and the other is named "Beginner's Mind Temple" (Ho Shin Ji, the City Center in San Francisco). In that presentation, Zen mind and beginner's mind seem to be equated. Suzuki Roshi highly esteemed beginner's mind. What is it?

A few years ago, I went with a group of people to Eiheiji monastery in Japan. We were sitting in the guest meditation hall, and Matsunaga Roshi came in and sat with us. He's head of the international department at Eiheiji now, but he was in Los Angeles for a number of years. We sat together for a while, and then he started to talk. He said, "When I visited San Francisco thirty years ago," (that was at the very beginning, over at Sokoji temple) "I could not understand Suzuki Roshi's meaning. But now, sitting in this zendo with you, I can feel beginner's mind. Now I understand his meaning." What is this beginner's mind?

Beginner's mind is Zen practice in action. It is the mind that is innocent of preconceptions and expectations, judgements and prejudices. Beginner's mind is just present to explore and observe and see "things as-it-is." I think of beginner's mind as the mind that faces life like a small child, full of curiosity and wonder and amazement. "I wonder what this is? I wonder what that is? I wonder what this means?" Without approaching things with a fixed point of view or a prior judgement, just asking "what is it?"

Earlier this week I was having lunch with Indigo, our small child at City Center. He saw an object on the table and got very interested in it. He picked it up and started fooling with it: looking at it, putting it in his mouth, and banging on the table with it just engaging with it without any previous idea of what it was. For Indigo, it was just an interesting thing, and it was a delight to him to see what he could do with this thing. You and I would see it and say, "It's a spoon. It sits there and you use it for soup." It doesn't have all the possibilities that he finds in it.

Watching Indigo, you can see the innocence of "What is it?"

Can we look at our lives in such a way? Can we look at all of the aspects of our lives with this mind, just open to see what there is to see? I don't know about you, but I have a hard time doing that. I have a lot of habits of mind I think most of us do. Children begin to lose that innocent quality after a while, and soon they want to be "the one who knows." We all want to be the one who knows. But if we decide we "know" something, we are not open to other possibilities anymore. And that's a shame. We lose something very vital in our life when it's more important to us to be "one who knows" than it is to be awake to what's happening. We get disappointed because we expect one thing, and it doesn't happen quite like that. Or we think something ought to be like this, and it turns out different. Instead of saying, "Oh, isn't that interesting," we say, "Yuck, not what I thought it would be." Pity. The very nature of beginner's mind is not knowing in a certain way, not being an expert. As Suzuki Roshi said in the prologue to Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few." As an expert, you've already got it figured out, so you don't need to pay attention to what's happening. Pity.

How can we cultivate this mind that is free to just be awake? In zazen, in just sitting, in sitting and noticing the busyness of our mind and all of the fixed views that we carry. Once we noticed the fixed views that we are carrying around with us, the preconceptions that we are carrying around with us, then it is possible for us to let them go and say, "Well, maybe so, maybe not." Suzuki Roshi once said, "The essence of Zen is 'Not Always So'." "Not always so." It's a good little phrase to carry around when you're sure. It gives you an opportunity to look again more carefully and see what other possibilities there might be in the situation.

In China, there was a teacher named Dizang (J.: Rakan) who had a student named Fayan (J.: Hogen). Dizang saw Fayan all dressed in his traveling clothes, with his straw sandals and his staff, and a pack on his back, and Dizang said, "Where are you going?" Fayan answered, "Around on pilgrimage." Dizang said, "What is the purpose of pilgrimage?" Fayan said, "I don't know." Dizang said, "Not knowing is nearest." Sometimes it's translated as "Not knowing is most intimate." Not knowing is nearest or most intimate.

So what is this "not knowing"? This is not the same "not knowing" as when Zhaozhou (J: Joshu) asked his teacher Nanquan (J.: Nansen), "What is the way?" Nanquan answered, "Ordinary mind is the way." Just your mind, the way it is right here and right now. Zhaozhou asked, "Well, shall I seek after it or not?" Nanquan said, "If you seek after it, you'll miss it." Zhaozhou said, "If I don't seek after it, how will I know the way?" Nanquan said, "The way is not a matter of knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion, and not knowing is dullness. When you reach the Way beyond all doubt, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. What can that have to do with right or wrong?"

Nanquan's "not knowing" is paired up with knowing. It's a dualistic pair not knowing as opposed to knowing. But Fayan's "not knowing" is just "I don't know, I'm going to go see. I'm just going to set out and trust what occurs." That not knowing is non-dualistic. It's not set up against knowing. It's just "I'm going to set out on pilgrimage and see what happens. Just this is it. Just each moment. Just this is it. Each moment I'll see what happens." With that kind of openness and readiness, when Dizang said "not knowing is nearest," Fayan opened up completely.

When he spoke of "beginner's mind," I think Suzuki Roshi was pointing to that kind of mind that's not already made up. The mind that's just investigating, open to whatever occurs, curious. Seeking, but not with expectation or grasping. Just being there and observing and seeing what occurs. Being ready for whatever experience arises in this moment.

Returning to Fayan's story, we need to remember that pilgrimage was an arduous undertaking in China fifteen hundred years ago. It meant walking long distances in straw sandals, depending on alms for food, visiting teachers, and trying to settle the "great matter": What is this? Who am I? What am I? What is this? How do I live a life that is impermanent? Given that life is impermanent, how do I live? What is this? These are very urgent questions when we come to actually have a strong sense of our beingness in the world. When our mind is somehow turned from its preoccupation with acquisition which is so prevalent in our society these days. Acquiring material goods, acquiring knowledge being one who knows. Getting. It's endless. As Stephen Batchelor says in Alone with Others, this horizontal dimension of having or getting or acquiring just goes on and on; there's always more. It's insatiable. There's never enough. But sometime, something will turn or transform our attention from this dimension of having and accumulating and acquiring to the dimension of being. What is that? What is it to be human? What is this life? What am I? How shall I manifest this life now? This becomes the great matter.

Fayan knew, in himself, that he had to undertake this arduous effort of pilgrimage to settle the great matter. But when the teacher said, "What is the purpose of pilgrimage?" he said, "I don't know." It's just seeking. When I first started to sit zazen, I knew I had to sit zazen but I did not know why. Still, to this day, I know I have to sit zazen. If you say "Why?" I don't know. But I know I must. This is not the same as the "expert's" knowing.

There's another story about intimacy that I want to share with you. It's wonderful how all of these stories of all these monks who practiced over a thousand years ago are relevant to us right now, and are all related in a certain way. The forty-second ancestor (Liangshan Yuanguan, J.: Ryozan Enkan) was the attendant to the forty-first ancestor (Tongan Guanzhi, J.: Doan Kanshi), and as such he carried his robe for him. There was a moment in which his teacher needed to put on his robe, so he handed the robe to him. Doan Kanshi said to his disciple: "What is the business under the patched robe?" His student, Ryozan Enkan, had no answer. The teacher said, "To wear this robe and not understand the great matter is the greatest suffering. You ask me." So the student asked the teacher, "What is the business under the patched robe?" The teacher said, "Intimacy. Intimacy." This was the moment when the forty-second ancestor broke through. He bowed to his teacher in great gratitude, and tears were flowing. The teacher asked, "What have you understood? Can you express it?" He said, "What is the matter under this robe? Intimacy." His teacher said, "Intimacy and even greater intimacy."

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Bodhisattva

What is this intimacy? This becoming intimate with yourself? No gap. No ideas about who this is or what this is, but just being one, right here, complete, whole, undivided. Just this. This is the work of Zen practice. To come to know your own original nature intimately and to be able to live from that place and express that in the world. Kobun Chino said, "Zazen is the first formulation of Buddha existing in the world." Each one of us has the nature of awakening. Each one of us is Buddha. How do we meet it? How do we become intimate with it and bring it into the world? How do we bring this wisdom and compassion and vision of Buddha into the world with this very body and mind? This is what our practice is about. This is why we must practice.

I don't know about you, but when I started to sit I really began to see how many fixed ideas and fixed views I had. How much judgment was ready right on the tip of my tongue. How much expectation, how much preconception I was carrying around with me all the time, and how much it got in the way of actually noticing what was happening. I don't want to tell you that after thirty years I'm free of all that, but at least I notice it sooner and I sometimes don't get caught in believing it.

First, before you can let go of preconceptions and expectations and prejudices, you have to notice them; otherwise, they're just carrying on unconsciously and affecting everything you do. But as you sit, you begin to recognize the really persistent ones: "Oh my gosh...You again! Didn't I just deal with you yesterday?" And again. And again. Pretty soon, you can't take them seriously. They just keep popping up, and popping up, and popping up, and after a while you become really familiar with them. And you can't get so buried under something once you realize that it's just a habitual state of mind and doesn't have much to do with what's right in front of you. It's just something that you haul around with you all the time and bring out for every occasion. It hasn't much to do with the present situation. Sometimes you can actually say, "Oh, I think I'm just hauling that around with me. I don't think it has anything to do with this."

One day about twenty years ago, when I was Secretary of Zen Center, Head of the front office, ordained as a priest, on the Board of Directors, and a practice leader here, I opened the door to let someone in. The thought occurred to me: "I bet this person thinks I'm on the inside." I had carried around with me all my life the feeling of being on the outside, wanting in. But at that moment, it somehow occurred to me: "That person thinks I'm on the inside." I realized that any way you might look at it, it looked like I was on the inside of Zen Center. And I was still feeling like I was on the outside, like I wasn't where the real juice was. It was very interesting. I thought, "Oh, that's a feeling I've been carrying around with me all my life." My husband, Lou, noticed it when he met me, when I was in college up at Davis wanting to be in the in-group. I decided that that notion had probably been with me since I was born. I had an older sister. There were my mother and father and older sister, and I thought there must have been something juicy going on over there that I was outside of. I didn't know how to get it, but I carried that feeling with me being outside, left out, or not included with great pain for a long time. It was just the way I thought of myself, just a habitual thought. And suddenly it popped. Suddenly it became apparent to me that it really had nothing to do with my life, it had to do with a fixed idea that I had acquired some time in the past and hauled around with me."

-Zenkei Blanche Hartman

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Pitfall

that's one of the worst quotes ever. faith and belief are 2 of the biggest destructors of this world. i wish so many people would stop sticking their dicks in the bible.

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Of contradictions infinite the slave. --Wordsworth.

Bodhisattva

Pitfall, i assure you, i am not putting my dick in the bible

Im speaking of faith 'plain and simple' without anything attached. If intellect does not have strong enough faith or 'trust', it will lack conviction in its own power to be the guide on the path of life, without a strong enough inner conviction it will hesitate to follow its own conclusions and commands.

Its the nature of your mind to know, if you put discrimination, sensation, formation, consciousness and perception together, you have a sort of, maybe, 'mirroring', a mind, a sort of goings on, and just like how what is 'mirror' is inseparable from what is 'reflection', what is 'mind' is inseparable from what is 'faith' or 'trust'.


Ego Tripping, what do you mean by enough?


Much Metta,
-bodhisattva

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Ego Tripping

Good point. We already know, regardless of whether we convince ourselves otherwise. The key is removing the fog of 'ego' (all the qualities you listed above) and leaving the clear sky of Self.

It's one thing to truly believe and have true faith in service-to-others (atoneness, unity, one, christ consciousness, enlightenment) as opposed to service-to-self, but it's another to actually put it into action.

Jesus wouldn't be who he is regarded as today if he sat around contemplating these ideas and truths all day and never put them into action.

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Bodhisattva

Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen visted one master after another.

He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.

Desiring to show his attainment, he said: "the mind, Buddha, the sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There is no realization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be recieved."

Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.

"if nothing exists," inquired Dokuon, "where did this anger come from?"

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Ego Tripping

I respect your insight with your relations to your beliefs, but do you have any thoughts that are your own?

Edit - Plus I disagree, I think true nature is absolute fullness, not emptyness. Most subscribe to the idea that "nothing exists" and that reality is all perception of he individual, which is indivisible from the whole. I think reality is that 'everything exists' and our 'reality' is nothing more than the illusion of seperatedness and still indivisible from the whole.

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Bodhisattva

i dont think we disagree

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Bodhisattva

"In the early days of my interest in Buddhism and psychology, I was given a particularly vivid demonstation of how difficult it was going to be to forge an integration between the two. Some friends of mine had arranged for an encounter between two prominent visiting Buddhist teachers at the house of a Harvard University psychology professor. These were teachers from two distinctly different Buddhist traditions who had never met and whose
traditions had in fact had very little contact over the past thousand years. Before the worlds of Buddhism and Western psychology could come together, the various strands of Buddhism would have to encounter one another. We were to witness the first such dialogue.

The teachers, seventy-year-old Kalu Rinpoche of Tibet, a veteran of years of solitary retreat, and the Zen master Seung Sahn, the first Korean Zen master to teach in the United States, were to test each other's understanding of the Buddha's teachings for the benefit of the onlooking Western students. This was to be a high form of what was being called "dharma combat" (the clashing of great minds sharpened by years of study and meditation), and we
were waiting with all the anticipation that such a historic encounter deserved. The two monks entered with swirling robes -- maroon and yellow for the Tibetan, austere grey and black for the Korean -- and were followed by retinues of younger monks and translators with shaven heads. They settled onto cushions in the familiar cross-legged positions, and the host made it clear that the younger Zen master was to begin. The Tibetan lama sat very still, fingering a wooden rosary (mala) with one hand while murmuring, "Om mani padme hum" continuously under his breath.

The Zen master, who was already gaining renown for his method of hurling questions at his students until they were forced to admit their ignorance and then bellowing, "Keep that don't know mind!" at them, reached deep inside his robes and drew out an orange. "What is this?" he demanded of the lama. "What is this?" This was a typical opening question, and we could feel him ready to pounce on whatever response he was given.

The Tibetan sat quietly fingering his mala and made no move to respond.

"What is this?" the Zen master insisted, holding the orange up to the Tibetan's nose.

Kalu Rinpoche bent very slowly to the Tibetan monk near to him who was serving as the translator, and they whispered back and forth for several minutes. Finally the translator addressed the room: "Rinpoche says, 'What is the matter with him? Don't they have oranges where he comes from?"

The dialog progressed no further."

-Mark Epstein

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Ego Tripping

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Bodhisattva

Now thats quite the spoon to be banging against a table



Much Metta,
-bodhisattva

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Pitfall

ego tripping - nevermind that tool i'll tell ya that my time in here is alot more peaceful now, being that i've put a few people on ignore.
threadstarter - are you saying that it's impossible to live without faith?

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Of contradictions infinite the slave. --Wordsworth.

Kompressor

“When the monkey trainer was handing out acorns, he said, ‘You get three in the morning and four at night.’ This made all the monkeys furious. ‘Well then,’ he said, ‘you get four in the morning and three at night.’ The monkeys were all delighted. There was no change in the reality behind the words, yet the monkeys responded with joy and anger.” -Chuang-Tzu

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Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. -H. Bergson

Sans & a half

well. First off all i'd like to say that i'm impressed by the fluidity of my last post considering how fucked up I was. heh.
Second Buddha I noticed that a couple of those posts were mostly directed at my statement. (at least I think). And while it's true that the completely open mind is the most likely to accept the truth. To accept how the world really is, and is not and everything in between. The open mind is also the most susceptible to lies and brainwashing. To force a human being to give up all his past experience and understanding can be both the best and worst thing anyone can do. And although I agree with many of buddhisms major themes and understandings (granted I'm not buddhist so I have only limited understanding.) I'm quite reserved about accepting anothers beliefs. I'm quite open about admitting that I know absolutely nothing. Which doesn't mean I'm stupid. Also I just realized that the sentence just before this was extremely defensive. But this defensiveness is what I developed at a young age to deal with circumstances that happened to me that were horrible...

I don't tell many people about this except close friends. But my mother is Bipolar Schizophrenic. She was physically abusive as well as extremely mentally abusive (thank god not sexually abusive). But since a young age I really don't trust anything that I can't reach a conclusion on based on my own knowledge. Cause when you have a mother who beats you and lies to on a continuous basis you kinda build up a callous to it. As well as to everything else. So when someone tells me I should give up my past knowledge and assume that I'm wrong and they're right. I will tell then to go straight to hell. I know nothing, but those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. So honestly even if buddhism could give me the most happiness in the universe, (for that matter any other religion) I would rather be on my own with what I've experienced. This is based on fear but fear is not a worthless human feeling. Fear protects us, without fear we die. Without questioning our minds are sheep for the slaughter. Ever read 1984? You may say I'm just paranoid. But what's worse paranoia or delusion?

P.S. also after overlooking the entire post again I realized that despite your very meaningfull and understanding posts there is a certain sense of acceptance of your own beliefs in your writing. Is that really any better than acceptance in another belief? Or acceptance in nothing except myself? Anything I say will have some kind of buddhist leaders quote that relates to it. But at the same time it will have a christian quote that relates, and a muslim quote, and a jewish quote, and a hindu quote, and a wiccan quote etc... etc... Where is truth? How do you know you've found it? Is it like love you just know? I don't believe in storybook love. The way I see it, the universe is a duality. But only in a catch 22 sense. Light's both a particle and a wave meaning neither one makes sense. There is no explanation for the universe. Why try you find out when you die. And if I go to hell for not knowing then that's a catch 22 as well cause if god loves us unconditionally why would he send us to hell.

But any decent information that's not only random quotes. I do enjoy the quotes though . Really I'm a duality in and of myself, I'm open minded but closed minded. I like to hear others in the hope that I'll recognize truth but I always come back because I'm not convinced that what someone says is true. I hope I'm not crazy



N from what I heared HAPPY BIRTHDAY REV!!!

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Life's a trip, make it a vacation. -Sans-