So the only way to achieve real peace is to find it peacefully. You can’t do it violently then suddenly decide, “After all this violence, now we’ve achieved peace, so from now on we move into peace.” It’s not possible. People don’t do that because their whole view of things is that you have to fight to get what you want, even if it’s peace.
Zen says for example, “Inwardly, no identity. Outwardly, no attachment.” No identity within, no clinging, holding, embracing anything outside – then what state are you in, if you have no identity and no attachments? Then you’re nowhere. That’s the place where you can be reached.
There comes a time, as it has come for me, when the gift of life is taken away - well, as far as we know for sure.
So dying is a process that happens on earth, it’s not about something that happens when you’re kind of already out of life and you’re in kind of a space where you not really here anymore and yet you are, and you just watch the time go by in a kind of neutral way. It’s not like that, not for me. It’s like a process that belongs to something I don’t know about, and that has really surprised me.
You can be happy for this or that as a response to some favour or incident, but you can never reach happiness as a state of being, until you reach the top of the mountain. On the other hand – and that’s my teaching coming now – you don’t actually have to climb to the top of the mountain to find that happiness.
Dear Beloveds, In his blog after the Summer Festival, Michael wrote, “What’s next lies still in the Unknown,” and it’s from this space I have something to share with you. Some of you noticed that, over the summer, Michael began to lose weight because he had difficulties with swallowing. Since then, it was found out that something has been growing in his Ösophagus which has already become quite big. He got some treatment here In the local hospital to make it more easy for him to eat again. This whole process has been and still is taking a lot of [...]
One morning, Buddha came in for his discourse and he sat down, and he didn't say anything... After some time with people waiting for him to talk and him not saying anything, one of his disciples, called Mahakashyap, started to laugh. When that happened, Buddha called him up, and gave him a flower and he said, “This is the only one amongst you who understood my silence.” What did he understand?
The Laughing Buddhas OPT8 FIRST LEG :: A BLOG 6-11/8/19 Abava & Tiago write this: After an outstanding Summer Festival, The Laughing Buddhas made their way to UNACHO for the start of OPT8. Michael launched the week with a great talk called, At the Centre of the Universe Moving Towards Anybody & Anything, which was just perfect for the newcomers and old faces alike. Then we followed a number of other basic training meditations - The 3 Levels, and Meeting Others in an Energy Way. Then came The Wild Goose Cocktail Party Hello - the 2nd input to his Work [...]
What is the quality of the visitor who exists before the visit and still exists after the visit? What is the quality that we have, you have, I have, that has the capacity to come on this earth temporarily and yet is not contained by that time of the duration of our visit?
So we've lost Saranda. In life anyway. On Saturday 29/6 I got this mail from Sarvasati: This night, Saranda left this world.