July 15

Help us, Holy One

to begin our quest for you

knowing and accepting

that you will forever escape

our every attempt to confine you

to what we can understand.

Our words cannot capture you.

Our imagination cannot define you.

Our hearts cannot limit you.

But support us, I beg you,

on a journey without end,

with a love that knows no bounds.

Angelus Silesius (1600’s)

We don’t have to defeat our humanness in order to be happy. Defeating our humanness will not work. It’s like a general sending squadron after squadron of troops on suicide missions against a huge and impregnable wall, trying to breach the wall head on. Instead of this we have to just send a peaceful scout or two to ride slowly along the wall- until the way around it is discovered. It’s necessary to accept the real facts and real consequences of being human. That’s the way to be happy and to help others to be happy.

Zoketsu Norman Fischer

God is the purest naught

untouched by time or space;

the more we reach for him,

the more he will escape.

Angelus Silesius (1600’s)

The life of letting go is the life of freedom, the life of nonattachment. Nonattachment doesn’t mean we are distant from things or have no warmth or no care for things; the word nonattachment is good because it suggests some distance and in love there always has to be some distance- some spaciousness or openness. In ordinary everyday human life there is always some desire- if there weren't any desire there couldn't be any life. But if desire is held onto too strongly it becomes very confining. If there’s too much strongly held desire in our loving then our loving becomes confining too and soon it is no longer love, it turns into dependency, or even antipathy; real love has to have some distance in it, some nonattachment.

Zoketsu Norman Fischer

D.H. Lawrence wrote: “Men are not free when they are doing whatever they like. Men are only free when they are doing what the deepest self likes. And there is getting down to the deepest self. It takes some diving.”

When we are motivated by immediate gratification to do “just what we like”, we will feel continuously driven. No amount of productivity or consuming or recognition can break through the trance of unworthiness and put us in touch with the “deepest self”. As Lawrence points out, to do what the deepest self likes, “takes some diving.” To listen and respond to the heart requires a committed and genuine presence. The more completely we’re caught in the surface world of pursuing substitutes, the harder it is to dive.

Tara Brach

Ask, and it shall be given you;
seek, and you shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened to you.
For whoever asks, receives;
and he who seeks, finds;
and to him who knocks, the door is opened.

Matthew 7:7:8 - Jesus of Nazareth

With the eye of nonattachment we can see that the object of our love can never be possessed, can never be held onto. When I say this maybe it seems tragic to you. In a way it is tragic, tragic if you don’t like it and you don’t want to accept it. But if you accept it you see that it is a good thing that we cannot possess or hold onto the object of our love: because if we could it would not really be a living being; it would only be our invention, and inventions are not lovable. Any living being needs its own integrity and its own freedom and spaciousness- so there has to be always some distance and nonattachment in loving.

Zoketsu Norman Fischer

Two disciples of an old rabbi were arguing about the true path to God. One said the path was built on effort and energy. “You must give yourself totally and fully with all your effort to follow the way of the law: to pray, to pay attention, and to live rightly.” The second disciple disagreed. It is no effort at all. That is only based on ego. It is pure surrender. To follow the way to God to awaken is to let go of all things and live the teaching. ‘Not my will but thine.’”

As they could not agree on who was right they went to see the master. He listened as the first disciple praised the path of wholehearted effort and when asked by the disciple, “Is this the true path?” the master said, “You’re right.” The second disciple was quite upset and responded eloquently with the path of surrender and letting go.” When he had finished he asked, “Is this not the true path?” The ,master responded, “You are right.” A third disciple was in the room and said, “But master, they cannot both be right.” And the master smiled and said, “You are right too!”

It would be easier, Divine One

To stay with what I know

To take only well marked paths

to familiar places

in my heart and soul.

But if I am to come to you

then I must leave behind

the comfort of what I already know

and accept your invitation

to journey into your infinite mystery.

Take my hand,

guide my steps,

Give courage to my heart and soul.

John Kirvan