Zen Buddhist expressions such as ‘One cut, all is cut’ describe this complete and final, total and immediate awakening. ‘Immediate’ here does not mean temporally sudden or abrupt, but, literally, un-mediated: dukkha—the entire temporal-spatial complex of self-world—has collapsed. Awakening cannot be a gradual, step-by-step process; it is, naturally, total and immediate. Thus, neither can it be approached through mere theory—nor through practice in the ordinary sense of the self trying to do something. This is likened to trying to free oneself while only becoming more tightly bound and entangled. In a very real sense the self cannot go toward or approach awakening; we can only decisively come from it, through self-awakening in which the root of dukkha has been severed once and for all. - Gökhan Yu

Kitabın tamamını okudun mu Gökhan? - Mistaken Identity

Hayır, daha çeyreğinde sayılırım. - Gökhan Yu

wild fox kōan : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Gökhan Yu

After years of researching the character of flow experience in everyday life, the psychologist Csikszentmihalyi (1993) says, when attention is not occupied by a specific task, like a job or a conversation, thoughts begin to wander in random circles. But in this case ‘random’ does not mean that there is an equal chance of having happy and sad thoughts. [T]he majority of thoughts that come to the mind when we are not concentrating are likely to be depressing. (1993:35) This human hyper-alertness to negativity, as described in the research of Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues, appears to have promoted a desire for constant ‘improvement’ that may have been beneficial to our species in some aspects in our early adaptation... - Gökhan Yu

karma: consequences of our conscious and unconscious intentions expressed through our actions. As Buddhist scholar Dharmasiri (1989) has said, Although a bad thought may seem to disappear…it does not completely disappear but goes…to the unconscious and starts forming a complex around the original nucleus…[T]he complex becomes charged with more and more power as it grows bigger…This is the maturation of karma. When the complex is fully matured, at some point it explodes into the fruition of karma. (1989:37) Such complexes, derived from universal emotional conditions of being human, are driving forces in generating and re-generating images of self and others, through distortions and delusions of fear and desire, dominance and submission, and power and weakness. From a Jungian perspective, psychological complexes develop universally through archetypes or innate predispositions. Archetypes are innate tendencies in humans to form coherent emotionally charged images in states of arousal. The perceptual and emotional systems of human beings everywhere are organized by archetypes around which we form our emotional habit patterns, at first in adapting to the emotional and interpersonal demands of the conditions we are born into. Later, in adult life, these complexes are played out with others, in our families and worklife, as though our emotional meanings were reality. Negative experiences from our childhood are especially powerful. For example, if a child was treated aggressively and unfairly by a parent or older sibling, as an adult that child will have a strong tendency to recreate both the roles of victim and aggressor, sometimes identifying with one and projecting the other, and other times reversing that. - Gökhan Yu

The experience of individual subjectivity first comes into conscious awareness between the ages of 18 months and two years in normal development. No wonder the ‘terrible twos’ are known as the ‘me me me’ period! Once the ego complex is formed, the self-conscious emotions such as jealousy, shame, pride, self-pity, embarrassment, envy, and guilt—as well as fears and desires—can trigger defenses of the ego. Then we experience ourselves as separated and isolated from others and the world around, the pervasive root of subject-object duality. - Gökhan Yu

When someone projects an unconscious complex into another, it is thus likely that the other has had emotional and conceptual experiences for receiving and identifying with that projection. Projection of alien states into others is an unintentional invitation to another to enact those states. In intimate and hierarchical relationships, people often project and enact each other’s darker feelings and images, making for a great deal of pain and confusion in human relationships. - Gökhan Yu

Buddhism teaches that our suffering arises from the illusion that the individual self is enduring and needs to be protected. The schools of depth psychology warn of our tendencies to repeat experiences of fear and gratification through our psychological complexes and repetition compulsions. Defending ourselves against events and feelings that we evaluate as negative makes us desire only those things we believe to be in our favor—and to abhor what we believe is not. These conditions naturally lead to overwhelming experiences of despair, anxiety, and envy, as well as compulsions and addictions. All of these ordinary forms of human suffering are now further complicated by a metaphysics of vague notions of biological determinism. Biological determinism is clearly no help with the burden or boredom of a demanding self. It cannot answer questions about subjective meaning, nor address the compulsions that arise from personal insecurity, without reducing them to organic processes. - Gökhan Yu

Interdependent Origination :: The Principle is their utter non-discrimination, i.e. there are separate things, A, B, C, and these are all ‘non-self-nature.’ How is this possible? Hua-yen answers in two ways. In preparation, I shall introduce the idea of ‘ontological nexus’ in Huayen philosophy. Suppose there are the phenomena A, B, and C, and each of them is itself without any self-nature, yet they all are related. The existence of A as ‘A’ is determined by its relation to B and C and all other phenomena. Everything is related to everything; nothing can be considered apart from its relatedness to the whole. As any thing moves in time or space, all things will change in relationship to it. Although A is without self-nature, still it is A because of its relationship to everything else. In short, the inner structure of A includes everything else in hidden or ‘powerless’ form. And by such relationship, A is A, not B or C. The entire universe supports the existence of any single thing, and absolutely nothing exists as an individual particular by itself alone. All things continually and simultaneously manifest themselves together as a whole. The philosophy of Hua-yen calls this ontological reality ‘Interdependent Origination.’ The Arising of True Nature and Interdependent Origination are fundamental to all basic Buddhist teachings. The Indian Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna said, ‘Whoever sees Interdependent Origination can see Emptiness.’ As no individual can everything, one invisible principle exists: in short, the Mutual Interpenetration of Phenomena and Phenomena. The way of thought of Interdependent Origination has a nature completely different from the conceptual mode of Aristotle, which explains phenomena by the relationship of cause and effect. Although modern science, utilizing the cause-and-effect point of view regarding phenomena, has proven extremely effective, we need to reflect upon the modern problems that stem from our habit of viewing all human phenomena... more... - Gökhan Yu