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#3599 - Monday, July 20, 2009 - Editor: Gloria Lee
Nonduality Highlights -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
 
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Jane Dobisc, who later became a Zen teacher under Korean Master Seung Sahn, went on a pilgrimage to the East as a young woman, searching for a Buddhist teacher. At one point she spent weeks trekking through the Himalayas to get to a particularly remote monastery. Reaching it at last she knocked upon the door and asked if she could see the lama.

"Oh, no," replied the nun who'd opened the door. "He's in New York."

When Dobisc returned home she discovered that Master Seung Sahn had been operating a practice center in Rhode Island all along, no more than a ten-minute drive from her family's home. - from Sean Murphy's  "One Bird, One Stone" (Renaissance Books)

 


The Path  

All of us are apprenticed to the same teacher
that the religious institutions originally worked
with: reality. Reality-insight says ... master
the twenty-four hours. Do it well, without self-
pity. It is as hard to get the children herded
into the car pool and down the road to the bus
as it is to chant sutras in the Buddha-hall on
a cold morning. One move is not better than the
other, each can be quite boring, and they both
have the virtuous quality of repetition.

Repetition and ritual and their good results
come in many forms. Changing the filter, wiping
noses, going to meetings, picking up around the
house, washing dishes, checking the dipstick-don't
let yourself think these are distracting you from
your more serious pursuits. Such a round of chores
is not a set of difficulties we hope to escape
from so that we may do our "practice" which will
put us on a "path"-it is our path.

- GARY SNYDER, 'The Practice of the Wild'

gill
http://allspirit.co.uk
   


What Is The Point?

So what is the point of waiting? What exactly are you waiting for? Is somebody going to give you what you always wanted? Will a train come from Heaven bringing you goodies? But nothing that could ever happen could be as good, as precious, as who you are. What stops you from being, from being present, is nothing but your hope for the future. Hoping for something to be different keeps you looking for some future fantasy. But it is a mirage; you'll never get there. The mirage stops you from seeing the obvious, the preciousness of Being. It is a great distortion, a great misunderstanding of what will fulfill you. When you follow the mirage, you are rejecting yourself.

-- A.H. Almaas, from 365 Nirvana, Here and Now by Josh Baran
  posted to Wisdom-l by Mark Scorelle    


 

"End of Your World"  Adyashanti



…The truth of our being is not content until it has freed itself of its own misunderstanding, its own fixations, its own illusions.

To allow that to happen, as a human being, we have to be willing to be honest with ourselves. While not denying what we've seen, we also have to see how things are, right here and right now. We need to look. We need to ask: "What in me can still go into division? What in me can still go into hate, into ignorance, into greed? What in me can cause me to feel divided, isolated, full of sorrow? Where are those spots in me that are less awakened?

We need to see these places, because that which is awakened in us is compassionate. Its nature is undivided, unconditioned love. It doesn't move away from that which is unawakened; it moves toward it. That within us which is awakened doesn't move away from the contradictions in our thought patterns or behaviors. It doesn't move away from fixations, it doesn't move away from pain, but quite the opposite. It moves toward it…

(pg 47)
posted to Wisdom-l by Mark Scorelle
 


  Caretake This Moment   Caretake this moment.
Immerse yourself in its particulars.
Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed.
 

Quit the evasions.
Stop giving yourself needless trouble.
It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now.
You are not some disinterested bystander.
Exert yourself.
 

Respect your partnership with providence.
Ask yourself often, How may I perform this particular deed
such that it would be consistent with and acceptable to the divine will?
Heed the answer and get to work.
 

When your doors are shut and your room is dark you are not alone.
The will of nature is within you as your natural genius is within.
Listen to its importunings.
Follow its directives.
 

As concerns the art of living, the material is your own life.
No great thing is created suddenly.
There must be time.
 

Give your best and always be kind.  

~ Epictetus ~

(AD 55–AD 135)   (Epictetus: The Art of Living a New Interpretation by Sharon Lebell.)  
Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/Caretake_This_Moment.html  

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