God

You can’t name God
You can’t find God

If you find God
It’s not God

If you see God
He’s not God

God is beyond
and yet not beyond.

I bow.

I bow to the Lord Jesus Christ
I empty my mind
To thee I prostrate.

I know all is empty
It has no inherent meaning
It is like a vapor, or a cloud.

“Vanity of vanities” as King Solomon expresses.

I pray that I see things as they truly are
That my meditation practice is of benefit
To what I perceive as self and other.

If concepts anger me, I know it is only
Because I do not know their true nature.

If I truly know their nature, empty
I do not attach and they do not plague.

If someone tells me “the purpose of …”
Is to be this or that, I know it is not true
In the truest sense of the word.

All borders, limits, ideas are a product of mind
And thus are subject to impermanence and emptiness nature.

I don’t limit God’s love to Buddhists, Muslim, Hindu, Christians
This is to place a limit on God.

Letter to a Friend

I thought of Nagarjuna or Paul the Apostle after I wrote this to a dear friend in need of some advice. I thought it was helpful. May it benefit all beings. Om Mane
Peme Hung. Amen.

Friend,

After seeing you last night I advise you to work on your anger, taking things personally and being upset towards women. You have to learn to see women as beautiful no matter what they do. Treat them all like gold and expect the same from them. If you don't get it, try not to be angry; people are who they are because they suffer too.

You gotta stop being an "asshole", as you say. Being an "asshole" does not get you women. It's a false-hood. It gets you nothing. Only suffering, people being mad at you and not wanting to be around you. Being a "Nice Guy" doesn't work either because you are being nice with the expectation of a return. You are being needy. You are not actually being nice.

Being a "good" man, work on your life, be kind without expectation and will get you what you want. But that doesn't mean that once you get what you want that you will be eternally happy. That's not the way happiness works. True happiness is not material things that change. It also doesn't mean that all people will treat you well because they also suffer.

You don't need to be perfect. You already are good enough. You don't need to be the most handsome guy, the best musician, or have a ton of money. We all need work to remove the illusions. It takes a lot of effort, but it's your only choice if you are tired of the way things are. You have to work like your hair is on fire.

I say these things because I know you can handle them and they have helped me. I don't want to indulge your suffering, I want you to have more happiness.

Words Do Not Speak The Truth

What are words? Black marks stamped on paper, ink on parchment, sounds spoke from the mouth? They can speak what we believe to be truth. They can be twisted and manipulated. They can be written and re-written. Even when written down they do not necessarily explain an event in its purest truth.

Even in their most honest display they can only point to something. They can tell us “The Kingdom of God is Within You”, “Form is Emptiness; Emptiness is Form”.

But eventually words must be let go of, the raft must be abandoned. If you never abandon the raft you will be drug down to the bottom of the sea and your treasure will be sunken, never to be enjoyed.


I leave you with this poem by Khenpo Rinpoche:


Equality and Seven Things to Forget

When I realize everything’s equality
I forget all about my close friends and my relatives
It’s OK to forget the objects of your attachment

When I realize wisdom beyond thought
I forget everything included in perceiver and perceived
It’s OK to forget these causes of happiness and pain

Beyond memory, beyond feelings
I forget all about experiences, the good ones and the bad
It’s OK to forget them, they just go up and down

When I know the three kayas are present naturally
I forget all about the deity’s generation stage practice
It’s OK to forget the Dharma made of concepts

When I realize the result’s inside of me
I forget all about the results you have to strive and strain to get
It’s OK to forget the Dharma of the relative truth

Meditating on the key instructions
I forget all other explanations and their conventional terms
It’s OK to forget the Dharma that makes you arrogant

When I realize appearances are my texts
I forget all about those big books with their letters in black
It’s OK to forget the Dharma that’s just a heavy load

Tibetan page 674.
Under the guidance of Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, translated by Ari Goldfield, July 13, 2002,
Dechen Choling, France.

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"
Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. "

"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. "But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.

"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'

"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." (Matthew 18:21-35)


*************

This may seem as if God is torturous if we don’t do his will, but if you understand the true nature of the Ultimate to be clear, pure, unobstructed, beyond notions (Tathagatagarbha, or in Christian terms: “Union with God”) and ideas of a “self” (skt. Atman) that exists unchanging in Samara/The World, then this parable will become more clear.

As human beings, whether we like it or not, we are in a situation where we face suffering. The first noble truth as described by Siddhartha is that “Life is difficult”. It is this way due to our ignorance of the true nature of things we suffer.

Whether Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Atheist, or Hindu this is truth.

The suffering is not required, it is not permanent. We can see this is we observe our suffering. If it is real and solid, then how could it change? How could we forget about it even for a moment?

Master Sheng Yen states in his commentary on the Heart Sutra: “If your mind is filled with fear and doubt, then you will suffer no matter what you have or do. It isn't the environment; it's your state of mind. For some, New York City is paradise, for others it's hell. Yes, it depends on your karma whether you'll be in good conditions or not, but it's your mind that chooses to suffer.”

Only because of our poor knowledge of how things exist do we suffer.

When you see that this suffering is due to ignorance, you will have no but choice to forgive your brother. You will have no choice but to love your neighbor. When you see your neighbor suffers needlessly as you once did, you will wish him to be well of his troubles. You will have mercy.

If you hold the stone of unforgiveness, the stone of anger, in your heart, you will feel it in your body. It will be a plague. It will fill your thoughts. You don’t have to be stricken with disease to know that feeling. You torture yourself you’re your concepts; it is not God who tortures you. You may even spread your misery to others.

If you remove your concepts, your false views of “self”, your false views of the way the Universe works. If you flow with the Tao, If you flow with the “Truth, the Way, and the Life” your problems will be reduced, your heart will be softened, you will love and be loved. God’s love will flow pour forth from your very being.


Amen.

Law of Attraction

When we are steeped in ignorance we attract others who are steeped in ignorance.

We think “oh this person understands me, they are just like me, they are depressed like me”

You suffer in misery.

Commonality is just that: things in common.

We feel “this person knows me so well” because they have a, seemingly, common set of reference points.

It is not a “true” unchanging set of reference points.

If one is caught in the mental delusion that things are a certain way, that the “I” or self that they identify with is a certain way and that there is a “soul mate” that matches this certain way they feel; “oh, this person is my other half” (based on a false Platonic view of "soul mates") and fall into infatuation with an idea.

Unfortunately if these “commonalities” err towards the negative or unhealthy side of life “angry, extremely emotional, passive aggressive,” then you have a relationship recipe for disaster.

No thing is permanent, meaning that no thing is devoid of change.

We create a habit, intentional or unintentional, of liking a certain type of person and are doomed to repeat that habit until we recognize it as a habit and try to change it.

Thus we experience Samsara, cyclical existence, living “lives” over and over again in ignorance.

We attract what we attract because we “feel” our habits are “real” and existing, unchanging. Our feelings are not true. They are just programmed reactions. Some Buddhists would say “Lifetimes” of programming.

Meditate, contemplate, re-program if you desire a healthy relationship.

Amen.