[awareness]

Originally Posted by shiningstars

This is a beautiful intention, awareness. I am weary today from a hard day's work but will return to this thread again.

It is a challenge also to wonder which words can "stun" the intellectual or thought processes on a forum nonetheless indeed! I think this is why Zen masters use koan practice, but that is a systematic method of Zen practice, and only really useful under a realized Zen master.

What I have learnt and benefited from most strongly is connecting with people of a higher consciousness - for some reason I intrinsically connect and peace & joy arise most naturally. This was how it was for me in real life too with an esteemed guide. It is a beautiful thing.

shiningstars

Hello shiningstars.

I appreciate you adding your loving intent to this thread as well, my friend. One can indeed accomplish this while sitting in front of a computer, even easier than with a "Zen master" if one were of a high degree of self-confidence in themselves and had a pure intent. . .and it is not the words themselves that are the magic in this, but one's intent in using them.

A so-called "Zen master" is simply a touchstone, a demonstrator of a system that has had its success due to the beliefs of those who have built and trusted this system over many centuries, who have added their energies to this system, a system that has largely rejected women as well as outsiders of their country and ethnicity. There is MUCH yet to be learned and mastered for most of these self-proclaimed "masters."

This is not to refute the great honor and growth that can be experienced through connecting with such teachers of the Zen Buddhist tradition (the essential Zen tradition actually far predating the formation of Buddhism, even predating Hinduism by tens of thousands of years), or any tradition, just as you have benefitted wonderfully from connecting with various teachers. Yet, for them, you yourself are a very evolved teacher, a demonstrator of love, that has equally helped them expand their consciousness, for it was never a one-way road of learning. You have this wonderful effect upon me, upon this grouping calling itself "awareness."

A highly-evolved soul, reincarnation-wise, who has experienced much of these spiritual traditions in "previous" incarnations, may, for example, have a current Earth incarnation in which he or she very naturally perceives unity-consciousness and the True Divine Nature of things, without creating a "need" for consulting a "sage" or "master" or "expert" of any kind in which to study under. In fact, no one ever really studies "under" the tutelage of another person, humans actually study "under" the tutelage of their indwelling spirit, the "Higher Self," not under another flesh-and-bones human being.

The "realized Zen master" is acting under the guidance and tutoring of higher intelligence, to the degree that he or she is attuned to their indwelling spirit, in conjunction with the Higher Self of the "student." Yet the cosmic joke here is that the "realized Zen master" IS NOT "fully realized," for no entity is "fully realized," being that all entities--all beings--are still growing as far as time is concerned. Jesus and Siddhartha too were/are not exempt from this cosmic rule. Another aspect of this "cosmic joke" is that the "realized master" is EQUALLY a student of its "students" as well, for students are also teachers, for teaching is simply demonstrating, and all beings are demonstrators of their unique expressions of self.

Shiningstars, believe it or not, you too are an "esteemed guide" for many, a powerful demonstrator of karuna. Well, your Divine Inner Being trusts that you are. I do too.