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Friday, October 12

ERIC ASHFORD

The Way opens up when it seems the most narrow.
Just as a the glooming forest presses and hems most
thickly at the edge of a sunlit glade before it
opens to the light. If the path seems suddenly
impenetrable, know that this is the herald of an
imminent breakthrough.

You have a relentless friend. A watchful angel of
the soul that has been appointed the business of
undoing all your business. When the view becomes
too obscure, he will tear down those structures of
the mind that hold you hostage to assumption. He
has no interest in your beliefs, nor does he
sympathize with your endless intellectual
pretences. He will strike you dumb if you try to
talk your way to God. It is his compassion to crack
your heart open, when the fabrications of conceit
encompass your horizon. Put your trust in his hard
mercy, he knows the way.

Be guided by your basic instinct, to survive the
contrivances of a false mortality. Follow the scent
of the divine through your self concealment.
Yesterday you were a somebody. You arose, and
somebody brushed their teeth, thought their idle
thoughts, and went out into a world to be a
something. Do not make that mistake to day. Keep
watching the one who lives this life for you, and
stay alert for signs of a real life.

Love opens. It is the space you allow to be in the
architecture of this world. It is the essence, and
that it why it can become the liberation of any
form that seems to confine you. When a point of
impasse, gets too dense, its own heaviness becomes
a prophecy of breakthrough. Wait until the pattern
of divination begins to reveal itself.

Stay hidden like an owl in your forest. When the
clouds pass from the face of the moon, there will
be a moonlit trail, that will point to the opening.
Make no effort to fly through it, for a sky door
will fly open in the heart. You will have come
through to a new dawning, with a password that love
alone discloses. Another heavy star will have
transfigured to original radiance to light your
way.

Love is always with child,
ever expectant.
Love gives of itself
that a cosmic child be reborn
in the breath of its spirit.
Salvation becomes each moment
this eternal child is awakened.

___________________________________________________________________

MICHAEL READ

VOICE

Spontaneaous movement - a twitch, a jerk, flexive
reaction unbidden - a surprise A moment without
thought - yellow is only yellow and blue is blue -
lively in the light

A child cries compassion comes unbidden - such a
tug on the heart - hand held out Laughter a howl of
delight - kids underfoot - a smiling dance

Storm fed lightening crashing over the valley -
mercy isn't always kind - fiery fingers pointing
Charged beyond love - laughing - shifted over again


Ah!

______________________________________________________________________

GLORIA LEE CONTRIBUTES:
submitted by Joseph Riley to the Hafiz List

I WISH I COULD SPEAK LIKE MUSIC

I wish I could speak like music.

I wish I could put the swaying splendor Of the
fields into words

So that you could hold Truth Against your body And
dance.

I am trying the best I can With this crude brush,
the tongue,

To cover you with light.

I wish I could speak like divine music.

I want to give you the sublime rhythms Of this
earth and the sky’s limbs

As they joyously spin and surrender, Surrender
Against God’s luminous breath.

Hafiz wants you to hold me Against your precious
Body

And dance, Dance.

(“The Gift” – versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

___________________________________________________________________

TONY O'CLERY

Daily Words of the Buddha
October 12, 2001


Just as a mountain of rock,
is unwavering, well-settled,
so the monk whose delusion is ended,
like a mountain, is undisturbed.

Udana III, 4

___________________________________________________________________________

IAMOM
From Live Journal

Just got off a plane an hour ago that felt like an
overcrowded public bus. I had more leg room than
usual though, which was kind of nice.

Kind of a strange ending to my trip to the head
office. Y, the president, actually came straight
out and asked me if I considered myself a salesman.
I almost laughed out loud at his question. I've
been waiting for a year for somebody to ask me
that.

I basically answered him truthfully, which was
like, "No, not in the traditional sense; not in the
way I think you perceive a salesman to be." He
acknowledged that the results I've shown in the
past 3-6 months are good, but that he still wants
more. He also gave me pretty much what I wanted,
which is free rein to sell the services offered by
the production team and not to worry any longer
about product sales per se. So once again, the
outcome was basically quite positive in the short
term, and I get to continue doing what I want to
do.

Ahh, whatever. I guess these three days were a
pleasant diversion. But I remained, incessantly,
Nothingness in all corporate dealings and general
conduct in public. I was always pleased to share
more intimate interaction with those whom I cared
about personally, but I always returned to that
same funny place of ultimate limbo, or something.
It's like I return to some kind of blank void after
I talk to someone. It's not that my passion is
gone, it's more like I see through the passion. The
passion is an emotion to be observed like any
other. The witness remains passionless underneath
it all.

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