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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4437, Sunday, November 27, 2011
Creation is constant movement, eternal newness and absolute
freshness. It never repeats itself, it is never static and it is
never caught in the trap of time and space.
The individual mind, no matter how cultured, has no access to the
phenomenon of creation and cannot understand it, because the mind
is always old and outdated. Each movement of this particular mind
separates and limits. Thus, with such a mind, we will never, in
any circumstances, be able to discover the mysteries of the
movement of creation.
Therefore, this ordinary mind must be silent! But how can we make
it become silent? Only in one way: when we encounter it simply
and directly, with the flame of Attention, without having any
motives or ideals to accomplish.
If the meeting happens in the right way, the mind becomes quiet -
it becomes completely silent - and in that moment our whole being
is detached from the known. From then on, the vessel of
consciousness, thus emptied, is able to encompass and understand
the newness brought forth by the movement of life.
Therefore, a new mind, without limits and without knowledge; in
its stillness, it is creative and through it, the person is
always new and active. Such a mind, in a state of Pure
Consciousness, creates radical changes in the structure of the
ordinary man by its simple presence.
- Ilie Cioara
Spacious Vitality
There is within each of us
a spacious vitality,
an innate Awareness,
a patient presence
inviting us into
a larger experience
of who and what we really are.
It is willing to wait
as long as is necessary
for us to exhaust ourselves with all our searching -
at which point, we will finally let go of and release
all that we have imagined ourselves to be,
finally discovering
who and what we have been all along.
- Metta Zetty
poor little story!" If the story keeps coming back, it means
it's desperate for a little loving attention.
If you are always going, "Oh, it's just story," of
course it's going to renew its effort: "No, I'm not!"
If a certain situation continues to arise, just let it sit with
you. See it as your devotee. Grant it the compassion to be able
to sit with you. Say, "Yes, you are welcome here." Even
story. In the beginning it's good to get firm with stories,
because there are way too many of them. But it's like Reader's
Digest; you have them condensed down to the top five issues,
right?
When you're feeling strong, or if you have a friend to sit with,
just sit in the silence until you're soothed, until the body and
brain are soothed, and then invite the story to come sit. It will
start to activate the body, and then the brain will start to
bring in strategies to fix it and try to help. So thank the
brain, and then attend to what's happening in the body. Stories
have another function, other than bothering us. They're designed
to dissolve the defenses in the body. They're like armor. So you
sit with the issue, the upset, and see where it's triggering in
the body, and then just allow awareness to move into it and
permeate the upset - like awareness has hands, and it's soothing
and loving.
What you're doing is helping the body let go of the past. One of
the ways the body creates release is by recreating something from
the past in order to pull it out of the earth of the body.
Otherwise it stays deep. This system of release is strange -
almost reptilian, it's so ancient. These bodies are from another
time. Even though you get a fresh, new body every time, a lot of
the defenses are recreated through thought. That's why I say
bring the story here. There's no lack of brilliance in the design
of either the body or the way it lets go, or even that this world
is so harsh. Robert Adams used to call this the remedial planet,
because when you really want freedom, this is where you come.
It's sweet: the body asks for a blessing through its upset, its
agitation. It's invoking the Beloved, awareness-consciousness:
"Please, master, come here. Please heal me." And if
it's really frantic, then it will be sending out distress signals
all the time. So it has another function: to awaken the Beloved.
It awakens the satguru through its distress.
Ramana used to say, "I would follow a devotee into hell if
need be." So when hell or agitation arises in the body, it's
luring the satguru out of the heart. Everything is an invitation
for the Buddha to awaken and bring peace, even to the body. It
calls for the laying on of hands, the welcoming and soothing.
Even doubt is asking for your love. Doubt is talking to you,
saying, "Master, is this true?"
When you see your body and thought as your devotees, you have a
completely different relationship with them. Where else are they
going to go for truth?
- Pamela Wilson
The Silence Afterwards
Try to be done now
with deliberately provocative actions and sales statistics,
brunches and gas ovens,
be done with fashion shows and horoscopes,
military parades, architectural contests, and the rows of triple
traffic lights.
Come through all that and be through
with getting ready for parties and eight possibilities
of winning on the numbers,
cost of living indexes and stock market analyses,
because it is too late,
it is way too late,
get through with and come home
to the silence afterwards
that meets you like warm blood hitting your forehead
and like thunder on the way
and the sound of great clocks striking
that make the eardrums quiver,
because words don't exist any longer,
there are no more words,
from now on all talk will take place
with the voices stones and trees have.
The silence that lives in the grass
on the underside of every blade
and in the blue spaces between the stones.
The silence
that follows shots and birdsong.
The silence
that pulls a blanket over the dead body
and waits in the stairs until everyone is gone.
The silence
that lies like a small bird between your hands,
the only friend you have.
- Rolf Jacobsen
In Silence
Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your
name. Listen
to the living walls.
Who are you? Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?
Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.
Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.
O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you
speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.
I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?
- Thomas Merton