Drop the Judgement...

There is no judgement about what we do
or don't do - about what is said or not said...

Drop the judgement and see what happens...

Everything is just what it is.

Everyone is just what they are.

If you drop the judgement
you drop the anger...

Judgement is like resistance -
it binds the heart...

You can't get people to change...

The issue is to drop the judgement
and just allow things to be the way they are -
because that's the way they are...

When I can 't feel compassion
I need to drop the judgement...

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 30, 2023

12:52 am

(I'm still working on it :)

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

"Keys" - a meandering

On my "spiritual meanderings" over the years, I have learned
many things, discovered many "truths"; found 3 "keys", although
I'm sure there are more.

Maybe you have discovered a different set of "keys" for yourself.
But I wanted to share the ones I found in this meandering...

Photo - Mystic Meandering

~

Experiencing The Divine Within

Today the "Divine Mother" is silent.
But I feel Her energy in the stillness of waking.
She vibrates in my body, as I hold my heart
with my hands over my chest, grateful for Her
Presence...

My "reason to live" is this felt connection with
"The Divine Mother"; directly experiencing Her
Presence vibrating through me...

I learned from "Her" that I must turn inward and always
keep my awareness open to "Her" - with the inner ear -
listening for Her silent "voice" and unspoken words;
with the inner eye - "seeing" through the mental obscurations
that blind me; and - sensing Her Presence always within me.

"The Mother of the Universe" - however one names "Her" - is
ultimately, for me, not a persona, or deity, although I give Her
a name: "The Divine Mother."  I could call Her "The Sacred",
"The Beloved", "The Ineffable", but "Divine Mother" seems 
more personal, more relatable...

"She, however called, is the Energy that permeates all things;
that becomes all form in matter reality,
the Primal Energy that infuses us and
communes with every cell of our being -
enlivening and comforting...
I need to bask in Her Essence...

In this pool of Primal Energy all worries subside,
mentations give way, and "I" feel closer to my own true
Essence.

Mystic Meandering
Aug. 7, 2023
Photo - Mystic Meandering

~

July 18, 2023

Blessing

Today I started asking for blessings for people in my life.
Don't know why.  It just seemed like the natural thing
to do with so many people suffering in this world now,
feeling helpless to help them...

When I asked a blessing I began to feel a vibration in my
body, as if there was some kind of energy moving through me...

First Blessing

I ask a blessing on "the visitor"
that came to live here 10 months ago,
so that she may be free at last;
not in constant mental torture,
re-hashing her past - but free to
move on.

I ask that "The Divine Mother" would
be merciful to her, and relieve her of her
suffering, so that she can truly be at peace.

I ask a blessing on this whole situation!

I ask a blessing on this house!

Photo - Mystic Meandering

~

Acceptance

I don't know when I first came across the concept of
 "accepting what is" but it has been a recurring theme
 in my life experience.  I remember listening to a
guided meditation in the early 2000's by Adyashanti
 on "Allowing everything to be as it is."  And around
 the same time I read a book by Tara Brach called
Radical  Acceptance.  And Byron Katie's - Loving
What Is.  Then recently a book by Frank Ostaseski
called The Five Invitations.  One of the invitations is
 to Welcome Everything, push nothing away.
And this quote below by Jeff Foster from his book
 The Deepest Acceptance that I read sometime in 2014...

~

"Freedom is found not through escaping the present
experience, but by diving fearlessly into its hidden depths...

If we are to be truly free - we must face reality with open
 eyes. We must move away from denial, wishful thinking,
and hoping and tell the truth about life as it is. Great
freedom lies in admitting the truth of this moment, 
however much it clashes with our dreams and plans
 - self-image [or spiritual teachings]... Acceptance is about
seeing reality, seeing things as they actually are, not
 as we wish them to be.  And from that place of 
alignment with what is, all creative, loving and
 intelligent actions flow naturally.

Great freedom lies in fearlessly facing the darkness
and finally coming to see that the darkness is inseparable
 from light...  Life cannot be good or bad. 
  Life is simply life..."

Jeff Foster

Photo from the Internet

~

Accepting life as it is, is still a challenge for me, but I
 know it is a "key" - for when I "accept" someone the way
 they are,  kindness and compassion arise to meet them.
 Accepting what is means I recognize the things I can
 change, and the things I can't. I give up trying to "control"
the person or situation, and just let things/people be as/
who they are...

Even if I think they should be otherwise :)

_/\_

Blessings

MM

~

Keys Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Choosing What Is - Ivan Granger Commentary

I vow to choose what is...

You would think the unavoidable nature of "what is" makes a
statement like this meaningless, but the human mind is not
entirely sane.  It often chooses fantasy and imaginings,
shoulds and coulds, possibilities and even impossibilities over
what is.  Very few of us truly dwell in reality.  Rarely do we
fully experience the moments of our lives.

What is it that we are straining for as we constantly lean away
from "what is"?  What do we think is missing that we need?  We
don't need someone else's life.  We don't need a perfect marriage,
better finances, or a better place in society.  We don't even need
to be a saint living in the mountains.  What's missing is ourselves.
What we really need is to stand in our own shoes, to be utterly
ourselves.  We need that missing ingredient - being present.
We need to live, with honesty and an open heart, the life that
already moves through us.

[.....]

The power of a practice like Zen is that it defines the human 
journey, not as escape, but as coming home, of settling into
ourselves and being present with the present.  It challenges us
to actually live the moment that continuously arrives and
passes and renews itself.

By making this journey to "what is," we finally meet ourselves
and learn what this amazing thing is that we call life, with all
its rich, joyful, painful, and transitory beauty.

Excerpt from a commentary by Ivan Granger
on a poem of vows by Hogen Bays
you can read the full poem and commentary here

~

Personal Note:  As some of you know, I'm being challenged to
 accept and be present to "what is"in my daily life experiences.
My ability to accept what is fluctuates from day to day.

~

Swirls with Craypas Oils
done with fingers
Mystic Meandering
2011

 

Aligning with What Is - Eckhart Tolle on Krishnamurti

Jiddu Krishnamurti spoke and traveled almost continuously all
over the world for more than fifty years attempting to convey 
through words - which are content - that which is beyond words,
beyond content.  At one of his talks in the later part of his life, he
surprised his audience by saying, "Do you want to know my secret?"
Everyone became very alert.  Many people in the audience had
 been coming to listen to him for twenty or thirty years and still
failed to grasp the essence of his teaching.  Finally, after all these
years, the master would give them the key to understanding.
"This is my secret," he said.  "I don't mind what happens."  He
did not elaborate, and so I suspect most of his audience were
even more perplexed than before.  The implications of this
simple statement, however, are profound.

When I don't mind what happens, what does that imply?  It 
implies that internally I am in alignment with what happens.
"What happens" of course, refers to the suchness of this moment,
which already is as it is.  It refers to content, the form that this
moment - the only moment there ever is - takes.  To be in
alignment with what is means to be in a relationship of
inner nonresistance with what happens. It means not to label
 it mentally as good or bad, but to let it be.  Does this mean you
 can no longer take action to bring about change in your life?  On
 the contrary.  When the basis for your actions is inner alignment
 with the present moment, your actions become empowered by
 the intelligence of Life itself.

Eckhart Tolle on J. Krishnamurti

From Simon Bartholome

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo Mystic Meandering

 

Change - Frank Ostaseski

We don't grow and transform in our comfort zones.  We grow
when we realize we are no longer able to control all the
conditions of our lives, and are therefore challenged to
change...  When we release our clinging to what used to be
and our craving for what we think should be, we are free to
embrace the truth of what is in this moment.

No matter what we do or don't do, things will always change.
Change is constant and inevitable.  We need to trust ourselves
and persevere without despair...

Frank Ostaseski

The Five Invitations

 

Eradicating Violence? - J. Krishnamurti

...is it possible to eradicate violence in ourselves?

I am asking whether it is possible for a human being living
psychologically in any society to clear violence from himself
inwardly?  If it is, the very process will produce a different way

of living in this world.

Some of us, in order to rid ourselves of violence, have used a
concept, an ideal, called non-violence, and we think by having
an ideal of the opposite to violence, non-violence, we can get rid
of the fact, the actual - but we cannot.  We have had ideals
without number, all the sacred books are full of them, 
yet we are still violent - so why not deal with violence itself and
forget the word altogether?

If you want to understand the actual you must give your whole
attention, all your energy, to it.  That attention and energy are
distracted when you create a fictitious, ideal world.  So can you
completely banish the ideal?  The man who is really serious,
with the urge to find out what truth is, what love is, has no
concept at all.  He lives only what is.

To investigate the fact of our own anger you must pass no 
judgement on it, for the moment you conceive of its opposite
you condemn it and therefore you cannot see it as it is.  When
you say you dislike or hate someone, that is a fact, although
it sounds terrible.  If you look at it, go into it completely, it
ceases, but if you say, "I must not hate; I must have love in my
heart," then you are living in a hypocritical world with double
standards.

To live completely, fully, in the moment is to live with what is,
the actual, without any sense of condemnation or justification -

then you understand it so totally that you are finished with it.

When you see clearly the problem is solved.

J. Krishnamurti
from Freedom from the Known

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Bleeding Enso 
2011

~

Enso is a sacred symbol of Zen Buddhism meaning circle...
It is traditionally drawn using only one brush stroke as a 
meditative practice in letting go of the mind...  While at
first glance, the enso symbol appears no more than a 
misshapen circle, it symbolizes many things: the beauty
in imperfection, the art of letting go of expectations, the
circle of life, and connection.  The enso is a manifestation
of the artist at the moment of creation and the acceptance of
the innermost self.  The enso is said to leave the artist fully
exposed at that one particular moment in time.

Barbara Bash - Artist

(I have no idea what I was feeling at the time I created 
this enso on wax paper, thus the drips - the only one I ever did.)

 

 

Destiny - Markham & Maharshi

There's a destiny which makes us brothers;
none goes his way alone.
All that we send into the lives of others
comes back into our own.

Edwin Markham
1852-1940

My mother wrote this on the first page of my little
autograph book when I was 7 or 8 years old... :)

~

Whatever is destined
not to happen
will not happen;
try as you may.

Whatever is destined to happen
will happen; do what you may
to prevent it.

This is certain.

The best course of action, therefore,
is to remain silent.

Ramana Maharshi

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Invite the Guests In - Rumi & Ostaseski

 This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep through your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Rumi
original title: "The Guest House"
translation by Coleman Barks

~

Suffering is about perception and interpretation.
Our stories about what is happening or did happen
shape our interpretation of it. Invite in what hurts;
sit down with it and get to know it really well.
The only way through suffering is to allow what is
happening.  Turn toward the difficulty to see what
it has to teach you.  You can't make a change until
you first accept the truth of what is.

Frank Ostaseski
from: The Five Invitations

~

Photo: Mystic Meandering

My "Guest" :)

It's All Right - Robert Bly & Werner Erhard

 There are more like us.  All over the world
There are confused people who can't remember
The name of their dog when they wake up, and people
Who love God but can't remember where
He was when they went to sleep.  

It's all right.

A wrong number occurs to you in the middle
Of the night, you dial it, it rings just in time

To save the house.  And the second-story man
Gets the wrong address, where the insomniac lives,
And he's lonely, and they talk, and thief
Goes back to college.  Even in graduate school,

You can wander into the wrong classroom,
And hear great poems lovingly spoken
By the wrong professor.  And you find your soul...

Robert Bly
original title: "People Like Us"

with thanks to Death Deconstructed
for post and photo :)

~

The thought that there is something wrong is an illusion;
there is nothing wrong, there is only what's so.  Notice when
you're comparing what's so to some fantasy of how it 
should be.  Bring yourself back to what's so and it will be
O.K.  Ask yourself what's so, and align with that.  Align with
what's so and it will not matter.  That is the foundation of
transformation....  Not aligning with what's so is the only
thing that will ever bring you hardship or suffering.  Life
in what's so will bring you harmony and grace and balance.
Ask yourself - what's so about your situation?

Werner Erhard

Simply Living...

 I've been revisiting the view that life is a story being lived
by Life ItSelf; That "I" am being lived; that we are the living
story of Life.

Life lives the story of "me" that I've identified with all these
years, and believed, for a while at least, that "I" needed to be
"enlightened" - and have once again returned to the sense
that "I" am simply living.  Just Being.

In this there is an internal "letting go" - or "giving up" - or
some would say "surrender"...  And as a wise friend explained:
"In that, an ancient tension and stress is released.  And in the
deepest instance of 'giving up', even the somatic aspect of our
being feels a tremendous relief, and a Serene Emptiness where
a contraction had formerly been felt; as much in our physical
body as in our subtle energetic nature.  Struggle ceases, no longer
driven by the engine of dissatisfaction with 'what is', with 'how
we are.'  No longer driven by the engine of self-judgment and 
self-qualification, by the desire to be better or worthy, or
finally 'understanding', or the desire for
'enlightenment.'"

~

There is only the immediacy of the current experience -

just living that experience, whatever that experience is,
whether it is one of joy, or sorrow and grief, however it
unfolds, without the sense of a "self" striving for something
"better", or to do anything to improve it, or to create
strategies to become "enlightened;"  the struggle of the "self."

Everything is allowed...

"Enlightenment" is just untangling what you believe to be
true - your belief constructs.  Just live life intuitively,

with no strategies for "awakening."  Don't get trapped in
the mind, or try to figure out how to play the game.

"We", the "Beingness" that we are, just experiences 
whatever is occurring without a framework of time,
or reference point, or concept...

It's just Life being - life!

It is Existence experiencing ItSelf as "me", or "you" -
as an occurrence within ItSelf...

Simply Living...

We, as waves of the Ocean of Existence, are continually
occurring - unfolding fluidly, seamlessly, reverberating
through the concept of time, and is what the wrinkle of
time happens in - the Timeless Ocean of Existence.

And so the realization seems to be that we simply
recognize Life living ItSelf as us...

...Simply Living

As we are...

Our Natural selves...

Now if I could only remember this...  :)

_/\_

Mystic Meandering

~

photo taken by my brother
Sunset over the Parker River in
Newbury, MA

The Present Darkness - Sutphen

 The present tragedy will eventually
turn into myth, and in the mist
of that later telling the bell tolling
now will be a symbol, or, at least,
a sign of something long since lost.

This will be another one of those
loose changes, the rearrangement of
hearts, just parts of old lives
patched together, gathered into
a dim constellation, small consolation...

Look, we will say, you can almost see
the outline there: her fingertips
touching his, the faint fusion
of two bodies breaking into light.

Joyce Sutphen

Original title - Naming the Stars

via Death Deconstructed

~

Photo Quote from tinybuddha.com

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

Authentic Allowing - Clare Blanchflower

Make no mistake
There is no goal
There is no path
Your quest ends
Here
In the
absolute
authentic
allowing of
this moment's
raw expression

In the deepest surrender
to what is
the lens of
limited focus
softens into
unbounded emptiness
Revealing
the infinity of you

If you truly desire
to know
your Self
Awaken to
Honesty
Let go of everything
that keeps you from
authentic Being

Allow the awakeness
of the moment
to meet your
wholehearted
openness

Give up all roles
Surrender all masks
Melt
Into the radiant gaze
of wholeness

Clare Blanchflower

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Prayer for the World - Mirabai Starr

Beloved One,
Living Light,
Spirit of all that is,
Thank you for welcoming us
To this sacred circle,
Comprised of every hue on the spectrum
Of the human community.
Be with us now
As we lean in to hear your call.
Stay close as we stand up
To speak your message of unconditional love.

Divine Mother,
Embodiment of Mercy and Compassion,
Enfold us in your protective cloak
As we dare to take in the pain of the world.
Give us the courage and strength
To drop our preconceptions
And step onto the field of global strife
Armed with the flaming arrow of unconditional love.

Sacred Friend,
Hidden behind the eyes of the broken,
Reveal yourself,
Let us behold the beauty of your face
In all beings, everywhere, always.
Where once we perceived only the impossible,
Blinded by our desire for circumstances, people,
And our own sweet selves to be different,
Let us rest now in what is
Alert to your power to astonish us
With the global awakening of unconditional love.

Holy One,
We carry legacy of our ancestors
In the marrow of our own souls.
We are all reluctant prophets.
We must be called and called again,
And yet again.
We turn and turn away,
We yield and bow and rise,
Until at last,
Clasped by the ferocious wings of your angels,
We declare, Hineyni.
Here I am.
Make of me a vessel of your divine will,
The will of unconditional love.

Great Spirit,
True Self and No-Self,
Fill the hearts of our leaders
With humility and holy awe.
Embolden them not to turn away from the Other
But to lay down their weapons
And take the adversary in their arms.
Infuse them with the fire
That melts swords into ploughshares
And spears into pruning hooks.
Show them the secret passageway from hopeless conflict
Home to unconditional love.

Father-Mother God,
May the Children of Abraham and Sarah
At last fall silent in the face of your radiance.
May our hearts soar in remembrance.
May our knees bend and our bodies bow down,
And our spirits rejoice,
Overflowing with unceasing prayer,
Resounding and cleansing and blessing all the land:
There is nothing but you,
Nothing but God,
Nothing.

AMEN.

Mirabai Starr

written in 2015
during the Iran and US peace agreements


With thanks to Michel at No Mind's Land

~

Photo from the Internet
digitally altered

What's So - Werner Erhard

What's so is always just what's so.  What's so doesn't care what
you think, feel, intend or wish; it will not bend.  You can be
freaked out or driven over what's so, and it won't change what's
so.  If you're late for an appointment, getting freaked out about
it won't have you arrive any earlier.  If you're having a bad day,
being freaked out won't change what's so.  That which you seek
will not bring you satisfaction - aligning with what's so will.
When you're upset, you're never upset over what's so.
What's so is just what's so.

If your house burns down and you get upset, does it bring your
house back?  What's so doesn't care if you're upset; it's up to
you how you handle what's so.  There is no confusion in
what's so.  When you don't know you just don't know - there is
no confusion there.  There's nothing right or wrong about
what's so.  What's so is always open to different interpretations.
There's always just what's so, and then you have an interpretation.
What scares you isn't what's so, it's your interpretation.  The
interpretation is never true; what's so is real, the interpretation
is not.

Who you're being is just who you're being, and what's so doesn't
care if you're happy with it or not, so why should you?  When
you're not being with what's so, that's also just what's so.  Why
should you concern yourself?  Other people should always be
the way they're being; if you think they shouldn't, that's your
interpretation.  Bring yourself back to what's so about them. Until
you can be with what's so, you can't be with anything or anyone.
You may have control over other people's what's so, but none
over their interpretation - give it up.

If you take action or not, it's still just what's so.  If it works out
well or not, it's still just what's so.  You can never make a right
or wrong decision, or take a right or wrong action.  Whatever
you do will always bring you more of what's so, and then you
have an interpretation about it.  Whatever you don't have, so
what?  Whatever you've done or thought in the past, again so
what?  Whatever happens in the future is not to be feared.  It's
just going to be more of what's so.  The challenge is to spend as
much time in what's so as you can.  The chatter in your head
is more interpretation, and it has nothing to do with what's so.
There is nothing wrong with chatter, it's just you listening to
a fantasy.

The thought that there is something wrong is an illusion; there
is nothing wrong, there is only what's so.  Notice when you're
comparing what's so to some fantasy of how it should be.  Bring
yourself back to what's so and it will be O.K.  Ask yourself
what's so, and align with that.  Align with what's so and it will
not matter.  That is the foundation of transformation and
satisfaction.  Not aligning with what's so is the only thing that
will ever bring you hardship or suffering.  Life in what's so will
bring you harmony and grace and balance [to face what's so :)].

Ask yourself - what's so about your situation?

Werner Erhard

via No Mind's Land

~

The opportunity to trust is never a given.
It isn't that life is testing us so much as offering us
the next chance to gain insight into what makes for
stability.

Donna Iona Drozda

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Awakening From Our Illusions - Ivan Granger

I am so aware of how much frustration people feel over the dark
turn in politics in recent years.  As an American, how do I
understand the racist, proto-facist, violent forces emerging within
my own country?  At the same time, similar tendencies are
appearing in the UK, India, the Philippines,
and several other nations.

While harmful forces must be answered with courage in the public
arena, I want to suggest that there is something important happening
on another level, as well: an enforced awakening.

We are going through a collective process of disillusionment,

whether we like it or not.  We are being required to drop our illusions
and witness unpleasant truths, about ourselves [individually and
as a nation], and about the world around us.  We may ask: What
have we ignored that has allowed such fear and hatred to fester?  How
have our political and social systems become so damaged that the
are unresponsive to the needs of society?  What cruelties are encoded
in society that I have ignored or made excuses for?  How did we
imagine things were solid, when they are so fragile?  How can my
neighbor [or family members] believe such things, and what is
their hurt that I was blind to?  These are the questions we are
forced to ask now.

Painful though it may be, we can only be strengthened by the
process of disillusionment.  We want to drop our illusions.
We want to see things as they are...

As a meditative exercise we can look at the reality we see,
the terrible and the beautiful together, and just sit with it;
[just be with it internally, meditatively].  It may break our hearts,
but we can just sit with it.  It may overwhelm us with its
immensity, but we don't run, we don't seek to merely feel good.
Instead, we just sit with it. 
We allow ourselves to see and feel fully.
We watch our reactions to it, but are not hooked by them.
In this way, we begin to inhabit a bigger reality, a fuller reality.
Our personal sense of reality becomes more integrated and a
truer reflection of what actually is.  As we do this, we become more
capable of fashioning healthier lives and healthier societies.

When I stop trying to assert some idea of how reality should work,
and just really notice what is.....everything just opens up.  The heart
opens in unexpected ways, making healing possible where only
walls seemed to stand.  It's easy to think that reality is somehow
broken, but when we really look, we discover that we inhabit an
improbable wholeness instead.  It's not entirely logical amidst the
world's fear and suffering, but look for yourself and see.  Really see.
Seeing the full picture, our actions become more effective and lasting.
Looking honestly, we become capable of compassion and
connection, where there was only anger and hatred...

Ivan Granger
Excerpt from a commentary on a poem by Mary Sarton
at Poetry Chaikhana

~

Photo - taken from inside, reflecting objects in the room
in the window - giving the illusion of another reality...

Follow Your Own Footsteps - Mark Nepo

Every time we talk to someone, there comes back to us a map
 of expectation as to how we should respond...

We share a confusion:
we are often given direction.

We share a pain;
we are often given instruction.

We share a desire;
we are often given a plan.

The power of these unspoken maps should not be underestimated.
For the endless gravities of expectation we move in and out of
govern most of our thinking and summons most of our energy
in denying them or complying with them.

In actuality, underneath all the plans, pressures, and expectations,
underneath all the subtle guidance and nudging, the next step
is truly unknown...

Thus, our spiritual charge is to maintain the wonder of the
singular explorer that each of us is...

The freshest step has always come when we are brave
enough to land at the end of what little we know,
breathing in new air, in reaction to no one, in wonder at
what is...

Mark Nepo

From: The Book of Awakening

(Mark's words, my format)

"Spirituality" is a Concept - Eric Baret

Spirituality is a concept.  What people project on so-called
spirituality, they used to project on their Boy Scout team when
they were six, on their football team when they were ten, on
politics at twenty and on marriage at thirty...  The void that we try
to fill with a doll, an electric train, a good grade at school, a
career, a child, we then try to project onto spirituality...

True spirituality is gratitude.

True spirituality is a stillness that makes one available for
 every moment.

Wanting to set ourselves free from all our problems to become
"spiritual", to become "awakened", all comes from fear.

There comes a time when you don't feel the need to look for
yourself in the different currents of life.  Then there isn't any
 word, any direction, any knowledge, any school, any lineage,
 any teaching, and, above all, any spiritual person.

What remains is non-separateness.

[You] understand that there is nothing to understand, nothing to
 acquire. [You] don't need to invent tools to face life, to create ways
 to defend or affirm yourself to deal with situations. 
[You] look honestly at what is, what triggers fear, anxiety,
pretense, defense in yourself.  [You] clearly accept
your pretense, your limits.  These limits will reflect the Limitless.

Your clarity shines light on all that...
You are shining light into spirituality, not the other way around.

...when [you] project a superior/inferior [projection on life] - spiritual
 things that ought to set [you] free from ordinary life - then [you]
are in [your] imagination.

Let's function in day to day life: eat, sleep, love, see, feel, look.
Let all the emotions live inside us. Nothing to defend, to affirm,
to know. We do not need anything to get a feeling for the
 Primordial.
No need to change anything in ourselves.

Eric Baret

Teacher of the Tantric Tradition

Excerpt from an excerpt from his new book:
De L'abandon.
Full excerpt posted on Stillness Speaks

via: No Mind's Land

[brackets] mine

~

Photo - Shadow of a stained glass angel
on the ceiling...

World As Paradox - Fred LaMotte

I don't agree with the world,
and I don't disagree with the world.
The world is an ever-turning Kaleidoscope of paradox,
and paradox is neither agreeable or disagreeable.
Paradox is not there to protest, to reform, or to mold into
something that corresponds to our opinion.
Paradox is there for our liberation,
as we gradually learn to stop clinging to preferences,
and to embrace the ineluctably mystery of wholeness.
Then we see the awful beatific truth,
to which almost every religious and political endeavor
is a form of resistance;
things are simply as they are.
Finally, in embracing what IS,
we can love...

Fred LaMotte
writer, philosophy teacher,
interfaith chaplain
Uradiance

(Fred's words, my format)

~

Love is the only reality.
It is not a mere sentiment.
It is the ultimate truth
that lies at the heart
of creation...

Rabindranath Tagore
East Indian Poet

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