Building the Jigsaw Puzzle of Life: what does it have to do with Dhamma, Wisdom, and our Spiritual Path

and Culture
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The River needs both: the free flow of the Water as well as the precise boundaries of its Bank. Only when having both of them, the River has the Freedom and Ability to flow freely and sometime even overflow its Bank. So is our Life too: in order to be able to enjoy the Freedom of the Nibana, we have to learn first of all to train ourselves with the Suffering of the Samsara. When we will learn to be present here at this Moment, there we will also find the Nibanna and its Freedom and Peace of Heart.

The hungry Ghost Culture: Wanting, Grasping and the Illusion of I as its main Problem One of the main Problems of human Life is not only that we want, desire and crave for all kind and sorts of things, but that we also want it right now and immediately. This Attitude slides then and is poisoning each and every Moment and Inch of our Spiritual Life and Practice. Based on that Attitude towards life among many others, we are looking always for example for Shortcuts, wanting to get enlightened right now, in the next Moment or in the next some Minutes. So when we walk through life with such an Intention, we forget that in order to make a Progress any kind of Progress and Development we have to develop Wisdom, to develop Wisdom we have to learn and to learn it takes Time, a lot of Time and it requires Patience, Diligence, Commitment and etc. Only then and only then, we can achieve something. Anyway, our main Problem here is that the Culture in which we live sanctifies the Cult of the Ego, making a Religion out of the I and its Illusion, maximizing hereby the three Poisons of Ignorance, Greed and Ill -Will in a roughly institutionalized Way and Form by maximizing the immediate Satisfaction of Lust a Culture which is lost in Delusions and Ignorance offering a thirsty Man some salty Water as Sugyal Rinpoche described this Society. So the Goal of our Practice should not be only to break out of the Prison of the Imaginary I, but also from the Prison of our cultural We Go the collective Bubble of Delusions, in which we all dwell. Although not easy to do, this is exactly what is needed, what has to be done and what the Buddha taught us. So the Buddha taught us to do so by being mindful, by living moral Life with the eightfold Path, by developing Patience and Samadhi, by getting rid of our defilement by Insight, Restraint, Use, Endurance, Avoidance, Dispersal and many more. But as the Buddha himself said, the Tatthagata only shows the Way, but we are those who are obligated to walk along the Path in order to free ourselves, we can do it only by our own. Real Wisdom, the middle Path, Non-Duality and letting Go So, real Wisdom doesnt mean to live like a Zombie in Self Torture, while it also doesnt mean to run like a mad dog after Lusts in Self Indulgence real Wisdom is a middle Path avoiding those two extremities, as the Buddha said. Real Wisdom is to know when to speed up in Life and when to slow down, when to make an effort and when to give up, when to laugh and when to be serious, when to work and when to rest. Real Wisdom is also the Knowledge to choose the appropriate to any given circumstances in life without clinging or try to grasp concept, Ritual, Ceremony etc. It is like a master standing in the middle of the circle, while having everything around him in Control.

This Wisdom of the middle Path, of avoiding extremities and especially of letting go and Non - Duality, can be found not only in Buddhism or within the Dhamma, but also in many other Cultures and Traditions. It is not something new that we have to invent, we have only to reconnect us to ourselves and to the old Springs of Wisdom. So, I have chosen to show here only two of those Traditions, which can be considered at first instance as two fully different Way of thinking. The Tao say in Chapter 29: Do you want to improve the world? I don't think it can be done. (*) The world is sacred. (**) It can't be improved. If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it. If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it. There is a time for being ahead, a time for being behind; a time for being in motion, a time for being at rest; a time for being vigorous, a time for being exhausted; a time for being safe, a time for being in danger. The Master sees things as they are, without trying to control them. She lets them go their own way, and resides at the center of the circle. The Jewish Bible says the same, sometime in different words and sometimes in exactly the same: To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven A time to be born, and a time to die a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted A time to kill, and a time to heal a time to break down, and a time to build up A time to weep, and a time to laugh a time to mourn, and a time to dance A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing A time to seek, and a time to lose a time to keep, and a time to cast away A time to rend, and a time to sew a time to keep silence, and a time to speak A time to love, and a time to hate a time for war, and a time for peace

So, the main Idea here is once again as the Tao says: The Master sees things as they are, without trying to control them. She lets them go their own way and resides at the center of the circle. It is the Idea of Non Duality - that one can not exist without the other - and the Idea of letting go of all of those things - while remaining an attitude and a Spirit of Non Attachment to all of those things, rather than the Attempt to try grasp them as a Solution to a

certain Problem or seeing everything in a nihilistic way as an Attempt to try to escape the World without doing anything The Wisdom and a Cup of Tea Now, at this Point we have to understand that in order to develop Wisdom, we have to make mistakes, to admit them and to examine them, at least those that are significant, but the Pride, Arrogance and our Conceit, which are the Outcome of the Imaginary I, Soul or Ego, are prohibiting us to make any significant steps. Therefore our main Task at the beginning must be to dissolve and to destroy the imaginary Soul or I. When we get rid of that false and empty Believe of the I and the Soul, only then we can start to learn and to develop Wisdom . A nice Zen Koan, which is cold A Cup of Tea, explains this truth: Nan -in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!" "Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?" Practice and Dhamma: Abandonment of culture conditioned Rituals and a Moment by Moment Approach Here we should consider also another very important thing. If we want to Practice the Dhamma, we can do this only in the present Moment. A Practice that doesnt deal with the present Moment is not a practice; it is either a Delusion dealing with something that has already died or an Illusion of something that has yet not being born. Practicing properly according to the Dhamma in the present Moment, each Moment by Moment, is like Building a Jigsaw Puzzle the Jigsaw Puzzle of our Life, which of course takes a Life Time and even more. Anyway, one of our main Problems in practicing the Dhamma in the present Moment as well as in Developing Pliancy, Lightness, Composure, Adaptability and Proficiency of Mind and Mental States is rooted in the Dual World View of Rituals and Ceremonies. In those dual World Views, Philosophies and Religions, the Role of Rituals, Ceremonies and Protocols, were developed in order to protect both, there Believers and Adherents as well as the mundane World from the Holy and the Devine causing a lot of Fear, Pain, Agony, Anxiety and other destructive Emotions according to the dark and frightening Picture of the Soul and I which will be judged, punished in Hell etc. where as in the Non-Dual World View such separations are false, empty and deluded. Those empty Rituals are causing us psychologically to fight and resist every change positive as well as negative when they dont suite to the Ritual prohibiting us to live fully in the very Moment of our Life and are deluding us with Stories of how things should be, how should they develop themselves or how the Future should look Like according to the Ritual and its illusionary Picture. This means of course that the Ritual is usually ripped from Reality based on our imaginary and false Image of I and Soul. They dont take in Account what ha ppens at the present Moment, while the Problem becomes even bigger because the Rituals enhance our already existing Problem of Clinging and Grasping making the Situation and the Suffering much worse. So, when we try to free ourselves from the grasp of those Rituals, we have always to keep in Mind that some of them the natural that suite the Dhamma can be good, while some of them those which contradicts the Dhamma can be Bad, as I will explain it in one of my next Posts. In Addition, we have also to understand that sometime we have to say Yes and sometimes we have to say No which is the actual Freedom. Otherwise we are like a blind Man, who got a Hammer and thinks that the Solution to all his Problems is a nail. Such a Man is not free; hes ignorant and thus continues to suffer. So, real Wisdom and Freedom will be also achieved when we will

unchain the bondage and Fetter of Rituals, Perceptions of the Ego as well as from the collective Bubble of the We-Go. But there is one last very important Rule that we should always keep in Mind, a Rule to which we should carefully listen and pay Attention: The River needs both: the free flow of the Water as well as the precise boundaries of its Bank. Only when having both of them, the River has the Freedom and Ability to flow freely and sometime even overflow its Bank. So is our Life too: in order to be able to enjoy the Freedom of the Nibana, we have to learn first of all to train ourselves with the Suffering of the Samsara. When we will learn to be present here at this Moment, there we will also find the Nibanna and its Freedom and Peace of Heart .