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  #1434 -  Sunday, May 18, 2003 - Editor: Gloria

Let go of what may come.
Let go of what is happening now.
Don't try to figure anything out.
Don't try to make anything happen.
Relax, right now, and rest.

~ Tilopa

"Waterlilies" by Monet    

Dogen said, "Although everything has Buddha
nature, we love flowers, and we do not care for
weeds." This is true of human nature. But that we
are attached to some beauty is itself Buddha's
activity. That we do not care for weeds is also
Buddha's activity. We should know that. If you
know that, it is all right to attach to something. If it
is Buddha's attachment, that is non-attachment.  

~Shunryu Suzuki  Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Mazie & b   AdyashantiSatsang  

So in love there should be hate, or non-attachment. And in hate there should be love,
or acceptance. Love and hate are one thing. We should not attach to love alone. We
should accept hate. We should accept weeds, despite how we feel about them. If you
do not care for them, do not love them; if you love them then love them. Usually you
criticize yourself for being unfair to your surroundings; you criticize your
unaccepting attitude. But there is a very subtle difference between the usual way of
accepting and our way of accepting things, although they may seem exactly the same.
We have been taught that there is no gap between nighttime and daytime, no gap
between you and I. This means oneness. But we do not emphasize even oneness. If it
is one, there is no need to emphasize one. Dogen said: "To learn something is to know
yourself; to study Buddhism is to study yourself." To learn something is not to
acquire something which you did not know before. You know something before you
learn it. There is no gap between the "I" before you know something, and the "I"
after you know something. There is no gap between the ignorant and the wise. A
foolish person is a wise person; a wise person is a foolish person. But usually we
think, "He is foolish and I am wise," or "I was foolish, but now I am wise." How can
we be wise if we are foolish? But the understanding transmitted from Buddha to us
is that there is no difference whatsoever between the foolish man and the wise man.
It is so. But if I say this people may think that I am emphasizing oneness. That is
not so. We do not emphasize anything. All we want to do is to know things just as
they are. If we know things, as they are, there is nothing to point at; there is no way
to grasp anything; there is no thing to grasp. We cannot put emphasis on any point.
Nevertheless, as Dogen said, "A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed
grows, even though we do not love it." Even though it is so, this is our life. In this
way our life should be understood. Then there is no problem. Because we put
emphasis on some particular point, we always have trouble. We should accept things
just as they are. This is how we understand everything, and how we live in this world.
This kind of experience is something beyond our thinking. In the thinking realm
there is a difference between oneness and variety; but in actual experience, variety
and unity are the same. Because you create some idea of unity or variety, you are
caught by the idea. And you have to continue the endless thinking, although actually
there is no need to think. Emotionally we have many problems; they are something
created; they are problems pointed out by our self-centered ideas or views. Because
we point out something, there are problems. But actually it is not possible to point
out anything in particular. Happiness is sorrow; sorrow is happiness. Even though the
ways we feel are different, they are not really different; in essence they are the
same. This is the true understanding; transmitted from Buddha to us.  

~Shunryu Suzuki  Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

DC Vision  Spiritual Friends  

One of the strange little idiosyncracies of mine throughout my life,
has been the desire to stand in a spot upon the earth where I
envision no one has ever stood before. We had 70 acres of woods
behind my parents home in southern New Hampshire, and whenever I got
the chance I took walks out there. I would go off the beaten paths,
and stand in the middle of a thicket, and imagine that I was the
first human to ever occupy that space. There was a resonance to the
experience that I have never outgrown.

Throughout my horseback journey I repeated this same ritual of seeing
a spot I was sure, either because of its impassability, or because of
it undesirability, that no one had ever been on that spot. I would
tie up the horse and go to the place I spotted, and just breathe in
its essence. I have left my presence throughout the United States in
this fashion.

Out west, during my driving and teaching phase, I would come across
many places that had the same feel of loneliness to them. My most
vivid was in Nevada on route 50 (touted as the loneliest highway in
America). There would be these mountain passes, with 50 mile valleys
in between without a sign of human habitation. I would get to the
base of the valley, then pull off and drive a mile into the flat
desolation. Getting out of my vehicle, I'd walk another hundred yards
and marvel at the lack of human noise. These experiences still haunt
me to this day. I crave them.

This summer I know I will traverse this island from end to end and
seek out this experience as often as I can. I have also been known to
go into abandoned houses and just silently take in the echoes of it's
inhabitants. There are many of these abandoned houeses across the
country, and I have absorbed hundreds of them over the years. I just
walked through and touched the walls, delapidated furniture, and
picked up any debris to seek it's history.

I have often wondered if anyone else had this same peculiar appetite
for standing alone in a place of either desolation, or abandonment,
and tried to be present within it. It is like a well kept secret of
mine, and I hope I have inspired you by sharing it here.

DC Vision
Mazie Lane  HarshaSatsangh  

There are those sleeping who are awake,
and others awake who are sound asleep.

Some of those bathing in sacred pools
will never get clean.

And there are others
doing household chores
who are free of any action.

~Lalla

Today, sitting by the cold stream,
dreaming, dreaming

a thousand seasons came and went,
unnoticed.

Truth and lies, twining smoke vapors,
spiraled higher and higher into the
deepest blue these eyes have
ever seen.

Somewhere, a dharma preacher
inexplicably fell silent in
mid-sentence.

Somewhere, love welled up again
in an old couple's eyes.

Somewhere, a thousand seasons
flooded by unnoticed, while
somebody sat near a clear
cold stream,

dreaming, dreaming.

~Mazie & b

"Cloud Reflection" photo by Al Larus    

Gill Eardley  Allspirit  

Mind at Peace

When the mind is at peace,
the world too is at peace.
Nothing real, nothing absent.
Not holding on to reality,
not getting stuck in the void,
you are neither holy or wise, just
an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.

~P'ang Yün
  Quietness
  Rumi

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with thick clouds.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

"These Branching Moments"  Translated by Coleman Barks

Eric Paroissien   HarshaSatsangh  

now i look, here i see
lo the world has come
right on time for my love
for my eyes only  

"Irises" by Monet  

before talking about beauty
of course i must see it and:
light is given to my eyes
only as much as my heart
opens to my true nature

now mentioning disasters and pain
surely makes buddys
and obviously
when a person rejoices in herself
immersed in buddha or only in the quest for him
she does not "rely" much on friends
the whole world is friends
she is her own beacon
on her own sea
in peace
e

Savitri  SufiMystic  

BIODANCE - Whirling Dervish and NATARAJ - THE DANCE OF SHIVA
We renew our physical body just as we regrow hair and nails. We are on the
move. Five years ago we didn't exist, all our atoms having been replaced in the
interval. Here today, completely gone in five years, renewed down to the last
single atom, we endure only in the shape, form and pattern that are assured by
our genetic blueprint.

Our replacement parts come in constant flow from the earth itself. The carbon
atoms in my body were once of the earth and shall be again, only to be
exchanged for more of the same. After leaving my body they may re-enter me at a
later time. Or they may be fixed for a while in the body of someone else- or
something else- in this unending round of "biodance," this dance of life.

BIODANCE- the endless exchange of the elements of living things with the earth
itself - proceeds silently, giving us no hint that it is happening. It is a
dervish dance, animated and purposeful and disciplined; and it is a dance in
which every living organism participates.

These observations simply defy any definition of a static and fixed body. Even
our genes, our claim to biologic individuality, constantly dissolve and are
renewed. Our dissolution is a silent flow occurring outside our awareness. we
are in a persistent equilibrium with the earth.

It is not only our genes that renew themselves. The entire body participates in
this astonishing dynamism. Radioisotopic techniques allow us to trace the
chemicals that enter and leave the body. Aebersold has concluded that 98
percent of the 10 to the power of 28 28 atoms of the body are replaced
annually. Some tissue, such as bone, is especially dynamic. Each body structure
has its own rate of reformation: the lining of the stomach renews itself in a
week; the skin is entirely replaced in a month; the liver is regenerated in six
weeks.

Yet the boundary of our body has to be extended even farther than the earth
itself. We know that certain elements in our body, such as the phosphorus in
our bones, were formed at an earlier stage in the evolution of our galaxy. Like
many elements in the earth's crust, it was cycled through the lifetime of
several stars before appearing terrestrially, eventually finding its way into
our body.

A strictly bounded body does not exist. Our roots go deep; we are anchored in
the stars.

The biodance, the constant renewal of our body from the world outside, stands
in playful contrast to our ordinary idea of death. We do not wait on death, for
we are constantly returning to the earth while alive. Every living moment a
portion of the billions of atoms in our body returns to the world outside. This
constant streaming is so pronounced, so necessary for life, that the very
notion of 'boundary' begins to appear as an arbitrary idea rather than a
physical reality.

The dance of Shiva is considered an act of creation. It arouses dormant
energies.This productive energy of the Absolute in its pristine strength
represents the forces of evolution and involution, the appearance and
disappearance of the universe.

Every aspect of life has two opposite entities. Deva is the divine principle
and Bhuta is matter. Deva is light , truth and immortality; Bhuta is darkness,
untruth and death. One is positive and the other is negative; one is life and
the other is inertia. The cycle of life and death can only proceed when these
two basic opposite forces, represented by the Devas and the Bhutas are finally
reconciled. These two opposite principles are eternally in conflict
(Daivasuram) but become reconciled in the body of Shiva. Their co-existence is
expressed in the rhythm of Shiva's dance.

http://www.hinduism.org.za/

Toby  SufiMystic  

"Irises" by Van Gogh

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