Walk Away - Buddha and Hafez

If you cannot find a Friend who is good, wise and loving,
walk alone, like a king who has renounced his kingdom,
or an elephant roaming at will in the forest.

The Buddha

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Run my dear,
from anything
that may not strengthen
your precious budding wings.

Run like hell my dear,
from anyone likely
to put a sharp knife
into the sacred, tender vision
of your beautiful heart.

Hafez

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

.

 

Find Your Radiance - Hermann Hesse

Each man has only one genuine vocation -
to find the way to himself,
to discover his own destiny,
and live it out wholly and resolutely
within himself.
Everything else [is] only a
would-be-existence,
an attempt at evasion,
a flight back to the ideals of
the masses: conformity, a
fear of one's own inwardness.

Hermann Hesse

~

Your work is to discover your work
and then with all your heart
give yourself to it...

The Buddha

from: Living in Balance
Joel and Michelle Levey

~

We're all just walking each other "Home."

Ram Dass

~

Photo Art - Mystic Meandering
 Radiance Vortex
2024

 

Wordless Whispers...

Who is here for you,
in your vulnerability,

your fragility?

Maybe you talk to "God"...
The Buddha, maybe Allah,
or the Divine Mother...?

It doesn't matter what "God" you believe in..
"The Mystery" holds them all...

What comforts you?
What calms your agitated mind?
Can you feel the invisible arms
around your shoulders?

Who is your Friend?

The one who stands with you
in times like these;
that consoles and comforts,
that reminds you of who you really are -
on the inside - beyond personality,
beyond hardship...

beyond the chaos and confusion
of the troubled world?

Be still...  Breathe...

Listen for the Wordless Whispers...
that others cannot hear...

Listen deeply...
For it's your own compassionate Heart
whispering:

You can overcome anything...

You are loved...

Mystic Meandering
May 1, 2020

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Orchids that look like a face in the way they hung;
comforting eyes that heal and soothe
the restless mind and troubled spirit...

Happy Birthday Dalai Lama

Today is the Dalai Lama's 83rd birthday.  I am not a Buddhist,
but I have, for a long time now, felt an unexplained "connection"
to The Buddha and Buddhist Heart Wisdom.  I have
experienced many "mystical moments" with The Buddha energy
in sitting meditation.  In a sense you could say I am a
"Buddha Mystic" :DDDDD

(one of my many self-imposed labels :)

I am also drawn, at times, to the Dalai Lama, to his heart of
compassion, his grandfatherly demeanor, and his innocent,
childlike happiness. His Presence (thru photos and the media) elicits
compassion and innocence in me, and my heart sighs.
There is an inexplicable resonance there, allowing me to feel
my own "Buddha Nature" - that Core Beingness within.

Here's a link about his exile from Tibet in 1959
before the invasion of Tibet by China.

When it is one-sided - Hermann Hesse

I have found a thought, Govinda, which you'll again regard
as a joke or foolishness...

It says: The opposite of every truth is just as true!

That's like this: any truth can only be expressed and put into
words when it is one-sided.  Everything is one-sided which can
be thought with thoughts and said with words, it's all one-sided,
all just one half, all lacks completeness, roundness, oneness.

When the exalted "Gotama" [Gautama] spoke in his teachings
of the world, he had to divide it into "Sansara" [Samsara] and
Nirvana, into deception and truth, into suffering, [and freedom
from suffering, into "enlightened"and "unenlightened"].  It cannot
 be done differently, there is no way for him who wants to teach.

But the world itself, what exists around us and inside of us,
is never one-sided.

A person or an act is never entirely "Sansara" [Samsara] or
entirely Nirvana, a person is never entirely holy or entirely
sinful.  It does really seem like this, because we are subject to
deception and the confines of time, which causes us to adhere
to one fixed belief and does not account for the fullness of truth.
Every entity carries in it the potential for its opposite and so the
world is considered complete.  And so we must love the world
in its completeness...

...love, oh Govinda, seems to me to be the most important thing
of all.

Hermann Hesse
From: Siddartha

via - The Beauty We Love

[brackets mine]

~

Photo - Yin-Yang Mandala

Buddha Light...

I am not a Buddhist, but I LOVE sitting with the Cosmic Buddha in meditation; experiencing the Buddha energy, which for me is a tangible, felt sense of the Loving Joy of the Buddha Heart that makes my Heart smile with Bliss. Some might call me a “Buddha Mystic. ”J  I feel the energy as I write here after spending time in meditation this morning.   It is an energy that is deeply abiding, that knows your Heart, and is recognized as Pure Love and Joy – even making your Heart laugh.

Today is Wesak – the celebration of the historical Buddha’s birth and “enlightenment” (and some say his death as well) when The Buddha’s Presence is more tangibly felt, according to legend.  I feel it…

May you bask in the Presence of the ‘Buddha’s Heart” today – feeling the Joy and Love in your Heart of Hearts that makes your Heart a little Lighter…   _/\_

The Morning Kiss...

Sometimes I think I feel what the Buddha must have felt when he sat under the Bodhi Tree waiting for “enlightenment” – waiting for the revelation of the Truth of Existence…  I am not a Buddhist (nor a Christian) and do not claim to know the full Truth, nor what the Buddha felt, or interpret the meaning of his “experience” under the tree.  But what I have read is that he was determined to wait for the Truth to be revealed, to wait as long as he needed, to know the Truth.  He did not evidently question whether he could know the Truth or not, he waited for it.

Recently I have experienced a deep longing again for the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth.  Sometimes that translates into a longing for “God” – not a religious image of “God” – more a felt sense of a much vaster, enveloping spacious Cosmic Awareness – which for me is the same as Truth/God.  Sometimes I call it a longing for “God.”, or “waiting on God.”  Ultimately I am longing and waiting for Truth to be revealed, no matter what the vehicle or label.   It is what I have wanted since childhood – a direct revelation of “God”/Truth, which often seems veiled to me – although there have been many “awakenings.”

Every morning I go to my chair by the window and sit in meditative Silence – Listening inwardly… Waiting… Nothing else matters to me.  Everything else is distraction.  It’s as if I am waiting for the “Truth/God” to come Home IN me…  Non-dualists would argue that there is no “me” to wait – which may ultimately be true.   But there is a “mechanism” here that functions as “me.”   And I am tired of those arguments.  I don’t care about playing word games.  I just want the pure Truth.  And it doesn’t seem to matter how many “awakenings” I’ve already had, or how many times IT has revealed ItSelf – there is still longing.

The truth of the matter is J – I do miss “God”! – not a theistic or deistic separate “God”, but more a personal sense of “God” - as Friend, like Rumi and Shams, sitting with each other in intimate Silence. This probably doesn't make any sense to the reader, and I cannot truly explain this “missing” – this “longing.”  In the midst of the longing there is a sense of “The Sacred.”  No matter how I try to mentalize it with contemporary “non-duality” teachings, telling myself that there is no “me” to miss “God” – there is a longing for the Divine.  So where does this come from?  I can “spiritualize” it and say it is the Divine in me longing for ItSelf.  I have said this many times.  But is that true, or just another non-dualism – something to asuage the angst of longing.

It is interesting to me as well that this occurs at what feels like a very “sacred” time of year.  Not because it’s Christmas, or because of Jesus, but there is something palpable in me that starts at Halloween, continues into November, gets particularly stronger near the Winter Solstice – and wanes at Christmas.  It’s as if a “cosmic birthing” – an “awakening” of Consciousness - is taking place within myself – through the longing.  After all isn’t that the theme of season – a rebirth of the Light in form; the awakening of Consciousness within?  I become more acutely aware of what I can only call a “Divine Flow” pulsing within.   There are moments of a felt sense of internal “communion” - of peace and contentment.   And with that comes a deep sense of awe and Gratitude…   Is this the illusive “enlightenment” I’ve been waiting for?  I don’t know…  (And yes, I mean "illusive." :)

So, what to do with this longing…except allow the longing – surrender into it – be true to the longing of the Heart,  let it lead, and feel it all the way through to the Truth.

The Morning Kiss

I am kissed every morning;
a gentle kiss from behind a cloudy veil…

I long for the veil to lift;
to fully awaken to
”the Beloved”

in ITs Brilliance…

I am tired of *trying* to “know”

*trying* to “see”;
chasing misty shadows
of
the Real.

Yet “IT”
calls to me from
behind a veil of mystery.

When my trying and chasing stops,
the veil opens.

Silence comes
– and I wait…

”The Beloved” reveals ItSelf
in
Divine Intimacy
in
Total Awareness

A love affair with
Grace and Love

A Mysterious Embrace

The Morning Kiss…

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 17, 2014

The Gift

Today is/was Buddha’s Birthday. I was going to spend it quietly, contemplatively, meditating, connecting with the Buddha within… Life had other plans. Instead I found myself unexpectedly in the waiting room of an eye doctor’s office waiting for my mother who was being examined for upcoming cataract surgery. Actually all of life it seems is about waiting at the moment, or is that waiting in the moment.

When I entered the waiting room this morning my mother had already arrived and was in with the doctor, having driven herself from the next town over. I noticed a very elderly woman seated in a lone chair up against a wall with a wheel chair next to her. Just as I took my seat she was trying to communicate in a very weak little voice with the receptionist behind a very high-walled counter. This little old lady was concerned because no one had come to pick her up yet. She somehow knew that someone should have been there by now. She knew she had been waiting too long. The sight of her sitting there all alone with no one there for her nearly brought me to tears. I felt my heart crack open – unexpectedly. Am thinking - Oh please, not NOW – not in the middle of the waiting room. Don’t crack open now! That would be too embarrassing – as the tears began to form.

Her doctor’s visit was evidently over and she had been waiting for what I assumed was her family to come and get her. I thought how odd that a family member hadn’t stayed with her. They had just left her to fend for herself. She wanted to know if the receptionist had called her family. The receptionist tried to explain over the counter top that she had called someone “a while ago”, but the wisp of a woman in the chair could not hear her. She wanted to know if the receptionist had called Jerry or Stacy. The receptionist responded dismissively with – “I called the number you gave me.” So I intervened. I don’t know why. It just felt like the thing to do at the time. Right place at the right time kind of thing. I went over to the woman and asked if she had another phone number for the someone else that she wanted called. (Thinking this is what the receptionist should have been doing). She mumbled something and then something else, and something else, which translated into that she couldn’t remember the other number.

I sat down. My heart began to burst open in my chest for this poor woman who was getting noticeably worried that no one was there to get her. I seem to know this feeling – the feeling of being abandoned, left alone to fend for myself, waiting for someone to come, not able to connect with anyone…. Oh dear – I can feel the heart cracking open again…

I tried to distract myself with reading ‘Radical Acceptance’ by Tara Brach. I opened to where the bookmark was and the first line I randomly read 2/3 down the page was: “…seeing and feeling the degree of suffering we are living with reconnects us to our heart.” It was another thud to the chest. And then I heard the receptionist making a phone call for the lone lady in the chair. Ah, she does care after all! I felt a little more relieved that action was being taken to help this poor, abandoned woman – as the receptionist spoke in a louder tone to let the woman know that somebody was indeed on the way, and it would only be another 5-10 mins… Whew – not abandoned after all – breathing better now.

And sure enough within 5 mins a woman from a “medical transport service” showed up to take this frail lady back to her nursing home. Wow – maybe she has no family after all, and no one had really abandoned her. She was just confused and suffered because she *thought* she had been abandoned. I felt her “suffering” and it touched something deep in me, reconnecting me to the Heart… I was touched by her need, her helplessness, her emotional distress. Responding to her need opened the Heart… Responding to life as it is in the moment opens the space for something larger than ourselves to move in us – to open...

I tried to read from Tara Brach’s book again, while I continued waiting in the waiting room, skimming through the chapter picking up other little phrases: “…opening to life as it is. …regardless of how our experience unfolds, by agreeing to what is here, we offer it the space to express and move through us”, which is exactly what happened this morning waiting in the waiting room. Life as it is moved through in a brief instant between me, an elderly woman and a receptionist. None of whom I expect to see again… Just breezes blowing through - opening the Heart… Happy Birthday Buddha! And thank you for the gift you left me today…

~*~

"...the Buddha seed..."

As many of you who regularly read this blog know, I am not a “Buddhist”, although recently I find myself enamored with the Buddha, feeling a deep inner sense of the universal Buddha presence within. In the past I have given this presence names like Awareness, Presence, Spirit, Being, Stillness, etc. This Buddha Presence has a compassionate, loving, peaceful, comforting presence that I feel in my heart and gut; that calms and consoles; that has a sense of “assurance” to it. There is an innocent curiosity that arises with the felt sense of this presence within, wanting to follow. So I am exploring this new awareness of the Buddha internally – as in: This is interesting, let’s see where this goes. Do I need to leave breadcrumbs just in case?

Sometimes I feel gifted during times of meditation when I get words and insights that always seem to be just what I need to hear. With the recent drama in my life, silence and meditation have been difficult, but in the last couple of weeks they were beginning to become my internal comforts – although I admit, food and TV are still right up there at the top of the list, as well as various other distractions of the body/mind. :)

However, during meditation last week I was able to settle in to the Silence enough to get still and asked:

Buddha – what do you want here?

The response:

Utter and complete stillness, like a lotus on a pond.

Utter and complete waiting – in stillness.

Utter and complete presence – inward/inner presence.

And during this “utter and complete stillness” – which of course was not totally “utter and complete”, but the best that I could do - I reflected that the Buddha Nature is like a seed in the heart that needs attention, awareness, and presence, in order to open fully. Still, silent attentive awareness; a silent gaze of attention inwardly, continually, bringing the inner gaze there to the seed of the Buddha Nature: “the Buddha seed” were the words that came…

A visual of an open white Lotus flower also came.

So I asked: What does Buddha want me to know here?

Mindfulness – mindful awareness that *sees.*

Bring your awareness to the Buddha seed in the Heart.

Bring steadfast presence to the seed of the Buddha Nature within.

Hold the seed of light in your awareness – like the Lotus Light …

Constant, continual awareness of the seed within until it fully opens.

This is the Buddha Nature – the seed of the Lotus Light that shines.

Create an environment for this seed to thrive…

Be like the hidden jewel, the hidden light – waiting,

content to wait in stillness; enfolded, held and embraced. Waiting.

The Buddha seed will open when it is ready… Wait in stillness…

Be “stillness waiting.”

So be it…

~*~

The Universal Buddha

In this new state of being enamored with “The Buddha” I happened to find an interesting article on-line the other day by Lama Surya Das entitled: Who and What is Buddha, Really? Hmmm… Synchronicity? It was quite enlightening actually. In the article he says: “Buddha represents what is actually possible for each of us – our full flowering… On the internal level, Buddha is innate and ever-present awareness… On the innermost…level, Buddha is our deepest nature: radiant Being or Nowness-Awareness, beyond gender, nationality, religious affiliation, or other local distinctions.” I immediately thought how universal this sounded.

He continued: “For Buddhists, wisdom is not merely a form of belief or a particular truth…but a living, breathing, functioning quality inherent in the mind of each of us, waiting to be explored… Anyone can become a Buddha.”

Further into the article he said: “Enlightenment means to awaken out of illusion’s dream and the snares of conceptual thought, and into a directly lived moment-by-moment experience… Eventually we come to realize there is nothing other than the luminous awareness of Being. In other words, we understand that life itself is an expression of Being. And once this realization occurs within us, we too awaken…” “The innate Buddha-nature or Buddha-ness within each and every sentient being is…akin to clear light. All beings are endowed with this inner lamp of pure spirit, along with the potential for *its* divine unfolding… [In this is] "the equality of us all [in] recognizing the *universally innate* Buddha-nature, the primordial pure inner light." His description was similar to the sense of Buddha energy that I experienced the other day.

Maybe this is what I feel drawn to, this innate, authentic, luminous, universal Aware Beingness that the Lama describes as Buddha Nature that we all are…

Last Sunday I went to a local metaphysical store with the intent of finding a “Buddha” statue, an icon of this compassionate, endearing Presence that I feel. As soon as I opened the door there were 3 large statues of Buddha greeting me at the door, and a sign that said – “All Buddha statues 30% off!” More synchronicity? It had to be the “right” face, so I looked at each one carefully, stepped back, knelt down on the floor, examining their faces, trying to find just the “right” Buddha face… None of them were “it” – my version of “it.” So I kept perusing the shelves through the store, waiting for the face of Self to reveal Itself. And there it was - on a second shelf of a small display case, towards the back of the shelf. If I hadn’t bent over slightly I would have missed it. Hmmm - :) I immediately knew this was the one. It was not a “traditional” looking Buddha, nor the “best” looking, but the face spoke to me. The image was close to the same meditative eyes that I saw in my head. The face reflected back to me the qualities that I feel when I experience the universal Buddha: calm repose, stillness, equanimity, an ever-present Presence of all-encompassing compassion, a meditative knowing wisdom, and peace. All these attributes, for me, embody the universal Buddha… “He” now graces my meditation space and draws me again and again in to this recognition of the innate, universal Buddha within… To the place of stillness, repose and equanimity…

Enamored with The Buddha

I suddenly have become enamored with The Buddha… Like a poet finding their beloved…

Yesterday while meditating “The Buddha” showed up. I know this may sound a little woo-woo, but I’m just reporting on form here… Well, he didn’t show up “literally” of course. There was no vision, no image, but there was definitely a sense of “Buddha energy” in the room, and in me.

It’s been a while since I’ve had really “good” sitting meditation. And being a “mystic” on a meandering path I never really know who to “pray” to. Sometimes it’s “Spirit,” sometimes the “Divine Mother” (no, not the Christian version, more like the Goddess – the Mother Energy of all creation), sometimes it’s just “the Universe,” and sometimes it’s my sense of “Spacious Awareness” that just Is, or “Being-Self.” It’s usually something universal. But yesterday it became clear that I was sitting with “the Buddha.” Wow… It blew me away actually. And now I can’t get enough. I want more of The Buddha. I want all things Buddha. Is this a natural reaction… :) (I *still* feel “the presence” even today as I tend to my daily requirements, and assisting my sister.)

There was a *tangible* feeling of peace and equanimity in this presence! A sense of Divine Love – and Trust! It was as if his meditating face was right inside of mine, as if “I” had become the face of The Buddha – if that’s at all possible…. (I hope that doesn’t sound arrogant.) The sense was that I was *naturally* The Buddha… Isn’t that the essential teaching of Buddhism? I’m not a “Buddhist” so I’m really not sure. It was the sense of *naturally being* the Buddha – not as in the person, but in the universal energy that the Buddha represents – the Buddha Nature. It was like getting a feel for the True Heart: sweet, gentle, kind – as if embraced by an all encompassing Love – as if I was *abiding in* The Buddha. And so I surrendered into the Heart of “The Buddha…”

Now this doesn’t mean I’m going to run out and *become* a “Buddhist” – in the religious sense. I have no desire to do that. I have no desire for religious containers. (Been there, done that…) I simply want to sit – simply sit, in my own simple way and wait – open to this Divine Presence – however it’s named.

I have not spent years meditating and practicing in order to attain “Buddhahood” (not that I have with this experience either). I have not spent years “purifying” myself in order to be worthy. It was just “me” – sitting – and I was gifted with a Divine presence that *felt* like the Buddha. Maybe you have experienced this too … You sense an energy that feels deeply abiding, that knows your Heart – and you give it a name… And how would I have recognized this Buddha energy anyway, I wonder… Something inherent recognized it, something inherent in me knew it. Maybe it’s a Divine Knowing that just knows - Itself….

I spent the rest of the afternoon with a sense of delightful, giggly joy in my heart – as if I had finally found my beloved… There is a very deep love for The Buddha here that I really can’t explain, but I thought it would be interesting to share my experience… I humbly welcome your feedback!

“The Buddha is the jewel -

the light that shines in the Heart of everyone…

the light that shines in the Heart of the world…”