Chopra on recycled patterns

When we consider our physical bodies,
We discover that we are, really,
A collection of recycled molecules.
Cells of our body are created, die,
And are replaced many times throughout our lives.
We are constantly remaking ourselves.

In order to regenerate, our bodies
Convert the food we eat
Into basic building blocks of life.
The earth itself provides the nutrients
We need to renew ourselves,
And when we shed cells,
They are returned to the earth.
We might say, then, that we are
Constantly transforming our physical bodies
By recycling earth.

Next, consider our emotions.
Emotions are just recycled energy.
Emotions do not originate with us.
They come and go
Depending on situations, circumstances,
Relationships, and events.

Emotions are never created in isolation;
They always come about because of
Some interaction with the environment.
In the absence of circumstances or relationships,
There is no emotion.
So even though I may fly into a rage,
It is not actually my anger.
It is anger that has settled on me for the moment.
Each emotion is dependent on the context,
Circumstances, and relationships
That define your reality at that moment.

And what about our thoughts?
Well, our thoughts are recycled information.
Every thought we have is actually part
Of a collective database.
All but the most original thoughts
Are actually quantum leaps of creativity
That occur from that same collective,
Recycled bed of imagination.

So if our bodies are recycled earth,
Our emotions are recycled energy,
And our thoughts are recycled information,
What is it that makes you an individual?
According to many of the great spiritual traditions,
One of the great truths is that “I am the other.”
Without the other, we would not exist.

Chopra on dreams and ego

We’re all clinging to images of ourselves
That pile up year after year.
Some images make us look good,
Some make us look bad.
But images can’t substitute for the real things.
The real you is vital and alive,
Shifting and changing at every moment.

In everyone’s life, the ego extends its lease
By saying, “Hold on. Keep trying. I know what to do.”
But stand back and consider
What this strategy comes down to:
If all your hard work hasn’t brought you what you want,
Work harder.
If you don’t have enough,
Get more.
If your dream fails,
Keep following it.
If you grow insecure,
Believe in yourself more.
Never acknowledge failure; success is the only option.

This kind of ego motivation,
Turned into slogans,
Is deeply ingrained in popular culture.
Following your dream and never giving up
Has become a credo repeated by
The rich, famous, and successful.
Yet for every winner of a beauty pageant,
Stock-car race, World Series, or Hollywood audition,
There are an untold number whose dream
Didn’t come true.
They followed their dream just as hard
And believed in it just as much.
By no means did the ego’s strategy work for them.

Fortunately, there’s another way;
It’s the exact opposite of the ego’s strategy:
If all your hard work hasn’t brought you what you want,
Look for new inspiration.
If you don’t have enough,
Find it in yourself.
If your dream fails, and you see that it was a fantasy,
Find a dream that matches your reality.
If you grow insecure,
Detach yourself from the situation
Until you find your center again.
You are not shaken by either success of failure;
The flow of life brings both, as temporary states.

The real self is a shifting, elusive phantom
That’s always one step ahead of us.
It dissolves the instant you think you’re about to grab it.
You can’t ever nail down who you really are.
To understand your real self,
You have to keep up as it moves.
Finding the real you happens on the run.
The same holds true for grace, since it is part of the real you.

Chopra on creation, the phenomenol field, and the ego

To say that you are a creator
Isn’t the same as to say that your ego is.
The ego will always remain attached
To your personality,
And certainly your personality
Doesn’t create everything around you.

Creation doesn’t happen on that level.

Let’s see, then, if we can get closer
To the real creator inside you.
We’ll do this by mediation on a rose.

Find a beautiful rose and hold it in front of you.
Inhale the fragrance and say to yourself,
“Without me, this flower would have no fragrance.”
Take in the glowing crimson color and say to yourself,
“Without me this rose would have no color.”
Stroke the velvety petals and say to yourself,
“Without me, this flower would have no texture.”
Realize that if you subtract yourself from any sensation
– sight, sound, touch, taste, smell –
The rose would be nothing but atoms vibrating in a void.

Now consider the DNA that is inside each cell of the rose.
Visualize the billions of atoms strung along in a double helix
And say to yourself,
“My DNA is looking at the DNA in this flower.
The experience is not as an observer looking at an object.
DNA is one form is looking at DNA in another form.”

Now see the DNA begin to shimmer
And turn into invisible vibrations of energy.
I have vanished into my primal energy.
Now only one energy field is looking at another energy field.”

Finally, see the boundary between your energy
And the rose’s energy fade as one set of waves
Merges into another, like ocean waves rising and falling
On the vast surface of an endless sea.

Say to yourself,
“All energy comes from one source and returns to it.
When I look at a rose, a tiny flicker of infinity
Is rising from the source to experience itself.”

Having followed this trail, you have arrived at what is truly real:
An infinite, silent energy field
Flickered for an instant, experiencing an object (the rose)
And a subject (you the observer) without going anywhere.
You and the rose stood at opposites poles of that moment,
Yet there was no separation.

A single creative stroke took place, fusing you both.

Kao-feng on Buddha nature

 

Those who have spent ten or twenty years
Brushing aside the weeds looking for the way
And yet have not seen the Buddha nature
Often say they are trapped by oblivion and excitement.
What they don't realize is that the substance
Of this very oblivion and excitement

Is itself Buddha nature.

Ashtavakra Gita 15:5

Desire and aversion are of the mind.
The mind is never yours.
You are free of its turmoil.
You are awareness itself,
Never changing.
Wherever you go, Be happy.

-

Deepak Chopra on the Soul

When we are beginning to understand the soul,
The ocean provides a wonderful analogy.
Imagine the ocean as non-local reality,
The field of infinite possibilities,
The virtual level of existence
That synchronizes everything.

Each of us is like a wave in that ocean.
We are created from it, and it makes up
The very core of who we are.
Just as a wave takes on a specific shape,
We, too, take on intricate patterns of non-local reality.
This vast, unending ocean of possibility
Is the essence of everything in the physical world.
The ocean represents the non-local,
And the wave represents the local.
The two are intimately connected.

Once we define the soul
As deriving from the non-local, or virtual realm,
Then our place in the universe
Becomes remarkably clear:
We are both local and non-local,
An individual pattern emerging from
Non-local intelligence,
Which is also part of everyone and everything else.
We can think of the soul, then, as having two parts.
The vast, non-local soul exists
At the virtual or spirit level.
It is powerful, pure, and capable of anything.
The personal, local part of the soul
Exists at the quantum level.
This is what reaches into our daily lives
And holds the essence of who we are.
It, too, is powerful, pure, and capable of anything.
The same unbounded potential of the infinite spirit
Also resides in each and every one of us.
Our personal soul, which we think of
When we think of our “selves,”
Is an outcropping of the eternal soul.
If we could learn to live from the level of the soul,
We would see that the best,
Most luminous part of ourselves
Is connected to all the rhythms of the universe.
We would truly know ourselves
As the miracle-makers we are capable of being.

We would lose fear, and longing, and hatred,
And anxiety, and hesitation.
Living from the level of the soul means
Diving past the ego,
Past the limitations of the mind that harness us
To events and outcomes in the physical world.

Dogen, "Actualizing the Fundamental Point"

 

Eiheiji Temple, founded by Dogen

As all things are buddha-dharma,
There is delusion and realization,
Practice, and birth and death,
And there are buddhas and sentient beings.
As the myriad things are without an abiding self,
There is no delusion, no realization, no buddha,
No sentient being, no birth and death.
The buddha way is, basically, leaping clear
Of the many and the one; thus
There are birth and death,
Delusion and realization,
Sentient beings and buddhas.
Yet in attachment blossoms fall,
And in aversion weeds spread.