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#2686 - Sunday,
December 31, 2006 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nondual Highlights
Everything
works out in the end. If it hasn't worked out, it's not the end.
--Unknown
"No longer seeking to
know the truth
nor trying to understand with words,
I only sit and listen
to the sound of wind in the trees
and watch the shadows of the evening
lengthen into night. "
--Blue Iris Sangha
Have confidence in your own spiritual potentiality, your ability
to
find your own unique way. Learn from others certainly and use
what
you find useful, but also learn to trust your own inner wisdom.
Have
courage. Be awake and aware. Remember too that Buddhism is not
about being a Buddhist; that is, obtaining a new identity tag.
Nor is it
about collecting head-knowledge, practices and techniques. It is
ultimately about letting go of all forms and concepts and
becoming
free.
--John Snelling, Elements of Buddhism
When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
--Shunryu Suzuki
Dukkha is our best
teacher. It will not be persuaded by any pleading
of misery to let go of us. If we may say to a human teacher, I
don't
feel well...., the teacher may reply, "I am very sorry, but
if you want
to go home, then you must go. If we say to dukkha, "Look, I
don't
feel well.... I want to go home," dukkha says, "That's
fine, but I am
coming along." There is no way to say goodbye to it unless
and until
we have transcended our reactions. This means that we have looked
dukkha squarely in the eye and seen it for what it is: a
universal
characteristic of existence and nothing else. The reason we are
fooled is that because this life contains so many pleasant
occasions
and sense contacts, we think if we could just keep this
pleasantness
going dukkha would never come again. We try over and over again
to
make this happen, until in the end we finally see that the
pleasantness cannot continue because the law of impermanence
intervenes.... So we continue our search for something new,
because
everybody else is doing it too.
--Ayya Khema, When the Iron Eagle Flies
Subhuti asked: "How does a person practice all the perfections?"
The Buddha replied:
"By not perceiving any duality. Through
understanding this nonduality he teaches reality to all beings.
With
physical energy, he travels widely to teach. With mental energy,
he
guards against the arising of such ideas as "permanence or
impermanence," "good or evil," and so on. With the
perfection of
wisdom, he does not consider anything ultimately real but serves
all
beings with loving attention so that energy, patience, and
meditation
will be aroused in them. But even though he attends to the
minutest
detail of whatever must be done, he never grasps it or tries to
make
ultimate sense of it, because he knows it has no enduring
substance
of its own."
--Prajnaparmita
How can the divine Oneness
be seen?
In beautiful forms, breathtaking wonders,
awe-inspiring miracles?
The Tao is not obliged to present itself
in this way.
If you are willing to be lived by it, you will
see it everywhere, even in the most
ordinary things.
--Lao Tzu
Thanks to n.m. rai for a link to the following short interview with Coleman Barks.
Intimacy with other people and with the divine is more about friendship--and hard work--than romance.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/126/story_12686.html __._,_.___