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#3073 - Monday, February 11, 2008 - Editor: Gloria Lee
Someone I cared for
Someone I cared for
put it to me: Who
do you think you are?
I went down the list
of all the many
possibilities
carefully — did it
twice — but couldn't find
a plausible one.
That was when I knew
for the first time who
in fact I wasn't.
- Cid Corman, from And The Word. © Coffee House Press,
1987
After you wake up you probably open the curtains and look outside. You may even like to open the window and feel the cool morning air with the dew still on the grass. But is what you see really "outside"? In fact, it is your own mind. As the sun sends its rays through the window, you are not just yourself. You are also the beautiful view from your window. You are the Dharmakaya. Dharmakaya literally means the body (kaya) of the Buddha's teachings (Dharma), the way of understanding and love. Before passing away, the Buddha told his disciples, "Only my physical body will pass away. My Dharma body will remain with you forever." In Mahayana Buddhism, the word has come to mean "the essence of all that exists." All phenomena--the song of a bird, the warm rays of the sun, a cup of hot tea--are manifestations of the Dharmakaya. We, too, are of the same nature as these wonders of the universe.
- Thich Nhat Hanh, Present Moment, Wonderful Moment
Alan Larus, 2 photos http://www.ferryfee.com/bluesky/Forest.html
All That Is Glorious Around Us
(title of an exhibit on The Hudson River School)
is not, for me, these grand vistas, sublime peaks, mist-filled
overlooks, towering clouds, but doing errands on a day
of driving rain, staying dry inside the silver skin of the car,
160,000 miles, still running just fine. Or later,
sitting in a café warmed by the steam
from white chicken chili, two cups of dark coffee,
watching the red and gold leaves race down the street,
confetti from autumn's bright parade. And I think
of how my mother struggles to breathe, how few good days
she has now, how we never think about the glories
of breath, oxygen cascading down our throats to the lungs,
simple as the journey of water over a rock. It is the nature
of stone / to be satisfied / writes Mary Oliver, It is the nature
of water / to want to be somewhere else, rushing down
a rocky tor or high escarpment, the panoramic landscape
boundless behind it. But everything glorious is around
us already: black and blue graffiti shining in the rain's
bright glaze, the small rainbows of oil on the pavement,
where the last car to park has left its mark on the glistening
street, this radiant world.
- Barbara Crooker from Radiance. © Word Press,
2005
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 posted to Wisdom-l
Awakening doesn't happen through effort or will, but by being
what my teacher Jean Klein used to call "disponible," a
French word meaning "available or receptive." to
truth. The less you do, the better, no need to make sense
of what I say in a conceptual level. Over time, the
teaching will keep returning to you unbidden at unexpected
moments in your everyday life, perhaps to bring light to a
particular circumstance or challenge, or merely to illuminate
another aspect of truth. The fact is, the awakening
process, once begun, develops its own momentum without effort on
your part, and the truth naturally yearns to awaken itself
through you.
Stephen Bodian
p.17
Wake Up Now
McGraw Hill
2007
posted to Wisdom-l