sse_hu - getting rid of thoughts

[Guest guest]

, "MICHAEL BINDEL"

<michael_bindel@h...> wrote:

> Dear Mr. Shaws

thank you

 

it is "so simple" that i could not trust my intuition

 

getting rid of all thoughts "just" being "empty" leads us (at least

"me") in a state which i call "sat chit ananda"

 

starting to think again by being drawn into "normal life" a n d

not being attentive enough: suffering

 

is this something which makes sense to you too???

 

 

in Sri Ramana Maharshi

 

 

sse_hu

 

 

 

 

 

The unborn Buddha-mind deals freely and spontaneously with anything

that presents itself to it. But if something should happen to make you

change the Buddha-mind into thought, then you run into trouble and

loose that freedom. Let me give you an example. Suppose a woman is

engaged in sewing something. A friend enters the room and begins

speaking to her. As long as she listens to her friend and sews in the

Unborn, she has no trouble doing both. But if she gives her attention

to her friends words and a thought arrises in her mind as she thinks

about what to reply, her hands stop sewing; if she turns her attention

to her sewing and thinks about that, she fails to catch everything her

friend is saying, and the conversation does not procede smoothly. In

either case, her Buddha-mind has slipped from the place of the Unborn.

She has transformed it into thought. As her thoughts fix upon one

thing, they're blank to all others, depriving her mind of its freedom.

 

-Bankei Yotaku (1622-1693)

 

stay free and unborn,

 

Shawn

 

more from the Unborn: ( Zen Master Bankei)

 

Your self-partiality is at the root of all your illusions. There

aren't any illusions when you don't have this preference for yourself.

If the men sitting next to you start quarreling, it may be easy for

you to tell which of the disputants is in the right and which in the

wrong, because you're not involved yourself. You are a bystander, so

you can keep a cool head. But what if you have a part in it? Then you

take your own side and oppose the other fellow. As you fight with one

another, you transform your Buddha-mind into fighting spirits.

 

Or again, because of the buddha-mind's wonderful illuminative

wisdom, such things you have done and experienced in the past cannot

fail to be reflected in it. If you fix onto those images as they

reflect, you are unwittingly creating illusion. The thoughts do not

already exist at the place those images are reflecting; they are

caused by your past experiences and occur when things you have seen

and heard in the past are reflected on the Buddha-mind. But thoughts

originally have no real substance. So if they are reflected, you

should just let them be reflected, and let them arise when they arise.

Don't have any thought to stop them. If they stop, let them stop.

Don't pay any attention to them. Leave them alone. Then illusions

won't appear. And since there are no illusions when you don't take

note of the reflected images, while those may be reflected in the

mind, it's just the same as if they weren't. A thousand thoughts may

arise, yet it's just as though they hadn't. They won't give you a bit

of trouble. You won't have any thoughts to clear from your mind- not a

single thought to cut off.

 

We are already free,

 

In honor of the Masters,

 

)))))Shawn