When Seeking Ends - Dorothy Hunt & Papaji

I can no longer read the Teachings
or visit those awakened on the path
who sit amidst flowers and incense
and eager seekers waiting for morsels
of Enlightenment food.

I can no longer sit on my black cushion
waiting for the moment to appear
when the big bang will occur
and blow this world of work and life
into the heavens of bliss.

I can no longer search for what is missing
nor can I say that I have found it.
I listen to the furnace blowing at dawn
and watch a feather dance before its music.
I work and eat and sleep and simply live my life.

I no longer wonder if I should dye my hair
or give up eating meat
or lose ten pounds before summer.
If I do, I do, and if I don't, I don't,
and who is there to care?

The sound of the garbage truck
chewing up the remains of my week
offers just as much stimulation to my soul
as a church bell or the song bird's melody
lilting from the distant hill.

My candles of devotion sit unlit
upon the altar to the gods,
and the bell of mindfulness unrung
upon its hand-sewn cushion,
the incense resting in a drawer.

What has become of the one
who searched and chanted and read and prayed
and hoped for enlightenment?
She still laughs with her family,
sips champagne with friends, and sings in the shower.

What is life when the seeking ends?
Just what it is,
nothing more or less...

- ordinary -

not wishing to be more or less,
content to simply be...

Dorothy Hunt

Buddhist teacher, therapist and poet

~

There is simply the seeing of This as it is; just what is.
What is, is eternal movement that is eternally still.
What is, is never born and never dies.
This has no form and is every form.
I am This.  And you are This.
There is nothing special in This,
because everything is This.
When the sense of being a "me" fades
or is seen through,
then the
extraordinary ordinariness of This
can be seen...

Papaji
East Indian Sage

In Delightful Wonderment - Bob O'Hearn

This magical realm we call “the world”

is a wild wonder beyond human reckoning!

The mere appearance of anything at all

is a perpetual mystery of pure awe

and relentless astonishment!

These ever-shifting props that provide

the sense of time and change are nothing

but children’s toys the Great One

juggles like batons in the air!

How thrilling to suddenly realize

we ourselves are This!

The synchronous majesty

of our infinitely expansive being

is the perfect body of the Beautiful One,

the One who is living us now, dreaming

us now as the very miracle we Are.

Any rain-splashed leaf is nothing

but another moistened kiss of Infinity.

Every wandering breeze rustling trees —

the amorous breath of our own Divinity.

Every sigh, every breath, every beat of heart

is an orchestrated choir of regal rapture.

Every molecule of light amazes itself

at its own inexplicable appearance.

Even as we sleep and dream

our sensitive thoughts conduct

a symphony of rippling pleasure.

This body standing here

is a delightful play of Love.

This mind —

an echo of a mystery

fashioned out of speechless Love.

We are Love, and Love must love,

for therein shines our perfect purpose.

Every blink and wink of our eyes

is the grace-bestowing sacred regard

of the original Lover, through Whose Glance

all are blessed, healed, given and taken —

all truly redeemed beyond any need

for make-believe redemption.

The chains that seem to bind us here

are merely our reluctance to forgive

and let go of a non-existent past.

No sad regret,

no hopeful anticipation,

everything just as it is –

this moment!

Each miniscule particle of light

swirling in the wake of our casual passing

ignites the ecstatic birth of galaxies —

we are made of This!

There is one Presence, one Power,

alive in all the universe, being lived

through Its uncountable expressions.

We are all unique projections

of that changeless Divine Energy

in which the myriad sentient personalities

flash and frolic as dreamy thought forms

dancing in the Heart/Mind of Source.

Drawn deeper into this stunning recognition,

all universal nature herself becomes transparent

as the manifestation of the Living Womb

of vast emptiness, delivering everyone

and everything into pure light

and more light still.

Every motion, every breath,

every thought and cessation of thought

is none other than the intense enjoyment,

the utter delight, the supreme pleasure

of the Indescribable Supreme!

This understanding can yield a great relief

of sufficiency and equanimity, regardless

of how things may seem to play out

in the drama’s consciousness’

ceaseless unfolding.

There is nothing that can be done,

no weeping or prayer, no exotic method

or any sort of strategy that can be manipulated

to attain this plain and simple realization;

no heroic gate-storming or self-generated effort

will yield true satisfaction, no practice nor

tweaking of attention can transcend itself.

Doing or not-doing are equally futile.

All achievement is transitory.

Even the most feeling submission

to the Living Source must be seen at last

as arising from a subtle, deluded sense

of division within the body/mind.

The clear light radiance of awake awareness

has no before or after, nor parts

that somehow come together

or randomly divide.

There is only This!

Such recognition is not an acquisition

of the mind, but rather a letting go

and awakening at the Heart —

our destiny and present condition —

when all that would obstruct clear seeing

is sacrificed at the altar of the Unconditional,

for the selfless sake of Love alone.

May all beings awaken to the bliss

of their own true nature –

their own primordial

brilliance!

Only This!

Bob O'Hearn
Feeling To Infinity

 ~

Photo: Glass Menagerie
Mystic Meandering

November Sky...

“He who can hear Love
can hear Silence.
He who can hear Silence
can hear Love.

All the words of the world bow
and pay homage to Silence’s song."


Kabir

“Let peace work on you
and enable you to gather your
scattered mind into
the mindfulness of Calm Abiding.”

“Above all, be at ease,
be as natural and spacious as possible.
Slip quietly out of the noose
of your habitual anxious self,
and relax into your true nature.”

Nyashul Khenppo

“Here is where the adventure begins,
the adventure of not knowing…
but simply standing still.
The task turns out to be ceding to stillness,
and in that stillness the recognition of
just this…”

“Stop pretending
you don’t know
the fundamental nature
of your being…”

Joan Ruvinsky
Pathless Yoga

“…over time wonders were revealed,
chief among them the light
of conscious awareness…”

”The light turned out to be
my truest home -
what was most abiding.”

Tracy Cochran
Finding a Path

'THIS' is enough...

When the story melts away,
and the stories always melt away,
all that’s left is:


~ ‘This’ ~

~ The Flame ~

The Light that is beyond light,
The Love that is beyond love,
The Life that is beyond life,

‘This’ that LIVES it all…

where all thought
and language
does not
need
to
exist


Where ideas & stories

of
I/me
I-ness
Oneness
I Am-ness
or
I-I
don’t
exist.

They
don’t
need
to
.
.
.


There is only

'This’

revealing
ItSelf

in every moment,
however that moment is,
being whatever It Be-e-s

And you know
in your Heart that

’This’
is
all
there
ever
Is

Just ‘This’

And
’This’
is
always
enough
.

Mystic Meandering
copyright
April 2011


~*~


“Once your awareness becomes a flame,
it burns up the identification
with the mind.”


Osho

Abandon Everything Window

Abandon everything for ‘This’

Abandon
all ideas, thoughts, opinions,
concepts, stories,
judgments, resistances,
relationships…

You are not obligated to anyone, or any thing…

Abandon every thing for ‘This’ –
for the truth of ‘This’…

Abandon everything for intimacy with ‘This’:
That which is Aware…
That which is Awareness ItSelf…
That which just Is – just ‘This’…

Abandon everything and just be ‘This’ -
’This’ that is your True Nature…

Abandon the concepts of ‘self’ for ‘This’ -

Abandon all false ideas and strategies -
all attachments of the ‘self’…

Abandon self-imposed constraints
of the ‘self’ – of living from the ‘self.’

Abandon reliance on ‘self’ –
the construct of ‘self.’

Abandon the sense of ‘self’
and open to the Vastness of the pure Awareness of
just ‘This’…

Everything that exists, exists within the Vastness
of ‘This’

Succumb to ‘This’ –
the pure Awareness awareing…

Everything is held in ‘This’ -

Just ‘This’…

Live with abandon to ‘This’

~*~


Mystic Meandering
copyright
Oct. 11, 2010

After Awakening - Keep Dancing

Many of us on a “spiritual path” have had many moments of “awakening" – little openings that allow us to *see* the Truth of Existence. I wrote the insights, that eventually became this blog, on scratch paper last December as I sat in a doctor’s office waiting for my appointment. Insights, or “awakenings” can come anywhere at any time. As I waited in the waiting room I reflected on how it seemed that I had been very *invested* in my spiritual search for “enlightenment” – for many, many years. It had been my life’s work, so-to-speak. In a sense I gave up “my life” (or what I call “my life”) for the search – *believing* the search for finding “awakening” was all that mattered.

There is an abundance of Non-Duality teachers and teachings out there, and what appears to be a lot of wrangling over semantics. Last Fall I was drawn to read Scott Kiloby and Jeff Foster – two of the top Non-Duality teachers. In doing so yet another door opened in this life-long search for Truth, except that it wasn’t what I expected. They revealed what I had heard from other spiritual teachers, like Adyashanti, Ganagaji, Eckhart Tolle, and Jack Kornfield – that there is just ‘This’ – Life living Itself in this present moment as it is. That there is no need to seek for“enlightenment” because it’s all just ‘This’ (Consciousness, Presence, Awareness, the One) *in* everything. And yet - we seek - until we don't need to seek anymore.

When I heard it this time I felt the full realization of it, as if for the first time. Something opened up and let it in. And, at the same time, I felt like a child that had been told there is no Santa Claus – well not quite as devastated, but certainly there was an impact that is difficult to articulate. I became unsettled, unnerved because the illusion had been shattered. If there is just ‘This’ and if I’m not *searching* for “It”, I thought, what will I *do*? My *mind* wanted to stay in search mode, after all that had been its “job” for quite some time. It had *identified* with the role and story of a “me” searching for "It."

In the past when I had heard spiritual teachers say – It’s just ‘This’ – I internally responded with: You’ve got to be kidding! That can’t be true! There has to be more than This! This can’t be it! I thought for sure that “enlightenment” had to be a big deal with Light shining everywhere, blinding me. But when I *heard* Scott and Jeff say, it’s just ‘This’ – Life living Itself, on some level I knew it was the Truth. It was taken in and absorbed like a healing elixir. Something inside awakened.

The word “ubiquitous” arose while I was sitting there in my seat, waiting, jotting notes. I didn’t know what it meant, so I made a note to look it up when I got home. (For those like me who don’t know, it means being everywhere at the same time; omnipresent). After reading the definition I realized that what I had been searching for is ubiquitous – always there, everywhere – right here. ‘It’ was never anywhere *else* needing to be found. ‘It’ just needed to be *seen.*

And so it appears that “awakening” is in some sense very ordinary, especially when one *expects* there to be some kind of transcendence into Light – ascension into an ideal Divine state of another worldly nature - a future arrival at an end reward for all the searching. It also seems that we can have many wonderful “awakening” *experiences* and still not realize the Truth. I know. :) The “final realization” (if there is one) it seems, is more like a discovery of something we already know. Oh – ‘This’! There’s a realization that the search doesn’t matter anymore. All the wrangling over concepts like “self or no-self”, “path or no-path”, “duality or non-duality”, “enlightenment or no enlightenment” just doesn’t matter. I realized that the “spiritual search”, which had started as a longing in my heart, had become a delusion of the dream mind. And, that the ‘This’ that I was searching for *is* revealing Itself *in* the dream of existence everyday… It was like a subtle awareness – a quiet knowing awareness that the dream continues even after “awakening.” Eventually there was a peace in realizing this – a deep serenity.

While writing my notes I remembered the words to an old Peggy Lee song (well that dates me doesn’t it!): “Is that all there is? If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing.” But I wasn’t feeling a sense of resignation. It was more of a sense of rest, a resting in this new awareness.

I realized that when we really *see* that ‘This’ is all there is – the ever-present Presence living in form *as us*, we keep dancing - maybe to a slightly different tune, but we keep dancing in the dream - *aware* that it is the dream of Existence, dreaming Itself, playing the song. Life living Itself.

Just keep dancing with Life!

Heart Smiles - MeANderi
www.ASerenitySanctuary.com