Stephan Bodian - Mystery

“I’m in love with the mystery, and I don’t know what it is,” said Advaita sage HWL Poonja.
We could just as easily substitute “reality” or “truth” or “my very own true self”
for mystery, whatever word has the most resonance.
It’s the not-knowing that gives rise to the love—what we can’t possibly know is endlessly rich
and open and intriguing, an inexhaustible source of wonder.
When we don’t pretend to know, life is ever unfolding in this extraordinary and ungraspable way,
beyond the mind’s ability to understand or control.

Of course, Poonjaji knew that he was (you are, I am) the very mystery that he was in love with
—yet he also knew that we are always at once the admirer and the admired,
the worshiper and the worshiped, ready to prostrate ourselves at the feet of what we really are.
 Indeed, this paradoxical dance between personal and universal
is one of the mystery's most fascinating expressions.
Ultimately, the mystery is in love with itself.

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St Thomas Aquinas - ‘Ask anything.’

Yongsung Kim

 ‘Ask anything.’
My Lord said to me.

And my mind and heart thought deeply
 for a second,
then replied with just one word,

‘When?’

God’s arms then opened up and I entered Myself.

I entered myself when I entered
Christ.
And having learned compassion
I allowed my soul
to stay.

 

 

Yoka daishi - Meaning of the Unborn

The Great Master Ch'en Chui, (Yoka daishi), arrived at Tsao Ch'i carrying a gourd and wearing a bamboo hat. He circumambulated three times the master's seat. Striking his monk's staff down once, he stood proudly before him.

The Sixth Ancestor, (Huineng) said,
"Monks must keep the three thousand deportments and eighty thousand rules of minor conduct. Where does this venerable one come from that he is so proud?"

Ch'en Chui said,
"The matter of Birth and Death is great, impermanence is closing in fast."

The Ancestor said,
"Why don't you experience no-arising and understand that which does not move?"

Ch'en Chui replied,
"Experiencing is the non-arising state, understanding is originally unmoving."

The Ancestor said,
"Right, that's how it is."

After a moment Ch'en Chui moved to leave, and the Ancestor asked,
"Aren't you leaving a bit too fast."

Ch'en Chui answered,
"Originally I am unmoving, how can it be too fast?"

The Ancestor asked,
"Who is it who knows this not-moving?"

Ch'en Chui answered,
"You're the one giving rise to discrimination."

The Ancestor said,
"You understand the meaning of the Unborn. Stay over for one night."

~~~~

 excerpt from "The Transmission of the Lamp, the Record of the Lives and Sayings 

of the Great Chan Masters in China", which was made available by Anzan Hoshin roshi

Source 

 (Yoka Daishi 665-713) 

Rumi ♡ The man of God

 

The man of God is drunken without wine,
The man of God is full without meat.
The man of God is distraught and bewildered,
The man of God has no food or sleep.
The man of God is a king beneath a dervish-cloak,
The man of God is a treasure in a ruin.
The man of God is not of air and earth,
The man of God is not of fire and water.
The man of God is a boundless sea,
The man of God rains pearls without a cloud.
The man of God has hundred moons and skies,
The man of God has hundred suns.
The man of God is made wise by the Truth,
The man of God is not learned from book.
The man of God is beyond infidelity and religion,
To the man of God, right and wrong are alike.
The man of God has ridden away from Not-being,
The man of God is gloriously attended.
The man of God is concealed, Shamsi Din;
The man of God do you seek and find!

 

Rumi - Live in Silence

This silence,
this moment,
every moment,
if it’s genuinely inside you,
brings what you need.
There’s nothing to believe.
Only when I stopped
believing in myself
did I come into this beauty.
Sit quietly,
and listen for a voice
that will say,
‘Be more silent.’
Die and be quiet.
Quietness is the surest sign
that you’ve died.
Your old life
was a frantic running
from silence.
Move outside
the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.