ATTD NewsLetter 012

Awakening to the Dream

The Gift of Lucid Living

ATTD News Letter number 20

Saturday, December 06, 2003

Q & A

Question: I want to ask a simple question, why are we born into this world and why do we die?
Answer: The most simple answer is 'why not.' As this might not be very helpful, here is a bit more;
The question may sound reasonable but is in fact not very meaningful. You are asking for the meaning of life while everything that has meaning is a relative position within life.
It is like asking 'Where is space located?' while everything that has a location occupies a relative position within space. We could say that the location of space is space and that the meaning of life is life.
I would suggest that you first inquire 'who' you really are, before attempting to answer 'why' you are.
As soon as the 'who question' is answered, the 'why question' will dissolve.
If or when you have a question you'd like to see answered in this newsletter mail to:
author@awakeningtothedream.com

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From the book 'Awakening to the Dream.'

As It Is, life has no meaning beyond itself. It is always at the point of completion and, simultaneously, as fresh as the morning dew at the dawn of creation. This Awakeness does not deliver a permanent transcendental state. The belief that awakening is about such a state-that it is an experience for someone-constitutes the enlightenment myth. It continues the illusion of a separate seeker and keeps you trapped in the search for the desired awakening. That which you truly are is forever awake and present, not just in the extraordinary, but also in and as the ordinary. It is beyond simple and complex. It is the source of both. We could use the theories from quantum mechanics and theoretical physics to point at it, or we could use a nursery rhyme like:
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream
Or the following:
Where did you come from, baby dear?
Out of Everywhere into here.
Chuck Hillig points at it in a wonderfully simple book Enlightenment for Beginners, and Wei Wu Wei dazzles the reader with his intellectual acrobatics, while pointing at the very same essence. Like clear water, it slips through the net of our concepts. It is smaller than the smallest and greater than the greatest; it is unborn, eternal, and forever free. It is simply One, expressing and manifesting itself as the complex illusion of the multitude that is the dance of creation.
The paperback is available at: http://www.awakeningtothedream.com/purchasebook.html
The eBook can be found at: http://www.awakeningtothedream.com/purchase.html
Photo: Dawn from Gilbert's backdoor
Visit him at: http://www.users.bigpond.com/tigereyez/Nisargax.html

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Non-Duality Books

Imports : Classics : Contemporary Teachers
Non-duality Books provides books and audio resources
on Advaita and non-duality with a focus on
contemporary teachers & authors.
The Western expression of the non-dual perspective.
Visit Julian's website at: http://www.non-dualitybooks.com/

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Original mind

If you cannot see it, it's simply because you're blinded by the jumble of words of the ones you've decided to place above your head. You don't see it because you're obsessed with your efforts at trying to trap it by thoughts, feelings and practices.
You think it is a long way of and yet it is right here. You try to grab it and off it slips. And so you waste your whole lives, trying to fill up a bottomless bucket.
If you opened your eyes, you would see original mind just as you see sunlight. You don't need to interfere to make it happen.
When you've seen one grain of sea-sand, you've seen the sand of every beach and riverbank from the bottom of every ocean in the whole world.
If you've seen the original mind, you've seen the entire original mind and you are Buddha.
Now listen to me with your utmost attention.
I'm going to tell you the great secret of the original mind.
Here it is -the most important thing that has ever been said anywhere at any time?
Listen, there is no secret of the original mind.
From '"The Sayings of Old Ch'eng" On the nature of original mind.
Cool Grove Press ISBN 1-887276-22-X

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Awakened Poetry

WATERS OF MARCH
A. C. Jobin
A stick, a stone, it's the end of the road,
It's the rest of a stump, it's a little alone,
It's a sliver of glass, it is life, it's the sun,
It is night, it is death, it's a trap, it's a gun.
The oak when it blooms, a fox in the brush,
The nod of the wood, the song of a thrush,
The wood of the wing, a cliff, a fall,
A scratch, a lump, it is nothing at all.
It's the wind blowing free, it's the end of a slope,
It's a bean, it's a void, it's a hunch, it's a hope.
And the riverbank talks of the Waters of March,
It's the end of the strain, it's the joy in your heart.

The foot, the ground, the flesh and the bone,
The beat of the road, a sling-shot stone,
A truckload of bricks in the soft morning light,
The shot of a gun in the dead of the night.
A mile, a must, a thrust, a bump,
It's a girl, it's a rhyme, it's a cold, it's the mumps.
The plan of the house, the body in bed,
And the car that got stuck, it's the mud, it's the mud.
Afloat, adrift, a flight, a wing,
A cock, a quail, the promise of spring.
And the riverbank talks of the Waters of March,
It's the promise of life, it's the joy in your heart.

A point, a grain, a bee, a bite,
A blink, a buzzard, a sudden stroke of night,
A pin, a needle, a sting, a pain,
A snail, a riddle, a wasp, a stain.
A snake, a stick, it is John, it is Joe,
A fish, a flash, a silvery glow.
And the riverbank talks of the Waters of March,
It's the promise of life in your heart, in your heart.
A stick, a stone, the end of the load,
The rest of a stump, a lonesome road.
A sliver of glass, a life, the sun,
A night, a death, the end of the run.
And the riverbank talks of the Waters of March,
It's the end of all strain, it's the joy in your heart.
Art Garfunkel's BREAKAWAY Album (1975)

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Quote of the moment!
Give up all questions except one: "Who am I?"
After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are.
The "I am" is certain.
The "I am this" is not.
_{Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj}

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Smile of the moment!

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ATTD links
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