We CAN Experience the Light

"We are all walking in the dark

but with a handful of candles 

that is in our power to ignite.
With every choice we make,
I chase the darkness.
But, I choose to believe in the light."
Closing lines of the 2024 BBC miniseries “The Jetty”

 

     Daniel Schmidt (a Canadian!) is writing, producing & narrating a series of imho impressively wise, beautiful, powerful movies, designed to point us towards directly experiencing our true self.
    Here's my transcript to a small portion of  Daniel Schmidt's "Samadhi Movie, 2018 – Part 2 (It’s Not What You Think)" :

    “In this film when we use the word Samadhi we are pointing to the transcendent. To the highest Samadhi which has been named Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

    The actual word Samadhi means something like to realize the sameness or oneness in all things. It means Union. It is uniting all aspects of yourself. But do not mistake intellectual understanding for the actual realization of Samadhi. It is your stillness, your emptiness that unites all levels of the spiral of life.

    It is through the ancient teaching of Samadhi that humanity can begin to understand the common source of all religions and come into alignment once again with the spiral of life, Great Spirit, Dhamma or the Tao. The spiral is the bridge that extends from the microcosm to the macrocosm. From your DNA to the inner Lotus of energy that extends through the chakras, to the spiral arms of galaxies. Every level of soul is expressed through the spiral as ever-evolving branches, living, exploring. True Samadhi is realizing the emptiness of all levels of self. All sheaths of the soul. The spiral is the endless play of duality and the cycle of life & death.

    At times we forget our connection to the source. The lens we look through is very small and we identify with being a limited creature creeping upon the Earth, only to once again complete the journey back to the source; to the center that is everywhere.

    Chuang Tzu said, ‘When there is no more separation between this and that, it is called the still point of the Tao. At the still point in the center of the spiral one can see the infinite in all things.”

    The ancient mantra, ‘om mani padme hum’ has a poetic meaning. One awakens or realizes the jewel within the lotus. Your true nature awakens within the soul, within the world AS the world.

    Using the hermetic principle, ‘As above so below, as below so above’, we can use analogies to begin to understand the relationship between mind and stillness, relative and absolute.

    A way to begin to grasp the non-conceptual nature of Samadhi is to use the analogy of the black hole. A black hole is traditionally described as a region of space with a massive gravitational field so powerful that no light or matter can escape. New theories postulate that all objects from the tiniest microscopic particles to macrocosmic formations like galaxies have a black hole or mysterious singularity at their center. In this analogy, we’re going to use this new definition of black hole as ‘the center that is everywhere.’

    In Zen there are many poems and koans that bring us face to face with the gateless gate. One must pass the gateless gate to realize Samadhi. An event horizon is a boundary in space-time beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer, which means that whatever is happening beyond the event horizon is unknowable to you. You could say that the event horizon of a black hole is analogous to the gateless gate. It is the threshold between the self and no self. There is no ‘me’ that passes the event horizon. In the center of a black hole is the one-dimensional singularity containing the mass of billions of Suns in an unimaginably small space. Effectively an infinite mass. Literally a universe in something infinitesimally smaller than a grain of sand. The singularity is something unfathomable beyond time & space. According to physics movement is impossible, the existence of things is impossible. Whatever it is, it does not belong to the world of perception, yet it cannot be described as merely stillness. It is beyond stillness & movement.

    When you realize the center that is everywhere & nowhere, duality breaks down, form & emptiness, time & the timeless. One could call it a dynamic stillness or a pregnant emptiness, within the center of absolute darkness.

    The Taoist teacher Lao Tse said, ‘Darkness within darkness the gateway to all understanding.’

    The writer and comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell describes a recurring symbol, part of the perennial philosophy which he calls the Axis Mundi; the central point or the highest mountain. The pole around which all revolves. The point where stillness & movement are together. From this Center a mighty flowering tree is realized. A Bodhi tree that joins all worlds. Just as a Sun gets sucked into a black hole, when you approach the great reality, your life starts to revolve around it and you begin to disappear. As you approach the immanent self, it can be terrifying to the ego structure. The guardians of the gate are there to test those on their journey. One must be willing to face one’s greatest fears and at the same time accept one’s inherent power. To bring light to the unconscious terrors and the hidden beauty within. If your mind is not moved, if there’s no self reacting, then all phenomena produced by the unconscious arises & passes away.

    This is the point in the spiritual journey where faith is most needed. What do we mean by faith? Faith is not the same as belief. Belief is accepting something on the level of mind to bring comfort and assurance. Belief is the mind’s way of labeling or controlling experience. Faith is actually the opposite.
    Faith is staying in the place of complete not knowing, accepting whatever arises from the unconscious. Faith is surrendering to the pull of the singularity, to the dissolving or dismantling of the self in order to pass the gateless gate.

    Belief and disbelief operate on the level of mind. They require a knowing, but if you enter into your own investigation examining all of the aspects of your own being ((self-inquiry)), finding out who is doing the investigating, if you’re willing to live by the principle ‘not my will but higher will be done,’ if you’re willing to travel beyond all-knowing then you may realize what (this film has) attempted to point towards. Only then will you taste for yourself the profound mystery & beauty of simply existing.

    There IS another possibility for life. There IS something sacred, unfathomable that can be discovered in the still depths of your being, beyond concepts, beyond dogmas, beyond conditioned activity and all preferences. It is not acquired by techniques, rituals or practices. There is no ‘how’ to get it. There’s no system. There’s no way to The Way. As they say in Zen, it is discovering your original face before you were born. It is not about adding more to yourself. It is becoming a light unto oneself; a light that dispels the illusion of the self.

    Life will always remain unfulfilled and the heart will always remain restless UNTIL it comes to rest in that mystery beyond name & form.”

“Be still and know that I am God.”
Psalm 46:10


“To realize the Self is to be still.”
Ramana Maharshi


“Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind rest at peace.
The ten thousand things rise and fall
while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish
and then return to the source.
Returning to the source is stillness,
Which is the way of the Tao.”
Lao Tzu


“The secret of the receptive
must be sought in stillness.”
Zhou Xuanjing


“The complete stillness of the brain is an extraordinary thing;
it is highly sensitive, vigorous, fully alive, aware
of every outward movement but utterly still.”
J. Krishnamurti

PLEASE watch the entire SUPERB 60-minute video
"Samadhi Movie, 2018 – Part 2 (It’s Not What You Think)"
After transcribing a portion of this movie, I noticed that Daniel Schmidt generously provides complete transcripts! https://awakentheworld.com/transcript/samadhi-2-its-not-what-you-think/

Turning Words and Moments

    In Zen, a 'turning word' is a phrase from an awakened teacher to help prompt awakening in a student, already on the verge of awakening. Everything hinges on our readiness to hear or see what's 'hidden in plain sight.' And then, we may, at least briefly, pass through the 'diaphanous veil' or 'gateless gate' between heaven and earth.      

“And I have felt a presence that disturbs me with
the joy of elevated thoughts;
a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused,
whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
and the round ocean and the living air,
and the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
a motion and a spirit that impels all thinking things,
all objects of thought,
and rolls through all things."
William Wordsworth, 'Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey'

    Below are the closing paragraphs of Thomas Merton's book ‘New Seeds of Contemplation,’ which James Finley considers worthy of repeatedly quoting. In it, Merton lists several turning moments, if you will, 'ordinary miracles' we all encounter from time to time. (NOTE Merton referred to God exclusively as ‘He’ because in the 50s & 60s they didn't know better.)

    “What is serious to us is often very trivial in the sight of God. What in God might appear to us as ‘play’ is perhaps what He Himself takes most seriously. At any rate the Lord plays and diverts Himself in the garden of His creation, and if we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all, we might be able to hear His call and follow Him in His mysterious, cosmic dance. We do not have to go very far to catch echoes of that game, and of that dancing. When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet Basho we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash – at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the ’newness,’ the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.
    For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not.
    Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.”
    Thomas Merton. “New Seeds of Contemplation” New Directions, 1961.

    James Finley's commentary on the above:
    “The passage invites us to see how life is such that, from time to time, an extraordinary thing happens. We’re going along ruminating over this and that, when in something as simple as turning to see a flock of birds descending, or in something as simple as watching children at play, where something as intimate as knowing love in our own hearts, we’re interiorly quickened, we’re interiorly awakened to a deep visceral realization that this is holy, that this is real, that this is precious, that this is the way that every moment, deep down really is. These are moments that disclose to us the inherent holiness of life itself, the already perfectly holy nature of the present moment, just the way it is.
    It seems then to me, that by taking these moments and reflecting on them deeply, they can provide for us a way of beginning to understand what it means to live a contemplative way of life in the midst of today’s world. What it would be like, if we could only learn to walk around this aware all the time, of what our life always is. That is, what would it mean to walk into a room, and instantly become aware of the inherent holiness of everything that’s there, and to interiorly reverence it, and to honor it, and to be faithful to it?”
    James Finley, “Thomas Merton's Path to the Palace of Nowhere. The Essential Guide to the Contemplative Teachings of Thomas Merton.” Sounds True, 2014. (9h 34m Audiobook - also available from the Halifax Public library via the free app Hoopla) EXCELLENT

    “Pay attention to the world around you, to the leaves and the flowers, to the birds and the rain. If you can stop and look deeply, you will recognize your beloved manifesting again and again in many forms.” Thich Nhat Hanh

    “When we trust with our open heart, whatever occurs, at that very moment that it occurs, can be perceived as fresh & unstained by the clouds of hope & fear.” Dr. Jeremy Hayward

 

"The Three Sisters" Ballachulish - Glencoe - Scotland