THE GREAT INTERNAL SPACE

What opens inside you when you’re willing to entertain the possibility that things may be different than you thought they were is what I call the “great internal space”: a place where you come to know that you don’t know.

This is really the entry point into the end of suffering: when you become conscious of the fact that you don’t really know. I mean that you don’t really know anything—that you don’t really understand the world, you don’t really understand each other, you don’t really understand yourself.

This is such an obvious thing when we really take a moment and look around. When we look at the world that human beings have created and how we relate to each other, it’s so obvious that we don’t really know anything at all.

This is one of the things that I saw when I was a little child: This adult world has an insane quality to it. Everybody’s going around pretending like they really know things, pretending like they know what’s real and what’s not, pretending they know what’s right, pretending they know who’s wrong, but actually nobody really knows. But this is something we’re afraid of. We don’t really want to admit that nobody really knows.

Again, we can see that there’s a great unwillingness in most of us to be disturbed in this way. But if you’ve suffered enough—and I imagine that you have suffered plenty—then maybe you are willing to be disturbed. Maybe your suffering has created a longing for this great internal space.
~Adyashanti, Falling into Grace

We are all created equal

“If you believe that anyone’s action is bad, how can you see the good in it? How can you see the good that comes out of it, maybe years later?

If you see anyone as bad, how can you understand that we are all created equal?

We’re all teachers by the way we live. A blind drunk can teach more about why not to drink than an abstinent man in all his piety.

No one has more or less goodness. No one who ever lived is a better or a worse human being than you.”
~Byron Katie

Dr. Brené Brown on Blame

You are probably a bit of a blamer - most of us are. But why should we give it up? In this witty sequel of RSA Short, inspirational thinker Brené Brown considers why we blame others, how it sabotages our relationships, and why we desperately need to move beyond this toxic behaviour:

The Intelligence of everything

"How do you know that you are a higher order of being than a potato?"
Speech by Alan Watts


Alan talks about his revelation of intelligent nature:

What Zen isn't

"Zen isn’t simplifying your life. Zen is simply life."

There’s a lot of talk about Zen, but until you topple the tower of babble, it isn’t Zen.

Zen isn’t a habit. It is the absence of all habits and conditioning. There are no habits in Zen, because everything, everywhere, everytime is altogether new.

Zen isn’t simplifying your life. Zen is simply life. When we don’t fuss with it, life simplifies itself.

Zen isn’t waking up so you can get out of bed. Zen is getting out of bed so you can wake up.

Zen isn’t eating less, spending less, talking less or working less. It’s wanting less, fearing less, worrying less and striving less. The latter takes care of the former.

Zen isn’t about making a change in your life. It is about living the change you already are.

Zen isn’t a moment of Zen. It is eternal. It is now. Zen never ends.

Now, how do you come to see and believe this for yourself? Certainly not by reading about it, although one or two good books every now and then won’t hurt. You know by what you practice, or it isn’t Zen.
~Karen Maezen Miller

Suffering is an illusion

The illusion:

Suffering is an illusion. You feel compassion for the beings who suffer, but there is no reason for you to become emotional yourself. Because suffering does not exist, it can be removed.

Even your emotions do not really exist. You may not be able to actually experience other people’s emotions, but you can certainly experience your own. Your emotions need no introduction, as you already know them. In fact, you can examine them in a thorough way.

When you experience an emotion, find out how it exists. You can research it by your mind because it is fresh and within you, and you experience it. See whether the emotion is in your skin, or in your bones, or in your blood. In which part of your body is it located? When you look, you will not find the emotion anywhere. By the time you decide to have a good look at it, the emotion is already lost. So where did it go? Is it hiding somewhere in one corner of your body? Where is the emotion? When you examine both negative and positive emotions in this way, you will not find them as having any real existence.

When somebody makes you angry, is that anger coming from a place inside him to you? Or is the anger inside you? Examine it. Did he throw the anger at you? Check it! Or is your anger like a light that can be switched on? If so, where is the switch? Analyse and examine every part of your mind relative to the anger that is there. Rummage through all parts of yourself to see if the emotion really exists somewhere in you, or not. What caused your anger? Is the anger caused by somebody, if so, how?

You can examine an emotion with the kind of precision I have just described. Every emotion can become an object of your mental examination. None of the emotions truly exist. Instead, what you will find is just emptiness – the emptiness of anger and the emptiness of every emotion. This is the way to develop the wisdom in your mind by means of your emotions.

An emotion is easy to examine, but so is a non-emotional thought – neither exists. The reality of all thoughts is non-existence, yet superficially, they appear clearly like a mirage. Depression, anxiety, all thoughts and emotions are like waves of the mind. When the wave comes, you feel it. When it has subsided, you don’t experience it.
The wave or thought is from your mind; this is why you can experience it. When it is there, examine it, and you will find nothing. Don’t try to find it in a deliberate or aggressive way, as if you have to find it. That would be too emotional and extreme. You look, and finding nothing, you keep that awareness. This is how you maintain an analytical, and accurate view of mind.

It makes no difference whether the mental happening is positive, or negative. What makes you happy should be examined. What makes you sad or cry, should also be examined. Finding nothing, you might feel at a lost, and that feeling should also be examined. In other words, examine anything and everything. You will find nothing. Keep that view, and you will have a fresh experience of the real nature, or the pure part of your mind. When you do, you
will also see that the minds of others are the same. All suffering are just waves of the mind, having no true existence. They are like reflections, reflections from a crystal, mirages, or dreams – none of them exist solidly in the least.
~Shamar Rinpoche, Mahamudra Curriculum

Stroke of insight ~Jill Bolte Taylor

Brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor studied her own stroke as it happened -- and has become a powerful voice for brain recovery:



To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful. It means that you are capable of tapping into a blissful state of mind amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life.
~Jill Bolte Taylor

Although many of us may think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, biologically we are feeling creatures that think.
~Jill Bolte Taylor

I love knowing that I am simultaneously as big as the universe and yet merely a heap of star dust.
~Jill Bolte Taylor

The Truth of Zen

Never knowing; always emptying:

Not thinking about anything is Zen.
Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down;
Everything you do is Zen.
~Bodhi-Dharma

Not-knowing most closely approaches the Truth.
~Zen saying

How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?
~Nan-in

The most important thing is always to keep your beginner's mind. There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, "I know what Zen is," or "I have attained enlightenment." This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner.
~ Shunryu Suzuki-roshi

If you have any image of what the Truth is, slay it immediately because that's not It. We must leave the entire collection of conditioned thought behind and let ourselves be led by the inner thread of silence into the unknown, beyond where all paths end, to that place where we go innocently or not at all, not once but continually.
~Adyashanti

Nothing moves without mind

Peace of mind is not touching anything with mind:

Moving mind

Two men were arguing about a flag flapping in the wind.

"It's the wind that is really moving," stated the first one.

"No, it is the flag that is moving," contended the second.

A Zen master, who happened to be walking by, overheard the debate and interrupted them. "Neither the flag nor the wind is moving," he said, "It is MIND that moves."