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#2640 - Sunday, November
12, 2006 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nondual Highlights
There
is no one here
except the Lord of Love.
Only He exists.
In truth, He alone is.
--Mundaka Upanishad
When you see
yourself
and someone else
as one being,
when you know the most joyful day
and the most terrible night
as one moment, then
awareness is alone
with its Lord.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
posted to Along the Way
photo by Alan Larus http://www.ferryfee.com/bluesky/shores/35.htm
What We Need Is Here
Geese appear
high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
--Wendell Berry
We can demonstrate that the
experience of steady practice
influences the quality of our lives, but the nature of
the essential
urge toward enlightenment is enlightenment itself. The very
fact
that we are intrigued with the spiritual quest stems from
the source
of the Light, so to speak. Consequently, enlightenment is
not an end;
it is truer to say that it is the beginning.
--David A. Cooper, Silence, Simplicity, and Solitude
A wonderful painting is the result of feeling in your fingers. If
you
have the feeling of the thickness of the ink in your brush,
the
painting is already there before you paint. When you dip your
brush
into the ink you already know the result of your drawing, or else
you
cannot paint. So before you do something, being is there, the
result
is there. Even though you look as if you were sitting quietly,
all your
activity, past and present, is included; and the result of your
sitting
is also already there. You are not resting at all. All the
activity is
included within you. That is your being. So all results of your
practice
are included in your sitting. This is our practice, our
zazen.
--Shunryu Suzuki, Zen
Mind, Beginner's Mind
Have no fear in not
knowing what to do about a problem. Fear
activates its negative relatives of impulsiveness,
ego-protection, and
an anxious craving for security. Instead, let the mind be
still. Never think of fighting, for an answer
won by fighting will soon require another answer and another
fight.
The problem exists because of an agitated mind, so when the mind
rests from its own agitation, there is no problem at all."
--Vernon Howard,
from the book "Esoteric Mind Power",
Daily Dharma
The Ponds
Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe
their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them --
the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch
only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?
I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided --
and that one wears an orange blight --
and this one is a glossy cheek
half nibbled away --
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.
Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled --
to cast aside the weight of facts
and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking
into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing --
that the light is everything -- that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.
--Mary Oliver