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#2687 - Monday, January 1, 2007 - Editor: Gloria Lee
Nondual Highlights
There are
years that ask questions, and years that answer.
--Zora Neale Hurston
"Let
truth lead you where you do not want to go, and in time
you will want to go."
--Vernon
Howard
"When
you live your life in accordance with basic goodness, then you
develop natural elegance. Your life can be spacious and
relaxed,
without having to be sloppy. You can actually let go of
your
depression and embarrassment about being a human being, and you
can
cheer up.."
--Chogyam
Trungpa
From the book; "Shambhala, The Sacred Path of the
Warrior," published
by Shambhala
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0972009809/angelinc
posted
to Daily Dharma
Jasmine
comes up...
Jasmine comes up where You step.
You breathe on dirt, and it sails off
like a kite. You wash Your hands,
and the water You throw out shines with gold.
You say the first line of the Qur'an
and all the dead commentators lift their heads.
Your robe brushes a thornbush,
and a deep chord of music comes.
Whatever You break finds itself more intelligent
for being broken. Every second a new being
stands in the courtyard of Your chest
like Adam, without a father or a mother,
but the beginning of many generations to come.
I should rhyme that fifty times!
The beginning of many
generations to come,
a line without any
inclination to end!
But I won't. I close my mouth
in hopes You'll open Yours.
--Rumi
Version by Coleman Barks
posted to Allspirit
Some
students of religion postpone their lives and then wake up one
day and say, "Wait a minute, here I am forty years old and I
don't
have a spouse or a career. What am I going to do when I grow up?
They have let things back up as they wait to be enlightened, or
to be
settled in mind. This shows a misunderstanding of the nature of
practice. Right practice, the ninth step of the Eightfold Path,
does
not involve waiting for the psyche to ripen. The clock is
ticking. Right
Practice is taking yourself in hand. For the lay student, it can
include
college, a career, and a family. It is to get on with living.
--Robert
Aitken, Encouraging Words, Eightfold Path
Renunciation does
not have to be regarded as negative. I was taught
that it has to do with letting go of holding back. What one is
renouncing is closing down and shutting off from life. You could
say
that renunciation is the same thing as opening to the teachings
of the
present moment....
Renunciation is realizing
that our nostalgia for wanting to stay in a
protected, limited, petty world is insane. Once you begin to get
the
feeling of how big the world is and how vast our potential for
experiencing life is, then you really begin to understand
renunciation.
When we sit in meditation, we feel our breath as it goes out, and
we
have some sense of willingness just to be open to the present
moment. Then our minds wander off into all kinds of stories and
fabrications and manufactured realities, and we say to ourselves,
"It's thinking." We say that with a lot of gentleness
and a lot of
precision. Every time we are willing to let the story line go,
and
every time we are willing to let go at the end of the outbreath,
thats fundamental renunciation: learning how to let go of holding
on
and holding back.
--Pema Chodron
Suzuki Roshi
said, Renunciation is not giving up the things of this
world, but accepting that they go away. Everything is
impermanent;
sooner or later everything goes away. Renunciation is a state of
nonattachment, acceptance of this going away. Impermanence is, in
fact, just another name for perfection. Leaves fall; debris and
garbage accumulate; out of the debris come flowers, greenery,
things that we think are lovely. Destruction is necessary. A good
forest fire is necessary. The way we interfere with forest fires
may
not be a good thing. Without destruction, there could be no new
life
and the wonder of life, the constant change could not be. We must
live and die. And this process is perfection itself. All this
change is
not, however, what we had in mind. Our drive is not to appreciate
the
perfection of the universe. Our personal drive is to find a way
to
endure in our unchanging glory forever....Who hasn't noticed the
first
gray hair and thought, Uh-oh.
--Charlotte Joko Beck,
Everyday Zen
“What is grace” I asked God.
And He said,
“All that happens.”
Then He added, when I looked perplexed,
“Could
not lovers
say that every moment in their Beloved’s arms
was grace?
Existence is
my arms,
though I well understand how one can turn
away from
me
until the heart has
wisdom.”
--St John of the Cross
Every word of
every tongue is
Love telling a story to her own ears.
Every thought in every mind,
She whispers a secret to her own Self.
Every vision in every eye,
She shows her beauty to her own sight.
Every smile on every face,
She reveals her own joy for herself to enjoy.
Love courses through everything,
No, Love is everything.
How can you say, there is no love,
when nothing but Love exists?
All that you see has appeared because of Love.
All shines from Love,
All pulses with Love,
All flows from Love--
No, once again, all IS Love!
--Fakhruddin Iraqi