Inspiration
A bit of humor to keep us humble. Laughter is a gentle way of falling into the present moment. We are where we are when we're laughing.
Possibly a light hearted way to look into where we consistently, perhaps indulgently and devotedly, give our attention.
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If onlyy we could see each other that way all the time, there would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed....I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other.----Thomas Merton
Life is wonderful, mysterious. There is so much to discover and be curious about. Allow yourself to be free to enjoy your time on Earth. Helping the world, liberating people from their suffering is something that is possible. But, first of all, we have to help ourselves and set ourselves free.---Thich Nhat Hanh
This is shared by Amy. An excerpt that comes from The Essential Rumi" translatation by Coleman Barks, p. 88.
TWO FRIENDS
A certain person came to the Friend's door and knocked.
"Who's there?"
"It's me."
The Friend answered, "Go away. There's no place for raw meat at this table."
The individual went wandering for a year. Nothing but the fire of separation can change hypocrisy and ego. The person returned completely cooked, walked up and down in the front of the Friend's house, and gently knocked.
"Who is it?"
"Please come in, my self,
there's no place in this house for two.
The doubled end of the thread is not what goes through the eye of the needle.
It's a single-pointed fined-down, thread end, not a big ego beast with baggage."
But how can a camel be thinned to a thread? With the shears of practices, with doing things.
And with help from the one who brings impossibilities to pass, who quiets willfulness, who gives sight to one blind from birth.
Everyday that one does something. Take that as your text.
And watch two men washing clothes. One makes dry clothes wet. The other makes wet clothes dry. They seem to be thwarting each other, but their work is a perfect harmony.
Every holy person seems to have a different doctrine and practice, but there's really only one work.
Someone listening to a millstone falls asleep. No matter. The stone keeps turning.
Water from the mountain far above the mill keeps flowing down. The sleepers get their bread.
Underground it moves, without sound, and without repetition. Show us where that source of speech is that has no alphabet. That spaciousness.
Where we are now is a narrow fantasy that comes from there, and the actual, outside world is even narrower. Narrowness is pain, and the cause of narrowness is manyness.
Sharing from Cherrie
More Inspirational Quotes
* click the arrow at right to open
Source is ever merciful. The Grace flows perpetually
Source is ever merciful. The Grace flows perpetually
free and uncaused.
Keep your vessel right side up so that it may become full.
-Anandamayi Ma
Peace is not something to hope for in the future. Peace is something that we can be in every moment. If we want peace, we have to be peace.
Peace is a practice and not a hope.
-Tich Nhat Hanh,
monk, peacemaker, social transformer
As long as man has someone or something to which he can cling, he will not find God. Whatever man knows or is able to know with his human mentality—whether a thing or a thought—is not God. No one is going to find God while he has anything on which to stand, anything to which he can hold, or anything about which he can think. Startling and unbelievable as this may seem to be, nevertheless it is true.—-Joel S Goldsmith
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Some people look at the beginning and some look at the end. Those who look at the end are great and mighty for their gaze is toward the world beyond.
Those who look at the beginning are more fortunate. They say, "Why should we look at the end? If wheat is sown at the beginning, barley won't grow at the end."
There are other people still more fortunate who look toward neither the beginning, nor the end, but whose minds are absorbed in Allah (The Absolute) in the moment.
And there are yet other people who are absorbed in surface appearances, looking neither at the beginning nor the end. Being extremely forgetful, these people only sow misfortune for themselves and others.
---RUMI
I Will Give You
(Gospel of Thomas, Logion 17)
Jesus said,
"I will give to you:
Shapes that no eye has seen,
Sounds that no ear has heard
Sensations that no hand has touched
Thoughts and feelings
that have never appeared in the
mind and heart of humanity."
Heaven and Earth
(Genesis 1.1c)
The "heaven" in us vibrates through creation.
rising like a volatile mixture of fire and water.
The name of the Holy One vibrates word, light, and atmosphere
constantly telling us, even when we deny it,
that nothing is ever separate.
This "heaven" extends from a center that could be anywhere
to a border that may be everywhere.
It is part of what is created and at the same time
part of what is doing the creating.
How do we make sense of this?
The "earth" in us offers a unique gift
to the rest of the cosmos,
descending like fixed fire
toward a definite end and purpose.
We came for a reason:
there is no other like us.
This uniqueness reminds us of
the preciousness of what we are,
the opportunity of what we can be.
Community. Individuality.
Wave. Particle.
Heaven. Earth.
The first outpouring of sacred reality
expresses itself in these ways,
in beginningness full of mystery
present then, now, and in the future.
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Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’
doesn’t make any sense.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you
Don't go back to sleep
You must ask for what you really want
Don't go back to sleep
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep
——RUMI
We must offer ourselves to God like a clean, smooth canvas and not worry ourselves about what God may choose to paint on it, but at each moment, feel only the stroke of His brush. — Jean Pierre de Caussade
“The crucifixion of the self is accomplished when there is nothing left for which you wish to pray.”——Joel S. Goldsmith, The Thunder of Silence
I have told you these things, so that in me you may have PEACE.
In this world you will have trouble. But take heart!
I have overcome the world.
John 16:33
“One changes the world by virtue of what one has become. Rather than what one does.”—-Dr. Hawkins
Inspirational quotes from Session#2
*click on the arrow at right to open the section
““The crucifixion of the self is accomplished when there is nothing left for which you wish to pray.”——
Joel S. Goldsmith, The Thunder of Silence
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When there is mist on the mountains, it is beautiful, and when there is no mist it is also beautiful. All seasons are beautiful. You are beautiful, and your friends are beautiful. There is nothing to stop you from being in touch with life in the present moment. The question is, Do you have eyes that can see the sunset, feet that can touch the Earth?----Thich Nhat Hanh
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If you have spent your whole life becoming somebody and having something and then with awakening you turn around and you start the journey in the other direction of becoming nothing becoming nobody and having nothing it would seem to make the whole first part of life meaningless or some sort of error. But its important to see that this sequence is a necessary sequence, that when one take incarnation in an evolutionary moment when one is going to awaken, you still have to become somebody and become grounded on earth before you can do the spiritual work. Part of the experience of living richly has been identification with the desires and emotions, with the passions of life, with the hatreds and the joys, with the mellow drama. Each of us has an intense drama going on around ourselves. Will we , won’t we, can we, can’t we, should we, shouldn’t we? And with awakening one begins to see the way one has been trapped in one’s story line. But it doesn’t mean the story ends. The Ram Dass story is alive and well. The only question is, Who’s living it?—Ram Dass
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Walking in Beauty: Closing Prayer from the Navajo Blessing Way Ceremony
In beauty I walk
With beauty before me I walk
With beauty behind me I walk
With beauty above me I walk
With beauty around me I walk
It has become beauty again
Hózhóogo naasháa doo Shitsijí’ hózhóogo naasháa doo Shikéédéé hózhóogo naasháa doo Shideigi hózhóogo naasháa doo T’áá altso shinaagóó hózhóogo naasháa doo Hózhó náhásdlíí’ Hózhó náhásdlíí’ Hózhó náhásdlíí’ Hózhó náhásdlíí’
Today I will walk out, today everything negative will leave me
I will be as I was before, I will have a cool breeze over my body.
I will have a light body, I will be happy forever, nothing will hinder me.
I walk with beauty before me. I walk with beauty behind me.
I walk with beauty below me. I walk with beauty above me.
I walk with beauty around me. My words will be beautiful.
In beauty all day long may I walk.
Through the returning seasons, may I walk.
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.
With dew about my feet, may I walk.
With beauty before me may I walk.
With beauty behind me may I walk.
With beauty below me may I walk.
With beauty above me may I walk.
With beauty all around me may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.
My words will be beautiful…
Linguistic Note: The word “Hozho” in Dine’ (roughly translated) Concept of Balance and Beauty. Consideration of the nature of the universe, the world, and man, and the nature of time and space, creation, growth, motion, order, control, and the life cycle includes all these other Navajo concepts expressed in terms quite impossible to translate into English. Some Navajos might prefer the term: “Nizhoni” meaning ‘just beauty.”
Responsive Immediacy (AKA a state of ZERO data)
There are 9 parts to this interview. This is #1. The others can be found on YouTube
“I” Am The “I”
OWAU NO KA “I”
“I” come forth from the void into light,
Pua mai au mai ka po iloko o ka malamalama,
“I” am the breath that nurtures life,
Owau no ka ha, ka mauli ola,
“I” am that emptiness, that hollowness beyond all consciousness,
Owau no ka poho, ke ka’ele mawaho a’e o no ike apau.
The “I”, the All.
Ka “I”, Ke Kino Iho, na Mea Apau.
“I” draw my bow of rainbows across the waters,
Ka a’e au “I” ku’u pi’o o na anuenue mawaho a’e o na kai a pau,
The continuum of minds with matters.
Ka ho’omaumau o na mana’o ame na mea a pau.
“I” am the incoming and outgoing of breath,
Owau no ka “Ho” a me ka “Ha”,
The invisible, untouchable breeze,
He huna ka makani nahenahe,
The undefinable atom of creation.
Ka “Hua” huna o Kumulipo.
“I” am the “I”.
Owau no ka “I”.