The dark night of the soul - eckhart Tolle

[Sir Darius the Clairvoyent]

«The “dark night of the soul” is a term that goes back a long time.  Yes, I have also experienced it. It is a term used to describe what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in life…an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness.  The inner state in some cases is very close to what is conventionally called depression.
 

Nothing makes sense anymore, there’s no purpose to anything. Sometimes it’s triggered by some external event, some disaster perhaps, on an external level.  The death of someone close to you could trigger it, especially premature death, for example if your child dies. Or you had built up your life, and given it meaning – and the meaning that you had given your life, your activities, your achievements, where you are going, what is considered important, and the meaning that you had given your life for some reason collapses.

 

It can happen if something happens that you can’t explain away anymore, some disaster which seems to invalidate the meaning that your life had before.  Really what has collapsed then is the whole conceptual framework for your life, the meaning that your mind had given it. So that results in a dark place.  But people have gone into that, and then there is the possibility that you emerge out of that into a transformed state of consciousness. Life has meaning again, but it’s no longer a conceptual meaning that you can necessarily explain.  Quite often it’s from there that people awaken out of their conceptual sense of reality, which has collapsed.

They awaken into something deeper, which is no longer based on concepts in your mind.  A deeper sense of purpose or connectedness with a greater life that is not dependent on explanations or anything conceptual any longer.  It’s a kind of re-birth. The dark night of the soul is a kind of death that you die. What dies is the egoic sense of self. Of course, death is always painful, but nothing real has actually died there – only an illusory identity.  Now it is probably the case that some people who’ve gone through this transformation realized that they had to go through that, in order to bring about a spiritual awakening. Often it is part of the awakening process, the death of the old self and the birth of the true self.

 

The first lesson in A Course in Miracles says “Nothing I see in this room means anything”, and you’re supposed to look around the room at whatever you happen to be looking at, and you say “this doesn’t mean anything”, “that doesn’t mean anything”.   What is the purpose of a lesson like that? It’s a little bit like re-creating what can happen during the dark night of the soul. It’s the collapse of a mind-made meaning, conceptual meaning, of life… believing that you understand “what it’s all about”.  With A Course in Miracles, it’s a voluntary relinquishment of the human mind-made meaning that is projected, and you go voluntary into saying “I don’t know what this means”, “this doesn’t mean anything”. You wipe the board clean. In the dark night of the soul it collapses.

 

You are meant to arrive at a place of conceptual meaninglessness.  Or one could say a state of ignorance – where things lose the meaning that you had given them, which was all conditioned and cultural and so on.  Then you can look upon the world without imposing a mind-made framework of meaning. It looks of course as if you no longer understand anything. That’s why it’s so scary when it happens to you, instead of you actually consciously embracing it.  It can bring about the dark night of the soul – to go around the Universe without any longer interpreting it compulsively, as an innocent presence. You look upon events, people, and so on with a deep sense of aliveness. Your sense the aliveness through your own sense of aliveness, but you are not trying to fit your experience into a conceptual framework anymore.»

 

Edited October 26, 2023 by NaturaNaturans
Qoutation marks

[Daniel]

3 hours ago, NaturaNaturans said:

you are not trying to fit your experience into a conceptual framework anymore

 

I think that whether or not it is a positive experience depends on what a person does with it.  It seems that lacking a conceptual framework, people settle on an only-me completely self-centered conceptual framework once the previous conceptual frame work has been abandoned or erased.  This makes sense because most people enjoy feeling like a god and feeling in control and it takes a lot of work to rebuild a conceptual framework.  Because of this, the path of least resistance seems to be, "I am all there is, I am all that matters, nothing else matters, nothing else exists."   It's still a conceptual framework, they have simply settled on the easiest most self-centered one.  And a lot of people agree this is the ideal.  I do not.

[Sir Darius the Clairvoyent]

10 hours ago, Daniel said:

 

I think that whether or not it is a positive experience depends on what a person does with it.  It seems that lacking a conceptual framework, people settle on an only-me completely self-centered conceptual framework once the previous conceptual frame work has been abandoned or erased.  This makes sense because most people enjoy feeling like a god and feeling in control and it takes a lot of work to rebuild a conceptual framework.  Because of this, the path of least resistance seems to be, "I am all there is, I am all that matters, nothing else matters, nothing else exists."   It's still a conceptual framework, they have simply settled on the easiest most self-centered one.  And a lot of people agree this is the ideal.  I do not.

What is Your «answer» to it?

[Daniel]

4 hours ago, NaturaNaturans said:

What is Your «answer» to it?

 

What is the «question»?  What is «it»?

[liminal_luke]

15 hours ago, Daniel said:

 

 Because of this, the path of least resistance seems to be, "I am all there is, I am all that matters, nothing else matters, nothing else exists."   

 

My take: I am all there is; other people are all there is too; everything matters.

[Mark Foote]

19 hours ago, NaturaNaturans said:

 

... You are meant to arrive at a place of conceptual meaninglessness.  Or one could say a state of ignorance – where things lose the meaning that you had given them, which was all conditioned and cultural and so on.  Then you can look upon the world without imposing a mind-made framework of meaning. It looks of course as if you no longer understand anything. That’s why it’s so scary when it happens to you, instead of you actually consciously embracing it.  It can bring about the dark night of the soul – to go around the Universe without any longer interpreting it compulsively, as an innocent presence. You look upon events, people, and so on with a deep sense of aliveness. Your sense the aliveness through your own sense of aliveness, but you are not trying to fit your experience into a conceptual framework anymore.
 

 

 

 

You must strive with all your might to bite through here and cut off conditioned habits of mind. Be like a person who has died the great death: after your breath is cut off, then you come back to life. Only then do you realize that it is as open as empty space. Only then do you reach the point where your feet are walking on the ground of reality.

 

(Yuanwu, "Zen Letters", translated by J.C. and Thomas Cleary, pg 84)

 

 

From something I posted on my own site, yesterday:

 

When necessity places attention, and a presence of mind is retained as the placement shifts and moves, then in Gautama’s words, “[one] lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness”:
 

Herein… the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness.  (The disciple), aloof from sensuality, aloof from evil conditions, enters on the first trance, which is accompanied by thought directed and sustained, which is born of solitude, easeful and zestful, and abides therein.
 

(SN v 198, Pali Text Society vol V p 174; parenthetical material paraphrases original; “directed” also rendered as “initial” MN III p 78 and as “applied” PTS AN III p 18-19)

 

Foyan spoke of “looking for a donkey riding on the donkey”.  The degree of “self-surrender” required to allow necessity to place attention, and the presence of mind required to “lay hold” as the placement of attention shifts, make the conscious experience of “riding the donkey” elusive. (Shunryu) Suzuki provided an analogy:
 

If you are going to fall, you know, from, for instance, from the tree to the ground, the moment you, you know, leave the branch you lose your function of the body. But if you don’t, you know, there is a pretty long time before you reach to the ground. And there may be some branch, you know. So you can catch the branch or you can do something. But because you lose function of your body, you know [laughs], before you reach to the ground, you may lose your conscious[ness].
 

(“To Actually Practice Selflessness”, August Sesshin Lecture Wednesday, August 6, 1969, San Francisco; “fell” corrected to “fall”; transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

Suzuki offered the analogy in response to the travails of his students, who were experiencing pain in their legs sitting cross-legged on the floor.  In his analogy, he suggested the possibility of an escape from pain through a presence of mind with the function of the body.
 

The difficulty is that most people will lose consciousness before they cede activity to the location of attention–they lose the presence of mind with the placement of attention, because they can’t believe that action in the body is possible without “doing something”:
 

It’s impossible to teach the meaning of sitting. You won’t believe it. Not because I say something wrong, but until you experience it and confirm it by yourself, you cannot believe it.
 

(Kobun Chino Otogawa, “Embracing Mind”, edited by Cosgrove & Hall, pg 48)

 

 

... When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention can draw out thought initial and sustained, and bring on the stages of concentration:

 

… there is no need to depend on teaching. But the most important thing is to practice and realize our true nature… [laughs]. This is, you know, Zen.

 

(Shunryu Suzuki, Tassajara 68-07-24 transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

 

(Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages)

 

 

That would be why oftentimes people have to be at the end of their rope, so to speak, before they discover a way to let go and still function in this world--"they can't believe that action... is possible without 'doing something'."  Then they find grace.

Most do not come to the experience through "just sitting", I'll acknowledge!

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Nungali]

22 hours ago, NaturaNaturans said:

The “dark night of the soul” is a term that goes back a long time.  Yes, I have also experienced it. It is a term used to describe what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in life…an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness.  The inner state in some cases is very close to what is conventionally called depression.
 

Nothing makes sense anymore, there’s no purpose to anything. Sometimes it’s triggered by some external event, some disaster perhaps, on an external level.  The death of someone close to you could trigger it, especially premature death, for example if your child dies. Or you had built up your life, and given it meaning – and the meaning that you had given your life, your activities, your achievements, where you are going, what is considered important, and the meaning that you had given your life for some reason collapses.

 

It can happen if something happens that you can’t explain away anymore, some disaster which seems to invalidate the meaning that your life had before.  Really what has collapsed then is the whole conceptual framework for your life, the meaning that your mind had given it. So that results in a dark place.  But people have gone into that, and then there is the possibility that you emerge out of that into a transformed state of consciousness. Life has meaning again, but it’s no longer a conceptual meaning that you can necessarily explain.  Quite often it’s from there that people awaken out of their conceptual sense of reality, which has collapsed.

They awaken into something deeper, which is no longer based on concepts in your mind.  A deeper sense of purpose or connectedness with a greater life that is not dependent on explanations or anything conceptual any longer.  It’s a kind of re-birth. The dark night of the soul is a kind of death that you die. What dies is the egoic sense of self. Of course, death is always painful, but nothing real has actually died there – only an illusory identity.  Now it is probably the case that some people who’ve gone through this transformation realized that they had to go through that, in order to bring about a spiritual awakening. Often it is part of the awakening process, the death of the old self and the birth of the true self.

 

The first lesson in A Course in Miracles says “Nothing I see in this room means anything”, and you’re supposed to look around the room at whatever you happen to be looking at, and you say “this doesn’t mean anything”, “that doesn’t mean anything”.   What is the purpose of a lesson like that? It’s a little bit like re-creating what can happen during the dark night of the soul. It’s the collapse of a mind-made meaning, conceptual meaning, of life… believing that you understand “what it’s all about”.  With A Course in Miracles, it’s a voluntary relinquishment of the human mind-made meaning that is projected, and you go voluntary into saying “I don’t know what this means”, “this doesn’t mean anything”. You wipe the board clean. In the dark night of the soul it collapses.

 

You are meant to arrive at a place of conceptual meaninglessness.  Or one could say a state of ignorance – where things lose the meaning that you had given them, which was all conditioned and cultural and so on.  Then you can look upon the world without imposing a mind-made framework of meaning. It looks of course as if you no longer understand anything. That’s why it’s so scary when it happens to you, instead of you actually consciously embracing it.  It can bring about the dark night of the soul – to go around the Universe without any longer interpreting it compulsively, as an innocent presence. You look upon events, people, and so on with a deep sense of aliveness. Your sense the aliveness through your own sense of aliveness, but you are not trying to fit your experience into a conceptual framework anymore.

 

 

I found that a very good piece of writing .  I like the way you expressed some things , regarding 'Dark Night of the Soul; as  those expressions exactly describe another wider cultural process I had looked into and wrote a paper on ; Cultures in Crisis - what causes their collapse . I wont go into that now , it a bit detailed  and anthropologically based . It looks at various cultures and what makes them succeed  or fail  ( and what criteria might be involved in that )  , but  specifically I looked at Australian indigenous cultures .  They hold a 'volatile reaction' to this process  as one of the causes  is an 'alien' disruption to their culture that seems to have the widest gap ;  long term indigenous stone age people ( in some cases living right into the 20thC ) living in virtual isolation , being 'smashed' into  18th C Euro 'Empire  civilisation ' .

 

I struggled to find the words this effect had on the people , but your words describe the effect very well :

 

" Or you had built up your life, and given it meaning – and the meaning that you had given your life, your activities, your achievements, where you are going, what is considered important, and the meaning that you had given your life for some reason collapses. " 

 

Its like ; you might be a good hunter , you can go out with another , perhaps,  in hard times, and after a lot of effort and skill and training and ritual and ..... you manage to  hunt down and kill a kangaroo .... that been going on for 10s of 1000s of years , then , virtually overnight , some guy sits on a rock with a 'fire stick' and kills 30 kangaroo, off in the distance in a few minutes  .   Now imagine that through all aspects of you culture life and meaning .

 

It can result not only in the collapse and loss of a culture, knowledge, language , etc  but  in the individual "   a collapse of a perceived meaning in life…an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness.  The inner state in some cases is very close to what is conventionally called depression. "

Yes, definitely depression , a depression so bad , people 'wilfully' can begin to  eliminate not just themselves , but their whole genetic line, culture and tribe , to the extent that Kaidilt Aboriginals , some of them practised facial and  sexual organs self  mutilation - as though they where making it impossible for themselves to be recognised or ever breed again .

 

( I am happy though to say,  they got so close to the edge but where able to come back, increase population and now have a proud culture and heritage ... this of course begs the question .... how ?  Thats another long subject, and the 2nd part of my paper .)

 

" It can happen if something happens that you can’t explain away anymore, some disaster which seems to invalidate the meaning that your life had before.  Really what has collapsed then is the whole conceptual framework for your life, the meaning that your mind had given it. "

 

It is reported ( and we have some of them in archives )  that Ted. Strehlow  ( what a 'character ' ... what a story there !  ) was in possession of   at least 100 turinga .  A turinga is a scared object that holds a man's identity and spirituality, his genealogy purpose and place  , they are considered so scared they are kept in sacred sites inside caves or other secret  areas -  planted in the earth that the people where born from . Men just handed them over to.  Strehlow ... what good where they any more , we are useless, you should keep this... you are 'top man'  now ... we are lost .

 

For those that are recovering , I am gong to share this concept wit them :

 

" They awaken into something deeper, which is no longer based on concepts in your mind.  A deeper sense of purpose or connectedness with a greater life that is not dependent on explanations or anything conceptual any longer.  It’s a kind of re-birth. The dark night of the soul is a kind of death that you die. What dies is the egoic sense of self. Of course, death is always painful, but nothing real has actually died there – only an illusory identity.  Now it is probably the case that some people who’ve gone through this transformation realized that they had to go through that, in order to bring about a spiritual awakening. "

 

It seems possible , if we can get through this ( in Oz ) that the indigenous can help us , have a spiritual  awakening .  We are starting to realise and adopt some of their ways , realising and appreciating the wisdom therein   but its a battle ,  'we' have just lost the 'Yes' campaign / referendum to recognise them in our constitution      .    

 

Your next line .... I think you know how I am going to respond to that   ....

 

" Often it is part of the awakening process, the death of the old self and the birth of the true self.  "

 

 

 

 

 

-    5 stars   *****   

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Strehlow

 

 

[Sir Darius the Clairvoyent]

@Mark Foote

I should almost definetly find some kind of practice. Sitting, meditating, yoga, fasting. But i dont know, has not worked to well for me useally, and i also feel very much as a «child of Europe,» if that makes any sense what so ever. I think what i am trying to say is that it feels alien to me. But working for someone i dont like and studying something that feels lifeless and spending x hours daily on the phone is not very regarding either
Parts of me wants to move to a somewhat removed family farm of ours, but it kind of feels like resigning life. 
 

@liminal_luke

Improving yours and yours surroundings is certainly a healthy perspective. 

@Nungali

I hope i made it clear that these are not my words, but Eckarts. I think you are right that the tribal people do not struggle with this. But well… the machinery keeps on rolling. GDP must grow, no matter the cost!! 
 

@Daniel you seemed to disagree with the post, or at least the solution, so i wondered what your alternative was

[Sir Darius the Clairvoyent]

Nietzche on the camel, lion and child, from thus spoke Zarathustra:

 

Quote

The Three Metamorphoses

THREE metamorphoses of the spirit do I designate to you: how the spirit becometh a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.

Many heavy things are there for the spirit, the strong load-bearing spirit in which reverence dwelleth: for the heavy and the heaviest longeth its strength.

What is heavy? so asketh the load-bearing spirit; then kneeleth it down like the camel, and wanteth to be well laden.

What is the heaviest thing, ye heroes? asketh the load-bearing spirit, that I may take it upon me and rejoice in my strength.

Is it not this: To humiliate oneself in order to mortify one's pride? To exhibit one's folly in order to mock at one's wisdom?

Or is it this: To desert our cause when it celebrateth its triumph? To ascend high mountains to tempt the tempter?

Or is it this: To feed on the acorns and grass of knowledge, and for the sake of truth to suffer hunger of soul?

Or is it this: To be sick and dismiss comforters, and make friends of the deaf, who never hear thy requests?

Or is it this: To go into foul water when it is the water of truth, and not disclaim cold frogs and hot toads?

Or is it this: To love those who despise us, and give one's hand to the phantom when it is going to frighten us?

All these heaviest things the load-bearing spirit taketh upon itself: and like the camel, which, when laden, hasteneth into the wilderness, so hasteneth the spirit into its wilderness.

But in the loneliest wilderness happeneth the second metamorphosis: here the spirit becometh a lion; freedom will it capture, and lordship in its own wilderness.

Its last Lord it here seeketh: hostile will it be to him, and to its last God; for victory will it struggle with the great dragon.

What is the great dragon which the spirit is no longer inclined to call Lord and God? "Thou-shalt," is the great dragon called. But the spirit of the lion saith, "I will."

"Thou-shalt," lieth in its path, sparkling with gold- a scale-covered beast; and on every scale glittereth golden, "Thou shalt!"

The values of a thousand years glitter on those scales, and thus speaketh the mightiest of all dragons: "All the values of things- glitter on me.

All values have already been created, and all created values- do I represent. Verily, there shall be no 'I will' any more. Thus speaketh the dragon.

My brethren, wherefore is there need of the lion in the spirit? Why sufficeth not the beast of burden, which renounceth and is reverent?

To create new values- that, even the lion cannot yet accomplish: but to create itself freedom for new creating- that can the might of the lion do.

To create itself freedom, and give a holy Nay even unto duty: for that, my brethren, there is need of the lion.

To assume the ride to new values- that is the most formidable assumption for a load-bearing and reverent spirit. Verily, unto such a spirit it is preying, and the work of a beast of prey.

As its holiest, it once loved "Thou-shalt": now is it forced to find illusion and arbitrariness even in the holiest things, that it may capture freedom from its love: the lion is needed for this capture.

But tell me, my brethren, what the child can do, which even the lion could not do? Why hath the preying lion still to become a child?

Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea.

Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea unto life: its own will, willeth now the spirit; his own world winneth the world's outcast.

Three metamorphoses of the spirit have I designated to you: how the spirit became a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.Thus spake Zarathustra. And at that time he abode in the town which is called The Pied Cow.

 

[Daniel]

9 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

 

My take: I am all there is; other people are all there is too; everything matters.

 

There are no small parts, only small actors.

[Nungali]

5 hours ago, NaturaNaturans said:

 

@Nungali

I hope i made it clear that these are not my words, but Eckarts. I think you are right that the tribal people do not struggle with this. But well… the machinery keeps on rolling. GDP must grow, no matter the cost!! 
 

 

 

No , becasue I have not read Eckart....     and usually  direct quotes are   ;

 

"     ................................   "

[Giles]

4 hours ago, Daniel said:

 

There are no small parts, only small actors.

 

Like Tiny Tom.

[Cobie]

 

8 hours ago, Nungali said:

No , becasue I have not read Eckart....     and usually  direct quotes are   ; "     ................................   "

 

I too thought it was the words of NN. If it’s a quote, a post should say so and mention the author!
 

~~~
Now it has it in the thread title and the post has the « » marks, but I don’t recall that being there originally. 
The OP was edited after your reply, without acknowledgment or apology. 

 

 

Edited October 26, 2023 by Cobie

[Daniel]

15 hours ago, NaturaNaturans said:

 

@Daniel you seemed to disagree with the post, or at least the solution, so i wondered what your alternative was

 

Alternatives?  From my perspective there are many.  If you would like a more specific response, I would need more specifics on what *you* consider as the problem, what *you* consider to be the solution, and/or what *you* consider to be the the focus on the post.

 

In my reply, I focused on a specific common conceptual framework which has a tendancy to fill in the gap, for lack of better words, when one attempts to abandon their previous conceptual framework or abandon all conceptual frameworks.  It's one of several, but it is common for the reasons I provided.

[Daniel]

7 hours ago, Giles said:

 

Like Tiny Tom.

 

Tiny-tim?  "God bless us everyone."  Super important, especially for that character to say it.  And when I recall the stage direction, maybe I'm wrong, the father has lifted up tiny-tim to say it.

 

Edited October 26, 2023 by Daniel

[Mark Foote]

20 hours ago, NaturaNaturans said:

I should almost definetly find some kind of practice. Sitting, meditating, yoga, fasting. But i dont know, has not worked to well for me useally, and i also feel very much as a «child of Europe,» if that makes any sense what so ever. I think what i am trying to say is that it feels alien to me. But working for someone i dont like and studying something that feels lifeless and spending x hours daily on the phone is not very regarding either
Parts of me wants to move to a somewhat removed family farm of ours, but it kind of feels like resigning life. 

I just finished a post on my own website, maybe this can give you some idea of the kind of practice I'm engaged in:

 

 

When necessity places attention, and a presence of mind is retained as the placement shifts and moves, then in Gautama’s words, “[one] lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness”:

 

Herein… the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness.  (The disciple), aloof from sensuality, aloof from evil conditions, enters on the first trance, which is accompanied by thought directed and sustained, which is born of solitude, easeful and zestful, and abides therein.

 

(SN v 198, Pali Text Society vol V p 174; parenthetical material paraphrases original; “directed” also rendered as “initial” MN III p 78 and as “applied” PTS AN III p 18-19)

 

Foyan spoke of “looking for a donkey riding on the donkey”.  The degree of “self-surrender” required to allow necessity to place attention, and the presence of mind required to “lay hold” as the placement of attention shifts, make the conscious experience of “riding the donkey” elusive. Suzuki provided an analogy:

 

If you are going to fall, you know, from, for instance, from the tree to the ground, the moment you, you know, leave the branch you lose your function of the body. But if you don’t, you know, there is a pretty long time before you reach to the ground. And there may be some branch, you know. So you can catch the branch or you can do something. But because you lose function of your body, you know [laughs], before you reach to the ground, you may lose your conscious[ness].

 

(“To Actually Practice Selflessness”, August Sesshin Lecture Wednesday, August 6, 1969, San Francisco; “fell” corrected to “fall”; transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

Suzuki offered the analogy in response to the travails of his students, who were experiencing pain in their legs sitting cross-legged on the floor.  In his analogy, he suggested the possibility of an escape from pain through a presence of mind with the function of the body.

 

The difficulty is that most people will lose consciousness before they cede activity to the location of attention–they lose the presence of mind with the placement of attention, because they can’t believe that action in the body is possible without “doing something”:

 

It’s impossible to teach the meaning of sitting. You won’t believe it. Not because I say something wrong, but until you experience it and confirm it by yourself, you cannot believe it.

 

(Kobun Chino Otogawa, “Embracing Mind”, edited by Cosgrove & Hall, pg 48)

 

As I’ve written previously, there’s an opportunity to make self-surrender the object of thought and to lay hold of “one-pointedness” just before falling asleep:

 

… Just before I fall asleep, my awareness can move very readily, and my sense of where I am tends to move with it. This is also true when I am waking up, although it can be harder to recognize (I tend to live through my eyes in the daytime, and associate my sense of place with them).

 

… when I realize my physical sense of location in space, and realize it as it occurs from one moment to the next, then I wake up or fall asleep as appropriate.

 

(Waking Up and Falling Asleep)

 

 

(Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages)

 

 

I would be remiss if I did not add the conclusion:

 

When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention can draw out thought initial and sustained, and bring on the stages of concentration:

 

… there is no need to depend on teaching. But the most important thing is to practice and realize our true nature… [laughs]. This is, you know, Zen.

 

(Shunryu Suzuki, Tassajara 68-07-24 transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

 

(ibid)

 

 

 

 

[Nungali]

9 hours ago, Cobie said:

 

 

I too thought it was the words of NN. If it’s a quote, a post should say so and mention the author!
 

~~~
Now it has it in the thread title and the post has the « » marks, but I don’t recall that being there originally. 
The OP was edited after your reply, without acknowledgment or apology. 

 

 

 

Wait !  Should I be angry too   ?   

 

Nah ....  I'll just take it as  a dumb mistake on my part .  

 

 

[Nungali]

13 hours ago, Giles said:

 

Like Tiny Tom.

 

? 

 

 

[Apech]

Any discussion of the Dark Night of the Soul should, I think, start by reading the poem by St. John of the Cross - which will reveal it means almost the opposite of what people suppose it to mean:

 

The Dark Night of the Soul

BY ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS

TRANSLATED BY DAVID LEWIS

I.

 

In a dark night,

With anxious love inflamed,

O, happy lot!

Forth unobserved I went,

My house being now at rest.

 

 

II.

 

In darkness and in safety,

By the secret ladder, disguised,

O, happy lot!

In darkness and concealment,

My house being now at rest.

 

 

III.

 

In that happy night,

In secret, seen of none,

Seeing nought myself,

Without other light or guide

Save that which in my heart was burning.

 

 

IV.

 

That light guided me

More surely than the noonday sun

To the place where He was waiting for me,

Whom I knew well,

And where none appeared.

 

 

V.

 

O, guiding night;

O, night more lovely than the dawn;

O, night that hast united

The lover with His beloved,

And changed her into her love.

 

 

VI.

 

On my flowery bosom,

Kept whole for Him alone,

There He reposed and slept;

And I cherished Him, and the waving

Of the cedars fanned Him.

 

 

VII.

 

As His hair floated in the breeze

That from the turret blew,

He struck me on the neck

With His gentle hand,

And all sensation left me.

 

 

VIII.

 

I continued in oblivion lost,

My head was resting on my love;

Lost to all things and myself,

And, amid the lilies forgotten,

Threw all my cares away.