The dot, p.8
The Dot, page 8
While he digests the tracer in the flower is how the oracle finds me, I wait. Then when I see his eyes and the expression on his face, he gets it.
“Tell me your name.”
“Call me Zosimos.”
“Why are you desiring to spend countless lifetimes in the hell realms, Zosimos?”
“Desiring? I hardly call such a destiny a desire, Kelv.”
“You believe in destiny. Why is it, then, that something has destined you for the suffering and agony realms?”
“My acts, the karma of my thoughts and deeds. So many negative and horrible thoughts, actions, and commands. Too many to undo. Too evil to correct in any one lifetime.
“There’s nothing that can be done for me. I am damned.”
We sit in silence, taking in the food. I fix the tea and serve him in a traditional ceremonial rite, often performed by a monk to a layperson. Then I sit in a lotus pose at the entrance and quiet my mind.
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“Have you heard about the Sanghata Dharma Prayaya?” Following a good long sleep, his eyes open slowly. Zosimos sits upright for a moment before standing.
“Where does a man take a piss around here, Kelv? No, I don’t know about the Sanga Praya, whatever you just asked. This cave makes me aware that there’s nothing like civilization to make life better for people. I don’t know why you would stay out here in this uncomfortable filth and nothing for a bath or toilet. I need a toilet!”
“It’s a little early to go down to the bathhouse, but I suppose your mind is stuck inside your body. You have no training or ability to live free of such suffering, so your limitations are understandable. Come, follow me.” I head to the rock face entrance, where I wedge my way between the rock faces and then make my way down.
Zosimos follows along behind me. “This is ridiculous. Is the toilet all the way down there? All of this effort just to piss in the dirt? I could have done that from above, over the ledge.” As he steps off the ledge and begins to lower himself, his tone becomes more agitated. “I’m not in favor of you telling me I have no ability or training and that I’m limited. You’ll need to show me more respect. Don’t make it a habit, Kelv.”
Hugging along the top of the crater to avoid the steep embankment. In this soft soil, one wrong step and there would be no stopping the tumble all the way to the bottom. Several meters away, the path opens to a flat landing of slate and a massive overhang of dark red iron ore. On either side of the slate are deep grasses and rich fertile soil. Without prompting, Zosimos takes himself into the thick grass and disappears below the tall flowering tops.
I wait twenty minutes or more for the first storm of the day. The iron ore crest above causes a deluge of water from the runoff to shower down. Like before, at the stone arch, I wash my clothes and body in the gentle falling, silky smooth, warm waters. The noise of the steady shower of drops hitting the slate where we stand is louder than the waterfalls in the city’s bathhouse.
While we wait for our clothing to dry, I tell Zosimos, “Your father and I researched the facts. Using the monks and students at the monastery in an experiment. We found that over several samples, people become conditioned to living in their past. The negative emotions and the negative experiences of life cause habitual remembering. In this habitual state, the body takes thinking away from the mind. Soon, the body becomes the mind, and we become trapped within a pain-body. Then the sicknesses and diseases we struggle against manifest more frequently and they become more deadly.
“Typically, when the mind is trapped inside a painbody we begin each day in the same repetitive sequence. Waking up, we begin the day by thinking about our problems and planning for each problem’s worst-case scenario. We get out of bed on the same side of the bed, take a pee, get a cup of coffee, check our messages and look at the weather. All in an effort to ground ourselves in a habitual pattern of sustaining the same feelings and same emotions as we did the day before.
“The mind has between seventy and eighty thousand thoughts a day, and ninety percent of those thoughts are the same thoughts we had the day before. We get stuck, as I said, in habitual patterns of feelings and emotions. Thoughts are the communication tool of the mind. Feelings and emotions are the tools of communication for the body. Repeating the same sequence of events day-after-day-after-day. . . the body memorizes the feelings and takes over for the mind.
“Today, for example, you wake up, and there’s no bathhouse, so your body gets uncomfortable and begins sending out an emotional response. Emergency messages from the body of unfamiliar, change, and discomfort. You start complaining and feeling like the world is a horrible place with no comforts.
“Change is an uncomfortable feeling; the body doesn’t like it when the routine is disrupted. You are trapped in a cycle of negativity. You become convinced of the worse case. As you said, ‘Headed for the hell realms, a life destroyed without hope of ever being free of suffering.’ I can help you discover that it’s an illusion caused by your beliefs and habitual patterns. You can break the cycle and get — thinking — back into your mind. You can help the body put the mind back where it belongs.”
“And that process is the Sangata Prayer you asked me about?”
“The Sanghatta Dharma Prayaya. No. Before you could read and understand the perfect, complete, and liberation contained in the Sanghata Dharma Praya, you would first have to get thinking and the mind out of your body.”
“Well, let me take a wild guess, Kelv. I’m going to go way out on a limb and guess. I can get my mind out of my body by learning to meditate. Am I right?”
Ignoring his sarcasm, I continue without breaking my eye-to-eye contact or changing my tone. “The word meditate, as Mahá discovered, means to become familiar with. Most people never become familiar with their mind and its tool of communication called thinking. Likewise, they never become familiar with the body’s communication tool which we call feelings and emotions. At least that is, people do not become familiar with these communications tools to the point of being able to manage and control them. But when you do manage and control them, you can learn to optimize and awaken to the real life of the existence we are all blessed with.”
“Awaken? What the hell does that even mean? The universe is a cliche of awakening, here and now, present moment, mindfulness, blah blah blah.”
“Do you remember when you were telling me you were bound for the hell realms, and that was why you didn’t jump to your death?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you recall how you watched yourself from within your mind as you found the words to express the thoughts that you wanted me to hear and understand? The part of you that is aware that you are expressing your own thoughts?”
“Well, yeah. I guess I can sense that I am controlling the words and trying to find the right way to explain myself to you. Is that what you are asking me?”
“That is awake. Meditation when practiced in a precise way, like following a formula. Then that awakened self becomes more and more of a normal state within you. You begin to use your mind and thoughts to heal your body and manifest your true self. And, well, you just had your first awakened moment. Congratulations. Now, we need to do the laundry.”
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“Teach me how to get started, Kelv. Where should I begin? If the Praya provides salvation for all who hear it or read it, then you must tell it to me.”
I trek back up to the dwelling in the cave above. Then I sit and eat the fruit, and drink some poppy tea. All the while, I remain quiet, as it is the tradition of our cultural practices. Zosimos watches my every move. I sense his impatience and wonder if he’ll be able to slow down to allow the learning and transition that can save his life from the hell realms.
“The beginning of this practice is, the same as with most things we learn, it is the most difficult.” I say as I clear the empty food containers. “Stay true to your inner self and work your way through the struggles. I advise you to promise yourself that you will dedicate your mind and body to this practice.
“Sit in the lotus pose. Your body will want to rise and struggle against you. It will desire the daily routine and its habitual acts. You must teach it to sit and stay still. Later, when you are done with the practice, you will feed it, drink water, relieve the bladder, and so on, but for now, you are going to teach the body to sit and do what you tell it to do.
“Define and recall the vision of the future that you want to experience. What are the thoughts and emotions caused by that beautiful future? What will it feel like when that future arrives? You have to feel the future as if it is happening right now. Experience the gratitude of that future as if it has already happened. You must practice until the gratitude of the experience causes your heart to open with a deep appreciation for it.
“Every time your thoughts wander away from your intention to focus in the present, gently pull your awakened self back to the meditation practice. Bring your attention back to the clear vision of the future you created. Be gentle with yourself. There is nothing you have done wrong.
“Place the mind on the future because your body doesn’t know the difference between past thoughts and future thoughts. If your thoughts can keep you trapped in the past's negativity, your thoughts can allow you to manifest the future you desire. It's important to teach your body how it feels to have the life you want. Teach your body to let the mind do the thinking. Teach yourself how to think using a fully present mind. Let the awakened mind pull your inner being back to the surface when the mind wanders and ruminates. Take control of the mind.”
Zosimos is seated in lotus pose, with his hands resting on top of his knees. He sits quietly, and I sit across the cavern from him.
“Bring your awareness to this time and place with the intention of meditation. Breathe long, slow in and out breaths, rhythmic. And now you can become aware of the space inside your head. Sense the volume of space that exists inside your skull, in space. Now, sense the energy of space around your head and feel the space your head occupies in space.
“Move your intention to the center of your throat and feel the energy of space that surrounds your throat. And now, what is that vision of the future? Feel it, sense it and imagine it as if it is already real. Feel the gratitude and open your heart to experience the depth of the blessing of it.”
Several weeks have passed, and I have continued to work with Zosimos daily on the meditation and the practice. He is diligent in his desire and is serious about defining his future vision. Each day, we meet to discuss his progress and deliberate how to work through the obstacles he encounters.
It was several days before he decided on five aggregates for his vision of the future. In no particular order, each aggregate is as essential as the previous and as the one that follows. Health, Wealth, Successful Leader, Love, Happiness.
So then, his next task became one of defining what these very general aggregates include. It is necessary to have the general and the ability to be more specific.
The specifics for health were first. He defined this as the process of eating only healthy foods, keeping his body fit and flexible through the practice of yoga, making every effort to care for his teeth, nails, eyes, and ears, and drinking only water and fresh juices.
For wealth, his ideal future vision is to know he will always have exactly what he requires and have it when he needs it. Food, shelter, medicine, etcetera. He knows he will always be well cared for.
As a successful leader, he places himself as trusted by everyone. He will be strong and competent as he will guide the population through to nirvana.
When he defines love, he sees in his future self an association with a consciousness that he admires and longs to be with. The other being is the one who holds him above all others.
After several attempts to be specific about happiness, he asked for my help. We agreed it is best defined as the process and the pursuit of all these aggregates. Daily, and minute by minute, causing the future vision to expand and grow. Understanding the pursuit is a contrast of feelings and conflicting emotions. Through learning the interpretation of emotions, both high and low energy, the expansion of the future can be accomplished.
After explaining to me how he has defined his future self and the success and struggles of his daily meditation practice, he asks for the rest of the story about Mahá and the painting in the monestary.
“The painting was a representation of the duality of existence. An enormous framed image of white. It was also an enormous framed tiny black dot almost too small to be seen except for the contrast between the white and black colors. Mahá and I never reached the end of arguing, which it was; the white with a black dot or a dot surrounded by the white. Without the dot, the white is undefined, and without the white, there is no dot. The painting gave us the foundation for understanding and awakening to the entire wisdom of contrast in the universe.
“One special morning, I will never forget his excitement. Mahá ran to meet me as I arrived at the monastery. Grabbing me by the arm, we ran together through the hallways until we reached the wall with the framed image.
‘This is nirvana,’ he pointed toward the image. ‘Don’t you see? While something trapped our consciousness in this dual existence, we can only see the contrasts of everything together. Everything can only exist with everything else in contrast. Any one item could never exist without contrast to everything else. Nothing is what it appears to be, nor is it anything else. My only question for you, Kelv. Do you think it is better to be the field of white that defines the dot, or is it better to be the dot that defines the white?’”
The daily cart arrives at the cave entrance, and I get up to gather our delivery from it. As I pass by Zosimos, I can see he has the look of a person confused, bordering on overwhelmed. I know from my experience that discovering the knowledge in Mahá’s meaning of these words will bring the young man to a blessed awakening.
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“Have you ever confessed to yourself to being the phony person you are? Did you ever admit to being the imposter disguised behind the mask?”
Zosimos questions me as he sits across from me at the opening of the cave dwelling. After adjusting his physical body to a comfortable meditative position, he continues. “Everyone is an imposter. Don’t you find there is a difference between your thoughts of yourself and the personality you try to portray to others? Can anyone let another know their true self?”
Lifting my gaze and turning my head so that I am looking toward the sea, I answer his questions with a question. The Socratic method is a teaching tool that allows someone to discover answers for themselves rather than being told what to think or told to rely on faith.
“Look to the far left. What is it that you can see out there on the horizon?”
“The tangerine-colored sea and the yellowish color of the air and orange clouds floating in the atmosphere. I can see the sky.”
“Now look to the right and tell me what you see out there.”
“Barren land that is void of life. A dead planet covered in craters from asteroid strikes and volcanic activity. I see the wind blowing up a dusty tempest in the distance. And I can hear the howling of the gusts across the cave openings at either end of the cavern?”
“This planet, you call Ziran, is covered by a large ocean and a small piece of land that is perhaps twenty or thirty percent of the surface. An atmosphere that is rich in oxygen and a yellow-to-orange luminous color encloses all of it. All of it is backlit by a pair of stars we call Faust and Kelly. Now, look straight ahead, far away on the horizon. There stands a huge flat top mountain.
“The Humanoids sent machines to terraform that flattop mountain into farmland so we can grow fields of grains and beans. They built processors to convert ocean water into drinkable fresh water, and they terraformed the small piece of land on the far side of the mesa to grow orchards of fruit and nut trees.
“The Humanoid plan included sending our ancestors to inhabit this mountain and this small bit of inhabitable land. The first three generations of our ancestors lived in space as they traveled to arrive on Planet Four Hundred Forty-four, and here you are, Zosimos, now one of the ninth generation of human life on this planet.”
“Ancient history, Kelv. You aren’t telling me anything new or of any value. So, what’s your point? How is this information supposed to help me progress and discover the liberation provided to us by the Sanghatta Dharma Prayaya?”
“The age of knowledge began on Earth thousands of years ago. For hundreds of years, the people of Earth had access to knowledge, and suddenly, the people discovered it wasn’t enough just to know things. It became necessary to know how to do things. The mystics were those who knew how to get things done. They mastered life by manifesting in the present from their future vision. The mind is the key.
“Listen, apply what I tell you. Humanoids decided our ancestors would need four generations to accomplish nirvana. They designed that flattop mountain and the orchards below to produce food for four generations. When the fifth generation and the sixth and so on forward to your generation living here still . . . the land cannot continue to produce plant nutrients to sustain human life.
“Our scientist and medical experts have told us Kelly emits deadly X-rays and that there is a seven-hour period each day when the X-ray emissions are deadly. We believe what we are told by our expert’s knowledge and then our minds make it real. Every day we have been told, and now we have believed it for over nine generations. We know Kelly is killing us.
“When crops began to fail after living here for five generations, we blamed Kelly. When diseases began to increase, life spans began to decrease, birth rates began to drop, and our scientists considered it all and told us Kelly was becoming more dangerous. Our minds believe that X-ray is killing us and our food sources.
“None of it is true. The truth is, Kelly hasn’t changed at all. Our living experiment has outlasted the four-generation hypothesis of nirvana. Our bodies are in survival mode, and our life force has been surviving in stress mode for many generations. It isn’t Kelly that is killing us. It’s our minds believing knowledge that isn’t true. Thoughts are killing us, and thoughts are distracting us from attaining nirvana
