beauty and art - transcending self

Beauty is the convenient and traditional name of something which art and nature share, and which gives a fairly clear sense to the idea of quality of experience and change of consciousness. I am looking out of my window in an anxious and resentful state of mind, oblivious of my surroundings, brooding perhaps on some damage done to my prestige. Then suddenly I observe a hovering kestrel. In a moment everything is altered. The brooding self with its hurt vanity has disappeared. There is nothing now but kestrel. And when I return to thinking of the other matter it seems less important. And of course this is something which we may also do deliberately: give attention to nature in order to clear our minds of selfish care.

art, affords us a pure delight in the independent existence of what is excellent. Both in its genesis and its enjoyment it is a thing totally opposed to selfish obsession. It invigorates our best faculties and, to use Platonic language, inspires love in the highest part of the soul. It is able to do this partly by virtue of something which it shares with nature: a perfection of form which invites unpossessive contemplation and resists absorption into the selfish dream life of the consciousness.

The self, the place where we live, is a place of illusion. Goodness is connected with the attempt to see the unself, to see and to respond to the real world in the light of a virtuous consciousness. This is the non-metaphysical meaning of the idea of transcendence to which philosophers have so constantly resorted in their explanations of goodness. “Good is a transcendent reality” means that virtue is the attempt to pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is. It is an empirical fact about human nature that this attempt cannot be entirely successful.

 

 

 

 

~ Iris Murdoch

from  The Sovereignty of Good

photo by Ida Kar

a mind that lets go

Do everything with a mind that lets go.

If you let go a little, you will have a little peace.

If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.

If you let go completely, you will know complete peace and freedom.

Your struggles with the world will have come to an end.

~ Achaan Chah,  (1918-1992)

(Ajahn (sometimes spelled Achaan) Chah was born into a large and comfortable family in a rural village in Northeast Thailand. He ordained as a novice in early youth and on reaching the age of twenty took higher ordination as a monk. As a young monk he studied some basic Dhamma, Discipline and scriptures. Later he practiced meditation under the guidance of several of the local Meditation Masters in the Ascetic Forest Tradition. He wandered for a number of years in the style of an ascetic monk, sleeping in forests, caves and cremation grounds, and spent a short but enlightening period with Ajahn Mun, one of the most famous and respected Thai Meditation Masters of this century.)

 

the great sea

The great sea
Has sent me adrift,
It moves me as the weed in a great river,
Earth and the great weather move me,
Have carried me away,
And move my inward parts with joy.




~ Uvavnuk
Eskimo woman shaman,19th c.

art: Starry Night detail 

Van Gogh

 

 

behind states of mind

~ Rupert Spira

 

full surrender

The art of living is based on rhythm - on give and take, ebb and flow, light and dark, life and death. By acceptance of all aspects of life, good and bad, right and wrong, yours and mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, ‘the dance of life,’ metamorphosis. One can dance to sorrow or to joy; one can even dance abstractly. But the point is that, by the mere act of dancing, the elements which compose it are transformed; the dance is an end in itself, just like life. The acceptance of the situation, any situation, brings about a flow, a rhythmic impulse towards self-expression. To relax is, of course, the first thing a dancer has to learn. It is also the first thing a patient has to learn when he confronts the analyst. It is the first thing any one has to learn in order to live. It is extremely difficult, because it means surrender, full surrender. 

~  Henry Miller

from The Wisdom of the Heart

in meditation practice

In meditation practice, we neither hold the mind very tightly
 nor let it go completely. If we try to control the mind, 
then its energy will rebound back on us. If we let the mind go
 completely, then it will become very wild and chaotic. 

So we let the mind go, but at the same time, there is some discipline involved ... 
The basic practice is to be present, right here. The goal is also the technique:
 precisely being in this moment, neither suppressing nor wildly letting go,
 but being precisely aware of what you are.

~ Chogyam Trungpa

learn self-conquest

Learn self-conquest, 

persevere thus for a time, 

and you will perceive very clearly
 the advantage which you gain from it. 

As soon as you apply yourself to contemplation, 

you will at once feel your senses gather themselves together: 

they seem like bees which return to the hive and there 

shut themselves up to work at the making of honey. 

~ Saint Teresa of Avila

the look of its landlord

For in this house, everything

has the look of its landlord.

While the hand moves

the shadow must follow.

Since the shadow gains its substance

from the hand

it has none of itself,

That which derives existence

from something else 

how can we say

it truly exists?

It has a name, yes,

but is not that existence

which subsists through God.

~ Fakhruddin Iraqi

from Divine Flashes

Some thought that all these loves were copies of 

our love for the landlord.

~ C.S. Lewis 

from God in the Dock

no expectations

A spirit that lives in this world

And does not wear the shirt of love,

Such an existence is a deep disgrace.

Be foolish in love,

Because love is all there is.

There is no way into presence

Except through a love exchange.

If someone asks, But what is love?

Answer, Dissolving the will.

True freedom comes to those

Who have escaped the questions

Of freewill and fate.

Love is an emperor.

The two worlds play across him.

He barely notices their tumbling game.

Love and lover live in eternity.

Other desires are substitutes

For that way of being.

How long to you lay embracing a corpse?

Love rather the soul, which cannot be held.

Anything born in the spring dies in the fall,

But love is not seasonal.

With wine pressed from grapes,

Expect a hangover.

But this love path has no expectations.

You are uneasy riding the body?

Dismount.  Travel lighter.

Wings will be given.

Be clear like a mirror

Reflecting nothing.

Be clean of pictures and the worry 

That comes with images.

Gaze into what is not ashamed

Or afraid of any truth.

Contain all human faces in your own

Without any judgement of them.

Be pure emptiness.

What is inside that? You ask.

Silence is all I can say.

Lovers have some secrets

That they keep.

~ Rumi

From: Rumi - Bridge to the Soul

Translation by Coleman Barks

peace of Self

If one gains the Peace of Self,
 it will spread without any effort on the part of the individual.

When one is not peaceful, oneself, how can one spread peace in the world?

Unless one is happy,  one cannot bestow happiness on others. 


 Happiness is born of Peace and can reign only when there is no disturbance.
  Disturbance is due to thoughts,  which arise in the mind.  
When the mind is absent there will be perfect Peace.

The ultimate truth is so simple; 
 it is nothing more than being in one's natural original state. 
 Because people want elaborate and mysterious,
 so many religions have come into existence. 

~ Ramana Maharshi

the thought "I"

Thoughts arise because of the thinker.

The thinker is the ego, which if sought will automatically vanish.

Reality is simply loss of the ego.

Destroy the ego by seeking its identity.

Because the ego has no real existence, it will automatically vanish,
 and Reality will shine forth by itself in all its glory.

This is the direct method.

All other methods retain the ego,  In those paths so many doubts arise,
 and the eternal question remains to be tackled. 
 But in this method the final question is the only one 
and is raised from the very beginning.

No practices are even necessary for this quest.

The cause of misery is not in life without;  it is within you as the ego.

You impose limitations on yourself and then make a vain struggle to transcend them.

Why attribute to the happenings in life the cause of misery,
 which really lies within you?  What happiness can you get
 from anything extraneous to yourself?  
When you get it, how long will it last?

There are no stages to Realization of degrees of Liberation. 
 There are no levels of Reality; 
 there are only levels of experience for the individual.

It is not a matter of becoming but of being.

Remain aware of yourself and all else will be known.

~ Ramana Maharshi

through the lenses of our thoughts

The world is not simply there. Everything and everyone we see, we view through the lenses of our thoughts. Your mind is where your thoughts arise and form. It is not simply with your eyes but with your mind that you see the world. So much depends on your mind: How you see yourself, who you think you are, how you see others, what you think the meaning of life is, how you see death, belief, God, darkness and beauty is all determined by the style of mind you have.

Your mind is your greatest treasure. We become so taken up with the world, with having and doing more and more that we come to ignore who we are and forget what we see the world with. The most powerful way to change your life is to change your mind.

When you beautify your mind, you beautify your world. You learn to see differently. In what seemed like dead situations, secret possibilities and invitations begin to open before you. In old suffering that held you long paralyzed, you find new keys. When your mind awakens, your life comes alive and the creative adventure of your soul takes off. Passion and compassion become your new companions. As St. Iraneus said in the 2nd Century: The glory of God is the human person fully alive.

~ John O'Donohue

This was the title and description that John wrote for a talk
 he was scheduled to give in March of 2008.

mind and simplicity

~ Gangaji

I began as a bloom of cotton

I began as a bloom of cotton,

outdoors.  Then they brought me to a room

where they washed me.  Then the hard strokes

of the carder's wife.  Then another woman

spun thin threads, twisting me

around her wheel.  Then the kicks

of the weaver's loom made cloth, 

and on the washing stone, washermen

wet and slung me about

to their satisfaction, whitened me

with earth and bone,

and cleaned me to my own 

amazement.  Then the scissors

of the tailor, piece by piece,

and his careful finishing work.

Now, at last, as clothes,

I find You and freedom.

This living is so difficult

before one takes your hand.

~Lalla
from Naked Song

nothing pouring into Nothing

With repeated meditation practice

the expanse of the visible universe

with all its qualities dissolves

to nothing, to where there is 

only health and great joy.

All teaching comes to this.

*

With passionate practices

I held the reins secure on my mind

and made breath one column.

Then the new moon's clear 

nectar descended into me,

nothing pouring into Nothing.

*

When will my shame fall away?

When will I accept being mocked

and let my robe of dignity burn up?

When the wandering pony inside

comes calm to my hand.

*

It is God who yawns and sneezes

and coughs, and now laughs.

Look, it's God doing ablutions!

God deciding to fast, God going naked

from one New Year's Eve to the next.

Will you ever understand 

how near God is

to you?

~ Lalla

from Naked Song

translations by Coleman Barks

Lalla described herself as "a somewhat something moving dreamlike on a fading road."