2008/11/18

Simply leave a 'burning house' as you notice that there is suffering

"I will tell you how to consider any person you meet. Look on them as being like a man whose house has caught on fire. Would such a man cry, 'I'm not leaving until someone tells me why God made this happen.' No. He runs out of a burning house as fast as he can. The same is true of suffering. We must show people how to run away from it as fast as they can."
~ Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment by Deepak Chopra.
This posting is not an explanation of the text above but is an offering that arose from a willingness to consider it, in response to an enquiry from one who asked - in terms that may share a living consideration in the heart.


The mind in ignorance is mesmerised by its own confusions such that there is an illusion of having a life of one’s own, being hopeful of gaining fulfilment in a world of impermanence in which all things are arising, change and pass.
But this is actually a state of needless – unnecessary - limitation and discomfort.

It is a state of suffering arising from the attachments and beliefs that are held in heart and mind.
And the means employed in ignorance to overcome, distract or alleviate suffering will tend to further enslave the mind we share to the false identification from which the suffering arises.

Therefore when you meet one who seems to be an ‘other’, be willing to see his limitation or suffering as one with your own and do not seek to merely join him in suffering by making him NOT a brother. For that is the collusion by which truth is denied.

But allow truth to resolve the suffering that is within your own thought immediately and show him that he is awake by being the witness to his peace through your own.
For truth is peace.

Do not indulge taking thought beyond the willingness to drop into truth – undefined - and allow expression of intelligence of free awareness as called forth by trust itself.
For by letting life use mind and body to a shared goal the root of the separation fallacy is undermined and the bright clarity of selfless love stands clear as that which is – as it is.

The burning house is an illusion of compelling danger from which the mind will hide if it does not first calm and look at its own construct. For only by seeing it as it is will it be obvious that there is no one in it. Such realisation expresses as selfless service, compassion for all life and joyous and serene demeanour – that spontaneously awakens others to remember their true nature and so cease feeding and following false desires in ignorance.

But the nature of the fire is fuelled by thinking and false desire – and in order to look upon them in clear perspective, one must first exit their claim upon you as you. In this sense LEAVE IMMEDIATELY.
Only valuing the discernment of the heart can alert to illusion such that you simply desist, drop, desert or deny it.
Not denying illusion as if it is a power to be feared and resisted – or a problem to solve or a phenomenon to be understood – but to give it no further attention whilst maintaining active desire that is in alignment with truth –as presently FELT, or realised. Desire to be only of truth and to see the expression of truth.

It is the release of error that allows truth to dawn.
As love of truth sees only truth.
There is nothing that can assail it.


The entry into awakening arises from the realisation that one is in the fire of suffering – and that – no matter how it is presented to oneself or others – it is suffering – and the nature or cause of that suffering is the result of identification and thus attachment, to desires that define and confine the heart to illusory denial and exile.

Until one can be a demonstration of freedom, one cannot be the presence that spontaneously invites self awareness and transcendence or realisation. The desire to show others the way must be the gratitude to others as the light of the way itself – or else it is a game played out within a house divided.
Compassion is an expression of one-mindedness.
You who are of truth, do not desire in truth to suffer.

In Peace

Brian