Die Every Moment

Nan-in was in search of a Zen Master when he was a seeker. He lived with his Master for many years, and then the Master said, ”Everything is okay. You have almost achieved.” But he said ”almost”, so Nan-in said, ”What do you mean?” The Master said, ”I will have to send you for a few days to another Master. That will do the last finishing touch.”

Nan-in was very much excited. He said, ”Send me immediately!” A letter was given to him, and he was so excited, he thought he was being sent to someone who was a greater Master than his own. But when he reached to the man, he was no one, just a keeper of an inn, a doorkeeper of an inn.
He felt very much disappointed and he thought,”This must be some sort of a joke. This man is going to be my last Master? He is going to give me the finishing touch?” But he had come, so he thought, ”It is better to be here for a few days, at least rest, then I will go back. It was a long journey.” So he said to the inn-keeper, ”My Master has given this letter.”
The innkeeper said, ”But I cannot read, so you can keep your letter; it is not needed. And you can be here.” Nan-in said, ”But I have been sent to learn something from you.”
The innkeeper said, ”I am just an innkeeper, I am not a Master, I am not a teacher. There must have been some misunderstanding. You may have come to a wrong person. I am just an innkeeper. I cannot teach; I don’t know anything. But when you have come, you can just watch me. That may be helpful. You rest and watch.”
But there was nothing to watch. In the morning he will open the door of the inn. Then guests will come and he will clean their things – the pots, the utensils and everything – and he will serve. And in the night again, when everybody has gone and the guests have gone to sleep to their beds, he will clean things again, pots, utensils, everything. And in the morning, again the same.
By the third day, Nan-in was bored. And he said ”There is nothing to watch. You go on cleaning utensils you go on doing ordinary work, so I must leave.” The doorkeeper laughed, but said nothing.
Nan-in came back, was very angry with his Master and said, ”Why? Why I was sent for such a long journey, tedious it was, and the man was just a doorkeeper? And he didn’t teach me anything, and he simply said, ’Watch,’ and there was nothing to watch.”
But the Master said, ”Still, you were there for three four days. Even if there was nothing to watch, you must have watched. What you were doing?” So he said, ”I was watching. In the night he will clean the utensils pots, put everything there, and in the morning he was again cleaning.”
The Master said, ”This, this is the teaching! This is for what you were sent! He had cleaned those pots in the night, but in the morning he was again cleaning those clean pots. What does it mean? Because even by the night, when nothing has happened, they have become unclean again, some dust has settled again. So you may be pure: now you are. You may be innocent, but every moment you have to continue cleaning. You may not do anything, still you become impure just by the passage of time. Moment to moment, just the passage, not doing anything, just sitting under a tree, you become unclean. And that uncleanliness is not because you were doing something bad or something wrong,it happens just through the passage of time. Dust collects. So you go on cleaning, and this is the last touch, because I feel you have become proud that you are pure, and now you are not worried of constant effort to clean.”
Moment to moment one has to die and be reborn again.

Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 1 72 Osho
CHAPTER 5. RIGHT AND WRONG KNOWLEDGE

Never Give Up ! Inspiring Story of Marvan Atapatu !!

It’s a story that Harsha Bhogle, India’s most loved cricket commentator, loves to tell, over and over again. Making his debut in Test cricket for Sri Lanka, Marvan scored a duck in his first innings. And again, in his second innings.

Back to the grind. Would the selectors ever give him another chance? They said he lacked big-match temperament. His technique wasn’t good enough at the highest level. Undaunted, Marvan kept trying.They dropped him. So he went back to the nets for more practice. More first-class cricket. More runs. Waiting for that elusive call. And after twenty-one months, he got a second chance. This time, he tried harder. His scores: 0 in the first innings, 1 in the second Dropped again, he went back to the grind. And scored tonnes of runs in first-class cricket. Runs that seemed inadequate to erase the painful memories of the Test failures. Well, seventeen months later, opportunity knocked yet again. Marvan got to bat in both innings of the Test. His scores: 0 and 0. Phew!

Three years later, he got another chance. This time, he made runs. He came good. And in an illustrious career thereafter, Marvan went on to score over 5000 runs for Sri Lanka. That included sixteen centuries and six double hundreds. And he went on to captain his country. All this despite taking over six years to score his second run in Test cricket. Wow! What a guy!

How many of us can handle failure as well as he did? Six years of trying, and failing. He must have been tempted to pursue another career. Change his sport perhaps. Play county cricket. Or, oh well, just give up. But he didn’t. And that made the difference.

We all hear stories of talented people who gave up before their potential was realized. People who changed jobs and careers when success seemed elusive.

The next time you are staring at possible failure or rejection, think of Marvan. And remember this: If you don’t give up, if you believe in yourself, if you stay the course, the run will eventually come. What more you could even become captain some day.

NEVER GIVE UP. NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP !

ACT !

A little bear cub was confused about how to walk.
"What do I do first?" he asked his mother. "Do I start with my right foot or my left? Or both front feet and then my back feet? Or do I move both feet on one side and then both feet on the other?" 
His mother answered, "Just quit thinking and start walking."

You are what you are !!

A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on each end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master's house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. 
For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his master's house. 
Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made. But the cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you."
"Why?" asked the bearer. "What are you ashamed of?"

"I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master's house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don't get full value from your efforts," the pot said. 
The water bearer's heart went out to the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, "As we return to the master's house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path."
Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it some. But at the end of the trail, it still felt sad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its failure.
The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you've watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master's table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house." 

Conversation in Womb

In a mother’s womb were two babies.

One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?”

The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”

The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”

The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”

The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”

Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and  listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”

 

from "Your Sacred Self" by Dr. Wayne Dyer.

 

Use it !

During the Kamakura period, Shinkan studied Tendai six years and then studied Zen seven years; then he went to China and contemplated Zen for thirteen years more. 
When he returned to Japan many desired to interview him and asked obscure questions. But when Shinkan received visitors, which was infrequently, he seldom answered their questions. 
One day a fifty-year-old student of enlightenment said to Shinkan: "I have studied the Tendai school of thought since I was a little boy, but one thing in it I cannot understand. Tendai claims that even the grass 
and trees will become enlightened. To me this seems very strange." 
"Of what use is it to discuss how grass and trees become enlightened?" asked Shinkan.
"The question is how you yourself can become so. Did you even consider that?"
"I never thought of it that way," marveled the old man. 
"Then go home and think it over," finished Shinkan. 

Dr.Hahnemann- A Good Old Modern Medical Thinker

The world celebrated the "Hahnemann Day" yesterday. Dr.Hahnemann made the discovery of Homoeopathy in Germany in 1810. He was a doctor in the western world who expected the doctor ( and all ) to be "the Unprejudiced Observer"- an observer who observes without any pre-judgement, without any preconceived notions, weighs the situation ( medical or otherwise), takes into account "Medicine of Experience" , thinks logically, has empathy and tries to "Heal the Sick".

Dr.N.L.Tiwari askes," What is prejudice? What is its link to perceiving? How is perceiving linked to perception? Are perceptual niceties and difficulties linked in any way with niceties and difficulties of perceiving? We will explore this at the outset.

Perception and Perceiving

The link between perception and perceiving, we can say, is observation. Let us observe the two pictures below and see what is revealed.

Picture 1

What do you see in Picture 1?

If we carefully observe it, we can see horses camouflaged in the background. There are 5 such horses that can be seen distinctly. All one needs is careful observation so that the details may not be missed, as the images may be inseparable from their background. With partial observation, one may miss the 4th or the 5th horse.

Picture 2 should now be easier to observe and comment upon.

Picture 2

What do you see now in Picture 2? Many people beautifully describe the picture as a romantic couple standing on the seashore near a weird shaped tree, probably very old. The couple is watching the sunset and admiring the mountains on the horizon. My son asked me whether I could see an infant in it. I searched but could not find it. Even the small stone lying near the couple was not it.  My wife standing next to me could see the infant in no time, but it took me 24 hours to see the infant in the picture."

Picture 3

You will certainly look at this picture again..... Why?

Basic principles of homeopathy

The fundamental idea of homeopathy is the Similarity (or Similia) Principle: ‘Similia similibus curentur’ (‘Let like be cured by like’). This implies that substances capable of causing disorder in healthy subjects are used as medicines to treat similar patterns of disorder experienced by ill people. Hippocrates wrote of curing 'like with like' more than 2,000 years ago but it was formally systematized by Hahnemann. He viewed health as a dynamic process tending to maintain a state of optimum equilibrium. Homeopathic medicines are aimed to direct and stimulate the body’s self-regulatory mechanisms.

A second principle in homeopathy is individualization of treatment for the patient. The characteristics of the chosen medicine should be as similar as possible to the characteristics of the illness in the patient. This closest match is called the ‘simillimum’. Similarity may be at the ‘whole person’ level, taking into account the symptoms and signs of the disease, the patient’s physical build, personality, temperament and genetic predispositions. This high level of individualization is not always required: ‘similarity’ may be at a more specific, local level, especially in the treatment of acute conditions.

A third principle is the use of the minimum dose. The doses used in homeopathy range from those that are similar in concentration to some conventional medicines to very high dilutions containing no material trace of the starting substance – the latter are referred to as ‘ultra-molecular’ dilutions. Vigorous shaking of the solution together with impact or ‘elastic collision’ (known as succussion) during the manufacturing process is a key element in the production of homeopathic medicines.

Long Live Hahnemannian Thought !!