The Quest

For some of us, our desire for continued existence, or finding answers to questions relating to our origins, our past, our future, our present state of being, the vagaries of life and the very purpose of our existence, and our desire to end suffering, some or all, make compelling reason to embark on a search for the meaning of life. We look to a creator, or a religion, and yet unsatisfied look for some key to unlock the mystery of life, perhaps a hidden scroll that gives away a lost secret, or a secret mantra, or a tantra, or a philosophy, and in frustration we may dwell in to that what is mysticism. Then, eventually, some of us may find that what we sought after was always within us, hidden from us, in clever disguise, hiding in plain sight; as a victim of our own ego – just pure consciousness, luminous emptiness and awareness. And then, the real battle begins....against mara, or ego, or "i", or satan, to rid it of its possession that it has, so completely in its grasp, of this luminosity. - Alexander Jay, March 2012
In time, with much study and practice dawns many realizations, and only then does one begin to find the way through the teachings of the great master, the Buddha, at first one, then two and then several ways that could lead to liberation, and that is when consciousness reveals and lays bare the grand matrix of its nature, just simply as emptiness and awareness, and yet, as the one great source of energy at the heart of all things. - Alexander Jay, April 2013.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Reflection


Something to reflect on as we go about our daily lives:

"Most of us live according to a pre-ordained plan. We spend our youth being educated. Then we find a job, and meet someone, marry, and have children. We buy a house, try to make a success of our business, aim for dreams like a country house or a second car. We go away on holiday with our friends. We plan for retirement. The biggest dilemmas some of us ever have to face are where to take our next holiday or whom to invite at Christmas. Our lives are monotonous, petty, and repetitive, wasted in the pursuit of the trivial, because we seem to know of nothing better"
- Sogyal Rinpoche in "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying".

"The birth of a man is the birth of his sorrow. The longer he lives, the more stupid he becomes, because his anxiety to avoid unavoidable death becomes more and more acute. What bitterness! He lives for what is always out of reach! His thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present".
- Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi), Chinese Philosopher, 300-370 BCE quoted by Sogyal Rinpoche in "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying".

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

your reflections are very apt and succinct of thought. makes the reflector even more reflective...
like the verse as much as the prose.

July 20, 2011 at 7:03 PM

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