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Issue #1387 - Sunday, March 30, 2003 - Editor: Gloria
On
the day
that one relinquishes forever
the arrogance
of deserving
and the desire
of needing
a teacher,
One appears.
Mace Mealer
Marcos LacerdA on SufiMystic
"Ramakrishna
used to say that there are eighteen qualities or
manifestations of power which can possibly be found in a human
being. Even two or three of these qualities are sufficient to
enable an individual to gain great fame and influence in the
world - and Ramakrishna saw that Naren(swami Vivekananda) had all
eighteen of them. In moods of anxiety, Ramakrishna feared that
Naren might misuse these powers as he grew older; that he might
be satisfied with a partial realization of God, and that, on the
basis of this partial realization, he might merely found a new
religious sect and make himself famous and powerful in the usual
worldly way. Ramakrishna's own life was, as we have already seen,
both a protest against sectarian exclusiveness and a
demonstration that every sect can show the way to knowledge of
God. He need not have worried about Naren, who was to prove, in
the writings and lectures of his later life as Vivekananda, how
well he had learnt his lesson:'I accept all the religions of the
past and I worship God with every one of them. Can God's book be
closed? Must it not be a continuing revelation? Difference is the
first sign of thought. I pray that the sects may multiply until
at last there will be as many sects as human beings.'" =========================================================
(Photo of editor at age three)
I can put on
a hat, or put on a coat,
Or wear a pair of glasses or sail in a boat.
I can change all my names
And find a place to hide.
I can do almost anything, but
I'm still myself inside.
I can go far away, or dream anything,
Or wear a scary costume or act like a king.
I can change all my names
And find a place to hide.
I can do almost anything, but
I'm still myself,
I'm still myself,
I'm still myself inside.
Fred Rogers
http://pbskids.org/rogers/songlist/song13_ra.html
=========================================================
Daily Dharma
"Nibbana means getting away from the jungle. When we're inclining towards Nibbana we're moving towards the peace of the mind. Although the conditions of the mind may not be peaceful at all, the mind itself is a peaceful place. Here we are making a distinction between the mind and the conditions of mind. The conditions of mind can be happy, miserable, elated, depressed, loving or hating, worrying or fear-ridden, doubting or bored. They come and go in the mind, but the mind itself, like the space in this room, stays just at it is. The space in this room has no quality to elate or depress, does it? It is just at it is. To concentrate on the space in the room we have to withdraw our attention from the things in the room. If we concentrate on the things in the room we become happy or unhappy. We say, 'Look at that beautiful Buddha image,' or if we see something we find ugly we say, 'Oh, what a terrible disgusting thing.' We can spend our time looking at the people in the room, thinking whether we like this person or dislike that person." ~Ajahn Sumedo.
From the article, "Now is the Knowing," printed on-line at http://www.buddhanet.net/nowknow3.htm.
=========================================================
Gill Eardly on Allspirit
From: Being
Peace By Thich Nhat Hanh
Suffering Is Not Enough
Life is filled with suffering, but it is also filled with many
wonders, like
the blue sky, the sunshine, the eyes of a baby. To suffer is not
enough.
We must also be in touch with the wonders of life. They are
within us
and all around us, everywhere, any time. If we are not happy, if
we are
not peaceful, we cannot share peace and happiness with others,
even
those we love, those who live under the same roof. If we are
peaceful,
if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and
everyone
in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.
Do we need
to make a special effort to enjoy the beauty of the blue sky? Do
we
have to practice to be able to enjoy it? No, we just enjoy it.
Each second,
each minute of our lives can be like this. Wherever we are, any
time, we
have the capacity to enjoy the sunshine, the presence of each
other, even
the sensation of our breathing. We don't need to go to China to
enjoy the
blue sky. We don't have to travel into the future to enjoy our
breathing.
We can be in touch with these things right now. It would be a
pity if we
are only aware of suffering.
We are so busy we hardly have time to look at the people we love,
even
in our own household, and to look at ourselves. Society is
organized in a
way that even when we have some leisure time, we don't know how
to
use it to get back in touch with ourselves. We have millions of
ways to
lose this precious time we turn on the TV or pick up the
telephone, or
start the car and go somewhere. We are not being with ourselves,
and
we act as if we don't like ourselves and are trying to escape
from
ourselves.
Meditation is to be aware of what is going on-in our bodies, in
our
feelings, in our rninds, and in the world. Each day 40,000
children die
of hunger. The superpowers now have more than 50,000 nuclear
warheads, enough to destroy our planet many times. Yet the
sunrise is
beautiful, and the rose that bloomed this morning along the wall
is a
miracle. Life is both dreadful and wonderful. To practice
meditation is
to be in touch with both aspects. Please do not think we must be
solemn
in order to meditate. In fact, to meditate well, we have to smile
a lot.
~~~~ Prayer is not asking. It is a
longing of the soul.
It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is
better in prayer to have a heart without words
than words without a heart.
~Mahatma Gandhi
=========================================================
(Photo of boys jumping)
Christopher Johnson on SufiMystic
While
thumbing through Gandhi's "Indian Home Rule" in regard
to the question of democracy, I came across Gandhi's comments
about the nature of history. His words give some measure of
comfort at this difficult time. For as he asserted, the
power of love ("soul-force," as opposed to brute force)
is actually dominant in the world:
"History, as we know it, is a record of
the wars of the world. . . .How kings played, how they became
enemies of one another, how they murdered one another, is found
accurately recorded in history, and if this were all that had
happened in the world, it [the world] would have ended long ago.
. . .Thousands, indeed tens of thousands, depend for their
existence on a very active working of this force
[soul-force]. Little quarrels of millions of families in
their daily lives disappear before the exercise of this
force. Hundreds of nations live in peace. . . ..History is
really a record of every interruption of the even working of the
force of love or of the soul. . . .History, then, is a record of
an interruption of the course of nature. Soul-force, being
natural, is not noted in history." --Gandhi, "Indian Home Rule," 1909,
chapter 17.
(Mukherjee,
_Penguin Gandhi Reader_, p. 47)
=========================================================
LOVE YOUR
ENEMY
Jesus told us to love our enemy. "Father, Forgive them, for
they know not
what they do." This teaching helps us know how to look at
the person we
consider to be the cause of our suffering. If we practice looking
deeply
into his situation and the causes of how he came to be the way he
is now,
and if we visualize ourselves as being born in his condition, we
may see
that we could have become exactly like him. When we do that,
compassion
arises in us naturally, and we see that the other person is to be
helped and
not punished. In that moment, our anger transforms itself into
the energy of
compassion. Suddenly, the one we have been calling our enemy
becomes our
brother or sister. This is the true teaching of Jesus.
-- Thich Nhat Hanh in "Living Buddha, Living
Christ"
=========================================================
Mazie Lane on HarshaSatsangh
Why desire
at all? Desiring a state of freedom from
desire will not set you free. Nothing can set you
free, because you are free. See yourself with
desireless clarity, that is all.
~Nisargadatta Maharaj
--------
"Let small
pockets of radically transformative spirituality,
authentic spirituality, focus their efforts and transform their
students. And let these pockets slowly, carefully, responsibly,
humbly, begin to spread their influence, embracing an absolute
tolerance for all views, but attempting nonetheless to advocate a
true and authentic and integral spirituality - by example, by
radiance, by obvious release, by unmistakable liberation. Let
those
pockets of transformation gently persuade the world and its
reluctant
selves, and challenge their legitimacy, and challenge their
limiting
translations, and offer an awakening in the face of the numbness
that
haunts the world at large.
Let it start right here, right now, with us-with you and with
me-and
with our commitment to breathe into infinity until infinity alone
is
the only statement that the world will recognize. Let a radical
realization shine from our faces, and roar from our hearts, and
thunder from our brains-this simple fact, this obvious fact: that
you, in the very immediateness of your present awareness, are in
fact
the entire world, in all its frost and fever, in all its glories
and
its grace, in all its triumphs and its tears. You do not see the
sun,
you are the sun; you do not hear the rain, you are the rain; you
do
not feel the earth, you are the earth. And in that simple, clear,
unmistakable regard, translation has ceased in all domains, and
you
have transformed into the very Heart of the Kosmos itself-and
there,
right there, very simply, very quietly, it is all undone.
Doubt and remorse will then be alien to you, and self and others
will
be alien to you, and outside and inside will have no meaning at
all.
And in that obvious shock of recognition-where my Master is my
Self,
and that Self is the Kosmos at large, and the Kosmos is my
Soul-you
will walk very gently into the fog of this world, and transform
it
entirely by doing nothing at all.
And then, and then, and only then-you will finally, clearly,
carefully and with compassion, write on the tombstone of a self
that
never even existed: There is only Ati (Enlightened Mind.)"
~Ken Wilber