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Saturday, December 31, 2016

Wu Hsin - Lost writings (some)




These words are
The transmission of Wu Hsin.
Thanks be to Heaven for
Granting their approval.
They transcend time and
Therefore are beyond time.
They will be as valid in
Five thousand years as
They are in this moment.
In the absence of a resonance,
They will have no meaning nor
Create any interest.
This resonance cannot be willed into being.
It is either inherent by nature or
It is not.
These words come out from
A place devoid of
Concepts and doubts.
As such, they are not only spontaneous, but
Natural and true.
They are not intended to
Create new concepts,
But, to instead,
Dispel old ones.
The words of Wu Hsin are
Not meant for discussion which only
Distorts and pollutes.
Take them in and
Move on.



 download some Wu Hsin writings HERE

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Ilie Cioara - Nothingness



 “Nothingness is the void, nonexistence, the nothing, the non-thing.
Simultaneously, It is also the Infinite, the Existence which permeates All that exists in the Boundless Universe. It has no limits, therefore it is Boundlessness.

Each time we realize the State of Being, we also experience Boundless Thinking, which is, in fact, the same Immensity we can also call Nothingness. This Nothingness holds all the planets, stars, galaxies and universes in orbit, as well as all their content.

Therefore, in a simple state of No-mind we encounter the eternal State of Being, which is, in fact, the Infinite Energy or God. Practically, we are in a state of Boundless Thinking; in a split second we can place a Thought on the Moon, the Sun or any galaxy.

When we truly encounter the State of Being through personal experience, we realize our Godliness, for in that sublime Moment we and God are in a perfect communion, manifested as eternal Love.

Therefore, each of us – woman or man – is endowed with this natural functional capacity. It is attained with the help of lucid and all-encompassing Attention, which instantly dissipates the mechanism of the delusive, illusory mind. As soon as this "Psychological Void" or Peace of the Soul appears, the New Man affirms his existence and sublime behavior as unconditional Love, Joy and Happiness, free from any external motivations.”


 

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Gilbert Schultz - Psychological suffering is unnecessary



It would seem that 'personal suffering' is the last thing anyone wants to give up. 
What am l without this 'story of me'? The energy that is expressed everyday, 
in every major city in the world, expressed through the 'personal drama', 
could power up the city for a few hours probably. 
Is anything truly achieved by all the story-telling, the angst and the unnecessary
suffering? Is any of it real? Truly? It is very simple to reveal that the story of me is just a bunch of ideas, ideas that have no actual foundation in reality. 
 
 What is real? The fact that you truly ARE, that you EXIST, is real.
How that is explained by the mind is just concepts.
 
The nature of everything is equal in essence and totally 
uniquely diverse in expression.
 
Everything occupies its own unique 'place' without being fixed in time or space. 
Not one atom can be anywhere other than where it is. 
The space which surrounds each particle is the same space that is everywhere, completely beyond the apparent limits of dimensional measurement. 
There are no fixed reference points in space or time. All phenomena is
transient, immediate, and its true nature is not separate from the emptiness (space) 
which suffuses everything. 
 
The cutting-through insight which reveals our true nature is like space. 
The causeless joy of 'self-discovery' is beyond the intellects ability to explain. 
The genuine insight is not accompanied by any belief in being an entity. 
The pristine absence of an individual identity is beyond description. 
It is like pure wisdom, pure knowing, where there is an obvious clarity
devoid of any 'knower'. The entire manifestation is known to be an appearance 
that does not actually touch the true essence of knowing. 
It is neither within nor without – it is formless knowing. 
Even though the body still appears to be the host of this consciousness, 
it is known as no more than an appearance – a living appearance
that has no substance apart from the activity of immediate cognition. 
 
This 'presence' of undoubtable knowing is our true nature. It is nature itself. 
The old way of thinking, the mind (the me) of memory is transcended totally. 
Even though this idea of 'me' returns in the appearance, it has no belief attached to it. 
The 'pathway' of energy that once supported that belief has been cut off. 
Of course this suggests that 'something' has 'happened'. Nothing has truly happened and never did.
 
 
There is no one to claim anything. The nature of language implies many things that don't
actually exist. Yet such implications have no substance and merely belong to the nature of
appearance. All this appearance is actually emptiness appearing as the diversity of life. The joy of seeing everything in this 'way' cannot be described. 
 
Many popular teachers claim all sorts of things about themselves, either openly or by
inference. None of it is true. None of it. There is no separate individual anywhere. 
All is abiding as equanimity. The diversity of differences is only of the appearance of things, There is only one thing, which is no thing. When this truth is revealed, one is left speechless. Speech returns, but belief has been completely overthrown.
 
The contriving mind is restless and the 'wanting-to-impress' impulses, so apparent in so many teachers and gurus, is obvious. So-called 'spirituality' is nothing but contrived mind; there is nothing in it. It may assist in stepping away from apparent harmful beliefs, but it is nothing but appearance. There is only one spirit and THAT is what you ARE
. Nothing can take you there -because you have always been That. 
It is only the mind (me) of memory and learned 'data' that suggests otherwise. 
Belief must be vanquished once and for all. The cost of freedom is
seeing that there was never anyone who was actually bound.
That cost is often accompanied by habitual 'fear' and that so-called fear 
of being nothing keeps the apparent 'seeker' bound to belief. 
 
 
Psychological suffering is unnecessary. No one can 'do it' for you. 
No amount of praying, repeating a mantra, or service to a guru can truly
bring about the revelation of one's own true nature. It may appear
to do that, but it is only just another appearance. What you truly ARE,you have 
ALWAYS been. The simple everyday activity of knowing this consciousness, this
being present and aware, is all that is required and THAT is always present; 
it is the true nature of everything. There is nothing other than THAT
.
Whatever your background is, whatever religion you 'belong to', 
whatever place you find yourself in, the unchanging true essence of being 
is the same. You are that One-without-a-second. 
 
 
 PDF download HERE
 


Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Jan Frazier - Looking at thought




Not ideas about the thing
but the thing itself.
 
See the difference between the felt encounter with momentary reality
and anything the mind makes of it.


The idea of the thing becomes
the thing itself.
 
This is what the ego does with ideas. They are mistaken for life itself.
So suffering continues. Time keeps seeming real. Life itself is missed.
The seeming-reality of the self (which is made of ideas) persists.


 When thought objects vanish,
the thinking-subject vanishes.
 
“You” (your ego) have to “come online” in order for egoic thought to form.
When your mind is free of egoic thought, “you” literally are not there.
This is because you (the egoic self) are constructed of thought and maintained by it.
The mind creates a self, which then tells itself stories.
The self lives in these stories and ideas as if they were reality.


Thought gains its dominance and control
by a simple device:
not being observed.
 
As soon as you become aware that you are thinking, rather than engaging with the content of the thought,
the power of the thought diminishes. You see that thought is not reality.



* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It may take the rest of your life to “get” this. Be patient!
Revisit it every so often. It will bear fruit.
Don’t try (only) to understand it. Observe it operating, as you live.
Let it play like a song in the background of your awareness.


Sources of quotations:

“Not ideas about the thing but the thing itself.” – Wallace Stevens (20th century American poet)

“The idea of the thing becomes the thing itself.” – Thomas Lynch (contemporary American poet and essayist; also an undertaker)

“When thought objects vanish, the thinking-subject vanishes.” – Third Zen Patriarch

“Thought gains its dominance and control by a simple device: not being observed.” – Red Hawk (contemporary spiritual author)

 



Saturday, December 24, 2016

Mary Oliver - Day off



 “Today I’m flying low and I’m
not saying a word.
I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.
The world goes on as it must,
the bees in the garden rumbling a little,
the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.
And so forth.
But I’m taking the day off.
Quiet as a feather.
I hardly move though really I’m traveling
a terrific distance.
Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.”


 

A. S. Kline - Reductio


(from)The Other Side of Silence

It is an aspect of the world: imagine

that the unwatched mirror is empty;

that things inside the room, the room

itself, vanish, when the door is closed;

that there are no words inside the books

till we open them, nor behind the screen;

that the sun dies each night and is reborn;

that the universe, its billion-fold light show

is a darkness that the mind populates;

that non-existent gods spring into being

whenever the faithful say their prayers.




plenty of readings and free downloads 
 

Friday, December 23, 2016

Steve Taylor - The wave



The ocean sighed with pleasure
as the wind caressed and stroked her
and soon the wave was born.

The wave came from the ocean
and was always a part of the ocean.
But shortly after he was created
the wave watched himself, as he began to rise and roll,
saw his own smooth and graceful motion,
the beautiful bubbling foam which sprayed around him
and fell in love with himself.

He started to believe that he was his own master
that it was his own strength that was propelling him
that he was directing his own flow
and could change direction if he wanted.

The wave forgot the ocean, and saw himself as separate –
a self-sufficient, sealess wave
who felt proud of his power, exhilarated by his autonomy
as he rolled faster and rose higher.

But then he looked around, and saw the other waves
who had already peaked and crashed
and were beginning to dip and to disperse
and the others who were already dissolving, disappearing.
And he felt afraid, realising that his form was temporary
that his speed and power would ebb away
and soon he would dissolve and disappear as well.

And he felt alone, as he sensed the empty space around him,
the distance between him and the other waves.
And he felt threatened by the ocean’s vastness,
now that he seemed to be separate from it.

The wave resisted and rebelled –
he tried to build up more momentum, to collect more water,
to roll more smoothly, to foam more spectacularly
to make himself so powerful that he would never dissolve away
to make his form so perfect that he could escape decay.

But soon the wave realised he had no choice
that he had less control than he thought, less strength than he thought
that he couldn’t interfere with the forces that had shaped him
so he stopped grasping and pushing
and felt the relief of letting go
and the freedom of no longer trying.

And so after the majestic foaming rush, the glorious crescendo of his breaking
he gave himself up to his ebbing, fading flow
to the ease of his descent
and he was filled with the joy of acceptance.

He allowed his boundaries to soften
and felt his connection to every other wave
and his oneness with the whole of the sea.
He felt the vast wholeness of the sea
within his own being
then as his own being.

And then the wave dipped, slowed down and began to dissipate.
Quietly and serenely, without fear or resistance
he gave himself to the tide, and became the sea again

knowing that he had never been anything else.


 

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee - Mysticism: Living Love’s Oneness



What is mysticism? How is it different to spirituality? And why is mysticism important at this moment in time?

The spiritual journey can be most simply described as a way to access the light of our soul — the beautiful light with which we came into the world. On this journey we make an inner relationship with this light of our divine nature — the spirit that is within each of us. Through this relationship we come to know our true self and be nourished by the deeper meaning of our soul.

Spiritual paths and teachings give us access to the tools and guidance to do this inner work. For example, the practice of meditation can help to still the mind so that we are no longer distracted by its continual chatter. Psychological inner work can free us from the traumas, anger, anxiety and other feelings that may cover our light. Gradually we come to know more of our true nature, learn to live in the light of our real self. It is said that the goal of every spiritual path is to live a guided life, guided by that within us which is eternal.

The mystical journey may begin with making a relationship with one’s inner light, but the mystic is drawn on a deeper journey toward love’s greatest secret: that within the heart we are one with the divine. The fire of mystical love is a burning which destroys all sense of a separate self, until nothing is left but love Itself. While the spiritual seeker is drawn to the light of this fire, the mystic is the moth consumed by it’s flames. Rumi, love’s greatest mystical poet, summed up his whole life in two lines:

And the result is not more than these three words:
I burnt, and burnt, and burnt.

The mystical path takes us into the center of the heart where this mystery of love takes place. Initially this love is often experienced as longing, a deep desire for God, the Beloved, Divine Truth, or simply an unexplained ache in the heart. Mystics are lovers who are drawn toward a love in which there is no you or me, but only the oneness of love Itself. And they are prepared to pay the ultimate price to realize this truth: the price of themselves. In the words of the 13th century Christian mystic Hadewych of Antwerp:

Those who were two, at first,
are made one by the pain of love.

Gradually we discover that this love and longing slowly and often painfully destroy all our outer and inner attachments, all the images we may have of our self. The Sufis call this process being taken into the tavern of ruin, through which we are eventually made empty of all except divine love, divine presence.

This is an ancient journey in which the heart is awakened to the wonder and beauty, as well as the terror, of divine love. It is celebrated in the Bible in the Song of Songs: “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.” And over the centuries mystics of all faiths have written their love stories. Some mystics have been persecuted, like the Sufi al-Hallaj who was crucified for publically proclaiming the secret of divine oneness, “I am the Truth.” Known as the prince of lovers, he expressed the mystical reality: “I am He whom I love, He whom I love is me.”

Mystics may be drawn inward, but the oneness of the divine also embraces the outer world. When the eye of the heart is open all of creation reveals its divine nature; everything is seen as an expression, a manifestation of the One Being. Mystics are also involved in the demands of everyday life. One of Christianity’s most loved mystics, St. Teresa of Avila, worked tirelessly founding nunneries and looking after her nuns, while at the same time mystical prayer took her into ever deepening states of inner absorption, oneness and ecstasy. Mysticism does not mean to retire from life, but to live the unitive life. “God,” St. Teresa would say, “lives also among the pots and pans.”

The truth of mystical love is one of humanity’s great heritages. It should not be confused with its cousin, spiritual life. The spiritual journey is a wonderful way to come closer to what is sacred. It a way to live in the light of our divine nature, to be nourished by the mystery and meaning of the soul. It opens the door to what really belongs to us as sacred beings. But mysticism is quite different. The moth who feels the warmth of the fire is on a very different journey to the moth drawn into the flames themselves. This is the ancient journey from separation back to union, from our own self back to a state of oneness with God. Step by step we walk along the path of love until finally we are taken by love into love; we are taken by God to God, and there is no going back, only a deepening and deepening of this love affair of the soul.

Even if we are not all drawn to tread the path of the mystic, we need to be reminded that this note of divine love belongs to all of us. In a time of so much division in the world, it is important to reclaim this primal truth that belongs to our heritage: this great song of the soul that celebrates the oneness that is within the heart of each of us and underlies all of creation. This has particular relevance when we confront our present ecological crisis. We can no longer afford to think of the environment as something separate, outside of us. We need an awareness of the “oneness of being” of which we are all a part, and actions that come from this awareness. This awareness of unity is one of the most important contributions of the mystic at this moment in time.

Within the heart of each of us, within the heart of humanity, is this song of mystical love. It has been present for millennia celebrating the divine unity that is our real nature, and the deepest secret of our relationship with God. Hearing the many voices that today so easily consume our attention, it is easy for us to forget this quiet voice of divine love. And yet it is one of the great secrets of humanity, passed down from lover to lover, needing to be embraced, to be known, to be lived.



Read plenty more here: