Smell of Rose

What are the most memorable moments of your life? When you felt peace, when you felt that in that very moment the world was exactly as it should be, when you felt that you are at the right place at the right moment, when you almost felt that you understand existence, when everything was just all right. If you seriously count them there are not so many, are there..? You have lived twenty, forty, sixty years, and there have been only a handful really

 penetrating moments, have been not..? Perhaps, when you watched 

a colorful sunset, and the beautiful play of lights on deep orange clouds left you speechless; Or perhaps, on a mild

 spring 

afternoon, when you smelled a rose, sitting on a soft garden grass. The gentle wind touched your skin, and the sweetness of the rose was unspeakable; Or perhaps, when you watched your lover sleeping in your arms. You sensed her/his unmistakable smell, that meant you the pure love that moment. The warmness of her/his body, the soft rising and falling of her/his chest, and the small movements of her/his eyelids told you: the world is perfect, after all; Or perhaps, when you sat that afternoon at the dining table, and around the table you saw your children, maybe the grandchildren as well. You looked that special spark in their eyes that only children have. Listened the warm tinkling of their joyful laugh. Then you knew that life worth it. You knew it for sure.

Was this experience really bound to that special subject -t

he sunset, the rose, the lover, the child- you contemplated? Or your amazement of sunset, your pure love to your lover and to your child opened up some deep blockage, and let you experience the life in its eternity and entirety; and beyond even that, maybe for a split second the pure existence itself. Think about it 

for some time. In that very moment were you aware that you are watching the sunset; In that culminating point when you held your lover and felt the perfect happiness and tranquility, were 

you really conscious about the pleasure of owning and being owned? I am not asking one second before, or after - I am asking exactly that fleeting moment, when you were content. All your worries and hopes, your image of self, were all these present in that very moment, or there was no subject and no object, s/he and me, before and after, only the experience that melt all separation into the sensation of very existence here and now. When the sunset were you and you were the sunset; when that very spark in the eyes of your beloved one was you and you were the spark. Then you were utterly tranquil and content as your self opened up and united with that incontrollable flow of Universe, without a second thought.

That very moment is the beginning of meditation. Here in the dhamma-hall we all are practicing that very moment. We force our mind to detach from its created realm, by focusing our awareness to the subject of meditation. This links us back to what is 

real and true. In everyday life it happens when something really spectacular happens, because we are so deeply buried into our age-old habitual patterns, that we need so

mething extraordinary to grab our consciousness out from the cage of that world it has been 

creating to itself. Here

 in dhamma-hall the breathing makes it. In and out - no thought - in and out - no worries - in and out - just peace - in and out - and clarity.

There is this spark in every one of us. But we bury it, and, after a decade or two, it becomes barely perceivable. We bury it under unbearable weights of heavy

 thoughts, fears, unimportant dreams. We become so attached to them, that

 we forget the spark that actually lights everything, yet, lays out of anything. We start to live on the very surface of our minds, where all the trash is accumulated. We jump from one fear to the next, then to the next hope. Endlessly. All in our lives after a certain age we are in keep running. From one to another, another, then another again. Then we become frightened; we do not see the spark anymore, we do not find meaning anymore. But we do not stop, instead we double the force with which we gather more this and more that. Then we die.

Here we do not want that endless circle. Therefore we unite with the Universe trough our breathing. Just as you united trough the sunset, through the rose, through your lover, through your child, through what and whoever that opened a window for that moment to the truth. When the mind calms down, when there is no distraction anymore, when there is no hope and fear, when the subject and the object melt into one, then even the breathing, the final aid fades away. What is left behind, where there is no thought, no emotion, where no object and no 'I' and no sensation is present? That is for you to find out - That is who you really are...

Lift Your Arm

...Presence. Full awareness of here and now, and nothing else; that is in those eyes. Depth and simplicity. Life is deep and simple. The truth is simple. The truth is what exists in this very moment. Those things are simple; a touch on your skin, a fleeting warmness in the body, the sound of a bird, a vanishing memory of a long dead friend. From this point we have a choice to make: to penetrate further in depth into this reality, or creating a new world using these sensations as building blocks. Until we know what we are doing, both ways are beautiful; Until we are not bound to our creation, this ability of mind to abstraction is magical.

My teacher, U Nandasiddhi said: The most important thing that you should take with you from here is t

hat your mind always should know what it does. If you eat, you should know that you eat. If you walk you should know that you walk. If you breathe fast you should know: I am breathing fast. If You breathe shallow, you should know: I am breathing now shallow. If you move your hand you should know it.

You might say it is not mystical enough, it is too simple, it is easy. Really so? All right. Through an experiment I can show what he really meant. For that I will need your cooperation, though; let us play a half interactive game. You must sit now in front of the monitor, your hand laying on the mouse. Lift your arm, please! Just lift it up in air, then put it down.

...

Done?
Then, tell me, how did you do it?! Perhaps you have absolutely no idea; maybe do not even get first what I mean. Perhaps my lines set you more aware, and then you say that this muscle in the shoulder contracted, that other fixed, another again relaxed, etc. But I did not asked that either! How your mental decision of raising your arm become translated into a physical action?! You have no idea; it happened just like that... Even more, where, and how your self made the exact decision in which exact moment you start to lift your arm? You can keep thinking "I lift my arm, lift my arm" and nothing happens; Until a real decision is made, when without even t

hinking it trough "I lift my arm" it lifts. Try it! ... When and where exactly that particular decision was made. How? No idea, have you..? Any?! It just popped up, and happened just like that??? But if you have no idea how you decide, who really raises the arm, who hugs your lover, who lives your life?!?

Should I distract you even more? :) Before you are reading this line, were you aware of the push of the chair on your butt-whether there was more push on the left or right side, whether it was soft, in a small or large area? Were you aware how the shirt touched your skin, causing very gentle sensations? Were you aware of the dryness of your lips, the tension of eyelids, the warmness inside the abdomen, the ...

Then is it really you, who participate in this world? Even the grossest and most simple actions, and the grossest manners slip away from your awareness. So, are you really there on the other side of the screen, in this very moment? Or, rather, that is a semi-robot, and you are sitting in the cage of your mind, among your fears, powerful desires, and in wired habits that you have been carrying for God knows how long - sometimes, even you yourself laugh at yourself... Don't you? :)

Do you grasp the importance of this? We live so deeply in that world we created on our own that we barely perceive reality. It was a very simple question: How? not about the God, about the meanin

g of life, not about deep philosophy; nothing like that. Isn't that -ironic, hm? That we desire transcendental truths without being able to penetrate the truth of lifting arm; That we live our lives being a total alien even to our own body, but having so firm ideas about what the world is, how it should be, how it should not be, and how other people should or should not behave, what is good and what is bad. Does it sound sane? What truth such dulled minds can possibly gather?

And, soon or later, the truth, the true nature of the real world hits us; inevitably. When I say 'true', when I say 'real', I mean something absolutely down to earth, nothing misty. All phenomenon that exist out of mental interpretation, that exist here and now. Every now and then -when a person is not as we think s/he should be, when we do not get what we think we deserve, and ultimately when we are -or a beloved one is about to be ripped away from this existence by death- the corners of the illusory world, we have been keep creating, collide with reality. Like two spinning rectangular metal frames one within the other. Unless they exactly fit in one and other and have the same spin, that is when we live fully in reality, a collision is bound to come. Then we are forced to face reality. Then our fragile world is smashed by the powerful presence of the only entity that exists for real. Then our concepts we starve to hang on are shaken; or broken. Then we face that love goes, that good not at all always wins, that I am crying by my dieing sweetheart being totally powerless, that reality is a powerful flow which sometimes lifts up supporting our illusio

ns, and sometimes squeezes people into bloody mess. That reality couldn't care less.

Is that the real nature of this world? All of us felt it sometimes, I am sure. But if one does not understand how s/he lifts the arm, why on earth we have the arrogance to think that we know what love is or should be, what good is and how this or that person should follow that, what death and pain is? These are way more subtle phenomenon than a lifting arm. Yet, about these we have a rigid opinion, and if the world dears to be different we feel sorrow, annihilation, loneliness, we feel betrayed. Is that sane? Isn't that ironic?

The most suffering, the most pain is actually caused not by a cruel reality, but the tension that evolves when our play-world is matched against the incontrollable flow that we call Universe. So, then who causes and can end these sufferings: the Universe that rips our world apart, or we, who build it? After all what real control we've ever had? What control we had over coming to this existence? And instead of identifying our selves with that ultimate impulse, to enjoy and understand what we were given, we all got trapped in some dreamworld where we do not know a thing for real, not even the secret of a lifting arm, but cling for a control over fleeting illusions created by our minds. Insane. Control over concepts that melt away in the moment one truly starts to investigate them... Have you ever dared to face reality with clarity, instead of through the blurring shields of your rigid interpretations? Have you ever dared to see what love really is, what pain really is, what death really is? For that matter, what does life, and to be alive really mean? Have you ever dared to let it go, and just observe? Have you ever stopped and dared to see what it really means to lift your arm..?

Play on Stage

Finally it is over... This tiring pointless mud-wrestling at her stage. She was standing there surrounded by the aura of misery like a heavy fog.

I had faced it many times in various persons. Why is it SO difficult people to understand that if they really want a change, they have to change themselves; and if they plan to start the change tomorrow that tomorrow never comes. One has to start it right here, right now. Why is it SO hopeless to get that if they are applying the same habitual problem-solving-pattern they used for decades and the same heaviness (tamas) that brought sorrow results countless times, they ought to get the very same end again and again: multiplying the very same problem. Because they are not an innocent victim of circumstances, it is not a bad luck, not a curse; but built in the very fabric of what they are. Unless changing the relevant part of personality and approach itself, they struggle is just like that is of the man who is about to drawn and try to pull himself out by grabbing his own hair. He ought to sink deeper and deeper into the muddy bottom…

But no, they don’t get it… As some pervert masochistic ritual they love to taste it by discussing it over and over again like that alone would bring any change. Of course, without coloring its detail, like some tasty gossip, the theater would close… They should stop whining, come out of the labyrinth of misery built brick by brick by their very selves, face the reason, and start to work on the root-cause. Oh, that is not so nice. Instead they draw you into their stage, let play the drama with them. After all, acting alone is rather boring. Working alone is even worse…

So, they set up the scene, spicing with a pinch of hurt, just a little bit of clever dispute and false dignity, and you are right there in the mud. They are quoting some real or imaginary hurt, committed by you days before (that is still the better case…), when you were not bowed before their ego.

- I will start a new life tomorrow. But after all -she says- what you think is not entirely true. It is superficial. It is unfair. It is…

My goodness! This act always shocks me. WHY are you here then?! If it was totally irrelevant, you would not been here, would you? My words were just as much flown on air as thousands of others did. But you are here… The words (or they interpretation...) got stoppage by you; in you. You re-played that insult many times on the canvas of your mental cinema, colored it like a situation-game. You carried it for hours, for days. But it was untrue – oh, yes…

There is a nice story:

Two Buddhist monks, who vowed total celibacy not to even touch a woman, walk on the countryside. The weather is pleasant, the birds are singing, the sun is shining brilliantly after a refreshing rain. They reach to a small river, where they see a lady, who is rather frustrated.

- What disturbs you on this beautiful day? -ask the older monk.

- My old mother is sick and she called for me. But this small river is flooding and I cannot cross it; I fear it takes me.

The monks are thinking for quite some time, when the older one suddenly goes to the lady, takes her into his arms and carries her over to the other bank. The two monks continue their path, but the younger one becomes very silent and disturbed. They are walking for several hours, while at night they stop and set up a campfire. The younger one did not say a word during whole afternoon, but here it bursts out of him:

- We had made a vow. But today you touched a woman!

- Oh, brother! I left that woman at the riverbank long ago. Why are you still carrying her?!

Was it superficial? All right, then it tells something about my level, why are you still carrying it? Because it had something very true to tell you, my friend – about your very self. It did touch a sensitive point. May well be, my interpretation was false, but YOU found some truth in it that bothers you ever since. And instead of extracting it by taking this great chance to face with and understand something deep within you, you are standing here projecting your misery on me; continuing your old play.

That is perfectly all right, however, but I got bored of it. I tried to smile until now, but it is over. If anyone comes to me for help, I shall try my best. But it is enough to be a guest actor on other’s stage. So, one is really ready to work on himself when shares his problem, or we say a friendly farewell at the riverbank. Just as I leave all this stuff behind, now. And enjoy the soft touch of sunshine after the refreshing drencher, and try to accept and understand that we all are just humans. :)