… dat we zonder meer aannemen dat ons overleveringsinstinct en de angst voor de dood ons moeten afhouden van het geluk van pure, niet geïnterpreteerde ervaringen, waarin lichaam, geest en natuur één zijn.
Deze degradatie van onze manier van kijken, het terugdeinzen voor verwondering, het achteruitkrabbelen als kreeften in veilige rotsspleten in plaats van vrijuit te durven zwemmen, het wanhopige gevoel dat we het leven niet leven, wordt weerspiegeld in de overvloed zonder vreugde, de alles verterende geldpest en de schaamteloze vervuiling van de aarde, de lucht en het water waar we uit zijn voortgekomen.
(Peter Matthiesen, De Sneeuwluipaard)
At present the state of ordinary people is like pure gold covered with dirt. Our buddha nature is covered by temporary obscurations. One of the main obscurations that need to be purified is our fixation on duality, on solid reality. Once it is purified, then gold is just gold. As long as our mind is confused, bewildered, deluded and mistaken, our buddha nature continues to be dragged through the realms of samsara. But when the mind is unconfused, unmistaken, and undeluded, it is the buddha nature itself. It is not that the buddha nature is one thing and our mind is another separate thing. They are not two different entities. The undeluded mind itself is the pure gold, the buddha nature. Sentient beings do not have two minds. When the mind is deluded, it is given the name sentient being. When the mind is undeluded, unmistaken, it is called buddha.
(Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche in As It Is, Vol. I, ‘The Fourth Dharma of Gampopa)
We see, then, that the self too is an imaginary story, just like nations, gods and money. Each of us has a sophisticated system that throws away most of our experiences, keeps only a few choice samples, mixes them up with bits from movies we saw, novels we read, speeches we heard, and from our own daydreams, and weaves out of all that jumble a seemingly coherent story about who I am, where I came from and where I am going. This story tells me what to love, whom to hate and what to do with myself. This story may even cause me to sacrifice my life, if that’s what the plot requires. We all have our genre. Some people live a tragedy, others inhabit a never-ending religious drama, some approach life as if it were an action film, and not a few act as if in a comedy.
But in the end, they are all just stories.
(Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus)
“Where is action? Where is there a new manner of living? Not in death but in life. You are pursuing the ideal, the hope, and this pursuit you call action, revolution. Your ideal, your hope is the projection of the mind away from what is. The mind, being the result of the past, is bringing out of itself a pattern for the new, and this you call revolution. Your new life is the same old one in different clothes. The past and the future do not hold life; they have the remembrance of life and the hope of life, but they are not the living. The action of the mind is not living. The mind can act only within the frame of death, and revolution based on death is only more darkness, more destruction and misery.
Is it possible for the mind to be without a pattern, to be free of this backward and forward swing of desire? It is definitely possible. Such action is living in the now.”
(Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on living).
Perhaps there is no such thing as finding God first, and then living; it may be that God is to be found in the very understanding of this complex process called life.
(Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on living)
Religion is not a matter of dogmas and beliefs, of rituals and superstitions; nor is it the cultivation of personal salvation which is a self-centred activity. Religion is the total way of life; it is the understanding of truth, which is not a projection of the mind.
(Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on living)
I started giving people advice on understanding the nature of mind…maybe my teaching style was just fooling everybody, making it too simple. But on the other hand, this is really how it is! It is the truth. What is the use of trying to sit and push and struggle, when we can allow the three kayas of buddhahood to be naturally present? Why do we have to strain and contort ourselves in an uncomfortable posture and in an uptight meditative state with some hope that in the future, after lots of effort, we may get there? We don’t need to go through all that trouble and tension. All we need to do is totally let be and recognize our nature right now.
(Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche in ‘Blazing Splendor’)
Surely, peace comes into being, not through safeguards, sanctions and guarantees, but it is there when you are not – you who are the agent of conflict with your ambitions and frustrations.
(Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on living)
Daarom geeft ik geen namen
ik ga maar en ben
(J.C. van Schagen in ‘Narrenwijsheid’)
