Notes: Wake Up - A Life of Buddha

by Jack Kerouac.

This is it. The last book and I'm out of the Kerouack rabbit hole. I've read: Dharma Bums, On the Road, Maggie Cassidy, Big Sur and now this.

Intro by Robert Thurman. (intros, as a rule, I read after I finish the book).

• Kerouac preferred the Mahayana Buddhism (Indian) [as opposed to the Chinese/Japanese Ch'an/Zen Buddhism].
• "obtainng nirvana is like locating silence." -- from Dharma Bums. 
• The birth of anything means death of the thing: and this is decay, this is horror, change, this is pain.

On to Wake Up.

• "I fear birth, old age, disease and death, and so I seek to find a sure mode of deliverance." - Buddha (B).
• "The thought of 'self' gives rise to all these sorrows, binding as with cords the world, but having found there is no 'I' that can be bound, then all these bonds are severed. There is no 'I' at all. No doer and no knower, so no birth and death." - B.
• "All creatures tremble at punishment, all creatures love life; remember that thou art like unto them, and do not kill, nor cause slaughter. In seeking to escape from suffering ourselves, why should we inflict it upon others?" - B.
• The stopping of all thoughts and all conceptions, the curing the mind of thoughts and of the very thought of thoughts, is the practice that leads to Nirvana.
• "The essence of the discerning, perceptive conscious mind has no definite location anywhere."
• They had forgotten their own true nature amongst the illusive reflections of the world and the world was mind-only.
• "Everything is taking place in your mind, like a dream. As soon as you wake up and stop dreaming, your mind returns to its original emptiness and purity."
• The sense organs are by nature false and fantastic and continue to fool you as you live and breathe. 
• False perception of discriminative thinking. 
• False ripples of sense perception. They will go away. 
• Concentrate his attention on this Intrinsic Sound of Reality which is the absence of sound, the Hearing of the Emptiness Sublime. In the silence he hears a teaching going on! Later on, he learns to hear it everywhere and under all conditions. 
• The false discriminating brain-mind. 
• 1. Concentrate the mind -- see things as they are and not be fooled by "realities." All things are the same as emptiness.
• 2. Keep the precepts -- adhere to four precepts. 1. cease sexual lust; 2. cease unkindness to others; 3. cease greediness and stealing; 4. cease secret insincerity and lying. There should be no falsehood. 
• 3. Practice dhyana - make a regular practice to meditate. 
• "There is love at the center of all things and all things are the same thing." 

[Still confused about how all is illusion, and all our senses are deceiving us. Also, can't quite seem to reconcile Mindfulness with illusion concept. Jon Kabat-Zinn got all his Mindulness from Buddhism, and they are all about paying attention, being mindful, focusing on one thing, slowing things down ... all to be less stressful, to be happy, etc.

But what about when Buddha says all the info we get from our senses is false, illusion. Are we being mindful of false things? Are we supposed to pay attention to everything that is illusionary?]

Must read more Mindful books. I have read Zen Buddhism. It's all sitting and meditating, but I'm intrigued by the Mahayana side now, like Kerouac.