a bit of a quote that always makes me feel better. i just read someone else quoting it and decided maybe it was time to put it here, and perhaps even to talk about it a bit.
since pretty much everyone i know if off celebrating easter and i am feeling a bit lonely, figure this is a good time for this.
Dualism is doubt.
From the emergence of subtle clinging
Coarse habit gradually develops.
Food, wealth, clothing, places, companions,
The five desirables and beloved relatives —
Beings are tormented by attachment to the pleasant.
That is mundane confusion.
There is no end to the actions of dualism.
When the fruit of clinging ripens,
Born as pretas tormented by craving —
How sad is their hunger and thirst.
Through the aspiration of myself, the buddha,
May desirous beings
Not reject the longing of desire
Nor accept the clinging of attachment.
By relaxing cognition as it is
May their awareness take its seat.
May they attain the wisdom of discrimination.
i like this piece because it really communicates everything and it does it with such profound simplicity that it just floors me. after reading some of these pieces, i often feel as if i really have no right to write whatever.
this piece is saying that whatever is and whatever occurs, it is alright and helpful. that even the things we are told most often to try to grow out of are themselves helping us grow out of them in every moment.
it also speaks to the five means by which we become un-necessarily attached or averted. but it reads like conundrum here. if it is ok to do this, and all paths leads to enlightenment, why the admonishment?
hah. then, i realize…. the clever, crazy wisdom. what better way to incent another to a thing than to say ‘oh, don’t do that!’ and what better way to support another than to say, ‘you have chosen the right way’ and what better way to uphold still another than to say, ‘how wise you were not to go that direction!’ and what better way to simply be than to say, ‘it’s all the same’.
it is all in there. the only difference as to which piece you read of the four (can you name/define the fourth?) is where you are in your path.
hrm. that begs a question of me that i’m not ready to answer. i wonder if you see it, too.