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#2009 - Monday, December 20, 2004 - Editor: Gloria Lee
Bob passed away last night. My sister was with
him all day and he suffered no pain until the end. I am
confident that Ammachi sent her to be with him, purifying him for
his journey. He went peacefully.
I have no reaction but peace.
For all of you who stood vigil, my family thanks you.
You are our family, too.
All love,
Vicki
When I was born and saw the light
I was no stranger in this world
Something inscrutable, shapeless, and without words
Appeared in the form of my mother
So when I die, the same unknown will appear again
As
ever known to me.....
posted by Alan Larus to nondualnow
A
Buddhist saying:
When someone is born
or someone dies,
Nothing is added
or subtracted
from the Universe.
posted by Patrice Brown to nondualnow
Rainer Maria Rilke on the death of
his father:
*Within my deepest hope*
As for myself, what has died for me has died, so to speak, into
my
own heart: when I looked for him, the person who vanished has
collected himself strangely and so surprisingly in me, and it was
so
moving to feel he was now only there that my enthusiasm for
serving
his new existence, for deepening and glorifying it, took the
upper
hand almost at the very moment when pain would otherwise have
invaded and devastated the whole landscape of my spirit. When I
remember how I - often with the utmost difficulty in
understanding
and accepting each other - loved my father! Often, in childhood,
my
mind became confused and my heart grew numb at the mere thought
that someday he might no longer be; my existence seemed to me so
wholly conditioned through him (my existence, which from the
start
was pointed in such a different direction!) that his departure
was to
my innermost self synonymous with my own destruction.. . , but so
deeply is death rooted in the essence of love that (if only we
are
cognizant of death without letting ourselves be misled by the
uglinesses
and suspicions that have been attached to it) it nowhere
contradicts
love: where, after all, can it drive out someone whom we have
carried
unsayably in our heart except into this very heart, where would
the
"idea" of this loved being exist, and his unceasing
influence (: for
how could that cease which even while he lived with us was more
and
more independent of his tangible presence).., where would this
always secret
influence be more secure than in us?!
Where can we come closer to it, where more purely celebrate it,
when
obey it better, than when it appears combined with our own
voices, as
if our heart had learned a new language, a new song, a new
strength!
(To Countess Margot Sizzo-Noris-Crouy, January 6, 1923)
posted by Gloria
Lee to nondualnow
Here's your Daily Poem from the Poetry Chaikhana --
 |
I AM By Shawn Nevins I am
not bliss. |
Cycles of wakefulness
You're living out your life
by unconsciously
reacting to what you've purposefully forgotten
that you already are.
Throughout your entire life, you will probably
remember, and then forget, this same truth -
again and again and again.
Just as the depth of your sleep cycle varies
throughout the night, so will you also feel clearer
and more spiritually awake at certain times in your
life than you will at other times.
Allow yourself to comfortably move in and out of
your uncomfortable confusion.
And remember: "This, too, shall pass."
- Chuck Hillig
posted to Along the Way
Prayer for Peace
Pray to whoever you kneel
down to:
Jesus nailed to his wooden or marble or plastic cross,
his suffering face bent to kiss you,
Buddha still under the Bo tree in scorching heat,
Yahweh, Allah, raise your arms to Mary
that she may lay her palm on our brows,
to Shekinhah, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
to Inanna in her stripped descent.
Hawk or Wolf, or the Great
Whale, Record Keeper
of time before, time now, time ahead, pray. Bow down
to terriers and shepherds and siamese cats.
Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.
Pray to the bus driver who
takes you to work,
pray on the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus
and for everyone riding buses all over the world.
If you haven't been on a bus in a long time,
climb the few steps, drop some silver, and pray.
Waiting in line for the
movies, for the ATM,
for your latté and croissant, offer your plea.
Make your eating and drinking a supplication.
Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.
Make the brushing of your
hair
a prayer, every strand its own voice,
singing in the choir on your head.
As you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that wears away rock.
Making love, of course, is
already a prayer.
Skin and open mouths worshipping that skin,
the fragile case we are poured into,
each caress a season of peace.
If you're hungry, pray. If
you're tired.
Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day.
Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.
Pray to the angels and the ghost of your grandfather.
When you walk to your car,
to the mailbox,
to the video store, let each step
be a prayer that we all keep our legs,
that we do not blow off anyone else's legs.
Or crush their skulls.
And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheel chair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer that as the earth revolves
we will do less harm, less harm, less harm.
And as you work, typing with
a new manicure,
a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail
or delivering soda or drawing good blood
into rubber-capped vials, writing on a blackboard
with yellow chalk, twirling pizzas, pray for peace.
With each breath in, take in
the faith of those
who have believed when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.
Pull weeds for peace, turn
over in your sleep for peace,
feed the birds for peace, each shiny seed
that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.
Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine..
Shovel leaves or snow or
trash from your sidewalk.
Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child
around your VISA card. Gnaw your crust
of prayer, scoop your prayer water from the gutter.
Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling
your prayer through the streets.
Ellen Bass (Read more of her poems at www.ellenbass.com)
originally posted 2/2/04 by Ben Hassine
Pine under the Snow in Moonlight
by Dusan Pajin, http://afrodita.rcub.bg.ac.yu/~pajin/exhibit/index.html
The Snow Man
One must have a mind of
winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long
time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not
to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the
land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who
listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
-- Wallace Stevens