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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4271 Sunday, June 5, 2011
Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds.
You only lose what you cling to. Fill your mind with compassion.
- Buddha, posted to DailyDharma
It may be beautiful to think of a small child feeling in tune
with the rhythms of a grasshopper's life.
Yet, I did not have the same feeling when a mosquito bit me, or a
dog barked at me. Thus, my own sense of compassion is limited,
inconsistent.
Nevertheless, the deep feeling of oneness, the reality of
boundless compassion is always there, if only I would awaken to
it. When I become impatient or irritated with someone or
something, if I can be reminded that this is due to my own blind
ego-attachment, then I may become gradually less impatient, more
embracing.
In this way, the ever-present compassion of life itself, of Amida
Buddha, my own nature, breaks through my ego-self into the
realization of boundless compassion.
- Mark Unno, posted to DailyDharma
Patience is one of the principle things in life, although
sometimes patience is as bitter, as hard, as unbearable as death.
Sometimes one would prefer death to patience. But it is of the
greatest importance for the human race to develop patience in all
conditions of life, in all walks of life. Whether we are rich or
poor, high or low, this is the one quality that must be
developed. Besides it is patience that is all-powerful, and by
lack of patience one loses much. Very often the answer to one's
prayer is within one's reach, the hand of Providence not very far
off, and then one loses one's patience and thereby the
opportunity.
Therefore impatience, in whatever form, is to be avoided. It
makes one lose one's equilibrium, and when that is lost, nothing
can be accomplished. There is no gain to be had from impatience;
yet patience does not necessarily mean sloth, negligence, or
laziness.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan, from Mastery Through Accomplishment,
posted to AlongTheWay
To me in this world there are only two types of beings: my
benefactors of love and my benefactors of patience.
The majority are my benefactors of love; they are very kind and
help me. Some try to cause harm and create obstacles; these are
my benefactors of patience.
The kindness of each benefactor is equal, and thus my love for
them is equal.
Maybe my benefactors of patience are even more kind to me, as
they allow me to practice the perfection of patience. I am thus
very grateful to all those who do not like me and make me tame my
anger. At the same time I feel great compassion for their sorrow,
but as they allow me to practice patience and my anger and
jealousy to gradually diminish, they are my teachers.
Thus, in the end, when I attain enlightenment and all my anger
and jealousy are no more, it is due to their kindness. For this
reason I love them greatly.
- Garchen Rinpoche who spent 20 years in Chinese prison, coming
out loving his captors who had tortured him, most likely because
he considered them his benefactors of patience. And what a
loving, kind teacher he is. Remarkable. A living Bodhisattva. Be
sure to see him if he vists your area. His website is http://www.garchen.net
Posted to DailyDharma
Stand by your friend in his time of need, like the reed on the
bank of the river. When a man is sinking in the water and catches
hold of a reed, it will save him if it is strong; and if not, it
will sink along with him.
- posted to SufiMystic
A Marriage
You are holding up a ceiling
with both arms. It is heavy,
but you must hold it up, or else
it will fall down on you. Your arms
are tired, terribly tired,
and, as the day goes on, it feels
as if either your arms or the ceiling
will soon collapse.
But then,
unexpectedly,
something wonderful happens:
Someone,
a man or a woman,
walks into the room
and holds their arms up
to the ceiling beside you.
So you finally get
to take down your arms.
You feel the relief of respite,
the blood flowing back
to your fingers and arms.
And when your partner's arms tire,
you hold up your own
to relieve him again.
And it can go on like this
for many years
without the house falling.
Michael Blumenthal, posted to The_Now2
Love and concern for all are not things some of us are born with
and others are not. Rather, they are results of what we do with
our minds: We can choose to transform our minds so that they
embody love, or we can allow them to develop habits and false
concepts of separation.
- Sharon Salzberg, from: Loving-Kindness - The Revolutionary
Art of Happiness, posted to SufiMystic