Meditation
2002/7 (september)
.........................................................................................................................
Center Of Meditation SAMATHA-VIPASSANA, S. Andrea of Compito and Lucca.
Whoever can freely participate and free to the group meditation , on
Saturday at the 15,30 to S. Andrea of Compito, Tower street 9 (telef.
0583.977051 - Loriano) or the Thursday, times 19,45, Lucca, 42 Citadel
street (Alexander, tel. 0583.956302).
Whoever wants to receive "Meditation" by e-mail, can communicate
his/her own e-mail to Loriano (asiaticus@tin.it). In case of change of
e-mail, it is begged to communicate it. Thanks. Mail: Loriano Belluomini,
55065, S. Andrea di Compito, Lucca.
........................................................................................................................................................
THE 7 FACTORS OF THE AWAKENING: sati: awareness 2) dhamma vicaya: analysis
of the phenomenons 3) viriya: energy 4) piiti: joy 5) passaddhi: calm 6)
samadhi: meditative absorption 7) upekkhaa: equanimity.
'ALL THE CONDITIONED PHENOMENONS HAVE FOR NATURE TO DECAY: Untiringly
practice you' (Mahaaparinibbaana Sutta).
.........................................................................................................................
I go to walk with
one friend of mine, in the morning, and we sometimes have some
conversations, as it goes. This morning we have had one on the fate,or
destiny. She says : " The Fate, for me there is the Fate to govern
our lives, it is what makes to happen the things, that it puts in union
the people and so on". I have remained an instant in silence. It is
always worthwhile to take a small break when we enter a discussion.
It serves us to look at ourselves, to see our reactions in front of the
matter, in front of the emotionalism that is always connected with the
discussions. It is necessary to do, in short, what I call "a backtstep
"e to see how is reacting, in front of the situation X the entity Y
(in this case me same). This also serves for entering a conversation
without aggressiveness, without that impetuousness that spontaneously
comes when our ego feels himself involved and therefore curtains to defend
something, some opinion. In this break that I take , I also ask me the
question: "Am I about to defend something? Am I attached to
some point of view? "
"Do you think that fate exists? "
"Yes, I think that it exists, I see it in the things that happen,
there is something that rules our life."
"But as you do to say it? There is no test of this."
"Why there is no test? Yet I verify it in the things: to one
happens to be rich, beautiful, fortunate in everything and to another
happens that is a scribble, poor man and wretch. It is not the fate this?
I was born here but I could have been born in the Third World… ".
I reflect. I could tell her: " Mah, I believe rather in the karma…
" but I don't like a lot to use these terminologies, even if at times
I do it cause it is a so known concept. Besides it concerns here
also a conceptualisation. I choose therefore another road.
"It seems me that it treats rather of one interpretation of yours of
the facts. The facts are, then we put there our interpretation."
"But then according to you there is no anything? What is then the
life? "
"Life is the life itself, and enough. This is the datum of fact. The
rest they are our interpretations."
I am not to tell the whole discussion because I don't remember it
(also the dialogue here above it is only an approximate reconstruction). I
Want however to take the sprout for a discourse on the importance
not to have opinions, not to have anything to defend.
In this I follow the street opened by the Buddha and by Naagaarjuna.
We take the idea of karma. Karma simply means "action" and, in a
general sense, the idea of causality for which all of this that happens
has causes and conditions to happen. In itself rather this concept
expresses the idea of vacuity of the phenomenons, the lack of a stable
substance in them (type: soul, God or other). To say it with a
formula: X happens in dependence from the cause Y and from the conditions
Z. For example: you are a good doctor, we say a doctor of success because
you have studied very hard (principal cause) with the help of the
following conditions: you had the money to go to the university, you had
some good teachers, you have been sustained by friends and relatives and
so on. This is the causality what governs the world. And it is clear that
the disappearance of some of the secondary conditions or the principal
cause (to have studied very hard) will weaken or will make even to
disappear the fact to be a good doctor. This is the vacuity. Conditions
are deprived unfortunately of stable substance (they could exist as
depending from other conditions depending from other conditions and so on
) and therefore you are a good doctor on the base of ephemeral conditions,
empty; even it can happen that, some conditions of the past missing (for
es. a teacher that inculcated you in the mind the necessity of a
continuous updating) from tomorrow you are not more considered a good
doctor.
This is the causality (or karma or dependent co-production). You can
realize as this causality doesn't contain things but phenomenons
dependant from other phenomenons dependant from other phenomenons.
It is empty of stable substance (otherwise nothing would happen in the
world). Therefore the Vacuity, the absence of substance, dynamism is the
base for the world as it is. Dynamic, in evolution.
The problem is born when we attach also to this concept. It is true that
we deal with an empirical concept, easily verifiable. It is not verifiable
instead that a Fate exists, that God exists. One is able "to feel"
inside itself that these entities exist: but it is probable that
this comes from a safety desire of the ego, equally as the existence of a
substance called soul. Instead causality is verifiable. We empirically
know that the world works this way.
However if we attach there to this concept we can stick to it,
unconsciously to make to become it "substance" in turn,
therefore to formally accept it (how absence of substantiality) but to
deny it in the facts. This friend of mine has done really this this
morning, all of a sudden of the discourse: "Beh, then causality is
the Fate (or God) ".
Temptation is always strong: to create an entity, an essence that governs
the world. I realize that it often appears also in my mind. Talking
all of a sudden to this friend I have spoken of "suchness",
intending with this to allude to the things as they are, phenomenons,
without interpretation.
But also this concept can be reified, that is transformed in "thing"
(from the Latin res "thing"), in substance. A substance
in the mind, purely mental, but always a substance.
But what a danger there is in this, someone could say.
There is instead a great danger, it is in name of these mental substances
(we take to ex. a religion, a philosophy or other) that the wars of
religion or politics have been made, that fundamentalism exists, that the
conflicts exist.
Therefore the way to the Liberation cannot put aside from a criticism to
all of this that is turned into substance and to which we attach . We
attach ourselves to the things, to the concepts and when we think
"to possess truth" we have to defend it. Under these trials
there is always the belief in a stable self and the conceitedness that the
world( "external") is something out of us: subject and object of
perception, a pernicious dualism that prevents us from gathering the fact
that the world and we don't exist: the world and we are the same thing,
phenomenons in a sea of phenomenons.
As we see, the discourse is complex.
But its meaning is simple. To be free (and with this I intend both the
most immediate liberties and that absolute) it is necessary to be free
from the obsessions, intending with this name a vast gradation of mental
phenomenons, from the least degree to the maximum degree. Therefore
If you ask me if my practice is religious
I deny it
If you tell me that my practice is not religious
I deny it
If you ask me if the karma exists
I deny it
If you tell me that the karma doesn't exist
I deny it
If you ask me if another world exists
I deny it
If you tell me that another world doesn't exist
I deny it
If you ask me if the Nirvana exists
I deny it
If you tell me that the Nirvana doesn't exist
I deny it
If you ask me if I am Buddhist
I deny it
If you say that I am not Buddhist
I deny it
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
" Alexander communicates that on Sunday, Sept. 1, there will be a day
of meditation with the monk Dhammiko in Arliano .
Go to the ENGLISH
HOMEPAGE
BAGUAZHANG 
English
version 
