Buddhism Mish Mash

Last night at the Buddhism talk given on St. Mark's at the Vajradhara center Matthew was ripping it up like he always does, making the case, as he always does, that the cause of our happiness does not lie in the world around us. I like the look he gets in his eyes when he's putting the nail in the coffin of ignorance, as if the nail would stay in place, it seems that most sneaky zombie of ignorance is especially good at getting out and running around wasting everyone's time in frivolous pursuits that temporarily seem so meaningful but don't lead to any kind of lasting happiness. Apparently, you don't have to be into pharmaceuticals to be a junky. You know what kind of junky I am, I bet.

Matthew makes that same point several times a week in a most patient and cheerful sisyphusian manner. (The coffin and zombie metaphors are mine, I don't think he'd espouse them.) Recently I heard something slightly different from him. How pleasant when something new suddenly makes sense. I understood him to say that we feel dissatisfied so often because we believe that we have a separate existence from the everything, but this is a misunderstanding, we actually don't. I wanted him to say a little bit more about this idea, maybe he will someday, because I wanted to think more about that wonderful thought, that we have an intimate connection with all things, all the time, that we're inseparable from our world and the people in it. How much more motivated are we then to take care of each other and those living things we can see as family.

At the talk I sat next to a woman visiting from India, dressed all in blue, sitting next to her doe-eyed daughter, also dressed in blue. She had a photo of the holy man Sri Ramana Maharshi on a chain around her neck which surprised me because I considered him, as a Hindu, to be from a very different line of thought. I'd bought a book about him from Andy, the man that runs that store called "A Healing Place" on Garfield. When I read it, it left me with the impression that there's a self, the little, scared, very particular person, and the Self, the substance of all things and our true nature, a state without Ego, perhaps without boundary. Is it any wonder then that many of us find our dreams running together so frequently?

This quote from Maharishi gives me a sense of the man's compassion. Who can't relate to that miserable, graceless feeling he addresses here. Look no further, says he.

...The Sage was asked by someone what he should do to deserve Grace; the Sage answered; "Are you asking this question without Grace? Grace is in the beginning, the middle and the end; for Grace is the Self; but because of ignorance of the Self it is expected to come from somewhere outside of you."

Maya Yoga, Page 213-214

Honestly, I don't know how anyone can pick one tradition to follow on the path of wisdom. This stuff is too hard and faceted to look at from any one angle. It seems every time I turn around some new and surprising thing carries the staff, and I have to completely open my mind, again, again, again... You'd agree, wouldn't you, that the cubists were very good teachers?