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#2514 - Sunday, July 2, 2006 - Editor: Gloria Lee
A student
once said: "When I was a Buddhist, it drove my parents and
friends crazy, but when I am a buddha, nobody is upset at
all."
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn, in Wherever You Go, There You Are
Have
confidence in your own spiritual potentiality, your ability to
find your own unique way. Learn from others certainly, and use
what you find useful, but also learn to trust your own inner
wisdom. Have courage. Be awake and aware. Remember too that
Buddhism is not about being a Buddhist; that is, obtaining a new
identity tag. Nor is it about collecting head-knowledge,
practices and techniques. It is ultimately about letting go of
all forms and concepts and becoming free.
-- John Snelling, in Elements of Buddhism
Most perceived
problems merely become problems because we believe they are so.
This is true even of extremes such as disease, old age, and
death, which are after all universal and inevitable. It's equally
true of the sorrow and grief that often accompany these events.
To define the universal experiences of our species as problems is
to define the whole human life system as a problem. And when
something is seen as a problem, you feel compelled to do
something about it. A problem, like a leaking faucet or a flat
tire, is something that needs to be fixed. You can exhaust your
life in the effort to fix it.
-- Lin Jensen, in Bad Dog!
Eventually we will
find (mostly in retrospect, of course) that we can be very
grateful to those people who have made life most difficult for
us.
-Ayya Khema, "When the Iron Eagle Flies"
The July issue of the TAT Forum is now on-line at www.tatfoundation.org/forum.htm
This issue includes: The True Way of Advaita by Bob Fergeson | Poems by Gary Harmon | Dark Night of the Soul by Douglas Harding | Do Not Go Ungrateful by Douglas Harding | Doing and Being (part 2) by Shawn Nevins | Die While You're Alive by Bunan | Rabbit-Proof Fence by Art Ticknor | Humor
Alan Larus photo: http://www.ferryfee.com/bluesky/islands/ship_at_sea.htm
I believe in all that has
never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.
If this is arrogant, God,
forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.
Then in these swelling and
ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening
channels
into the open sea.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~
(Rilke’s
Book of Hours:Love Poems to God, translated by Anita Barrows
and Joanna Macy)
Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/I_believe_in_all.html
Four more photos by Alan Larus http://www.ferryfee.com/bluesky/islands/today.htm