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#3615 - Wednesday, August 5, 2009 -
Editor: Gloria Lee
Nonduality Highlights http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Truth
Truth isn't something we find in
relative words or concepts,
simply because these are all arising in present experienc-
ing, in pure seeing.
Truth isn't something we conceptualize, something we
put together, something we make up or imagine.
Truth is a recognition or revelation of something that
is, something true, something real.
It is simply noticed. Discovered. Seen. It is simply
recognized.
Revealed to be already there, already true, already real.
Truth is wordless, pathless, objectless. Truth is the fact
of
being-the-experiencing itself.
The knowing that You are.
- Randall Friend
posted to Along The Way
I keep weeping for you, my soul,
good sir, gently trying to let you
see the nature of what you love.
Not even the shadow
of an iron anchor
will last from here.
Remember the truth
that you are.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
posted to Along The Way
MY ENLIGHTENMENT DEPENDS ON YOU
"Often we see other sentient
beings as hassles: "This mosquito is
disturbing me. Those politicians are corrupt. Why can't my
colleagues do their work correctly?" and so on. But when we
see
sentient beings as being more precious than a wish-fulfilling
jewel,
our perspective completely changes. For example, when we look at
a
fly buzzing around, we train ourselves to think, "My
enlightenment
depends on that fly." This isn't fanciful thinking because,
in fact,
our enlightenment does depend on that fly. If that fly isn't
included
in our bodhicitta, then we don't have bodhicitta, and we won't
receive the wonderful results of generating bodhicitta--the
tremendous purification and creation of positive potential.
Imagine training your mind so that
when you look at every single
living being, you think, "My enlightenment depends on that
being.
The drunk who just got on the bus--my enlightenment depends on
him. The soldier in Iraq--my enlightenment depends on him. My
brothers and sisters, the teller at the bank, the janitor at my
workplace, the president of the United States, the suicide
bombers
in the Middle East, the slug in my garden, my eighth-grade
boyfriend, the babysitter when I was a kid--my enlightenment
depends on each of them." All sentient beings are actually
that
precious to us."
~Bhikshuni
Thubten Chodron from 'Cultivating a Compassionate Heart:
The Yoga Method of Chenrezig'
posted to Daily Dharma
Break the Spell—Reality’s Worth It
Sometimes people feel that
recognizing the truth of suffering
conditions a pessimistic outlook on life, that somehow it is
life-denying. Actually, it is quite the reverse. By denying what
is
true, for example, the truth of impermanence, we live in a world
of
illusion and enchantment. Then when circumstances change in ways
we don’t like, we feel disappointed, angry, or bitter. The
Buddha
expressed the liberating power of seeing the unreliability of
conditions: “All that is subject to arising is subject to
cessation.
Becoming disenchanted one becomes dispassionate. Through
dispassion the mind is liberated.”
It’s telling that in English
“disenchanted,” “disillusioned,” and
dispassionate” often have a negative connotation. But
looking more
closely at their meaning reveals their connection to freedom.
Becoming disenchanted means breaking the spell of enchantment,
waking up into a greater and fuller reality. This is the happy
ending
of so many great myths and fairy tales. Being disillusioned is
not the
same as being disappointed or discouraged. It is a reconnection
with
what is true, free of illusion. And “dispassionate”
does not mean
indifference or lack of vital energy for living. Rather, it is
the mind
of great openness and equanimity, free of grasping.
— Joseph Goldstein, from One Dharma (HarperSanFrancisco)
ove
Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills.
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.
Then he wants to use himself and
things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn't always understand.
~ Czeslaw Milosz ~
(New
& Collected Poems 1931-2001)
Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/Love.html