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Nondual Highlights Issue #1833 Saturday, June 19, 2004 Editor: Mark
Great
News! You have been selected for "An Extreme Makeover!"
Just put your self in the Buddha's expert hands for three months,
give up involvement with your job, your family and friends, and
surrender - let him use his four trusty tools to chip away your
obscurations, to re-figure the way you look at the world, to fill
in your saggin' mind pockets with your own long-ignored wisdom.
You will cry with the pain, with the frustration, with all the
hard work, with the loneliness and missing your old life. You
will agonize why did I ever decide to do this?
But one day you will look in the mirror and cry with joy when you
see the new you. Is that me? Am I really free? Oh, thank you....
thank you.
It will be a long and difficult journey - maybe not three months,
maybe three years, maybe your whole lifetime - or beyond! But it
will be worth it. It is really the only show in town, and you are
the star.
Then again, you could just look in the mirror right now, and
decide to accept the reflection as is, the whole image untouched,
continually new in its empty nakedness, forever beautiful in its
never born-ness.
Your choice, the short or long haul, either way your emergence as
a swan is guaranteed.
Emaho!
From too much flippin' the tv remote.
~dharma grandmother on DailyDharma
Lost
Time
On many an idle day have I grieved over lost time.
But it is never lost, my lord.
Thou hast taken every moment of my life in thine own hands.
Hidden in the heart of things thou art nourishing seeds into
sprouts,
buds into blossoms, and ripening flowers into fruitfulness.
I was tired and sleeping on my idle bed
and imagined all work had ceased.
In the morning I woke up
and found my garden full with wonders of flowers.
- Rabindranath Tagore from Gitanjali,
submitted in one amazing post by Mazie Lane on AdyashantiSatsang
LAST TRIP TO SWAYUMBANATH STUPA
Hiding in corners
Vermilion daubed stupas
Simple roadside shrines
Garbage strewn and fetid
Last walk to Swayumbanath.
Seek Buddha's blessing
The gold thunderbolt
Awaits at the top of steep stairs
Bestowing power
The inner shrine glows
Bodhisattva's peaceful smile
Mountains fade from view
Chill winds blowing
Faintly tinkling temple bells
Flickering oil lamps
The All Seeing Eyes
Loom mysterious and golden
Contain all unity
Golden hued and gleaming
Bedecked with garlands peaceful
Bodhisattva smiles
Visceral drumming
Monks chanting, cymbals clashing
Stupa shines golden
His Eyes are piercing
Gazing in all directions
Bestowing blessings
- michael epstein
10-28-03
More here: http://www.duckdaotsu.org/
Brink of Eternity
In desperate hope I go and search for her
in all the corners of my room;
I find her not.
My house is small
and what once has gone from it can never be regained.
But infinite is thy mansion, my lord,
and seeking her I have to come to thy door.
I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky
and I lift my eager eyes to thy face.
I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can
vanish
---no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tears.
Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean,
plunge it into the deepest fullness.
Let me for once feel that lost sweet touch
in the allness of the universe.
- Rabindranath Tagore from Gitanjali,
submitted by Mazie Lane on AdyashantiSatsang
Spoken words are pointers to the essence that we are. Spoken
words are pointers and seeds, which bring you one day to
understanding. In the understanding there are glimpses of this
reality, and one day the understanding also vanishes in being the
understanding. It is only in a very clear mind, where you see the
perspective with great clarity, that there are these glimpses.
But you must live with your silence, it is only through silence
that these seeds unfold. It is a very high art to live with
silence and not touch it, not manipulate it with the already
known, with memory".
- Jean Klein from Transmission of the Flame submitted by Viorica Weissman to MillionPaths and attributed to: http://www.lotusharmony.com/
Ocean of Forms
I dive down into the depth of the ocean of forms,
hoping to gain the perfect pearl of the formless.
No more sailing from harbor to harbor with this my weather-beaten
boat.
The days are long passed when my sport was to be tossed on waves.
And now I am eager to die into the deathless.
Into the audience hall by the fathomless abyss
where swells up the music of toneless strings
I shall take this harp of my life.
I shall tune it to the notes of forever,
and when it has sobbed out its last utterance,
lay down my silent harp at the feet of the silent.
- Rabindranath Tagore from Gitanjali,
submitted by Mazie Lane on AdyashantiSatsang