Opening Prayer 9/7/08
Divine Heart
Make room in our hearts for your mystery
Filled with our own devices we cannot feel you
Our hearts and minds know too many boundaries
Your heart is pure mystery
Love beyond reason
Beauty beyond imagination
Joy beyond experience
Open our hearts to yours
Amen
(Chandogya Upanishad, Hindu Scriptures)
In the beginning there was Existence, One only, without a second. Some say that in the beginning there was non-existence only, and that out of that the universe was born. But how could such a thing be? How could existence be born of non-existence? No, my son, in the beginning there was Existence alone--One only, without a second. Brahman, the One, thought to himself: Let me be many, let me grow forth. Thus out of himself he projected the universe; and having projected out of himself the universe, he entered into every being. All that is has its self in him alone. Of all things Brahman is the subtle essence. Brahman is the truth. Brahman is the Self. And that, Svetaketu, THAT ART THOU.
Edwina Gately (11th November, 1982)
It is good to have a sense for what is going on in the periphery of church and society, if I am going to ever understand what this ministry is about… It is important to be aware of how people are "unacceptable" and rejected. Perhaps it is those who consider themselves the norm, who are in fact the periphery as far as God is concerned? What is we turned it all upside down and were able to see with God's eyes - the rejected and the oppressed are ourselves in our lack of charity and our prejudice? So, I ask myself, "Who is on the periphery? What is the treasure? Who are the chosen people?
(Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, October 27, 1921)
What .. . . is Truth? A difficult question; but I have solved it for myself by saying that it is what the voice within tells you. How then, you ask, different people think of different and contrary truths? Well, seeing that the human mind works through innumerable media and that the evolution of the human mind is not the same for all, it follows that what may be truth for one may be untruth for another, and hence those who have made these experiments have come to the conclusion that there are certain conditions to be observed in making those experiments. . .It is because we have at the present moment everybody claiming the right of conscience without going through any discipline whatsoever that there is so much untruth being delivered to a bewildered world. All that I can in true humility present to you is that Truth is not to be found by anybody who has not got an abundant sense of humility. If you would swim on the bosom of the ocean of Truth you must reduce yourself to zero.
We look with uncertainty
Beyond old choices
For clear-cut answers
To a softer, more permeable aliveness
Which is every moment
At the brink of death;
For something new is being born in us
If we but let it.
We stand at a new doorway,
Awaiting that which comes …
Daring to be human creatures.
Vulnerable to the beauty of existence.
Learning to love
- Anne Hillman
(Thich Nhat Hahn--Vietnamese Buddhist Monk)
Life has left her footprints on my forehead, but I have become a child again this morning.
The smile seen through leaves and flowers is back to smooth away the wrinkles as the rain wipes away footprints on the beach.
Again, a cycle of birth and death begins. I walk firmly. I walk on thorns, but firmly, as among flowers. I keep my head high. Rhymes bloom among the sounds of bombs and mortars. The tears I shed yesterday have become rain.
Childhood, O my birthland is calling me, and the rain melts my despair. I am still here alive, able to smile quietly, the sweet fruit brought forth by the tree of suffering. Carrying the dead body of my brother, I go across the rice field in the darkness.
Earth will keep you tight within her arms, dear one, so that tomorrow, you will be transformed into flowers, this flower smiling quietly in the morning field. This moment you will weep no more, dear one, we have gone through too deep a night.
This morning, yes, this morning, I kneel down on the green grass and I notice your presence. O, flowers, that speak to me in silence, the message of love and understanding has indeed come.
On the Pulse of Morning
(Maya Angelou)
Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
It says, come, rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made, proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,
Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the rock were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet know you still
Knew nothing.
The River sang and sings on.
A butterfly comes and stays on a leaf –
a leaf much warmed by the sun –
and shuts his wings.
In a minute he opens them, shuts them again,
half wheels around, and by and by –
just when he chooses and not before – floats away.
The flowers open, and remain open for hours, to the sun.
Hastelessness is the only word one can make up to describe it;
there is much rest, but no haste.
Each moment is so full of life
that it seems so long
and so sufficient in itself.
- Richard Jefferies
Chandogya Upanishad
As the rivers flowing east and west
Merge in the sea and become one with it,
Forgetting they were ever separate rivers,
So do all creatures lose their separateness
When they merge at last into pure Being.
9-14-08
I will give you a talisman ...
Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him.
Mahatma Gandhi
Blessed are ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God
Luke 6:21– King James version
How blest are those that know their needs of God; the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Matthew 5:2
The poor in spirit go out of themselves and all creatures: they are nothing, they have nothing, they do nothing, and these poor are not save that by grace they are God with God: which they are not aware of.
Meister Eckhardt
Ripe are you who feel your personnel strength drained away,
your real power lies in the reign of Unity.
In tune with the cosmos are you who feel completely dissolved,
your new form appears by the vision-power of the One.
Suited for the divine purpose are you who are exhausted,
your power to stand then arises from the First Cause.
In the right time and place are you whose sense of Self becomes less,
to you belongs the integrity of the divine “I Can!”
Blessed are you who hold onto very little,
yours is the wealth and the rule of your original divine image.
From the Aramaic translated by Neil Douglas-Klotz
“… those who are willing to embark on a path and accept the hardships and the pain involved in it will reap the rewards of their commitment. When we speak of a kind of tolerance that demands you accept the fact of hardships, pain, and suffering, we should not have the erroneous notion that these spiritual teachings state that suffering is beautiful and that suffering is what we must seek. Needless to say I do not subscribe to such a view. Personally I believe that the purpose our existence is to seek happiness, to seek a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. However since we do experience hardships, pain, and suffering, it is crucial that we develop an outlook toward them that allows us to deal realistically with these trials of life so that we gain some benefit from them.
Dalai Lama on The Beatitudes from The Good Heart
Mulla Nasrudin was outside on his hands and knees looking under a lantern when his friend came up. “What are you doing?” the friend asked. “I’m looking for the key, I’ve lost it.” So his friend got down on his hands and knees and they both searched for a long time in the dirt beneath the lantern. Finding nothing, the friend finally asks, “Where did you lose it?” Nasrudin replies, “I lost it in the house, but there is more light out here.”
I have no parents
I make the heaven and earth my parents
I have no home
I make awareness my home.
I have no life and death
I make the tides of breathing my life and death.
I have no divine powers
I make honesty my divine power.
I have no means
I make understanding my means.
I have no secrets
I make my character my secret.
I have no body
I make endurance my body.
I have no eyes
I make the flash of lightening my eyes.
I have no ears
I make sensibility my ears
I have no limbs
I make promptess my limbs
I have no miracles
I make right action my miracle
I have no principles
I make adaptability to all circumstances my principles.
I have no tactics
I make emptiness and fullness my tactics.
I have no talent
I make ready wit my talent.
I have no friends
I make my mind my friend.
I have no enemy
I make carelessness my enemy.
I have no armor
I make benevolence and righteousness my armor.
I have no castle
I make immovable mind my castle
I have no sward
I make absence of self my sword.
- Samurai song (15th cen.)
Let Your God Love You
Be silent.
Be still
Alone. Empty
Before your God
Say nothing.
Ask nothing.
Be silent.
Be still
Let your God
Look upon you.
That is all.
God knows
And understands.
God loves you with
An enormous love.
Wanting only to
Look upon you
With Love.
Quiet
Still
Be.
Let your God--
Love you.
Divine Heart
Make room in our heart for your mystery
Filled with our own devices we cannot feel you
Our hearts and minds know too many boundaries
Your heart is pure mystery
Love beyond reason
Beauty beyond imagination
Joy beyond experience
Open our hearts to yours
Amen
9-21-08
Certainty undermines one’s powers and turns happiness
into a long shot. Certainty confines.
Dears, there is nothing in your life that will not
change – especially all your ideas of God.
Look what the insanity of righteous knowledge can do:
crusade and maim thousands
in wanting to convert that which
is already gold
into gold.
Certainty can become an illness that creates hate and greed.
God once said to Tuka,
“Even if I am ever changing –
I am ever beyond
Myself,
what I may have once put my seal upon,
may no longer be
the greatest
Truth.”
Tulkaram 17th cen.
Psuedo-Dionysius - anonymous 6th cen. Monk points out two classical Christian states of contemplative consciousness in describing how the soul comes into union with the Divine Spirit: via Positiva and Via Negativa
“…we ascend to God, Dionysius wrote, through praising the ‘affirmative theology’ [via positiva] and the conceptual names, symbols, images, activities and emotions of God. And yet, as we rise from the things of this world up to God, we leave behind language and names because everything we know about God pales in comparison to the higher and more holy negation, [via negativa] the pathless path of contemplating God in its mode of nothingness. …
Apophatic discourse from the Greek word apophasis (to unsay or speak-away) is a language of negation based on the dilemma posed by attempting to name the transcendent. It is usually found paired with its opposite term kataphasis (to say, speak-with). If kataphasis expresses divine word, apophasis is divine silence. Leaving behind our ideas of God, the more the soul climbs toward God the more language falters [until one turns silent completely since it will finally be at one with that which is indescribable.] The result is a language of paradox, and the denial of names. Only a language that continually erases itself can capture the unknown divinity.
[In spiritual maturity] the journey of faith moves away from known into unknown, from belief into doubt, and from intellect into mysticism. The shift from affirmation to negation involves the whole person and everything that one has – up until now – accepted as true or real about self, God, or the world. …
Mystics from traditions as different in their metaphysical orientations as Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, etc. tell us that it is in this radical ambiguity – or nothingness- of being that we are open to Reality in itself. As the fuel of self-emptying, negation takes apart all that is constructed, all that is immediately present, dynamic, or real. It functions as a disruptive element in the spiritual life, designed to break down its linguistic coherence and structural logic, and thereby to shock the person outside conventional notions of reality into another plane of existence.”
Beverly Lanzetta – Radical Wisdom
Doesn’t this sound like Greg Bradden? Like physics today that tells us that reality is not what we perceive it to be? No wonder the way to make God laugh is to tell Her or Him your plans!
An Insidious Idol
Meister Eckhardt 14th cen
Commerce is supported by keeping the individual at odds
with himself and others, by making us want more than we need, and
offering credit to buy what refined senses do not want.
The masses become shackled; I see how their eyes weep
and are desperate – of course they feel desperate - for something,
for some remedy
that a poor soul then feels needs
to be bought.
I find nothing more offensive than a god who could condemn human instincts in us that time, in all its wonder
have made perfect.
I find nothing more destructive to the well-being of life
than to support a god that makes you feel unworthy and in debt to it.
I imagine erecting churches to such a strange god will assure
endless wars that commerce loves.
A god that could frighten is not a god – but an insidious idol
and weapon in the hands of
the insane.
A god who talks of sin is worshipped by the infirm;
I was once spiritually ill – we all pass through that –
but one day the intelligence in my soul
cured
me.
“… The corollary to the negation of concepts is the unsaying, undoing, and unwilling of the ‘lower self’ – that entity defined by the world of attraction, ego, demand, and economy – to find the one thing necessary, the true self.
Beverly Lanzetta – Radical Wisdom
I was meditating with my cat the other day
and all of a sudden she shouted,
“What happened?”
I knew what she meant, but encouraged
her to say more – feeling that if she got it all out on the table
she would sleep better that night.
So I responded, “Tell me more dear.”
and she soulfully meowed,
“Well I was mingled with the sky.
I was comets whizzing here and there. I was suns in heat, hell – I was galaxies. But now look - I am
landlocked in fur.”
To this I said, “I know exactly what
you mean.”
What to say about conversations
between
mystics?
Tulkaram 17th cen.
The mountains, I become a part of it . . .
The herbs, the fir tree, I become a part of it
The morning mists, the clouds, the gathering waters,
I become a part of it
The wilderness, the dew drops the pollen
I become a part of it.
Navajo chant
I am the one whose praise echoes on high
I adorn the earth
I am the breeze that nutures all things green.
I encourage blossoms to flourish with ripening fruits
I am led by the spirit to feed the purest streams
I am the rain coming from the dew
that causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life.
I am the yearning for good.
Hildegard of Bingen
9-28-08
During the last decade of his life, Mr. Derrida … understood that religion is impossible without uncertainty. Whether conceived of as Yahweh, as the father of Jesus Christ, or as Allah, God can never be fully known or adequately represented by imperfect human beings.
And yet, we live in an age when major conflicts are shaped by people who claim to know, for certain, that God is on their side. Mr. Derrida reminded us that religion does not always give clear meaning, purpose and certainty by providing secure foundations. To the contrary, the great religious traditions are profoundly disturbing because they all call certainty and security into question. Belief not tempered by doubt poses a mortal danger.
As the process of globalization draws us ever closer in networks of communication and exchange, there is an understandable longing for simplicity, clarity and certainty. This desire is responsible, in large measure, for the rise of cultural conservatism and religious fundamentalism - in this country and around the world. True believers of every stripe - Muslim, Jewish and Christian - cling to beliefs that, Mr. Derrida warns, threaten to tear apart our world.
Fortunately, he also taught us that the alternative to blind belief is not simply unbelief but a different kind of belief - one that embraces uncertainty and enables us to respect others whom we do not understand. In a complex world, wisdom is knowing what we don't know so that we can keep the future open.
By MARK C. TAYLOR
Birds
don’t brag about flying
the way we
do.
They don’t write books about it and then give
workshops,
they don’t take on disciples and spoil
their own air
time.
Who could dance and achieve
liftoff with a bunch of
whackos tugging
on you?
Tulkaram
Selections from Who Can Be Found Like Him?
By Matt Cavagnetto
Who does not fear the oncoming turmoil, even when the thunder is straining at its cloudy leash,
Or the wolves of the back country, rutting and fierce,
Or when the ibis and the crocodile present their dreadful questions;
Or when the darkness seeps from the very roof of the sky, down through the rafters of the trees;
Or when the eerie and electric cyclone threatens the calm Hesperidins, with its noise all blowing and fierce;
Yes, even though the very tumult of the sky be filled with mortal fear;
This man will not shake, nor blanch, nor turn tail and escape to dull safety;
But will dwell all content in uncertainty, knowing as he does that chaos is sacred,
That chaos is the counterpoint of order,
That order is the province of God and God alone,
That no one is perfect,
That to dwell in uncertainty is the province of those confused mortals, who live their lives all helter-skelter.
Yes, the gods alone are the ones who dwell in happy unity, and see in us only a scattered diversion.
Therefore be happy in confusion I say,
Be happy in uncertainty,
Be happy in doubt.
Be happy when even the rocks break in two,
Be happy when there are knocks on your door,
Be happy when you are full of mud,
Be happy when you are full of water.
Be happy when you are full of sunlight,
Be happy when you are full of champagne.
Be happy when you dive like a swan into nakedness.
Be happy when you are all alone in a dark room,
So that the walls of that room rush in on you, and back out again;
Be happy when the candles etch their vibrations on the walls,
Be happy when the grass pushes its wet face against yours.
Be happy when you draw a circle in the sand,
Be happy when you make an eye out of your two arms,
Be happy when you have to wait thirty thousand years to be delivered out of this land.
Be happy when the horses are all in promenade,
Be happy when the sounds of the air are all silver and rush in upon your ear,
Be happy when the water nymphs answer no questions, but only ask;
Be happy when the clouds of the sky turn quickly from light to dark, so that your very essence seems to be in peril;
(For who can fear destruction that nightly dissolves themselves in love?)
Be happy when you rush down the road to your dark appointment.
Be happy when you understand nothing.
Be happy when others try to explain that which can never be truly explained.
And be happy when the beasts of the field are curled up at your feet,
Be happy when your slumbering child breaks the fever that has weighed upon its brow,
When you contemplate the liquid iron of the sea,
When you cross the land on your own two feet,
When you drink the cup of destiny that no one can possibly empty,
Be happy when you see the fifty million forms that inspiration can take in one single moment.
Be happy when you are not happy,
And you will be that singular someone, an avatar of nature and calm as a water buffalo to all onlookers--Let the birds graze on your back.
In the end, religion collapses back into mysticism as it recognizes that after we have said all we can say about God, we are still surrounded by an impenetrable silence. Thomas Aquinas devoted his most rigorous thinking to trying to establish how we could speak about God based on analogies taken from human experiences.But after our minds have erected the ladder of analogy as high as possible toward God, he concludes, "we remained joined to Him as to One Unknown." Augustine, after writing endless words trying to explain the Trinity, admitted in the end, "I only write in order not to be silent."Mysticism counsels us to follow the via negativa, to honor the infinite distance that separate the finite and the infinite, to live within "the clouds of the unknowing" (Jacob Boehme), to respect the silence of the Godhead where nobody is at home (Meister Eckhart), to recognize the hiddenness of God (Martin Luther's "deus absconditus"), to understand that we can only speak about God in symbolic, parabolic and poetic way.We are caught in a paradox called human condition.
mysticsaint – blog
Eat dessert first. Life is uncertain
If you have the choice of the divine knowing or the divine unknowing, take the divine unknowing.As soon as you know, you have to take responsibility for all the actions. As soon as you don’t know, you still are open to receive of the grace of that.– John-Roger(From: The Tao of Spirit)
Saturday, October 4, 2008
August 2008
8/10/08
"Meditation is acceptance. It is the acceptance of life within us, without us and all around us. Acceptance of life is the beginning of human satisfaction. Transformation of life is the culmination of divine satisfaction. "
- Sri Chinmoy (1)
Sri Patanjali describes “accepting pain as help for purification” as the first and most important part of the practice of yoga. This is the true practice of tapasya (austerity). Pain is our teacher, an uncomfortable cleansing process that each individual soul must go through in order to realise the Self. When we realise that pain is a part of life that cannot be avoided, we must find the courage to face it, not fear it.
Many of us began our yoga [or other spiritual] practice because of a painful experience in our past: physical, emotional, or mental. … Sometimes students look for a way to off-load the pain –something that magically eludes them of all anguish. Sometimes we do the same thing, playing the blame game, or running to our teachers or mentors expecting them to take away our suffering instantly.
We spend countless hours running unnecessary thoughts in our minds: “Why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? How could this person do this to me?” If we examine this behaviour closely and ask ourselves whether these types of thoughts actually give us an answer, we can see that they merely waste our time and energy. Regardless of how long we have been practicing yoga, all of us face pain, on different levels and with varying intensity. Accepting our experiences is our first step forward.
- We can only find relief from our grief through acceptance.
-
Mulla Nasrudin was sitting on his cot in a homeless shelter. "You know," he said to the fellow on the next cot, "when I was seventeen years old, I made up my mind that nothing was going to stop me from getting rich." "Well, how came you never got rich?" his friend asked. "OH," said Nasrudin, "BY THE TIME I WAS NINETEEN, I REALIZED IT WOULD BE EASIER TO CHANGE MY MIND."
If our habitual conditioning is to overcome our pain, we will have a tendency to feel overwhelmed when things don't go the way we wish. We may even feel a need to "beat" another's pain. We will find it difficult to connect with them just where they are. We won't be able to touch them with love because if we want anything from somebody, even for them to be out of pain, they will be an object in our mind rather than the subject our heart. If we can open to our own pain and explore our resistances and long-held aversions, there arises the possibility of touching another's pain with compassion, of meeting another as we meet ourselves with a bit more clarity and tenderness. We see in such instances how the work we do on ourselves is clearly of benefit to all sentient beings. Each person who works to open his/her heart touches the heart of us all. When we are no longer recreating the problem, we reaffirm the solution. We discover from day to day how the healing we do for ourselves is a healing for us all.
- Stephen Levine in "Healing into Life and Death"
A MONK FATHERING A CHILD?
This is a story about one of the great Tibetan kadampa masters of the 11th century, the monk Langri Tangpa who wrote the 'Eight verses of mind training',:
There was once a woman who gave birth to a baby girl. The woman had already lost one baby and was frightened that her baby girl would also die. The woman told her mother how worried she was and her mother told her that children given Geshe Langri Tangpa to be looked after would not die.
Later, when the little girl fell ill, the woman took her to see Geshe Langri Tangpa, but when she arrived she found him sitting on a throne giving a teaching to a thousand disciples. The woman began to worry that her child would die before the end of the teaching. She knew that Geshe Langri Tangpa was a Bodhisatta and would show patience, and so she walked up to the throne and in a loud, rude voice she said; 'Here, take your baby. Now you look after her!' She turned to the audience and said; 'This is the father of my child', and then turned back to Geshe Langri Tangpa and pleaded softly; 'Please don't let her die.' Geshe Langri Tangpa just nodded his head. As if he really were the father of the child, he wrapped it tenderly in his robes and continued his teaching. His disciples were very suprised and asked him; 'Are you really the father of that child?' Knowing that if he were to say no, the woman would have been thought crazy and the people would have laughed at her, Geshe Langri Tangpa said that he was. Although he was a monk, Geshe Langri Tangpa acted like a real father for the child, delighting in her and caring for her.
After some time the mother returned to see if her daughter was well. When she saw how healthy the child was she asked Geshe Langri Tangpa if she could have her back again. The Geshe then kindly returned the girl to her mother.
When his disciples understood what had happened they said; 'So you are not really the father after all!' and Geshe Langri Tangpa simply said; 'No, I am not
Withhumbleness,may I faceeveryonewith compassionWithdevotionto enlightened lifemay I abidein true compassionSo that othersmay knowtheir true Heart,may I havethe wisdomand True Knowledgeto bring out the bestin everyoneWithcompassionfor this world
with alland everyonein it,may I fightin every wayfor a better world,for the generationsto comeAcceptingany hardshipfor myself,may I abidein the Energyof the Universe,the sourceof wisdomand compassion
Empowered,may I havetrue compassionin sharingthe wisdomof life and deathwith others,bybeing presentin meditation,of any shapeor formof everyday lifeMaythis branchof Lovebeof benefit
compassion - steinar almelid
I was alone unto myself,content within the stillness of the sleeping forest,when he arose from out of the glowing embers of my fire,and filled the darkened sky as he smiled upon the night.And thus are the words he silently spokeunto my soul:
I ask not for your understanding,but only your quiet acceptance.I seek not your respect,but only the unsung song of your heart;For lonely is the flower of my souland still are the nights upon my ears.And as I stand in the silence of time,none save the mountains shall ever understand me;For they too have bled from the depthsof their rocky souls.
Excerpts from “The Prophet’s Candle” by Daniel
8/17/08
Much Ado About Nothing
Perhaps the deepest reason why we are afraid of death is because we do not know who we are. We believe in a personal, unique, and separate identity--but if we dare to examine it, we find that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop it up: our name, our "biography," our partners, family, home, job, friends, credit cards. . . It is on their fragile and transient support that we rely for our security. So when they are all taken away, will we have any idea of who we really are?Without our familiar props, we are faced with just ourselves, a person we do not know, an unnerving stranger with whom we have been living all the time but we never really wanted to meet. Isn't that why we have tried to fill every moment of time with noise and activity, however boring or trivial, to ensure that we are never left in silence with this stranger on our own? -Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
All we are dealing with wherever we live in the Universe is just different levels of energy, some of which is unmanifest at one extreme, called spirit, and some of which we find at the other extreme in a manifest form which we call matter. Because it is ALL energy and all energy obeys a few basic laws. They are called he laws of physics in science, and called spiritual law in esoterics - everything in the Universe obeys exactly the same laws. The way we see and experience them simply depends on our perspective.
What you see, depends on where you stand.
- Ra Bonewitz in "The Cosmic Crystal Spiral"
A Zen story tells of two monks who met on the road. After their initial greetings, one monk asked the other, "What are you going to do tonight, my friend?" The second monk replied, "I will meditate and pray in the temple. What are you going to do?" "I'm going to spend a night of pleasure with the ladies," he answered.
The monks then went on their own ways, and that night in the house of pleasure, the monk was quite distracted. All he could think about was his friend meditating and praying. But was the other monk at peace with himself? No, he continued to think about his friend enjoying an evening with women.
When you make a choice, accept it completely and surrender to all the experiences that go along with your decision.
- Dick Sutphen in "The Oracle Within
As we understand it, the spiritual journey is not about becomingperfect. It's about acceptance, releasing judgment, and embracingeverything in wholeness. This is a great challenge for our personality. We've grown up comparingourselves to others, always judging how we're better and worse thanthose around us. And many of us are very good at finding fault withourselves. If we release judgment, then nothing needs to be fixed -- including you.Explore inviting your soul to help you accept all that is and experiencea whole new way of living. "Wherever you are is always the right place. There is never a need tofix anything, to hitch up the bootstraps of the soul and start at somehigher place. Start right where you are." -- Julia Cameron
POVERTY
One day a father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose of showing his son how poor people live. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family. On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?" " It was great, Dad." "Did you see how poor people live?" the father asked."Oh yeah," said the son. "So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father.
The son answered: "I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them." The boy's father was speechless. Then his son added, "Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we are."
O Light of the Supreme, O Light of the Supreme,O Light of the Supreme! Kindle the flame of Liberation within me.Pour down the ocean of CompassionInto my heart.You are my Immortality's Divinity.Accept my darkness, bondage, ignoranceand death.
By: Sri Chinmoy
I stood up for my rights.My rights demandedThe life of universal acceptanceAnd the life of universal recognition.
I stand up for my rights.My rights demandMy heart's cry and my life's smile.
I shall stand up for my rights.My rights shall demandThe surrender-moonFrom the world of aspiration-sun.
Sri Chinmoy
8/31/08
“There is a story” writes Swami Vivekanada, “that the king of the gods, Indra, once became a pig, wallowing in mire; he had a she-pig, and a lot of baby pigs, and was very happy. Then some gods saw his plight, and came to him and told him, “You are the king of the gods, you have all the gods under your command. Why are you here?” But Indra said “Never mind; I am all right here; I do not care for heaven, while I have this sow and these little pigs.” The poor gods were at their wits end. After a while they decided to slay all the pigs, one after another. When all the pigs were dead, Indra began to weep and mourn, then the gods ripped his pig body open and he came out of it and began to laugh when he realized what a hideous dream he had had; he, the king of the gods, to have become a pig and to think pig life was the only life. Not so, but to have wanted the whole universe to come into pig-life! The Atman, when it identifies itself with nature, forgets that it is pure and infinite. The Atman does not love, it is love itself. It does not exist, it is existence itself. The Atman does not know, it is knowledge itself. It is a mistake to say the Atman loves, exists, or knows. Love, existence, and knowledge are not the qualities of the Atman, but its essence. When they get reflected upon something, you may call them the qualities of that something. They are not the qualities but the essence of the Atman, the Infinite Being, without birth or death, established in its own glory. It appears to have become so degenerate that if you approach to tell it, “You are not a pig”, it begins to squeal and bite.”
This pig-which-is-not-a-pig can, on occasion, become a very dangerous animal. The power of tamas in our nature is so great that we hate to be disturbed. We loathe any new ideas, especially if it implies that we are not pigs but God, we are apt to persecute and crucify them.
How to Know God (The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali)
The measure of having taken to heart the preciousness of the human body with its freedom and riches that are so difficult to find, is that we are unable to waste time. We are filled with deep joy at having attained something so precious and rare, and we want to put this treasure to full use. This sense of true appreciation, of rejoicing so deeply that one cannot sit idle, is the measure of having taken to heart the preciousness of the human body. Rainbow Painting (Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche)
No person can write his autobiography in advance. Generalization, by means of which theories evolve, fails in trying to understand man. For in dealing with a particular man I do not come upon a generality but upon an individuality, a person. It is precisely the exclusive application of generalities to human situations that accounts for many of our failures…My existence as an event is an original, not a copy. No two human beings are alike. A major mode of being human is uniqueness.
Abraham Heschel
Mother Theresa It is so beautiful that we complete each other! What we are doing in the slums, maybe you cannot do. What you are doing at the level where you are called – in your family life, in your college life, in your work – we cannot do. But together, you and we are doing something beautiful for God.
I am perfect paradox.
I am the silence that hollers.
I am the stillness that dances.
I am the beginning that is the end.
I am the newness that is ancient,
I am the here that is everywhere.
I am eloquence without words.
I am the human that is entwining with the divine.
I am the acceptor of “impossible” possibilities.
I am something so great that it is nothing,
I am, so fully that I scarcely care whether I am at all.
I know without knowing.
I weep with neither sadness nor apparent joy.
I am I AM, yet ever i.
William James
Discussion
(accepting the sacredness of our being)
Morning: The World in the Lake”
Linda Hogan – Seeing Through the Sun
In the quenching water.
Beneath each black duck
Another swims
Shadow
Joined to blood and flesh.
There’s a world beneath this one.
The red-winged blackbird calls
Its silent comrade down below…
And then it rises, the blackbird
Above the world’s geography of light and dark
And we are there, living
In that reveled sliver of red
Living in the black
Something of feathers,
Daughters all of us,
Who would sleep as if reflected
Alongside our mothers,
The mothers of angels, and shadows,
The helix and spiral of centuries
Twisting inside.
Oh the radiant ones are burning
Beneath this world.
They rise up,
Hiamove
(The words of an old Native American Man)
There are birds of many colors – red, blue, green, yellow – yet it is all one bird. There are horses of many colors – brown, black, yellow, while yet it is all one horse. So cattle, so all living things –animals, flowers, trees. So men: in this land where once were only Indians are now men of every color – white, black, yellow, red – yet all one people. That this should come to pass way in the heart of the Great Mystery. It is right thus. And everywhere there shall be peace.
"Meditation is acceptance. It is the acceptance of life within us, without us and all around us. Acceptance of life is the beginning of human satisfaction. Transformation of life is the culmination of divine satisfaction. "
- Sri Chinmoy (1)
Sri Patanjali describes “accepting pain as help for purification” as the first and most important part of the practice of yoga. This is the true practice of tapasya (austerity). Pain is our teacher, an uncomfortable cleansing process that each individual soul must go through in order to realise the Self. When we realise that pain is a part of life that cannot be avoided, we must find the courage to face it, not fear it.
Many of us began our yoga [or other spiritual] practice because of a painful experience in our past: physical, emotional, or mental. … Sometimes students look for a way to off-load the pain –something that magically eludes them of all anguish. Sometimes we do the same thing, playing the blame game, or running to our teachers or mentors expecting them to take away our suffering instantly.
We spend countless hours running unnecessary thoughts in our minds: “Why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? How could this person do this to me?” If we examine this behaviour closely and ask ourselves whether these types of thoughts actually give us an answer, we can see that they merely waste our time and energy. Regardless of how long we have been practicing yoga, all of us face pain, on different levels and with varying intensity. Accepting our experiences is our first step forward.
- We can only find relief from our grief through acceptance.
-
Mulla Nasrudin was sitting on his cot in a homeless shelter. "You know," he said to the fellow on the next cot, "when I was seventeen years old, I made up my mind that nothing was going to stop me from getting rich." "Well, how came you never got rich?" his friend asked. "OH," said Nasrudin, "BY THE TIME I WAS NINETEEN, I REALIZED IT WOULD BE EASIER TO CHANGE MY MIND."
If our habitual conditioning is to overcome our pain, we will have a tendency to feel overwhelmed when things don't go the way we wish. We may even feel a need to "beat" another's pain. We will find it difficult to connect with them just where they are. We won't be able to touch them with love because if we want anything from somebody, even for them to be out of pain, they will be an object in our mind rather than the subject our heart. If we can open to our own pain and explore our resistances and long-held aversions, there arises the possibility of touching another's pain with compassion, of meeting another as we meet ourselves with a bit more clarity and tenderness. We see in such instances how the work we do on ourselves is clearly of benefit to all sentient beings. Each person who works to open his/her heart touches the heart of us all. When we are no longer recreating the problem, we reaffirm the solution. We discover from day to day how the healing we do for ourselves is a healing for us all.
- Stephen Levine in "Healing into Life and Death"
A MONK FATHERING A CHILD?
This is a story about one of the great Tibetan kadampa masters of the 11th century, the monk Langri Tangpa who wrote the 'Eight verses of mind training',:
There was once a woman who gave birth to a baby girl. The woman had already lost one baby and was frightened that her baby girl would also die. The woman told her mother how worried she was and her mother told her that children given Geshe Langri Tangpa to be looked after would not die.
Later, when the little girl fell ill, the woman took her to see Geshe Langri Tangpa, but when she arrived she found him sitting on a throne giving a teaching to a thousand disciples. The woman began to worry that her child would die before the end of the teaching. She knew that Geshe Langri Tangpa was a Bodhisatta and would show patience, and so she walked up to the throne and in a loud, rude voice she said; 'Here, take your baby. Now you look after her!' She turned to the audience and said; 'This is the father of my child', and then turned back to Geshe Langri Tangpa and pleaded softly; 'Please don't let her die.' Geshe Langri Tangpa just nodded his head. As if he really were the father of the child, he wrapped it tenderly in his robes and continued his teaching. His disciples were very suprised and asked him; 'Are you really the father of that child?' Knowing that if he were to say no, the woman would have been thought crazy and the people would have laughed at her, Geshe Langri Tangpa said that he was. Although he was a monk, Geshe Langri Tangpa acted like a real father for the child, delighting in her and caring for her.
After some time the mother returned to see if her daughter was well. When she saw how healthy the child was she asked Geshe Langri Tangpa if she could have her back again. The Geshe then kindly returned the girl to her mother.
When his disciples understood what had happened they said; 'So you are not really the father after all!' and Geshe Langri Tangpa simply said; 'No, I am not
Withhumbleness,may I faceeveryonewith compassionWithdevotionto enlightened lifemay I abidein true compassionSo that othersmay knowtheir true Heart,may I havethe wisdomand True Knowledgeto bring out the bestin everyoneWithcompassionfor this world
with alland everyonein it,may I fightin every wayfor a better world,for the generationsto comeAcceptingany hardshipfor myself,may I abidein the Energyof the Universe,the sourceof wisdomand compassion
Empowered,may I havetrue compassionin sharingthe wisdomof life and deathwith others,bybeing presentin meditation,of any shapeor formof everyday lifeMaythis branchof Lovebeof benefit
compassion - steinar almelid
I was alone unto myself,content within the stillness of the sleeping forest,when he arose from out of the glowing embers of my fire,and filled the darkened sky as he smiled upon the night.And thus are the words he silently spokeunto my soul:
I ask not for your understanding,but only your quiet acceptance.I seek not your respect,but only the unsung song of your heart;For lonely is the flower of my souland still are the nights upon my ears.And as I stand in the silence of time,none save the mountains shall ever understand me;For they too have bled from the depthsof their rocky souls.
Excerpts from “The Prophet’s Candle” by Daniel
8/17/08
Much Ado About Nothing
Perhaps the deepest reason why we are afraid of death is because we do not know who we are. We believe in a personal, unique, and separate identity--but if we dare to examine it, we find that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop it up: our name, our "biography," our partners, family, home, job, friends, credit cards. . . It is on their fragile and transient support that we rely for our security. So when they are all taken away, will we have any idea of who we really are?Without our familiar props, we are faced with just ourselves, a person we do not know, an unnerving stranger with whom we have been living all the time but we never really wanted to meet. Isn't that why we have tried to fill every moment of time with noise and activity, however boring or trivial, to ensure that we are never left in silence with this stranger on our own? -Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
All we are dealing with wherever we live in the Universe is just different levels of energy, some of which is unmanifest at one extreme, called spirit, and some of which we find at the other extreme in a manifest form which we call matter. Because it is ALL energy and all energy obeys a few basic laws. They are called he laws of physics in science, and called spiritual law in esoterics - everything in the Universe obeys exactly the same laws. The way we see and experience them simply depends on our perspective.
What you see, depends on where you stand.
- Ra Bonewitz in "The Cosmic Crystal Spiral"
A Zen story tells of two monks who met on the road. After their initial greetings, one monk asked the other, "What are you going to do tonight, my friend?" The second monk replied, "I will meditate and pray in the temple. What are you going to do?" "I'm going to spend a night of pleasure with the ladies," he answered.
The monks then went on their own ways, and that night in the house of pleasure, the monk was quite distracted. All he could think about was his friend meditating and praying. But was the other monk at peace with himself? No, he continued to think about his friend enjoying an evening with women.
When you make a choice, accept it completely and surrender to all the experiences that go along with your decision.
- Dick Sutphen in "The Oracle Within
As we understand it, the spiritual journey is not about becomingperfect. It's about acceptance, releasing judgment, and embracingeverything in wholeness. This is a great challenge for our personality. We've grown up comparingourselves to others, always judging how we're better and worse thanthose around us. And many of us are very good at finding fault withourselves. If we release judgment, then nothing needs to be fixed -- including you.Explore inviting your soul to help you accept all that is and experiencea whole new way of living. "Wherever you are is always the right place. There is never a need tofix anything, to hitch up the bootstraps of the soul and start at somehigher place. Start right where you are." -- Julia Cameron
POVERTY
One day a father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose of showing his son how poor people live. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family. On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?" " It was great, Dad." "Did you see how poor people live?" the father asked."Oh yeah," said the son. "So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father.
The son answered: "I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them." The boy's father was speechless. Then his son added, "Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we are."
O Light of the Supreme, O Light of the Supreme,O Light of the Supreme! Kindle the flame of Liberation within me.Pour down the ocean of CompassionInto my heart.You are my Immortality's Divinity.Accept my darkness, bondage, ignoranceand death.
By: Sri Chinmoy
I stood up for my rights.My rights demandedThe life of universal acceptanceAnd the life of universal recognition.
I stand up for my rights.My rights demandMy heart's cry and my life's smile.
I shall stand up for my rights.My rights shall demandThe surrender-moonFrom the world of aspiration-sun.
Sri Chinmoy
8/31/08
“There is a story” writes Swami Vivekanada, “that the king of the gods, Indra, once became a pig, wallowing in mire; he had a she-pig, and a lot of baby pigs, and was very happy. Then some gods saw his plight, and came to him and told him, “You are the king of the gods, you have all the gods under your command. Why are you here?” But Indra said “Never mind; I am all right here; I do not care for heaven, while I have this sow and these little pigs.” The poor gods were at their wits end. After a while they decided to slay all the pigs, one after another. When all the pigs were dead, Indra began to weep and mourn, then the gods ripped his pig body open and he came out of it and began to laugh when he realized what a hideous dream he had had; he, the king of the gods, to have become a pig and to think pig life was the only life. Not so, but to have wanted the whole universe to come into pig-life! The Atman, when it identifies itself with nature, forgets that it is pure and infinite. The Atman does not love, it is love itself. It does not exist, it is existence itself. The Atman does not know, it is knowledge itself. It is a mistake to say the Atman loves, exists, or knows. Love, existence, and knowledge are not the qualities of the Atman, but its essence. When they get reflected upon something, you may call them the qualities of that something. They are not the qualities but the essence of the Atman, the Infinite Being, without birth or death, established in its own glory. It appears to have become so degenerate that if you approach to tell it, “You are not a pig”, it begins to squeal and bite.”
This pig-which-is-not-a-pig can, on occasion, become a very dangerous animal. The power of tamas in our nature is so great that we hate to be disturbed. We loathe any new ideas, especially if it implies that we are not pigs but God, we are apt to persecute and crucify them.
How to Know God (The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali)
The measure of having taken to heart the preciousness of the human body with its freedom and riches that are so difficult to find, is that we are unable to waste time. We are filled with deep joy at having attained something so precious and rare, and we want to put this treasure to full use. This sense of true appreciation, of rejoicing so deeply that one cannot sit idle, is the measure of having taken to heart the preciousness of the human body. Rainbow Painting (Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche)
No person can write his autobiography in advance. Generalization, by means of which theories evolve, fails in trying to understand man. For in dealing with a particular man I do not come upon a generality but upon an individuality, a person. It is precisely the exclusive application of generalities to human situations that accounts for many of our failures…My existence as an event is an original, not a copy. No two human beings are alike. A major mode of being human is uniqueness.
Abraham Heschel
Mother Theresa It is so beautiful that we complete each other! What we are doing in the slums, maybe you cannot do. What you are doing at the level where you are called – in your family life, in your college life, in your work – we cannot do. But together, you and we are doing something beautiful for God.
I am perfect paradox.
I am the silence that hollers.
I am the stillness that dances.
I am the beginning that is the end.
I am the newness that is ancient,
I am the here that is everywhere.
I am eloquence without words.
I am the human that is entwining with the divine.
I am the acceptor of “impossible” possibilities.
I am something so great that it is nothing,
I am, so fully that I scarcely care whether I am at all.
I know without knowing.
I weep with neither sadness nor apparent joy.
I am I AM, yet ever i.
William James
Discussion
(accepting the sacredness of our being)
Morning: The World in the Lake”
Linda Hogan – Seeing Through the Sun
In the quenching water.
Beneath each black duck
Another swims
Shadow
Joined to blood and flesh.
There’s a world beneath this one.
The red-winged blackbird calls
Its silent comrade down below…
And then it rises, the blackbird
Above the world’s geography of light and dark
And we are there, living
In that reveled sliver of red
Living in the black
Something of feathers,
Daughters all of us,
Who would sleep as if reflected
Alongside our mothers,
The mothers of angels, and shadows,
The helix and spiral of centuries
Twisting inside.
Oh the radiant ones are burning
Beneath this world.
They rise up,
Hiamove
(The words of an old Native American Man)
There are birds of many colors – red, blue, green, yellow – yet it is all one bird. There are horses of many colors – brown, black, yellow, while yet it is all one horse. So cattle, so all living things –animals, flowers, trees. So men: in this land where once were only Indians are now men of every color – white, black, yellow, red – yet all one people. That this should come to pass way in the heart of the Great Mystery. It is right thus. And everywhere there shall be peace.
July 2008
7-6-08
... the love with which we love should be so pure, so simple, so detached that it inclines neither to myself nor to my friend nor to anything else next to it. The teachers say that one can name no good work as a good work and no virtue as a virtue unless it has taken place in love. ... How has God loved us? He loved us when we did not yet exist and when we were his enemies. So great a need had God for our friendship that he could not wait until we asked him. … So unitary should our love be, for love will never be anywhere else than there where equality and unity are. Between a master and a servant there is no peace because there is no real equality. ... when God is in me and I am in God, then I am not less and God is not higher. –
Meister Eckhardt
Whatever dilutes, falsifies, or blocks this love is foreign to our heart. This purity of heart is not esoteric or a pie-in-the sky state of being. It is within the realm of possibility for all people, but it does require a discipline of life and prayer that is … humble and constant . . .
Gail Fitzpatrick, OCSO
There is a deep malaise in our society … Many of us are not healthy within, yet we continue to look for things that only harm us more. We come home from work exhausted, and we do not know how to relax. We feel a kind of vacuum in ourselves, so we turn on the television. We live in a society where we always feel we are lacking something, and we want to fill it. If we don’t turn on the TV, we eat, or read, or talk on the phone, [go on the internet]. We are always trying to fill the void with something. Some people even do social or political work this way. But doing this only makes us less satisfied, hungrier, and we want to consume more. We feel alienated from ourselves. There is so much anger and fear in us, and we want to suppress them, so we consume more and more things that only increase the toxicity in us. We watch films filled with screaming and violence. We read magazines and novels filled with hatred and confusion. We do not even have the courage to turn off our TV, because we are afraid to go back to ourselves.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Howard Thurman, African American Mystic who inspired MLK reminds us
We are prisoners of timetables. We become busy – note the words – not, ‘we are busy’. But ‘we become busy’. Within ourselves we develop an inner sense of rush, and haste. There is a kind of anxiety that is like the sense of impending doom that comes into life when the spirit is crowded by too much movement. … It takes time to cultivate the mind, it takes time to grow in wisdom, it takes time to savor the qualities of living, it takes time to feel one’s way into one’s self;
it takes time to walk with God.
I make the effort
to maintain a ground of oceanic silence out of which arises the multitude of phenomena of daily life.
I make the effort
to see and to passionately open in love to the spirit that infuses all things
I make the effort
to see the Beloved in everyone and to serve the Beloved though everyone (including the earth).
I often fail in these aspirations because I lose the balance between separateness and unity, get lost in my separateness. and feel afraid.
But I make the effort [again]
Ram Das
To guard one’s heart is to recognize that many things may be good in themselves, but they may not be conducive to growth in one’s heart of love, compassion, centeredness . . . and the ability to give oneself daily…
Guarding one’s heart means continually discerning God’s call to love so one can choose the good and exclude from one’s innermost heart the trivial, mere curiosities, and those animosities that destroy tranquillity and the reign of God’s peace within.
Gail Fitzpatrick, OCSO
"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret;
it is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
what is essential is invisible to the eye."Antoine de Saint-Exupery
It depends on You
If in your heart you make
a manger for his birth,
then God will once again
become a child on earth.
Angelius Selesius
7/13/08
Living Spirits of Earth
Mother and Father to us all
You who hold us in Your breath
You who bathe us in Your waters
who feed us with Your fruits
Guardian of where we are going
of who we are becoming
Cradle of our days
and coffin of our nights
You who carry us folded in Your arms
Sailing silently among the stars
Hear our prayers
The Terra Collective
Amen.
Great lions can find peace in a cage.
But we should only do that
as a last
resort.
So these bars I see that restrain your wings,
I guess you won’t mind
if I pry them
open.
Rumi
From the days of spring – the sky
is bright and blue the sun is huge and warm.
Everything’s turning green.
Carrying my monk bowl, I walk to the village
to beg for my daily meal.
The children spot me at the temple gates
and happily crowd around,
dragging at my arms till I stop,
I put my bowl on a white rock,
hang my bag on a branch.
First we braid grasses and play tug of war,
then we take turns singing and keeping a kick-ball in the air;
I kick the ball and they sing, they kick the ball and I sing.
Time is forgotten, the hours fly.
People passing by point and me and laugh:
“why are you acting like such a fool?”
I nod my head and don’t answer.
I could say something, but why?
Do you want to know what’s in my heart?
From the beginning of time: just this! just this!
RYOKAN (1758-1831)
Selections from The Alter of the Heart by Beverly Lanzetta
I was sad one day and went for a walk;
I sat in a field
A rabbit noticed my condition and
came near.
It often does not take more than that to help at times –
to just be close to creatures who
are so full of knowing,
so full of love that they don’t
– chat,
– they just gaze with
– their
– marvelous understanding.
St. John of the Cross
Make of your life an offering! Make of your life a prayer!
…be awake to the Life
that is loving you and
sing your prayer, laugh your prayer,
dance your prayer, run
and weep and sweat your prayer,
sleep your prayer, eat your prayer,
paint, sculpt, hammer and read your prayer,
sweep, dig, rake, dive, and hoe your prayer,
garden, farm and build and clean your prayer,
wash, iron, vacuum, sew, embroider and pickle your prayer
compute, touch, bend and fold but never delete
or mutilate your prayer.
Learn to play your prayer
work and rest your prayer,
fast and feast your prayer,
argue, talk, whisper, listen, and shout your prayer,
groan, moan and spit and sneeze your prayer,
swim and hunt and cook your prayer,
digest and become your prayer,
release and recover your prayer,
breathe your prayer,
be your prayer
Alla Renee Bozarth
Offer only lovely things on my altars –
the bread of life, and jewels, and feathers and flowers.
Let the streams of life flow in peace
Turn from violence,
Learn to think for a long time how to change the world,
how to make it better to live in.
All the people in the world ought to talk about it
and speak well of it always.
Then it will last forever,
and the flowers will bloom forever
and I will come to you again
Quetzalcoatl
Learn to play your prayer
work and rest your prayer,
fast and feast your prayer,
argue, talk, whisper, listen, and shout your prayer,
groan, moan and spit and sneeze your prayer,
swim and hunt and cook your prayer,
digest and become your prayer,
release and recover your prayer,
breathe your prayer,
be your prayer
Alla Renee Bozarth
7/20/08
Holy Mystery
As we join together this morning in the light of your presence,
we are reminded that we are all one in the divine heart.
May this longing for oneness transform our world.
May our hearts be opened, in the very depths where we find you, God,
May our hearts be open to the glorious expression of your love found in all our religions and spiritual traditions.
You speak to us, Holy Mystery, in this diversity, and we are enriched and humbled by the breadth and depth of your Words.
May our gathering together this morning signify our hopes for the harmony of our planet, the alleviation of suffering, food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, and respect for the poor. May this flame be a testimony of our willingness to struggle together toward the peace of inclusiveness, loving all and embracing all in the family of creation.
Amen.
Beverly Lanzetta
SONG
In the house made of dawn.
In the story made of dawn.
On the trail of dawn.
O, Talking God!
His feet, my feet restore.
His limbs, my limbs restore.
His body, my body, restore.
His mind, my mind, restore.
His voice, my voice, restore.
His plumes, my plumes restore.
With beauty before him, with beauty before me.
With beauty behind him, with beauty behind me.
With beauty above him with beauty above me.
With beauty below him, with beauty below me.
With beauty around him, with beauty around me.
With pollen beautiful in his voice, with pollen beautiful in my voice.
Navajo Prayer
I could not lie anymore so I started to call my dog – “God”
First he looked
confused,
then he started smiling, then he even
danced.
I kept at it: now he doesn’t even
bite.
I am wondering if this
might work on
people.
Tukaram
Selections from the Altar of the Heart by Beverly Lanzetta
All day long a little burro labors, sometimes,
with heavy loads on her back and sometimes just with worries
about things that bother only
burros.
And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting
than physical labor.
Once in a while a kind monk comes
to her stable and brings
a pear, but more
than that,
he looks into the burro’s eyes and touches her ears
and for a few seconds the burro is free
and even seems to laugh,
because love does
that.
Love frees.
Meister Eckhardt
Speak out the paralyzing secret
and begin to come back to yourself.
Cry it out to compassionate ears
and be in the hearts of your witnesses.
The truth shall make you free
but first it will shatter you.
What was broken can be mended,
what was lost, restored.
Find yourself, then,
pure and whole, a child of God.
Look back long enough to let it go.
Alla Renee Bozarth
Silence.
With beauty before him, with beauty before me.
With beauty behind him, with beauty behind me.
With beauty above him with beauty above me.
With beauty below him, with beauty below me.
With beauty around him, with beauty around me.
With pollen beautiful in his voice, with pollen beautiful in my voice.
It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.
In the house of evening light,
From the story made of evening light
On the trail of evening light.
Navajo Prayer
7/27/08
The grass beneath a tree is content
and silent.
A squirrel holds an acorn in its praying hands,
offering thanks, it looks like.
The nut tastes sweet: I bet the prayer spiced
it up somehow.
The broken shell falls on the grass,
and the grass looks up
and says
“Hey”.
And the squirrel looks down
and says
“Hey”.
I have been saying “Hey” lately too
to God.
Formalities just weren’t
working.
Rumi
This is the sanctuary of heart and mind where the normal laws of physics do not apply. You will not discover it all at once because this sanctuary is infinite . . . . In the sacred [heart] God gives you the plan [of the sanctuary] and he shows you how to build it. Nobody can do it for you – each sanctuary is a part of the same divine plan and yet each is different, personal to the one who dwells in it. It is unique because the sanctuary dweller is the sanctuary builder. So, I invite you to go through the door and take your first step inside. The floor under your feet is the material that underlies the whole of life, of the sanctuary. It comprises something that so many say they are craving: silence.
Abbot Christopher Jamison
Selections from The Altar of the Heart by Beverly Lanzetta
I stood before a silk worm one day.
And that night my heart said to me,
“I can do things like that, I can spin skies,
I can be woven into love that can bring warmth to people;
I can be soft against a crying face,
I can be wings that lift, and I can travel on my thousand feet
throughout the earth,
my sacks filled
with the
sacred.
And I replied to my heart,
“Dear, can you really do all those things?”
And it just nodded, “Yes”
in silence.
So we began and will never
cease.
Rumi
Have no fear of human sin. Love people living in their sin, for that is the semblance of Divine love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God’s creation – the whole – and every grain of sand of it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything you will perceive the Divine Mystery in things. Once you perceive it you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.
Fyodor Dostoyesky
Even
after
all this time
the sun never says to the earth,
“You owe me.”
Look
what happens
with a love like that –
It lights the whole
world.
Hafi
... the love with which we love should be so pure, so simple, so detached that it inclines neither to myself nor to my friend nor to anything else next to it. The teachers say that one can name no good work as a good work and no virtue as a virtue unless it has taken place in love. ... How has God loved us? He loved us when we did not yet exist and when we were his enemies. So great a need had God for our friendship that he could not wait until we asked him. … So unitary should our love be, for love will never be anywhere else than there where equality and unity are. Between a master and a servant there is no peace because there is no real equality. ... when God is in me and I am in God, then I am not less and God is not higher. –
Meister Eckhardt
Whatever dilutes, falsifies, or blocks this love is foreign to our heart. This purity of heart is not esoteric or a pie-in-the sky state of being. It is within the realm of possibility for all people, but it does require a discipline of life and prayer that is … humble and constant . . .
Gail Fitzpatrick, OCSO
There is a deep malaise in our society … Many of us are not healthy within, yet we continue to look for things that only harm us more. We come home from work exhausted, and we do not know how to relax. We feel a kind of vacuum in ourselves, so we turn on the television. We live in a society where we always feel we are lacking something, and we want to fill it. If we don’t turn on the TV, we eat, or read, or talk on the phone, [go on the internet]. We are always trying to fill the void with something. Some people even do social or political work this way. But doing this only makes us less satisfied, hungrier, and we want to consume more. We feel alienated from ourselves. There is so much anger and fear in us, and we want to suppress them, so we consume more and more things that only increase the toxicity in us. We watch films filled with screaming and violence. We read magazines and novels filled with hatred and confusion. We do not even have the courage to turn off our TV, because we are afraid to go back to ourselves.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Howard Thurman, African American Mystic who inspired MLK reminds us
We are prisoners of timetables. We become busy – note the words – not, ‘we are busy’. But ‘we become busy’. Within ourselves we develop an inner sense of rush, and haste. There is a kind of anxiety that is like the sense of impending doom that comes into life when the spirit is crowded by too much movement. … It takes time to cultivate the mind, it takes time to grow in wisdom, it takes time to savor the qualities of living, it takes time to feel one’s way into one’s self;
it takes time to walk with God.
I make the effort
to maintain a ground of oceanic silence out of which arises the multitude of phenomena of daily life.
I make the effort
to see and to passionately open in love to the spirit that infuses all things
I make the effort
to see the Beloved in everyone and to serve the Beloved though everyone (including the earth).
I often fail in these aspirations because I lose the balance between separateness and unity, get lost in my separateness. and feel afraid.
But I make the effort [again]
Ram Das
To guard one’s heart is to recognize that many things may be good in themselves, but they may not be conducive to growth in one’s heart of love, compassion, centeredness . . . and the ability to give oneself daily…
Guarding one’s heart means continually discerning God’s call to love so one can choose the good and exclude from one’s innermost heart the trivial, mere curiosities, and those animosities that destroy tranquillity and the reign of God’s peace within.
Gail Fitzpatrick, OCSO
"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret;
it is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
what is essential is invisible to the eye."Antoine de Saint-Exupery
It depends on You
If in your heart you make
a manger for his birth,
then God will once again
become a child on earth.
Angelius Selesius
7/13/08
Living Spirits of Earth
Mother and Father to us all
You who hold us in Your breath
You who bathe us in Your waters
who feed us with Your fruits
Guardian of where we are going
of who we are becoming
Cradle of our days
and coffin of our nights
You who carry us folded in Your arms
Sailing silently among the stars
Hear our prayers
The Terra Collective
Amen.
Great lions can find peace in a cage.
But we should only do that
as a last
resort.
So these bars I see that restrain your wings,
I guess you won’t mind
if I pry them
open.
Rumi
From the days of spring – the sky
is bright and blue the sun is huge and warm.
Everything’s turning green.
Carrying my monk bowl, I walk to the village
to beg for my daily meal.
The children spot me at the temple gates
and happily crowd around,
dragging at my arms till I stop,
I put my bowl on a white rock,
hang my bag on a branch.
First we braid grasses and play tug of war,
then we take turns singing and keeping a kick-ball in the air;
I kick the ball and they sing, they kick the ball and I sing.
Time is forgotten, the hours fly.
People passing by point and me and laugh:
“why are you acting like such a fool?”
I nod my head and don’t answer.
I could say something, but why?
Do you want to know what’s in my heart?
From the beginning of time: just this! just this!
RYOKAN (1758-1831)
Selections from The Alter of the Heart by Beverly Lanzetta
I was sad one day and went for a walk;
I sat in a field
A rabbit noticed my condition and
came near.
It often does not take more than that to help at times –
to just be close to creatures who
are so full of knowing,
so full of love that they don’t
– chat,
– they just gaze with
– their
– marvelous understanding.
St. John of the Cross
Make of your life an offering! Make of your life a prayer!
…be awake to the Life
that is loving you and
sing your prayer, laugh your prayer,
dance your prayer, run
and weep and sweat your prayer,
sleep your prayer, eat your prayer,
paint, sculpt, hammer and read your prayer,
sweep, dig, rake, dive, and hoe your prayer,
garden, farm and build and clean your prayer,
wash, iron, vacuum, sew, embroider and pickle your prayer
compute, touch, bend and fold but never delete
or mutilate your prayer.
Learn to play your prayer
work and rest your prayer,
fast and feast your prayer,
argue, talk, whisper, listen, and shout your prayer,
groan, moan and spit and sneeze your prayer,
swim and hunt and cook your prayer,
digest and become your prayer,
release and recover your prayer,
breathe your prayer,
be your prayer
Alla Renee Bozarth
Offer only lovely things on my altars –
the bread of life, and jewels, and feathers and flowers.
Let the streams of life flow in peace
Turn from violence,
Learn to think for a long time how to change the world,
how to make it better to live in.
All the people in the world ought to talk about it
and speak well of it always.
Then it will last forever,
and the flowers will bloom forever
and I will come to you again
Quetzalcoatl
Learn to play your prayer
work and rest your prayer,
fast and feast your prayer,
argue, talk, whisper, listen, and shout your prayer,
groan, moan and spit and sneeze your prayer,
swim and hunt and cook your prayer,
digest and become your prayer,
release and recover your prayer,
breathe your prayer,
be your prayer
Alla Renee Bozarth
7/20/08
Holy Mystery
As we join together this morning in the light of your presence,
we are reminded that we are all one in the divine heart.
May this longing for oneness transform our world.
May our hearts be opened, in the very depths where we find you, God,
May our hearts be open to the glorious expression of your love found in all our religions and spiritual traditions.
You speak to us, Holy Mystery, in this diversity, and we are enriched and humbled by the breadth and depth of your Words.
May our gathering together this morning signify our hopes for the harmony of our planet, the alleviation of suffering, food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, and respect for the poor. May this flame be a testimony of our willingness to struggle together toward the peace of inclusiveness, loving all and embracing all in the family of creation.
Amen.
Beverly Lanzetta
SONG
In the house made of dawn.
In the story made of dawn.
On the trail of dawn.
O, Talking God!
His feet, my feet restore.
His limbs, my limbs restore.
His body, my body, restore.
His mind, my mind, restore.
His voice, my voice, restore.
His plumes, my plumes restore.
With beauty before him, with beauty before me.
With beauty behind him, with beauty behind me.
With beauty above him with beauty above me.
With beauty below him, with beauty below me.
With beauty around him, with beauty around me.
With pollen beautiful in his voice, with pollen beautiful in my voice.
Navajo Prayer
I could not lie anymore so I started to call my dog – “God”
First he looked
confused,
then he started smiling, then he even
danced.
I kept at it: now he doesn’t even
bite.
I am wondering if this
might work on
people.
Tukaram
Selections from the Altar of the Heart by Beverly Lanzetta
All day long a little burro labors, sometimes,
with heavy loads on her back and sometimes just with worries
about things that bother only
burros.
And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting
than physical labor.
Once in a while a kind monk comes
to her stable and brings
a pear, but more
than that,
he looks into the burro’s eyes and touches her ears
and for a few seconds the burro is free
and even seems to laugh,
because love does
that.
Love frees.
Meister Eckhardt
Speak out the paralyzing secret
and begin to come back to yourself.
Cry it out to compassionate ears
and be in the hearts of your witnesses.
The truth shall make you free
but first it will shatter you.
What was broken can be mended,
what was lost, restored.
Find yourself, then,
pure and whole, a child of God.
Look back long enough to let it go.
Alla Renee Bozarth
Silence.
With beauty before him, with beauty before me.
With beauty behind him, with beauty behind me.
With beauty above him with beauty above me.
With beauty below him, with beauty below me.
With beauty around him, with beauty around me.
With pollen beautiful in his voice, with pollen beautiful in my voice.
It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.
In the house of evening light,
From the story made of evening light
On the trail of evening light.
Navajo Prayer
7/27/08
The grass beneath a tree is content
and silent.
A squirrel holds an acorn in its praying hands,
offering thanks, it looks like.
The nut tastes sweet: I bet the prayer spiced
it up somehow.
The broken shell falls on the grass,
and the grass looks up
and says
“Hey”.
And the squirrel looks down
and says
“Hey”.
I have been saying “Hey” lately too
to God.
Formalities just weren’t
working.
Rumi
This is the sanctuary of heart and mind where the normal laws of physics do not apply. You will not discover it all at once because this sanctuary is infinite . . . . In the sacred [heart] God gives you the plan [of the sanctuary] and he shows you how to build it. Nobody can do it for you – each sanctuary is a part of the same divine plan and yet each is different, personal to the one who dwells in it. It is unique because the sanctuary dweller is the sanctuary builder. So, I invite you to go through the door and take your first step inside. The floor under your feet is the material that underlies the whole of life, of the sanctuary. It comprises something that so many say they are craving: silence.
Abbot Christopher Jamison
Selections from The Altar of the Heart by Beverly Lanzetta
I stood before a silk worm one day.
And that night my heart said to me,
“I can do things like that, I can spin skies,
I can be woven into love that can bring warmth to people;
I can be soft against a crying face,
I can be wings that lift, and I can travel on my thousand feet
throughout the earth,
my sacks filled
with the
sacred.
And I replied to my heart,
“Dear, can you really do all those things?”
And it just nodded, “Yes”
in silence.
So we began and will never
cease.
Rumi
Have no fear of human sin. Love people living in their sin, for that is the semblance of Divine love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God’s creation – the whole – and every grain of sand of it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything you will perceive the Divine Mystery in things. Once you perceive it you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.
Fyodor Dostoyesky
Even
after
all this time
the sun never says to the earth,
“You owe me.”
Look
what happens
with a love like that –
It lights the whole
world.
Hafi
June 2008
6/22/08
The Buddha compared faith to a blind giant who meets up with a very sharp-eyed cripple, called wisdom. The blind giant, called faith, says to the sharp-eyed cripple, "I am very strong, but I can't see; you are very weak, but you have sharp eyes. Come and ride on my shoulders. Together we will go far." The Buddha never supported blind faith, but a balance between heart and mind, between wisdom and faith. The two together will go far. The saying that blind faith can move mountains unfortunately omits the fact that, being blind, faith doesn't know which mountain needs moving. That's where wisdom is essential...--Ayya Khema
The fact that spiritual growth and personal transformation in general
May be promoted by personal turmoil suggests a parallel between spiritual seeking and wisdom whose development too has been linked to stressful life events. In any case, it was certainly true in our study that spiritual growth was linked to emtional pain and the ability to positiviely learn from and integrate that pain.
Michelle Dillon and Paul Wink
Shopenhauer 1788-1860: For a man to acquire the noble sentiments, … for the better consciousness to be active within him, pain suffering and failure are as necessary to him, as a weighty ballast is to a ship, which attains no draught without it.
Sacred psychology is the practice of soulmaking Ä not necessarily a happy thing. As seedmaking begins with the wounding of the ovum by the sperm, so does soulmaking begin with the wounding of the psyche by the larger story. Soulmaking requires that you die to one story to be reborn to a larger one. The psyche opens and new questions are asked about who we are in our depths.
. . .
The wounding becomes sacred when we are willing to release our old stories and become the vehicles through which a new story may emerge. When we fail to do this, we repeat the same old story. Sacred wounding marks the core of all great Western stories, from Adam's rib to Jesus' crucifixion.
In our woundings we are forced to move in new directions, to face what had been hidden to consciousness, to be pruned of primal growth so that we may bear fruit. . . . sacred psychology shows the power of myth to illumine and redeem the sacrality of the wounding that occurs in our lives. Jean Housten
The Journey Starts Here
Don’t go off sight seeing.
The real journey is right here.
The great excursion starts
from exactly where you are.
You are the world.
You have everything you need.
You are the secret.
You are the wide opened.
Don’t look for the remedy for your troubles
outside yourself.
You are the medicine.
You are the cure for your own sorrow.
Rumi
Be like a tree in pursuit of your cause.
Stand firm, grip hard, thrust upward, bend to
the winds of heaven, and learn tranquility.
Dedication to Richard St. Barre Baker, father of the trees
When you walk across the fields with your mind pure and holy, then from the stones, and all growing things, and all animals the sparks of their soul come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you.
Hassidic saying
6-29-08
Mother Father God, Universal Power
Remind us daily of the sanctity of all life.
Touch our hearts with the glorious oneness of all creation
As we strive to respect all the living beings on this planet.
Penetrate our souls with the beauty of this earth.
As we attune ourselves to the rhythm and flow of the seasons.
Awaken our minds with the knowledge
to achieve a world in perfect harmony
And grant us the wisdom to realize that we
can have heaven on earth.
Amen.
Jo Poore
Hildegard von Bingen saw the notion of ‘Viriditas’, or Greenness, penetrating every aspect of life. This ‘Greenness’ was the very expression of Divine power on Earth. “The Word of God regulates the movements of the Sun, the Moon and the stars. The Word of God gives the light, which shines from the heavenly bodies. He makes the wind blow, the rivers run and the rainfall. He makes trees burst into blossom, and the crops bring forth the harvest.”
Since this extraordinary phenomenon called life could only be created by God, Hildegard believed, all that lives equally carried his Divine energy, or ‘viritis’. In her own words:
Oh fire of the Holy Spirit,
life of the life of every creature,
holy are you in giving life to forms…
Oh boldest path,
penetrating into all places,
in the heights, on earth,
and in every abyss,
you bring and bind all together
From you clouds flow, air flies,
Rocks have their humours,
Rivers spring forth from the waters
And earth wears her green vigour
O ignis Spiritus Paracliti
To be of the Earth is to know
the restlessness of being a seed
the darkness of being planted
the struggle toward the light
the pain of growth into the light
the joy of bursting and bearing fruit
the love of being food for someone
the scattering of your seeds
the decay of the seasons the miracle of birth.
John Soos
Be a gardener
Dig a ditch, toil and sweat,
and turn the earth upside down
and seek the deepness
and water the plants in time.
Continue this labor
and make sweet floods to run
and noble and abundant fruits
to spring.
Take this food and drink
and carry it to God
as your true worship.
Julian of Norwich
I am filled with joy
when the day dawns quietly
over the roof of the sky.
Life was wonderful in winter
But did winter make me happy?
No, I always worried
about hides and boot-soles
and for boots,
and if there’d be enough
for all of us.
Yes, I worried constantly
Life was wonderful
in summer
But did summer ever make me happy?
No I always worried
about reindeer skins and rugs for the platform
Yes, I worried constantly.
Life was wonderful
when you stood at your fishing-hole
on the ice
But was I happy waiting at my fishing-hole?
No, I was always worried
for my little hook,
in case I never got a bite.
Yes, I worried constantly.
Life was wonderful
when you danced in the feasting-house.
But did this make me happier?
No I always worried
I’d forget my song
Yes, I always worried.
Life was wonderful
And I still feel the joy
each time the day-break
whitens the dark sky
each time the sun
climbs over the roof of the sky.
Eskimo song
In our time
We do not speak because the voices are within us,
It is our quiet time.
We do not walk because the earth is all within us.
It is our quiet time.
We do not dance because the music has lifted us to a place where
the spirit is.
It is our quiet time.
We rest with all of nature. We wake when the seven sisters wake.
We great them in the sky over the opening of the kiva
Nancy Wood
I thank you God for this amazing
day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky, and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died and am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday, this is the birth day of life and of love and wings and of the gay great happening illumitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any – lifted from the no
of all nothing – human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
ee cummings
The Buddha compared faith to a blind giant who meets up with a very sharp-eyed cripple, called wisdom. The blind giant, called faith, says to the sharp-eyed cripple, "I am very strong, but I can't see; you are very weak, but you have sharp eyes. Come and ride on my shoulders. Together we will go far." The Buddha never supported blind faith, but a balance between heart and mind, between wisdom and faith. The two together will go far. The saying that blind faith can move mountains unfortunately omits the fact that, being blind, faith doesn't know which mountain needs moving. That's where wisdom is essential...--Ayya Khema
The fact that spiritual growth and personal transformation in general
May be promoted by personal turmoil suggests a parallel between spiritual seeking and wisdom whose development too has been linked to stressful life events. In any case, it was certainly true in our study that spiritual growth was linked to emtional pain and the ability to positiviely learn from and integrate that pain.
Michelle Dillon and Paul Wink
Shopenhauer 1788-1860: For a man to acquire the noble sentiments, … for the better consciousness to be active within him, pain suffering and failure are as necessary to him, as a weighty ballast is to a ship, which attains no draught without it.
Sacred psychology is the practice of soulmaking Ä not necessarily a happy thing. As seedmaking begins with the wounding of the ovum by the sperm, so does soulmaking begin with the wounding of the psyche by the larger story. Soulmaking requires that you die to one story to be reborn to a larger one. The psyche opens and new questions are asked about who we are in our depths.
. . .
The wounding becomes sacred when we are willing to release our old stories and become the vehicles through which a new story may emerge. When we fail to do this, we repeat the same old story. Sacred wounding marks the core of all great Western stories, from Adam's rib to Jesus' crucifixion.
In our woundings we are forced to move in new directions, to face what had been hidden to consciousness, to be pruned of primal growth so that we may bear fruit. . . . sacred psychology shows the power of myth to illumine and redeem the sacrality of the wounding that occurs in our lives. Jean Housten
The Journey Starts Here
Don’t go off sight seeing.
The real journey is right here.
The great excursion starts
from exactly where you are.
You are the world.
You have everything you need.
You are the secret.
You are the wide opened.
Don’t look for the remedy for your troubles
outside yourself.
You are the medicine.
You are the cure for your own sorrow.
Rumi
Be like a tree in pursuit of your cause.
Stand firm, grip hard, thrust upward, bend to
the winds of heaven, and learn tranquility.
Dedication to Richard St. Barre Baker, father of the trees
When you walk across the fields with your mind pure and holy, then from the stones, and all growing things, and all animals the sparks of their soul come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you.
Hassidic saying
6-29-08
Mother Father God, Universal Power
Remind us daily of the sanctity of all life.
Touch our hearts with the glorious oneness of all creation
As we strive to respect all the living beings on this planet.
Penetrate our souls with the beauty of this earth.
As we attune ourselves to the rhythm and flow of the seasons.
Awaken our minds with the knowledge
to achieve a world in perfect harmony
And grant us the wisdom to realize that we
can have heaven on earth.
Amen.
Jo Poore
Hildegard von Bingen saw the notion of ‘Viriditas’, or Greenness, penetrating every aspect of life. This ‘Greenness’ was the very expression of Divine power on Earth. “The Word of God regulates the movements of the Sun, the Moon and the stars. The Word of God gives the light, which shines from the heavenly bodies. He makes the wind blow, the rivers run and the rainfall. He makes trees burst into blossom, and the crops bring forth the harvest.”
Since this extraordinary phenomenon called life could only be created by God, Hildegard believed, all that lives equally carried his Divine energy, or ‘viritis’. In her own words:
Oh fire of the Holy Spirit,
life of the life of every creature,
holy are you in giving life to forms…
Oh boldest path,
penetrating into all places,
in the heights, on earth,
and in every abyss,
you bring and bind all together
From you clouds flow, air flies,
Rocks have their humours,
Rivers spring forth from the waters
And earth wears her green vigour
O ignis Spiritus Paracliti
To be of the Earth is to know
the restlessness of being a seed
the darkness of being planted
the struggle toward the light
the pain of growth into the light
the joy of bursting and bearing fruit
the love of being food for someone
the scattering of your seeds
the decay of the seasons the miracle of birth.
John Soos
Be a gardener
Dig a ditch, toil and sweat,
and turn the earth upside down
and seek the deepness
and water the plants in time.
Continue this labor
and make sweet floods to run
and noble and abundant fruits
to spring.
Take this food and drink
and carry it to God
as your true worship.
Julian of Norwich
I am filled with joy
when the day dawns quietly
over the roof of the sky.
Life was wonderful in winter
But did winter make me happy?
No, I always worried
about hides and boot-soles
and for boots,
and if there’d be enough
for all of us.
Yes, I worried constantly
Life was wonderful
in summer
But did summer ever make me happy?
No I always worried
about reindeer skins and rugs for the platform
Yes, I worried constantly.
Life was wonderful
when you stood at your fishing-hole
on the ice
But was I happy waiting at my fishing-hole?
No, I was always worried
for my little hook,
in case I never got a bite.
Yes, I worried constantly.
Life was wonderful
when you danced in the feasting-house.
But did this make me happier?
No I always worried
I’d forget my song
Yes, I always worried.
Life was wonderful
And I still feel the joy
each time the day-break
whitens the dark sky
each time the sun
climbs over the roof of the sky.
Eskimo song
In our time
We do not speak because the voices are within us,
It is our quiet time.
We do not walk because the earth is all within us.
It is our quiet time.
We do not dance because the music has lifted us to a place where
the spirit is.
It is our quiet time.
We rest with all of nature. We wake when the seven sisters wake.
We great them in the sky over the opening of the kiva
Nancy Wood
I thank you God for this amazing
day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky, and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died and am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday, this is the birth day of life and of love and wings and of the gay great happening illumitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any – lifted from the no
of all nothing – human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
ee cummings
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
April Theme Surrender
3-27-08
Holy Mystery
As we join together this morning in the light of your presence,
we are reminded that we are all one in the divine heart.
May this longing for oneness transform our world.
May our hearts be opened, in the very depths where we find you, God,
May our hearts be open to the glorious expression of your love found in all our religions and spiritual traditions.
You speak to us, Holy Mystery, in this diversity, and we are enriched and humbled by the breadth and depth of your Words.
May our gathering together this morning signify our hopes for the harmony of our planet, the alleviation of suffering, food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, and respect for the poor. May this flame be a testimony of our willingness to struggle together toward the peace of inclusiveness, loving all and embracing all in the family of creation.
Amen.
The mystical path is … psychologically integrative: it unties the unconscious, the conscious, and the superconscious. It also integrates the memory, will, imagination, and emotions with the body and the spirit. Within them, it establishes the harmony of love, compassion, mercy, and kindness – the quieting of emotions. All this surrenders to something much higher and more ultimate than the human. This surrender and the integration that follows, puts order in the chaotic domain of the unconscious and allows it to work with the other faculties in a person’s spiritual life.
Wayne Teasdale
God shows his love by Kissing the finite.
Man shows his live by kissing the infinite.
Tagore
Once Sita gave Hanuman a necklace of pearls. After a while, the residents of the city observed him breaking the necklace and inspecting each pearl minutely. Intrigued they asked him the reason. "I am looking for Rama and Sita," replied Hanuman. Laughing at his apparent naivety the spectators pointed out to him that the royal couple was at the moment seated on the imperial throne. "But Rama and Sita are everywhere, including my heart" wondered aloud the true bhakta. Not understanding the depth of his devotion, they further teased him: "So Rama and Sita live in your heart, can you show them to us?" Unhesitatingly, Hanuman stood up and with his sharp talons tore open his chest. There, within his throbbing heart, the astonished audience were taken aback to find enshrined an image of Rama and Sita. Never again did anyone make fun of Hanuman's devotion.
Hanuman's name too illustrates his self-effacing character, being made up of 'hanan' (annihilation) and 'man' (mind), thus indicating one who has conquered his ego.
Letting go and letting be are indispensable contemplative habits. These seemingly simple practices have to be learned – they are the fruit of years of spiritual practice through the day to day labor of meditation. Attaining inner quiet. Seeking stillness of mind and senses, requires enormous discipline. If we can learn to withdraw our attention from its attachment to sensory experience, to stop relying solely on the senses for satisfaction and joy, then we are in a position to become aware of God.
Wayne Teasdale
It pleased you to make me endless.
You empty this frail vessel over and over
Then fill it with fresh life again.
You carry me like a hollow reed over hill and dale
Eternally breathing new melodies though me.
As the immortal touch of your hand
My little heart looses itself in joy.
Still you pour into me, and still there is room
to fill.
Tagore
Words cling to death like dust.
Silence washes their souls.
Tagore
Breathe in me the way to love You,
That I may learn to faultlessly love You.
Pour into me the wisdom-wine
By which I become intoxicated with You.
Whisper into my ears of silence
The way to be with You always.
Speak to my wandering senses
And lead them back to your Sanctuary within.
Call the marauding mind and counsel it
How to retrace its steps to your home.
With all your silent eyes, just look at me,
And I will know where to find You.
You may hide behind the ocean,
You may hide behind delusion,
You may hide behind life,
You may hide behind dualities,
You may hide behind theological conundrums,
You may hide behind unanswered prayers.
But you cannot hide behind my love.
For in the mirroring light of my love
You are revealed.
Paramahansa Yogananda
Light comes through a gap in the curtains:
the promise of morning.
Light comes through the flaws in our lives:
the promise of love
Modern Prayer from Berlin Germany
Holy Mystery
As we join together this morning in the light of your presence,
we are reminded that we are all one in the divine heart.
May this longing for oneness transform our world.
May our hearts be opened, in the very depths where we find you, God,
May our hearts be open to the glorious expression of your love found in all our religions and spiritual traditions.
You speak to us, Holy Mystery, in this diversity, and we are enriched and humbled by the breadth and depth of your Words.
May our gathering together this morning signify our hopes for the harmony of our planet, the alleviation of suffering, food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, and respect for the poor. May this flame be a testimony of our willingness to struggle together toward the peace of inclusiveness, loving all and embracing all in the family of creation.
Amen.
The mystical path is … psychologically integrative: it unties the unconscious, the conscious, and the superconscious. It also integrates the memory, will, imagination, and emotions with the body and the spirit. Within them, it establishes the harmony of love, compassion, mercy, and kindness – the quieting of emotions. All this surrenders to something much higher and more ultimate than the human. This surrender and the integration that follows, puts order in the chaotic domain of the unconscious and allows it to work with the other faculties in a person’s spiritual life.
Wayne Teasdale
God shows his love by Kissing the finite.
Man shows his live by kissing the infinite.
Tagore
Once Sita gave Hanuman a necklace of pearls. After a while, the residents of the city observed him breaking the necklace and inspecting each pearl minutely. Intrigued they asked him the reason. "I am looking for Rama and Sita," replied Hanuman. Laughing at his apparent naivety the spectators pointed out to him that the royal couple was at the moment seated on the imperial throne. "But Rama and Sita are everywhere, including my heart" wondered aloud the true bhakta. Not understanding the depth of his devotion, they further teased him: "So Rama and Sita live in your heart, can you show them to us?" Unhesitatingly, Hanuman stood up and with his sharp talons tore open his chest. There, within his throbbing heart, the astonished audience were taken aback to find enshrined an image of Rama and Sita. Never again did anyone make fun of Hanuman's devotion.
Hanuman's name too illustrates his self-effacing character, being made up of 'hanan' (annihilation) and 'man' (mind), thus indicating one who has conquered his ego.
Letting go and letting be are indispensable contemplative habits. These seemingly simple practices have to be learned – they are the fruit of years of spiritual practice through the day to day labor of meditation. Attaining inner quiet. Seeking stillness of mind and senses, requires enormous discipline. If we can learn to withdraw our attention from its attachment to sensory experience, to stop relying solely on the senses for satisfaction and joy, then we are in a position to become aware of God.
Wayne Teasdale
It pleased you to make me endless.
You empty this frail vessel over and over
Then fill it with fresh life again.
You carry me like a hollow reed over hill and dale
Eternally breathing new melodies though me.
As the immortal touch of your hand
My little heart looses itself in joy.
Still you pour into me, and still there is room
to fill.
Tagore
Words cling to death like dust.
Silence washes their souls.
Tagore
Breathe in me the way to love You,
That I may learn to faultlessly love You.
Pour into me the wisdom-wine
By which I become intoxicated with You.
Whisper into my ears of silence
The way to be with You always.
Speak to my wandering senses
And lead them back to your Sanctuary within.
Call the marauding mind and counsel it
How to retrace its steps to your home.
With all your silent eyes, just look at me,
And I will know where to find You.
You may hide behind the ocean,
You may hide behind delusion,
You may hide behind life,
You may hide behind dualities,
You may hide behind theological conundrums,
You may hide behind unanswered prayers.
But you cannot hide behind my love.
For in the mirroring light of my love
You are revealed.
Paramahansa Yogananda
Light comes through a gap in the curtains:
the promise of morning.
Light comes through the flaws in our lives:
the promise of love
Modern Prayer from Berlin Germany
April Theme Surrender
Sunday, April 20, 2008 Ann Ladd Prayer – Dear Loving presence, thank you for the times in the quieted moments when we experience – and know - the deep loving support that is a constant beneath our lives –whether or not we are aware; through the many distractions we allow, teach us in these quiet times to awaken our hearts to the Present moment, nourish our souls with the precious mystery of Now. Thank you for the many blessings and gifts of our lives in each day. We offer gratitude for guidance and for our continuing yes to your loving guidance. Give us strength and heart to stay the course of your Divine purpose for each of us in this life.AmenWelcome – The topic this month is surrender. We generally think of the need to surrender to the challenges and difficulties of life. I think it is often equally difficult for us to surrender to the blessings and gifts….to truly receive them. Quotes – (1) What is a blessing? A blessing is a circle of light drawn around a person to protect, heal, and strengthen. Life is a constant flow of emergence. The beauty of blessing is its belief that it can affect what unfolds. (2) May all that is unforgiven in youBe released.May your fears yieldTheir deepest tranquilitiesMay all that is unlived in you Blossom into a futureGraced with love.- John O’Donohue(3) To be in the world is to be distant from the homeland of wholeness. We are confined by limitation and difficulty. When we bless, we are enabled somehow to go beyond our present frontiers and reach into the source. A blessing awakens future wholeness.(4) Awaken to the mystery of being hereand enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to follow its path.May the warmth of your heart keep your presence aflame.Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention. May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.(5) There is a kindness that dwells deep down in things…..The word kindness has a gentle sound that seems to echo the presence of compassionate goodness. When someone is kind to you, you feel understood and seen. There is no judgment or harsh perception toward you. Kindness has gracious eyes; it is not small-minded or competitive; it wants nothing back for itself. Kindness strikes a resonance with the depth of your own heart.May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within.May you never place walls between the light and yourself.May you learn to see your selfwith the same delight, pride, and expectationwith which God sees you in every moment.(8) You can never love another person unless you are equally involved in the beautiful but difficult spiritual work of learning to love yourself. There is within each of us, at the soul level, an enriching fountain of love. In other words, you do not have to go outside yourself to know what love is. This is not selfishness, and it is not narcissism; they are negative obsessions with the need to be loved. Rather this is the wellspring of love within the heart…. [L]earn to whisper awake the deep well of love within. This is not a question of forcing yourself to love yourself. It is more a question of exercising reserve, of inviting the wellspring of love that is, after all, your deepest nature to flow through your life. It is a great consolation to know that there is a wellspring of love within yourself. If you trust that this wellspring is there, you will then be able to invite it to awaken. -O’Donahue(11) “God is love” is not a truth we can master; it is only one to which we can surrender. Faith is being grasped by the power of love. –Wm Sloan Coffin Stand and form circleTake a moment to think of someone you love, recall one or two specific appreciations you have for them, things you love about them, especially that they may not see or easily acknowledge. Now put it in the form of a blessing….May you always…. May you never forget…., Without using the person’s name…say the blessing into the circle if you are willing to share it now….everyone else listen and see if you can allow the blessing to also be true of you. Open heart meditation – Quieting now, gently, Invite the wellspring of love in you to move within you, and through you to all in the circle, allow yourself to receive the flow of love coming back to you.Then together let us send the energy of our love to all in this city, to all in this country, to all in this worlda message of love and hope to all peoples, to all creatures, to all creation.
April Theme surrender
4-13-08
Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty,my memory, my understanding and my whole will.All that I am and all that I possess You have given me.I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will.Give me only Your love and Your grace;with these I will be rich enough,and will desire nothing more.
Jesuit - St.. Ignatius Loyola - 16th century
What you are you do not see.
What you see – that you are not.
Tagore
The Journey Starts Here
Don’t go off sight seeing.
The real journey is right here.
The great excursion starts
from exactly were you are.
You are the world.
You have everything you need.
You are the secret.
You are the wide opened.
Don’t look for the remedy for your troubles
outside yourself.
You are the medicine.
You are the cure for your own sorrow.
Rumi
Surrender
There is really nothing else in life more worth doing. And to assent to the spiritual journey is to say “yes” to our own ultimate growth as well as that of others. … a cause of enormous joy.
Wayne Teasdale
To surrender oneself is something morethan to devote oneself, more than to give oneself,it is even more than to abandon oneself to God.To surrender oneself is to die to everything and to self,to keep it continually turned towards God.Self-surrender is no longer to seek self-satisfaction in anythingbut solely God's good pleasure.It should be added that self-surrender is to followthat complete spirit of detachmentwhich holds to nothing;neither to persons nor to things,neither to time nor to place.It means to accept everything, to submit to everything.
But perhaps you will think this is a difficult thing.Do not let yourself be deceived; there is nothing so easy to do,nothing so sweet to put into practice.The whole thing consists in making a generous act at the very beginning,by saying with all the sincerity of your heart:"My God, I wish to be entirely thine; deign to accept my offering"— then all is said. ...You must always remember that you have surrendered yourself.
St. Therese Couderc – 1864
In days of yore, an older master was traveling along a country road, followed by a disciple carrying his bags. As they walked, they saw lands being plowed while farmers and oxen were strained to the utmost. Countless worms and insects were killed in the process, and birds were swooping to eat them. This led the disciple to wonder to himself, "How hard it is to make a living. I will cultivate with all my strength, become a Buddha and save all these creatures." Immediately the Master, an Arhat able to read the thoughts of others, turned around and said, "Let me have those heavy bags and I will follow you." The disciple was puzzled but did as instructed and walked in front. As they continued on their way with the hot sun bearing down on them, dust swirling all around them, the road stretching endlessly in front, the disciple grew more and more tired. It wasn't long before he thought to himself, "There are so many sentient beings and there is so much suffering, how can I possibly help them all? Perhaps I should try to help myself only." Immediately, the Master behind him said, "Stop. Now you carry the bags and follow me." The puzzled disciple did as told, knowing he was not supposed to ask questions. He took up the bags again and walked behind. This sequence repeated itself several times. The Master walked in front with the disciple carrying the bags, then the disciple in front with the Master carrying the bags, back and forth, until they stopped for lunch. Then the disciple gathered his courage and asked the reason why. The Master said, "When you had exalted thoughts of saving all sentient beings, you had the Bodhi Mind, the mind of a Bodhisattva, and I as an Arhat had to follow you. But as soon as you had selfish thoughts, you were no longer a Bodhisattva, and being junior to me in years and cultivation, you had to carry my bags!"
Buddhist story
And what of truth? We don’t tend to see the truth as something that could set us free because it means embracing pain, acknowledging our differences and conflict, taking our real situation into account.
Kathleen Norris
From the cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
God, deliver us.
Modern prayer from Kenya
Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty,my memory, my understanding and my whole will.All that I am and all that I possess You have given me.I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will.Give me only Your love and Your grace;with these I will be rich enough,and will desire nothing more.
Jesuit - St.. Ignatius Loyola - 16th century
What you are you do not see.
What you see – that you are not.
Tagore
The Journey Starts Here
Don’t go off sight seeing.
The real journey is right here.
The great excursion starts
from exactly were you are.
You are the world.
You have everything you need.
You are the secret.
You are the wide opened.
Don’t look for the remedy for your troubles
outside yourself.
You are the medicine.
You are the cure for your own sorrow.
Rumi
Surrender
There is really nothing else in life more worth doing. And to assent to the spiritual journey is to say “yes” to our own ultimate growth as well as that of others. … a cause of enormous joy.
Wayne Teasdale
To surrender oneself is something morethan to devote oneself, more than to give oneself,it is even more than to abandon oneself to God.To surrender oneself is to die to everything and to self,to keep it continually turned towards God.Self-surrender is no longer to seek self-satisfaction in anythingbut solely God's good pleasure.It should be added that self-surrender is to followthat complete spirit of detachmentwhich holds to nothing;neither to persons nor to things,neither to time nor to place.It means to accept everything, to submit to everything.
But perhaps you will think this is a difficult thing.Do not let yourself be deceived; there is nothing so easy to do,nothing so sweet to put into practice.The whole thing consists in making a generous act at the very beginning,by saying with all the sincerity of your heart:"My God, I wish to be entirely thine; deign to accept my offering"— then all is said. ...You must always remember that you have surrendered yourself.
St. Therese Couderc – 1864
In days of yore, an older master was traveling along a country road, followed by a disciple carrying his bags. As they walked, they saw lands being plowed while farmers and oxen were strained to the utmost. Countless worms and insects were killed in the process, and birds were swooping to eat them. This led the disciple to wonder to himself, "How hard it is to make a living. I will cultivate with all my strength, become a Buddha and save all these creatures." Immediately the Master, an Arhat able to read the thoughts of others, turned around and said, "Let me have those heavy bags and I will follow you." The disciple was puzzled but did as instructed and walked in front. As they continued on their way with the hot sun bearing down on them, dust swirling all around them, the road stretching endlessly in front, the disciple grew more and more tired. It wasn't long before he thought to himself, "There are so many sentient beings and there is so much suffering, how can I possibly help them all? Perhaps I should try to help myself only." Immediately, the Master behind him said, "Stop. Now you carry the bags and follow me." The puzzled disciple did as told, knowing he was not supposed to ask questions. He took up the bags again and walked behind. This sequence repeated itself several times. The Master walked in front with the disciple carrying the bags, then the disciple in front with the Master carrying the bags, back and forth, until they stopped for lunch. Then the disciple gathered his courage and asked the reason why. The Master said, "When you had exalted thoughts of saving all sentient beings, you had the Bodhi Mind, the mind of a Bodhisattva, and I as an Arhat had to follow you. But as soon as you had selfish thoughts, you were no longer a Bodhisattva, and being junior to me in years and cultivation, you had to carry my bags!"
Buddhist story
And what of truth? We don’t tend to see the truth as something that could set us free because it means embracing pain, acknowledging our differences and conflict, taking our real situation into account.
Kathleen Norris
From the cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
God, deliver us.
Modern prayer from Kenya
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