Sherab Dorje

I AM ALL AND ALL IS ME - I AM IN EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING IS IN YOU.............. like INDRA'S NET is a metaphor used to illustrate the concepts of emptiness dependent origination, and interpenetration in Buddhist philosophy. The metaphor of Indra's net was developed by the Mahayana Buddhist school in the 3rd century scriptures of the Avatamsaka Sutra. Buddhist concepts of interpenetration holds that all phenomena are intimately connected; for the Huayan school, Indra's net symbolizes a universe where infinitely repeated mutual relations exist between all members of the universe.............From "The Great Perfection Prayer of KUNTUZANGPO": The original ground of everything is uncompounded. It is the self-originating infinite expanse, beyond expression, Where not even the name of samsara or nirvana exists. When realizing just this, you are a Buddha. When not realizing this, you are a sentient being wandering in samsara. May all sentient beings of the three realms realize The true meaning of this inexpressible original ground!.....The last word of BUDDHA SAKYAMUNI was ‘sammasati’! Remember that you are a buddha..."All things which are made of parts eventually come apart. Be mindful, and achieve Enlightenment!", while another gives, "Subject to change are all things. Strive on with diligence."TILOPA: Let go of what has passed.Let go of what may come.Let go of what is happening now.Don’t try to figure anything out.Don’t try to make anything happen.Relax, right now, and rest.PerceivingYou are not bound by perceiving,But clinging;So cut your clinging, Naropa!......PRAJNAPRAMITA: Form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form......SUZUKI: "So the most difficult thing is always to keep your beginner's mind. There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, 'I know what Zen is', or 'I have attained enlightenment'. This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner. Be very very careful about this point. If you start to practice zazen, you will begin to appreciate your beginner's mind. It is the secret of Zen practice."......... HERACLITUS Says: "By cosmic rule, as day yields night, so winter summer, war peace, plenty famine. All things change. Air penetrates the lump of myrrh, until the joining bodies die and rise again in smoke called incense."..............LAO TSE: Accept disgrace willingly. Accept misfortune as the human condition.What do you mean by "Accept disgrace willingly"? Accept being unimportant. Do not be concerned with loss or gain. This is called "accepting disgrace willingly."What do you mean by "Accept misfortune as the human condition"? Misfortune comes from having a body. Without a body, how could there be misfortune?Surrender yourself humbly; then you can be trusted to care for all things. Love the world as your own self; then you can truly care for all things. Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form. Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound. Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible. These three are indefinable; Therefore they are joined in one.From above it is not bright; From below it is not dark: An unbroken thread beyond description. It returns to nothingness. The form of the formless, The image of the imageless, It is called indefinable and beyond imagination.Stand before it and there is no beginning. Follow it and there is no end. Stay with the ancient Tao, Move with the present.Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao......DREAM YOGA: The seminal Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu dreamed he was a butterfly. Upon awakening, he wondered whether he was a man who had dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was a man. Chuang Tzu's musings underscore a fundamental truth: life is like a dream.Spiritual life is about awakening from the dream of unreality. The word Buddha itself is from the word bodhi, "awakeful." Buddhist wisdom and practice help us to awaken to who and what we truly are, and to recognize the difference between the real and the unreal in our daily life. All of our spiritual practices are designed to awaken us from the daydream of illusion and confusion, where we are like sleepwalkers, semiconsciously muddling our way through life. Self-knowledge through spiritual awakening helps us become masters of circumstances and conditions, rather than victims. This is why the Armenian spiritual master George Gurdjieff said: "Contemporary man is born asleep, lives asleep, and dies asleep. And what knowledge could a sleeping man have? If you think about it and at the same time remember that sleep is the chief feature of our being, you will soon understand that if man wishes to obtain knowledge, he should first of all think about how to awaken himself, that is about how to change his being."South American shamans call this awakening from the dream of life "shapeshifting": entering into a spiritual journey with the explicit purpose of transformation. Shapeshifting and other forms of conscious dream-work can, through regular practice, help us experience other realms of existence, visit our dear departed, and achieve spiritual mastery.Australian aborigines say we all live in the dreamtime: we are like dream characters, living out our lives beyond the illusion of being born and dying. Tibetan masters call this dreamtime the bardo, or intermediate stage. Bardos exist between the ending of one state and the beginning of another, such as birth and death - or death and rebirth. Dreaming, too, is a bardo, marking the seemingly unstructured zone between waking and sleeping......The 3th KARMAPA: All dharmas are projections of mind. As for mind, there is no mind; mind's nature is empty. Empty and unceasing, mind appears as anything. Investigating it well, may I settle the basic points.Projections which never existed in themselves, have been confused as objects. Awareness itself, due to ignorance, has been confused as a self. Through the power of dualistic fixation I wander in the realm of existence. May ignorance and confusion be completely resolved.It doesn't exist: even buddhas do not see it. It doesn't not exist: it is the basis of samsara and nirvana. No contradiction: two-in-one, the middle way. May I realize the Nature of Mind.........the Buddha's DIAMOND SUTRA:"All the world's phenomena and ideasAre unreal, like a dream,Like magic, and like an image.All the world's phenomena and ideasAre impermanent, like a water bubble,Like dew and lightning.Thus should one observe and realizeAll the world's phenomena and ideas".EDGAR ALLEN POE: “All that we see is but a dream within a dream”ZEN KOANS: ....KILLING THE BUDDHA "If you meet the Buddha, kill him".(LINJI) If you are thinking about Buddha, this is thinking and delusion, not awakening. One must destroy preconceptions of the Buddha. Zen master SHUNRYU SUZUKI wrote in "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" during an introduction to Zazen, "Kill the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else. Kill the Buddha, because you should resume your own Buddha nature."....USING THE BUDDHA STATUE AS HEATING: During the Teng Dynasty, Dharma MASTER DAN XIA used to be a candidate for the civil service examination. But he got a "calling" and later became a Buddhist Monk instead. On a cold winter night, a big snow storm hit the city and the temple where Dan Xia served as a Monk got snowed in. Cut off from outside traffic, the coal delivery man could not get to the Zen Monastery. Soon it ran out of heating fuel after a few days and everybody was shivering in the cold. The monks could not even cook their meals. Dan Xia began to remove the wooden Buddha Statues from the display and put them into the fireplace. "What are you doing?" the monks were shocked to see that the holy Buddha Statues were being burnt inside the fire place. "You are burning our holy religious artifacts! You are insulting the Buddha!" "Are these statues alive and do they have any Buddha nature?" asked Master Dan Xia. "Of course not," replied the monks. "They are made of wood. They cannot have Buddha Nature." "OK. Then they are just pieces of firewood and therefore can be used as heating fuel," said Master Dan Xia. "Can you pass me another piece of firewood please? I need some warmth." The next day, the snow storm had gone and Dan Xia went into town and brought back some replacement Buddha Statues. After putting them on the displays, he began to kneel down and burn incense sticks to them. "Are you worshiping firewood?" ask the monks who are confused for what he was doing. "No. I am treating these statues as holy artifacts and am honouring the Buddha." replied Dan Xia.