Karma Student

Current mood: confused

Felt like posting this tonight!!

Happy Thanksgiving kids
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Falling in love is the ultimate act of revolution of resistance to today’s tedious, socially restrictive, culturally constrictive, patently ridiculous world.

Love transforms the world. Where the lover formerly felt boredom, he now feels passion. Where she was once complacent, she now is excited and compelled to self-asserting action. The world which once seemed empty and tiresome becomes filled with meaning, filled with risk and rewards, with majesty and danger!

Love makes it possible for individuals to connect with others in a meaningful way. It impels them to leave their shells and risk being honest and spontaneous together, to come to know each other in profound ways.

But, despite the stereotyped images used in the media to sell toothpaste and honeymoon suites, genuine passionate love is discouraged in our culture. Being “carried away by our emotions” is frowned upon; instead we are raised to always be on our guard, lest our hearts lead us astray. Rather than being encouraged to have the courage to face the consequences of risks taken in pursuit of our hearts’ desires, we are counseled not to take risks at all, to be “responsible.”

And love itself is regulated.

Men must not fall in love with other men, nor women with other women, nor individuals from different ethnic backgrounds with each other, or else the usual bigots who form the front-line offensive in the assault of modern western culture upon the individual will step in. Men and women who have entered into a legal/religious contract are not to fall in love with anyone else, even if they no longer feel any passion for their marital partners.

This regulated commercial love is nothing like the burning fire that consumes the genuine lover. Restrictions, expectations and regulations smother true love; for love is a wildflower that can never grow within the confines prepared for it, but only appears where it is least expected.

We must fight against these cultural restraints that would cripple and smother our desires. For it is love that gives meaning to life, desire that make it possible for us to make sense of our existence and find purpose in our lives. Without these, there is no way for us to determine how to live our lives, except to submit to some authority, some god, master or doctrine that will tell us what to do and how to do it without ever giving us the satisfaction that self-determination does.

So fall in love today, with men, with women,with music, with ambition, with yourself and most importantly…with LIFE!

Shamelessly stolen from Days Of War Nights Of Love =)

Enlightenment has no definite form or nature by which it can manifest itself; so in enlightenment itself, there is nothing to be enlightened. Enlightenment exists solely because of delusion and ignorance; if they disappear, so will Enlightenment. And the opposite is true also: there is no Enlightenment apart from delusion and ignorance; no delusion and ignorance apart from Enlightenment. Therefore be on guard against thinking of enlightenment as a “thing” to be grasped at, lest it, too, should become an obstruction. When the mind that was in darkness becomes enlightened, it passes away, and with its passing, the thing which we call Enlightenment passes also.

As long as people desire Enlightenment and grasp after it, it means that delusion is still with them; therefore, they who are following the way to Enlightenment must not grasp at it, and if they reach Enlightenment they must not linger in it. When people attain Enlightenment in this sense, it means that everything is Enlightenment itself as it is; therefore, people should follow the path to Enlightenment until their thoughts, worldly passions and Enlightenment become identical as they are. This concept of universal oneness–that things in their essential nature have no distinguishing marks–is called Emptiness. Emptiness means non-substantially, the unborn, having no self-nature, no duality. It is because things in themselves have no form or characteristics that we can speak of them as neither being born nor being destroyed. There is nothing about the essential nature of things that can be described in terms of discrimination; that is why things are called non-substantial.

As has been pointed out, all things appear and disappear because of causes and condition. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else. Wherever there is light, there is shadow; wherever their is length, there is shortness; wherever there is white, there is black. Just like these, as the self-nature of things cannot exist alone, they are called nonsubstantial.

By the same reasoning, Enlightenment cannot exist apart from ignorance, not ignorance apart from Enlightenment. Since things do not differ in their essential nature, there ban be no duality. It is a mistake for people to seek a thing supposed to be good and right and to flee from another supposed to be bad and evil.

If people insist that all things are empty and transitory, it is as great a mistake as to insist that things are real and do not change. If people become attached to a self, it is a mistake because it cannot save them from suffering. If they believe that there is no self, it is also a mistake and it would be useless from them to practice the Way of Truth. If people assert that everything is suffering, it is also a mistake; if they assert that everything is happiness, that is a mistake, too. All duality merges in the Middle Way.

Adopted from theLANKAVATRA SUTRA, translated by Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai