Soaking in Being - John Scott

Ananda has been an ongoing exploration and inquiry for
me for several years.  My morning practice has gradually
become what I call "soaking in Being."  Shortly after waking
up and brushing my teeth, I sit in a favorite chair that fits
me particularly well.  The deep sweet, physical relaxation of
sleep is still present and readily available for me to "soak" in.
I simply turn attention gently toward this felt sense of Being.
The body responds.  It seems that Being loves it when the
light of Awareness shines upon it.  The feeling of well-being
shines brighter when attention turns toward it.  Waves of
well-being wash over and through the body.  Breathing slows
and almost stops.  The felt-sense of well-being or bliss seems
centered within the belly as it ebbs and flows throughout the
body.  Sometimes it almost tickles and makes me want to laugh.
Eyes are usually open and maybe even looking around the
room, watching the morning sunlight stream in through the
blinds.  Thoughts may be coming and going, no problem.
Meanwhile the body soaks.  I feel it now as I type this.

Over the years, I've come to understand this as what is
described in the Upanishads as Sat-Chit-Ananda, or
"Awareness of Being is Bliss," as Nisargadatta put it.  When
Awareness becomes aware of Being, bliss shines forth just
as light and heat emanate from the sun.  The light and heat are
not separate from the sun.  They're all one thing.  And 
Awareness-Being-Bliss are all one "thing":  True Nature.

Just as the sun may be obscured by clouds or may even seem
to disappear at night, so it is with the radiance of Ananda.  But
the sun never really stops shining.  It's just that our perspective
is constantly changing, and we have to remind ourselves of that
and come back to the felt-sense of Being, over and over again.
It seems that this is the kernel of all spiritual practices, this
remembering who we are and Knowing it even through changing
circumstances - feeling it at all times and Knowing it as ourselves.

John Scott is a project manager for a university health science center
and a Certified iRest Yoga Nidra Teacher living in Austin, Texas

~

with thanks to Kathleen Knipp
at Pathless Yoga

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Pathless Pilgrim - a meandering...

I am a "pathless pilgrim" - and yet there is focus...
I now know I am not "called" to any particular 
"spiritual path", although I have meandered down many
over the course of my life.  I am no longer "seeking"
anything "out there" - not "God", nor even "enlightenment."
  And still, there is a sense of a "pilgrimage" of sorts; an
exploration of the Inner Landscape of "The Mystery."
Plumbing the depths of the mystery of Being within
and experiencing how that unfolds within me -
or better, how it unfolds me...

It has become a way of life actually, a continuous unfoldment,
an ongoing "returning" to the core of my Being; that silent,
still core of Being within, from which my life arises and
emerges as "me."

For what is "God" but that Eternal Essence within;
the Eternal OM of Existence - the Infinite Sound of Being;
the Emptiness that isn't empty; the Silence that isn't silent;
the Stillness that isn't still, but pulsates with The Rhythm of
Life, the Primal Energy that flows within us and through
Existence.  It is the genderless spaciousness of Primordial
Energy where there is no separation or union, just the 
Source of Being...

Mystic Meandering
Feb, 8, 2014
June 2023 - ongoing & unfolding

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Pure Cosmic Joy...

Standing in the nakedness of new innocence,
at the edge of a swirling star-gate,
I prepare to step into a vastness beyond destiny.

Through the portal of the Cosmic Heart I came ~

My Soul catapulting me
Into an invisible Sanctity...
From the veils of illusion and shadow I emerged ~

Teetering on the rim of a Greater Reality ~
still unknown to me...

Fledgling at this Gateway of the Unknown.
Swaddled in a golden mantle of light.
Re-birthing my innocence in a twilight sleep of delight.
Bathed in the tranquil fluid of the Invisible Womb.
Awaiting re-birth...

Ready to surrender traditions of the mind,
beliefs, theories of knowing,
and all concepts of "reality" - that bind.
And enter a Greater Mystery
where my heart is free and mind is clear ~

Unencumbered by psychological dynamics
and densified fear.

No longer separate, fragmented and torn.
Sacred Union about to be re-born.
Light of Light, Heart of Heart.
Matter and Spirit merge in
star-kissed cosmogony 

Where everything is seen as "The Mystery" ~

And Love is understood in its entirety ~
Fulfilled in the simplicity of just Being...

Pure Cosmic Joy...

Mystic Meandering
Aug. 25, 2000

~

Photo - from the James Webb Telescope

 

Pulsation of Life - Fred LaMotte

 The sign of life is pulsation. 'Spanda' in Sanskrit.
From Spanda comes our word 'expand.'  That which expands
must also contract, must pulse.  That which does not pulse
cannot play, cannot live.

Pulse is the nectar of creation, and the wine of health.  Atoms,
hearts, moments of time, cycles of history, worlds and
galaxies, all bubble up and dissolve as the pulse of the Infinite.
Music is the pulse of silence, dance is the pulse of stillness,
art is the pulse of the formless.  Spirit pulses into Matter.
Shiva pulses into Shakti.

If we are going to pulsate and live, we must not only know 
how to act, but how to rest; not only how to swell, but how
to empty; how to listen as well as speak; how to be dark as
well as radiant.

We learn to rest between the pulses.  Between our days. 
Between our moments.  Between our heartbeats.  And right
in the midst of busy lives, to be so vulnerable that we can
fall into the gaps and silences, coming Om even for an instant,
which could be an instant of eternity, as we let go of Doing to
sink into Being.

But we get stuck in the mind, do we not?  In dry abstractions,
brittle concepts.  Whether religious or political, is the same 
arid paralysis: lack of pulse.  Weak pulse is dis-ease. The
organic vibrancy of our body goes numb.  Confined to the 
cage of the intellect, we have no juice, and cannot feel the
kiss of God.

Ideology will never save the world.  Our world will be saved
by the call of a robin at dawn, the flavor of your grandmother's
mashed potatoes, the sting of dew on your bare feet.  Whatever
the question is, the answer is not an idea.  Nor will the answer
ever come as the conclusion of an argument.

The answer is returning to pulsation.  When you are stuck in the
mind, drop those inflexible concepts and come home to what
pulsates, the rhythm that softens and expands our heart.  This
life-giving pulse of Spanda need not be sensational or
dramatic.  It could be as gentle and intimate as your next breath.

Fred LaMotte

Uradiance

~

Photo - Mandala Art

Mystic Meandering

The Sacred Calls - Dorothy Hunt

 How does the Sacred call to you?  Through deep longing?
Through loving? Through the birth of an infant or the death of
a beloved friend?  Through the silence of a forest or the 
magnificence of waves crashing at sea? Through a teacher or
teaching? A guru or a God?  A scripture or a spiritual tradition?
Through art, poetry, music? Playing with your dog, sitting with your
cat? Through a meditation practice or practice of service?  Or
does the Sacred calling come when you are most desperate, most
vulnerable, unable to know what to do, where to go, how to address
the pain you are suffering or the suffering you see all around you?

Does it call you to your knees when you don't know where else
to turn?

What if the Sacred is actually calling us every moment: Come; see!
See what you are, what this moment is.  Come back Home.
Return - again and again and again!

Many of us think that a sacred calling is a calling to "do," but my
sense is that the Sacred calls us to "be," calls us to surrender to
Being, and in the "being" the doing happens spontaneously.  It is
Being, rather than self, that is always becoming.  Whether we
resonate with the idea of a Supreme Being, or simply Being Itself,
surrender is a humbling act of acknowledging that the human mind
cannot fathom the Mystery of the universe, cannot "know" its Source
as an object, and in innumerable ways each day, does not even
know how to accept the moment it finds itself experiencing.  The
mind does not know how to surrender.  Yet over time, and with
Grace, it may discover its own limitations in the face of the Unknown
and let go of its illusion of control, its illusion of separation, its 
illusion of a self.  It may become so emptied of its false identity,
that Truth simply moves itself without anyone to know how or why
or when.

It seems to me that the Unnamable is here having a human
experience, and yet in the deepest place in our hearts, we may
sense that this  expression called "human" Being is called by the
 Sacred to experience the Sacred as what we are, what life is. 
It appears the Sacred enjoys this dance with Itself.  In this dance,
we are invited to find out what is here when all we have believed
 about ourselves - the ways we have identified with thought,
feeling, body, memory, image - falls away, or is stripped away, or
 simply melts in its encounter with the Sacred. When all the forms
 of thought, memory, feeling, etc. have disappeared, what is left?

Being a human expression of life does not mean we have no
perception of choice, or of moving toward or away from our
experience of the Sacred, toward or away from what is most true
within.  Rather than a calling to be something, perhaps the Sacred
is calling to us to be, to see, to respond from what is most
sacred within us.  Perhaps the Sacred calling calls us to come out
of hiding - hiding our true self, hiding our true radiance, hiding
the Light that is here shining....

How does the Sacred call to you?  What does it beckon you to
discover, to sense, to be?  Perhaps the Sacred calling is not your
life's work, but discovering who/what is actually living life - your
life, to be precise!  You may discover there is no moment where we
can actually divide life into sacred and secular, holy and unholy.
Dream, dreamer and dreamed may disappear into What has no
name, no attributes and yet continually calls from itself to itself
within our own experience to be, to see, to love.

Dorothy Hunt
Buddhist Teacher

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

True Silence - Dorothy Hunt

Silence is a deep, interior Presence that actually
has nothing to do with whether there is noise or
quiet in the environment or in the mind.  What is
revealed in Silence is your Being, your Presence,
your awake and intimate Awareness...in its deepest
dimension.  This Silence is what we are, what life is,
what moves the Universe and simultaneously is its
Source.

The deeper the Silence, the greater is the felt sense
of the Mystery that sees beyond all thoughts, images,
and acquired knowledge.  We become aware of a
deeper dimension of our Being that is very quiet,
very still, completely open, very natural...

Psychologically minded folks may wonder if soaking
in Silence is a way of bypassing what needs to be
seen or felt or understood.  In the true Silence of
our awake nature, nothing is avoided, nothing denied,
nothing attached.  Rather than numbing us to experience,
this Silence lovingly invites everything that has been
hidden or denied to come out of the shadows into
the light.  True Silence opens us to the truth of the 
present moment.

One does not have to effort to find this Silence and Stillness.
It is not something we create.  It is felt the moment we
relax and become receptive, the moment we stop trying
to move toward or away from anything.

Dorothy Hunt
Buddhist Teacher
from - Leaves from Moon Mountain

Thank you to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Abode at the Core of Her Being...

The Unamable suddenly moves in Her,
felt from the very core of Her being,
pulling Her awareness inward from the chaos
of the world trance.

Energy currents surge through Her Body
opening an internal space,
unlocking an inner door,
to the deeper "Abode at the Core of Her Being."

She enters...
breathing into the Core,
in deep gratitude...

She asks - "What do I need to "see" here?

A silent whisper replies:

"Abide at the Core of your Being."

Peace suffuses the very core of Her Body.
She settles into the timeless Quiet...
the healing balm for a restless mind,
in a troubled culture...

Finally, after years of meandering,
She's at home in Herself - Her True Abode -
Her Being.

Not needing to find a truer Self -
a "spiritual" Self - a Higher Self...

Just being Herself...

Accepting Her flow with life,
as it is...

Open to the movement of the Universe.

Mystic Meandering
June 12, 2020

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
"Eye of God" Mandala Art
2013 (?)

Zero - Jeannie Zandi

There is something that does not move no matter what comes,
no matter what will be lost.

I like to call it zero.  It's sitting in zero [the still point as TS Eliot
calls it].  It's sitting in Being.  It's so slow that it has stopped. And
it has a fierce fidelity to what is authentically unfolding in the
moment out of Being.  Here we stand with what's being born in
its tiny infancy, authentic and shyly showing itself, birthed from
Being.  No care for what it can be used for, where it's going, what
it means about you, me or someone else.  It simply stands without
a name, without a use, standing with that moment because it's
precious, because it's the Holy unfolding itself.

  We blow past the subtle petals of our unfolding, and
this holy birthing that's happening all the time through us.
But What emerges authentically is Holy.

In Being, we're not manipulating anything.  We're not trying
to go anywhere.  We're not trying to heal anything.  We follow
the thread of what's alive and we behold it in reverent silence,
even if every egoic hand wants to grasp it and turn it into
something.  The Holy is shining and peeking its head out...

We are not shown how to stay with the natural expression of
unfolding through us, though we were born knowing it.  As
we grew up, no one saw it, no one reflected it, stood with it,
protected it, had faith in it.....simply because it was.  We were
left in concept-land, zooming over our actual life; our own
organic unfolding.  Now we're stuck in our everyday minds
with our will trying to build something out of concept that
will never be as solid as what the Holy organically reveals.

We can stand in what emerges naturally from Being.  We
can slow down to the speed of Being, which is zero.  It has
nothing to show for itself.  It's simply a miracle as it is.
Everything that is zero is true.

It is Beingness flowing into Beingness. 
When we sit in zero [Being] there is only zero [Being],
and even what moves is still.  At some point you start to feel
 it as yourself.   It starts to wake in you...

  Stay true to the speed of Being.  Don't move unless Being
 moves [you], because you cannot leave that place and offer
anything real, and you're sick to death of ["spiritual"] manipulation
 and skipping over what's actually, purely and humbly here.

It's our zero, like a big dark hole
in the center of us that we thought was our problem. 
It's actually a portal to the Holy.  And through that empty
space of Being the Holy paints the world.

  But... we have forgotten -
how to rest as zero and stand in what's simple and authentic.
And out of fidelity to that Being [that we are], out of this
magnificent black hole, an inordinate amount of glory spills,
and each movement is the poetry of being in motion, while
utterly empty.

Jeannie Zandi

[brackets mine]

~

Photo - a mandala that my mother colored in 2016 at age 88
 digitally zoom blurred and color inverted - magic :).

Be ahead of all parting - Rilke

Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened,
like winter, which even now is passing.

For beneath winter is a winter so endless
that to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart.

Be forever dead in Eurydice - more, gladly arise
into seamless life...
Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient,
be a crystal cup that shatters as it rings.

Be. And know as well the need to not be;
know the great void where all things begin,

the infinite source of your most intense vibration,
so that you may give it your perfect assent
and come to completion now.

To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable
numbers of beings abounding in Nature,
add yourself gladly...

Rainer Maria Rilke

Sonnets to Orpheus II, 13

I combined the translations of Stephen Mitchell,
Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows

With thanks to Being Silently Drawn

~

Eurydice was Orpheus' wife, but is also
a reference to the underworld in Greek Mythology.

Keep Noble Silence - Fred LaMotte

'Keep Noble Silence.'  This was the Buddha's teaching.
Is there a difference between ordinary silence and noble silence?

Ordinary silence is mindless.  Noble silence is mindful.

Ordinary silence is the absence of noise.  Noble silence is the
fullness of Being.  It is pure awareness, free from the chatter
of conceptual thought.

Peace comes through Being, not through argument.

Thought melts away, past and future dissolve into Presence.

Mind sinks into the groundless, journeys deep into the virgin
forest of the Heart.  There, in noble silence, one sees all
causes entangled in causelessness.  One sees golden emptiness
pervading all creatures.  One sees sparkling stillness in all action.

A silent heart irradiates the world with compassion.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

Choice/No Choice - Jeff Foster

It's not that you have no choice.
Rather, the 'chooser' is the fiction.

It's not 'you' who chooses or doesn't choose.
It's life itself.  You are inseparable from life itself.
Undivided from the totality.

A star explodes.  The grass grows.  A mother gives birth.
A war begins, ends, begins.  A relationship breaks down.
People come together, fall apart.  An old wound heals.
Hearts open, close, open.
Like breathing.  Like the ocean tides.

We believe that we have a choice,
or we believe that we don't.

The planets spin.  The rain falls and stops falling.
Did we choose, or were we chosen?

Could it have been any different?
Can the rain fall backwards?
Can we un-say what we have said?
Can we un-read this poem?

Choice, no choice.  Those thoughts fall away too.
Into silence.  Into stillness.
Into the vastness of Being.
Into...

Beyond choice or lack of it, you are.

And you take the next step, or you do not.

Or you take the next step
of not knowing which next step
you will take.

And out of the not knowing,
the path becomes clear
if only
for a moment.

And then the Universe
begins again.

Jeff Foster

~

photo via No Mind's Land

The Purpose of the Journey - Joseph Campbell

The purpose of the journey is compassion.

When you have come past the pairs of opposites,
you have reached compassion.
The separateness apparent in the world is secondary.

Beyond that world of opposites is an unseen,
but experienced, unity and identity in us all.

Joseph Campbell
from The Hero's Journey

~*~

Compassion is knowing that
you are part of everyone,
and everyone is a part of you - is you.
When seeing this there is no longer judgment,
just a deeper understanding and respect
for our humanity -
a deeper compassion.

In the deep Stillness of Being
there is a deep compassion for everything that is.

There is compassion for the world
when seen as a whole - in context.
The nature of our Being is deep compassion.

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
c. 2004-2006

~

Photo - from a friend of a friend...

"The Chair..."

Relaxing deeply back, back,
sinking into "the chair."
It feels familiar - this chair.
It welcomes me "home"
to my Self...

Opening itself to me,
allowing me to slip deeply into
The Beloved's Silence...

I've been holding stress in the body.
"The Chair" allows it to let go,
and supports the body in the release,
like no one else can - no other person,
with their practical prescriptions,
or "fixes" propagated by the mind without
the compassion and empathy of the Heart;
who cannot respond from the Heart,
but only with empty words.
Hollow advice grasping for an "answer."
They cannot hear the cry of the Heart
that only needs to be heard and held...

It's only "The Chair"
that doesn't care who I am,
or what I know, or don't know,
or what words I use;
or how "evolved" I am;
if I am "enlightened" or "liberated";
if I shine or if I'm dark;
whether I'm Advaitan, Buddhist, Christian,
Hindu, Jew, Muslim, Sufi
or any religion, philosophy, or belief.
Only Being - just being,
without structure, concept, or label...
Only Self, sufficient in ItSelf

in "The Chair"...

It's only "The Chair"...
open, supportive, holding me in
whatever space I am in,
not trying to feed me an
intellectual "answer"
or correct my perceptions...

When I sit in this chair
I feel the tangible Presence
 of The Beloved within;
the warmth, the tingling of
the Divine Prsence
in the body
returning,
though never gone.

I feel the "connection"
with The Beloved in the body again,
though never "disconnected",
only the feeling momentarily lost.

The whole body begins to let go.
An involuntary breath deeply breathes me,
as my head gently collapses
against the back of "the chair"...

My Heart rests - soothed in "The Chair",
like a soft lap,
and finally opens like a lit orchid in a dark forest;
grieving for lost love, never really lost...

My whole body and being are fully supported
in "The Chair";
deeply at rest in the body,
in "The Chair";
fully embraced by my soft Friend -
"The Chair"

- who knew...

Mystic Meandering
July 4, 2017

~

"The Chair" is not only a literal chair that I refer to
but also becomes a metaphor for resting in
"The Beloved" - the True Friend.

_/\_

Out Beyond - Rumi

Out beyond the ideas of right-doing and wrongdoing
there is a field…
I will meet you there…

Rumi

~

Beyond all polarities, mental concepts,
and the shadowy forms of beliefs about

 “God” or “no-God”,
duality or non-duality,
or the language we use for what we call “God”,
or “Oneness”,
there is an Ineffable, untouched
Mystery of Being
  within us…
A stillness...
where we can lay our “self” down in the Sacred Silence
and rest -

Meet me there,
no matter what your beliefs…

MM

The Earth Is Not A Dream - Czeslaw Milosz

Hope is with you when you believe
that earth is not a dream but living flesh,
that sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
that all things you have ever seen here
are like a garden looked at from a gate.

You cannot enter.  But you’re sure it’s there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
we might discover somewhere in the garden
a strange new flower and an unnamed star.

Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
that there is nothing, just a seeming [an appearance].
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
the world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
as if snatched up by the hands of thieves.

”Hope” - by Czeslaw Milosz

~*~

The only “dream” we “awaken” from/to
is the dream of separation from
our True Divine Nature…
The Light of our True Being…

Mystic Meandering

~*~

“Nothing short of direct experience
of ‘The Divine’
will ever satisfy our needs
for wholeness, fulfillment,
and completion…”

Author unknown

~

Photo: from the internet
photographer unknown

Graced With Gratitude...

Gratitude arises
like a warm flame
in the Heart;
a flame that
comes alive
on its own
from within

Overtaking me by surprise…

It’s a gratitude of
unknown origin -
not contrived,
or cultivated,
but
deeply felt in the
core of my Being;
only awareness is
needed….

A gratitude
not for being alive,
but for Aliveness ItSelf,
for the Aliveness that
is Life;
that dances and sings
the Cosmos
into being;
that imbues existence
with LIFE!

For the color and movement
of life being lived
in every minute detail;
for the opening and
unfoldment of life
that has its own
course,
its own
way,
unfolding Itself in
total freedom of Being

I am truly graced with Gratitude -
beyond words…


Mystic Meandering
Meditative writings
October 2015

~

Photo: street light through ice on window
2011

The "Greater Being" - D.H.Lawrence, Mooji & Papaji

“Be at peace, in peace.
All that matters is to be at one with the living God,
to be a creature in the house of the God of Life.
Like a cat asleep on a chair
at peace, in peace
and at one with the master of the house,
with the mistress, at home,

 at home in the house of the living,
sleeping on the hearth,
and yawning before the fire.

Sleeping on the hearth of the living world
yawning at home before the fire of Life
feeling the presence of the living God
like a great reassurance
a deep calm in the heart;
a presence
as of a master sitting at the board
in his own and Greater Being,
in the house of Life…”

D.H. Lawrence

Via: Love Is A Place

 ~

Photo: Our Beloved “Yoda”
1990 - 2009

~

Our real nature is a formless field of inner Silence and harmony,

the synchronicity of “I” with Universal Consciousness.

Recognize the natural Silence of your own Self…
the natural perfume of Being…

This Pure Harmony is the language and vibration of Holiness.
It is synchronicity with God.

Mooji

A nice place to visit for more Mooji :)
 White Fire

 ~

Rest in peace…
You are the unchangeable Awareness in which
 all activity takes place.
Always rest in peace.

You are eternal Being, unbounded and undivided.
Just keep Quiet.  All is well.

You are Happiness, you are Peace, you are Freedom.

Open to your Heart
and simply Be…

Papaji

Excerpts From: The Truth IS

Just BE...

“The trick was to know that his true nature lived
everywhere, at once, across
space and time
[and that]
freedom is the very nature of his being…”

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Richard Bach

~

Only BE...

Be the Stillness that you are...
Bring everything into Stillness.
Entrain to the Stillness of Being...

Just Trust
Just Love
Just BE

Sabbatical Window...

Silence at the Window
opens a portal to the Sacred,

allowing me to *feel* the Sacred in life
and the Sacred Life within…

Enables me to breathe deeply again,
dissolved from the day,
and to be breathed…
to relax, let go, soften;
to be at ease with life
through deep Silence,
in the inbetween spaces
of the night…

At the window
Silence surrounds me, embraces me,
calming my resistances to life,
dropping me into the deep Silence
of acceptance;
not a volitional “acceptance” of the mind,
but a deep, internal allowing from
the depths of Being…

The Ocean allowing ITs waves…

Every resistance recedes of its own accord
without effort
embraced in Silence…

At the window I quiet into the night
and listen…
waitng for the movement of Silence
that inhabits the breeze,
breathing the night,
and commune with the Cosmos without filters…

Discursive thought slows,
awareness heightens…

Life just plays ItSelf out here,
outside my window,

in natural Rhythms…

My dramas are just a minute
story of life,
just waves in the Ocean of Consciousness,
in the Flow of
Life just Being…

Enveloped in the Silence that is my “Beloved…”

I remember the Essence of Life within,
the vast space of Aware Conscious Silence…

We are One…
in congruent Rhythm…

Sabbatical

Meditative Writings
Mystic Meandering
July 14, 2013

~*~

I started a practice called “window sitting” several years ago, where I just sit in the Silence of Life at an open window late at night.  I become aware of the sounds and smells of the night, deeply listening to and experiencing the Silence that pervades everything.  I haven’t practiced this for several months, but I just recently realized that the window *is* my “sabbatical spot.”  It is a sanctuary of Silence that fills, and fulfills me…

Please see this post from 2011 and enjoy the Silence at the Window. J

Please see Life As "Sabbatical" for my definition of "sabbatical."

~*~

Photo:  Rain on window capturing light from
the street light.
This is not the window I sit at...


THIS IS A COMMENT FREE POST
Thank you for your Presence here...
May you experience Sacred Silence
Love and Peace to all...

Cosmic Meditating Monks Mandala...

“We are afloat in a sea of immensity.
The mind has no hope of working
it’s little tricks here.
It is faced with an emptiness
that never began,
and it shrivels in the face of
such grand nonchalance.

And yet inside this egg,
this shell of me-ness,
the immensity continues,
unburdened,
untroubled:
never born,
never dying,
sailing into
luminous night…”

Author Unknown
via: Wonder, Silence, Gratitude

"You are not IN the universe,
you ARE the universe.
You are a focal point
where the universe is
becoming conscious of itself…”

Eckhart Tolle

~*~

This mandala was made with compass, ruler and a template.
I had the vision of this one dancing in my head for some time.
I made the meditating monk template from a photo
in a catalogue of a meditating monk statue…
The piece of black paper came with little white dots on it,
looking like little stars in space, giving the piece a cosmic look .
I just enhanced the dots inside the little meditating figures,
giving them the affect of impermanence,
of formlessness within form;
of *being* the Universe...