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To: Maurice Winn who wrote (65572)	6/27/2005 7:36:48 PM
From: shades	Respond to of 74559

Are you a buddhist too MQURICE? Arun, no asking confusing, impossible and metaphysical questions. Everything that went before went into your post. That's a LOT of person hours. tricycleblog.blogspot.com The Buddha became the Buddha because of his father and mother, because of his courtiers and the peasants in the fields, because of the horse that he rode to the forest, the sages who encouraged his pursuits, the ascetics who showed him that mortification isn't the answer, the stream that bathed him, the girl who fed him and the food, the boy and the grass, the tree, the snake, and the earth, because of the star that rose and shone just-as-it-is, because of the air that Siddhartha breathed as he sat there, the moon which exerted a gravitational pull on the oceans and thereby churned up the first particles that became life in the first place, because of the sun that provided him heat and nourished the plants he ate, everything everywhere came together to produce the Buddha. And most of all, the Buddha became the Buddha because he was already one with enlightenment to begin with, as are all things--he only discovered what had been the true state of himself and all things all along: vast emptiness, nothing holy. The Buddha did not discover something special about himself. He did not become something different from other things or people. He awakened to the true nature of all things (himself included) as liberated suchness. This awakening came after he had been supported in innummerable ways by countless beings and conditions, and after he had ceased to strive after enlightenment and relaxed back into his natural state. "To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the 'self.' To forget the 'self' is to be enlightened by the 10,000 things." (Dogen) I'm not saying that he put out no effort. But effort is empty and arises interdependently from the contingency of all things. He could only put out "his" effort after and while being supported by the entire universe. Likewise, today our own efforts toward awakening can only take place within an infinite matrix of supportive actions by others. How lucky we are to live in such an open-ended universe, where we can receive what we need from others and contribute toward the happiness and awakening of one another.