The Magazine
My wife holds out a buddist magazine.
"Here is a Buddhist magazine. Would you like to read it?"
With some hesitation, if not outright trepidation, I take it.
"Thanks."
I'm hesitatant, not because I'm not Buddhist, but because I know where this goes. I am not patient. I am not compassionate. I am leery. I glance through the table of contents. Just as I suspect - a lot of articles that seem more aligned to making people feel good, than to get them to dump all the crap in their minds.
We are all the same. We would rather talk about surrender than to actually surrender. We would rather read about someone who has 'made' it, than to 'make' it ourselves. We'd rather study the intricacies of the teachings than to put them into practice. We would rather argue about (or even agree about) the variations of the Great Teachings than to whole-heartedly give ourselves to them. Or we might want to keep struggling to find the perfect teaching, just a little better, a little closer, than to recognize the Infinite, Absolute and totally Ordinary Divinity of NOW.
Virtually every thought is a distraction, unless it points dead-on at the Truth. Every idea is a diversion unless it is showing you your Own Face. Every teaching is a pile of crap unless it makes you go..."Ah, Ah, Ah" as you dive into the immediacy of the Divine.
There is ONE infinite Ocean. What you experience as you is but the water of one wave. You fret and strut as the one wave - paying attention to the shape and form and floaters in yours and the others waves, ever neglecting the immediacy of the waterness, which ultimately leads to the immediacy of ALL waterness.
There is ONLY GOD, the ONE, the Absolute. Yes, all argumentation, all thinking, all concepts are also That, but in looking at them, we run the risk of identifying with them and lose our identification with the REAL-ness of the Divine.
The mind is like a prism which breaks up the light of the ONE, and turns it into the colors of the many. The colors are just the one, but we pick and choose between them. The prism, the mind, will NEVER, put the colors back into the ONE. It, sadly, only breaks them apart. Let go of the mind. Smash the prism. Rest in the ONE.
Sarvam khalvidam Brahma - All This is indeed the Absolute
Vasudevah Sarvam - All is God
Om Purnam adah purnam idam - That is the Wholeness, This is the Wholeness
Only God IS. There is nothing else. Every moment IS GOD.
Rest in that and forget the rest.... especially this magazine...
So, in the end, having glanced through a number of self-aggrandizing and self-effacing articles (amidst one or two okay ones) I turn to the back cover....
It reads:
"Is Your Investment Strategy Sustainable?"
Oh good Lord!!!!!
God is the only investment strategy I have.
"Here is a Buddhist magazine. Would you like to read it?"
With some hesitation, if not outright trepidation, I take it.
"Thanks."
I'm hesitatant, not because I'm not Buddhist, but because I know where this goes. I am not patient. I am not compassionate. I am leery. I glance through the table of contents. Just as I suspect - a lot of articles that seem more aligned to making people feel good, than to get them to dump all the crap in their minds.
We are all the same. We would rather talk about surrender than to actually surrender. We would rather read about someone who has 'made' it, than to 'make' it ourselves. We'd rather study the intricacies of the teachings than to put them into practice. We would rather argue about (or even agree about) the variations of the Great Teachings than to whole-heartedly give ourselves to them. Or we might want to keep struggling to find the perfect teaching, just a little better, a little closer, than to recognize the Infinite, Absolute and totally Ordinary Divinity of NOW.
Virtually every thought is a distraction, unless it points dead-on at the Truth. Every idea is a diversion unless it is showing you your Own Face. Every teaching is a pile of crap unless it makes you go..."Ah, Ah, Ah" as you dive into the immediacy of the Divine.
There is ONE infinite Ocean. What you experience as you is but the water of one wave. You fret and strut as the one wave - paying attention to the shape and form and floaters in yours and the others waves, ever neglecting the immediacy of the waterness, which ultimately leads to the immediacy of ALL waterness.
There is ONLY GOD, the ONE, the Absolute. Yes, all argumentation, all thinking, all concepts are also That, but in looking at them, we run the risk of identifying with them and lose our identification with the REAL-ness of the Divine.
The mind is like a prism which breaks up the light of the ONE, and turns it into the colors of the many. The colors are just the one, but we pick and choose between them. The prism, the mind, will NEVER, put the colors back into the ONE. It, sadly, only breaks them apart. Let go of the mind. Smash the prism. Rest in the ONE.
Sarvam khalvidam Brahma - All This is indeed the Absolute
Vasudevah Sarvam - All is God
Om Purnam adah purnam idam - That is the Wholeness, This is the Wholeness
Only God IS. There is nothing else. Every moment IS GOD.
Rest in that and forget the rest.... especially this magazine...
So, in the end, having glanced through a number of self-aggrandizing and self-effacing articles (amidst one or two okay ones) I turn to the back cover....
It reads:
"Is Your Investment Strategy Sustainable?"
Oh good Lord!!!!!
God is the only investment strategy I have.