“Indian philosophy says we should wait for an answer. That is the art and secret. ‘By facing the bitter meaning of nothingness, we attain illumination of the Being in which existence dwells.’ But this asking and waiting is only possible for those who have been broken on the wheel of existentialist anxiety and ontological crisis. This extreme inward suffering and anguish is the kind cruelty of the surgeon’s knife—a part of the therapeutic process. The greatest achievement of existentialism is that through anxiety, anguish and dread it shakes a person out of their complacency and drives them on to the ontological mystery. In this sense a person tortured by existential anxiety is spiritually more advanced than they who never suffers this anguish but feels happy and accepts the world with a cheerful ‘Yes’.”—
P.J. Saher, Eastern Wisdom and Western Thought: The Psycho-Cybernetics of Comparative Ideas in Religion and Philosophy
This is a very important point on the attainment of Enlightenment and a common theme through many religious and spiritual traditions. The person who knows the suffering of the world, the violent oppression that plagues the most vulnerable populations, and stands in misery and anxiety at the fragility of the human existence, is more near to the divine and the higher realms of the evolution of consciousness than the person who is comfortable with their ignorance and the horror that occupies the minds and environments of all sentient beings. The inward existential crisis is a reflection of the external social-political crisis of humankind.
Unlearning oppressive frameworks that have been implanted into our psyche is not only morally correct but signifies evolution.
“Don’t just feel sorry for the poor Yaqui Indians,” he had said. “Feel sorry for mankind. In the case of the Yaqui Indians, I can even say they’re the lucky ones. They are oppressed, and because of that, some of them may come out triumphant in the end. But the oppressors, the petty tyrants that tread upon them, they don’t have a chance in hell.”
Don Juan Matus, The Fire from Within
(via modernshxmxn)
“All these attempts suggest that it is an easy matter to recognize oneself. This is an illusion, a belief built on wishful thinking, and a positively harmful illusion at that. People who embark on that promised easy road will either acquire a false smugness, believing they know all about themselves, or will become discouraged when they are blocked by the first serious obstacle and will tend to relinquish the search for truth as a bad job. Neither result will happen so easily if one is aware that self-analysis is a strenuous, slow process, bound to be painful and upsetting at times and requiring all available constructive energies.”— Karen Horney M.D., Self-Analysis
“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.”— Joseph Campbell (via childrenofthetao)
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek.”— Joseph Campbell (via childrenofthetao)
“The two – the hero and her ultimate god, the seeker and the found – are thus understood as the outside and inside of a single, self-mirrored mystery, which is identical with the mystery of the manifest world. The great deed of the supreme hero is to come to the knowledge of this unity in multiplicity and then to make it known”— Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (via modernshxmxn)
“On a relative place, illness is said to be caused by a lack of harmony within the microcosm or between it and the universe; this includes all short term causes of diseases. But on the absolute plane, illness is understood to be caused by the disharmony originating from the fundamental delusion of duality and ego’s self existence. So while the relative goal of Tibetan medicine is to prevent and cure illness, its ultimate goal is the final cure of all suffering: enlightenment.”— Terry Clifford, Tibetan Buddhist Medicine and Psychiatry. (via modernshxmxn)
“When you have an illness, know it yourself. Once you know it, you should cure it as soon as posisble. If you dislike the cure and avoid facing the illness, when impermanence comes upon you it will be too late for regret”—
Anthology on the Cultivation of Realization. Author, Unknown. Ming Dynasty (China) 1368-1644 (via modernshxmxn)
This is dedicated to the friend who messaged me this morning. Tomorrow’s quotes will be around recovering from chronic illnesses, something that is also very intimate to me.
(via childrenofthetao)
“If you know how to watch yourself, gazing inwardly you see no mind, gazing outwardly you see no body. Since mind and body are not there, who is it that suffers illness? Who is it that is not ill? If you can see clearly, you will spontaneously be unburdened.”— Anthology on the Cultivation of Realization. Author, Unknown. Ming Dynasty (China) 1368-1644 (via modernshxmxn)
“Tantric rituals are used to give a person who is doing self-healing an outer structure on which to project their inner strength. The strength is identified with the deity. It purifies oneself, is reabsorbed, enlarged and fully identified with—oneself becomes the deity. The aspects of the subtle body thus identified with the cosmic powers of Buddhahood are put to work healing the illness. The main part of such practice is to visualize brilliant light streaming from the deity and directing it to the particular place to be cured, if that is necessary, or simply, in general, streaming throughout the body, purifying and transforming it. White light and blue light are often used for healing purposes. In the healing of others the circulated light does not just remain in oneself but is radiated out into the ordinary universe—purifying and healing all others.”— Dr. Terry Clifford, Tibetan Buddhist Medicine and Psychiatry. (via modernshxmxn)
“When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed.”— Joseph Campbell
“May those who find themselves in trackless, fearful wilderness— The children, the aged, the unprotected, Those stupified and insane— Be guarded by beneficent celestials”— Shantideva, Bodhicharyavatara
“As long as the existence of space and as long as the existence of the world, that long let my existence be devoted to the world’s sorrows. Whatever the sorrow of the world, may all that ripen in me; and may the world be comforted by the glorious Bodhisattvas.”— Shantideva, Indian Buddhist Poet-Saint