To be alone, truly by oneself, is daunting and may seem frightening when looked upon from the outside. But when you are alone, you are completely free to move in any direction. To be without security is to hold no form of image. An image being something that thought has created from past experience. To hold any form of image prevents real security. When the image making comes to an end, complete security arrives.
You might have the itch to ask How? Please, please, please, never ask that. If you want to program a VCR, learn to drive a car, learn proper bio-mechanics for weight-lifting, then by all means, ask How. In asking how, we want someone else to show us. To learn in the area of knowledge, that is fine. But in the area of freedom, psychological or whatever you want to name it, nothing outside of ourselves can help us. Not society, religion, political systems, or whatever. This must be obvious by now.
To free ourselves, we must truly be alone to discover what happens inside. Not alone meaning lonliness, where we delude ourselves into thinking there is something on the outside that can make us whole. “If I had this thing or that person or that experience, I could feel complete.” That thinking can only lead to more heart-ache and misery. To be alone and to observe is to see with no particular point of view. You must set it aside to see clearly, perhaps for the first time in your life. Look within and ask questions. But do not ask as a Christian, Buddhist, American, or a Socialist. You can see nothing through those eyes. Set it aside and see what is there. Just do it.
No one can show us. No one can free us. All this we must do for ourselves.
Takuin Minamoto
One Comment
where am I at… where am I at… okay, yeah. it’s good to read stuff like this,
I’ve realized that asking of the self versus in books can be good, although I think for myself there needs to be a balance between my world and the worlds of others. I enjoy reading all different people’s suggestions on how to live, sometimes something will hit you and you can apply it to you life but no one book can give it all to you.
but than again, alas no statement holds true everywhere, even that. in the minds of people who give themselves up to god/s find all their answers in a book the bible, korean, etc. eh. so let them do it, let them find it, if it works.
I am realizing everyday the importance of accepting and embracing the idea that people embody different realities and that the more I embrace instead of argue that fact the more smooth flowing my life will be and the more kind, gentle and patient I can become.
As for being alone, yeah, solitude is such a key element. It seems that sometimes people fill their days with interactions to fill the void, and to avoid uncovering the person that they were created to be. Which is already inside of them and they have yet to see.
Films, scrims, lenses, etc. yes, they make it impossible to see anything, to see any sort of reality. It’s odd lately I’ve noticed I’ll learn a new philosophy and it will help me navigate but it’s almost as if it dissolves. Like salt that enchances the flavor of things but I can’t find it inside of my body, it’s dissolved and become part of me, when I try to explain the philosophies application to my life at times it’s seems impossible, like dissecting the body to find the traces of salt.
What a silly thing to try to do, but sometimes we do it anyways, in the company of those that we want to share our mental christmas presents, our “ahas”, you know?
Eh, I find a comfort in my current goals in life, exercising the compassion and kindness that was installed at birth in my body machine.
Looking forward to seeing you soon (: good thoughts, please keep thinking. (:
jooyoung