Like The Sun Shining by Tenzin Palmo

Like The Sun Shining
by Tenzin Palmo

Sometimes people don't understand how Buddhism can talk about compassion and love in one breath and non-attachment and all these qualities of renunciation in the other breath. But that's because we confuse love with clinging. We think that if we love somebody, the measure of our loving is that we want to hold on to them. But that's not love, that's just self-love, attachment. It's not genuinely loving the other person, wanting them to be well and happy that's wanting them to make us well and happy. This is very important, because we confuse it all the time.

When I was nineteen years old I told my mother, "I'm going to India" and she said, "Oh yes, when are you leaving?" She didn't say, "How can you leave me, your poor old mother, now you've got to the age when you're earning a living, how can you go and abandon me?" She just said, "Oh yes, when are you leaving?" It was not because she did not love me, it was because she did. And because she loved me more in a way than she loved herself, she wanted what was right for me, not what would make her happy. Do you understand? Her happiness came by making me happy.

That's love, and that is something which we all need very much to work on in our personal relationships. To hold people and possessions like this (hands outstretched to indicate holding something lightly in the palms) and not like this (fists clenched to indicate holding something very tightly). So that when we have them, we appreciate and rejoice in them, but if they go then we can let them go. Change and impermanence is the nature of everything.

You see, when we lose something we love, it's our attachment which is the problem, not the loss. That's what causes us grief. And that is why the Buddha taught that with attachment comes fear and grief. We have the fear of losing, and then we have the grief when we lose. Buddha never said that love causes grief.

Love is an opening of the heart. It's like the sun shining. The sun just naturally shines. It doesn't discriminate, shining on this person but not on that one. It just shines, because it's the nature of the sun to give warmth. Some people go inside and close the doors and windows; that's their problem. The sun is shining anyway. And it's that quality of heart which we have to develop. That quality of open, unconditional loving, no matter what. I'm going to love you if you do this but I'm not going to love you any more if you do that parents do that, when their children don't obey.

--Tenzin Palmo

Law of Attraction and the quest for Enlightenment by Palma Bellardoni

When one mentions the Law of Attraction, I have noticed that people have different reactions and a different perception of it. I wonder if it depends on how they learned about it, and what was the source of the material. Some are skeptical about it, and do think that all this “positive thinking” won’t lead to anything - that it is a very naive approach, and that it misleads the masses. Others say that all this wanting to manifest material goods is not spiritual at all, and it’s just a hype that took hold in a society that keeps wanting to accumulate stuff, where people want to learn to manifest just to improve their material life, without looking deeper with the desire to raise their consciousness.

Depending on how you look at it, they are both right and wrong. What I mean is, they are right because there are sources that teach a mostly materialistic or incomplete approach, they are wrong because they did not look at the true spiritual essence of the principles.

Can the Law of Attraction lead to spiritual enlightenment? What is enlightenment anyways?

Buddhism and Enlightenment

According to Buddhist teachings, enlightenment is the extinction of desire and suffering and the disintegration of individual consciousness. It is the realization that the ego is an illusion of the mind, and that we are One consciousness. It is the awakening to the true nature of this Universe. This realization doesn’t stem from a purely intellectual knowledge, but from a real experience of merging into Oneness, a true knowing of the illusion of the ego.

During a Vipassana meditation course, I had a tiny millisecond glimpse of this. It was like a melting away of the body and mind, and a feeling of Oneness and floating energy. I tried to reach that state again, during following sessions, as it was really blissful in that microscopic moment, but could never replicate it. However, the memory of it is there, so I can really relate to the concept. Should I mention that everything went back to (*cough*) normal, with my individual ego being quite happy?

The Law of Attraction and Enlightenment

According to the best teachers - in my opinion - of the Law of Attraction, Abraham-Hicks, enlightenment is an alignment with Source

Enlightenment means literally aligning to the Energy of my Source. And genius is only about focusing. Law of Attraction takes care of everything else. Physical humans often want to make enlightenment about finding some process and moving through the process that has been pre-described. But true enlightenment is moving to the rhythm of the internal inspiration that is coming in response to the individual desire. Enlightenment is about allowing my Connection to the Source that is me for the fulfillment of the things that I have individually defined here in my time-space-reality. That’s as good as it gets! — Abraham
Excerpted from the workshop in Boulder, CO on Saturday, June 7th, 2003

Here, unlike Buddhism, there is no extinction of individual consciousness or desires. They are spiritual in nature and help the Universe expand. The spiritual essence of the Law of Attraction lies in the realization that this is a vibrational Universe, that we are an extension of the One, and are consciousness in physical form, experiencing this time/space reality.

Law of Attraction is not just about “positive thinking”, because there is an understanding of how frequencies resonate, so it’s also about “positive feeling”. Emotions are our tool, or as Abraham says, our “guidance system”, to understand if what we are thinking will take us where we want to be. Those who believe that simply thinking positive won’t do it, are right, but then, they did not understand LOA.

Is wanting to manifest material things, wanting to “have”, spiritual enough? Not according to You are Truly Loved, a blog worth visiting, and I can see the point being made:

The teachings on enlightenment are designed to help point you to the realization that none of that actually matters since it’s all an illusion anyways.

Even Abraham says that it’s not the “having of it” that will lead to happiness. Manifesting things is a way to understand how this Universe works. Being in alignment with Source is a spiritual understanding of the vibrational nature of things. Those who are just teaching the Law of Attraction to attract money, cars and more, are limiting what LOA is really about. Yes, one can have those, but with the understanding of the spiritual nature of that manifestation. It’s just energy in movement.

What, then? Can they both lead to Enlightenment?

The two kinds of “enlightenment” seem to have the opposite premise. No desire/desire, extinction of individual consciousness/expansion of individual consciousness. They do have in common the vibrational view of reality, and that we are Source.

We are one merging Consciousness, where the ego is an illusion of a temporary time/space reality… while we are experiencing this time/space reality, we can acknowledge the vibrational nature of all things, and create a life experience where we are aligned with the One Source. We play with energy, being able to attract things and experiences onto us, while remaining free from attachment to “material” things, because everything is energy anyways… if it’s there, great. If it’s not there, cool, there is an endless stream of energy available.

What is your view of the Law of Attraction, do you agree that it does have a spiritual nature? Is aligning with Source enough for you, to define it as “enlightenment”? Can one still enjoy individual consciousness, with the ultimate realization that there is none?

Posted on Budha Trance Law of Attraction