To: K-list
Recieved: 1999/11/16 13:37
Subject: [K-list] Re: Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi savha!
From: Wim Borsboom
On 1999/11/16 13:37, Wim Borsboom posted thus to the K-list:
Dear Adele and KungaJigmeATnospamaol.com
KungaJigmeATnospamaol.com wrote:
>Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi savha!
Adele wrote:
>Literally it means: Gone, Gone, Altogether Gone.
Funny that I should ask what "Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi
savha!" means.
Years ago, must have been around 1975, when I learned Sanskrit, (Yes, at one
point I could read the Bhagavad Gita, am so surprised that I forgot it all)
I used the book by Judith Tyberg: 'First Lessons in Sanskrit Grammar'. She
pretty quickly, almost at the start of her book, offers the Sanskrit
Buddhist Mahayana text: "Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra", which finishes with
the above words. And what an absolute surprise it was. There at he beginning
of the text, I SAW the name 'Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara'. Just seeing that
name got me into instant ecstasy. Just a few days before I decided to take
up Sanskrit, I had woken up at night with his name on my lips, a last
glimpse of his image still in memory. A sweetness that permeates me still.
Before that point I had never even considered Buddhism, it was just not
part of my world. I had been a young rebellious Catholic Trappist monk when
I was 19/20/21 and I was totally in love with non-establishment,
non-organized Christianity. My first instance of enlightenment came when I
was 18 years old. It was a flowering of the love and truth and fearless
radicalness that I recognized in JC. My connection with and love for JC and
his mother Mary and his young friend John was unshakeable (as it still is).
So, 'Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara' came to me out of the blue, literally, just
like later on Krishna would and then, later again, the little Siddhart
Gautama Shakuyamuni who I remember as my play friend. (I have a lovely
memory of him and me, climbing up a dilapidated stonewall, picking at the
cracks and peeking through them, to see what was out there, beyond the
compound's walls. Just the other day I was in a Chinese grocery store here
in Victoria, and lo and behold there was a small bronze casting, very cheapl
y done, a recast from so many previous recasts that it had lost all detail.
It depicted just this memory: us two boys climbing on each other's back,
reaching for the beyond. I did not buy it, the cheap brass little thing
still sits there in the dust, on a shelf high up in this fragrantly, smelly
Chinese place.)
... Avalokiteshvara... hmmm. When I first read that sutra (Prajna Paramita
Hridaya) in 1975 I guess, "<snips>O Sariputra, form is here emptiness,
emptiness is form <snips>," I flowed back and forth between past and present
and future, until time and space ceased to have any limiting impact. The
past, in Holland, that winter's morning in 1962 when I was 18, sitting under
that large lonesome oak tree in the whitely frozen meadows, the sun just
melting away the fog that had been over that part of the country for days.
Sitting there almost frozen to... .... ... . I would tell my friends later,
"Death does not exist. We cannot treat it like it is a reality, an object,
an occurrence. ","We've got the wrong philosophy, there is no reality to
negativity...., opposites do not exist..."," Only is...is... is... is.","
We've got the wrong philosophy, concepts are playful approximations that we
treat as absolutes... etc..." And I would kiss everybody, I would try
hugging (what, hugging amongst guys in 1962?), embracing, I would weep, sob,
get sad, ended up in this Trappist monastery, loved and was loved, got
bullied, molested, violated... But the resilience, I would always snap
back... Indeed when does Kundalini start?
Now, I'm married to Emmy since 1968, a beautiful son Emanuel (22), friends,
house, a piece of land, all so beautiful, 'owning' a lot... owing
everything... divine generosity.
My memories go way back, indeed , all to do with abundance, generosity,
divine gifts...
What that means "Gone, Gone, Gone, Altogether Gone" I do not know. All I
know is that WE ARE
Ah, the unconditional, multidimensionality of being...
I love it here as I love always
I love now as I love everything
And the greatest surprise for me lately
To know that we may receive love
That we are worth it
That we are love
That we love loving
The only way to be
The only thing to do
Eros and Psyche have been popping up in my awareness lately.. saw a lovely
statue of them in Florence in the Uffizi museum, I bet you I will get some
memory of those two...
Adele:
>I have to interject something here, tho. This doesn't mean
>that matter doesn't exist on a mundane level. What it means
>is that if we ANALYZE each thing to it's most minute
>particle ---we end up with.....nothing. This includes even the Self,
>which we hold on to so dearly.
>It doesn't mean 'nothing exists'. It means that is how far
>our minds can go.
>
>The exercise is done to loosen up the hold we have that
>such-and-such is DEFINETELY here.
Yeah, hugs
Love, Wim
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