Hiroki

GREETINGS! I come here with humility and a sense of shame. A sense of shame towards my erroneous past ways of ignorance and greediness, living pretty much like an average American man. NO MORE! Time to reach for a new potential, a potential for much accomplishment and spiritual growth. I hope to learn much here from the elders, but in the end I am just passing through here and in time it will be as if I never came to this forum.

Lol, I do apologize. I knew a Zen practicioner from years ago who studied Osho, I find some of his quotes interesting. But I will stop reading his stuff, had no idea about all that garbage tied to him. Personally I would much rather call on the Buddha's name and pray to Kuan Yin daily. Lol, my desire spurred me to dig up an Osho quote yet again. Life just threw me another curve ball today, and it seems as I will be giving up my rampant use of the internet due to a brutal new job. Namo Amituofo.

I like this thread title, it could be talked about in great depth and I hope it is, let me start with this excerpt from Osho: Go on dropping your desires, even the desire for being a master, the desire for being blissful, the desire for knowing God, the desire for nirvana. All desires have to be dropped. Mind is so cunning: you can drop one desire and it immediately supplies you with another. And it may supply you with a more subtle desire. The gross desire can be understood by everybody, the subtle desire is more difficult to understand. For example, the desire for God is not thought to be a desire worth dropping. No Christian will say, no Jew will say, no Mohammedan will say, "Drop the desire for God." Drop all desire FOR God, but don't drop the desire for God. It is only Buddha, the only man in the whole history of human consciousness, who has said the whole truth -- truth in its absolute purity, truth and nothing else. He is so insistent on the truth, that he says you will have to drop the master, and you will have to drop all kinds of desires. Otherwise, mind is very innovative, very creative, imaginative. You drop one thing and it immediately says, "Good. Now seek this, seek truth, seek God." Now nobody can raise any objections about seeking God -- Buddha raises objections to that, too. After numerous complaints from the neighbors, Harry sadly agreed to have a veterinarian render his cat fit to guard a sultan's harem. "I will bet," said one neighbor, "that that ex-tom of yours just lies on the hearth now and gets fat." "No, he still goes out at night. But now he goes along as a consultant." If you cannot do anything, at least you can function as a consultant; but the going continues. Nothing has changed, the operation has failed. Remember, if you are a real seeker... and this is a strange paradox: if you are a real seeker, you will have to drop all seeking as such. Otherwise you will go on seeking one thing after another, and there is no end to it. When all seeking stops, you are suddenly at the very center of your being. Seeking drives you outside, seeking takes you away from yourself. Jesus says: Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the doors shall be opened unto you. Ask and it shall be given. Buddha will not say that. Buddha will say, "Seek and you will not find. Knock and the doors will never be opened for you. Ask and you will not be given." Then why does Jesus say so? Is Jesus not a buddha? Jesus is also a buddha, but the difference of their statements is because of the audience. Jesus is talking to ordinary people, and Buddha is talking to very evolved disciples. Jesus is talking to the crowds. If he had said to them, "Seek and ye shall never find," they would not have understood him. They would have thought him mad, absolutely mad. Seek and you shall not find? Ask and it shall not be given to you? Knock and the doors shall not be thrown open unto you? He was talking to ordinary people, hence he has to use very ordinary expressions. Buddha is talking to adepts, initiates. Jesus was not so fortunate as Buddha. Jesus' disciples were very ordinary, even those twelve apostles were very ordinary, unconscious people. Buddha had thousands of BODHISATTVAS, thousands of disciples who were just on the verge of becoming buddhas any moment. Thousands were just on the verge of bursting into a flame of eternal light. He could talk without any fear of being misunderstood; hence he says: RELY ON NOTHING UNTIL YOU WANT NOTHING. The greatest moment in life is when there is no desire left inside you, when desirelessness settles, absolute desirelessness. In that very moment all is attained, because all has always been there inside you. It was because of desires that you were running hither and thither, not looking inside. When all running has stopped, suddenly your own truth explodes with all its beauty, with all its benediction upon you. Listen to Buddha, meditate over his sutra. It will give you great insight -- insight into desire and its futility. It will help you to drop all desires. And the moment you are desireless you have arrived home. Enough for today. -OSHO Ok, so firstly I want to say giving up should not be painful. Clinging is painful. Giving up is painful when you are clinging to an attachment strongly. You have to renounce things naturally, at your own pace. This is all I have to say so far. Will continue later.

Some excerpts from the book, http://www.quietspaces.com/deathpoems.html: Gesshu Soko, died January 10, 1696, at age 79: Inhale, exhale Forward, back Living, dying: Arrows, let flown each to each Meet midway and slice The void in aimless flight -- Thus I return to the source. Goku Kyonen, died October 8, 1272, at age 56: The truth embodied in the Buddhas Of the future, present, past; The teaching we received from the Fathers of our faith Can be found at the tip of my stick. The story goes that when Goku felt that his death was close, he gathered this monk disciples around him. Sitting up, he gave the floor a single tap, said the above poem, raised his stick, tapped the floor again, cried, "See! See!" Then, sitting upright, he died. Hosshin, 13th century wrote: Coming, all is clear, no doubt about it. Going, all is clear, without a doubt. What, then, is all? Hosshin's last word was "Katsu!" which signifies the attainment of enlightenment. Sort of a spiritual "Eureka." Shoro, died April 1894, at age 80: Pampas grass, now dry, once bent this way and that. Sunao, died in 1926 at 39 Spitting blood clears up reality and dream alike. Senryu, died September 23, 1790, at 73: Bitter winds of winter -- but later, river willow, open up your buds. Kozan Ichikyo, died February 12, 1360, at 77. A few days before his death, he called his pupils together, ordered them to bury him without ceremony, forbidding them to hold services in his memory. After writing this poem on the morning of his death, he lay down his brush and died sitting upright. Empty-handed I entered the world Barefoot I leave it. My coming, my going -- Two simple happenings That got entangled. Senryu, died June 2, 1827 Like dew drops on a lotus leaf I vanish. Shinsui, died September 9, 1769, at 49: During his last moment, Shisui's disciples requested that he write a death poem. He grasped his brush, painted a circle, cast the brush aside, and died. The circle— indicating the void, the essence of everything, enlightenment— is one of the most important symbols of Zen Buddhism. Yoshitoshi, a printmaker who produced a series called "One Hundred Aspects of the Moon". His death poem reads: Holding back the night with it's increasing brilliance the summer moon. The death poem of Basho, one of the greatest haiku poets of all time: On a journey, ill; my dream goes wandering over withered fields. Zoso Royo died on the fifth day of the sixth month, 1276, at 84: I pondered Buddha's teaching a full four and eighty years. The gates are all now locked about me. No one was ever here - Who then is he about to die, and why lament for nothing? Farewell! The night is clear, the moon shines calmly, the wind in the pines is like a lyre's song. With no I and no other who hears the sound?

Here's an experience I've had in my Buddhist path: A few years ago I started playing the Shurangama Mantra in my home and while driving. Let's just say I was naive and at my level of cultivation, was very much vulnerable to powerful spirits and demons. I got into several car accidents while driving around my college campus while playing it, and started having bad thoughts at home while meditating and bowing. This was just the beginning of things to come. I told my Teacher about this several months later, after my life had been derailed from my path of cultivation and I had left my training. Thankfully my karma brought me back to the path. She said I should have told her sooner, and that with the party energy of my home and prior lifestyle, it was an honest mistake to play the mantra driving around campus while going to school and at home. She said the mantra is very powerful and should only be played in pure places of cultivation such as temples, and among high level practicioners.

Add Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? (1989)http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/why-has-bodhi-dharma-left-for-the-east1989/

In reality I have no attachment towards the situation. I just know what propriety and righteousness are, I follow the way of humaneness before emptiness. My teacher says that to feel shame and correct your erroneous ways is to lay the foundation. How can I try to grasp the beyond when I can't even live in a decent manner yet? I have much to learn still. The foundation is coming along nicely though! Perhaps the Secret of the Golden Flower will reveal itself in the coming years.