Monthly Archives: October 2011

The present and active state of civil unrest* that has been occurring throughout the globe this year is indicative of what transpires when one wakes-up and sees things as they are—which, in this universal sense, has generated the impetus to rise up and do something about it; this translates into the now informed 99% of this saha realm rising up, challenging, and in many instances, overthrowing the status quo (in its various, archaic totalitarian and alleged democratic structures) of the 1%. Will these be truly liberating times…a long overdue resurrection from the pangs of human suffrage? Indeed, what will be revealed? A vast, evolutional leap in human consciousness and collective-liberated resolve; or will it be a decadent decline into former medieval and feudal systems, merely given a newfangled facade created by the latest technologies? We shall have to wait as this great drama continues to unfold. read more

In the Surangama Sutra, the Buddha expounds to Ananda about the two fundamentals. Essentially, they correspond to what we in UnbornMind Zen describe as the two principles: one is the moving principle—i.e., becoming attached and dependent upon all perceptional movement within the realm of phenomena. The other is The Unmoving Principle—the pure, nirvanic element of truth, suprapostional in nature, i.e., never concretized in positioned space or time, yet utterly dynamic in stature. You move and breathe and sleep in It, but you are not It. Were it not for your sudden stirring, It does not move; yet, your first rousing from bed in the morning is only made possible by Its empowering you to do so. It is motionless, yet It still roused Zarathustra from his slumber in the mountains. Meister Eckhart, the great Rhineland mystic wrote, “The eyes with which I see God, are the same eyes that God sees me.” read more

Within the lore of Buddhism, rebirth as a human is considered very rare for someone located within the lower regions of the unwholesome, like a hell-dweller or a hungry ghost. In fact, there is a marvelous allegory found in the Majjhima Nikaya (129 Balapandita Sutta) that states it would be easier for a blind aged tortoise, rising from the depths of the ocean once every 100 years, to pass its head through a bobbling yoke on the tumultuous surface waves than for someone in these lower regions to experience rebirth as a human being. This is quite impossible, because as it states in the sutta, one is completely devoid of the Dharma within these damnable regions and hence no chance of ever gaining the proper buddha-gnosis to be reborn under favorable circumstances. read more