Mary Oliver - Mysteries

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

Ashtavakra Gita - There is no name

The man who knows the Truth
Is never unhappy in the world,
For He alone fills the Universe. 

It is hard to find a man who has
No desire for what he has not tasted,
Or who tastes the world
And is untouched. 

He does not want the world to end,
He does not mind if it lasts. 

Whatever he does, he does nothing.
And for what he has become,
There is no name.

Thich Nhat Hanh - No Death, No Fear

 

 “This body is not me; 

I am not caught in this body, 

I am life without boundaries, 

I have never been born and I have never died. 

Over there the wide ocean and the sky with many galaxies. 

All manifests from the basis of consciousness. 

Since beginningless time I have always been free. 

Birth and death are only a door through which we go in and out. 

Birth and death are only a game of hide-and-seek. 

So smile to me and take my hand and wave good-bye. 

Tomorrow we shall meet again or even before. 

We shall always be meeting again at the true source, 

Always meeting again on the myriad paths of life.”

 http://plumvillage.org/

John O’Donohue - Presence

Awaken to the mystery of being here
and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.

Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.

Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to follow its path.
Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.

May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.
May anxiety never linger about you.

May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.

Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.

Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.

May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven
around the heart of wonder.

art xetobyte

Rumi - Truth's path

〇ᘉ ƬᖇᑌƬᕼ'ᔕ ᑭᗩƬᕼ, ᗯƗᔕᕮ Ɨᔕ ᗰᗩÐ, Ɨᘉᔕᗩᘉᕮ Ɨᔕ ᗯƗᔕᕮ.
Ɨᘉ ᒪ〇Ⅴᕮ'ᔕ ᗯᗩϒ, ᔕᕮᒪ₣ ᗩᘉÐ 〇Ƭᕼᕮᖇ ᗩᖇᕮ Ƭᕼᕮ ᔕᗩᗰᕮ.
ᕼᗩⅤƗᘉǤ ÐᖇᑌᘉḰ Ƭᕼᕮ ᗯƗᘉᕮ, ᗰϒ ᒪ〇Ⅴᕮ, 〇₣ ᙖᕮƗᘉǤ ᗯƗƬᕼ ϒ〇ᑌ,
Ɨ ₣ƗᘉÐ Ƭᕼᕮ ᗯᗩϒ Ƭ〇 ᗰᕮᑕᑕᗩ ᗩᘉÐ ᙖ〇ÐᕼǤᗩϒᗩ ᗩᖇᕮ Ƭᕼᕮ ᔕᗩᗰᕮ.

ᖇᑌᗰƗ ♡

The Way of Chuang Tzu - ( Thomas Merton )

 

 

THE TRUE MEN OF OLD were not afraid when they stood alone in their views. No great exploits. No plans. If they failed, no sorrow. No self-congratulation in success.

The true men of old knew no lust for life, no dread of death. Their entrance was without gladness, their exit, yonder, without resistance. Easy come, easy go. They did not forget where from, nor ask where to, nor drive grimly forward fighting their way through life. They took life as it came, gladly; took death as it came, without care; and went away, yonder. Yonder!

They had no mind to fight the Tao. They did not try by their own contriving to help the Tao along. These are the ones we call true men.

Minds free, thoughts gone. Brows clear, faces serene.

Goods and possessions are no gain in his eyes. He stays far from wealth and honor. Long life is no ground for joy, nor early death for sorrow. Success is not for him to be proud of, failure is no shame. Had he all the world's power he would not hold it as his own. If he conquered everything he would not take it to himself. His glory is in knowing that all things come together in One, and life and death are equal.

The man in whom the Tao acts without impediment harms no other being by his actions, yet he does not know himself to be kind or gentle. He does not bother with his own interests and does not despise others who do. He does not struggle to make money and does not make a virtue of poverty. He goes his way without relying on others and does not pride himself on walking alone. While he does not follow the crowd he won't complain of those who do. Rank and reward make no appeal to him; disgrace and shame do not deter him. He is not always looking for right and wrong, always deciding "Yes" or "No." The ancients said, therefore:

The man of Tao remains unknown
Perfect virtue produces nothing
No-Self is True-Self

And the greatest man is Nobody

~
Writing: The Way of Chuang Tzu
Translated by: Thomas Merton 

 download PDF HERE

Milarepa - The root of delusion

"The root of delusion comes from the mind 

And he who knows the inwardness of the mind 

Sees that the clear light within neither comes nor goes. 

And when the mind that is deceived 

by the appearance of outward things Has discerned the nature of appearance, 

It knows that there is no distinction between appearance and the void. 

Again when the mind discerns the nature of meditation 

It also discerns what is not meditation, 

And that there is no distinction between the two. 

For distinctive thought is the root of delusion 

And such thought has never been of the ultimate truth." 

Wu Hsin - No Other to Each Other

 Art roadioarts

With No Other to Each Other, Wu Hsin raises the bar. No longer content to speak about the transcendent, he now addresses the immanent, clarifying that it is included in the transcendent.

Very early into Scroll One: Being Needs No Proof, Wu Hsin explains:

The sage is mysterious. For such a one, identification has ended. He has found everything Where there is nothing. He sees the essential fullness Without using his eyes and Distinguishes between Being and beings While realizing that there is no need to Deny the many in order to affirm the One. His is an unbroken awareness of ‘I’. He lives in a paradoxical locale, In the absence of anything present and In the absence of anything absent. Beyond yet infinitely near, Where each is both, Wholly in the one and wholly in the other, At the same time; Where there is no other to each other, Where the center is everywhere, Where one plus one equals one Where emptiness and fullness have no difference and Where inside and outside, Where immanence and transcendence are reconciled. He declares: I am phenomenal absence, But the phenomenal manifestation appears as my Self and I experience the world through Me.

Such a view provides a resolution of the seeming incompatibility between the One and the many that has plagued philosophers since the beginnings of philosophy. It reminds one of the analogy of the fire and its sparks: the sparks that come off of a fire are both the same as that fire and different from it. They are the same insofar as they came from the fire, and are constituted by the same substance as fire. But they are also distinguishable from the original fire, as occupying a separate point in space.

That-Which-Is contains both distinction and unity, substance and attribute, universal and particular, whole and parts, all the while maintaining the integrity of Identity immanent within differences.

Scroll Two: The Declaration of Numinous Primacy is essentially an Upanishad. In it, Wu Hsin tackles the impossible, the expression of the ineffable.

He concludes with:

That about which nothing can be said, Wu Hsin has now spoken. The Final Understanding is An intuitive apperception that In every moment of every day, All that is happening is that You are looking into a mirror. There is a singular totality of which Subjectivity and Objectivity are its twin aspects. The Subjective aspect looks out Onto the Objective aspect. The Transcendent is experiencing The Immanent via embodiment, Experiencing the coincidence of Difference and sameness, Fitting together as seamlessly as The well-made lid fits into its matching box. Even the sense of being is a Mere season in the Timeless. However, at the base, There always already is a Numinous Individuum.

Thus, on the basis of his meditative direct insight, Wu Hsin celebrates the Absolute or the True Infinite that is the informing principle in all things.

Source text  http://www.roymelvyn.com/

Sri Aurobindo - Liberation

I have thrown from me the whirling dance of mind
And stand now in the spirit’s silence free,
Timeless and deathless beyond creature-kind,
The centre of my own eternity.

I have escaped and the small self is dead;
I am immortal, alone, ineffable;
I have gone out from the universe I made,
And have grown nameless and immeasurable.

My mind is hushed in a wide and endless light,
My heart a solitude of delight and peace,
My sense unsnared by touch and sound and sight,
My body a point in white infinities.

I am the one Being’s sole immobile Bliss:
No one I am, I who am all that is.

— Sri Aurobindo – Last Poems – Liberation

Baba Bulleh Shah - Who knows who I am?

Art Shahram Soltani

Not a believer in the mosque am I, Nor a disbeliever with his rites am I. I am not the pure amongst the impure, Neither Moses nor Pharaoh am I. Bulleh, who knows who I am?

Not in the holy books am I, Nor do I dwell in bhang or wine, Nor do I live in a drunken haze, Nor in sleep nor waking known. Bulleh, who knows who I am?

Not in happiness or in sorrow am I found. I am neither pur nor mired in filthy ground. Neither made from earth nor water, Nor am I in air or fire to be found. Bulleh, who knows who I am?

Not an Arab nor Lahori, Not a Hindi or Nagouri, Nor a Muslim or Peshawari, Not a Buddhist or a Christian. Bulleh, who knows who I am?

Secrets of religion have I not unravelled, Nor have I fathomed Eve and Adam. Neither still nor moving on, I have not chosen my own name! Bulleh, who knows who I am?

From first to last, I searched myself. None other did I succeed in knowing. Not some great thinker am I. Who is standing in my shoes, alone? Bulleh, who knows who I am?

— Baba Bulleh Shah – Bulleh, who knows who I am? (Islamic Mystical Poetry: Sufi Verse from the early Mystics to Rumi…)

Rumi - Sifter of Dust

Suppose you know the definitions
of all substances and their products,
what good is this to you?
Know the true definition of yourself.
That is essential.
Then, when you know your own definition, flee from it,
that you may attain to the One who cannot be defined,
O sifter of the dust.

Jalalud’din Rumi – Sifter of Dust – The Rumi Collection

Oriah - The Call/The Invitation

The Call

I have heard it all my life,
A voice calling a name I recognize
Remember what you are and let this knowing
take you home to the Beloved with every breath.

Hold tenderly who you are and let a deeper knowing
colour the shape of your humanness.

There is no where to go. What you are looking for is right here.
Open the fist clenched in wanting and see what you already hold in your hand.

There is no waiting for something to happen,
no point in the future to get to.
All you have ever longed for is here in this moment, right now.

You are wearing yourself out with all this searching.
Come home and rest.

How much longer can you live like this?
Your hungry spirit is gaunt, your heart stumbles. All this trying.
Give it up!

Let yourself be one of the God-mad,
faithful only to the Beauty you are.

Let the Lover pull you to your feet and hold you close,
dancing even when fear urges you to sit this one out.

Remember- there is one word you are here to say with your whole being.
When it finds you, give your life to it. Don't be tight-lipped and stingy.

Spend yourself completely on the saying.
Be one word in this great love poem we are writing together.

 The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

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