Sweet Darkness
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#2529 - Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - Editor: Gloria Lee
All the world is full of suffering. It is
also full of overcoming it.
Helen Keller
There is only one teacher. What is
that teacher? Life itself. And of course each one of us is a
manifestation of life; we couldn't be anything else. Now life
happens to be both a severe and an endlessly kind teacher. It's
the only authority that you need to trust. And this teacher, this
authority, is everywhere. You don't have to go to some special
place to find this incomparable teacher, you don't have to have
some especially quiet or ideal situation: in fact, the messier it
is, the better. The average office is a great place. The average
home is perfect. Such places are pretty messy most of the
time--we all know from firsthand experience! That is where the
authority, the teacher is.
--Charlotte Joko Beck, in Everyday Zen
The present moment is the most profound and
challenging teacher we will ever meet in our lives. It is a
compassionate teacher, it extends to us no judgement, no censure,
no measurement of success and failure. The present moment is a
mirror, in its reflection we learn how to see. Learning how to
look into this mirror without deluding ourselves is the source of
all wisdom. In this mirror we see what contributes to the
confusion and discord in our lives and what contributes to
harmony and understanding. We see the realtionship between pain
and its cause on a moment-to-moment level, we see the bond
between love and its source. We see what it is that connects us
and what it is that alienates us.
-- Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield, Stories of the
Spirit, Stories of the Heart
If
you could get rid
of yourself just once,
The secret of secrets
Would open to you.
The face of the unknown,
Hidden beyond the universe
Would appear on the
Mirror of your perception.
~Rumi
Gill Eardley on Allspirit
The Good News
They don't
publish
the good news.
The good news is published
by us.
We have a special edition every moment,
and we need you to read it.
The good news is that you are alive,
and the linden tree is still there,
standing firm in the harsh Winter.
The good news is that you have wonderful eyes
to touch the blue sky.
The good news is that your child is there before you,
and your arms are available:
hugging is possible.
They only print what is wrong.
Look at each of our special editions.
We always offer the things that are not wrong.
We want you to benefit from them
and help protect them.
The dandelion is there by the sidewalk,
smiling its wondrous smile,
singing the song of eternity.
Listen! You have ears that can hear it.
Bow your head.
Listen to it.
Leave behind the world of sorrow
and preoccupation
and get free.
The latest good news
is that you can do it.
— Thich Nhat Hanh
Bob on Nonduality Salon
Sweet
Darkness
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
~ David Whyte ~
(House
of Belonging)
Web version:
www.panhala.net/Archive/Sweet_Darkness.html music link (left button to play, right button to save)
In the light all the sight
in the sight all the light
in the guru all the light
in the Mother all the Son
in the Son all the Mother
in the Darkness only the Womb
from the Womb all the light
Son and Mother its Father and Daughter all radiance of Rigpa
Rigpa the Radiance of Itself
before Rigpa not even That
the Suchness of Thatness the Nothingness of Somethingness
Gate Gate Paragate Bodhi Svaha
--Marifa