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A short film directed by Ian MacKenzie, co-produced with Velcrow Ripper.
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"Love is the felt experience of connection to another being. An economist says 'more for you is less for me.' But the lover knows that more for you is more for me too. If you love somebody their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings."
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Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
This We Have Now
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Rumi: Dancing in Fullness
presented by Integral Life
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There are many ways to hear Rumi's poetry - here are two:
As the Buddha finds his enlightenment by sitting in immaculate Emptiness, Rumi finds his by dancing in radical Fullness.
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What you just experienced is part of a sixty-minute performance available as an audio collection from Integral Life. To learn more about Rumi, about Coleman Banks and about David Darling or to order the full audio collection, click HERE.
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Rumi: Dancing in Fullness
presented by Integral Life
~~~~
There are many ways to hear Rumi's poetry - here are two:
As the Buddha finds his enlightenment by sitting in immaculate Emptiness, Rumi finds his by dancing in radical Fullness.
~~~~
What you just experienced is part of a sixty-minute performance available as an audio collection from Integral Life. To learn more about Rumi, about Coleman Banks and about David Darling or to order the full audio collection, click HERE.
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The Vine of the Souls
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I watched this fascinating episode of The Nature of Things on CBC last night. Here's the introduction from the website:
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The Jungle Prescription took me far physically, but even further in the spiritual realm where our deepest humanity resides... Seeing people open to themselves, even temporarily, has been a teaching and an inspiration.
- Gabor Maté
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I watched this fascinating episode of The Nature of Things on CBC last night. Here's the introduction from the website:
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The Jungle Prescription is the tale of two doctors treating their addicted patients with a mysterious Amazonian medicine rumored to reveal one’s deepest self.To follow this incredible inner and outer journey, a simple click HERE lets you watch the entire episode, offers more information about ayahuasca and provides links to a wealth of resources should you want to explore further...
Dr. Gabor Maté has a revolutionary idea: to treat addicts with compassion. His work as the resident doctor in Vancouver’s Portland Hotel - a last-chance destination for lifelong drug abusers - has been courageous, but incredibly frustrating. Maté hears of an ancient medicine beyond his imaginings: one that could provide his patients with a solution. Its name is ayahuasca: the vine of the souls. Deep in the Amazon jungle, French doctor Jacques Mabit is using this medicine to treat hardcore addicts. Mabit runs a detox centre in the Amazon (Takiwasi or "The House That Sings"), using the plants and methods of traditional medicine.
Ayahuasca is a visionary formula that unlocks emotional memory; causing life-changing catharsis in those who drink it. The reported success rates for curing addicts at Dr. Mabit's detox centre are quadruple the average.
Dr. Maté returns to Canada with a plan to work with a group of healers to treat patients struggling with various types of addiction. At these sessions they will serve ayahuasca: the acrid tea that occupies a grey area of Canadian law. But without a detox centre or support structure for his patients, will it work?
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The Jungle Prescription took me far physically, but even further in the spiritual realm where our deepest humanity resides... Seeing people open to themselves, even temporarily, has been a teaching and an inspiration.
- Gabor Maté
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Monday, November 7, 2011
What's Your Preference?
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To let go of both Buddha and Dharma is to be truly free from all attachments, free even from not being attached. This is Zen.
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Another jewel from Genpo Roshi's Big Mind blog... a good followup to the previous RK post, Big Heart Zen Trumps the Middle Way
This one's kinda slippery, so apologies to Roshi but I'm presenting it here in its entirety...
Having No Preference
Student: We often hear the comment, “Just have no preference and everything will be fine.” It sounds straightforward and yet it seems impossible to practice in today’s world. Can you say more about this?
Roshi: There was a time in the 80’s and early 90’s when I saw it this way. Today, more than 20 years later, I now see that this advice to have no preference is still holding a preference — the preference being to have no preference.
If we use the triangle to visualize what I’m saying, at the left corner of the triangle is our dualistic mind and way of thinking, which has preferences for and against all kinds of things. We are full of likes and dislikes, should’s and should not’s, do’s and don’t’s, ought’s and ought not’s. Here at the left side of the triangle we are stuck in a dualistic view and suffer due to our preferences.
Then if we shift to the right side of the triangle, which we can call the absolute, we see clearly without preferences for and against all things. This is also what I call holding a Buddha view. It frees us from suffering and allows us to live a life with no fear. However, we are now stuck in the absolute and in liberation. We hold on tightly to this preference because it appears to free us from suffering. This is also called an enlightened view or being stuck in the absolute at the top of the summit of the mountain.
When we drop this Buddha view and drop our hold on the preference of having no preference, we are shifting from the right hand corner of the triangle to the Apex. From the Apex we see clearly that we were holding on to a deluded view that having no preference was superior to having preferences. This is a trap we can fall into whether we’ve had only a glimpse of enlightenment or even a true enlightened experience. It is only when we are free from enlightenment that we see the stuckness of this position. From the Apex we have no preference for or against having a preference or for or against having no preference. We treat both views as we would our own two children, with no preference for one over the other. We embrace both children equally.
From the Apex the next step is to divorce or go beyond even identifying with these two views. Now we create a separation and distance from embracing both having a preference and having no preference. At this point we are at what I call Me, or jokingly, me.com. This is where we are coming from being oneself truly not knowing, beyond knowing and not knowing, beyond dual and non-dual. This is neti neti. This is gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate. The most difficult thing in our practice is to go beyond both the Buddha and Dharma. To let go of both Buddha and Dharma is to be truly free from all attachments, free even from not being attached. This is Zen.
Here's that link again...
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I have met people who believe they have achieved a state of non-preference or non-attachment, when to me it looks like what they have done is disengage. That doesn't make them bad or stupid. Most of us learn at a very early age to try to please and to avoid conflict at all costs, and sitting on the fence or just going along can seem like a safe way to navigate through life. But I think we suffer from our dis-connection, we suffer in our coccoon, we suffer when we can't offer our gifts to the world, and those who care about us suffer when we won't let ourselves be known. - M.H.
Related RoadKill Post:
~ The Friction of Being Visible
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I have not yet attained non-attainment.
- Tofu Roshi
~~~~
To let go of both Buddha and Dharma is to be truly free from all attachments, free even from not being attached. This is Zen.
~~~~
Another jewel from Genpo Roshi's Big Mind blog... a good followup to the previous RK post, Big Heart Zen Trumps the Middle Way
This one's kinda slippery, so apologies to Roshi but I'm presenting it here in its entirety...
Having No Preference
Student: We often hear the comment, “Just have no preference and everything will be fine.” It sounds straightforward and yet it seems impossible to practice in today’s world. Can you say more about this?
Roshi: There was a time in the 80’s and early 90’s when I saw it this way. Today, more than 20 years later, I now see that this advice to have no preference is still holding a preference — the preference being to have no preference.
If we use the triangle to visualize what I’m saying, at the left corner of the triangle is our dualistic mind and way of thinking, which has preferences for and against all kinds of things. We are full of likes and dislikes, should’s and should not’s, do’s and don’t’s, ought’s and ought not’s. Here at the left side of the triangle we are stuck in a dualistic view and suffer due to our preferences.
Then if we shift to the right side of the triangle, which we can call the absolute, we see clearly without preferences for and against all things. This is also what I call holding a Buddha view. It frees us from suffering and allows us to live a life with no fear. However, we are now stuck in the absolute and in liberation. We hold on tightly to this preference because it appears to free us from suffering. This is also called an enlightened view or being stuck in the absolute at the top of the summit of the mountain.
When we drop this Buddha view and drop our hold on the preference of having no preference, we are shifting from the right hand corner of the triangle to the Apex. From the Apex we see clearly that we were holding on to a deluded view that having no preference was superior to having preferences. This is a trap we can fall into whether we’ve had only a glimpse of enlightenment or even a true enlightened experience. It is only when we are free from enlightenment that we see the stuckness of this position. From the Apex we have no preference for or against having a preference or for or against having no preference. We treat both views as we would our own two children, with no preference for one over the other. We embrace both children equally.
From the Apex the next step is to divorce or go beyond even identifying with these two views. Now we create a separation and distance from embracing both having a preference and having no preference. At this point we are at what I call Me, or jokingly, me.com. This is where we are coming from being oneself truly not knowing, beyond knowing and not knowing, beyond dual and non-dual. This is neti neti. This is gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate. The most difficult thing in our practice is to go beyond both the Buddha and Dharma. To let go of both Buddha and Dharma is to be truly free from all attachments, free even from not being attached. This is Zen.
Here's that link again...
~~~~
I have met people who believe they have achieved a state of non-preference or non-attachment, when to me it looks like what they have done is disengage. That doesn't make them bad or stupid. Most of us learn at a very early age to try to please and to avoid conflict at all costs, and sitting on the fence or just going along can seem like a safe way to navigate through life. But I think we suffer from our dis-connection, we suffer in our coccoon, we suffer when we can't offer our gifts to the world, and those who care about us suffer when we won't let ourselves be known. - M.H.
Related RoadKill Post:
~ The Friction of Being Visible
~~~~
I have not yet attained non-attainment.
- Tofu Roshi
~~~~
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