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Nondual Highlights Issue #2551, Saturday, August 12, 2006, Editor: Mark

That's all you have to do - just abide in that
stillness.

If you know how to be with that stillness without
looking for
anything else then that stillness is no longer just a
stillness and
that stillness is the Buddha Mind, it is the luminous
awareness.

In that stillness you are going to discover your true
nature.

The discovery of your true nature is the true
liberation, is the
bodhi, is the great awakening.

- Tulku Thubten Rinpoche, posted to DailyDharma

Develop the witness attitude and you will
find in your own experience that detachment
brings control. The state of witnessing is
full of power, there is nothing passive about it.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That, posted to AlongTheWay

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

In the depth of my soul there is
A wordless song - a song that lives
In the seed of my heart.

It refuses to melt with ink on Parchment;
it engulfs my affection
In a transparent cloak and flows,

But not upon my lips.

- Khalil Gibran: Song of the Soul, posted to Mystic_Spirit

The Ninth Month


You watch the sensuous movements of the veil.
Do you know there's a Chinese girl behind it
whose face you can't see?

You see a reflection of the real moon
in all the stones that lie at your feet.

You're a leaf scattered by an invisible wind.
Don't you know something's moving you?

Unless some thought stirs that wind, you don't stir.
If the wind isn't still, you're not.

Constellations, planets, your inmost states
are like camels in a row. You're the last.

Curl up and drink in the blood
like a child in heaven's womb.

You feel a pain in the sphere of your heart,
but when you lift your head it's gone.

Your ninth month is Shams' face,
you, who have been trusted with the secret of both worlds.

O heart, be patient in this blood
until the ninth month.

- Rumi, Love is a Stranger, version by Kabir Helminski, posted to Sunlight

Mockingbirds


This morning
two mockingbirds
in the green field
were spinning and tossing

the white ribbons
of their songs
into the air.
I had nothing

better to do
than listen.
I mean this
seriously.

In Greece,
a long time ago,
an old couple
opened their door

to two strangers
who were,
it soon appeared,
not men at all,

but gods.
It is my favorite story-
how the old couple
had almost nothing to give

but their willingness
to be attentive-
but for this alone
the gods loved them

and blessed them-
when they rose
out of their mortal bodies,
like a million particles of water

from a fountain,
the light
swept into all the corners
of the cottage,

and the old couple,
shaken with understanding,
bowed down-
but still they asked for nothing

but the difficult life
which they had already.
And the gods smiled, as they vanished,
clapping their great wings.

Wherever it was
I was supposed to be
this morning-
whatever it was I said

I would be doing-
I was standing
at the edge of the field-
I was hurrying

through my own soul,
opening its dark doors-
I was leaning out;
I was listening.

- Mary Oliver

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