1.

CRUMBS FOR HUMAN SPARROWS

Today I received a card from a generous and dedicated master and student in the United States. Part of his letter reads as follows:

"X" has renounced his ordination on this day and removed his Kesa (Skt. kasaya; Ch. jiasha), casting it back into the fires of samsara where it belongs, having found the institution referred to as "Buddhism", in all it's varied forms, to be a hinderance due to its inherent tendencies, both dogmatic and sociocentric in nature. While spiritual enlightenment is truly a worthy quest, one not to be taken lightly, it is likewise a journey beset by cul-de-sacs and perils, a journey where the greatest danger lies in our own hopes and the blindness they can produce. This person cannot change his heart and continues teaching the Dharma, but rejec ts the labels of "ism" He has thus advanced a step in Dharma underestanding

Here this dedicated man has met with the fact that Buddhism, in and of itself, i s a nest of Sparrows. Within what is called Buddhism, the Dharma has been cast from the nest in order to fill the vacant part with the dried leaves of comfort, which are actually mi ldew. The Sparrows occasionally seeks a crumb of Dharma here and there. But th ese Sparrows are not interested in Dharma they are interested in filling their b ellies and sleeping soundly dreaming of their acquisitions and prestige on the m orrow. They inhabit the temples and viharas which are otherwise empty, assuming illusor y forms as human creatures as adepts and many with greater shame cover themselve s with multicolored robes and titles. They chirp and are very fluent but their sounds are really quite empty.

They chirp continually that "all is empty", but the emptiness is real and ir cognitive thoughts. As a Master one must be careful not to believe for nt that the Sparrows will understand what they receive. He must know that ill take what they receive and add it to their own nest which may have no lance to True Dharma.

in the a mome they w resemb

Have you ever sat down for a while in the park where sparrows are present when s

omeone casts a few crumbs among them. The sparrows from a distance dart in and steal a crumb and then just as quickly dart away.

I feel here that I am throwing a bag of crumbs to sparrows. in, pick up what they fancy and flit away just as quickly. It is as if they never really were ever present.

Web searchers dart

What crumbs of the Dharma have been chosen?

Sparrows are particular, but the human creature is dominated by insatiable folly . He uses the term Dharma without understanding.

1. CRUMBS FOR HUMAN SPARROWS 2. BUILDING A NATURAL SPARROW NEST 3. THE FOUR CORNERS 4. THE POTENTIAL FOR EMOTIONAL CLINGING

---------------In no way do I wish to demean the magnificent Swallow, but the behavior of a Swa llow is not appropriate for a human creature.

There are three types of folly riddled human Sparrows.

The Intelligent Sparrow In pages of this level the most frequent is the Intelligent Sparrow and really t

here is nothing worse than a Sparrow with intelligence that has no contact with his true nature. They guard a broken stick as if it were the whole nest and build their nest of f rozen shards of last years ice. The problem is, you see , that they believe that they are intelligent. They might well be in the high percentile of Cognitive intelligence, they may ha ve a facility for collection and organization, but they have no idea what real i ntelligence is. They do not want Awakening, they want to know themselves to be Awakened (which i s absolute folly) and what is more wish that others respect that Awakening. They do not realize that that form of Awakening is only a part of the Samsara ga me of Monopoly... In which all that they receive is two cards with Park Avenue a nd Mayfair marked on them. They would be better off going to Jail without passing the Go False Awakening an d there reflect on the folly of all they are doing. With that intelligence, what do they believe they are looking for? They believe that there is something out there somewhere that their intelligence can reach and then let go. It is beyond the Two Truths. It is beyond their meld ing. It is beyond the Uncarved Wood. They believe that the Two Truths are a dual ity and you can't convince their closed minds that they are not I have had many students of that type who study well, but after a meditation whe n I ask for the experience they give me a description of what the experience is like or describe what they think is happening. Far better if those students in that moment could see their folly and seeing tha t folly as terrible experience declare" shit on the devil"

The Confused Sparrow You know the type. Are you one of those who picks up a piece of dharma straw the n drops it to pick up another... Are you sure that Dharma is what you want or do you just want to find a plce where you can sit in silence and let the busy worl d go by. When this type of Sparrow finds a piece that seems good, someone else thinks its bad so they let it go. They dart here... they dart there and want some big mother (or father bird) to t ell them what is best and true. So web pages, groups blogs, facebook and twitter are places they look. There they find those that believe that they know (from the intelligent group) and they accept the "all is emptiness" phrases as signs o f wisdom and when someone declares "Emptiness is Form and Form is Emptiness, " t hen he becomes the Buddhist "Reverend Jones" and can lead them off to a suicide somewhere in the dark Africa of their own mind.

The Greedy Sparrow Buddhism is full of Greedy Sparrows. Are you one? They are intelligent, and without arrogance and pride, but they adore the beauty of words and phrases and the charisma of those that use them. They sit as close to the master as possible and twiddle their prayer beads as if somehow th ey exude special knowledge. If the beads or a bell falls then they place either on their heads to dispel the evil spirits. They cling to Buddhism, for they know in their MIND HEARTS that t he Dharma is correct... How do they know that? Because the Master declares that the Buddha said so. So they wantthe Dharma but they don't want to give up what they have. They are the mainstream of Buddhism, and they are used by the system for they f eel that they are a part of something greater than the mundane world that they w ill return to when, for example, a weekend retreat is finished. Buddhism is Psychotherapy. It is a sugar coated pill that really works as long a s you are only playing the Buddhist game. With these delightfully chupy Sparrows you must play the game... Tell them it is difficult and they want to leave. Tel l them that Buddha said that and they nod, for he was a long time ago and Buddhi sm is now with Meditation instructors on every corner and a Sparrow with the arr ow that killed Cock Robin is waiting there for you to look up and smile. I have been unkind, some may say, but look at yourself and really see what is ha ppining and what is going to happen in the rest of the short life that you have. The interesting thing is the a true Sparrow knows how to build a perfect nest, b ut as a human creature you have not the slightest idea how to build your nest. A nd that nest is the base of all your relations your work and your life. No wonder you look to the Buddhism of religious bigotry. How many years has it been that you have been looking for crumbs thrown by fooli sh patrons, when there is a magnificent cornfield with ripe heads just a short b eat of the wings away.

1. CRUMBS FOR HUMAN SPARROWS 2. BUILDING A NATURAL SPARROW NEST 3. THE FOUR CORNERS 4. THE POTENTIAL FOR EMOTIONAL CLINGING

-----------------3. THE FOUR CORNERS

As an example, let me give you the first instance of folly here. You have ing ested the idea of Confucious that there are four corners and now you either exp ect to learn what they are or at least be given a clue how to at least expose th em to view. That is a mental error. There are no four corners. Does a Sparrows nest have four corners? Do you see how your conditioned cogniti ve mind jumped in and set a pattern for your thoughts? If you deny that then you have already lost the first corner. Let us look at that Sparrows nest. It is round. Where have the corners gone? T hey are there, but since round and rectangular are just word concepts both round and rectangular dissapear for the Sparrow. How can one lift then a corner? Good question is it not? From such questions koans arise. One thing we learn is that nest building is done almost year around. Do you buil d your Dharma nest all year round? No! You are too busy? The Sparrow does not work. The Sparrow does not try to build relations with an e go. The Sparrow does not worry about his aspect or future. So now your mind can begin to work on that, leading you astray. Have then you learned nothing. The Sparrow is no different than the Lilies of th e Fields. Luke 12:27 "Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. Glorious like the Lily, the male has a gray crown, whitish check, and black thr oat. The bill and breast are black in summer and in winter the bill is yellow an d the breast is gray.The female has a brown crown and a plain breast with a broa d buff line over the eye. The Sparrow too, does not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.

And this we cn declare for every living creature except one. I repeat, the Sparrow does not work. The Sparrow does not try to build relations with an ego. The Sparrow does not worry about his aspect or future. It does what nature itself dictates not what the individual Identity or the coll ective society Identity demands. Natural Dharma loans us all that we need from b irth to death. It does not, like Mara, demand its pound of flesh. From what has been said lift now one of the other corners. THE SPARROW'S NEST

The Sparrow's nest is made of coarse material on the outside such as, straw, twi gs, paper, leaves, grasses, and any other available material. The inside is line d with feathers or fine grasses.

Of what is your nest made up? Probably a bank loan. That was the first stone an d the first burden. So it is not really your nest at all is it. So what in hell's name does the Dharma expect you to do? Build your own? The Dh arma has no expectations. The Sparrow lines its nest. I suppose that you line your nest. With what?

With feathers and fine grass? There goes your mind again. Do you fill your nest with Dharma? Lift up a corner But a Sparrow's nest is round Have you learned anything at all? Will you apply it? Not easy certainly for you are not a Sparrow in a Sparrow world. But then again even in Samsara there is no such thing as a Sparrow for science s ays that it is really a Weaver finch. But both are just names. The Dharma of both is the same, The Human Creature is just a name. Your Dharma is the same as that of a Sparrow. Lift up a corner

I have been advising you here to lift up a corner after hearing part of this les son which has been presented.

What are these corners. Well the first is that provided by the lesson in words. .. Just words. There is a certain logic to what is presented, but it is far, in and of itself, from what you are required to understand. Lt us go to the opposite corner from that presented. What can be found there? The answer is experiences. Experiences that are direct related to what has been presented. But until you can manage to make a great step orward these experience s will be simply cognitive and without great value as far as true understanding is concerned. You will have to lift one of the other two corners first, and perh aps both. That leaves the two other corners which are available. Lifting one of these two corners means that you must look beyond the words to wh at is true but has been left unsaid. When you lift the other then you must grasp what cannot be said. No one can baby feed you. If you don't lift any corner then you are stuck with t he teachings colored with yout own logical thought. The corners are not lifted easily, Buddha said as much. Howevwr all human creatu res can do so if the work with diligence, determination, calmness, patience and perseverance.

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Certainly a Master, not unlike a star of sports or cine is a perfect target for foolish adoration and clinging, but to those of an acquisitive nature, and they are the majority in this world, anything that has the gilt and gloss of apparent beauty or greatness is likewise clung to. The acquisitive temperament is less that of a Sparrow and more like a Magpie tha t is attracted to shiny objects and brings them to its nest. It is curiously one of the few animals that is able to recognize itself in a mirror. While its coll ection of the shiny has biological advantage that same act in a human creature h as no great biological advantage and is contrary to natural behaviour. It is strange that those who can clearly see a clinging to possessions in this w orld as folly can cling to something just because it has the label of being tran scendental.

If a master was to tell them that all is attained by repeating some stock phrase while counting sheep he would be scorned, but the presence of a simple string o f attractive sandelwood or marble beads is sufficient to generate a clinging. On e can cling to temples, incence, ceremony, ritual and even meditation just for t he transcendental beauty. The buddha suggested that different temperaments require different meditation si tes. What was suggested for an acquisitive person: a graveyard filled with the d ead and bloated corpses. It is not easy to cling to a bloated corpse is it. Look at your meditation spot. What does it contain? A beautiful Buddha, flowers, a thousand and one items that have transcendental significance. But without the power to penetrate that significance they are useless. Yet too many are happy d eluding thmselves that they are advancing because the transcendental beauty calm s their minds just as music can. Look at your altar.. Place a pile of dog excrement in the centre to represent Bu ddha, a pile of writhing termites are good for the Sangha and a putrid tomato i s a good symbol for the Dharma. A stained altar cloth is a good addition. Do you get the idea. If you cling to the rituals then you must ask who is it that is clinging? The whole object of meditation is to reduce the self to ashes, yet you rise that self up when there is any form of clinging. Don't look for an intensity in that clinging the simple Identity "liking" is Clinging. Yes, this acquisitiveness is very subtle. What about those things that you dislike. I am afraid my friend that that too is acquisitiveness, for you cling to the dual counterpart.