Kann man leben in den Stand der Vollkommenheit?
Can you life in a state of perfection?
You continue the story of your life:
“In 1989 I left the monastery. At regular times I returned for guidance of groups and for consultation and advice on the state of affairs of the monastery and the convent. At that time I was 55 years old.
Driven by an inner need I studied Oriental wisdom. Initially I lived everywhere and nowhere. Occasionally I returned to the monastery for obligations and I lived with various friends and acquaintances. For more stability, Amsterdam seemed a good place to live. I found a modest room in the house of friends.
Between the activities I read many books on Buddhism, Taoism [1] and Hinduism.
[2]Eventually I delved further in Mahāyāna Buddhism [3] and the Upanishads [4]. The consistency of contemplation, meditation and daily life kept me busy. How do they go together and how do they affect each other? At that time, my life seemed full concentration and attention. Later I read a metaphor for my way of life [5]. I lived in a crowd with a mug filled with water on my head. All attention was necessary in order to steer smoothly and naturally through a crowd without wasting a drop of water.
[6]Every action, every thought, every impression was like a drop of water that falls in the water. The waves of the impact of the drop flow to the past, to the future and to everything around us. Nothing remains untouched.
[7]In this study, I started reading the source texts. For a better understanding of the source texts, I began a study Sanskrit. In the beginning, I had difficulties remembering the characters of the Devanāgarī – literally meaning Divine city – alphabet [8]. The sounds of the alphabet are very logical. In the overview below the alphabet is shown. The first three lines contain the basic vowels. The following five lines show the consonants – sounding hard, hard aspirated, soft, soft aspirated, nose aspirated. The penultimate line show the half vowels. And the last line shows the hisses and the uvula sound “ha”. The columns show the sounds made by the speaker from the inside out [9].
[10]My whole life, I liked a sound order, but I loved the mavericks. In the Devanāgarī alphabet the half vowels – ya, ra, la, va – and the uvula sound – ha – are the mavericks. They have a special place in the alphabet and in the meaning of words.
The letter “ya” means in Sanskrit “joining, going, wind, attaining, meditation”. The letter “ra” means “to go, to give/affect, to roll”. The letter “la” means “of Indra”. Indra is the God of the heaven and also the God of war, storm and rain. In Buddhism Indra is often called by his other name Śakra [11] that literally means “able to create”. The letter “va” we have previously met; this letter means “wind, ocean, water, stream, going”. The uvula sound “ha” means “water, blood, meditation, heaven, paradise, dying, wisdom, war”.
These mavericks resembled my life around 1990. I did not need much, because my indwelling was cared for by the monastery and by friends. The few things that I needed, came from guiding groups and from organizing and guiding rebuilding of monasteries and later of houses of friends and acquaintances.
In 1993 my aunt and godmother died in short time. In that year I also visited Auschwitz”, you say.
The next post is about on your visit to Auschwitz.
[1] See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoism
[2] White Cloud Monastry bij Beijing. Bron afbeelding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Baiyun.jpg
[3] See also: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayana en http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayana
[4] See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanishads
[5] Source: Wick, Gerry Shishin, The Book of Equanimity – Illuminating Classic Zen Koans. Somerville MA: Wisdom Publications, 2005 p. 136.
[6] Amitābha Buddha statue from Borobodur, Indonesia. Source image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Seated_Buddha_Amitabha_statue.jpg
[7] Impact of a drop of water, a common analogy for Brahman and the Ātman. Source image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wassertropfen.jpg
[8] See also: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskriet
[9] See also: http://www.arsfloreat.nl/sanskriet-alfabet.html
[10] Source image: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskriet
[11] See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Aakra_(Buddhism)
Who are you 
