SepticPen ...

The flower was raised.
Never has there been anything given to another.
Never has there been anything received from anyone.
Knowing this treasure of the eye of reality, He Smiled in Silence.

Know more about his smile .

The Awakening of Silence Series

After a long search i finally found a few Zen Centers in India. Turns out Zen is extremely rare in India, I don't understand why that is the case. I think Some International Schools must take initiatives to set up centers here.

 

1.Bodhi Zendo,
is located in South India. (please visit their website for knowing more)
http://www.bodhizendo.org/
Bodhi Zendo is situated in Tamil Nadu, South India, in the upper Palani Hills at an altitude of about 1700 m, about 100km north-west of Madurai (National Airport). The nearest village is Perumalmalai and the nearest town, the hill resort of Kodaikanal. The closest International Airports are Chennai/Madras, Bangalore or Trivandrum.

2.Open Dharma
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
Contact: Jaya Ashmore
Email: towardsliberation@yahoo.com
Web site: http://www.opendharma.org
Tradition: Buddhist vipassana (insight),
Zen and metta meditation traditions.
Teachers: Jaya Ashmore and Ajay Singh

To know about other Buddhist Centers in India visit this link
http://www.dharmaweb.org/index.php/India

"
"Master what is the difference between a Epicurean hedonist a Zen Buddhist.?" Asked a student.


"There is none. The Zen Buddhist knows it, the Epicurean hedonist does not know it. That is the only difference, otherwise there is none." Replied the Master

Between the enlightened person[like a zen master] and the unenlightened person[like a zen student] there is no difference at all, not even a single inch's difference. The enlightened person knows it , the unenlightened person does not know about it -- that's all.
The unenlightened person believes in the distance, in the difference , hence he creates it. The enlightened person has come to know that there is no difference. the belief has disappeared.
"

As hard as it is for ones mind to be come still. the process only gets worse when to try to force your mind into stillness- a state of having no identification with your thoughts.


I tried my hand at wall gazing as in Chan or the Zen School, and found my self getting absolutely nowhere. One is supposes to sit erect facing a fall and just start perceiving non-duality by realizing the wall is staring back at you.


I tried to do wall-gazing for the past 2 days. and today something strange happened. i was sitting facing the wall, and apparently there was a window behind my back and the sunlight was just flooding into the room.and i noticed something , a shadow was being cast on the wall before me, and the shadow was a very hazy one, i could actually see many layers of the shadow being superimposed on each other. and there i was looking at a very opaque but not sharp image of mine. it was very unexpected , and i started to observe the shadow , and i notice that i could sit there and just gaze at the shadow for a really long time. I guess the mind it self just gave up arguing and complaining about a shadow of the very body which it had successfully deluded to be identified with it. At last! victory of the identification and the conditioning, albeit a very temporary one. but the fruits of such a dis-identification are very high indeed.


and so i have been shadow-wall-gazing for sometime today, and i feel its a great exercise to attain stillness , especially when the mind is very very restless.

The following series was after long hours of felt oneness with being. Such a state arises when one is able to quieten the mind and starts observing the observer. Such stillness gives rise to a deep under current of peace , which opens the channels of being to creatively influence the thoughts. in short, No thoughts = the state of stillness;


These posts are a direct result of such stillness, and therefore contain much more that what you merely see as words. Some thing like 'Reality reading' like in the Zen tradition is whats needed to read and assimilate works of Stillness. Read the following sentence thrice. The brief gap between the paragraphs are not there just to make the blog posts look organized, it is there for you to break free from the voice in your head and pay close attention to the brief period of stillness that can arise. It is only in those brief periods that the true meaning of these paragraphs become "realized".

I first read this poem in "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche.

"Autobiography in Five Chapters"

1) I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost . . . I am hopeless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

2) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I'm in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

3) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in . . . it's a habit
My eyes are open
I know where I am
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

4) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I walk around it

5) I walk down another street.


i would be starting a series of posts entitled "The Road to Enlightenment" and another parallel series called the "The Tree of Life". I am off on a retreat for 3 weeks . So the series shall receive its postings very soon.
Most of it has already been started but theres more that needs to be written.i am unaware of many things, thats what the retreat is for.

I am reminded of Krishnamurti's Notebook when this idea had come to me....."time shall teach me what ever i need to learn".This is some thing that is beyond all limits of what i have ever creatively done in my life.