Pir Elias Amidon - Love letter

In this moment I rest. What rests? I look to see what it is that rests. What looks? I look to see what it is that looks. Not finding anything, I rest. What returns to resting?

Love letterIf I cannot find what it is that rests or that looks (and if anyone should be able to find it, I should), then it would seem that the “I” — that which rests and looks — does not exist. But how can I refer to something that does not exist? What am I referring to? If there is something that does not exist, it must somehow first claim existence so that it can be subject to nonexistence. Or what is this nonexistence?

Rumi’s father, Baha Walad, wrote in his notebook:

God has made this infinite nonexistence into a beloved. A hundred thousand beauties, appetites, passions, loves, views, courses of action, choices, fallings in love, caressings of lovers, sorts of faculties, kinds of life, stratagems, ruses, embraces, kisses, sweet meetings — God has pulled all of these over the face of nonexistence. Someone is needed who can gaze upon nonexistence, with tears running down his cheeks in his love for it.

So here we are — or aren’t — with tears running down our cheeks for love of all this. . . all this. . . . I love you, but what loves what? Is nonexistence in love with nonexistence?

Dawn breaks over the mountains and a new day opens for us. Where is the new day? Inside us? Outside? Does it exist? And for what or whom does it open?

Baha Walad’s son, Rumi, said to his friends:

We and our existences are all nonexistences,
but You are absolute Existence, appearing as annihilation.

The absolute Existence of God appears as annihilation? Sufis call this fana, the annihilation of seeming. It is considered the unavoidable requirement for spiritual realization. But if what is annihilated has no existence to begin with, how can annihilation take place?

Baha Walad says that “God has no howness,” so to ask how can annihilation take place is a pointless question. Dawn breaks over the mountains and a new day opens, but there is no how.

Let us praise God’s howlessness with our own! I love you, but how that is is howless. “A hundred thousand beauties, appetites, passions, loves, views, courses of action, choices, fallings in love, caressings of lovers, sorts of faculties, kinds of life, stratagems, ruses, embraces, kisses, sweet meetings” — these appear howlessly — a light show, a shadow play, a spectacular dream. Mirages ourselves, can we ever touch the real? Or can we be satisfied with saying “God has made this infinite nonexistence into a beloved?”

Beloved, you are nonexistence: your soft lips, your laugh, your waywardness, your kind eyes looking both at me and at something I cannot see within you, this nonexistence. I can only repeat to you these lines:

In the uncertain light of single, certain truth,
Equal in living changingness to the light
In which I meet you, in which we sit at rest,
For a moment in the central of our being,
The vivid transparence that you bring is peace.*

*from the dedication to Wallace Stevens’ Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction.

Source text Sufi Way

 

 

Buddha - Karaniya Metta Sutta

This is what should be done
By those who are skilled in goodness,
And who know the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: in gladness and safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born –
May all beings be at ease!
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world;
Spreading upward to the skies,
And downward to the depths;
Outward and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down,
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world. 

 

Adyashanti - Silence

Just don’t mistake effort for struggle, for struggle is simply wasted effort.
But to attend to the inner silence of your being is what being itself calls you to do.
In many ways, silence is the greatest teacher and most wise teaching.
The call of the heart never confines itself to the mind’s ideas of whether effort is necessary or not.
It follows the impulse of silent intuition which is so much better aligned with what the moment dictates. Leave the mind to do what it is best at, namely calculating and describing things, and look to the wisdom born of silence for inner guidance relating to things of the spirit.

 https://www.adyashanti.org/

for Christine