It's New Year's Eve, Chinese-stylee.
I've spent the morning reading through a notebook, and came across my scrawlings from December 31st 2011, a few weeks ago. I was struck by this writing, a kind of stream-of-consciousness. I'm not sure what it is. So I've decided to type it here.
I've included above an image of Budai (or Hotei), the Laughing Buddha, to remind us all that my thoughts and experience are entirely subjective. This is not Buddha-nature. This is my personal, gut reaction, streaming through pen and ink, trying to name a sensation permeating the air around me.
New Year's Eve 2011
With Avalokiteshvara Prayers in Three Sittings
White light and tactile effects, like a dimension itself has entered the room. Brings tears, washing through my eyes. Brings confidence, outer manifestation. Compassion takes an actual form. How rare.
It strikes me that all I need to do is work with the crystal that is my mind. Sharpen it, purify it, work off all those fragments, dirt. That is all.
Build the inner city of enlightenment.
Literally, spend every single day polishing this jewel, training it in concentration, kindness, the ability to care more for others, the ability to lift the hyper focus off self, off this one illusive self, and onto all beings. To bind my mind to breath and to virtue, and to hold it there with alertness and mindfulness.
To give, joyfully, and to only live to give - my time, joy, help, money.
With time, with purification, the Buddhas will sit around me and share their light and fill this body and mind so it becomes like the moon, a reflection of their light. So that it may benefit all those who are lost and need to find
the way.
There is such warmth and such a vast scale to the mind that ushers all beings into its care. Such soft friendship, love, this tactile thing like golden string hanging in the air. Making everything connected and hopeful.
I am blessed to have the opportunity to sit at a holy shrine, before the field of merit, with instruction and lineage transmission. To sit on a purple rug folded and a ratty purple cushion, with its imprints of folded legs and lotus time.
With its image that has shone in temples of Tibet, before rows of gleaming candlelight. And we beseeched the Buddha of Compassion to heal our world, our family, our friends. All the animals, lower realms. All the separation and confusion, disease, death, violence, loneliness and grief.
To beseech the Buddhas to hold their hearts, lay peace into their minds, and transform us all.
I am beginning to see this path, how it winds to the land of compassion. How the lotus awakens by releasing it's knot, it's clutch at self. How it opens by pushing its petals outwards, to face the rest of the world. To witness and offer absolute openness and say, I hold nothing back for myself.
(Photo credit: Wikki Commons).
I've spent the morning reading through a notebook, and came across my scrawlings from December 31st 2011, a few weeks ago. I was struck by this writing, a kind of stream-of-consciousness. I'm not sure what it is. So I've decided to type it here.
I've included above an image of Budai (or Hotei), the Laughing Buddha, to remind us all that my thoughts and experience are entirely subjective. This is not Buddha-nature. This is my personal, gut reaction, streaming through pen and ink, trying to name a sensation permeating the air around me.
New Year's Eve 2011
With Avalokiteshvara Prayers in Three Sittings
White light and tactile effects, like a dimension itself has entered the room. Brings tears, washing through my eyes. Brings confidence, outer manifestation. Compassion takes an actual form. How rare.
It strikes me that all I need to do is work with the crystal that is my mind. Sharpen it, purify it, work off all those fragments, dirt. That is all.
Build the inner city of enlightenment.
Literally, spend every single day polishing this jewel, training it in concentration, kindness, the ability to care more for others, the ability to lift the hyper focus off self, off this one illusive self, and onto all beings. To bind my mind to breath and to virtue, and to hold it there with alertness and mindfulness.
To give, joyfully, and to only live to give - my time, joy, help, money.
With time, with purification, the Buddhas will sit around me and share their light and fill this body and mind so it becomes like the moon, a reflection of their light. So that it may benefit all those who are lost and need to find
the way.
There is such warmth and such a vast scale to the mind that ushers all beings into its care. Such soft friendship, love, this tactile thing like golden string hanging in the air. Making everything connected and hopeful.
I am blessed to have the opportunity to sit at a holy shrine, before the field of merit, with instruction and lineage transmission. To sit on a purple rug folded and a ratty purple cushion, with its imprints of folded legs and lotus time.
With its image that has shone in temples of Tibet, before rows of gleaming candlelight. And we beseeched the Buddha of Compassion to heal our world, our family, our friends. All the animals, lower realms. All the separation and confusion, disease, death, violence, loneliness and grief.
To beseech the Buddhas to hold their hearts, lay peace into their minds, and transform us all.
I am beginning to see this path, how it winds to the land of compassion. How the lotus awakens by releasing it's knot, it's clutch at self. How it opens by pushing its petals outwards, to face the rest of the world. To witness and offer absolute openness and say, I hold nothing back for myself.
(Photo credit: Wikki Commons).
