Deep Looking - Thich Nhat Hanh

Art: Barbara Stone

In spite of the lessons of the collective wisdom of
the world, we rarely satisfy our yearning to know
the Truth of our Existence.

The Mystical approach to the essential questions
about the meaning of life is quite different from
the normal way of learning things through written
teachings, rather, the mystical transmission of the
purpose of life comes through living life with
ever expanding awareness...

author unknown

~

When we practice deep looking, we receive help,
we receive understanding, we receive the
wisdom that makes us free.

Thich Nhat Hanh
Buddhist Teacher

 

At the Edge - Czeslaw Milosz

A valley and above it forests in autumn colors.
A voyager arrives, a map led him here.
Or perhaps memory.  Once, long ago, in the sun,
When the first snow fell, riding this way
He felt joy, strong, without reason,

Joy of the eyes.  Everything was the rhythm
Of shifting trees, of a bird in flight.
Of a train on the viaduct, a feast of motion.
He returns years later, has no demands.
He wants only one, most precious thing:
To see, purely and simply, without name,
Without expectations, fears, or hopes,
At the edge where there is no I or not-I.

Czeslaw Milosz

translated by Robert Hass

with thanks to Whisky River

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Insanity...

My face hurts
Maybe from the mask I wear
that belies a deeper truth;
that hides the scream I feel inside,
and a piece of my Soul that has died;
and the clenched fist in my gut - anticipating
the evening's chaos -
by the sound of ice clinking in a glass;
and the heart's deep ache
for my True Life not being lived.

It withered in the daily madness of the drama of
"the visitor" in my house that I am captive in;
dancing too close to the edge
of my sanity...

I must reclaim the authentic Life hidden inside
this dance with the dark.
"It's time to turn the lights on!" and clearly see
what's really going on here.
And free myself from this insanity...

Mystic Meandering
May 23, 2023

The line in the last stanza:
"It's time to turn the lights on!" is
from Sarah Carlson's poem - Apple Blossoms and Snowflakes.
The words were spoken by her 2 year old grandson :)

What a wonderful metaphor to see clearly...

~

When we don't see clearly there is insanity...

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Nothing is Just One Way - Joan Tollifson

...No words or concepts can capture reality.  Maps are useful,
but they can only describe and point to the territory itself.
Eating the meal is what nourishes you, not reading the menu.
Take what resonates and leave the rest...  Don't believe
anything you read, but instead, question, look, listen, feel
deep into, and see for yourself.  The book that wakes you
up one day may lull you to sleep the next.  Always be ready
to see something new and unexpected.

...stay open to the possibilities, to seeing things in a new way,
to questioning assumptions and conclusions.  ...this living
reality is no way in particular.  It is ever-changing, evolving,
dancing, vibrating, unfolding...  It never resolves into some
final package, some ultimate formulation.  There is no
finish-line on this pathless path, no definitive model or map
that captures reality.  What all true pointers are pointing to
is the living reality, and the living reality is ALIVE - fluid,
spacious, open, ungraspable.  It is not frozen or solid or
only one way.  It can't be pinned down.

Sometimes everything opens up when we hear a teacher say
that there is nothing to do.  Sometimes we need to hear
there is no choice, and sometimes we need to hear that
there is a choice.

Nothing is just one way...

Joan Tollifson

By Way of Broken Places - Matt Licata

No matter how many profound insights we have,
how many amazingly powerful awakening experiences
we collect, or how convinced we become that we have it all
together, we will always be at risk of further heartbreak,
deflation, and crushing [self]revelation.

In the bedroom of The Beloved, there is always more humbling
to come, as we are all beginners there.  No experts, no masters,
and no final resolved landing place where we are guaranteed a
life without vulnerability and deepening exposure...
for The Beloved has no interest in all of that.

It is by way of the broken places that he or she is able to reach
you, to fill you from within.  In that crucible where the opposites
are at play, the rug is being pulled out from underneath us in an
ongoing way, with our personas falling away one by one as they
burn up in the fire of pure seeing.

Out of this highly-charged and creative field, it is revealed once
and for all that your shaky raw vulnerable heart is not weakness,
and your tender sensitive body is not something to be transcended
or "healed", but are portals through which the sacred can come
 into form.

Though at times it may seem as if the world has gone mad - as the
dreams of separation play out within the collective, things are not
always as they seem.  You are the vessel through which Love
can come alive here...

Matt Licata