This is Not the End - Fred LaMotte

This is not the end of the world, but the beginning.  A time to
do something New.  Old ideologies, religions, political concepts
of left and right, dry up and fall like brittle leaves, all swept
away, destroyed by a gentle breath of Presence.

You are not "shifting" into a new dimension, a new age, or a
higher level of consciousness.  You are dissolving all dimensions
into one whole awareness, which cannot be divided into levels,
planes, star-ages, or degrees of initiation.  You must evaporate
 these illusions into energy itself.  This is your real Dharma,
your real Duty.  It transforms the earth.

This alchemy does not happen in times.  The effortless sinking
of Presence into deeper Presence has no duration...

Simply turn from your fearful angry mind to the space between
your thoughts, which is the space between the stars, which is the
radiant clarity of an open heart.  Then let the whole creation
burst form that cornucopia of emptiness.

Root down in the hollow of your seed, be naked, drop every
garment of belief.  Let go of your hope and your story.  Relax
into the divine darkness of uncertainty, the wound of not knowing.
The the glory of ten billion suns will blossom from the stillness
between your heartbeats.

Miracles 

happen in the field of the effortless.  Repose in the 
diamond point of no-thing, where exhalation ends and
inhalation begins.  This is the glowing dimension-less bindhu,
the seed of the wild flower of grace, just an inch or two in front
of your chest.

Breathe down into That, and for one eternal instant be breathless.
Galaxies whirl out of this space.  It is the loam of stars. Here,
the earth is refreshes and recreated.  Come and see for yourself.
Bring all your relations.

Fred LaMotte

Uradiance

 

Passion for Life...

I am re-posting this piece of prose poetry from Friday’s post (with a little different ending) because it really sets the tone for July - Passion!  I am feeling an emergence of passion for Life again - something I haven't felt in a long time.  I'm turning a page, leaving old dramas behind, and returning to a passion for living again.   I know it’s full of “I wants” but it's not about this "little self wanting." There is something welling up deep inside that wants to express, to live, to BE.  So just know that those “wants” come from the deepest yearnings of this Heart and a deep passion for what is True…

I want to walk through life
truly *seeing* - truly Aware…
 *Awake* to the Truth of Eternal Being…

Open to Life –
 not with mental judgments, opinions, and interpretations
 of what is happening,
 or what should be happening,
 or what I wish would happen,
  but with receptivity,
 openness,
 acceptance,
 allowing.

I want to See *everything* as Living Beingness;
 every leaf that drops,
 or snowflake that falls,
every being -
 with the same innocent wonder and amazement as I did as a child
as if seeing Life living for the first time…

  I want to be in Love with Life again –
 if I ever was…
  Maybe Loving Life in new ways –

I want to Hear
the laughter
in my
Heart

I want to Experience
everything
with curiosity
and equanimity

I want to Notice…
every thought,

expression,
and feeling
as it arises
without
trying to confine it,
or suppress it
before it is expressed;
or correct others
in their expression.

Save me from the arrogance of
thinking that I know what others need,
or how to “help” or “fix” them;
allowing others to be who they are,
trusting that Life is taking
them where they need to go,
just as It is me…

Let me be free from the entanglements
of the mind
that keep me compliant,
and complicit,
with the world’s ways…

Life is a paradigm of endless pathways,
and I want to risk not following the rules,
the well-worn paths.
Instead - rising above
the familiarity
of “the path”
to see what’s *really* here…

I want to live
in
the simplicity
of
the
ever-unfolding
luminosity
of

Truth.

And may I have the courage
to speak with fierce grace
to those who would try to
quell this passion,
to strip this enthusiasm,
and suffocate this spontaneity
for
the radiance
and
clarity
of


the


Passion


of 


Life

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
January 1, 2011
revised July 1, 2012

Simply Sitting with Nature...

Nature, like art and music, is a great equalizer it seems, where we can get past the dramas of life and see into the Heart of things as they *truly* are – to what’s underneath it all – the Essence of Life. And Nature provides such wonderful metaphors for this, if we just sit and listen… So I have resolved to spend as much time out in Nature as possible – simply sitting with Nature. Oh and doing some yard work and gardening and puttzing as well, but mainly sitting, watching, and re-connecting.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday I spent several hours out in this chair, just sitting in the alive Stillness - *feeling* Nature – noticing Nature - sometimes morning, sometimes late afternoon. It’s been a very long time since I’ve spent this kind of quiet time just sitting out in Nature. There have been various excuses. But I am committing to “sitting with Nature” again – and reconnecting with my True Nature. It kind of feels like I’m starting all over again: this connecting with Nature, this getting to know Self. She’s been hidden under layers of drama – contracted - and needs to relax and open up – again.

When I first went out into the yard and placed the chair under the tree on Saturday morning there was an awkwardness there, like I was a stranger in my own back yard. I sat with it, looking for connection. And as I sat, it allowed me to connect inwardly, to become aware of the body sensations and the feelings that have accumulated and been trapped there over time through 3 months of family drama – and before. And so I became aware of the little orphans inside me that wanted to be heard. So I listened and felt their pain, their tightness, their constriction, their fear. I noticed that there is a very deep pain that I haven’t allowed to be met, acknowledged and expressed – maybe ever. So I spent some time meeting her, ever so gently, acknowledging her - noticing where in the body she was trapped. It took about an hour of sitting before I took my first deep breath and opened to her. And then the emotions flowed. Am sure it will take a few more meetings with this orphaned one before she’s willing to come home. All in time…

I read about John Daido Loori one time. He was a Zen monk as well as a photographer who took photographs of Nature (amongst other things). I remember in one write-up he talked about approaching and greeting the subject in nature that you want to photograph – be it tree, leaf, flower, bush or bird – and *wait* to be acknowledged, as if creating relationship with the Essence of it first, and waiting for the reply. At least that’s what I remember from the article. I tried to find it again on line, but couldn’t, so those of you who know about him can probably speak to the accuracy of this. So Sunday when I sat, I did so with a different approach, with respect and awareness, and *I* felt greeted, received and welcomed by Nature – especially from the trees; except maybe the Honey Locust. She’s still a bit reserved, not fully open yet. But the Maple that I sat under greeted me with her energy and welcomed me there, as if welcoming an old friend who forgot they knew each other. The two small adolescent conjoined cottonwood twins across the yard acknowledged my presence, (they are only 13 years old), and Grandfather Spruce just stood there – observing it all, like a protective sentinel.

I watched a Robin perched on a low branch in one of the cottonwoods as she sang her song. She hopped down from the branch and zigzagged her way across the lawn. I say zigzagged because there was a pattern: wait, head cock left, then right, look and listen to the ground for movement, dig with her beak, run off in an angle to the next spot; wait, listen/look, dig, run and so on across the yard. Mr. Black Bird flew in to scold Ms. Robin on the lawn. She just stood still, not a move, while Black Bird squawked at her from his lofty perch. Robin just waited until Black Bird was through squawking and flew off, and *then* she resumed her pattern of waiting, listening, hearing/seeing, and acting as she *gradually* made her way across the back yard.

And of course I couldn’t help but see the metaphor in all this about how I move through life. If I sit and wait in stillness, listening, watching, I *see* and *hear* what I need to see and hear. It happens every time. And then I can act accordingly – I know what action to take. And with this inner knowing I can just keep going – undeterred – zigzagging through life. Even when heckled by the so-called “Black Birds” in my life, I could still move (or not move) in such a way that I meet the *Essence* of others. It seems then that drama would turn into Dharma… Nature is a wonderful teacher…

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing

there is a field.

I’ll meet you there…"

Rumi

~*~

Happy Birthday Dalai Lama

Today is the Dalai Lama’s 74th birthday. I am not a “practicing Buddhist.” However, if I were to have a label it would most likely be what my Buddhist blogosphere friend over at ZenDotStudio lovingly calls a “bookstore Buddhist.” :) I love Buddhist wisdom and have read, or listened to, many of the more well known, popular Buddhist teachers from many traditions.

So today I want to honor the Dalai Lama here – as well as the Dharma. I am drawn by his loving heart of Compassion, his laughter and innocence. His presence elicits compassion and innocence in me, and my heart sighs. There’s a resonance there. Who knows, maybe I was a Buddhist in a past life. :)

And too, I bow in my heart to all my Buddhist friends, acquaintances, and bookstore teachers, past, present and future. And to the Dharma, the Truth that Buddhism holds, and that has fed me over the years – even if only in little slices and morsels here and there along the path. And to all the little Buddhas in us all – the little shining jewels of compassion in our hearts…

May our Buddha Nature sing with joy…

Heart Smiles – MeANderi
www.ASerenitySanctuary.com

Let Everything Drive You To Stillness

Understandably in these chaotic times it is easy to get caught up in a frenetic way of being: over-thinking, over-worrying, over-stressed and over-stimulated with the task of living – of making a living. I’ve gotten caught in this myself recently. It is easy to start trying to make things happen, to strive, to effort on all levels: physically, emotionally, mentally, financially and even spiritually. It’s tempting to try to find the “remedy” externally for what ails me inwardly - forgetting Stillness – that deep place of Knowing Awareness within - Beingness.

I have often heard the phrases, “It’s enough to drive you to drink”, and “It’s driving me crazy.” But what if we were to *allow* the strains and stresses, the frenzy and fret to drive us right into Stillness? Seems paradoxical when our minds have hijacked us and are spiraling out of control with fear and frustration, driving us to reach for any numbing agent, whether that’s a pill, a drink, a technique, a method, a religion, or a philosophy to calm our frayed nerves.

What if we were to let everything drive us to Stillness, the calm within the chaos, and let the Stillness be our refuge? What if we were aware enough to just stop in the midst of whatever we’re experiencing, in the middle of being hijacked by the mind, or life events, and drop into this internal, spacious Stillness? Gee, here are those themes again: stopping – awareness – Stillness. They are like new points on an old compass all pointing to – Presence. It’s a way of seeing that allows a returning to the point of Presence in this moment, no matter what is happening. But it’s not a one time discovery. It’s ongoing and continuing. You always carry the compass with you to remind you where you’re really going when you’ve momentarily lost your way.

Several years ago, when my husband experienced a serious mental health crisis, I was driven to Stillness. Each day, several times a day, I would stop what I was doing, go sit in my meditation space and “enter” (become aware of) the Stillness within for about 20 mins. There I felt cushioned and buffered from the storm that had nearly swept my husband away, and me with him. I would sit until I experienced the place of inner Quiet, inner Beingness where I could be still with what was, with what life was presenting. I would pray for my husband’s safe return to sanity, and be still enough to not spiral out of control myself. Inherently, it seemed, I knew that Stillness was my only survival.

My husband weathered his storm. In his own way he found Stillness, his inner Beingness, and came through the storm with an adjusted view of his world. Crises tend to do that… But he has a “new” compass, which, by the way, does not include the same points as mine, and is navigating a little differently now. We each have our own internal compass points that will take us there. For instance your compass points might be awareness – creativity - Stillness.

There have been many occasions where I have been driven to Stillness again and again when life, as I had been living it, became seemingly undoable, when I was frustrated with the way life was. Once again I was being driven by external, as well as internal emotional/mental forces, that had seemingly taken over and overwhelmed me, through non-acceptance, through resisting life as it is. And, I had lost touch with Stillness. Again and again I would just stop, go to my meditation space, lay on the floor for a prolonged period of time and consciously *wait* until I could feel the Stillness within, until I could sense the Stillness of Being, until I felt the touch of Stillness - entraining with the felt experience of Stillness. I allowed myself to sink into it through the layers of mental and emotional distraction. I could feel the frustration and resistance lift ever so slightly to reveal the underlying Stillness.

This did not mean that my external life situation changed. My life did not become miraculously better because of my rendezvous with Stillness. It did not mean that I was no longer frustrated, or angry, or anxious, or depressed, or whatever the feeling of the moment was. All the emotional elements were still there, but I was in touch with the still waters within, the pool of Stillness, the wellspring that feeds and nourishes me when I keep the currents of awareness open.

And my experience is that you don’t have to practice “formal meditation” to touch this space of Stillness, to become aware of Awareness. It’s more organic, more natural – like a natural emergence of the Stillness that is already there. Let that Stillness reveal itself and be the Dharma that calms you, feeds you, stills you…

So – if, like me, your life feels a little overwhelming, don’t let it drive you crazy with trying to change it, or figure it out, or worry about the future, or be angry with the past and being reactive to what is. Instead, take your new compass and drive yourself to Stillness. Sit there, stay there in Stillness, till you feel it touch you deeply and take you deeply into its depths. Bask in it. It will change your perspective on what life is handing you in any given moment.

It seems I need to spend a lot of time on the floor these days…in Dynamic Stillness. Want to join me?

Remember Stillness ~

Heart Smiles - MeANderi
www.ASerenitySanctuary.com