zoofence.com

When I opened one of my “beside table" books the other evening, a scrap of paper dropped out with the following on it written in my hand –
Buddhas who have attainted personal freedom from mental components that construct a deluded and suffering world.

I had quotation marks around it, so presumably I read it somewhere; but I don’t know where.

Two things about it catch my attention:

1) freedom from mental components. I take that to mean not freedom from the mind in its entirety (as is, transcending the mind), but simply freedom from certain components of the mind. That image aligns nicely with the line from Nisargadatta which I posted here a while back:

“There is the body, and there is the Self. Between them is the mind, in which the Self is reflected as ‘I am’. Because of the imperfections of the mind, its crudity and restlessness, lack of discernment and insight, it takes itself to be the body, not the Self.”

Maybe we can understand the mental components on the scrap of paper to be a reference to what Nisargadatta calls “the imperfections of the mind, its crudity and restlessness …”

In other words, there is nothing wrong with the mind which our freeing ourselves from its “imperfections” will not cure.

2) that construct a deluded and suffering world. For me, this set of words paints a very clear picture that it is the mind – or rather, the “imperfections” of the mind – that construct a deluded and suffering world.

Of course, there is nothing new about that, virtually all of the Teachers say it in one way or another. But somehow this sentence says it particularly clearly or succinctly … for me, at least.

Rather than transcending the mind, we learn to use the mind correctly, right? I was reading tonight and found this same idea concerning desires. We do not need to attempt to stop all desires, which is just as impossible as to not think, but to turn them in the right direction. Both ideas are extremely helpful. It is a form of transformation of ourselves, using the tools we have in the proper way, maybe.

"Increase and widen your desires till nothing but reality can fulfill them. It is not desire that is wrong, but its narrowness and smallness. Desire is devotion. By all means be devoted to the real, the infinite, the eternal heart of being. Transform desire into love. All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be, are expressions of your longing for happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well."
"But the self is there. Your desires are there. Your longing to be hapy is there. Why? Because you love yourself. By all means love yourself---wisely. What is wrong is to love yourself stupidly, so as to make yourself suffer. love yourself wisely. Both indulgnece and austerity have the same purpose in view---to make you happy. Indulgence is the stupid way, austerity is the wise way."
Once you have gone through an experience, not to go through it again is austerity. To eschew the unnecessary is austerity. Not to anticipate pleasure or pain is austerity. Having things under control at all times is austerity. Desire by itself is not wrong. It is life itself, the urge to grow in knowledge and experience.
It is the choices you make that are wrong. To imagine that some little thing---food, sex, power, fame---will make you happy is to deceive yourself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy."
(Pg 211-212 I Am That Sri Nisargadatta MAharaj)

ncrease and widen your desires till nothing but reality can fulfill them. It is not desire that is wrong, but its narrowness and smallness. Desire is devotion. By all means be devoted to the real, the infinite, the eternal heart of being.

A big part of the problem for me is that my desires have grown out of patterns and values that I have inherited or accepted over so many years from so many other people in my life. In my life no one ever talked about "reality" the way Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and others talk to me about it now. I want to see it this new way because I do believe they are right, but it is hard to put "reality" ahead of all my accumulated life's desires, which are used to being at the head of the line in my life. When I do not think about it, it feels correct. When I think about it, I hear myself saying "sure, but".