La pensée de la semaine - Matthieu Ricard - Semaine #26

La pensée de la semaine - Matthieu Ricard

Comme l'étoile filante, le mirage, la flamme,
L'illusion d'optique, la goutte de rosée et la bulle sur l'eau,
Le rêve, l'éclair et le nuage,
Considère ainsi toute chose composée.


SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA (5th century BC)
Buddha Shakyamouni, Udanavarga (ched du mjod pa'i mtshoms), une collection de versets extraits du canon bouddhique compilé par Dharmatrata (début du IVe siècle)

A drink of water - Jeffrey Harrison

 A Drink of Water

BY JEFFREY HARRISON

When my nineteen-year-old son turns on the kitchen tap

and leans down over the sink and tilts his head sideways

to drink directly from the stream of cool water,

I think of my older brother, now almost ten years gone,

who used to do the same thing at that age;

 

And when he lifts his head back up and, satisfied,

wipes the water dripping from his cheek

with his shirtsleeve, it's the same casual gesture

my brother used to make; and I don't tell him

to use a glass, the way our father told my brother,

 

because I like remembering my brother

when he was young, decades before anything

went wrong, and I like the way my son

becomes a little more my brother for a moment

through this small habit born of a simple need,

 

which, natural and unprompted, ties them together

across the bounds of death, and across time . . .

as if the clear stream flowed between two worlds

and entered this one through the kitchen faucet,

my son and brother drinking the same water.

found via Danna Faulds, poet search

Mary Oliver's 'Wild Geese'

 Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-poem read by Hugh Byrne on Dec 6, 2020

Already awake

When I'm feeling contracted, my mind fails to see what possibilities are right in front of me. ~ Zen Moments

Norm Randolph "You Are Buddha"

This Reality of Awakeness or Buddha, which is clear and obvious, is usually ignored or overlooked. It is ignored by getting caught up in the belief in separation of self and other and the belief in a dualistically structured Reality. Reality is ignored when we are caught up in these beliefs and respond and act based on these beliefs. We are profoundly taken in by these beliefs in many ways. We have many beliefs or assumptions about ourselves, others, and the nature of Reality, and we live our lives based on these beliefs. This is the ignorance by which our Buddhahood is ignored.

We don’t try to get rid of beliefs. We don’t try to get rid of the ignoring or ignorance. We don’t try to get rid of the emotional responses, desires, and patterns of behavior based on this igno­rance. Instead, we are just aware of them. Eventually these can be seen as empty, illusory manifes­tations of the True Self or Buddha—then they cease to be problems. Then they can be seen as helpful pointers—showing us how we are interpreting Reality, how we are responding to it, how we are getting stuck, and how we can be released. In this practice of Awakeness the ways in which the True Self is ignored can eventually be seen through, and they drop away by themselves.

Suzuki Roshi used to say, “Since you are Buddha, you must be Buddha. That is our practice.” In a lecture he gave at the monastery at Tassajara in July 1968 he said, “When it is hot you should be hot Buddha. When it is cold you should be cold Buddha.”

He went on to say that each individual, each thing, each event, each situation, each ex­perience is Buddha. Each thought, each feeling, each emotion, each desire, each perception, each state of consciousness is Buddha. When you realize that you are Buddha and understand everything as an unfolding of the Truth, then whatever you experience is the actual teaching of Buddha, and whatever you do is the actual practice of Buddha.

Usually people practice for a long time believing that it is a separate ego self who is carrying out this practice. With continued practice, with help from a teacher, this belief can eventually be seen through.  People usually begin practice with the belief that after a long time, they will eventually attain Enlightenment. But Supreme Enlightenment or Buddha is being directly experienced now. It is not a matter of practicing for a long time and eventually attaining Enlightenment.

Most people starting out in this practice believe that practice is a means to attain Enlightenment. They believe practice and Enlightenment have a dualistic, before-and-after, means-and-end relationship. But, with continued practice, this belief can eventually be seen through. It becomes clear that Enlightenment, Buddha, or Truth is what we are and that practice and Enlightenment are one.

Some questions might arise, such as, “Who practices?” “Who eventually sees?” “What is eventually seen?” and “How long is eventually?”

These are interesting questions, but don’t try to figure out or conceptually grasp particular answers. Whatever concepts or beliefs we have about Reality are just limited views. It is by holding to these beliefs and limited views about Reality that the actual Reality—Buddha—is overlooked.