All is well

....nothing to do, nothing to be....nothing to become. What you are right now is perfection....where you are is perfect, too. There is no becoming. There is only This, now, being what is...

No need to struggle, to understand, to attain or give up.....just being what you are, now, is enough. More than enough...

You are being breathed, lived....you are Life itself. Nothing belongs to you, you are everything and there isn't anything, and that is what you are as well. All labels and definitions are not true....the truest truth is unspeakable, and you are That.

Resting and moving, knowing and not-knowing, you are beyond all dualities, even beyond your capacity to know, to see, to be. What is beyond everything known and unknown? You are That.

And it's so mind-blowingly simple....always, always, always here...This....YOU....all endeavor, all effort, all need, all want - where are they now?

- Mary McGovern

Advaita Troubadour

Desperate for changing
Starving for truth
I'm closer to where I started
Chasing after you
I'm falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you

Forgetting all I'm lacking
Completely incomplete
I'll take your invitation
You take all of me now...


I'm falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you
I'm living for the only thing I know
I'm running and not quite sure where to go
And I don't know what I'm diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with you

There's nothing else to lose
There's nothing else to find
There's nothing in the world
That can change my mind
There is nothing else
There is nothing else
There is nothing else

Desperate for changing
Starving for truth
I'm closer to where I started
Chasing after you....

I'm falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you
I'm living for the only thing I know
I'm running and not quite sure where to go
And I don't know what I'm diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with you

Just hanging by a moment (here with you)
Hanging by a moment (here with you)
Hanging by a moment here with you

Jason Wade

To Hear the Falling World

Only if I move my arm a certain way,
it comes back.
Or the way the light bends in the trees
this time of year,
so a scrap of sorrow, like a bird, lights on the heart.
I carry this in my body, seed
in an unswept corner, husk-encowled and seeming safe.
But they guard me, these small pains,
from growing sure
of myself and perhaps forgetting.

~ Jane Hirshfield ~

Path to Nowhere

Self-inquiry is not a path that leads you somewhere. It is the path that stops you in your tracks so that you can discover directly, for yourself, who you are. The power of stopping is indescribable. In the moment of stopping, there is no concept of anything, yet there is consciousness. Consciousness without concept is naturally and inherently free. In an instant, it is self-evident. We are so trained to follow our concepts that we even turn consciousness itself into a concept. In the timeless instant of recognizing that consciousness exists without any need of concept, identification with concept falls away. This is an essential experience. What follows is the deepening recognition that consciousness is free regardless of concept. This is true freedom.

- Gangaji, from: The Diamond in Your Pocket

Go inside a stone
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger’s tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.

From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.

I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill—
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.

~ Charles Simic ~

(The Voice at 3 A.M.)

Clear and Simple

Ordinary people look to their surroundings, while followers of the Way look to Mind, but the true Dharma is to forget them both.

The former is easy enough, the latter very difficult.

Men are afraid to forget their minds, fearing to fall through the Void [Chaos] with nothing to stay their fall. They do not know that the Void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma."

— Huang Po

Bliss is generated

by coming into the natural state.

Just being what is truly found at the core of our being
generates compassion.From this perspective,
awakening is simply freedom from past patterns
of blocking Reality -- or, an experiential recognition
of the relativity of all things.

This does *not* mean, however, that relative things disappear,
or even that they are suddenly and mysteriously transformed.

All the teachers and buddhas and sages who
said, "IT is here and now" really weren't kidding! IT *is*
here and now, with things exactly as they are! And, this
includes *all* of who we are within the present moment --
including all the "putzy" and idiosyncratic aspects of
being human.

This is what is so amazing and heartening and liberating for
each of us, i.e., the recognition that we don't need to do
or fix *anything* in order to "achieve" Buddha-hood! Our
innate nature -- this state of exquisitely pure, awakened
and naked Awareness -- is already inherent within our
ordinary, immediate experience.

Perhaps the best reminder of this is the clear insight of
Garab Dorje, the first Dzogchen master:

Directly discover your state.
Don't remain in doubt.
Gain confidence in self-liberation.

The moment of awakening may be marked
by an outburst of laughter,
but this is not the laughter of someone
who has won the lottery or some kind of victory.
It is the laughter of one who,
after searching for something for a long time,
suddenly finds it in the pocket of his coat.

-Thich Nhat Hanh
Zen Keys

Psalm 121

I look deep into my heart,
to the core where wisdom arises.
Wisdom comes from the Unnamable
and unifies heaven and earth.
The Unnamable is always with you,
shining from the depths of your heart.
His peace will keep you untroubled
even in the greatest pain.
When you find him present within you,
you find truth at every moment.
He will guard you from all wrongdoing;
he will guide your feet on his path.
He will temper your youth with patience;
he will crown your old age with fulfillment.
And dying, you will leave your body
as effortlessly as a sigh.

(A Book of Psalms, trans. and adapted by Stephen Mitchell)

Izzy: April 23, 1993 - January 4, 2008

Those in line
watching the wind
sweep the earth
~Ken Jones

Devotion

"The experience of not forgetting consciousness alone is the state of devotion which is the relationship of unfading real love, because the real knowledge of Self, which shines as the undivided supreme bliss itself, surges up as the nature of love. Love itself is the actual form of God. That is pure bliss. Call it pure bliss, God, Self, or what you will. That is devotion, that is realization and that is everything." Sri Ramana

First Post of the New Year

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This is a radical invitation: Do not try to reach any state of awareness, whether focused or diffused, and do not try to keep any state away. Rather, recognize what is always present. The wonderful result of this recognition is that objective states become clearer, subjective states become softer, and peace is found in all states.

While it is useful to develop your mind, your body, and your work, developing consciousness is a huge mistake. Development happens only because consciousness is already here. If your attention is on "developing" rather than on recognizing this, you go in a circle, chasing your tail and searching for what is still here.

In a moment of truth-telling you can recognize for yourself, "Oh, I picked up the search again". You can deny that you have picked up the search, you can justify picking up the search, or you can stop.

In that moment, you can turn your attention to the silence at the core of whatever is occurring.
- Gangaji, from The Diamond In Your Pocket