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#2821 - Wednesday, May 23, 2007 - Editor: Gloria Lee
One: Essential Writings on Nonduality http://nonduality.com/one.htm
Nondual Highlights
"The Breath Inside the Breath" is this issue's theme.
"This aloneness is worth more than a thousand lives. T
his freedom is worth more than all the
lands on earth.
To be one with
the truth for just a moment,
Is worth more
than the world and life itself."
~ Rumi
"There
is a life-force within your soul, seek that life.
There is a gem in the mountain of your
body, seek that mine.
O traveler, if you are in search of That
Don't look outside, look inside yourself
and seek That."
~ Rumi
Mazie Lane on GardenMystics
When you awaken to truth
as it really is, you will have no occult
vision, you will have no "astral" experience, no
ravishing ecstasy.
You will awaken to it in a state of utter stillness, and you will
realize that truth was always there within you and that reality
was
always there around you. Truth is not something which has grown
and
developed through your efforts. It is not something which has
been
achieved or attained by laboriously adding up those efforts. It
is not
something which has to be made more and more perfect each year.
And
once your mental eyes are opened to truth they can never be
closed
again.
~ Paul Brunton, Notebooks
Mark Scorelle on Wisdom-l
Just Now In the morning as the storm begins to blow
away
the clear sky appears for a moment and it seems to me
that there has been something simpler than I could ever
believe simpler than I could have begun to find words for
not patient not even waiting no more hidden
than the air itself that became part of me for a while
with every breath and remained with me unnoticed
something that was here unnamed unknown in the days
and the nights not separate from them not separate
from them as they came and were gone
it must have been here neither early nor late then
by what name can I address it now holding out my thanks
~
W.S. Merwin
(The Pupil)
Web version:
www.panhala.net/Archive/Just_Now.html
by Bob O'Hearn http://upload.pbase.com/image/79208743/original
Are
you looking for me? I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
you will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine
rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:
not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding
around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables.
When you really look for me, you will see me instantly —
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath ~ Kabir
image: http://www.pbase.com/1heart/image/79294078
Ah, what is that phrase .
. . "the ties that bind"?
So Jesus says, leave it all and come and follow me.
Well, where was he off to in such a hurry anyway?
Then you got Gautama the Buddha, who left his wife
and newborn baby to wander around out in the woods,
and Ramana, who jumped the next train out of town
after his famous nap, and sure the list goes on,
all because folks thought it was elsewhere, over
the rainbow somewhere, up on a mountain or
out in the desert, and I sure did too, left home
at 13 to seek God and, well, we all have our destinies,
yes, but consider for a moment: if it's all one,
then it really is all one, and so where is there to go
that is any different than where we are right now?
Furthermore, and excuse me, but where is 'that' exactly?
We don't even know where we are right now, what we are,
who we are, what anything is, and so where's everybody going?
We're not tethered to the world, we are the world, but
the world is not us, nothing that we can think or know
or name is us, and if somebody just sat down and
let that sink in -- their true condition in the midst
of all possible worlds -- they wouldn't be in such a rush
to run off chasing their tail, or at least that's how
it seems to me on Wednesday morning. It's a little overcast
here today, Mazie's got to spray the roses for mildew, and
I've got to clean out the grill gas tubes before going to work.
LoveAlways Bob O'Hearn
on GardenMystics
Marifa sent this from DzogchenPractice
The Buddha and The Goddess
Thus have I made up:
Once
the Buddha was walking
along the forest path in the Oak Grove at Ojai,
walking without arriving anywhere or having any
thought of arriving or not arriving.
And lotuses, shining with the morning dew
miraculously appeared under every step
Soft as silk beneath the toes of the Buddha.
When suddenly, out of the turquoise sky,
dancing in front of his half-shut inward-looking
eyes, shimmering like a rainbow
or a spider's web
transparent as the dew on a lotus flower
-- the Goddess appeared quivering
like a hummingbird in the air before him.
She, for she was surely a she
as the Buddha could clearly see
with his eye of discriminating awareness wisdom, was mostly red
in color
though when the light shifted
she flashed like a rainbow.
She was naked except
for the usual flower ornaments
goddesses wear.
Her long hair
was deep blue, her eyes fathomless pits
of space, and her third eye a bloodshot
song of fire.
The Buddha folded his hands together
and greeted the Goddess thus:
"O goddess, why are you blocking my path?
Before I saw you I was happily going nowhere.
Now I'm not so sure where I go."
"You can go around me,"
said the Goddess, twirling on her heel like a bird
darting away,
but just a little way away,
"or you can come after me
but you can't pretend I'm not here,
This is my forest, too."
With that the Buddha sat
supple as a snake
solid as a rock
beneath a Bo tree
that sprang full-leaved
to shade him.
"Perhaps we should have a chat,"
he said.
"After years of arduous practice
at the time of the morning star
I penetrated reality and…"
"Not so fast, Buddha," the Goddess said,
"I am reality."
The earth stood still,
the oceans paused,
the wind itself listened
-- a thousand arhats, bodhisattvas and dakinis
magically appeared to hear
what would happen in the conversation.
"I know I take my life in my hands,"
said the Buddha,
"But I am known as the Fearless One -- so here goes."
And he and the Goddess
without further words
exchanged glances.
Light rays like sun beams
shot forth
so brightly that even
Sariputra, the All-Seeing One,
had to turn away.
And then they exchanged thoughts
And the illumination was as bright as a diamond candle
And then they exchanged minds
And there was a great silence as vast as the universe that
contains everything
And then they exchanged bodies
And then clothes
And the Buddha arose
as the Goddess
and the Goddess arose as the Buddha.
And so on back and forth
for a hundred thousand hundred thousand kalpas.
If you meet the Buddha
you meet the Goddess.
If you meet the Goddess,
you meet the Buddha.
Not only that. This:
The Buddha is emptiness,
The Goddess is bliss.
The Goddess is emptiness,
The Buddha is bliss.
And that is what
And what-not you are
It's true.
So
here comes the mantra of the Goddess and the Buddha,
the unsurpassed non-dual mantra. Just to say this mantra,
just to hear this mantra once, just to hear one word of this
mantra
once makes everything the way it truly is: OK.
So
here it is:
Earth-walker/
Hey silent one, Hey great talker
Not two/ not one
Not separate/ not apart
This is the heart
Bliss is emptiness
Emptiness is bliss
Be your breath, Ah
Smile, Hey, And relax, Ho
Remember: You can't miss.
- Rick Fields, May 1987: The Very Short Sutra on the Meeting of the Buddha and the Goddess.