My daughter needs to do her homework at the CC and so here we are with me not even having a chance for a shower since i arrived home from work. It was a long tedious day at work with hardly any day trippers going into the resort what with the rain and it being a school day.
I have been doing alot of sketching for the past few days mostly reproductions of blak and white pictures that attracts my fancy and my caricatures. At the same time i am also rereading the " Complete Enlightenment" a Zen book by the Chan' Master Sheng Yen. It is a comentary on the Buddha's sutra which was said to have been based on his answers to questions raised by some of the foremost boddhisatvas regarding the understanding of and practices for the achievement of Complete Enlightenment. This writing and commentaries by the Chan Master is one of the most profound and easily understood of writings on the subject of Buddhism and in particular with regard to the the explainantion of a Zen teaching.
What i have learned and came to understand of Zen while living and practicing at the San Francisco Zen Center at Green Gulch and Tassajara Zen Mountain Retreat has been brought to clearer light. I found Zen to be the closest way I could accept about my life and the way I chose to live life. It is clear cut with no holds barred and it allows for one to make mistakes and feel free from too much guilt. It allows a man to be more human and yet tells him that at the end of the day there nothing to be excited about because it is all an illusion, life is an Illusion. The Buddha preached and thought this truth in every sermen he had given admonishing those who are ignorant enough to believe in the so called "self" that we all assume to be who we are. He demanded that we investigate and discover the Truth that liberates us from the bonds that this belive has held us through out our lives. He pointed out h
ow we have become slaves on account of this misconception.
In Islam the whole idea of arriving at being empty or void is called 'Fana'" and this to me is not unlike what the Buddha has been trying to preach or make me see. I think the Prophet was said to have said that one has to die before one dies the physical death in oder to be reborn in this life. The Buddha simply wants us to wake up from our dreamstate of our ignorant life. Life is suffering only because we have been living in ignorance to the fact that we are asleep not knowing that our life is but a dream, we create this dreams albeit individually or collectively and dremas more than often has the tendency to turn into nightmares sooner or later and nightmares are what we are looking at in this day and age of ours. All over the world we kill and send millions into exile, destroy our environment wantonly like there is no tomorrow, we are full of greed, hate and dellusions. Sometimes this is achieved all in the name of an ideology or a belief system, an ism or a religion all in the name of the greater good that we be
leive is good for ourselves but not for others.
Many of us believe in the Universal Creative Mind that governs all that we see and do but there is very few that actualize this creative acts in changing the course of our human fate and the Buddha and the Prophet of Islam were among the few who saw through this Mayavic life that we lead and the course it is leading us towards our own self destruction. Ironically the destruction of the self is what is prpofessed by the two great Souls but not in the manner of blind ignorance which causes more suffering than deliverance of beings from suffering. Oh well let me not get carried away with my thoughts and understanding on this subject as I am falling asleep right now and i hate to wake up with a nightmare.
I have been doing alot of sketching for the past few days mostly reproductions of blak and white pictures that attracts my fancy and my caricatures. At the same time i am also rereading the " Complete Enlightenment" a Zen book by the Chan' Master Sheng Yen. It is a comentary on the Buddha's sutra which was said to have been based on his answers to questions raised by some of the foremost boddhisatvas regarding the understanding of and practices for the achievement of Complete Enlightenment. This writing and commentaries by the Chan Master is one of the most profound and easily understood of writings on the subject of Buddhism and in particular with regard to the the explainantion of a Zen teaching.
What i have learned and came to understand of Zen while living and practicing at the San Francisco Zen Center at Green Gulch and Tassajara Zen Mountain Retreat has been brought to clearer light. I found Zen to be the closest way I could accept about my life and the way I chose to live life. It is clear cut with no holds barred and it allows for one to make mistakes and feel free from too much guilt. It allows a man to be more human and yet tells him that at the end of the day there nothing to be excited about because it is all an illusion, life is an Illusion. The Buddha preached and thought this truth in every sermen he had given admonishing those who are ignorant enough to believe in the so called "self" that we all assume to be who we are. He demanded that we investigate and discover the Truth that liberates us from the bonds that this belive has held us through out our lives. He pointed out h
ow we have become slaves on account of this misconception.In Islam the whole idea of arriving at being empty or void is called 'Fana'" and this to me is not unlike what the Buddha has been trying to preach or make me see. I think the Prophet was said to have said that one has to die before one dies the physical death in oder to be reborn in this life. The Buddha simply wants us to wake up from our dreamstate of our ignorant life. Life is suffering only because we have been living in ignorance to the fact that we are asleep not knowing that our life is but a dream, we create this dreams albeit individually or collectively and dremas more than often has the tendency to turn into nightmares sooner or later and nightmares are what we are looking at in this day and age of ours. All over the world we kill and send millions into exile, destroy our environment wantonly like there is no tomorrow, we are full of greed, hate and dellusions. Sometimes this is achieved all in the name of an ideology or a belief system, an ism or a religion all in the name of the greater good that we be
leive is good for ourselves but not for others.Many of us believe in the Universal Creative Mind that governs all that we see and do but there is very few that actualize this creative acts in changing the course of our human fate and the Buddha and the Prophet of Islam were among the few who saw through this Mayavic life that we lead and the course it is leading us towards our own self destruction. Ironically the destruction of the self is what is prpofessed by the two great Souls but not in the manner of blind ignorance which causes more suffering than deliverance of beings from suffering. Oh well let me not get carried away with my thoughts and understanding on this subject as I am falling asleep right now and i hate to wake up with a nightmare.
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