(Saturday in Riverside) – ON DEATH

I’M IN RIVERSIDE, SINCE LAST SUNDAY. I’M IN THE COMPANY OF THE 2 FEMALE CATS IN THE HOUSE. AS I EXPECTED, I COULD NOT MEDITATE THESE LAST DAYS. HERE IT’S TOO HOT AT NIGHT.

I WAS READING THE LAST DIARY OF JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI. THE CHAPTER ON WHICH HE EXPLAINS THINGS ABOUT LIFE AND DEATH. THAT LIFE AND DEATH AREN’T 2 SEPARATED THINGS. IT’S HARD FOR ME TO UNDERSTAND SUCH A STATEMENT. BUT OF COURSE, COMING FROM AN ENLIGHTENED PERSON, THAT SOUNDS EVEN NATURAL.

I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT IS THE DIMENSION OF THE MIND FROM WHICH YOU SEE EVERYTHING CLEAR, LIKE THAT – IN LIFE ITSELF YOU CAN LIVE WITH DEATH. FOR ME BOTH ARE SO MUCH SEPARATED THAT I CAN’T SEE THE CONTINUITY.  BUT FOR HIM THERE IS A RENEWAL IN DEATH. ALSO, FOR HIM, LIFE AS WE KNOW IT ( FROM THE DIMENSION OF THE “EGO” OR” THE SELF”) IS BASED IN TIME, AND TIME IS THE OPPOSITE OF OBSERVATION AND LIFE.

SO, IN THIS PARTICULAR KIND OF DEATH, YOU RENEW YOUR OWN LIFE. THIS DEATH FOR HIM MEANS TO DIE FOR YESTERDAY. FOR EVERYTHING THAT PASSED. FOR YOUR ATTACHMENTS, IT MEANS FOR YOUR “EGO”. IT’S LIKE THE MESSAGE OF THE ZEN BUDDHISM, AND SO MANY OTHER MESSAGES TOLD BY THE EASTERN RELIGIONS.

I CAN SAY FOR MYSELF, THAT IN THE MOMENTS WE LIFE A KIND OF EXPERIENCE IN WHICH WE ARE TOTALLY PRESENT WITH OUR SOUL AND BODY, WE LIVE A KIND OF DEATH FOR OURSELVES. WE FORGET ABOUT PAST AND FUTURE, BECAUSE WE ARE FULLY IN THE PRESENT MOMENT. AND I GUESS THIS IS WHAT HE TALKS ABOUT.

I CAN SAY THAT I LIVED VERY NICE MOMENTS LIKE THAT,AND THEN I WASN’T WORRIED ABOUT MY OWN LIFE. I WAS MORE CONNECTED WITH THE OTHERS AND THE OTHERNESS., WITH “THAT WHICH IS”. I MEAN, WITH THAT EXISTING TRUTH BUT NOT LIKE WE SEE IT, THROUGH OUR COLOURED LENSES. SO REALITY CAN DEVELOP WITHOUT HINDRANCE.

WORK,WORK,WORK

THIS IS MY EGO-TRIP THESE DAYS.

back in New Jersey

Here I am. Kendall was asking me how I’d feel once I come back to New Jersey. And yes, life here is very different. It seems that all the “old way” of thinking returns the same way as before. And the “thoughtful way” of doing things (observing our reactions and surroundings) is forgotten. That was the way we were told to do things in the Zen Center. I know it’s hard to do it, even in the appropriate environment in which we were. There it was silent most of the time. The people were supportive, the friendships we were making were significant and always appointing to something higher.

Well, I was aware of this change. We feel like buried – or better, our inner being feels like buried under so many responsabilities. And our old habits return, like for ex. the way we react to others. We have this certain character and personality and it seems that it will never give up and it will never leave us alone.

The only thing I have hope for, is that I could meditate regularly here too. And that I could wake up for the awareness of the moment, at least sometimes, from moment to moment.

“To blog or not to blog?”

I’ve just read a friend’s post, “do I go on blogging?”, she asks herself. I think you should go on, Kendall. There is a Brazilian singer, Roberto Carlos, who sang, back in the 70’s: “I want to have 1 million friends – and to be able to sing louder.” That popular song, (if I think about it now) seems so natural, and so plausible for any school girl with access to Internet! And there was no Internet at those times…

But this time there is a kind of illusion in the idea of having friends through Internet, because the geographical distance between people won’t dissapear just like that. There might be a kind of therapeutical relieve in communicating this way, but the physical contact lacks, and badly… That idealistic, romantic idea, seems to lack the concrete ground where the normal friendship normally appears. I guess it has to do with the modern times – we haven’t got the time anymore, to cultivate friendship. Anyway, Kendall, I’m glad to have known you and talk to you ( in this real world, not in the Internet wires!). And keep on telling me your news, ok?

Well, tomorrow I’ll be traveling. I’ll take the plane to New Jersey, where I’ll be staying from now on (I don’t know for how long). The place is called Riverside – it’s a small town but it’s rather close to Philadelphia.

TALKING ABOUT MY IMPRESSIONS IN THIS PLACE:

The last weeks here were very nice, I had some nice feelings of belonging to the Nature, of being part of the whole, at certain moments, when I felt more inspired, I presume. Sometimes I wasn’t in the mood to open myself to a new sensation, a new perception of the world. And I simply turned away from that sensation. Maybe it was fear of loosing a certain certainty about my world. The world in which I find security. That feeling, which I tend to call “holistic perception”, is something misterious indeed. Because for what I understand, it does not come from within our complexes and memories, instincts, and so on… I think it comes from outside… But from where, if everything we feel and think is already stored in our brain from past experiences? If it is a new experience, it must come from outside…

Well, Krishnamurti would say that this misterious energy comes from nowhere. Or from the Universe… like a breeze that touches us for a moment and leaves no trace. But when I was more open, I could feel a wave of calmness inside. Like I was surrounded by the Nature and the Nature protected me. That there was nothing to worry whatsoever. And this being alive in the present moment, that nothing else matters – no future, no past. But again, when it comes, my mind starts to name it, wants to understand it and somehow the magic of it vanishes and slowly my normal mode returns.

What do I feel today?

There is something funny going on in me. It isn’t so different from my normal perception of the daily existence. But I’m feeling kind of bored, and this existencial burden is tickling me…

It’s like nothing makes much sense… I’m not specially attached to any cult, I don’t use drugs, I wasn’t listening to music nor TV for the last couple of months, I’m isolated here in this Zen Center in a valley, without getting out of it for that period of time. But on Saturday I’ll be leaving it – and I don’t look forward to see any of the things I haven’t. What a funny experiment this is: it’s a test on how I can live without all the gadgets that we are used to, in the normal life. I thought I couldn’t live without listening to music, whatever music… I don’t even miss computer games, nor watching TV nor movies… I miss chocolate, but I have it here sometimes, but I don’t miss meat nor fish so much… I can realize that I don’t need so many things to feel happy. But that kind of joy doesn’t come so easily, I must be in the mood, must be able to open my heart and my mind to a new dimension. That isn’t easy, I agree…I realize that I’m not feeling attached to circumstances of the outside, but I’m trapped inside my own desires… And wanting to fulfill them. There is the desire for a woman, the desire of expressing myself, through words and paintings and drawings… I thing we all have this wish of being understood and loved and admired – just like a little child… This particular kind of desires remain, I think they won’t abandon me because they are part of my personality. They are deeper needs…

How dead is Religion today?

What to believe and what not to believe? We think that the theme “God” is something to have faith for. But I think that we must learn to follow our instincts, or better, our logical thinking (it’s the same) when we need to believe in something greater than matter. I’m sure that there is something more to it, than just the Universe as it’s explained and known by science. For me, “God” is just an image, a representation of something that the mind cannot grasp. I believe that everything that divide us from the totality of Life is negative. If we believe in something “bigger” then we must believe that we are “smaller”. That would be the wrong approach to the question. To worship is already divisive. And it’s something merely divisive and in a way, it’s part of our “ego-trip” – we like to dwell in this duality, as if we could take great power from that, and also, great love from a divinity which is basically an invention of thought.

I think that humanity in the past had the need of creating gods to worship and fear. That’s an inherent part of us humans – it’s a psichological need, as well as a means to expand our love for other beings (gratitude). I think that Men in the privitive ages had to find a response to his visions and feelings for the Greatness of Life. I believe we had that even then. So we invented the image called “god” in order to relate to it and convey it to others. To grow faith for our instincts and visions, intuitions and insights – that’s what we need to expand. Because the traditional creeds won’t give us anything anymore. The source is extinguished. When the founders are dead, the enlightened ones that opened someone’s mind are dead, then the mess begins.

Religion cannot provide us with the tools – the tools we need to expand our consciousness and to embrace the Universe. I think that the quantic physics are going to fill that gap and will help us to understand that matter, the atomic dimension, consciousness and all the rest are a mere information stored in the Universal mind. Sooner or later, science (through quantic physics) are going to realize that reality. Matter as information, or thought.

I think that, this way, science will come closer to a religious thought. I think it will fill the need that we all have, to be in contact with that which is holistic and sacred. Sacredness will be something like entering a whole dimension of understanding – or comprehension. This will be, necessarily, the new form of religion for the next decades or centuries. A form based in comprehension of the highest way of connection. And it will be brought by science, because science is based in facts, not in faith, so when these machinery is understood in its highest way, it should bring a new breaktrough, or revolution in our minds.

My favourite reading is Jiddu Krishnamurti.

night in California

It got dark – I was taking a walk with an Italian lady, her name is Andreana, she is sitting in the seshin, meditating most of these days. She is a very funny person. I really enjoy to hear her stories because to hear them in her native Italian language adds a certain “fire” – a special expression to everything she says. To hear her in English gets rather boring. She is an English teacher in Italy. She came to meditate here in California – it’s her vacations. She is having some troubles with food so that she asked me to get her some corn cake and bread. Nobody should know about this “food dealing”- as if we were drug dealers hiding from the police. She is only supposed to eat what is served in the zendo. I get fun that way. They are not supposed to talk either. So we walked away and she smoked a cigarette and talked to me (almost whispering). ” you know” she said “when we are in the meditation hall, and we have the meal, I have “J” right in front of me and she has a certain posture, as if she is looking down on me. Arrogant.

artificial intelligence

A machine could NEVER ever think or feel like us human beings . I have read something interesting in “Technology Review”. It seems that there are many explanations, about how our conscious mind works, but there is always something else to it. Something missing. Is it comparable with the soul? Well, that essay says that humans are conscious, and computers not. Computers are made to run programs, and they don’t “care” what is being computed. They don’t have imagination – don’t have a wide perspective of the whole panorama called “life”. And programs aren’t “alive”. There must be a human in front of the screen to bring it alive, or understandable. What to say then about feelings? A spiritual experience? And so on…

The author makes a clear statement on what computers do, and don’t. I agree with him. Computers could one day simulate our human reactions, based on a program. But still, it would be like cheating, duplicating our reactions. I won’t even say that they could imitate us. They would never have a conscious mind. Read the essay “Artificial Intelligence lost in the bush”, in the July/August 2007 issue of Technology Review magazine.

getting fun of ourselves

Well, I have my break now… It would be my last day of work here at Green Gulch… I’m looking forward to be free from work and being able to walk without any direction. It feels great to have a blog that it’s being read (and to be commented too!!!). Before, in Blogger, it wasn’t that way. I only got one comment in more than a year from a British woman  with a pic of her bra with holes from where the nipples sneaked out (protrudent!). In her blog, she assured she was an exhibitionist and told stories on how she bathed naked in the river in her village, (with pics of the locations) and stated that a passer by almost saw her! (she wasn’t even a good exhibitionist!)(by the way, she confessed that she found me cute).

That’s what I’m talking about: Spirituality should be more funny. I found the Zen Buddhism that is practiced here too ceremonious and stiffened. I believe this comes from the way they practice religion in Japan. Here they take it as a model to be followed (tradition, that ugly nasty word!!!). But, shouldn’t it be adapted to the times, costumes and region where it’s being practiced? I talk about any religion, not only Zen. By the way, this is a pointless matter ( as far as I’m concerned ) because I don’t believe religion could make any difference. I’m more attracted to spirituality in a wider sense – not attached to any dogma. Dogmatism is a poison… But spirituality is something that can awaken – not mesmerize people.

Let’s make jokes about ourselves. It’s the best way to observe our behavior and inner intents – exposing ourselves  (also to others) and our mistakes without feeling embarrassed nor ashamed, without trying to justify, because justifying is annoying. That could be a good spiritual exercise. I say that tentatively, also to myself. It’s so easy to fall back in boredom…

DHARMA TALK

Today I went to the talk given by Reb Anderson, one of the priests here. ( He published several books ).He is good at talking about high events in the spiritual world. One of them, the definition of a Boddhisattva ( a being that is committed to saving all sentient beings before he gets enlightened himself ) in the Buddhist context. Well, I’m not sure about if I understand this concept, because I don’t think anybody has seen such a being in this world. Maybe in another one…

But I’m being sarcastic. I felt particularly well during the talk, accompanied by all those black robes around me. Not because of that, but maybe something in the air. the silence was immense. Nobody moves. In this atmosphere it gets easier to explore into ourselves. It could be that you’re not inside, nor outside of yourself. It’s a funny thing, when you can observe some point in front of you, and at the same moment, to watch your own reactions. The brain has to split itself, and in the process, it gets more attentive. That’s the state you want to achieve in order to call yourself a “meditator”. We all want to look very deeply attentive, but the mind only wants to chatter, and nothing else. It’s like a little kid, does not give up his toys. well, maybe this is already a great thing,to be here and now attentive, because it can be that the energy for a greater leap is already here in us. But I don’t want to see myself following a very long path. I don’t want to put me in the middle of a process of evolution of the soul. Such a thing would be a mistake, because I don’t want to get lost in the process of time. Krishnamurti explained that time cannot be a mediator in our achieving a higher state of realization. That way, I can feel that any moment is good to be in here and now. For me, there’s no such a process in time, along which all the beings will evolve until the final enlightenment. I think that we should approach this problem in a different view – in a different dimension. The dimension of the highest truth. That truth says that everything is already luminous. And there is not such a division between beings. We are all one. And the Universe is only one principle. The principle of unity.

Naturally, in such a context, we can say that there is no need for struggle. We can only do one action: realizing the truth of only one. And realizing this, there no more confusion. Thus, knowledge – or wisdom. Wisdom can be a matter of substraction, instead of addition of knowledge. Krishnamurti said we have to get rid of all false conceptions and asumptions. And then wisdom will arise naturally.<p>
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