Hi Richard,sorry to read about your recent problems, i hope the waves in this samsaric sea dont upset your raft too much!
You know when i look back after a rough period i can see the lessons these events brought into my life. At the time its hard to be rational about them but the distance of time is a good teacher.
I found myself to be a little hardened to others dificulties and some what lacking in compassion; my mind being inward facing and trying to fix my problems. I realise now the signs are easy to spot, when the mind becomes less sweet and ones sence of empathy begins to fade.
I think good metre for how well ones practice is going is the ability to empathise, how sweet is ones mind.
The heart is a good place to draw from, the mind can find lots of reasons to not give of ones self.
The no self thing is fine when one is in the mental space which allows investigation to these truths. Whether one has realised no self or not will not stop a karma vipaka as it pays its load in your life. Hold a man over the edge of a building by the ankles and ask him to contemplate emptiness; he wont be able to do it.
We are lucky if we find ourselfs fortunate enough to have a mind that is able to pay attention to these things. It is a tragic waste of ones life if one has the opportunity to study; one has the conditions which allow the turtles head to rise in the ring, and still we put it off.
The middle way is the narrow ground between the two extremes of wrong view; that nothing exists and that phenomena has inherent existance.
To gain understanding of the ground in the middle is no simple thing, many have a wrong view of what that ground is, only many hours of study, contemplation and meditation on the subject can deliver one from the wrong view.
We could all die in our sleep tonight and we will have wasted the opportunity to get out of this maze due to our lack of attention to the appropriate subject matter.
How does knowing there is no self cause one to gain freedom?
Compassion has many faces and none are idiots when wisdom joins.
"All those who are unhappy in the world are so as a result of their desire for their own happiness. A ll those who are happy in the world are so as a result of their desire for the happiness of others."
Master Shantideva.
"We can bring a heart of understanding and compassion to a world that needs it so much"
Master Jack Kornfield
Peace Richard,
Ciaran
