Why traditions?

china

Time Out
Jul 30, 2006
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Tradition says you must have a guru, a teacher, to help you to meditate, he will tell you what to do. The West has its own form of tradition, of prayer, contemplation and confession.. But in the whole principle that someone knows and you do not know, that the one who knows is going to teach you, give you enlightenment, in that is implied authority, the master, the guru, the savior, the Son of God and so on. They know and you do not know; they say, follow this method, this system, do it day after day, practice and you will eventually get there - if you are lucky. Which means you are fighting with yourself all day long, trying to conform to a pattern, to a system, trying to suppress your own desires, your own appetites, your own envy, jealousies, ambitions. And so there is the conflict between what you are and what should be according to the system; this means there is effort; and a mind that is making an effort can never be quiet; through effort mind can never become completely still. Tradition also says concentrate in order to control your thought. To concentrate is merely to resist, to build a wall around yourself, to protect an exclusive focusing on one idea, on a principle, a picture, or what you will. Tradition says you must go through that to find whatever you want to find. And when you see actually -- and you can see it only if you are not committed to it and can look at it objectively - then you can discard it completely. One must discard it completely, for then the mind, in the very discarding, becomes free and therefore intelligent, aware, and not liable to be caught in illusions.

That's just a point of view and oviously not an authority on anything .
 
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