Guardian of the Threshold, Who watches over the door To Paravati and Mahadeva, behold The offerings I place before. The all encompassing sound, Syllable of bliss without bound, And expression of true intention.
Gaṇeśa
Thoughts on Raindrops
Stream of thoughts fall Like drops of rain. Ripples recall And reflect again. Quite them all, Let the mind reign.
Foundation and Framework
The Four Noble Truths, in twelve points, as foundation and framework of refuge (and practice):
1) This is suffering (to be understood)
- Of suffering there are three kinds: direct suffering (pain, hardship and the like); suffering of change (the transient nature of pleasurable sensations); pervasive suffering of conditioning
- That which is conditioned is that which is dependently arisen
- Thus, all conditioned things are impermanent, all conditioned things are cause for suffering (subject to origination, subject to cessation)
2) This is the origin to suffering (to be abandoned)
- Ignorance of the twelve links of dependent origination
- This leads to grasping to that conditioned, sourced from disillusionment, aversion, and attachment
- From which emerge the five mental factors that hinder progress in meditation: sensuous desire; ill will; sloth and torpor; restlessness and scruples; skeptical doubt
3) This is the end to suffering (to be fully realized)
- Wisdom from arousing an awakening mind in renunciation
- The realization that self and phenomena are of dependent origination and thus empty of intrinsic existence.
- That is awareness of emptiness, true nature of reality, Peaceful Nirvana.
4) This is the way to the end of suffering (to be fully developed)
- Method or means (practice in Mindful Compassion)
- That is, the way of the Eightfold Path (accumulation of morality, concentration and wisdom)
- With aspects of renunciation (non-attachment), compassionate awaking mind, and awareness in calm abiding.
Innermost Awareness
If empty self perceived, And selfless phenomena conceived, Who then would guide? And who on path proceeds? Who is it that strives? Though continuum remaining, Moment by moment changing, Between conceptions Clear perfection.
Faith My Only Courage
Where present proof There absent faith, Two faces to truth.
Undeterminably Predetermined
What without merit avert, The grasping of self subvert, To pureness of view revert.
Why?
Mantra of inquisitive mind, Midst consequentle bind, Casualty seeks to find. Conscious causal perception, Disillusioned, rooted in deception, Cyclic, without inception.
Insistence
Illusory existence persistence Experientially resistant, Without proof of non-existence. Argument for existence persists Of that which does not exist Absent falsifiable hypothesis.
Gone gentle into
A refrain reframing on reflection of Dylan Thomas’s reaffirmation “Do not go gentle into that good night.”
Go gentle into primordial light. Birth but age and death as night is to day. Sage sits serene, illuminates the night. Who wise in compassion knows what is right, The two truths to the awaking way. Go gentle into that primordial light None can hold time regardless of their might, That from that arisen shall never stay. Sage sits serene, illuminates the night. What use to grieve at setting of sunlight, Why place trust in what is known to betray? Go gentle into that primordial light. Who grasps at what temporal death gives fright. So gently abide, perturbed thoughts allay. Sage sits serene, illuminates the night. To who taught from atop Mount Meru’s height, Guide whom grasp and rage through good night, I pray. So gentle into that primordial light, sage serenely sits, illuminates night.
Accumulation:
Observation,
Contemplation,
Meditation,
Realization.