try Valarian tea for the calming of the nerves; only problem is it smells like cat urine!

OK Juditha - a toasted crumpet, dripping with butter and oozing marmalade ... no argument there!

I recall the very Zen story about the monk who had been chased by a tiger.  He wound up jumping over a cliff where he grabbed a root, and soon was suspended in the air above a yawning chasm, with the tiger snapping at him from inches above. About then a mouse appeared and began to gnaw at the root he was holding. The monk noticed that a wild strawberry was growing from the side of the cliff, and reaching out, he popped it into his mouth. Delicious! It was the best he had ever tasted.

This seems to be where we get when we are whacked by the wake-up stick. 100% awareness. But of itself, that's just another way to be in the world. The brain wakes up, but can only tell us brain-thoughts about the brain-world. There seems to be good reason to look a little farther, in which case we discover a spiritual reality underlying the physical one. And looking a little farther than that we arrive at Event One, and behind that we see nothing - but that seems to be where the action really is.

Hmm - coffee shop is out of crumpets, so I had to rough it with banana nut bread. Life is hard some days.

d

I love that story about the cliff and the strawberry. I can almost feel myself dangling there and then, the bliss of the strawberry.

I don't always dangle so gracefully as that monk. But we all dangle in one way or another, don't we? What did the tiger look like for you? I think my tiger is called time. It chases me until I stop running.

But, yes, Dave, Juditha, all of you, this is bliss, to return to see a tea party in progress

After all, there is no tea party exactly like this one, crumpetless, or not....

love, blink

good thought Kathy, being one with god is like a daily thing I agree.

ok, Rob Calkins is my friend! and yours too. he's a dear forum member who is about to do Gateway, where one gets in touch with one's guides, and/or higher self.

Oct 20th he's going to TMI. Send him positive thoughts if you will. he's a sweetheart and guess what he did? he dropped in to see me as he was traveling around through arizona and brought me TWO packages of real honest to goodness crumpets which I never laid these particular eyes on in this particular lifetime. then he made me buy some strawberry jam to go with. so there they sit in me fridge unopened. everytime I look in the fridge I am reminded of Rob's visit and how we talked each other's ears off about these topics here on the board mostly.
I can't bring myself to eat the crumpets!    for one thing gang, I swore off eating butter when I lost weight and everyone knows you need to pour butter on a crumpet right?
besides, I like to open my fridge and get this burst of happiness that he came to see me! (please don't let them turn into fungus dear god..)

love, alysia

First of all, for most of his life Osho was known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. He was a guru with a terrible reputation. Does anybody remember reading about a guru who had a farm in Oregon where he and his followers lived? The one who owned 150 Rolls Royces? This is him. Near the end of this life he changed his name. If I remember right, he told his followers he was doing so in order to announce that he is the reincarnation of the Buddha. A funny thing to do after so many years.  Some would say he did so in order to dissassociate himself from all of his legal problems. Including when the United States kicked him out of the country.

It isn't completely accurate to state that Boddhidarma started Zen. He traveled from India to China and started Chan Buddhism. Years later Zen started in Japan.  Even though there is a connection, there are some differences. Koans weren't used in China.  Zen would use them with the hope that a person would experience satori, which in Zen terms means to become enlightened.  Hitting people with a stick served the same purpose (the stick hitting also occurred in China).

The main thing Chan Buddhism was about was trying to obtain instaneous enlightenment. No practice is needed they would say even though things such as monasteries, disciplined life styles and teachers were a part of their tradition. I used to read Chan texts quite a bit, and funny thing is that none of them explained how to become enlightened. They would simply say to rid your self of conceptual thought over and over again without explaining how.

I've found that even though insights can be helpful, no one insight is going to make you a master. If you want to be free to live as the spirit being you are, you have to put in the effort to overcome the thought patterns and attachments that prevent you from doing so.  When you do so you are liable to find out that you are a part of a larger vaster self referred to with terms such as higher self, oversoul, I-there, disk and total self (for Ahso).  I have never read a Chan or Zen text which speaks of such things. Nor do they speak of things such as chakras and spirit guidance. Such teachings certainly don't acknowledge the existence of a Soul. I find it hard to understand how teachings that supposedly represent ultimate wisdom can miss such important things.  

It is from traditions such as Zen that people get the belief that you have to reincarnate over and over again without any say about the matter, until you finally become enlightened. There are numerous sources which show that when it comes to reincarnation, there is much more flexibility.  Related to this, one well known Zen teacher is Bankei.  He used to tell people that after he became enlightened he traveled all over Japan looking for another Zen teacher who was also enlightened. He couldn't find one. One well known Zen teacher told him his knowledge was only intellectual. If what Bankei shared is true, how does the numbers game work out? If only rare exceptions such as Bankei become enlightened, how long will we have to keep reincarnating until we are the rare exception? My feeling is that we just need to grow in love as much as we can while here, and we'll find that there are many ways to grow in the World of spirit.

Eastern teachings are filled with dogmatism just like other religions.  One can see this if one takes a close look at a teaching system such as Tibetan Buddhism and Zen.  For example, there are people in Tibetan Buddhism who as a part of their practice, do 10,000 full body prostrations a day. How can this help a person?

I don't mean to say there haven't been any masters. I believe Jesus was a master. However, I don't believe that somebody who really knew, would associate his or self with a dogmatic system that has been teaching people in a "textbook" manner for years.

Is a dogmatic system more likely to lead to a belief system, or to freedom?

P.S. I agree with Ahso that there is more to finding wisdom than using a technigue that causes your flow of thought to come to a stop.  If one really abided as who/what one is, one could think as much as one wanted. Rather than going around trying to stop your mind by thinking about a koan all day (such as, what is the sound of one had clapping), or waiting for a teacher to suddenly stop your mind by hitting you with a stick, it is better to look for a way to become free of the thought patterns that bind you.

PS I understand Osho's writings are still widely admired in India, so it is perhaos unfair to sweepingly say  his reputation is "terrible" because of some scandals surrouding his community after he moved the the United States

I thought of this, for the Rolls Royces 


While He was in Bethany at the home of Simon the leper, and reclining at the table, there came a woman with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume of pure nard; and she broke the vial and poured it over His head.

But some were indignantly remarking to one another, "Why has this perfume been wasted?

For this perfume might have been sold for over three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor." And they were scolding her.

But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do you bother her? She has done a good deed to Me

For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them; but you do not always have Me.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)

Mark 13

orlando123 wrote on Oct 12^th, 2007 at 4:51pm:



 

  So one bottle of perfumed oil is akin to many, many rolls Royce's and all that other extra stuff that Recoverer mentioned?    Actually, i do get your deeper message behind this post, but you also have to look at this incident in context of what was going on.

   Yeshua knew his public, consistent time with his friends was soon nearing an end. He told them this more than a few times.   They heard, but many did not really listen.   Many (like Judas) still had hopes of a political, King like Messiah coming forth, and leading Israel out of the mouth of the Romans, and its own internally corrupt systems (priests, lawyers, much like today). 

  Miriam M., was one who believed and listened to Yeshua's words, and felt moved that moment to show her love, affection, and respect in a physical act, and he knowing that she would probably become quite upset about the near future conditions surrounding him, decided to just accept her gift in the spirit of which it was given.

  Maybe under different circumstances and with less extreme conditions coming to a head, maybe he would have counseled her to sell this oil, and use the money for others and the poor?  Relativity....

  As far as Osho is concerned, one doesn't end up with 150 R.R.'s just because a bunch of people spontaneously decide to give gifts from the heart, to one not expecting or asking for anything.   It's quite apparent that Osho must have had some kind of liking for R.R.'s, and perhaps even asked for them from others, or put out 'hint, hints'.   Yeshua did not ask for the perfumed oil and it was as far as we know, a one time dealio.

  Or maybe that first part of the above paragraph does happen in your reality and universe? 

  This is why the left brain is important, because in its highest function or purpose, the left brain represents clear discrimination of what's helpful/constructive and what's not.   Otherwise, we would just get lost down the rabbit hole of the Right brains, 'dude believe and do whatever you want to believe' regardless of the positive and negative affects on self and/or others.  Notice how so many stoner types, also tend to be rather right brain lopsided too?