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Highlights
#1161
Friday August 9, 2002
Editor: Gloria Lee
from DailyDharma
"Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it;
but while I
drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its
thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink
deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars."
~Henry David Thoreau
DAVID BOZZI
from Unitive Conscious Awareness
The Doll
Here I sit
on a hot park bench
with wooden splinters
stabbing my point of contact
scraping ideas and possibilities together
like two sticks
trying to light a fire
in my primitive mind
...I’d make a lousy caveman.
Communication shouldn't have to be such a struggle.
I could just draw a stick-man
and a stick-buffalo
on a cave wall,
but ...
thirty-thousand years
would have to pass
for someone to take notice.
why is it I would want to talk
to you anyhow?
What are you to me?
Hell...
you're not even real.
You're just a figment
on a wall
in my mind-cave.
I made you in my image
like some voo-doo doll
to do things to
symbolically
that I'm too afraid
to do and feel myself.
Why subject
myself to the deep-end
when I can just project onto you
everything I fear?
Seems shallow
standing in water
ankle-high
while looking out into
an ocean that can reach out
and grasp the horizon...
what it's elusive secret?
water...
composes my flesh
my evolution
my womb experience...
I feel pulled like the tide
dragged by the fullness of moons
toward the depths
to drown myself.
...and there's nothing to lose
because
I'm just a salt-doll
shaking off it’s hex.
___________________________________
read more salt doll stories collected at:
http://www.nonduality.com/salt.htm
___________________________________
SUNDER from Advaitin
Namaste,
For the discourses of Kanchi Paramacharya on Sound,
Creation, and Mantra Yoga, please visit:
http://www.kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/chap7.htm
http://www.kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/chap13.htm
Regards,
Sunder
___________________________________
GILL EARDLEY
from Spiritual Friends
Compassion in Action
Ram Dass
from: http://www.ramdass.org/index1.html
When we look at the vast
sadness and suffering in the world, we often experience
intense pain in our hearts. The suffering so often seems cruel,
unnecessary, and
unjustified ~ reflecting a heartless universe. The human greed
and fear that are
causing much of the suffering seem out of control. But when our
hearts open in
the midst of this, we want to help. This is the experience of
compassion.
Compassion is the tender opening of our hearts to pain and
suffering. When
compassion arises in us, we see and acknowledge what we often
push away ~ the
parts of life that cause us sadness, anger or outrage. The
powerful awakening of
our own compassion can tune us not just to the nurturing and
sustaining forces
of the world, but to the oppressive and destructive ones as well.
When we open
to these directly and become familiar with them, instead of
avoiding them as we
often do, we are more likely to hear ways to respond with love
and support to
relieve the suffering. When the pain is our own, we want to end
it. If we can't
do this by ourselves, we long for help. When it is not our cry,
but someone
else's, compassion allows us to feel it as our own, to feel the
same longing, to
hear our hearts calling us to help.
The Dalai Lama has said, "Love and compassion are
necessities, not luxuries.
Without them, humanity cannot survive. With them, we can make a
joint effort to
solve the problems of the whole of humankind."
Compassion is the basis of all truthful relationships: it means
being present
with love ~ for ourselves and for all life, including animals,
fish, birds, and
trees. Compassion is bringing our deepest truth into our actions,
no matter how
much the world seems to resist, because that is ultimately what
we have to give
this world and one another.
Allspirit Website: http://www.allspirit.co.uk
___________________________________
XAN
from Million Paths
More about the Heart
For me any place and time is good for meditation.
Grace has so overwhelmed me that I ride the crest of the wind
and travel to the nth place.
But where is the nth place in our wide world?
That is right in our Heart.
If we simply withdraw our attention from the external world
and turn to the Heart
we shall find ourselves diving deep into the river
of peace and bliss.
-- Bhakta Bhagwat, In Search of Self
```````````
The timeless is in the now.
It is in the heart centre.
The head belongs to time.
You can never experience the timeless in the head.
The heart is the timeless.
It is only at this point that there is presence.
--Jean Klein, Transmission of the Flame
```````````
Let your love flow outward through the universe,
To its height, its depth, its broad extent,
A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.
Then as you stand or walk,
Sit or lie down,
As long as you are awake,
Strive for this with a one-pointed love;
Your life will bring heaven to earth.
from Sutta Nipata
Buddha's Discourse on Good Will
```````````
The heart has always been represented
as the source of human kindness,
the wellspring of warmth and tender care.
It is the cup that holds
the nectar of compassion.
The heart is also
the most sacred place of worship
from which devotion flows like honey.
All virtues make their home
in the infinite space
shining in the depths of the heart.
-Gurumayi
```````````
The heart should be meditated upon as the resting-place.
For all beings find rest in the heart.
The heart is God.
-Brihadaaranyaka Upanishad
```````````
"The True Sanctuary is nowhere but
within one's very own heart,"
said Bodhidharma.