Hi Mike: I appreciate the time and effort you put yesterday in listening and talking to me. Today is another day and am back to mental clarity. Mindfulness is the key for me here. And also having friends in the practice that reminds you all that over and over again in moments of downs. It was also most helpful the contact with some eastern friends in the tradition from TNH to put me back on the wave again. Thank you again for being there where you were needed. Mayka PS: I asked over the phone to my boyfriend if he thinks if I may suffer from bipolarity and he said: that that was a far too generous statement and that I was suffering from a multi-bipolarity!. And here you go!...hehehe... --- On Mon, 28/2/11, mike brown <[email protected]> wrote:
From: mike brown <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Zen] Change To: [email protected] Date: Monday, 28 February, 2011, 18:01 Mayka, What you are given description below are different mental states. And we are going far away from the initial subject of self and selfless. I don't think we're "going far away" from the subject of self and selfless at all. Nirvana and samsara are nothing more than the working of the mind and hence different mental states. As I said in a previous post, we can label things with words but this is not what they are in Reality. How you stop yourself from being "swallowed up in hell" is something only you can workout. But if you're looking for 'techniques' then take a look at all the masters and you can see that what they say in common is to realise that the mind/self is not what you are. If you still have the wrong view that you are an individual apart from the world, then you will experience things (phenonema) happening to you, and against you. You are creating your own hell. Inquire into what you are. Again, we cannot say, "I am this or that". But we can say, "I am not this" (emotions, body, thoughts etc.). What is left is just the awareness, "I am" or Buddha Nature or God or Spirit etc. Tat avam asi - Thou art That. Mike
