Saturday, February 8, 2014

Chuck Surface - Longing


What is it that you want?
Is it “knowledge” that you are “That”?
Or “knowledge” that there is only Emptiness,
As the Buddhists say?

Or do you long for Experience,
Direct Experience,
Not just in transient “spiritual” moments,
But always, with every breath, every heartbeat?

Knowledge is of use
Only if it evokes Experience,
Like wood stored against winter's cold,
Unburned, it will not warm you.

Only the Heart ignites knowledge.
And only that Fire consumes the contraction,
Across the Whole of the Being…
Of “i”.

Filling the Experience of Being,
With Fullness, Completion...
And Bliss.

Whether Consciousness is the Formless Ground of Being,
Or an endless flow of Causality arising in Emptiness
Is of no consequence, whatsoever,
Unless such knowledge evokes Experience.

You can hear all the words in the world,
And the ember of your Heart will not ignite.
You can see every “teacher du jour”,
And the wellspring of your Heart will not overflow.

You can do 10,000 prostrations,
One million “Om Mane Padme Hum's,”
And receive countless empowerments,
And the Sun of your Heart will not Shine.

Without Love's Unbearable Longing,
Teachings are the sound of dry bones crumbling,
The most powerful teachers are no more than mannequins,
And the highest “highs” become only memories.

Only Longing, deep and vast,
Will illumine the mind's understanding,
And reap Holiness,
From the arid fields of knowledge.

This is a matter of The Heart,
Not an academic endeavor to be figured out; “gotten”.
One does not “learn” the meaning of the word…
Ananda


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