Nothing.

What does chanting have to do with enlightenment?

Nothing.

What does following have to do with enlightenment?

Nothing.

What does leading have to do with enlightenment?

Nothing.

What does enlightenment have to do with enlightenment?

Nothing.

-dennis landi © 2010

42nd Avenue at Rush Hour courses with bundles of energy, rushing down the street in patent leather shoes (energy) or sneakers (converse energy) or sandals (alternative energy).

My penus is energy and so is your vagina … is energy. Sensation is energy. Light is energy and heat is energy. Orgasm is energy.

Sleep is energy.

My enemies are energy. And those who agree with me, or salute me or support me or cherish me are energy.

Love is energy. Hate is energy.

Color is energy. You are energy. I see you as an a solid being but illusions, too, are energy.

We are energy.

The universe is energy. And so is existence … is energy.

Let’s mingle.

-dennis landi © 2010

ALL MEN ARE MY BROTHERS

I believe that all men are brothers. I really believe that every man on this earth is my brother. He has a soul like mine, the ability to understand friendship, the capacity to create beauty. In all the continents of this world, I have met such men. In the most savage jungles of New Guinea, I have met my brother, and in Tokyo, I have seen him clearly walking before me.

In my brother’s house, I have lived without fear. Once in the wildest part of Guadalcanal I had to spend some days with men who still lived and thought in the old stone age, but we got along together fine. In the South Pacific, on remote islands, I have sailed and fished with brown men who were in every respect the same as I.

Around the world I have lived with my brothers and nothing has kept me from knowing men like myself wherever I went. Language has been no barrier, for once in India, I lived for several days with villagers who didn’t know a word of English. I can’t remember exactly how we got along, but the fact that I couldn’t speak their language was no hindrance. Differences in social custom never kept me from getting to know and like savage Melanesians in the New Hebrides. They ate roast dog, and I ate Army spam, and if we had wanted to emphasize differences, I am sure each of us could have concluded the other was nuts. But we stressed similarities and, so long as I could snatch a Navy blanket for them now and then, we had a fine old time with no words spoken.

It was in these islands that I met a beat-up, shameless old Tonkinese woman. She would buy or sell anything, and in time we became fast friends and I used to sit with her, knowing not a word of her curious language, and we talked for hours. She knew only half a dozen of the vilest English obscenities, but she had the most extraordinary love of human beings and the most infectious sense of this world’s crazy comedy. She was of my blood, and I wish I could see her now.

I believe it was only fortunate experience that enabled me to travel among by brothers and to live with them. Therefore I do not believe it is my duty to preach to other people and insist that they also accept all men as their true and immediate brothers. These things come slow. Sometimes it takes lucky breaks to open our eyes. For example, if I had never known this wonderful old Tonkinese woman, I might not now think of all Chinese as my brothers. I had to learn, as I believe the world will one day learn. Until such time as experience proves to all of us the essential brotherhood of man, I am not going to preach or scream or rant.

But if I am tolerant of other men’s prejudices, I must insist that they be tolerant of me. To my home in rural Pennsylvania come brown men and yellow men and black men from around the world. In their countries I lived and ate with them. In my country they shall live and eat with me. Until the day I die, my home must be free to receive these travelers and it never seems so big a home or so much a place of love as when some man from India or Japan or Mexico or Tahiti or Fiji shares it with me. For on those happy days, it reminds me of the wonderful affection I have known throughout the world.

I believe that all men are my brothers. I know it when I see them sharing my home.

James A. Michener wrote his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Tales of the South Pacific, during his naval service in World War II after seeking a transfer from a desk job in Washington to the Pacific theater. Michener’s literary career spanned 50 years and 40 books.

The link is here: http://thisibelieve.org/essay/16820/

- Bell
Breathing in,
I am present in the here and now.
Breathing out,
I am happy to be here
Breathing in, Presence
Breathing out, Happiness
- Bell.

(repeat if necessary)

Introduction

Well this is my last leading of the AES Sangha, and I don’t think I have to tell you that I will miss all of you a lot. I’ve prepared something that addresses my reticence to leave all of you.

Last Saturday I was able to spend seven hours at a meditation retreat led by Venerable Tenzin Chogkyi, and American nun, at the Tushita Center.

She presented several excellent brief outlines of guided meditations that each lasted about 10 to 15 minutes. One of the ones that she presented was a Guided Meditation on Impermanence.

I’ve chosen to go give my own version of this meditation today, because I personally have a problem with embracing change. As a child growing up in the Foreign Service, I never really got over leaving my friends and school every few years and it’s the main reason why I really didn’t go overseas again for about twenty years and certainly not for extended periods of time.

However, I also have a personal problem with the purportedly Buddhist concept that since all things are impermanent, detachment from the physical world is the path to personal peace and perhaps even enlightenment…

So for the second part of the reading I will read an excerpt from Mark Epstein’s “Open To Desire”, which I feel promises to flesh out the concept of Buddhist asceticism and serve as a balancing weight for the first meditation. I’ll only read the first ten pages of his introduction, but that is enough for you to get the thrust of his thesis, I think.

Meditation on Impermanence

[bell]

Breathing In
I consider that a static, unchanging reality is an illusion.
Breathing Out
I open myself to change.

[bell]

Breathing In
My mind is a kaleidoscope of cascading images
Breathing Out
Is my mind still? Or is it moving?

[bell]

Breathing In,
I suck oxygen into my lungs and ultimately into my blood.
Breathing Out,
I release my breath in a stream of carbon dioxide atoms that were in my body for a brief time.

[bell]

Breathing In
I am aware of my heart beating, pumping my blood-flow,
carrying oxygen to every cell in my body.
Breathing Out
My heart is still beating, but is it the same heart?
Is it the same blood? Are my cells the same?

[bell]

Breathing In
I consider the idea that there are 150 different types of cells in my body: skin cells, blood cells, nerve cells, bone cells, brain cells, muscle cells, hair cells, kidney cells, heart cells, liver cells, spleen cells, mucous cells, eye cells, and others.
Breathing Out
I consider that each of these cells has a different life-span, and they constantly die and replace themselves throughout my life span.

[bell]

Breathing In
I consider that my seven skin layers of dermis and epidermis shed like a snake and replace themselves every 21 to 28 days. I generate a whole new heart every 8 months. I synthesize a whole new liver every 5 months. The surface layer of the mucosal lining in the intestines quickly replaces itself every 3 to 5 days. Because skeletal bone cells are made up of a harder matrix of substances it can take up to 7-10 years for bone cells to die and replace.
Breathing Out
Consider the idea that everyone in this room right now gets a whole new body every 7-10 years. Even my brain will replace itself, entirely.

[bell]

Breathing In
I know that there is a tiny universe beyond the cellular level. Where atoms contain sub-atomic particles separated by relatively vast distances, whirling around each other at an incredible rate, never still and never the same from one-micro-second to the next.
Breathing Out
I know that at the sub-atomic level my body is mostly space, where transient energy passes.

[bell]

Breathing In
I am aware of the world outside my body and mind. I and the Earth and the other planets are whirling around the sun. The Sun is on its own interstellar trajectory, and the biosphere of the earth is totally dependent upon the sun and the rain to fuel the lives of every animal and plant.
Breathing Out
I see that the universe, and all things in it, are in motion and never still.

[bell]

Breathing In
I am aware of the illusion of a non-changing reality and that the attempt to cling to things that I don’t want to change is a major cause of suffering.
Breathing Out
I acknowledge change. I won’t necessarily embrace it, but I acknowledge change and will try to not let it be a cause of suffering.

———————-

-dennis landi © 2009

Interview with Nisargadatta Maharaj

One on One ~ On The Pathless Path:

Only Being IS ~ Thou Art THAT

Q: It’s been interesting to see the changes [Nisargadatta] experimented with, especially in the way to express his philosophy. And he’s the reason for this message. Just a simple and small question: What do you think about Nisargadatta’s radical point of view about consciousness, the one he expresses in “Consciousness and the Absolute” or “Prior to Consciousness”?

C: That is Absolute Truth. Ponder this:

To know your true nature is utterly simple. Being IS and You are That. There is no “future enlightenment”; nor are there any enlightened OR unenlightened persons. All is One Being appearing everywhere as what IS. Know yourself as this Truth that sets “you” free from the delusion of being a separate, incomplete, and sometimes suffering little pocket Being was never bound, never limited, ever-free, and never could suffer: The ‘one who suffers’ is merely imagination. Being Thy Self, you are and have always been free, empty, and silent. Know thy self as This Peace of Eternal Being. THIS is the end of all becoming: Simply BEING and only That. Home.

Q: I understand he has alienated many “spiritual searchers” because he points out that after the death of the body-mind mechanism there’s not a single drop of self- consciousness. He, as you know, says consciousness depends on a physical body, and no consciousness remains after its death. He considers consciousness is like a drop that tells the Absolute It (the Absolute) exists.

C: That is, as always, only a pointer. There is NO “separate absolute” to “see itself or know itself”. Often pointers will arise in a particular setting for a particular appearance of a questioner; this is why books and such can never show what is REAL. The One Being has no “parts” to be born or die. Birth and death never happened to The Being You Are!

Q: Like a signal for the Absolute to know Its own existence, a light in a dark room that will vanish soon. He does not despise the concept of eternal Awareness, in fact that’s what he thinks we really are, but he seems to be brutally honest regarding the hopes of the average seeker to remain self-conscious somehow.

C: That is the Ruthless Compassion of The One destroying its own delusions of separateness. But all of this never-ending storytelling is of course utter bullshit! There is ONLY BEING and YOU are THAT. There was NEVER and change or separateness in Being. “Time”, “birth”, “death” … all these are just words, concepts that appear in the Timeless Spacelike Being that IS and prior to consciousness yet never ever apart from that consciousness. Being-Consciousness-Peace are all “apparent aspects” of the One Life, the One Being. One-Not Two; One-without-a-second; Pure Presence-Awareness: That Thou Art! Full Stop. Now DO NOT take these words to be representative or descriptive. The word points to NO THING. You are that Eternal No Thong.

Q: I think this point is a clear distinction point if we compare his teachings and any other master. All I’ve read remark the fact that self-consciousness is a basic characteristic of Reality. That’s what “chit” means, isn’t it?

C: No, that is a misinterpretation of what Maharaj pointed to. CHIT is a Sanskrit word that translates as “consciousness” but that consciousness is NOT a thing the mind can grasp. Moreover Reality HAS NO characteristics in Truth; all appears as the self-shining Being, which is analogous to Pure Light, only SEEMING to be like a dream-scape; there is no substance to the appearance and to take appearance as Reality is a big mistake (yet one that no one makes; there is no doer anywhere, just illusions!) All appearance s Maya, illusion, a play of light and shadow with no independent existence apart from Absolute Being, the ONE.

ALL IS That ONE.

That’s IT, my friend.

Q: The other distinction I’ve found is the absolute pessimism on the worldly events. He’s very insistent regarding the illusory nature of reality, like many other masters say, but he completely despises it.

C: You assign a notion of authoring some judgment to Maharaj and that “author” simply does not exist. All is appearance and authorless! There was NO “person called Maharaj” to make such judgment. That is a projection of delusion, the ignorant mind-arrogance that “thinks it knows” what Maharaj “meant”. To point out the illusory nature of what in ignorance is taken to be real, there IS NO mental judging of ANYTHING appearing in the infinite space of awareness (BEING) to be good or bad, or right or wrong. To believe so is also illusion. You as a judging entity are illusion. ALL IS ONE. One Being, One Livingness, One Essence that appears as all that seems to be. Yet ONLY Being is Real. That is all. This, what IS, is all there is. Time is a mere concept. Location, identity, knowledge are all ignorance, ignoring the Isness f Being and assuming thoughts to be what we are … all the while YOU as BEING silently watch and love all the storms and sunshine, all the play as the Expression of No Thing seeming Real until The One points out the folly of taking a mirage to be real.

Being IS and You are That. Full Stop. Nothing else exists and never did. Being, Birthless, Deathless, the One Absolute Subject-Awareness: That, Thou Art. Home.

Q:Thank you very much, Charlie, for taking me back to the basics. Sometimes is too easy to get trapped by the concepts.

C: No one is ever trapped by concepts. That is yet another concept! Being IS. THAT expresses through the brain as I AM. Stop at I AM, give NO credence to any identity; ultimately not even “I AM”. You are the L:ight shining through those concpets. Be that. As Nisargadatta said, “have the courage to be no thing”. And stop pretending to be what you are nOT. All identification is inauthentic. Love ya, my friend. Be. That is all.

Warm Regards,
Charlie
http://theeternalstate.org

This is the first thing he said:

“I am Buddhist, but I am free of Buddhism…”

I’ll never forget this basic teaching.

Centering Meditation

— Bell

Breathing in,
I am present in the here and now.
Breathing out,
I am happy to be here

Breathing in, Presence
Breathing out, Happiness

— Bell.

(repeat if necessary)

—————

Introduction

Today I thought I would present a Loving-kindess meditation.

First I will read a short passage, “Momma Zen” written by Karen Miller, published in the “Best Bhuddist Writing, 2007″, by Shambala Sun. I think she quickly captures the essence from whence all loving-kindness emanates…

Just so you all know what to expect, I’ll briefly outline the basic elements in a Loving-kindness meditation.

Stages of Loving-kindness meditation.

Phase 1) Loving acceptance of self by overcoming feelings of self-doubt or ill-will towards others. This technique consists of identifying four types of persons to develop Loving-kindness towards:

i) A Respected or beloved Person, perhaps a teacher

ii) Your Dearly Beloved: a family member or close friend.

iii) A Neutral Person you have no particular feeling toward, for example a shop-clerk you see every week.

iv) A Hostile Person: someone you are having difficulty with.

Phase 2) Directional Pervasion, where we systematically direct the feeling of Loving-kindness to all points of the Compass.

Phase 3) Non-specific Pervasion, where we radiate feelings of universal love.

In this process we transition from a particular attached love to an unconditioned, all-embracing quality of loving-kindness.

I will be presenting the guided meditation with the “Breathing In / Breathing Out” framework that I associate with Thich Nhat Hanh style of guided meditation and this Sangha…

————————–

The Reading

[Begin reading story, "Momma Zen", by Karen Miller.]

— Bell

The Guided Meditation

Breathing in
In my mind I see my teacher

Breathing out
I smile with love to my teacher

Breathing in, my teacher
Breathing out, I smile

— Bell

Breathing in
In my mind I can see my parents

Breathing out
I smile and bathe my parents with loving-kindness

Breathing in, I see my parents
Breathing out, I smile lovingly

— Bell

Breathing in
In my mind I can see my close friend

Breathing out
I bathe my friend with loving-kindness

Breathing in I see my friend
Breathing out my friend is wrapped in loving-kindness

— Bell

Breathing in
In my mind I see someone for which I have no particular feelings, perhaps a shop-keeper I see once a week…

Breathing out
I send loving-kindness to this person

Breathing in I am neutral,
Breathing out I send Loving thoughts to that person

— Bell

Breathing in
In my mind I see a person with whom I am having difficulties

Breathing out
I send loving thoughts to this person with whom I am having difficulties

Breathing in – Personal Difficulties
Breathing out – Love

— Bell

Breathing in
I touch the loving-kindness within me

Breathing out
I give loving-kindness to myself

Breathing in, loving-kindness
Breathing out, loving-kindness

— Bell

Breathing in
I visualize dharma practitioners all over the world

Breathing out
I reach out and touch with love all other dharma practitioners, east, west, north, and south

Breathing in, I see all friends who are practicing
Breathing out, I touch them all with love

— Bell

Breathing in
In my mind I can see the universe and all beings

Breathing out
I radiate love to all beings

Breathing in, the universe
Breathing out, love to all

— Bell

-Dennis Landi

[Wake the BELL]

[One Breath]

[BELL]

[Three Breaths]

[BELL]

[Three Breaths]

[BELL]

[Three Breaths]

listen, listen,
this wonderful sound brings me back to
my true home.

[BELL]

breathing in I know that I am breathing in.
breathing out I know that I am breathing out.

[BELL]

in out
deep, slow
calm, ease
smile, release
present moment, wonderful moment

[BELL]

who am I?

what is “me”?

my eyes are not me
my ears are not me
my nose, my tongue, my body and my mind
are not me

that which i see is not me
that which i hear is not me
that which i smell, taste, touch and think are not me

seeing is not me
hearing is not me
smelling, tasting, touching, and thinking are not me

the element of earth is not me
the elements water, fire, air, space and consciousness are not me
i am not bound or restrained by the elements

birth and death cannot touch me
i smile because i have never been born
and i will never die

birth does not give me existence
death does not give me existence
death does not take existence away

with inspiration i continue
with expiration i continue

[BELL]

[Three Breaths]

[BELL]

[Three Breaths]

[BELL]

————-

-dennis landi © 2009

————-

Note:
The main part of the above text was adapted from Thich Nhat Hahn’s “Old Path, White Clouds”, Chapter: “Tears of Happiness”, where Saraputra ministers to the dying Sudata.