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Issue 1378 - Friday, March 21, 2003 - Editor: Gloria Lee

  "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought."  - Basho  

  _______________________________________________________    

I am, O Anxious One
Rainer Maria Rilke


I am, O Anxious One. Don't you hear my voice
surging forth with all my earthly feelings?
They yearn so high, that they have sprouted wings
and whitely fly in circles round your face.
My soul, dressed in silence, rises up
and stands alone before you: can't you see?
don't you know that my prayer is growing ripe
upon your vision as upon a tree?
If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.
But when you want to wake, I am your wish,
and I grow strong with all magnificence
and turn myself into a star's vast silence
above the strange and distant city, Time.

Gill Eardly Allspirit  

~~~~

Interesting article on tantric and taoist alchemical practices:

http://www.healingtaousa.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?rm=mode2&articleid=35  

By Marcos Lacerda SufiMystic  

~~~~  

Gems from Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's Conversations


"There are always moments when one feels empty and estranged.  Such moments
are most desirable, for it means the soul has cast its moorings and is
sailing for distant places.  This is detachment--when the old is over and
the new has not yet come.  If you are afraid the state may be distressing,
but there is really nothing to be afraid of.  Remember the instruction:
Whatever you come across--go beyond."

~~~~  

"Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold,

Death’s great black wing scrapes the air,

Misery gnaws to the bone.

Why then do we not despair?

By day, from the surrounding woods,

Cherries blow summer into town;

At night the deep transparent skies

Glitter with new galaxies.

And the miraculous comes so close

To the ruined, dirty houses-

Something not known to anyone at all,

But wild in our breast for centuries."

   ~ Akhmatova

From the book, "Poems of Akhmatova,” published by Mariner Books
By  Khorov Kelley Daily Dharma
~~~~

   AS USUAL
Lyn Kozma

At the dentist's office, teeth are being drilled.
Police patrol their designated streets.
We are Instructed to have a good day
by cashiers at each market place.
Radios blare, horns honk. Balloons burst,
clocks chime, classes convene. Trucks thunder
down highways. Traffic lights blink on and off.

Birds soar below shifting clouds. The surge
of life beneath dead grasses waits to be reborn.
A benign sun stares, swinging low
in a bland sky. Snow melts, tides rise and fall,
winds move lingering leaves. Flickers appear
and depart from feeders. Willows wave
languidly, refusing to change the color of their hair.

And half the world away missiles rise
swiftly in desert air. Bombs fall
with bruising regularity. Skies explode
altering landscapes forever. Sanity recedes,
hatreds flare. The cycle has come round
again, sending the world awry.

And I am sick with longing
for something elusive
called love.

From "We Speak for Peace" 
Edited by Ruth Harried Jacobs Ph.D

By Gill Eardley on SufiMystic

  ~~~~        Gently I weep for my mind,
   caught in its illusion of ownership.

   Mind, you're not who you think you are.
   You are dancing over a pit.

   Soon you'll fall through,
   and these things you've valued
   and collected will be left behind.

   My sweet dear, do you understand this,
   and if you do, how does your food taste?

   Naked Song
   Lalla   By Jan Sultan  SufiMystic   ~~~~

You will see then that
both your body and mind,
together with the mountains,
rivers, space, and earth
of the outward world,
are all within the
wonderful, illumined, and true Mind.

- Surangama Sutra

~~~~

Our teaching has been handed down by the ancient buddhas; we do
not speak of meditation or spiritual progress, only the arrival at the
knowledge and vision of buddhahood. Mind itself is buddha; mind,
buddha, sentient beings, enlightenment, affliction, are all different
names for the same thing. You should know that your own mind’s
aware essence is neither finite nor eternal, by nature neither defiled nor
pure. It is still and complete; it is the same in ordinary people and
saints, responding effectively without patterns, apart from mind,
intellect, and discriminating consciousness. 

- Shih-t’ou (700-790) 

~~~

Stephen King 

Speech destroys the functions of love, I think that's a hell of a thing for
a writer to say, but I believe it to be true. If you speak to tell a deer that
you mean it no harm it glides away with a single flip of its tail. The word
is the harm...Love has teeth, they bite, the wounds never close. No
words, no combination of words can close those lovebites. It's the
other way around, that's the joke. If the wounds dry up, the words die
with them. 

- from The Body, a short story in the novel Different Seasons 

~~~~

If you want to freely live or die, go or stay, to take off or put on your
clothes, then right now recognize the one who is listening to my
discourse. That one is without form, without characteristics, without
root, without source, and without any dwelling place, yet is brisk and
very alive. As for all manifold responsive activities, the place where
they are carried on is, in fact, no place. Therefore, when you look for
that one, it retreats farther and farther, when you seek that, it turns more
and more the other way: this is called the “Mystery.” 

- Lin-chi (d.866)

~~~~

Just don’t seek from another
Or you’ll be far estranged from self.
I now go on alone
Meeting it everywhere
It now is just what I am
I now am not it.
You must comprehend in this way
To merge with thusness.

- Dongshan Liangjie (807-869)

~~~~

A friend of seclusion arrives at my gate
we greet and pardon our lack of decorum
a white mane gathered in back
a monk’s robe worn untied
embers of leaves at the end of the night
howl of a gibbon announcing the dawn
sitting on cushions wrapped in quilts
words forgotten finally we meet
                                    
                            - Stonehouse, 28

~~~~

My left eye is nearly blind.
No words have ever been read with it.
Not that the eye is virgin – thirty years ago
it was punctured by glass.  In everything
it sees a pastel mist.  The poster of Chief Joseph
could be King Kong, Hong Kong, or a naked lady riding
a donkey into Salinas, Kansas.  A war atrocity.
This eye is the perfect art critic.  This eye
is a perfect lover saying bodies don’t matter,
it is the voice.  This eye can make a light bulb
into the moon when it chooses.  Once a year I open
it to the full moon out in the pasture and yell,
white light white light. 

                      ~~  from Returning to Earth

The Shape of the Journey:  New and Collected Poems -  by Jim Harrison

It certainly wasn't fish who discovered water
or birds the air. Men built houses in part
out of embarrassment by the stars
and raised their children on trivialities
because they had butchered the god within themselves.
The politician standing on the church steps thrives
within the grandeur of this stupidity,
a burnt out lamp who never imagined the sun.

The Shape of the Journey:  New and Collected Poems -  by Jim Harrison

~~~~

A fish cannot drown in water,
A bird does not fall in air.
In the fire of creation,
Gold doesn't vanish: the fire brightens.
Each creature God made
Must live in its own true nature;
How could I resist my nature,
That lives for oneness with God?
                       

~ Mechthild of Magdeburg,13th-century Christian mystic

 

Awaken Me

O sweet and loving God,
When I stay asleep too long,
Oblivious to all your blessings,
Then, please, wake me up,
And sing to me your joyful song.
It is a song without noise or notes.
It is a song of love beyond words,
Of faith beyond the power of human telling.
I can hear it in my soul,
When you awaken me to your presence.

~ Mechthild of Magdeburg (c.1210-1280)

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