"If all the other clocks are wrong..."

"If all the other clocks are wrong, you best be callin' 'Time'"

Ananda:

The Yogi said that a lot of people made a hobby of finding fault with others, basically trying to show their superiority and that they were "right" while everybody else was wrong

Calling "Time" would be a reality check. When you hear, "At the tone, the time will be..." you can reset your "watch" to the way things really are.

Ed.:

The deeper problem here is the formation of any judgments. The Faith-Mind Inscription of Sengcan (the Third Patriarch of Zen [Chan] in China), begins:

The Great Way is not difficult

for those who have no preferences.

When love and hate are both absent

everything becomes clear and undisguised.

Make the smallest distinction, however,

and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

If you wish to see the truth

then hold no opinions for or against anything.

To set up what you like against what you dislike

is the disease of the mind.

When the deep meaning of things is not understood,

the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

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Questions:

1. In what ways can a person "call Time"? That is, what are some possible sources of "reality check"?

2. What are the implications in your life of the passage from the Faith-Mind Inscription?

"Being born in a garage don't make you a Buick"

"Being born in a garage don't make you a Buick"

Ananda:

People are always interested in pedigrees. A lot of the Sangha members always said they were "born in" this group or that group, and they'd lord it over the others. "I was born a Buddhist," they'd say, or "I was born Baha'i." (The Yogi would often reply, "I was born a baby.")

I guess that when the Yogi said, "Being born in a garage don't make you a Buick," he meant that just because your parents belong to some religion, you don't "automatically" get the benefits. You still have to make a personal commitment and accept the discipline for yourself. You still have to practice to reach the goal.

Ed.:

Ananda's analysis is a good one. The "cradle Catholic" or the child born in a Hare Krishna ashram may have the advantage of early exposure to important ideas, but they still are not "perfected" until they do the work themselves.

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Questions:

1. What are the plusses and minuses of being "born into" a particular tradition?

2. How can one be sure that one's spiritual path is one's own, and not a path imposed on one by others?

"Knots in the net"

"Knots in the net"

Ananda:

The Yogi often told us that "everything connects." When something happened that made us realize this connection of everything, he would often say under his breath, "Knots in the net..."

It was several years after we met that he told me this story.

In Indra's heaven, he said, there's a net that is 3-D, and reaches in all directions, to infinity. At each intersection of strings (or "knot"), there's a jewel. Every jewel is reflected in all the other jewels, and all the other jewels are reflected in it.

So if you move one jewel, all the jewels are affected.

That's what the Yogi meant when he said we're all just "knots in the net." I guess the story must have come from India, since Indra is the king of the Indian gods.

Ed.:

The image of "Indra's Net of Gems" comes from the Mahayana Buddhist Avatamsaka Sutra. It shows that all phenomena interpenetrate all others, a complex way to say that "Everything contains everything else."

To apprehend this is considered to be one of the highest states of realization.

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Questions:

1. Have you ever had a deep experience of the phenomenon described by "Indra's Net"?

2. Do you know of other illustrations of the idea that "everything connects"?

"Out of the mouths of *ssholes... "

"Out of the mouths of *ssholes... "

Ananda:

Not everybody who joined The Sangha was highly evolved. In fact, just the opposite: we seemed to collect troubled souls that more conventional institutions had rejected.

But even these made important contributions to the community.

There was one guy, a total "jerk," who argued with everyone about everything all the time. He never did a lick of work, either, unless his job was just to be obnoxious.

Even so, he was often the only one to catch what the Yogi was saying.

He would also make a lot of important points in our discussions. And sometimes, when he did, the Yogi would say (sort of jokingly, from the corner of his mouth), "Out of the mouths of *ssholes..."

Ed.:

Truth can come from any source. The "people we like" are often the ones who just tell us what we want to hear.

Saints, on the other hand, often make terrible neighbors.

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Questions:

1. Do you know a person like the one described? How can you learn to appreciate such a person?

2. Can we accept "the right message" when it comes from "the wrong source"? Why or why not?

"Even a rat's got a job to do"

"Even a rat's got a job to do"

Ananda:

The building we live in (well, he used to live in) wasn't exactly The Ritz. We used to say that if the cockroaches stopped holding hands, the place would fall down.

We had lots of visitors from the better parts of town who would get all squeamish when, say, a rat ran across a rafter, or a cockroach scuttled under the hotplate.

The Yogi, though, seemed really comfortable with these "guests," like a sort of slum-dwelling Saint Francis. "Even a rat," he'd tell the offended parties, "has got a job to do."

Ed.:

There are two "big ideas" here. One is the interconnectedness of all things: rats (and roaches) are as important to the ecology as bunnies and butterflies.

The other is the idea of non-discrimination. To say, "Rats are bad, but hamsters are good," is to make a distinction based on these creatures' relationship to me. (Yes, I am mindful of the health issue--a separate one from this sort of learned disgust.) This aphorism cuts through all that by pointing out the role of scavengers (perhaps more important than that of pets!)

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Questions:

1. Why are people attracted to bunnies and disgusted by rats?

2. Can you think of the "jobs" of other things, like mosquitoes, or influenza, or suffering?

"Rinse it now or scrub it later"

"Rinse it now or scrub it later"

Ananda:

A lot of the Yogi's sayings seem to come from the kitchen. I asked him once if he had ever worked in a restaurant, and he said no, but he'd worked in the kitchens of lots of communes and "ashrams."

This saying was one of his favorites. For example, someone would say, "I know I should do such-and-such but I just don't feel like it," and the yogi would answer with this. Lots of people didn't get it, but some did.

Ed.:

The meaning is clear: A problem ignored will fester into a bigger problem. We should, as they say, "Nip it in the bud." This is consistent with the Yogi's overall message of personal responsibility.

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Questions:

1. Think of a story about a time when you "let something fester." How would acting sooner have changed things?

2. How can we bring ourselves to "scrub something now" when we don't feel like it?

"If you screw around, you'll get the clap"

"If you screw around, you'll get the clap"

Ananda:

The Yogi lived through the 60s, the era of "Free Love," when "the clap" (gonorrhea) was pretty common. (I think it's still pretty common.) He once told me that the only people he knew who didn't have it were the few who never had sex!

Anyway, he was always big on personal responsibility. He always said that whatever we do will have consequences.

Ed.:

This is "The Law of Karma." The word karma itself just means "action," but it's tied into the concept of cause and effect. Simply put, the law states that "we reap what we sow"; our actions determine what happens to us next.

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Questions:

1. What do you think of the "Law of Karma"?/p>

2. Are there other sources of trouble in our lives besides the consequences of our own actions?