Tag Archives: contemplation

Mañjuśhrī’s Chair

Hui Hai (720-814) 

Q: How is the fundamental Dharma to be practiced? 

A: Only through meditation and dhyana contemplation in samadhi. The Dhyanaparamita Sutra says: “To seek the wisdom of Buddha, you need both dhyana and contemplation. Without dhyana and contemplation together, thought will be disordered and break the root of goodness.” read more

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Melancholia

Writing about Colin Wilson’s, The Outsider, recently reinforced for me a main pericope within its pages—that this “Outsider” is someone who sees “too deep and too much” into the nature of reality and as a result suffers from a lingering existential crisis. Wilson’s main protagonists are prominent figures in literature like the early Romantics, Blake, Keats and Wordsworth; also with philosophers like Nietzsche, and artists like the dancer Nijinsky and Van Goth the painter and visionaries like H.G. Wells. In his subsequent publication, Religion and the Rebel, Wilson says that these “Outsiders” are like “pimples appearing on the face of civilization” and that they are never prone to resigning themselves to the “insider” malaise of conventionality, or what the Zennist recently described as “consensus reality.” As a result, many of them succumbed to the depths of despair—some falling into madness like Nietzsche and Nijinsky, and some even committing suicide like Van Goth. What is it about the essential nature of these “Outsiders”, possessing great creative talent and keen insight into what really makes things tick, while at the same time feeling the eternal pangs of seeing “too deep and too much.” There was a term very much in vogue one time in creative circles that aptly describes this “Outsider” condition, and that is Melancholia. read more

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Solitude

As the dying embers of 2011 fade away into the rising horizon of January and the increasing frigid temperatures experienced in northern climes, it is a good opportunity to turn-about from all the crazed excessiveness of the holiday turmoil and just gently settle-in to the contemplative dimension that Winter Stillness can offer, namely Solitude itself. Usually when one considers solitude, images of locations that offer seclusion and solace from all sensory stimulations—like monasteries, temples, retreat centers, a mountain escape—immediately come to mind that define the exact parameters of what constitutes solitude. Having experienced such “retreat” locations in the past—for many years I frequented a Carmelite House of Prayer that was neatly nestled in the majestic mountains of New Hampshire—I can say with certainty that it was good and healthy and spiritually nourishing to frequent this setting from time to time to relish in the quietude it so graciously offered; yet, what about the other 99% of the time—is solitude necessarily defined by a location? read more

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Seek Ye Not

The great Rhineland Mystic, Meister Eckhart, expressed the opening of the dark principle in this fashion: “Seek God, so as never to find him”. Eckhart’s statement is packed with dharma-delight; if you’re trying to capture the essence of the Absolute Unknowable (cloaked by the term God), then It will constantly elude your efforts.  The Ecclesiastical authorities of his day could never pin Meister Eckhart down, although they were able to silence his profound mystical writings from gaining any merit within the exoteric church. Yet, his marvelous insights have outlived the Magisterial Monsters of his time and his work continues to shine within both apophatic and kataphatic spiritual traditions. In light of the Buddhadharma of the Sacred Unknowable, the beloved dark pearl of the Unborn Mind cannot be discovered through any obtuse discursive searching, but rather through a way of surrendering all sensate faculties in favor of the supraessential light of unbounded and undivided bodhipower. (The power of the awakened spirit-mind) read more

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Contemplation

The dark contemplation, aligned with the Spirit of Bodhi, descends like a blanket of divine darkness over the sensate and spiritual faculties of the adept. What transpires next is a refined cleansing of both faculties. Firstly, the skandhas are purged, awakening the bodhichild from its former slumber within endless cycles of desire—its eyes now beholding the undivided awareness power of the Unborn Mind. Now forming within the dark-garbha of superessential light, this child’s own Bodhisoul is marked with auspicious qualities of buddhaic grace, thus initiating its own baptism in union with the Unborn Spirit and Mind. read more

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