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#2397 - Sunday, February 19, 2006 - Editor: Gloria Lee
"Between the
banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows. It
is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets stuck
at the
banks, that it becomes a problem. By flowing with life, I
mean
acceptance - letting come what comes and go what goes.
Desire not,
fear not, observe the actual, as and when it happens, for you are
not
what happens, you are to whom it happens. Ultimately even
the
observer you are not."
~ ~ ~
"The very idea of
going beyond the dream is illusory. Why go
anywhere? Just realize that you are dreaming a dream you
call the
world, and stop looking for ways out. The dream is not your
problem.
Your problem is that you like one part of your dream and not
another.
Love all, or none of it, and stop complaining. When you
have seen
the dream as a dream, you have done all that need be done."
~ ~ ~
"Which God are you
talking about? What is God? Is he not the very
light by which you ask the question? 'I am"' itself is
God. The
seeking itself is God. In seeking you discover that you are
neither
the body nor mind, and the love of self in you is for the self in
all.
The two are one. The consciousness in you and the
consciousness in
me, apparently two, really one, seek unity and that is
love."
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
~ ~ ~
The surest signs of
spiritual progress are a lack of concern about
spiritual progress and an absence of anxiety about liberation.
--Ramesh S. Balsekar
from A Net of Jewels
photo by Alan Larus http://www.ferryfee.com/bluesky/4pictures.htm
My Inspiration
I
praise those ancient Chinamen
Who left me a few
words,
Usually a pointless
joke or a silly question
A line of poetry drunkenly scrawled on the margin
of a quick splashed picture- bug,
leaf,
caricature of a Teacher-
On paper held together now by little more than ink
& their own strength brushed momentarily over it
Their
world and several others since
Gone to
hell and a handbasket, they knew it-
Cheered as
it whizzed by-
& conked out among the busted spring rain
cherryblossom winejars
Happy to have saved us all.
- Philip Whalen, Hymnus ad Patrem Sinensis
posted by Ken Phelan to Allspirit
You really have to know your own
fundamental mind before you can stop and rest.
If you know your mind and arrive at the fundamental, that is like
space merging with space.
-- Ta-tu
From "The Pocket Zen Reader," edited by Thomas Cleary,
1999
"You have woken up
late,
lost and perplexed
but don't rush to your books
looking for knowledge.
Pick up the flute instead and
let your heart play."
-- Rumi
posted to Daily Dharma
solitude and meditation
For the total development
of the human being, solitude as a means of
cultivating sensitivity becomes a necessity. One has to know what
it
means to be alone, what it is to meditate, what it is to die; and
the
implications of solitude, of meditation, of death, can be known
only by
seeking them out. These implications cannot be taught, they must
be
learnt. One can indicate, but learning by what is indicated is
not the
experiencing of solitude or meditation. To experience what is
solitude
and what is meditation, one must be in in a state of inquiry;
only a
mind that is in a state of inquiry is capable of learning. But
when
inquiry is suppressed by previous knowledge, or by the authority
and
experience of another, then learning becomes mere imitation, and
imitation causes a human being to repeat what is learnt without
experiencing it.
J. Krishnamurti in Life Ahead
posted by Ben Hassine
photo by Alan Larus http://www.ferryfee.com/bluesky/4pictures.htm
An impression of a sesshin
Almost immediately after
arrival there is this massive rock of silence, of emptiness. It
is present like an impressive mountain exerting a mysterious
power of attraction. Simultaneously with the massive silence one
can sense this energy, this restless movement, this resistance
against silence, something that rather moves away from silence.
What is behind this resistance? Is it fear? Fear of what?
Last month there was the opportunity to be touched by silence, to
get lost in it and to throw the compass of fear and expectation
overboard.
In case you wonder what is the exact subject of this letter: I am
trying to give an impression of the sesshin lead by Ton
Lathouwers in Steyl, Netherlands, last January—though I
would rather not limit it to that circumstance alone.
The tight schedule of meditation, rest, the occasional domestic
task and above all the silence—and I refer here to the
agreed upon silence—makes it easier to ‘fall back’
or ‘sink’ into another kind of silence; a silence of a
different order, a silence that has little to do with the absence
of sound.
Sustained, persevered meditative reflection is questioning
without expectation, it is the blind feeling one’s way into
the unknown. It takes courage, faith and determination. Wherefrom
this faith arises remains a mystery.
Ton Lathouwers regularly mentions the stammering one finds
oneself confronted with when attempting to describe what is
utterly beyond expression. Even the inner stammering gracefully
grows silent when a human being is confronted with the vast
enormity of not-knowing.
Meditating and reflecting one stumbles stammering upon this
silence blindly feeling one’s way into it. The deeper one
feels touched by the silence the clearer this inexplicable faith
appears. It is this faith which inspires one to give up the
compulsive attachment to the known to be melted gently into the
nameless silence of the unknown.
In the course of the sesshin an unexpected transformation starts
to occur; where first there was a restless fear, a resistance
against the unknown, a distrust of silence (maybe imprinted by
our nervous noise-culture), now appears faith, the faith that is
necessary to sink in that where the head—the thinking and
knowing faculties—had been resisting so compulsively and
desperately.
The essential dimension a sesshin adds to the personal and
intimate ‘sinking’ into silence, is the possibility of
awakened awareness of the necessity of a collective
‘sinking’ into silence. The collective is none other
than the community, the sangha, the other. In the middle of our
nervous noise-culture a silence-culture blossoms, a culture that
flowers through faith of heart, undisturbed and impressive like a
mountain.
An invisible process has been set into motion, as if a stream of
silence has been discovered taking the group back to the spring
of it high up in the mountain of silence; a discovery against all
odds, against all the odds created by the pseudo securities of
the chattering and knowing mind: an impossible step into the
unknown.
And today, now the sesshin has ended already weeks ago, I
celebrate the collective sinking in this sangha as well.
Gate gate paragate bodhi svaha!
posted by Ben Hassine
The emergence and
blossoming of understanding, love
and intelligence has nothing to do with any tradition,
no matter how ancient or impressive - it has nothing to
do with time. It happens completely on its own when a
human being questions, wonders, listens and looks with-
out getting stuck in fear, pleasure and pain. When self
concern is quiet, in abeyance, heaven and earth are open.
The mystery, the essence of all life is not separate from
the silent openness of simple listening.
~Toni Packer
posted by Gill Eardley to Allspirit