July 8, 2007

‘...the sense of an object as being attractive, unattractive, or neutral...feelings of pleasure, pain, or neutrality arise. Due to such feelings, attachment develops, this being the attachment of not wanting to separate from pleasure and the attachment of wanting to separate from suffering...’ the Dalai Lama

There ain’t no answer.

There ain’t going to be any answer.

There never has been an answer.

That’s the answer

Gertrude Stein

In the 16th century, St. John of the Cross counsels that after, and in the midst of, our liturgies, hymns and discursive prayers, Christians must also occasionally enter a dark night of the senses and soul, emptying ourselves of our self-centered preferences and ideas about God and everything else. Jesus modeled this discipline of self-emptying love for us, but he did not do it instead of us. We ourselves need to clear our minds of self-centered and habitual thinking. We must become inwardly nonattached in an ambience of love that continuously connects us to others and to creation. Our contemplative tradition tells us that when we open ourselves to the Divine movement within, the Holy Spirit will help us do this work. We do the work of creating a space within us for God, and then trust that the Holy Spirit will do the work in us: as we flow out of ourselves, the Holy Spirit flows in.

We need not take ourselves quite so seriously. If all things are constantly transforming and will eventually die, then, perhaps the best way to live is not by holding on, but by letting go with all our might – letting go of our impossible craving for certainly or significance; letting go of our demands on the universe for perfect happiness and everlasting life. Our only option may be to learn what Alan Watts called ‘the wisdom of insecurity” and to discover that which Camus sought – a way to be comfortable with unfamiliarity. We are then free to leap with Chuang Tzu into the boundless and make it our home. Accepting uncertainty as our philosophy might allow us to honor each other’s stories more, delighting in all the bizarre and wondrous interpretations of the mystery. We might also show more tolerance for those who appear to be fools, and for those who speak truths we don’t wish to hear.

Wes Niskeryh

"What in the world happened at the picnic yesterday?" a fellow asked Mulla Nasrudin. "They are saying around the tavern that you acted like a coward." "Well, I am no fool," the Mulla said. "Some of the girls found a big hornet's nest in the top of a tree and dared me to climb up and get it. And I just didn't do it, that's all." "Whether you were smart or not," said the friend, "That sort of thing makes you unhonored and unsung around here." "THAT'S RIGHT," said Nasrudin, "BUT I AM ALSO UNHARMED AND UNSTUNG."

But letting go is hard to do because our human mind persistently wants to hold on; it has an enormous and ancient habit of holding on. In fact, holding on is all we know; holding on is literally us, and we do not want to give ourself up. Letting go feels like death and we are frightened of death because it means the end of us. And actually letting go is a kind of death- it may be literally sometimes death: we have to let go of our life sometime. But actually whether it is what we call death or just everyday letting go it really is death anyway. Every moment we have to die - every moment anyway we do die to this moment of our lives. It is gone and it will never return. If it is a wonderful moment it will go away and if it is a terrible moment it will go away in exactly the same way. Every moment dies to itself and this is how every moment of our lives takes care of itself completely; every moment contains within itself its own perfect resolution. To practice letting go is to participate with this actual moment by moment dying which is life: to let go is to join our life.

Zoketsu Norman Fischer

Ho! If I am supposed to get sick, let me get sick, and I'll be happy.

May this sickness purify my negative karma and the sickness of all sentient beings.

If I am supposed to be healed, let all my sickness and confusion be healed, and I'll be happy.

May all sentient beings be healed and filled with happiness.

If I am supposed to die, let me die, and I'll be happy.

May all the delusion and the causes of suffering of sentient beings die.

If I am supposed to live a long life, let me live a long life, and I'll be happy.

May my life be meaningful in service to sentient beings.

If my life is to be cut short, let it be cut short, and I'll be happy.

May I and all others be free from attachment and aversion.

Letting go really is dying but dying isn’t just dying: dying is freedom, release, peacefulness. Dying means laying down the burden of our life and going off into the mountains for a big hike, just wandering around, like a cloud. Dying means that we don’t hold onto anything of the six senses- whatever we see hear smell taste touch or think we just appreciate it for what it actually is - we don’t “me” it and try to hold it fixed- we just let it come and go- we allow it to be born and die as it really is being born and dying moment by moment.

This is really the kindest way to live and it is the only way to love: to let each thing really be what it is and then to let it go- to let it be free. To try to hold ourselves or our world or another person in place is impossible. Nothing can be held in place. Life is very pressured, very stressful, very burdensome- and this is why- because we are trying mightily to hold in place what cannot be held in place, we are trying to preserve the unpreservable and fix the unfixable. Actually everything has integrity as it is; everything is surrounded by immense space: each of our thoughts, even our miseries, certainly trees and grasses, the sun and moon and clouds, our human body- everything passes and reappears as it is, all of it operating together in a marvelous harmony of freely passing by, if we will only let it, if we will only let go and allow it to be that way in the course of our living.

Zoketsu Norman Fischer

O, Brother of the Cosmos, focus your light within us -- make it useful
Create your reign of unity now
Your one desire then acts with ours,
As in all light,
So in all forms,
Grant us what we need each day in bread and insight:
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us,
As we release the strands we hold of other's guilt.
Don't let surface things delude us,
But free us from what holds us back.
From you is born all ruling will,
The power and the life to do,
The song that beautifies all,
From age to age it renews.
I affirm this with my whole being.

THE ARAMAIC PRAYER OF JESUS translated from the Aramaic by Saadi Neil Douglas-Klotz of the Sufi Order of the West

July 1, 2007

Let our hearts be the vessel of God's Love.

Let our thoughts be the blossom of God's Love.

Let our words be the expression of God's Love.

Let our actions be the fulfillment of God's Love.

willingness - David Ridge

Attachment is the origin, the root of suffering; hence it is the cause of suffering.’ [1]

Attachment is an attraction: a like or dislike, which we express in many different ways to people, situations, possessions and definitely in our own projections and expressions. In fact, we do not know how to live without attachment. It is a condition that can create some form of holding on to– sensory, sensual, emotional, intellectual, subjective or objective – some form of repulsion or attraction. This is the concept of attachment in a nutshell: It is the human tendency to identify with, to link up and to relate to something very intimately from a very personal point of view. We cannot develop objectivity in that situation because we are constantly projecting ourselves.

Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati

If one

Ponders on objects of the sense, there springs

Attraction; from attraction grows desire,

Desire flames to fierce passion, passion breeds

Recklessness; then the memory—all betrayed—

Let noble purposes go, and saps the mind,

Till purpose, mind, and man are all undone.

Bhagavad Gita

Human beings get attached to ideas — ideas about who they are, what's the best way to live, ideas about what other people should be like, how other people should live, and so on — and our attachment to those ideas causes most of our day-to-day suffering. It really does. I know it seems like the circumstances and reality is what makes us unhappy. But it is our ideas about reality and believing that other people really should be different that causes the suffering, not the reality itself. When you change your ideas about something, it changes the way you feel about it.

Adam Khan

Do everything with a mind that lets go.
Do not expect any praise or reward.
If you let go a little, you will have a little peace.
If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.
If you let go completely, you will know complete peace and freedom.
Your struggles with the world
will have come to an end.

insight meditation - achaan chah

We tend to run away from discord. Discord and anger are real so what is the use of reacting against them? The moment we react we are creating a process within ourselves which holds on to the negativity, and the moment that happens, our mind, nature and behaviour are affected by that impression. Our past impressions and memories bring up the corresponding negative emotion and we project anger, frustration or discord, more so than it actually is.

Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati

In this life we cannot do great things.
We can only do small things with great love.

mother teresa

Let nothing disturb thee;
Let nothing dismay thee;
All things pass:
God never changes.
Patience attains
All that it strives for.
He who has God
Lacks for nothing:
God alone suffices.

st. teresa of avila - 16th century

June 24, 2007

An ancient philosopher says the soul is made in between one and two. The one is eternity, ever alone and without variation. The two is time, changing and given to multiplication. He means to convey that the soul in her higher powers touches eternity, God, that is, while her lower powers being in contact with time make her subject to change and biased towards bodily things, which degrade her.

Meister Eckhart

To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation. This creates an endless preoccupation with past and future and an unwillingness to honor and acknowledge the present moment and allow it to be. The compulsion arises because the past gives you an identity and the future holds to the promise of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions.

Eckhart Tole

That’s the main thing. As long as you are wanting to be thinner, smarter, more enlightened, less uptight, or whatever it might be, some how you are always going to be approaching your problem with the same logic that created it to begin with: you’re not good enough.

Pema Chodron

What you thin k of as the past is a memory trace, stored in the mind of a former Now. When you remember the past, you reactivate a memory trace – and you do so now. The future is an imagined Now, a projection of the mind. When you think about the future, you do it now. Past and future obviously have no reality of their own. Just as the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power and reality of the eternal present. Their reality is “borrowed” from the now.

Eckhart Tole

A modern master described how the Buddha had encouraged the monks by stating that those who practiced diligently would surely be enlightened in seven days, or if not then in seven, months, or seven years. A young American Monk heard this and asked if it was still true. The master, Achaan Chah promised that if the young monk was continuously mindful without break for only seven days, he would be enlightened.

Excitedly the young monk started seven days, only to be lost in forgetfulness ten minutes later. Coming back to himself, he again started the seven days, only to be lost once again in mindless thought – perhaps about what he would do after his enlightenment. Again, and again. And again he began his seven days, and again and again he lost his continuity of mindfulness. A week later, he was not enlightened, but he had become very much aware of his habitual fantasies and wandering mind – a most instructive way to begin his practice on the Path to real awakening.

Buddhist story

Spiritually there is a lesson in every moment. When we are seemingly stuck in a boring routine, the miracle lies not so much in finding something else to do as in realizing how much we can do in a single moment – through the power of our own consciousness – to transform ourselves and the world around us. Marianne Williamson

Looking forwards and backwards [in time] is how we lose joy. How we become fragmented, shallow, and diversified. Once gotten beyond time and temporalities we are free and joyous all the time; then is the fullness of time, then is the Son of God born in you.

Meister Eckhart

The essence of what I am saying here cannot be understood by the mind. The moment you grasp it, there is a shift in consciousness from mind to Being, from time to presence. Suddenly, everything feels alive, radiates energy, and emanates Being.

Eckhart Tole

Saint Theresa's Prayer

May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content knowing you are a child of God. Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

Father's Day

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
-- Annie Dillard

"Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden
hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for
they are gone forever."
-- Horace Mann

Mark Twain, Old Times on the Mississippi:
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.

We lose the power of the moment because we're so rarely in it. We're
reliving the past or speculating about the future. We continue to
believe that tomorrow's the day when I'll be more capable, more wealthy,
more fit and more loving. Meanwhile, I'm just putting in time, dreaming
of better things but not making any concrete move to realize them.
When you find yourself thinking of the future or the past, bring your
awareness into the present moment. Really experience how you feel and
what's happening around you, without judgment. If we can treasure each
moment, our lives will be rich, no matter what we have accomplished.

Marcelene Cox:
Parents are often so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves.

Harry S Truman:
I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

"If, before going to bed every night, you will tear a page from the
calendar, and remark, 'there goes another day of my life, never to
return,' you will become time conscious."
-- A. B. Zu Tavern

Luke 17:21

"The Realm of God is here and now" — Jesus

In Philippians (2:5ff), St. Paul writes that Jesus “emptied himself ” (Greek: kenosis), taking the form of a servant. Jesus’s many acts of service and healing did not come from a mind that was thinking and analyzing about what to do or say, but rather from a mind that had emptied itself into God. Jesus’s mind was emptied of self-reference and the centripetal force of merely personal preference. In his “emptiness,” God’s infinite love could shine through Jesus’s human form unencumbered. Through him, the invisible could become visible. In this way, the purified Christian mind is analogous to Tibetan Buddhist emptiness and to Zen’s “no-thought-ness” (Jap. munen). Visible, tangible compassion arises out of nothing, out of the emptiness that circulates in God. This spiritual emptiness is not a shallow nihilism, a nonchalant rejection of ultimate meaning, but rather a deep focused detachment of mind and heart that has been shaped within a profound ethical context Robert A. Jonas, 2006

From "The Way of the Pilgrim" (Christian writer):

"Remember God always, everywhere and in all situations…When you behold light, remember who gives it to you, when you see heaven and earth and sea and all that they contain, be in awe and give praise to their Creator. When you put on your clothes, remember whose gift they are and give thanks to Him who takes care of your needs.

Anonymous
One night a father overheard his son pray: Dear God, Make me the kind of man my Daddy is. Later that night, the Father prayed, Dear God, Make me the kind of man my son wants me to be.

A healed person is . . . a person who realizes a new personal identity as one who comes from God and is going to God. Such a person knows that he or she lives a limited, chronologically circumscribed life, and yet one also feels oneself to be standing in a place of love, blessedness, freedom and healing that is timeless. In Jesus's mind, such a person refocuses his or her life to love God and others in unselfish ways. St. Paul would call such a state of consciousness the mind of Christ--something that we already have, if we but turn to God in each moment. This much seems clear.

Robert A. Jonas, 2006

Friend, hope for a guest while you are alive

Jump into life while you are alive!

What you call “salvation” belongs to the time before death

If you don’t break your ropes while you are alive,

do you think

ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic just because the body is rotten –

that is all fantasy.

What is found now is found then.

If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.

If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire…

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
-- Annie Dillard

"Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden
hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for
they are gone forever."
-- Horace Mann

Mark Twain, Old Times on the Mississippi:
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.

We lose the power of the moment because we're so rarely in it. We're
reliving the past or speculating about the future. We continue to
believe that tomorrow's the day when I'll be more capable, more wealthy,
more fit and more loving. Meanwhile, I'm just putting in time, dreaming
of better things but not making any concrete move to realize them.
When you find yourself thinking of the future or the past, bring your
awareness into the present moment. Really experience how you feel and
what's happening around you, without judgment. If we can treasure each
moment, our lives will be rich, no matter what we have accomplished.

Marcelene Cox:
Parents are often so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves.

Harry S Truman:
I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

"If, before going to bed every night, you will tear a page from the
calendar, and remark, 'there goes another day of my life, never to
return,' you will become time conscious."
-- A. B. Zu Tavern

Luke 17:21

"The Realm of God is here and now" — Jesus

In Philippians (2:5ff), St. Paul writes that Jesus “emptied himself ” (Greek: kenosis), taking the form of a servant. Jesus’s many acts of service and healing did not come from a mind that was thinking and analyzing about what to do or say, but rather from a mind that had emptied itself into God. Jesus’s mind was emptied of self-reference and the centripetal force of merely personal preference. In his “emptiness,” God’s infinite love could shine through Jesus’s human form unencumbered. Through him, the invisible could become visible. In this way, the purified Christian mind is analogous to Tibetan Buddhist emptiness and to Zen’s “no-thought-ness” (Jap. munen). Visible, tangible compassion arises out of nothing, out of the emptiness that circulates in God. This spiritual emptiness is not a shallow nihilism, a nonchalant rejection of ultimate meaning, but rather a deep focused detachment of mind and heart that has been shaped within a profound ethical context Robert A. Jonas, 2006

From "The Way of the Pilgrim" (Christian writer):

"Remember God always, everywhere and in all situations…When you behold light, remember who gives it to you, when you see heaven and earth and sea and all that they contain, be in awe and give praise to their Creator. When you put on your clothes, remember whose gift they are and give thanks to Him who takes care of your needs.

Anonymous
One night a father overheard his son pray: Dear God, Make me the kind of man my Daddy is. Later that night, the Father prayed, Dear God, Make me the kind of man my son wants me to be.

A healed person is . . . a person who realizes a new personal identity as one who comes from God and is going to God. Such a person knows that he or she lives a limited, chronologically circumscribed life, and yet one also feels oneself to be standing in a place of love, blessedness, freedom and healing that is timeless. In Jesus's mind, such a person refocuses his or her life to love God and others in unselfish ways. St. Paul would call such a state of consciousness the mind of Christ--something that we already have, if we but turn to God in each moment. This much seems clear.

Robert A. Jonas, 2006

Friend, hope for a guest while you are alive

Jump into life while you are alive!

What you call “salvation” belongs to the time before death

If you don’t break your ropes while you are alive,

do you think

ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic just because the body is rotten –

that is all fantasy.

What is found now is found then.

If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.

If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire…

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
-- Annie Dillard

"Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden
hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for
they are gone forever."
-- Horace Mann

Mark Twain, Old Times on the Mississippi:
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.

We lose the power of the moment because we're so rarely in it. We're
reliving the past or speculating about the future. We continue to
believe that tomorrow's the day when I'll be more capable, more wealthy,
more fit and more loving. Meanwhile, I'm just putting in time, dreaming
of better things but not making any concrete move to realize them.
When you find yourself thinking of the future or the past, bring your
awareness into the present moment. Really experience how you feel and
what's happening around you, without judgment. If we can treasure each
moment, our lives will be rich, no matter what we have accomplished.

Marcelene Cox:
Parents are often so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves.

Harry S Truman:
I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

"If, before going to bed every night, you will tear a page from the
calendar, and remark, 'there goes another day of my life, never to
return,' you will become time conscious."
-- A. B. Zu Tavern

Luke 17:21

"The Realm of God is here and now" — Jesus

In Philippians (2:5ff), St. Paul writes that Jesus “emptied himself ” (Greek: kenosis), taking the form of a servant. Jesus’s many acts of service and healing did not come from a mind that was thinking and analyzing about what to do or say, but rather from a mind that had emptied itself into God. Jesus’s mind was emptied of self-reference and the centripetal force of merely personal preference. In his “emptiness,” God’s infinite love could shine through Jesus’s human form unencumbered. Through him, the invisible could become visible. In this way, the purified Christian mind is analogous to Tibetan Buddhist emptiness and to Zen’s “no-thought-ness” (Jap. munen). Visible, tangible compassion arises out of nothing, out of the emptiness that circulates in God. This spiritual emptiness is not a shallow nihilism, a nonchalant rejection of ultimate meaning, but rather a deep focused detachment of mind and heart that has been shaped within a profound ethical context Robert A. Jonas, 2006

From "The Way of the Pilgrim" (Christian writer):

"Remember God always, everywhere and in all situations…When you behold light, remember who gives it to you, when you see heaven and earth and sea and all that they contain, be in awe and give praise to their Creator. When you put on your clothes, remember whose gift they are and give thanks to Him who takes care of your needs.

Anonymous
One night a father overheard his son pray: Dear God, Make me the kind of man my Daddy is. Later that night, the Father prayed, Dear God, Make me the kind of man my son wants me to be.

A healed person is . . . a person who realizes a new personal identity as one who comes from God and is going to God. Such a person knows that he or she lives a limited, chronologically circumscribed life, and yet one also feels oneself to be standing in a place of love, blessedness, freedom and healing that is timeless. In Jesus's mind, such a person refocuses his or her life to love God and others in unselfish ways. St. Paul would call such a state of consciousness the mind of Christ--something that we already have, if we but turn to God in each moment. This much seems clear.

Robert A. Jonas, 2006

Friend, hope for a guest while you are alive

Jump into life while you are alive!

What you call “salvation” belongs to the time before death

If you don’t break your ropes while you are alive,

do you think

ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic just because the body is rotten –

that is all fantasy.

What is found now is found then.

If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.

If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire…

Kabir

Quotations June 10, 2007

Lilies of the Field passage from Matthew 6:25-34:

"I tell you do not worry about your life, what you will eat of drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will God not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

The self . . . is the fortress you create to protect yourself from experiencing the pain of loss and impermanence. It is your greatest defense mechanism. It is also your prison.

Caroline Braizer

Listen down.

What is it?

A current of air?

Vibrating vocal cords?

Your own ear drums?

Something running in your head?

Iťs a& of these.

This sound is you vibrating.

This sound is you.

-Alan Watts,

I am of the nature to grow old.

There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill-health

There is no way to escape having ill-health

I am of the nature to die

There is no way to escape death.

And that dear to me and everyone I love

Are of the nature to change:

There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings.

I cannot escape the consequences of my actions.

My actions are the ground on which I stand.

The Buddha

Image of God
born of God's breath
vessel of divine Love
after his likeness
dwelling of God
capacity for the infinite
eternally known
chosen of God
home of the Infinite Majesty
abiding in the Son
called from eternity
life in the Lord
temple of the Holy Spirit
branch of Christ
receptacle of the Most High
wellspring of Living Water
heir of the kingdom
the glory of God
abode of the Trinity.
God sings this litany
eternally in his Word.
This is who you are.

a litany of the person - anonymous Trappist monk

In Zen Buddhism the student-teacher interview is the core of koan practice, the moment when the student must ‘answer the koan’ or be tossed out unceremoniously.

When my turn came, I went upstairs to the little room above the meditation hall, knocked, was invited in, entered, and sat down. A few moments of silence passed. I imagine that [Jiyu Kennett Roshi] was giving me the opportunity to begin. I stayed silent. She must have sensed my embarrassment. I was shy.

She looked at me in a very direct way. It was impossible to divine her mood, but I sensed a kindness in her eyes. After what seemed like an age, but could only have been a minute or so, she helped me out:

“Is there anything to report?” she asked.

In the context, this was a very open question. I could have used it almost any way. It could have been a basis for talking about technicalities of meditation practice. I could have used it as a springboard for a report upon my life. However, I was now even more paralyzed than before.

There was something about her whole way of being which prevented me from saying anything trivial, and in that moment everything seemed to fall into that category. All the things which had seemed so important about my life before I entered the room now no longer seemed consequential at all. This seemingly simple question, “Is there anything to report?” somehow demanded more than a commonplace response. It seemed to demand: “Can you say something which is ultimately true? Can you say it now?” Although a thousand things flashed through my mind, nothing in my life seemed to pass the test.

Then, it was as though the universe rescued me. My life dropped away, all that remained was the two of us sitting face to face, in a room on a cold day with the window open on to the frozen garden.

“The birds are singing,” I said.

She smiled.

It was an exchange of nine words in all, yet it contributed substantially to changing he direction of my life. (1995, p.11-12)

David Brazier

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed and growing sweet-
all this universe, to the furthest stars
and beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow,
Illuminated in your infinite peace.

A billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Quotations June 3, 2007

Opening Prayer

O Breathing Life, your Name shines everywhere!
Release a space to plant your Presence here.
Envision your potential now.
Embody your desire in every light and form.
Grow through us this moment's bread and wisdom.
Untie the knots of failure binding us,
as we release the strands we hold of others' faults.
Help us not forget our Source,
Yet free us from not being in the Present.
From you arises every Vision, Power and Song
from gathering to gathering.
May our future actions grow from here!

Amen

the lord's prayer - from the original Aramaic

“We begin by coming here, to this moment.”

Jack Kornfield

Have you ever gone to a stream and tried to grasp a bubble in the water with the hope of holding into it?.

Goldstein and Kornfield, Seeking the Heart of Wisdom

Empower

me to be a bold participant,

rather than a timid saint in waiting,

in the difficult ordinariness of now,

to exercise the authority of honesty,

rather than to defer to power,

or deceive to get it;

to influence someone for justice,

rather than impress someone for gain;

and by grace, to find treasures

of joy, of friendship, of peace,

hidden in the fields of the daily

you give me to plow.

Ted Loder

As it was in the beginning is now,
and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen

Christian traditional

Quotations Easter April 8, 2007

Opening Prayer

O God!
Refresh and gladden our spirits.
Purify our hearts.
Illumine our powers.
We lay all our affairs in Thy hands.
Thou art our Guide and our Refuge.
We will no longer be sorrowful and grieved;
We will be happy and joyful beings.
O God! We will no longer be full of anxiety,
nor will we let trouble harass us. …
O God! Thou art more friend to us than we are to ourselves.
I dedicate myself to Thee, O Lord.

Baha'i prayers - `Abdu'l-Bahá

Come Lord Jesus,
Be our guest,
And let thy gifts
To us be blessed.

Attributed to Martin Luther - 16th century

Silently a flower blooms,

In silence it falls away;

Yet here now, at this moment, at this place,

The world of the flower, the whole of

the world is blooming.

That is the talk of the flower, the truth

of the blossom;

The glory of eternal life is fully shinning here.

Zenkei Shibayana

When Jesus spoke the whole world was hushed to listen. His words were not for our ears but rather for the elements of which God made this earth.

He spoke to the sea, our vast mother, that gave us birth. He spoke to the mountains, our elder brother whose summit is a promise.

And he spoke to the angels beyond the sea and the mountains to whom he entrusted our dreams ere the clay in us was made hard in the sun.

And still His speech slumbers within our breast like a love-song half forgotten, and sometimes it burns itself through our memory.

His speech was simple and joyous, and the sound of His voice was like cool water in a land of drought.

Once He raised His hand against the sky, and His fingers were like the branches of a sycamore tree; and He said with a great voice:

“The prophets of old have spoken to you, and your ears are filled with their speech. But I say unto you, empty your ears of what you have heard.”

And those words of Jesus, “But I say unto you,” were not uttered by a man of our race or of our world; but rather by a host of seraphim marching across the sky of Judea.

Again and yet again He would quote the law and the prophets, and then would say, “But I say unto you.”

Oh, what burning words, what waves of seas unknown to the shores of our mind, “But I say unto you.”

What stars seeking the darkness of the soul, and what sleepless souls waiting the dawn.

To tell of the speech of Jesus one must needs have His speech or the echo thereof.

I have neither the speech nor the echo.

I beg you to forgive me for beginning a story that I cannot end. But the end is not yet upon my lips. It is still a love song in the wind.

Kahlil Gibran

What if the “resurrection of the body” were not seen as the resurrection of particular bodies that ascend, beginning with Jesus of Nazareth, into another world, but as God’s promise to be with us always in God’s body, our world? What if God’s promise of permanent presence to all space and time were imagined as a worldly reality, a palatable, bodily presence? What if then we did not have to go somewhere special (church) or somewhere else (another world) to be in the presence of God, but could feel ourselves in that presence at all times and in all places? What if we imagined God’s presence as in us and in all others, including the last and the least?

Sallie McFague

The small plot of ground

on which you were born

cannot be expected

to stay forever

the same.

Earth changes,

and home becomes different

places.

You took flesh

from clay

but the clay

did not come

from just one

place.

To feel alive,

important, and safe,

know your own waters

and hills, but I know

more.

You have stars in your bones

and oceans

in blood.

You have opposing

terrain in each eye.

You belong to the land

and the sky of your first cry,

you belong to infinity.

Alla Renee Bozarth

Water Blessing –

Rechatz.*

The cleansing power of water.

Moisture.

The essence of life.

Washing away hurts,

ways of thinking,

ways of being,

the things we want to let go of right now.

Allowing through that which has yet to emerge.

Making the way

for sacred space.

*Hand-washing

From the Santa Cruz Haggadah

Great Spirit, Divine One, Creator
who is heaven earth rock wind insect tree fox
human of every size shape color

Holy are your infinite names chanted sung whispered
shouted in every language, tongue.

We will midwife the rebirth of Gaia
as best we can
restoring the Great Law of Peace.

Guide our hands to the soil and seed
honoring the alchemy of food.
Let us remember your abundance
and share the bread of life with any who hunger.

We are forgiving
and giving and giving.
We trust in the give-away.
We give and receive.

Let us be humble before the darkness and the light
walking in harmony amidst them.
Give us courage to know them intimately
both within and without.

For you have breathed it all---
the behind, the above, the below, the beyond.
Your awesome power courses in our veins
and animates our hearts.
You are the Great Drum.

We thank you.

Translation of the lord's prayer
from King James to Gaian - Claudia L'amoreaux