_____________________________

The Awakened One was once living at Savatthi in Jeta's Grove. A deity called Rohitassa came to him late in the night, paid homage to him and asked: "Lord, the world's end where one neither is born nor ages nor dies nor passes away nor reappears: is it possible to know or see or reach that by travelling there?"

"Friend, that there is a world's end where one neither is born nor ages nor dies nor passes away nor reappears, which is to be known or seen or reached by travelling there -- that I do not say. Yet I do not say that there is an end to unhappiness without reaching the world's end."

_____________________________


They all are innocent.

No moment can be different from what it is,
or it would be different.

We feel what we feel,
not what we would like to feel.
Our deepest disagreement is with reality itself.








For the ocean of love to find you,
fearlessness needs to find you.


For fearlessness to find you
choicelessness needs to find you.

Seeing and recognising choicelessness
you have reached the end of the world.
There is no source of true identity.
Only this. This is it.

_____________________________

During the civil wars in feudal Japan, an invading army would quickly sweep into a town and take control. In one particular village, everyone fled just before the army arrived - everyone except the Zen master. Curious about this old fellow, the general went to the temple to see for himself what kind of man this master was. When he wasn't treated with the deference and submissiveness to which he was accustomed, the general burst into anger. "You fool," he shouted as he reached for his sword, "don't you realise you are standing before a man who could run you through without blinking an eye!" But despite the threat, the master seemed unmoved. "And do you realise," the master replied calmly, "that you are standing before a man who can be run through without blinking an eye?"

_____________________________

I was entirely in the present. There was neither past nor future. No expectations, no judgments of my situation. No sense of regret, for there was no sense, as I said , of past (to regret) or future (to despair for). I just existed, and it was beautiful. I was transcending eternity and in the void and I was the void and the void was me... and I would be in this place where I was forever.. and if forever were to be an instant or a thousand years was immaterial and irrelevant. I felt, "Abide with me, here, now, for I am at peace, and we are one". I felt a oneness with whoever was in the room with me, and whoever was unconscious with me, and it was good. It was just that -- good. Nothing fabulous, or miraculous, or brilliant. Just "good". Perfectly, clearly, good. I could have spent a trillion years right there, with that presence, whatever it was. But the hard thing to explain is that there was no "trillion years". There was just NOW. I had no sense of future. At the time, any concept of "eternity" was beyond my experience, for "time" was beyond my experience. The glorious euphoric peace, the presence, the empty, falling, now-ness with no past or future -- I can't recapture it, and it has changed my life, and I need to talk to others about it, and as a scientist I know that it was probably "just anoxia" -- but there is so much more to it that cannot be explained -- and yes, it has changed my life. Not what I saw, or heard, but what I felt. My priorities lined up, my values came into focus, everything in that void where one would think "Nothing" existed - the only reason it is called "Nothing", I believe, is that there is no Time, and existence is purely Being. That was my experience. Perhaps this is what the existentialist philosophers tried so hard to communicate, this "being-in-the moment", this awareness of self... what they stated was paltry compared to this. What I felt was powerful and intense and life-changing. It transcended any mere "moment". But with this experience, I know (and I don't know how) that I can't force it, or rush it. This pure, perfect psychological state, that I achieved by accident and can only recapture in memory, is real, an a genuine capability of the human mind. I need to talk about it. I did a bad job, just now, of communicating what happened. I made it seem trivial.

Alison D's NDE

_____________________________





Infinite power.
So close it looks like no power at all.
Unstoppable indeed.




_____________________________

The Final Battle

Facing all fears and the loss of all, the illusory difference
between life and death, between being and non-being dissolved,
and I have emerged into the bliss of reality.

But who are you?

Resting in the silence of infinite beingness,
free from desire and sorrow;
I am eternal.