The Unsolved - Rainer Maria Rilke

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves, like locked
rooms and like books that are now written in a very
foreign tongue.  Do not now seek the answers,
which cannot be given because you would not be
able to live them.  And the point is, to live
everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps
you will then gradually, without noticing it,
live along some distant day into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke

from: Letter to a Young Poet

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering 

Choice - Jeff Foster

Friend, please, do not try to decide now.  Do not shut
any possibility out of your heart.  Honour this place
of not-knowing.  Bow before this bubbly  mess of
creativity.  Slow down. Breathe. Sink into wonderment.
Befriend the very place where you stand.  Any decision
will make itself, in time.  Any choice will happen when 
your defences are down.  Answers will appear only
when they are ready.  When the questions have been
fully honoured and loved.  Do not label this place
indecision.  It is more alive than that.  It is a place
where possibilities grow.  It is a place where uncertainty
is sacred.  There is courage in staying close.  There is
strength in not knowing.

Friend, please know there is simply no choice now.
Except to breathe, and breathe again, and
trust this Intelligence beyond mind.

Jeff Foster

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Quiet Mysteries - Gina Puorro

[.....]

 I want to be a student of the subtle.
Of the soft whispers and sweet hymns
that ride the ocean breeze and the hawk's wing.
A slight pivot towards quietude and the small things.
There are tender spaces
between emptiness and longing
where we just might hear the songs that pass
from ancestral throats to receptive ears.

You contain multitudes - contradictions and stardust
and sacred instruction.

Leave your unanswered questions
on the kitchen counter
let them ripen a bit...
until their quiet mysteries penetrate you...

[.....]

Gina Puorro
Excerpt from: "nothing matters, everything matters"
Dec. 5, 2020

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Full Moon 1-28-21

To Meditate or not to Meditate - Amoda Maa

To meditate... or not to meditate?

Is a dedicated mediation practice the only road to
"enlightenment"... or is the direct rout of recognizing
"what is already free" a better way?  Should all effort be
put into achieving a "higher state of consciousness?... or is
it best to simply let go of any effort to do anything at all?

If I discipline myself to meditate, should I sit (preferably
cross-legged) once a day... or is it twice or maybe three times?
And should I watch my breath... or is it my thoughts, or my
sensations?  Maybe I should chant in Sanskrit... or Hindi or
Japanese?  Maybe I should repeat the sacred OM from my heart...
or is my belly a better place?  Maybe I should send loving
thoughts in every out-breath... or visualize golden light from
my third eye?  Maybe I should try to focus on the gaps between
thoughts... or maybe I should just try to stop thinking all together?

And if I make no effort, how do I "awaken"?  Isn't there something
I need to do?  How do I transcend thinking?  How do I shift into an
"awakened state?"  Maybe if I read enough books or listen to enough
spiritual teachers, I will "get it"?

To meditate... or not to meditate?  The question is a conundrum
to the mind that seeks satisfaction.  The mind seeks a definitive
answer, as if this would bring an end to mind's unease.  The
personhood seeks certainty, as if the certainty of "spiritual
progress" would bestow a badge of worthiness or specialness.

But the question of meditation cannot be answered by the mind.
It can only be realized when Silence has become the bedrock of
your life.  This Silence is not about closing the doors, turning off
the phone and lighting candles.  Nor is it to do with trying to get
rid of your thoughts [or your ego, or the notion of I/me]...
or imagining the perfect sanctuary of peace.

This Silence happens when you stop giving attention to the
narratives that wrap themselves around your experience of reality.

This Silence happens when you turn towards tenderness every time
an unwanted feeling enters your inner landscape.  This Silence
happens when you have surrendered all resistance to what is.
This Silence happens when you are no longer the center of your
universe, when you have become without a center and [you realize
that] the whole universe is in you.  Without resistance, there is
no inner conflict, no inner division, no outside and no inside, no
barrier and no boundary.

When you know your true nature as Silence, there is no need to
do meditation... [because] you ARE meditation.  True meditation
is a state of Being.  It is your natural open state, there is nothing to
move away from and nothing to move towards.  You are simply
and irrevocably here.  There is no longer a question... because
in Silence all questions fall away.

So, it is not about whether you meditate or not.  It's about whether
you can fall into the Silence that is always here prior to your
ideas of what meditation is, or what it can give you, or where
it can take you.  Whether you sit in deep stillness or whether you
are doing something in this world, [the requirements of daily living]
 this Silence is always here... it is in you as Being-ness [your inner
Beingness]. Beingness does not need to do meditation... 
It IS meditation...

I am often asked whether I meditate or not... and I sort of shake my
head, unable to give a definitive answer.  Did I used to do meditation?
Yes.  Until meditation swallowed me up and all that was left was
Silence.  Now the whole of life is meditation, without doing a practice,
without trying to get anywhere, without trying to change anything.
Now... I AM meditation.

So perhaps it is wise to ask a different question...  how can I meet
the world [live my daily life] as Silence?  Perhaps the question
will turn the mind around from its horizontal searching into the
verticality of Being that is always here.  And then you discover
what true meditation is...

Amoda Maa

with gratitude to Michel at No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

The sack of insignificant things...

I was carrying items of no significance in a sack,
roaming through a house with many different rooms,
looking for something I couldn't identify...

I was having trouble seeing, kept squinting, kept
trying to open my eyes more and more to the "Truth",
but everything remained a blur...

Unable to see clearly, unable to focus,
I just looked down into my sack of insignificant things,
 and saw there ideas and beliefs I didn't need,
but had held onto - on many levels.

Bewildered, I wondered why I continued to carry
the sack of insignificant things... and kept wandering
through the house.

Room to room, belief to belief,
looking for the "answers"
that I thought I lacked...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 15, 2019

~

This came from a dream I had recently...

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Cosmic Bardo - Matt Licata

All the techniques, the teachings, the things to manifest, the new
beliefs to take on, the worn-out ideas about the true source of
peace, aliveness and flowing abundance.  Perhaps there were
once answers to these questions, but now there is no answer to
be found.  Only a burning where the questions once existed.

This burning is the doorway, the portal...

A cosmic sort of exhaustion can come at times, where we find
ourselves in the bardo between one moment and the next.  We
can't quite go back to the way it was, but the rebirth has yet to
appear.  There is a creativity in the liminal but it can seem out
of reach.  We are asked to marinate in the womb..., to tend to
the groundlessness, and find refuge in the unknown: to be
midwife to the darkened illumination.  There are signs and
symbols and guidance all around and inside us, but their
appearance is governed by a timeline written somewhere else.

As we bear witness to a new day, in awe at the gift that has
been given... the breath is here.  The heart is quivering.  The
birds have come.  Sounds from the other world, another
opportunity to hear, to behold the miracle of the senses.  The
sun has come up again.  The moon is hiding nearby waiting
her turn.  For just one moment, the veil parts and the
perfection is there awaiting our participation.

Your life is not an unending self-improvement project and
your heart is not a venture to be undertaken, mastered and
completed.  Perhaps today was never going to be the day
when you figured it all out, got all your questions answered,
or resolved the contradictions....  but to let your heart open
to the vastness of the question.  To fall to the ground as a
humble lover of the mystery.  And listen once again.

Matt Licata

~

Photo by my husband...

Trust Your Solitude - Rainer Rilke

.....in the great silence of these distances, I am touched by your
beautiful anxiety about life...  Here, where I am surrounded by
an enormous landscape, which the winds move across as they
come from the seas, here I feel that there is no one anywhere
who can answer for you those questions and feelings which,
in their depths, have a life of their own; for even the most
articulate people are unable to help, since what words point
to is so very delicate, is almost unsayable.  But even so, I
think that you will not have to remain without a solution if
you trust in Nature, in what is simple in Nature, in the small
Things; if you have this love for what is humble, then everything
will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more
reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays
behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness,
awakeness, and knowledge.

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and
try to love the questions themselves, as if they were locked
rooms or books written in a very foreign language.  Don't
search for the answers, which could not be given to you now,
because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is,
to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps then,
someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even
noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in
the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you
will find all your paths...

Rainer Maria Rilke
Excerpt from: Letters to a Young Poet #1

Guru Cat speaks again

Listen to me...

Just lay it all down - Guru Cat said.
Just let life beeee, for heaven's sake -
What is,
as it is...
There is no other way through
but acceptance - ya know,
sounding exasperated...

Do not pursue the esoteric "answers"
for what cannot be explained:
for your existential angst;
for the frustrations with the way life is;
for the weariness of existence that you feel...
Be at peace with it all,
as it is...

Could this really be the "answer"!? -

I asked... in my head...
Just acceptance of what is?!
Just letting each experience be what it is...?

Guru Cat's eyes just stared.
Life is an interfluidity of experiences.
In the acceptance of each experience
is peace, a deep relaxation, a release
of all tension.
and, an inner movement of fluidity
with the deeper Rhythm of Life...

It's not as complicated as your mind
makes it...

It's not rocket science...
It's just Life living ItSelf...

She gave me that look.

Just rest - Guru Cat went on, trying to soften her tone,
with less sarcasm, more feeling...
Rest in the deep Silence of Being,
not seeking solutions,
or efforting after resolutions,
but deeply relax
into the Unknown,
and the unknowable,
only Aware of the Silence
within you,
the silent Presence of Awareness.
Do you see this yet?
Can you feel it?

Guru Cat continued to stare with steely eyes...

Remain relaxed in
the simplicity of Being
that just IS -
the ISness of Being

as it is-
Only Aware...
Not concerned with anything
that arises
within
or
without

Just Aware...

Yes, Guru Cat - I said

Guru Cat just stared...

and there was only the silence
of being  - Aware.

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 23, 2018

Seek The Mystery - Ken Kesey

The answer is never the answer.
What's really interesting is the mystery.
...seek the mystery instead of the answer...
I've never seen anybody really find the answer.

They think they have, so they stop [seeking].
But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery...
Plant a garden in which strange plants grow
and mysteries bloom.

The need for mystery is greater than the need
for an answer.

Ken Kesey 
author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Overwhelm - Jeff Foster

Oh sweet little boy, beloved little girl,
you are so overwhelmed by life,
I know,
by the enormity of it all,
by the myriad perspectives available to you.

You feel so pressed down sometimes,
by all the unresolved questions,
by all the information
you are supposed to process and hold,
by the urgency of things.

You are overcome by powerful emotions,
trying to control,
or at least influence,
everything and everyone around you,
trying to hold yourself together,
trying to make it all 'work out' somehow,
trying to get everything done 'on time',
trying to resolve things so fast,
even trying not to try at all.

You are exhausted, sweet one,
exhausted from all the trying
and the not trying,
and you are struggling to trust life again.
It's all too much for the poor organism, isn't it.
You are exhausted, you long to rest.
And that is not a failing of yours,
nor a horrible mistake,
but something wonderful to embrace!

For the exhaustion is pure intelligence,
and it says, let go, let go! Stop trying so hard!

Stop pushing for answers right now.
Allow everything to rest right now.
Take a sacred pause.

Allow questions to remain unanswered, for now.
Allow space for yourself to breathe today.
Allow everything to fall out of control today.
Allow yourself to not be able to hold it all up today.
Allow yourself to not know how, to not know at all.

Allow the heart to break, if it needs to,
and the body to ache, and the soul to wake.

Everything is okay, when you get down to it.

And know you are loved, little one.
Know you have always been loved,
long before you were named,
long before you were even born,
long before overwhelm came to show you the way.

Jeff Foster

Where do the "answers" lie...

“I have a thousand brilliant lies
for the question:
Who are you?

I have a thousand brilliant lies
for the question:
What is God?

If you think the Truth can be
known from words,

If you think the Sun and the Ocean
can pass through
that tiny opening called
the mouth…

O Someone should start laughing!
wild laughing – Now!"

Hafiz

"Instead of *thinking* up an answer,
it’s about letting the question
resonate in the pool of the heart,
not as a thought,
but as a listening -
as pure sensing…"

Joan Ruvinsky
Pathless Yoga

 

"Every new understanding of who you really are,
attunes you more delicately to this space of full awareness,
so that you can hear and be guided by your inner voice
more clearly…

Your attachments may veil the truth from you.
Your attachments lead you to seek
outside yourself for answers
that can only come to you
from your own heart.

Each time you lose contact
with that inner awareness,
you need only meditate.
For through meditation
you will hear that
inner “click”,
that sense of rightness.

Your answers are unique.
Listen with your heart…"

Ram Dass
Journey of Awakening

"The liberating Truth is not static;
it is alive.
It cannot be put into concepts
and be understood by the mind.

The Truth lies beyond all forms of
conceptual fundamentalism.

What you are is the beyond…
It is awake and present -
here and now already.

To be here,
all you have to do
is to let go of
who you *think* you are."

Adyashanti

My only advice for you is this…
Go within yourself
and probe the depths
from which your life springs.

And there, at its source,
you’ll find the answer
to the questions…

Accept this answer,
just as you hear it,
without hesitation..

Rainer Maria Rilke

Letters to a Young Poet

(istock photo)

Do not seek the answers to your questions,
but find the perspective that lets you *see through* everything -
seeing the transparency of all things -
the fluidness of it all -
the changeableness of it all…

~

No longer seeking for answers – BE…
BE profoundly well with everything that arises.
Let it all take place around you.

Sit in the well of “wellness” – the hollow of the Heart.

Sit in the pool of profound Wellness of Being –
“Well-Being”
Inner Peace,
Inner Stillness,
Rest…

Live in Primordial Peace,
the Infinite Alive Stillness -
the Pause that sustains everything…

~

The invitation is to come into the depths.
Find the depths of Being internally.

Find the fluidity under the surface waters
at the depths of Being.

Remind yourself of the depths
from which you came,
and re-enter the depths.
Everything comes together
in the depths of Being…

Find the deep Stillness
and rest there…

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
2004-2006

“The answer, my friend,
is blowin’ in the wind…
The answer is
blowin’ in the wind…”

Blowin’ In The Wind

Bob Dylan
1962
(sung by Peter, Paul and Mary)