True Reverence

[deci belle]

This is what I deserve for writing on both sides of a biG serviette along-side my single short-pull Americano today at le cafe Iconik.

 

 

 

True Reverence

 

An ancient said, "Everyone can become a Yao or Shun. Yao and Shun were born sages; Tang and Wu learned to become sages." Laotzu said, "I am not a sage; I learned this."

 

There are those with the unconscious (and unskillful) intellectual strategy which appears inwardly to themselves and their equals as every bit like reverence, but it is really nothing but the conceit of ignorance. Actually it is like the feeling that warms the cockles of one's heart.

 

Taking this as a mark of attainment expressing a longing which has no room for the real to lodge, this becomes the pitiful hope and change of a spiritual dereliction.

 

I'm exaggerating a prolix style of course, but it's not erroneous to suggest that this is in fact how it is— especially when I compose on serviettes in public spaces.

 

Please do not misunderstand. The root of this mental state is the realm of subtlety itself. It is for this reason that one's practice of self-refinement should maintain a consistent firmness of adaptable concentration at the level of wonder twenty-four hours a day without a single thought of ceasing one's efforts. This is in order to penetrate the subtle in purifying every last insidious trace of ignorance which is the homeland of the coreless human mentality from the selfless nonoriginated mind-ground of one's own undiscovered living awakened buddha-nature.

 

If one's reverential feelings for the teachings of those whose consummation and expression of the Way of Reality was learned, it should not engender that kind of cockle-warming feeling inasmuch as one's own entry by virtue of Lao's (seemingly accessible) meaning is a long process of self-loss until the bottom of one's bucket finally drops off. And only after that can one really begin to savor the singular flavor of the ancients for the first time.

 

After all, the classics of the ancients were themselves written by enlightening beings of one Mind to aid those with the capacity to keep the knowledge of those born knowing alive.

 

In so saying, seeing your nature is necessary in spite of what some here may propose because it is the basis of correct reverence. Verily, true reverence is one from start to finish even though one is unable to see it clearly. One continues to clarify its virtue in gradual practice after sudden enlightenment, so it isn't simply a matter of knowing selfless nonorigination in great cessation, either.

 

This is no different than the fact of the mind-ground being the substance of the human mentality, wherein nothing is gained by the consummation of one's realization of the potential of sagacity.

 

Entry into the inconceivable has no beginning; how can it ever end? Wonder of wonders.

 

Unless one is unrelentingly haunted by a subtle sense of intangible perpetual loss to the world of one's personalistic relativity, one's reverence cannot be authenticated, nor can it be effective in terms of the unbending intent required by the real and natural alchemical firing process of the self-refinement of those not born sages.

 

The correct sentiment of reverence expressed wordlessly by one's inherent nonoriginated selfless aware nature can be seen oneself. This can also be grasped by penetrating the subtle meaning of the twentieth hexagram Observing, whereby there is sincerity that is reverent.

 

 

"Observing, having washed the hands but not presented the offering, there is sincerity that is reverent."

 

Reverence observing the mind with pure intent is activating the presence of the true nonpsychological awareness within your own subjective reasoning in the midst of ordinary affairs to dispel one's habit-awareness clinging to objects, desires and opinions. Just this is turning the light around to shine back on its source.

 

What other Secret of the Golden Flower would you seek?

 

This is the nondwelling mind itself. Seeing this is observing this.

 

Having washed the hands is the same as the true intent of open sincerity without bias or inclination, pure and capable in the capacity of one's inherent potential perpetually refreshed.

 

Not having presented the offering is not producing a single cockle-warming self-reifying thought. This is maintaining correct reverential presence. Complete Reality is just this mind-ground not producing thoughts …this is how it maintains itself as selfless nonorigination in perpetuity. You are no different in fact or in function.

 

Who can observe pristine perpetually refreshed awareness without presenting the offering?

 

If you want to take over creation, live long and see eternity, you will have to enter the tao in reality. Sagacity is learning the tao by imitating the tao. Harmonizing one's light inside and outside is just this reality of sincerity that is reverent entering the tao in reality.

 

Then you find it is no different than your thieving vicious human mentality. Anyone can do this effortlessly. You just have to recognize it when it appears spontaneously, and then recall it over and over again. It is not a matter of buddhahood— it is the nature of buddhahood. This is your own mind right here and now. Your potential for sagacity is the seed of buddhahood.

 

When the wonder of sudden illumination appears in the homeland of nothing whatsoever, you then plant this seed. Seeing it is for now~ it's just you. Its planting has no beginning, therefore the seed's effectiveness requires seeing your selfless nature~ you are not it.

 

Correctly reverent before; one can then be effectively reverent after. The timing of the process from start to finish cannot be mixed up.

 

…sorry for the big serviette.❤

 

 

 

 

ed note: misspelled the penultimate "reverent" in the last paragraph; add word "own" above; add "Who can observe pristine perpetually refreshed awareness without presenting the offering?"

Edited August 20, 2013 by deci belle

[Clarity]

Your serviette leaves me speechless, deci belle.

 

And the apology, well....elevated.

[deci belle]

❤!!