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#1891 - Sunday, August 15, 2004 - Editor: Gloria
A musician must make music, an artist must
paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with
himself. What a man can be, he must be.
- Abraham Maslow, The
Farther Reaches of Human Nature
Joe Riley ~ Panhala
Czeslaw Milosz died Saturday. He fought against political tyranny but never lost sight that full freedom includes liberating the human spirit. We are all workers in the field....
LATE RIPENESS
Not soon,
as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.
One after another my former lives were departing,
Like ships, together with their sorrow.
And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.
I was not
separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget -- I kept saying -- that we are all children of
the King.
For where we come from there is no division
Into Yes and No, into is, was, and it will be.
We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.
Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago --
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef -- they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.
I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.
~ Czeslaw Milosz ~ (
Czeslaw Milosz: New and Collected Poems (1931-2001))
(contributed by Patricia Wintyr)
Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/Late_Ripeness.html
Web archive of Panhala postings: www.panhala.net/Archive/Index.html
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Prayer of Saint Francis of AssisiLord, make me an
instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen
Saint François d'Assise en
prière (1587-97)
El Greco
Huile sur toile , 103 x 87 cm.
from images of Saint Francis: http://www.san-francesco.org/immagini_fra.html
prayer posted to HarshaSatsangh by Lady Joyce
photo: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AdyashantiSatsang/
Enlightenment Quotes
To study the Way is to
study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.
To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers between
one's self and others.
Then there is no trace of enlightenment, though enlightenment
itself continues into one's daily life endlessly. - Dogen
Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment. - Dogen
Even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray. - Sen Ming, quoted by Ram Dass
There is no
enlightenment outside of daily life. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Becoming aware, awakening, enlightenment, is possible right here
and now, for everyone. From moment to moment, and yet only here
and now, never sometimes, somewhere. Reality, God, is present
here and now. The kingdom of heaven, blessedness, moksha, nirvana
waits here and now. Outwardly nothing may happen, and yet a
purely inner process can open up a new world, a new life, a new
reality. - New? - Yes, really new, and yet as all those who have
ever experienced it assert, at that moment we know that we have
always been at home in that world, although we only now become
aware of it.
- Yrjö Kallinen, Finnish politician, pacifist
The Power of Awareness
Awareness of every reaction is your final freedom.
- Vernon Howard
Vernon Howard is a
bare-bones spiritual teacher for the ages. In his books and
tapes he puts forth the abc's of awareness in an amazing way. If
you think he
is too simple for you, think again. It is simplicity that sets us
free. Those
teachers who can transcend the mind are forever sending their
messages to us if
we would only listen.
They speak about awareness as the key to finding peace. Ramana
Maharshi and Sri
Nisargadatta are the classic advaita vedanta teachers, but Vernon
Howard is an
American genius when it comes to teaching the same thing. I
studied him before
I did the other two. When I got around to reading them, I found
that Vernon
Howard had already taught me about being the Self, for truth is
ever-present.
The nice thing about Vernon Howard was that I could sit and
listen to him in
real time. As far as I know, he did nothing but speak the truth
in every class
he ever taught. The approach that he took was faultless; it
weeded out the less
serious students right away. Those who stayed got the good stuff.
Ouspensky
worked in the same way. He would pretend to be boring until the
goof-offs left
the building. Then he would scatter pearls to the remaining few.
That is
exactly how it should be. Those who work hard at understanding
always get their
reward.
I write about my path through suffering as it unfolds. Being an
intuitive
writer, I recognize that what Vernon Howard taught me shows
through; that he is
behind me as a guiding principle. You might say that he keeps me
honest. His
idea of enlightenment was hard-hitting; there was no one there to
become
enlightened. Indeed.
Vicki Woodyard
http://www.bobwoodyard.com.
"Healing in
Christianity is a process of death and resurrection in which man,
anguished in his existential separation from Christ and from
other men and from the cosmos, is once more united with the one
he loves and for whom he longs. In Buddhism there is a similar
pattern. It is precisely because the self cuts man off from the
whole that it must die; and it is by death and the loss of self
that man enters into nirvana or union with the cosmos. A
friend of mine, a Catholic priest, who practised some Zen told me
that the Zen master once said to him with some severity, 'God
sent his only Son into the world to die. And you must die too. So
die!' This is one more example of Buddhist ability to see the
relevance of Christian dogma for daily living. How well he saw
that as Christ died, his followers must die too if they are to
enter into resurrection.
Buddhism, then, sees the necessity of death and of radical
detachment as the gateway to nirvana. While I would not
equate nirvana and resurrection (that would be an
unpardonable oversimplification), I do believe that both concepts
are striving to answer man's most terrible and most basic
question - how to be healed from the anguish of separation and
loneliness and isolation and death. In both religions death is
conquered because it is the gateway to something else. Perhaps resurrection
is a clearer affirmation of something hinted at by nirvana."
- William Johnston, in Silent Music, The Science of Meditation,
1974 (The deeper healing, p. 130)
Sayings of
Jesus #86--Gospel of Thomas
posted by Tony on
HarshaSatsangh
86) Jesus
said, "[The foxes have their holes] and the birds have
[their] nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head
and rest."
Yosy writes:
ps. "son of man" ("ben-adam") is hebrew for
"human".
Zenbob writes:
Yes, indeed, but Jesus often invoked this image to describe
himself as the
symbolic proto-human...not superior, not above, not better
than...but purely
equally human...which is funny when one sees how many modern
Christian
Fundamentalists have distorted the very notion of Jesus into some
sort of
God-on-earth-SuperHero.
I like the purely human aspect...it make the acts, the sacrifices
and the
humility that much more worthy and moving. I care little about
the "play act
suffering" of a superhuman
God-on-earth-in-human-clothing...that sort of
suffering is like masochism...and it begins and ends whenever the
Godly-human
chooses. We mortals, well, we very rarely have much if any
control over our
afflictions and sufferings. I know this will create a wonderful
response from
so many of you who have discovered that we are all one and pain
is illusion and
how you have all conquered pain, suffering, dualism, and
premature balding,
but really folks, I am just being honest here, OK?
Peace,
Zenbob
~Meister Eckhart~
Desire
is wide, immeasurably so. But nothing that knowledge can grasp or
desire can want, is God. Where knowledge and desire end, there is
darkness, and there God shines.
Be silent
therefore, and do not chatter about God, for by
chattering about him, you tell lies and commit a sin. If you wish
to
be perfect and without sin, then do not prattle about God. Also
you
should not wish to understand anything about God, for God is
beyond
all understanding. A master says: If I had a God that I could
understand, I would not regard him as God. If you understand
anything
about him, then he is not in it, and by understanding something
of
him, you fall into ignorance...
posted
by Robert O'Hearn on AdyashantiSatsang
with photos http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AdyashantiSatsang/message/15424
The Meditation Experience
Listen to Eckhart Tolle, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, with free sound file downloads.
"Join some of the best meditation instructors from the Sounds True spoken word audio library as they guide you through their favorite meditation practices. Click on the icons below to download each meditation."
http://store.yahoo.com/soundstruestore/freemeds.html
Al Larus poem with photos http://www.ferryfee.com/bluesky/Road_song.htm