Those who wish to embody the Tao

should embrace all things. To embrace
all things means first that one holds
no anger or resistance toward any
idea or thing, living or dead, formed
or formless. Acceptance is the very
essence of the Tao. To embrace all
things means also that one rids oneself
of any concept of separation; male
and female, self and other, life and
death. Division is contrary to the
nature of the Tao. Foregoing
antagonism and separation, one
enters in the harmonious oneness
of all things.

Lao Tzu, from Hua Hu Ching,
translated by Brian Walker

Click to enlarge.





















The important thing is not to think much,
but to love much;
and so, do that which best stirs you to love.

Saint Teresa of Avila

You stop to point to the moon in the sky,

but the finger's blind unless the moon is shining.

One moon, one careless finger pointing --
are these two things or one?

The question is a pointer guiding
a novice from ignorance thick as fog.

Look deeper. The mystery calls and calls:
No moon, no finger -- nothing there at all.

By Ryokan
(1758 - 1831)

The Self

"Being the source of both, the self is beyond both knowledge and power. The observable is in the mind. The nature of the self is pure awareness, pure witnessing, unaffected by the presence or absence of knowledge or liking. Have your being outside this body of birth and death and all your problems will be solved. They exist because you believe yourself born to die. Undeceive yourself and be free. You are not a person."

~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Watching a Documentary

Watching a Documentary about Polar Bears

Trying to Survive on the Melting Ice Floes

That God had a plan, I do not doubt.

But what if His plan was, that we would do better?
~Mary Oliver

John Donne

BATTER my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,'and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt towne, to'another due,	5
Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue.
Yet dearely'I love you,'and would be loved faine,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie:	10
Divorce mee,'untie, or breake that knot againe;
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you'enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.

The Secret of Freedom

Under the right circumstances, it is not difficult to have a powerful experience of meditation, to taste the indescribable peace, bliss, rapture, and stillness of the Ground of Being-like a still forest pool, in which you sink ever more deeply, where your mind is not moving at all. It is very important to taste the inherent liberation of your own infinite depth, but that kind of experience in and of itself will not necessarily teach you how to have a liberated relationship to the chaos of your own mind and emotions. Sinking to the depths of your own self is always profoundly inspiring, but it's not enough. It is equally important to know how to stay on the surface when a storm is raging and have no relationship to the chaos. And that is what the deliberate practice of meditation is all about. For most of us, learning to do that is ultimately a source of greater confidence and soul strength than the spontaneous experience of infinite depth. And in fact, from an absolute or nondual perspective, being at the surface is no different from being at the very bottom of the pool. Even if it doesn't necessarily feel that way, in time you will come to understand that it is the same. That is the secret of freedom.

Andrew Cohen

Reality

Any reality that can be conceived by an individual entity is based on a belief or personal absoluteness in temporality which is a complete misapprehension in itself. The individual human just cannot accept the fact that his individuality and, more importantly, his individual volition or free-will is nothing more than an illusion.

There is a single, immanent Reality which is at once the source, the substratum and the true nature of everything that is manifested as the universe. This indivisible Reality is directly experienced by every sentient being as the subjective awareness of self, the consciousness of existing and being present.
Ramesh S. Balsekar

Just for sheer delight . . .

From . . .
Faustus, M.D. The Search for Love in Manhattan

March 29, 2008

From a conversation E.S. and I had earlier today in the kitchen.

E.S.: Hey, those cookies are mine.
FAUSTUS: Yes, but your love for me makes them mine too.
E.S.: ...
FAUSTUS: It's the transitive property of love.
E.S.: Give them to me right now.

" I Am An Illusion"

Lyrics

by Rob Thomas . . .

Take this confusion
Runnin' round my head
Take back my unkind words
Lay that weight on me instead
I'm the place where everything turns sour
Where you gonna run to now

Wrong step
We got off track
We need someone to help us get back now
Worn thin
Awful state I was in
I believe I was losing me now I'm found
I am found

But I'm not real anymore
I am an illusion

I am the damage
I am the relief
Sometimes I'm people
I never hoped that I would be
If I take in whatever they turn out
What's that gonna make me now
Don't you understand

I'm not real anymore
I am an illusion

Wrong step
We got off track
We need someone to help us get back now
Worn thin
Awful state I was in
I believe they were fooling me
Now I'm down
I am down

But I'm not real anymore
I am an illusion

Hear it here . . . .

chinese

One of my chinese students in China give me a Christmas card at Christmas past. On one side she had written these words presumably copied from some text. I just wondered if you had heard these words before or thought they might be of interest/relevance. (Strange christmas card verse I thought )

"Happiness is accompanied by sorrow and it would turn sunny after rain as well. If rain remains after rain and sorrow remains after sorrow, please take these farewells easy and turn to smilingly look for yourself who is never to appear."
~Anonymous
From "Non-Duality Highlights" Jerry Katz, Editor

The Clash

"The clash between science and religion has not shown that religion is false and science is true. It has shown that all systems of definition are relative to various purposes, and that none of them actually 'grasps' reality ... All the various definitions of the universe have had ulterior motives, being concerned with the future rather than the present. Religion wants to assure the future beyond death, and science wants to assure it until death, and to postpone death. But tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present, since it is in the present and only in the present that you live.

There is no other reality than present reality, so that, even if one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly." ~Alan Watts "The Wisdom of Insecurity".
Thanks to "The Daily Dish"

Take The Test

Our imperfect perception of the manifested world in terms of
measurement, diversification and classification is the veil that
maintains our commitment to illusion.
~Ramesh S. Balsekar

Poem by Frank O'Hara

Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up

Spring: 3/19/08 11:49 PM

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
, has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

beauty .how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
thou answerest

them only with

spring)


E.E. Cummings

Irish Day "Beannacht "

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
John O'Donohue
(1954 - 2008)

An All-Consuming Care

In Evolutionary Enlightenment, we begin to understand that who and what we all are, at every level of existence, is part and parcel of a vast, cosmic process—a process that began 14 billion years ago when something burst out of nothing, and is constantly developing and ever-unfolding in every moment. And our own personal salvation is found when we reach that point where we begin to care more about the evolution of that process than we do about our own liberation, our own happiness, or even our own enlightenment. When we begin to care about something that is so much deeper and higher and more important than ourselves, we find ourselves remarkably and quite spontaneously less preoccupied with and burdened by our personal fears and desires. This is not because those fears and desires have necessarily gone away, but because something more important has entered into the very center of our being, and our heart has become consumed with that. In this way, personal liberation becomes no longer the goal of our spiritual search, but merely a spontaneous byproduct of our passionate care for the unmanifest potential of the next moment.

Andrew Cohen

Hallelujah

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

There was a time you let me know
What's real and going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen

Bring Me Only This

Life packs each vessel with song
until it overflows
then scoops it out like a melon,
spoon by sharp spoon
loss by loss
until just the rind is left
translucent,
to shape the aching hollow
through which sunlight pours.
But the hunger of absence
is wrapped around a seed
that cannot be destroyed.
When loss leaves you empty
sing into the void;
let the soft, moist breath of your moan
caress the seed. Water it
with attention until it reveals itself.
What you find there
at the heart of emptiness
born of loss
cup it tenderly.
Bring it to me.
Bring me only this.

- John Mizelle

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