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#2646 - Sunday,
November 19, 2006 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nondual Highlights
Ta-sui was asked,
"Buddha's truth is everywhere;
so where do you teach your students to plant their
feet?"
He replied, "The vast
ocean lets fish leap freely;
the endless sky lets birds fly freely."
From "The Pocket Zen
Reader," edited by Thomas
Cleary, 1999.
Let's try an
experiment. Pick up a coin. Imagine that it represents
the object at which you are grasping. Hold it tightly clutched in
your fist and extend your arm, with the palm of your hand facing
the ground. Now if you let go or relax your grip, you will lose
what you are clinging onto. That's why you hold on. But there's
another possibility: You can let go and yet keep hold of it. With
your arm still outstretched, turn your hand so that it faces the
sky. Release your hand and the coin still rests on your open
palm.
You let go. And the coin is still yours, even with all this space
around it. So there is a way in which we can accept impermanence
and still relish life, at one and the same time, without
grasping.
--Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
The world no longer holds
him.
He has gone beyond
The bounds of human nature.
Without compassion
Or the wish to harm,
Without pride or humility.
Nothing disturbs him.
Nothing surprises him.
Because he is free,
He neither craves nor disdains
The things of the world.
He takes them as they come.
His mind is always detached.
--Ashtavakra Gita 17:16-17
From "The Heart of Awareness: A Translation of the
Ashtavakra Gita," by Thomas Byrom, 1990.
The view of
interdependence makes for a great openness of mind.
In general, instead of realizing that what we experience arises
from a complicated network of causes, we tend to attribute
happiness or sadness, for example, to single, individual sources.
But if this were so, as soon as we came into contact with what we
consider to be good, we would automatically be happy, and
conversely, in the case of bad things, invariably sad. The causes
of joy and sorrow would be easy to identify and target. It would
all be very simple, and there would be good reason for our anger
and attachment. When, on the other hand, we consider that
everything we experience results from a complex interplay of
causes and conditions, we find that there is no single thing to
desire or resent, and it is more difficult for the afflictions of
attachment or anger to arise. In this way, the view of
interdependence makes our mind more relaxed and open.
--The Dalai Lama, A Flash
of Lightening in the Dark of Night
JESUS
I am a secret
follower of yours.
Not the kind that are known
by a name you never pronounced.
Not the kind that raise
icons of your torture
and call that worship
their love.
I did not kill you
nor does my soul depend
upon your forgiveness.
I am a follower in the sense
that the earth is a follower of the sun.
I follow your laughter and
the gift of your manhood.
Your gentle strength
and the way you loved women.
The way you healed
by seeing no illness.
I follow your silent reply
when they questioned you:
That silence still rings loudest.
I and you are a secret,
I know you as I know myself;
my living breath is your temple.
I follow you Jesus
like the lofty hawk follows
the gospel of the wind.
--Eric Ashford