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I'll be disappearing for a week or so. Meanwhile, ponder this:

What is more important to you -- the mind or the Truth?

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"The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is."

Spinoza
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"We are disturbed not by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens to us."

Epictetus
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Are you a good meditator? Are you a bad meditator? What if there was nothing to get, nowhere to go, no one to become? What if you just realized that you're already and always free?
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"What's wrong with right now unless you think about it?"

'Sailor' Bob Adamson
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"I am affected only by my thoughts."

A Course In Miracles
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"One should enquire into that which is the uncaused cause of all, ...for this alone is the essential."

Yoga Vasistha
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"Free from dogmatic conceptual elaboration
*Of appearances and mind,
*Reality, transcending intellect,
*Is not an object of meditation."*

Nagarjuna

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One young monk told of an encounter in which Wu-ming asked him, "Can you tell me where my home is?" Confused as to the spirit of the question, the monk replied, "Is the home you speak of to be found in the relative world of time and place, or do you mean the Original Home of all pervading Buddha nature?"

After pausing a moment to consider the question, Wu-ming looked up and, grinning as only he is capable, said, "Yes."
*
Thanks to Mark by way of Kathy at Bamboo Shade for this one!
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"The true Buddha word always speaks of emptiness, rings of emptiness, and anything which does not ring of emptiness is not the word of the Buddha."

Ajahn Buddhadasa
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Some say that we focus too much here on wisdom and not enough on love and compassion. To reiterate, the important thing is the wisdom realizing emptiness, the natural state free from, empty of, illusory thought constructs.
As we've said, there's no difference between wisdom and love, because they both refer to essentially the same thing viewed from a different angle: wisdom sees that all 'things' are equal, and unconditional love sees that all 'beings' are equal. Again, as Nisargadatta Maharaj said,

***************************""Wisdom says I am nothing.
****************************Love says I am everything.
****************************Between the two my life flows."

Once wisdom arises, love is a natural by-product. Nisargadatta again:

****************************"Understanding is all."

Understand the Truth, and Be Love.
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vikalpanihitatmanam: who are established in dichotomising thought-constructs
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*"What are these false beliefs that block you from happiness? Here are some examples. First: You cannot be happy without the things that you...consider so precious. False. There is not a single moment in your life when you do not have everything you need to be happy. ...
*"Another belief: Happiness is in the future. Not true. Right here and now you are happy and you do not know it because your false beliefs and your distorted perceptions have got you caught up in fears, anxieties, attachments, conflicts, guilt and a host of games that you are programmed to play. If you would see through this you would realize that you are happy and do not know it.
*"Yet another belief: Happiness will come if you manage to change the situation you are in and the people around you. Not true. ... What makes you happy or unhappy is not the world and the people around you, but the thinking in your head. ...
*"Another false belief: If all your desires are fulfilled you will be happy. Not true. ... The fulfillment of desire can, at the most, bring flashes of pleasure and excitement. Don't mistake that for happiness.
*"What then is happiness? Very few people know and no one can tell you, because happiness cannot be described. Can you describe light to people who have have been sitting in darkness all their lives? Can you describe reality to someone in a dream? Understand your darkness and it will vanish; then you will know what light is. Understand your nightmare for what it is and it will stop; then you will wake up to reality. Understand your false beliefs and they will drop; then you will know the taste of happiness."

Anthony de Mello, SJ
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*"The search itself is the trap. You are already what you are seeking. You think there is something to attain or to get. You have never been anything other than that, and never could be. We hear that, but how many of us ever really take a good look at it and stick with it, hang onto it? What do we do? 'That is not good enough!' We will race away and look at somebody else. We will go to somebody else, hear somebody else, read another book or do this or do that, thinking we will get the answer somewhere else. But the only place the answer is, is with you. It is not with anybody else. You are already that. You can't be anything else other than that."

Bob Adamson
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You will find what you seek when seeking ends.
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Every word here is merely a concept.
Rest in the conceptless awareness that is who you truly are,
at the heart of all concepts.
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You are not the body, nor are you the senses.
You are not the mind, nor are you thoughts, emotions, or habit patterns.
Then, who is you?
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Suffering is wanting things to be other than they are.
That's the relative level.
Now, investigate "things", and "suffering", and "levels".
On the ultimate "level", do they even exist?
Does the "relative level" even exist?
Can even the "ultimate level" even be said to exist?
What is the only constant?
Investigate. Investigate who investigates.
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"You cannot not be what you are. So be that!"

Karl Renz
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"Moreover, all afflictive emotions, karma, and habitual patterns
are magical expressions arising as a display due to dynamic energy.
Antidotes that bring improvement--even the path to liberation--
are magical expressions arising as a display due to dynamic energy.
Since both arise timelessly as a display due to this energy, it is
crucial to rest without contrivance within the state of recognition.
They are equal in mode, equal in manner, and equal in stirring from
the ground of being.
They occur circumstantially, are compounded, and do not transcend
causality, so it is essential that you transcend causality--
resting naturally, resting imperturbably."

Longchenpa
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Watch!
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The past never happened; the future never will...
So why do you let it bother you? Bother can only happen right now.
And if you're bothered, be bothered, and don't let it bother you. And so on...

Bother: pester, annoy, bewilder with noise, confuse, petty trouble, nonsense, meaningless chatter.

*****"What's wrong with right now if you don't think about it?"

Bob Adamson
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*An effect must have a cause. If the cause is a phantom, so also is the effect. Thus, both cause and effect are ultimately not real. If the ego, the so-called doer, is seen to be a fiction, then how can its effects be considered real?

From Longchenpa:

"The freedom of everything--abiding in a supreme state of equalness--
is unacceptable to those involved in cause and effect, effort and achievement,
*but in the most sublime approach it makes perfect sense as the ultimate
meaning of unwavering equalness."
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"As a yogin with a pure mind looks inward,
awareness, without underlying support or basis, is free of labels.
It cannot be perceived in any way that can be characterized
or described--
structured view and meditation are done away with.
Given this state of infinite evenness, open, relaxed, and spacious,
there is no sense of spiritual practice, for there is no distinction
between formal sessions and the periods in between.
Everything is unrestricted, completely equal, and uninterrupted.

With no reference point--whether body or sense object or perception--
there is infinite evenness within the undifferentiated, vast
expanse of space,
and so there is no inner agent that can be held to have identity."

Longchenpa
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"Looking around, I find the perception of beings to be truly
amazing.
They fixate on what is not real as real, so that it certainly
seems real.
They fixate on confusion where there is no confusion, so that
there certainly seems to be confusion.
They reify what is indeterminate, so that it
certainly seems determinate.
They reify what is not so as being so, so that it certainly seems so.
They reify what is untenable as tenable, so that it certainly seems
tenable.

Ordinary mind is seduced by trivial sense objects in all their
variety.
One's useless focus moment by moment extends into a
continuum, as days, months, years, whole lives go by.
Beings are deceived by misconstruing what is not dualistic
as dualistic."

Longchenpa
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