26 Jun
2018
Posted in: Books, Retreats
By    Comments Off on And to Consciously Know the Mystery

And to Consciously Know the Mystery

For the past several nights I’ve been listening to the recorded talks from the Nine Bodies retreat I was at almost a month ago now — which I am sorry to say are only available to those who attended the retreat. BUT, there is one talk that I CAN quote from, since what I want to share is itself a quote from Phillip Moffitt’s first book, Dancing with Life, in which he too includes a quote — this one from the Buddha.

Phillip writes, “As the Buddha lay on his deathbed, his students questioned him about how they should continue without him. In his final discourse he gave them the following advice: Be a lamp unto yourselves, be a refuge to yourselves, do not turn to external refuge, hold fast to the Truth as a lamp, hold fast to the Truth as a refuge…It is those [who do so] that will reach the very topmost height. But they must be anxious to learn.

“There have been many translations and interpretations of these words, but for me they are a call to examine, to reflect, to discover, and to consciously know the mystery of this human life in this very moment.

“These words reflect the heart of the Buddha’s teaching — that you have the power and the responsibility to resolve the many contradictions and paradoxes of life through insight and direct knowing.

“…Meditation, mindfulness, and compassion bring you into the stillness in which your innocence is most unguarded and available. It is here that you can most deeply experience insights as to what genuinely matters, or as C.G. Jung stated, It is the individual in stillness who constitutes the meaning of the world.”

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Thank you, thank you, thank you to my dharma buddy Alice for turning me on to the FABULOUS book from which the illustration above was taken — The Red Book, by C. G. Jung.

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