Bodhi Day

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Hakuin Suso

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Dec 5, 2011, 4:02:26 PM12/5/11
to Franklin Merrell-Wolff - Consciousness Without An Object Discussion Group
I recall reading in the late Philip Kapleau Roshi’s 1965 book, “The
Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice, and Enlightenment,” that
many sesshins (periods of intensive zazen) occur the week of December
8th, the Buddha’s Enlightenment Day or Bodhi Day.

Roshi Kapleau described some satori experiences in his book and to
this day I still read them when feeling the need for a little
inspiration. In particular, the one identified as a Canadian woman’s
experience has always interested me, perhaps because she speaks of
turbulent times in her personal life which led to her taking up zen.
It’s always inspiring to read of someone who, like the rest of us, go
through tough times yet reach kensho in the end. Or should I say in
the beginning... for is not Bodhi Day not also a birth into a new
realm of awareness?

Perhaps it is only the power of suggestion that makes this week of
December a particularly effective one for me. But I prefer to think
that it is an effect of Zen students sitting in temples, concentrating
intently on the “Sound of One Hand” or on “Mu” that makes this a good
week for meditation. If any of you out there are going through
difficult times, or just haven’t had much time to meditate lately, I
suggest this week as a good time to sit and direct your attention back
to the Source. Perhaps you, too, can take advantage of the heightened
level of consciousness that arises this time of year and have your own
breakthrough.

doro...@cox.net

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Dec 28, 2011, 4:09:35 PM12/28/11
to Franklin Merrell-Wolff - Consciousness Without An Object Discussion Group, Hakuin Suso
An excerpt from Franklin about 1929 :
Every student should cultivate some Brotherhood interest in the world outside his special group. For this there are many possible activities and each may choose that which appeals to him as peculiarly important, or that for which he is especially fitted. A few suggstions of interest are offered:
A. Working against the principle of violence as an instrument of individual or national policy. This is especially important since violence is the natural expression of hate and tends to build barriers.
B. Working for a rational and humane treatment of the criminal. Our present treatment of criminals tends to make them worse and is, therefore, a sin against brotherhood as well as against Reason.
C. Work for our younger brothers, the animals.
D. Work for our youth, who have won much freedom but are in sad need of knowledge which our hypocritical society hides so that it not given openly by those who have knowledge guided by Understanding.
E. Work against barriers political and economic that tend to keep nations and races apart and are dictated by national selfishness.
These are but a few suggestions. There are numbers of other activities. The one, all important point is to extend oneself so that the world may be the richer, in the spiritual sense, for his having lived. It is this way that we may become a sun radiating its light out among men.
And in this way only does the student win a right to special consideration in his work toward hidden Knowledge.
Comments? This was prior to his Realizations, excepting the first one.

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Hakuin Suso

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Jan 1, 2012, 2:11:12 AM1/1/12
to Franklin Merrell-Wolff - Consciousness Without An Object Discussion Group
Many practices promote spiritual social work as an aid in bringing the
Great Matter to completion. Through it one can develop a wonderful
ability for expressing his or her attainment and, using that ability,
can strive to impart the Way to others. But it can be a two edged
sword for without an attitude of detachment from the fruits of one’s
labor it can easily lead to disillusionment.

Samantha Nutt, founder of War Child, writes in her book “Damned
Nations” of an incident in a Somalia village where an aid agency built
a reservoir that the inhabitants weren’t using. Investigating, Dr.
Nutt discovered the landowner was charging the villagers to access the
water and enforcing the restriction with teen soldiers armed with
AK-47’s. This kind of event, where aid is used for personal gain at
the expense of others is not uncommon in Somalia or other parts of the
world. Where greed and guns mix with human misery, youthful idealism
can easily be lost and our view of humanity suffer as a result.

It takes a special kind of person to go out into the world and work
against violence, seek humane treatment of prisoners and work to lower
political and economic barriers. Those that do such work can be a sun
that radiates its light out among others but it is not an activity
especially fitted for all. Nor should we think it is the only way to
illuminate the eternal darkness. Every star in the night sky is also
a sun and like those suns our everyday actions can radiate light upon
our fellows. Taking a moment to talk with a homeless beggar, being
patient under duress, showing kindness and compassion to animals and
others may not seem like activities that will change the world. But
if a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world can prevent
a storm on the other, how much more so can everyday compassion affect
the world?

Franklin wrote of a way for the student to win the right to special
consideration in working towards hidden Knowledge. But all people –
the old and the young, the high and the low, male and female, wise and
otherwise – are endowed with Knowledge. It is present without any
lack in them all. None is to be cast aside, rejected and not given
special consideration if they choose to act on the everyday level and
not on the world stage.

Happy New Year to you all.


On Dec 28, 1:09 pm, <doroe...@cox.net> wrote:
> An excerpt from Franklin about 1929 :
> Every student should cultivate some Brotherhood interest in the world outside his special group.  For this there are many possible activities and each may choose that which appeals to him as peculiarly important, or that for which he is especially fitted.  A few suggstions of interest are offered:
>         A.  Working against the principle of violence as an instrument of individual or national policy.  This is especially important since violence is the natural expression of hate and tends to build barriers.
>         B.  Working for a rational and humane treatment of the criminal.  Our present treatment of criminals tends to make them worse and is, therefore, a sin against brotherhood as well as against Reason.
>         C.  Work for our younger brothers, the animals.
>         D.  Work for our youth, who have won much freedom but are in sad need of knowledge which our hypocritical society hides so that it not given openly by those who have knowledge guided by Understanding.
>         E.  Work against barriers political and economic that tend to keep nations and races apart and are dictated by national selfishness.
>         These are but a few suggestions. There are numbers of other activities.  The one, all important point is to extend oneself so that the world may be the richer, in the spiritual sense, for his having lived.  It is this way that we may become a sun radiating its light out among men.
> And in this way only does the student win a right to special consideration in his work toward hidden Knowledge.
> Comments?  This was prior to his Realizations, excepting the first one.
>

Joseph Rowe

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Jun 23, 2012, 5:43:09 AM6/23/12
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Greetings Hakuin --- I'm delighted to discover this discussion, though disappointed to be such a latecomer ---I hope it will revive! I've enjoyed all of your comments (and special greetings to you,  Dorene). I'm also very enthusiastic about the threads by Don Salmon and others relating to music, being a musician myself.
Several decades ago, Philip Kapleau's book was a huge inspiration for me, and a major influence in my life, turning me more towards practice. However, I've found over the years since then, a certain imbalance in the Kapleau/Zen view of things.
 (What I'm going to say here is based on the assumption that anyone attracted to this forum on FMW is at least deeply appreciative of the jñana path, even if it's not their own way.)
This imbalance relates to the dialectic poles of practice vs. surrender, or effort vs. effortlessness. Clearly, Kapleau's teaching (both in the book and according to reports of him as a Roshi) gives insufficient attention to the effortlessness pole of the dialectic.

I want to recommend a book which beautifully reconciles this dialectic, making it come alive in a way that (to me at least) is far more inspiring and useful than Kapleau's book:  The Diamond in Your Pocket by Gangaji. I'd go even further, and say that this book, by far the best distillation of her teachings in print, is one of the geat spiritual classics of our time. (For those who don't know Gangaji, I might add that on a personal level, I tend to be turned-off by Western teachers who take on Hindu names, but Gangaji is the most sublime and authentic emanation of the jñana teaching of Ramana Maharshi that I know of. By the way, Ramana Maharshi is the mysterious "Sage" that FMW refers to on p. 26 of Pathways, SUNY edition.)

Hakuin, I think you'll find far more of the inspiration you mention (which we all need from books from time to time) in this book.

blessings on your way,
Joseph

grandory

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Jun 23, 2012, 12:28:24 PM6/23/12
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Dear Joseph,
So good to hear your 'voice"! 
I will check out Gangaji's writings as I trust your perspective on this.
Nice to see you continuing in the light.,
Dorene

Rich Doyle

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Jun 23, 2012, 3:56:23 PM6/23/12
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Greetings Joseph,

I have been lurking here for an eternity, listening to the amazing website audio , reading FMW's lucid and transcendent works, and I just wanted to write and thank you for the timely and articulate post. This dialectic between practice and surrender names precisely a challenge and opportunity I am working through and being worked through these days, and hearing it from you here and now was inspiring and helpful. And thanks, too, for the confirmation of something I have long intuited/suspected - that the Sage was none other than Ramana Maharshi. Do you have a source for this confirmation?

And thanks for the tip on Gangaji - I will check out The Diamond in your Pocket. Gary Weber's book Happiness Beyond Thought is another great book by someone in the tradition of Ramana Maharshi, and it is eminently practical.  I find that the affirmation from Maharshi that "I am not the doer" to be an effective way, now, to balance and even transcend the dialectic of practice and surrender. With "I am not the doer", surrender is practiced. But by whom?! :) 

gratitude,

rich

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Joseph Rowe

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Jun 25, 2012, 6:44:29 PM6/25/12
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Hi  Rich --- actually, Dr. Wolff himself confiirmed this himself to me in a conversation. However, for anyone who knows Brunton's book well, Ramana Maharshi is the obvious main candidate. 
I'll respond more fully to the other points later, gotta run now.
Cheers,
Joseph
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fjd...@comcast.net

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Jun 25, 2012, 9:41:53 PM6/25/12
to Joseph Rowe, fm...@googlegroups.com

Wow, talk about hit and run!  This post raises multiple questions, such as which P.B.book is referred to?  What was the nature of the contact between Ramana Maharshi and FMW? And what, where, when was the conversation and what else was discussed?

 

Waiting with bated breath for the promised elaboration,

 

Frank


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"...who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous
picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall" Allen Ginsberg, Howl

http://mobiused.wordpress.com/



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Joseph Rowe

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Jun 26, 2012, 5:54:30 AM6/26/12
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No, they never met in the flesh. Dr. Wolff never traveled to India, and RM never left there. It's just that through reading about RM in Brunton's book A Search in Secret India, Dr. Wolff discovered a profound affinity with him. I had already guessed this, because I had devoured this book avidly myself, and perceived the  affinity between the teachings of RM and those of FMW. We should also remember that at the time Pathways was written, RM was practically unknown outside of India, and not a well-known teacher even there. Brunton's book was the major factor in bringing these beautiful gnostic teachings to the world.

You might be interested to read my memoir of Dr. Wolff. I'm in the process of writing it now, and hope to finish and post it at the Fellowship site by the end of the summer. I'll post something here when I do.

To reply to the subject of the dialectic, which is variously expressed as  doing vs. non-doing; practice vs. surrender, etc... I have come to the view that the best way to look at it is not as a paradox or contradiction which needs to be resolved, but as a possible conflict which needs to be relaxed --- and this, not because it needs to be "overcome" or dissolved, but because it needs to become creative.
Music offers us a beautiful analogy. One can see music as a dialectic between two opposed desires: to return home (to the tonic note); and to leave home, far from the tonic note, and explore... when this tension becomes creative, a beautiful melody results. The melody may be happy or sad, but we are no longer caught in the dualism of chasing happiness and avoiding sadness.
However. I have also come to believe that this dialectic is not symmetrical. I realize that many people balk instinctively at the notion of a fundamental assymetry in metaphysics. But it seems to me that the pole of returning Home is prior, and superior in value, to the pole of exploring, moving away from Home. Why? Because from a still higher pespective, you never really leave Home anyway. But this touches on the realm of the High Indifference, of which little can be said in words.
Perhaps you know this beautiful quote from T.S. Eliot:

We shall never cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.


Good luck in your non-practice practice!
Joseph
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"...who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous
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http://mobiused.wordpress.com/



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Rich Doyle

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Jun 26, 2012, 9:30:03 AM6/26/12
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Joseph,

Thanks for this. I have not yet read Brunton's book, but intuited the
FMW/RM affinity through a parallel reading of their works. Funny,
though, because I just spent a month down the street from Brunton's
Atlantis Bookshop in Bloomsbury, teaching a course on the English
Mystics, taking the tube past Gloucester Road, where Eliot came home
again and again :)

My humble experiences coincide precisely with what you say about
creativity below. And humor is often a sign of such creativity. Gary
Weber, who also discovered the One through a profound affinity between
himself and RM, often quotes Einstein on this issue ""The significant
problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we
were at when we created them."  This dialectic of 'practice" versus
"surrender" is like an "impasse" encountered on one level - the level
of the I-thought - for inducing the creativity of which you write,
but it is only an "impasse" from the perspective of trying to "solve"
the paradox. When the egoic aspect is relaxed, this seemingly
paradoxical aspect of our reality becomes not a bug but a feature. (in
computer speak) Over and over again I find it hilarious that I try to
go somewhere where I already am and always will be: Home!

I very much look forward to reading your memoir of FMW.

much obliged

rich
aka
mobius
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