Tuesday, March 25, 2008

March 25, 2008 Contemplation

Since lately I've had very little time to devote to writing, I've decided to start a regular feature wherein I'll post a scriptural reference to contemplate.

Instructions: Close your eyes and take three deep breaths. Breathe in for a count of 3, and out for a count of 4. Open your eyes and read the contemplation below. Read it several times if you wish. Then, click on the link to begin a 2-minute session in which you can contemplate the saying I have posted. The timer will begin automatically, and an audible sound will mark the end of the session (so wear headphones if you're at work!).

Close your eyes, and contemplate the saying along the following lines, "How can I apply this to my life?" "Have I seen evidence to support this author's statement? Where?" "If what I've seen contradicts this author's statement, could s/he have meant something else?"


Contemplation

"Before, when I was a householder, maintaining the bliss of kingship, I had guards posted within and without the royal apartments, within and without the city, within and without the countryside. But even though I was thus guarded, thus protected, I dwelled in fear — agitated, distrustful, and afraid. But now, on going alone to a forest, to the foot of a tree, or to an empty dwelling, I dwell without fear, unagitated, confident, and unafraid — unconcerned, unruffled, my wants satisfied, with my mind like a wild deer. This is the meaning I have in mind that I repeatedly exclaim, 'What bliss! What bliss!'"

His deer is obviously not the deer in the headlights. It's a deer safe in the wilderness, at its ease wherever it goes. What makes it more than a deer is that, free from attachment, it's called a "consciousness without surface." Light goes right through it. The hunter can't shoot it, for it can't be seen.

-- From Freedom from Fear by Thanissaro Bhikkhu


Begin 2-minute meditation now

2 comments:

monk said...

wonderful! BLISS!

Thanks!

have a list Yahoo for those interested in self-realization etc
at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/realized

or one for monastic subjecs 'monasterion"

monk

Frank said...

I am going to mess this up, probably, and make no sense at all. But this contemplation is the heart of what I am in constant contemplation about. We live in our lives, our homes, with the want of a god, a higher being, to be with us, to protect us. There seems to be that moment, and I know that I have experienced it, when we are in nature and this feeling of oneness and peace has overcome us. This is a thought put into my head by a book I have read, but a thought I am beginning to believe. Why is it we find the peace and tranquility we so desperately want to find in a god always found when we are not expecting it. Always found in nature. We are in the grace of nature, always trying to find the grace of God. Always setting ourselves apart from goodness when goodness is within us and all around us.
Fear is in the shadows of what is not known, something our thoughts cannot comprehend. When we are inside the known, our fears subside and we find that solice that only our spirit can bring. Only of what our souls can connect with.
Since they are unable to connect with this god that is not willing to connect with us, the only other option there is is to connect with what is able to be connected with. Nature!