Question:
My question is about dharma in terms of finding our purpose in life.
I have for a long time tried to find my dharma and I think I am on the right way, but lately I have started to wonder if this about dharma is just part of an illusion and the play of the universe and corresponds to the level of consciousness we are at?
If it is true that we are infinite possibilities, that at our core self we are God. How can we then have a dharma?
If I am everything, how can anything particular be my purpose in life?
Isn’t this purpose just a part of my karma? A constellation of my memories from all incarnations and the story I am telling about my self?
If I am totally free and totally melted together with God, when I truly know and live from the state of consciousness where everything is possible, how can I then have a specific dharma? At that point, isn’t everything just for fun and possible to chose and change?
Answer:
Dharma is much more than one’s career or focus of activity in life. Dharma is the unstoppable force of evolution in the cosmos that impels everything forward toward self-awareness. So your difficulty isn’t with dharma itself being illusory or an impediment, it’s your understanding of dharma.
Everyone’s ultimate dharma is simply to be, not act. When one becomes enlightened their highest dharma is fulfilled and all their mundane subordinate dharmas are automatically taken care of.
Love,
"When one becomes enlightened their highest dharma is fulfilled and all their mundane subordinate dharmas are automatically taken care of."
Not so.
Ahhh. Well my dharma has been to experience much darkness so that I may see the light then pass the candle to others lying in wait in thier dark places. I have always reached out a hand to assist others up the mountain whilst I sit with a mental mirror reflecting thoughts of doubt and fear. So, then, another part of my dharma would be to release old mantra. Why keep them permanent when nothing else is?
I create blockers: I need the degrees, etc. My eldest child, known for her eloquence <humorous misnomer> , stated a few days ago, via the telephone "Why don't you just use those big longy-long smarty-smart words of yours and get a real education already! Gwad, go be something already!" …she's my little girl…26 and a bit colicky, should have kept her off formula longer! ;]
Purpose though? I feel I have many. Natural talents in the arts, crafts, words arenas. Good Mom, homeschooling a great kid, can raise a nice dog that minds well (unless bouncing is involved), great cook, have own recipies I need to compile so I can sell them…let's see, I 'do' hair, I garden and can own food stuffs. Spent many years lifting women up in recovery…many. many young adult children of addicts. I own my own tools…can camp with out the new age gear and an electrical hook up
But my primary purpose is to simply know of source and allow myself to follow that love train rather than the stinky broke down over crowded bus of dispair. That primary purpose, for me, is summed up in two words: Mom, Granny.
Have I got the dharma right?
Our understanding of dharma can contribute on how or what we think our dharma is. Our purpose is only served when we have already done it. It is not something that we pal to do. For our dharma is already working our subconscious. It is our conscience that is already on us even before we are not yet on this world. It is the memory of our past and the path to our future. And my future is still not prepared for I have already consumed my credit cards. Credit cards that has very high <a rev="vote for" title="Interest Rates on Credit Cards are Steadily Rising" href="http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2009/10/14/interest-rates-credit-cards-steadily-rising/ ">interest rates.
Zenmonk, if not so, then explain.
Maybe Zenmonk means that the residue of karma is still operative due to the energies of past karma still being in operation. This has to be worked out and is still under the cosmic law of cause and effect. In the calm swan – like mind any action would be taken from the INTENT to be of service to humanity and not for personal gain .Like the Swan of Manasarovar this mind knows what is correct and what is not – this swan, as it is said, can drink the milk and discard the water quite spontaneously – see the symbology of this swan ….
A swan like mind would produce beneficial karma and the conditions to be of benefit to humanity at another time ( re-birth ) Thus any rebirth would not be a willy nilly finding oneself born to horrible or suffering circumstances but birthed into a planned blueprint of life that has few if any obstacles to that pure INTENT.
IF one understands and experiences pure awareness ( I AM ) which is not qualified by any action or attribute ( naked awareness with no adornments – we could say without form or attachment ) then his actions are taken with a totally ever present and alert mind – awareness. Any action he / she may make in the physical world is taken from the understanding that being or doing anything is NOT one's true self but merely the tool or clothing that has its own and particular functionality used to fulfil desires or duties in the lay person and the Bodhisaatva's actions on the physical plane. The Bodhisaatva is very aware that there is no personal self and is as Mr Chopra so rightly says ' is as a drop in the ocean ' which is one and the same thing – a connection or jewel in the cosmic mind . I find the flower on the plant or the fruit on the tree as being quite a good metaphor for this understanding.
Therefore all thoughts and actions are not taken out of an unthinking response ( reaction ) but from a calm mind knowning that there is ultimately nothing to prove or achieve .. only to realize the true nature of mind as being none other than that of cosmic / god or Buddha and to be present in this world to help others out realize their true nature and to end their suffering and misunderstanding / some say ignorance of the process
He who tries to usurp ' gods/ the Dharma ' words and wisdom as ' his own ' or from his self is a fool – and a really big fool !!!!
I would love to read more from Zenmonk
Many thanks and kind regards and best wishes to all here
Kay
There is this persistent myth that awakening takes care of everything, in the way mentioned in the original blog post. It doesn't. It shows us where we have been stuck and we can see more clearly what to do but it's neither a one shot deal, nor does it take care of all the mundane stuff for us as it were. This is one reason why, in some traditions, awakening is seen as the beginning of the path, not an end in itself.
Also, the 'highest' action is done without intent. It's not deliberate in that sense. It doesn't go through the head. Something that you alluded to Kay.
Well I actually don't know what a ' highest action ' is.. actions are actions and none of them belong to what I am referring to.. I can only state that at this time my awareness is focused on Indra's net and that there is only multiple instances and reflections of one particle all binding together to appear as many things. Samantabhadra as the one particle wave (using the scientific jargon ) and the multiplicities as his ' consort ' Samantabhadri
I am reading this at the moment
http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/issues/2006/fall/i…
So Ultimately everything is Samatabhadra as me and you
Hi pleased to meet you… er me
and will the real me please stand up hehe
I think there is some difference in the reading enlightenment and awakening. I agree, that awakening is the initial stage of the path, but enlightenment is, for sure, the paramount and the final stage. After enlightenment, nothing remains to be taken care of.
I see it the other way around > Isn't the term enlightenment usually coming from lightning and the vajra or thunderbolt of Indra and or Thor / Zeus a shock that can awaken you but the alarm clock is as good as anything else if we are honest and that is one hell of a buddha bell ringing in your ear – -
Buddha means awakened and staying awake …. even in death ?
Being present at all levels of awareness from the largest / universal to the smallest sub atomic .. finding yourself as the source of your own universe and responsible for everything you have created within it ?
Nice piece by Aitken and a piece that is rooted in the discipline of Koan training. It is a reminder that, rather than the potential mythic inflation of "every thing is Buddha" or Samantabhadra or whatever, that the Jewel Net of Indra and other devices simply point to the simple fact that none of us are separate and isolated.
And awakening and enlightenment are the same thing and neither is the final stage. Not in Zen at least or Sufism or in contemplative Christianity for example. In such traditions, enlightenment is seen as the beginning of real training, not the end. It is only after awakening that one learns how to function and speak in a world that is so very different to how most people see the world and there are different degrees and depths to such awakenings. There is of course the idea of 'Anutara Samyak Sambodhi' or full and complete Enlightenment but it's not really something that most of us have to worry about at any time soon. As Aitken puts it in the talk, "For the mature Zen student, this hits the nail on the head. Whammo! The abrupt rise of realization from one
Those Oxherding pictures are of course ' simply ' brilliant – that is, up to the last one. I don't know in which thread I mentioned the void and drawing a boundary ( circle ) within it to make the unknown, known, but this is the ' origin of the unavoidable lie / false statement that every master or disciple makes – and has only two choices.. to remain silent or to give a false answer. Why do I say this.. well the circle is not symbolic of the void because ,as I said in that particular thread, geometry , math physics science and all concepts fall away in the void or boundlesnesss because there are no parameters or points of reference. A circle is more the symbol of creation and finiteness than it is of infinity and void which I maintain can have no symbol or explanation. One cannot have a circle as a something being symbolic of no concept – even the most abstract ones !
So this wonderful symbol for me is merely the boundary marker between known and unknown . All creation concepts are within that circle and boundlessness is without it . NO THING is the final concept but is of itself contradictory to the boundlessness one wishes to describe .. perhaps the original sin / lie that we are born with and know no way of eradicating it in creation !
But the circle or boundary both in scientific and philosophical / religious terms must have some extraordinary properties regarding the inside of the circle which according to the drawing is empty inside as . So I say to myself is this circle actually the membrane that wraps around creation ?
I see the Master as walking the rim of that circle – his feet in creation but his head in infinity
Aha, good point. Except that the 'emtpy circle' is the 8th stage or picture except in some versions. The last stage in the more complete versions is that of 'entering the market place with bliss bestowing hands' And, as Paul Rep's translation of Kakuan's original verses and commentary put it,
Barefooted and naked of breast,
I mingle with the people of the world.
My clothes are ragged and dust-laden,
and I am ever blissful.
I use no magic to extend my life;
Now, before me, the dead trees become alive.
Comment:
Inside my gate, a thousand sages do not know me.
The beauty of my garden is invisible.
Why should one search for the footprints of the patriarchs?
I go to the market place with my wine bottle
and return home with my staff.
I visit the wineshop and the market,
and everyone I look upon becomes enlightened.
These pictures, describing the stages of practice/awkening and maturation of that awakening, for those unfamiliar with them can be found here:
http://www.terebess.hu/english/oxherd.html
And
http://www.terebess.hu/english/oxherding.html
Rouzzana, "After enlightenment, nothing remains to be taken care of." I would put it rather that there is always something to be taken care of, but that if we're awake we see what needs taking care of more clearly. And some have defined awakening in fact as just this – being able to respond completely and appropriately to whatever comes up, without self consciousness, without holding anything back, in this very moment.
A 13th Century Japanese dude by the name of Dogen put it this way:
"The mind of the ancient Buddhas should not be understood as something irrelevant to your experience, as some mind which exists from the beginningless past, for it is the mind which eats rice gruel or tastes other food in your ordinary everyday life, it is the mind which is grass, the mind which is water.
Within this life just as it is, is the act of sitting like a Buddha (Zazen), which is called "arousing the thought of Enlightenment." The conditions for arousing the thought of Enlightenment do not come from anywhere else. It is the Enlightened mind which arouses the thought of Enlightenment. One honors the Buddha with a grain of sand; one honors the Buddha with the water in which rice has been soaked. One offers a handful of food to living creatures…"
- Arousing the Mind of Enlightenment – Ehei Dogen Zenji
Of course that ' void' is within all creation and the boundary marker just as it is beyond creation and symbolized as the spiritual river that flows through all things.. that is the point of meditation to awaken within it – one is already within it in life and in death the goal is to know and experience it – it surely must be the esoteric aim of any Baptism ritual save that the meaning has been lost it seems ;(
Often people are unaware, largely perhaps because of the negative connotations of terms such as void or emptiness that the original term – Sunyata, also indicates potentiality and fullness.
Very good links thank you.. Buddha
!
Is waiting for a scientific interpretation as well
… and joining the two together will be a new time for Man ?
@zenmonk ah yes – one gives up everything one has in order to gain the Universe.. a wise investment it seems
""If it's Truth we're after, we'll find that we cannot start with any assumptions or concepts whatsoever. Instead, we must approach the world with bare, naked attention, seeing it without any mental bias — without concepts, beliefs, preconceptions, presumptions, or expectations."
- Steve Hagen – Buddhism is Not What You Think: Finding Freedom Beyond Beliefs
@zenmonk .. I meant to post this the other day about the oxherding pictures
http://www.shambhala.org/dharma/ctr/oxherding/
Chogyam Trungpa
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