Random Acts Of Consciousness

On Purity
Perhaps there are two types of purity. An Absolute and a Relative. The striving for the Absolute, for the ideal, for the perfection, is the continuous goal, ceaseless, endless, tiring even.
The striving for the Relative has all to do with acceptance. With knowing our being and our limitations and be willing to operate with them. The Absolute Perfection is perhaps a dream not reachable by most of us. But the Relative Purity, the acceptance of our failures and our willingness to acknowledge them is.
And perhaps the relative is the simplest way to the absolute.

On Buddha Being Fat
This is something that quite a few people have mentioned with some sort of unsettledness to their speech. It's something that makes them uncomfortable. How come such a prominent spiritual leader allows himself to be in such a way? To indulge himself? To disfigure his body? To be fat amidst those that starved?

There are two main answers to this.

The first one has to do with the symbol.
On a symbolical level we can see the Buddha's rotund figure as being a symbol for the fullness of life, for completion, for spiritual achievement - as a symbol of the Buddha himself, and so forth. It can also be a symbol of the consequences of the practice. The lowering and greater efficiency of one's metabolism (less waste) means one's resources are not squandered. That a true spiritual leads one to abundance, ie, it is rewarded with a long, healthy life (let us remember that in the times of the Buddha being fat was probably more equated with health than these days, where some other type of physiognomy and aesthetics seems to be predominant - something that will undoubtedly change in times to come as we as a society change as well)

The second one is a more prosaic one but equally important.
Let us assume that the Buddha was in fact big in the later phase of his life, mainly, after he attained full enlightenment.
Having achieved this spiritual clarity means of course the total detachment from life's affairs. Ie, total acceptance.
Now let us assume the following scenario. The Buddha is walking with his disciples. They come to a village and the Buddha imparts his wisdom on the inhabitants. He asks for nothing but, as a sign of gratitude they make an offering to him. He has no wish for food whatsoever but he decides to partake simply because he realises this to be important for the villagers themselves. After all accepting their food is the equivalent of them accepting his teachings. In fact, it is almost necessary for the teachings to truly sink in. It makes him human. It makes him like them. And that makes his attainments reachable for all that have been listening.
The key idea here is acceptance. Not only the simple acceptance of what's being offered but also the acceptance of one's role and the consequences of such role. More, the acceptance that there are actions one must undertake if one's goal towards others is to be attained. His rotund figure thus becomes a symbol not of greed or lack of responsibility towards oneself but rather of true service to others - only on a much more subtle level than most of us can truly grasp.
The Buddha's business was first and foremost the liberation of all beings. And the Buddha was as adamant in this pursuit as he was in his wisdom towards this pursuit and the compassion of this pursuit. He was a being truly in balance with life.
If he had to gain a few pounds in order to fulfil this so profound act of giving towards other beings, well... so be it.

On Death and Kamma (or Karma)
I was thinking of death and dying after just having talked with my friend Gabriel about such things. He had voiced that these thoughts kept creeping in and tiring him, overwhelming him at times - and regularly so.
I too felt this (and still do) after leaving the retreat. I think it's a natural consequence. Within the practice one grows very close to oneself, to one's body, to life itself. And thus, contemplation of its transience and frailty is inevitable.
When we come back and practice a lot less we lack the mental stability gained from intense practice. But the instinctive knowledge, the insights continue. Less frequently perhaps but, sometimes at least, equally powerful.
So we are often reminded that we're just passing through and that life can truly end at any moment.
And this can be a bit disorientating to say the least.
After all, we never had that. We used to go around our lives thinking everything was fine or not fine or so-so and not worry about such things. What was the point anyway? Why think about death? Are we gonna solve anything?
Of course not. Best get on with things.

The problem with that is that we keep missing ourselves. And we keep missing our constraints. The true shape of our life-box, so to speak. And if we don't know those, how can we truly live our lives to the fullest? We need to know the rules of the game so we can truly play it, otherwise we'll be pretending, believing we are truly playing.

I think that's the first key in transformation. You don' change completely. You just add some of the ground rules to the big messy heap you are (and me too...).

At first this whole thinking of death business depressed me a little. Things seemed a bit pointless since everything was impermanent anyway. Why bother?

Well, that's when Kamma (or Karma...) comes in. You do things because your business (either you like it or not) is also the business of liberation. For yourself and other beings. With that in mind living one's life becomes somewhat easier (in the sense that there is some sense of direction) but also more demanding - because now we are becoming more responsible for one's actions.
See, the beauty of Kamma is that it never really goes away. It's like information or entropy (and I think it would be very interesting to explore similarities further...). It just keeps increasing. This is where Buddhism touches science on one of its most fundamental levels. Kamma keeps increasing, so does entropy, so does information.
So, the necessary question comes:
HOW should it increase?
In terms of entropy it should increase in ways that are beneficial to the whole of our ecosystem. Planet, Humans, All other life forms. For all, in sum.
In terms of information, at least in the part we humans are concerned, it should increase in terms of the information that is beneficial to all those involved: Gaia, humans, all other life forms. All beings and non-beings.
In terms of Kamma it should increase in terms of potentiating liberation in the most efficient and compassionate way possible, towards all beings.

More, with Kamma we realise that our consequences carry far longer than just the extent of our lives. So, the positive drive is most important. It is a frequency, it is a momentum, a kind of impetus that pushes things, other Kammas in that same direction of liberation.
That is our true business (to me at least...)

Thinking about these things and connecting these with the experience of death (I had just forwarded Gabriel a short text about such matters) I realised the following.

When we die the connection between our kamma and our physical body degrades and, eventually, vanishes.
Now, consider the last few moments of life.
If we are lucky, we will flash backwards and forwards through the important things in our lives. And it's this intensity, it is this track being played that will become the base matrix for the next state of being (if such is the case).
I'd often thought about this and this idea had kept becoming clearer and clearer in my mind.
But what I suddenly realised was that I was missing the surroundings.
That perhaps the surroundings also have something to do with this. That they might interfere.

I was thinking how the cat of a friend of mine had hidden underneath a parked car so it could die. It wanted to be left alone. It wanted to die with no one watching or interfering.

Perhaps what that cat instinctively knows is that by dying alone, the disconnection becomes clearer.

Imagine each of us is a radio station. And when you die you send out your most powerful broadcast ever to the universe.
Now, because we are all humans, the frequencies we operate in are all very similar. They're different sure enough, but still close enough to interfere with one another.
Now picture this. You're dying. But what you're broadcasting isn't just you - it's the stuff around you as well.
Your message has noise.

I'm not saying that we should die alone. In fact, what I'm saying is that we should be careful with our last broadcast (if we get to choose, of course...).
If we can, we should be surrounded by those that will amplify our broadcast, that will create a "positive interference". We should be surrounded by those that are wishing for our well being, liberation, good re-birth, whatever it is. They are not distracting us. They are helping us, guiding us also.

With this insight it became very clear in my heart why so many people wish to die at home, with their families. Why beings that devote their lives fully to spirituality seclude themselves and make death a ritual and support one another. They realise all this - more or less intuitively.

They want their transition to be as smooth and as peaceful as possible.
They wish to give life its due and proper farewell.

Peace.