Conversation with Buddha and Zoe: An Exercise in Kindness
Buddha: Today we speak about the milk of human kindness. Consider acting as if you are the kindest person ever placed on earth. Try for one day, one hour, one minute to be kind in thought, action and deed. Practice this. After you have done so ask yourself how do you feel? Better or worse? Give yourself a target time that you feel you can aim for and achieve whether this is one minute, one hour, one day, one week. Work towards becoming the kindest you can be. Even in the moments where worry, fear, anger and resentment arise. Test yourself to see how quickly you can return to conscious kindness.
Buddha: In the past the Gentles have been overrun, spoken over and deemed less worthy, less capable, less smart, less flash. The time is changing for this so fortify yourself now. Allow the strength of your gentleness to take hold.
Conversation with Buddha and Zoe: Resistance to a State of Being
Buddha: Can you control the mind of another? The answer is no. Can you control the desires of another? The answer is no.
So what happens when someone wants something from you that you are unwilling to give? The thought forms and desire, we could even call it desirous energy, reaches you and the truth is that this happens many times a day. For those that are evolving to understand feelings and concepts of energetic attachments, I say to you that you must look at mental attachments: your own. For these thought forms and desirous energies wash over you.
So what, I hear my healers asking, is an energetic attachment? An energetic attachment can only happen when you have resistance to a state of being. Resistance to a state of being causes an interaction of such energetic disharmony that it becomes fixed until it can flow once more. Let me explain:
We have a situation with this reader, Zoe. She can feel another’s desire to be attachment to her. She has felt repulsion at the attachment. Even the concept of the attachment and the feeling response in her creates such an energetic disharmony between her and the other that they fix each other, therefore becoming attached.
So as one cannot control the mind or the desires of another, what is left if one wishes to be free of attachment? All that is left is your own state of being. All that is left is to free your own attachments and now I speak to you on a level of mind.
For anything that you resist or feel an emotional charge to, in this case repulsion or even adoration at the opposite end of the scale, fixes energy and thus is capable of forming attachments.
So all that is left is you, your relationship with mind and your willingness, ironically it may seem, to allow attachments. Allow that which you find repulsive or adorable to wash over you accepting its state of being and fixing it not. As that happens no attachment will be made for it is you my students who fix the attachment. The feelers are always out, always washing over you.
This is an interesting discussion with me and I am happy to expand on points in the future.
Conversation with Master Buddha and TMichael: Gay Marriage
TM: I’ve been reading news accounts of the battle between those who favor gay marriage being sanctioned under law and those who oppose it. Some oppose it on religious grounds and some on biological grounds in that it doesn’t facilitate pro-creation naturally. What is your view on the religious grounds for or against gay marriage?
Master Buddha: If a man and a woman have sexual intercourse, there is a probability pregnancy will result, and a second probability that child birth will follow. This is commonly known and understood in modern society. That wasn’t always the case—many centuries ago it was a mystery how offspring were conceived by the vast majority of human population. There arose from the mystery many superstitions around conception and child birth. Conception and child birth require the engagement of male and female contributing each their part. This is a biologic fact. It doesn’t require a social bond to be successful. As a matter of modern fact, it doesn’t require that they ever physically engage in person (artificial insemination).
TM: Ok, I’m with you so far. Creating babies follows sex between a man and a woman, or by artificial means. A long time ago, and I hope a very long time ago, people didn’t quite make the connection and so developed superstitious beliefs around baby-making.
Master Buddha: So, by biologic fact a gay male marriage cannot produce offspring between the two partners, but can enlist a female outside the marriage to perform that role. The same of course then for two female partners. This means that gay couples are capable of producing offspring by proxy of a third partner if they so desire. This is the same for heterosexual couples who are unable to conceive a child. It merely accommodates the biologic fact.
TM: If it’s a biologic fact, then how does it become a religious issue or even a social concern?
Master Buddha: I’m pulling this apart for you, because it can get very tangled. At some point in human history there was a shift in social belief that the chief role of marriage between a man and woman was to create offspring. To ensure that their offspring would not just be running around in reckless abandon they also created social convention around the single-family household and the early beginnings of property rights. The child belonged to the parents and the household and was subject to their supervision and responsibility, and they together as a household subject to the larger society and community.
TM: You’re saying it was a social evolution, not a religious one. Is that correct?
Master Buddha: It is difficult to separate religion from social, because religion is a social enterprise. This is why this subject is so impossible for some people to intellectually grasp. I will continue now to explain.
Religion is a social enterprise, which means that humans have created religions and formed into social sects in order to propagate their religious beliefs and social tenets.
TM: Hold on a second, almost all religious people will say that religions were created by God, or Gods through prophets or enlightened intermediaries (present company included), and that they are followers of that particular religious teaching. God laid the foundation and they followed his word to build on it.
Master Buddha: Please refer to other conversations we’ve had on the subject of truth and how it is convoluted with faith and a state of not knowing everything. Humans will posit truth on a great many things, but that doesn’t make it true. It is merely their belief in what is true. Let’s assume for a moment that religions were founded on direct expression of truth from God or Gods. Humans, as you suggest, interpret that and build on it to make it a social belief system. The filter applied is still of human origin, and therefore subject to the ignorance of humanity.
TM: I don’t mean to stray from our topic, but this seems important to clear up, because so much of what follows is dependent upon this point. You’re saying that religions are social institutions and are birthed and propagated as social tenets, not the word of God.
Master Buddha: I don’t wish to belabor the point of origin of religious beliefs, and so for our discussion I said we could assume that religions spring from the word of God or Gods. Humans the take that word and add to it their interpretations and filter it into social conventions by which they live. That means that religions become social entities imbued with human constructs of socialized behavior. May we continue?
TM: Yes, but maybe we have to come back to this at some point.
Master Buddha: The great problem for humanity in building laws that govern society is that they cannot separate social convention from religious teachings. Gay marriage as it relates to law must pass through the filters of social convention, which is conditioned by religious beliefs. So you can easily see the conundrum. And this provokes a challenge to the truths held by those who believe that the word of God prohibits such human relations.
For them the syllogism flows like this:
God has said that the purpose of a man|woman relationship is to create babies and form single-family households and rear their offspring.
Gay couples cannot create babies directly.
Therefore, gay marriage is not sanctioned by God, and must be excluded from human options.
For religious believers, denying this logic is tantamount to denying the word of God. It will then undermine a society based upon the word of God and eventually lead to the ruin of society. How it reconciles with many other words of God in which it produces conflict and contradiction is inconvenient, but doesn’t cause their belief to waver. They must default to the only intellectual escape possible, which is that God is mysterious and knows more than humankind, and so it isn’t the place of humanity to question this contradiction. It is for humanity to follow the things that are clear as well as the things that aren’t without fail. God will sort it out later.
TM: Yes, I believe you’ve stated that correctly according to what they believe. But is that correct?
Master Buddha: The question is presented incorrectly. Let me re-frame it. What is the role of religion for humanity and what is the role of social convention in creating laws that govern human behavior?
TM: So, you won’t just come right out with an answer to settle the question will you?
Master Buddha: I’m taking an approach that will help you understand the issue and formulate an answer. As we have stated previously in these conversations, the role of religion is to represent spiritual theories for individuals to ponder in an effort to expand their imaginations and range of possibilities for living a better life. Religions form from spiritual ideas and concepts, that in the pure state apply to an individual. Religions become social institutions because they are comprised of like-minded individuals. The purpose of which is to share and discuss the spiritual idea and concepts.
Humans have taken religions in this social form and expanded them into governance entities. Therein lies the problem. It sets up massive conflicts between different religions and between members of society who subscribe to those different religious beliefs. The only way for a system of religious-dominant laws to work without constant and violent conflict is too segregate inhabitants by religion and assign each to their own geographic place. Since that isn’t practical today, you must have a different way. Democratic societies have created a separation of religion and government. Ideally, this should work in a pluralistic religious society. But, it doesn’t work as perfectly as intended, because those who are aligned with religious beliefs that have been interpreted to guide their daily lives in an integrated society, immediately come in conflict with behaviors they find inconsistent with their beliefs. The resulting dissonance cries for resolution. They seek to alter laws to remove the dissonance.
TM: I can see why you’re not so popular with Christians and Muslims. From what I observe both religious groups would love for everyone to line up with them to rule the world according to their beliefs. In that scenario they could outlaw all the behaviors inconsistent with their beliefs and presumably find the harmony in governance.
Master Buddha: Well, secretly all religious groups wish for that scenario, but some are more vocal than others.
TM: Years ago when I visited Nepal and spent some time in Kathmandu, I noticed the incredible non-hostile melding of Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and Christians. But back to our topic. How do we bring this conversation to a conclusion?
Master Buddha: Gay marriage could only be subject to religious scrutiny within a purely religious context. Religious context is confined to individuals and their peers for introspection. Social institutions that are erected for governance must take into consideration that there are many types of life styles and it is the responsibility of government to create laws that promote harmony among the differences while removing violence. The fact that gays must seek legal sanction within your laws informs us that the separation between government and religion is not yet a reality.
TM: Will it ever be?
Master Buddha: It’s possible of course, but only when people representing religions surrender to living peacefully with others with different beliefs and abstain from their agendas of hegemony in thought and behavior.
Conversation with Master Buddha and TMichael: Faith
TM: What is the nature of faith as it relates to matters spiritual or religious?
Master Buddha: The nature of faith rests on the premise that there are things one can’t know for certain through direct observation, and so one must imagine that given a strong feeling that something must be true, then it is accepted as true. It becomes a belief in one’s truth based upon the strong feeling.
TM: So what we consider to be evidence of truth through direct observation of facts is not faith?
Master Buddha: Well, that is faith also to some extent, because has one ever experienced absolute proof of truth? Can you truly say that even the things you thought you proved to yourself through direct observation have always been really true? Have there been occasions where you observed a thing to be true and later discovered your observations were not so accurate? There is usually some element of doubt and faith fills in the gap.
TM: Aren’t all these considerations about truth relative to time and our progressive understanding of many things that change over time?
Master Buddha: Yes, of course. Your understanding of truth changes as you grow to reach new understandings about yourself, others and the universe. There is always a measure of faith thrown in to close the gaps and to bridge your doubt and what you perceive is truth in that moment. Once you think you have reached some absolute truth, you will soon discover the illusion inherent in that notion. It is better to say, for now I think I know the truth of this matter and I’ll take it on faith as I continue searching for new information, new knowledge, new understanding about this.
There are those people who believe in a mechanistic universe. That there are physical laws that behave in a way that explains all the phenomena that surrounds you. You might say that even for those believers there is a measure of faith to fill in the parts that are missing.
TM: Some people allow more room for faith and some it seems allow less room. But you’re saying that we all allow some room for faith regardless of our beliefs?
Master Buddha: Yes, I’m saying that. As science has progressed, it has revealed the vast knowledge that humanity has amassed in understanding your world. It has also revealed the vast ignorance. If you plot that on a time continuum you can see that the more that you know, the greater your understanding that there is so much more you don’t know. So, you take what you know and you project a little further into the future of the possibilities of things that could be true. That is a form of faith. If you act upon faith by assuming the projections are true, then it is meaningful. To speculate is to explore ideas about truth and to act upon faith that something is true is commitment.
TM: It seems to me that people of religious and spiritual faith rely upon teachings of the past to form their foundation, which requires faith that the teachings were accurately recording and interpreted.
Master Buddha: And that the projections of those truths are applicable to humanity today. There are many new teachings brought forth today and they are received similarly as were the teachings given long ago. There is a resistance to new teachings by humanity, because they cling to the old ones, the ones they were taught are true. There is a lag in time for new beliefs to be accepted.
TM: No way around that is there?
Master Buddha: Not likely it will change any time soon. It is human nature and probably a good characteristic if it is moderate.
Background to Conversation with Buddha and TMichael on Smoking Cigarettes
Note from TM: This topic may be a bit off from the typical spiritual topics we talk about, but it’s one that I have been wondering about for some time from a spiritual perspective. Many people I know, including myself, have struggled with trying to quit smoking cigarettes. We all know about the health issues associated with smoking, yet continue. Is there an understanding about smoking cigarettes that could help people quit?
Master Buddha: It’s a good topic because it bridges the material and spiritual realms. On the purely physical level smoking cigarettes is well known to create a physical addiction. That is not so difficult to understand or accept.
It weakens the breath capacity and reduces the nutrients that can be carried by the blood. Additionally, it carries with it potentially harmful chemicals throughout the body. This is the part that is established. Just a small amount of common sense can grasp this and say that it is not necessary to smoke cigarettes to achieve good health and that to the contrary it degrades health.On the emotional and mental levels other addictions are at work. Smoking also creates an illusion of power. And this is much harder to give up than the physical addiction. Power can mean different things to different people, but I mean it I the sense that one feels powerful to do whatever one needs to do. If one feels weak in some way, he will compensate by finding some way to feel powerful. This is why so many people begin smoking as a teenager—a time in which a great sense of weakness is experienced. Others experience the attraction to smoking during emotionally upsetting moments. Still others enjoy smoking when they are drinking alcohol (this is more complicated because the source of weakness is not so apparent).
It should be obvious that real power is not gained from smoking cigarettes, but that is exactly what makes it a illusion. For those who derive power from it, it is real, and thus an effective illusion.
There is a proverb that states, “The best way to eliminate is to substitute”. In order to do this in a way that supports substituting real understanding for an illusion, one must understand that the apparent weakness for which the illusion is compensating, can be addressed through self-awareness and contemplation. Some people, when quitting smoking, will substitute another substance or activity that supplies the power they seek. This could be substituting one illusion for another; perhaps one that is less harmful in other ways. The real benefit will come from a true understanding of the weakness perceived in the first place, and then proceed to cure it. Some people can make the behavioral change without this deeper understanding I’m speaking of, and for them this is a success. For others it requires the deeper contemplation and cure. Most likely the underlying feeling of impotence, or weakness, is affecting them in other ways as well and this approach will be more helpful.
The worst thing that can happen is for one to come from an approach of judgment, self-loathing, guilt, shame or anger at oneself. Be gentle with yourself as you begin to unravel the complexities that lead to behavior that is inherently harmful. At one point, however erroneous, the smoking habit derived from an intent to cope by providing a power that compensated for a weakness. Seeing that error in choice and seeking a new one confirms self-love and care.
Conversation with Buddha and Zoe: Mind is Strength, Faith, Focus, Union with Spirit
Buddha: Zoë, you have been hearing my words in your head, ‘resist nothing, resist nothing’ and so on. Let me explain what this means.
For mind and mastery to be complete there needs to be a full understanding of the nature of mind, the workings of mind and the ability from that therefore to direct mind. “Resist nothing” does not refer to earthly pleasures or deliberately indulging in squalid, dirty, self gratification states. However, the fear that that is where the mind could take one, means that one resists certain thoughts, urges and in the resistance, one becomes unable to see what is real. In other words, the fear of what might be real creates resistance so that reality is never quite achieved albeit heavily sought by the individual.
Your mind takes you in a myriad of directions always towards the same point though: truth, honour, trust, faith, strength. Yet this is not the experience of mind that people have. For most, ‘mind’ equates perpetual thinking; perpetual thoughts that take you in a myriad of directions. When one approaches a type of thought that one identifies as ‘bad’, such as what we have already spoken about, one immediately censors those thoughts.
Yet where do these thoughts come from? Why would you censor one and not all thought?
If we were fully present we would be aware of the nature of our thoughts and the thinking process.
I will try to keep this clear and simple on this occasion.
Mind is strength, faith, focus, union with spirit. It is a gateway to the essence, to the soul, to God, and the God experience. The road to this union is paved and littered with thought. These thoughts are like leaves fallen from the trees in autumn. How do we choose to respond to our journey whilst in body? It is often to become distracted by the thoughts that are on the path to the point that we become concerned only with the nature of the leaves and the nature of do we like the leaves. And we have forgotten that the purpose of the path is to bring us to union: union with ourselves in the arms of God. Therefore, resist no leaf. As you are dedicated to following your path, the path to you, the path to union with God, falsehood comes only from focusing and identifying and creating relationships with thought forms. Therefore, resist nothing. Accept all and continue on your journey where we will await you.
Buddha: We are moving to a time where earth will be as one. A great peace will descend from on high, from on low and this peace will arise in those who are awake and those who are seeking to become awake. We are looking to help this process and this will indeed be speeded up. Speeded up by you, readers, as you choose to open yourselves to change, to love, to peace and work in your own lives to become centered. So for each of you who choose a centred life, one by one, you help choose peace, a new age. And we all thank you for this. There will come a time when there is a significant number walking the earth that will be able to pull us into their hearts. The mechanisms of this are with those who are seeking peace, seeking a different way of being. A harmonious one, a loving one, a joyful one and those that are taking the action to create a centered existence. So for all of you who wish to see the change be the change. These are words well known amongst several of you. Center your lives: not by changing what you do, but merely by focusing on how you do it. The new earth will not come about by the world becoming poets and philosophers. It will come about as each individual in their day to day lives awakens, makes choices and takes action to become the change, become the peace.
Buddha: We wish to speak to you today about extremes. Because extremes move in different ways from a perceived central point, are they any different? No. To clarify, if one is looking to get fit, becoming a couch potato could be extreme, exercising for five hours a day could be perceived as extreme. Are they any different? While the behaviors of a couch potato person and someone who is exercising five hours a day may seem radically different, extremes are extremes.
People who move into extreme behaviors are cut off from their center, so, although we are speaking about extremes, we are actually speaking about those who are devoid of center.
At Wimbledon, the most prestigious court is center court. I like this! One of the best thing or compliments that can be given to a person is that they are centered. Would you trust someone more or less if you described them as centered? Would it be easier to love someone more or less if they were centered?
Humans were designed to be centered yet many spend their lives rushing around in extremes. What do I mean? I mean that ‘centered’ means feeling strong, feeling safe and sound within your own being. How many people actually spend time practicing this within their day-to-day activities? Equally, as there are so few people who practice feeling centered, there are also fewer people who exist in their center; center is all there is.
I ask that all readers find their center. How do you know where your center is? It’s the mind state that makes you feel ‘centered’. I try not to play with words. Sometimes I resist the opportunities to play with minds other times I don’t. The irony is that it is the mind that takes one out of ones center! But let’s not toy here.
To get into your center stop, breathe. You can still do all that you need to do in your day-to-day activities. You can go to work, be at work, come home from work, cook, sleep: centered. You can wake up the children, feed the children, take the children to school, get on with your daily chores, collect the children, feed the children, feed yourself: being centered. Or you can become un-centered and end up in extremes whereby you are in a rush to get to work, rush to complete your work, rush to get home, rush to cook, rush to get to bed. Similarly you can become lost in the chores or lose you own center by focusing on the children’s centers. Are the children fine, are the children fed, are the children ready are the children this, are the children that? These are extremes. I will speak about child rearing at a different time for now it is suffice to say if you are lucky enough to be raising children physically, then be aware- as they say on the airlines, fit your own oxygen mask before you fit that of the child’s. In this case center yourself. A centered parent will raise centered children: simple as that.
So this is your message today from the center to the center, saying find your center. How do you do that? Stop, breathe, be present. Once you have this go about your day to day activities and you will be successful. Success follows center. Spend a minute now thinking about how mundane tasks feel when you’re centered and how mundane tasks feel when you’re not. Similarly think about a big event. How does a big event feel when you’re centered and how does a big event feel when you’re not.
This exercise itself should conclude the importance to you of being centered at all times.
Conversation with Buddha and Zoe: Uniting with the Body Using Breath
Buddha: Today we are going to focus on respiration: in and out. Why have so many of my teachings, and those who have followed me, focused on the breath? Firstly, as everyone is aware, breathing happens with or without you. Secondly, when you consciously engage your breath you are consciously engaging with the state of being that is happening whether you are aware of it or not. This is one of the easiest, and always the most successful, way of being in the present moment. You cannot escape your breath for breathing is happening to you. But when you join with what is happening to you and offer no resistance, then oneness is developed. There is nothing quite like this. There need be no association with thought. So observation of breath and conjoining of being is my favorite tool for teaching people to become still and whole.
After a few breaths the system becomes energised. Energised not only from the oxygen it has been breathing, but from the release of energy that happens when one becomes present in any given moment. By being conscious of the breath, conscious and conjoining with what is happening and offering no resistance, a huge energy release is borne. It’s akin to a star burst. This is you, one, in ones full potential in any given time simply by being aware of the breath conjoining with being, activating energy. It is from here and only here that transcendental states can be reached.
And what is the message? The message is that one does not ever escape the body to achieve greater levels of spirituality. One doesn’t ever go anywhere else than where one is to achieve greater levels of spirituality. One simply stops, observes the breathes, star burst happens, and the transcendental experience can take place. Simple isn’t it?
In my life as Buddha, I tried everything I had ever heard of to achieve greater levels of spirituality, to reach nirvana. I tried everything that meant leaving the body, in some ways looking back now, killing the body. I also had had from my previous times experiences of indulging the body and all the body was doing was being! Simply responding to what I did with it. If I ate it would digest it, if I drank it would absorb, if I fell it would bruise, if I laughed it chortled. What a close relationship you have people, spiritual beings, with your body. This is something never to be overlooked, but something to be nurtured. This is your best friend. Look after it, but more importantly be one with it through oneness with it. The star burst happens the transcendental state can take place. Care not for what it looks like only its levels of health. If something needs fixed or restored work towards that goal in whichever way you know how. Do not criticise and judge it for being something that it is not, for it is and your development will happen through your uniting with the body, not from desecrating it for it being not something that is a construct of the mind.
So for all of you breathe, enjoy, relax, come and meet me [Buddha laughs].
