“The Aesthetic Principles Of Zen Include Wabi-sabi (侘寂), The Aesthetic Of “imperfect, Impermanent,

If we are completely present to whatever is arising, we can stretch beyond our self-imposed limits; we can endure what may seem unendurable.

- Shinge Roko Cherry Shayat Roshi

“Educate yourself. When a question about a certain topic pops up, google it. Watch movies and documentaries. When something sparks your interest, read about it. Read read read. Study, learn, stimulate your brain. Don’t just rely on the school system, educate that beautiful mind of yours.”

— Unknown

"Imagine the idea that the moment you were born you were kicked off the edge of a precipice, and you are falling. As you fell, a great lump of rock came with you, and it’s traveling alongside you. And you’re clinging to it for dear life! And thinking, ‘Gee, I’ve gotta hold onto this.’ You see? Well, it doesn’t do a thing for you. And it’s only making you anxious, and as soon as you understand that it doesn’t do a thing for you that you let go and relax. So, everybody’s in this situation. We’re all completely insecure! We’re all headed straight for death, as if we had been condemned by a judge. And yet here we are all clinging onto things. And we have all sorts of alibis for doing this. We say, ‘Well, I have responsibilities for my dependents, and I’ve got to cling on.’ But all you’re doing is you’re teaching your dependents to cling the same way as you are and making them miserable by learning to go on surviving compulsively.

So the thing is, the same way you’re caught in a torrent, and you try to get out of it by swimming against it, you’ll just wear yourself out, and you’re still carried along with it. So the sensible thing to do is to turn around and swim with it! And if you want to get out of it, swim towards the edge. But go with it! Same way when you’re sailing. Always keep the wind in your sails. If you want to go against the wind: tack! But use the wind. So it’s this way, you know, we’re all in this great stream of change which we call life, we ARE the stream! If you imagine you're separate from it, and you're being carried along by IT as if you were a cork, that's a delusion. You're a wave of the stream itself, so get with IT!”

~Alan Watts

As people, do we have the choice to finish our lives out without reincarnating, after death? Is it possible to clear our karma to the point where that’s an option?

Awesome question, thanks for this!

I think the first important thing to address is the notion of karma. Often we imagine that it is like our cosmic bank account balance. Then our understanding is something along the lines of good deeds and bad deeds of various magnitudes factoring together to determine what happens after death (or even in life).

In actuality, the concept of karma is more nuanced than this. It is better to imagine karma as the imprints we take on due to our judgments (fixed perceptions), traumas (triggers), fears (rejections), and desires (attractions). I think a pragmatic understanding of it would be like this:

Imagine you developed complete amnesia and were dropped into an environment that knew nothing about you. How would you act and react? What kinds of insights and conclusions would you draw? What kinds of motives would arise? All of that is karmic stuff.

In life, thanks to our wonderful human brains, we have the ability to recognize these imprints in ourselves. We can choose to act counter to those reactions and instincts. Unlike most animals, which are innocent beings but they do not have the executive function to choose to go against their instincts--although there are of course exceptions to this.

In death, we no longer have the power of the human brain and therefore the karmas take over. It is then said that we experience a heaven or hell accordingly. If we lived violently and animalistically, thats the kind of after-death experience we have. If we behaved with love and kindness and wisdom, then that is the after-death experience.

But either way, once enough of that karma is exhausted during the after-death experience, we are pulled back to physical incarnation.

How much of this is real and true? I can't say from direct experience. But right now its part of my own modeled understanding derived from my direct experiences in meditation as well as the teachings of my Guru and many traditions.

So now to your question: Can we finish our lives out without reincarnating, after death? Is it possible to clear our karma to the point where that’s an option?

There are two perspectives from which to answer this question. One, which will be relatable and intuitive, and another, which may be a little abstract.

The first perspective is this--the only beings who never incarnate again are those who attain self-realization, complete enlightenment. Those are the beings for whom nothing remains to reincarnate after physical death. And it is said that no matter how those beings appear outwardly--angry, amused, etc--their minds never take on any imprints ever again. It's like drawing on the surface of water.

The second perspective is that of no-creation, which is nonduality or advaita. It kind of turns the question on its head. If you ask "is it possible to never incarnate again", it will answer your question with a question, "can you be certain you ever incarnated in the first place?".

From a non-dual perspective, nothing has ever happened. The universe was never created and will never be destroyed, just as the world you experience in your dreams has no real beginning or end. And just as the dream self you have experienced in dreams has no birth or death, neither have you ever truly incarnated or died.

Because ultimately, all of this is an illusion. BUT this doesn't mean it isn't Real! An illusion is defined as a misperception of something real--like mistaking a coil of rope to be a snake. It does not mean a hallucination, such as suddenly seeing a snake appear in an empty room.

All of This is Reality, Consciousness, the Self, Emptiness, The Divine, The Indescribable, etc. It is only due to our misperception (illusion) that it appears to be anything other than That.

I know 😅 wtf, right? That's...a lot.

I hope this at least gave you something to explore a bit more but in the end there's one thing I always recommend: daily meditation.

May you know peace, freedom, and happiness without exception.

Much love!

LY

Recently I've really had strong urges to drink and smoke. By telling you I guess I'm hoping you have a little advice or something insightful to say, and hopefully it will help anyone else who might have similar urges. Btw I don't have any addictions to either one, just new and strange urges to indulge.

“Where attention goes, energy flows.”

I’m not sure who said that, but it’s a poeticparaphrasing of what many sages have been saying for years; and it can help toexplain how any thought or urge, indeed any movement of the mind, gets itspower. At the point a thought or urge arises it’s powerless and, bereft ofattention, it will quickly dissipate;however, when given attention, energy pours into it and then it’s going to be hard to get rid of.

What usually happens is this: an urge arises for analcoholic drink and we react to it, and think, ‘that would be nice, it’s a warmday and a cold beer would be good, I’ve not had one for a while, and on andon…’ or, we might think, ‘where’s this coming from, I don’t want alcohol, it’snot good for me, where is this urge coming from..?’ Either way, we’ve engagedwith it, we’ve given it attention and our energy is pouring into it, as eachthought gives rise to another, and then to another, and so on…

Instead, what we can do is acknowledge the urge as it arises,without engaging with it: an analogy we can use for this, is to imagine theurge comes in the form of a text message to your phone; so, a notification popsup, which allows you to see a part of the message, and you can see it says,‘lets have a drink’ but you can’t see all the whys-or-why-nots. Now, the moment you open that message you are engaging with it, the sendercan see you opened it and so a response is needed; however, if you don’t openit, you’re not engaging with it and so no response is needed and it can beignored and eventually be forgotten about. And if the urge to open it comes in,we again just see the notification, but don’t open the message…

If we engage with the urge, it will quickly bring thoughtafter thought, which are the whys-and-why-nots, which are mostly unconscious thought;by not engaging with it, we take away it’s power and create a space in which wecan consciously think about whether we really do want to drink and smoke. Andin that space, we’re less likely to be influenced by outside factors, such aspeer-pressure, and so make a conscious decision.

I hope that helps. Namaste, Dave

Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God. It is this screen of thought that creates the illusion of separateness, the illusion that there is you and a totally separate “other.” You then forget the essential fact that, underneath the level of physical appearances and separate forms, you are one with all that is. By “forget,” I mean that you can no longer feel this oneness as self-evident reality. You may believe it to be true, but you no longer know it to be true. A belief may be comforting. Only through your own experience, however, does it become liberating.

Eckhart Tolle

- A message from 23 nights temple -

“In times of hardship, there is actually hope and joy. When things are easy, actually trouble and suffering increase.”

-二十三夜堂からのメッセージ-

“苦労しているときには、却って希望や喜びがある。楽をしていると、却って悩みや苦しみが増える。”