Repose - Fred LaMotte

...your body and mind
are only very small creatures swimming in the vast
un-created waters of your Self,
who was awake in its own radiance
before the worlds were made.

Indeed, your Self shines through your body.
Your Self shines through your mind.
Your Self shines through the Moon and Sun.
Your Self pervades the stars and the space beyond
the stars.

The body grows old and dies.
The mind dissolves each moment.
But the Self is a continuum that neither comes nor goes,
neither sleeps nor awakens,
changeless and eternal
to every being, more intimate than "I" to "Am."
The Self does not think, feel, or perceive,
but witnesses the thought, feelings and perceptions
that arise and subside in the depths of your stillness,
like clouds in the blue sky.
Motionless yet moving all creation,
silent yet inspiring all harmony,
the Self is beyond birth and death,
beyond happiness and sorrow,
beyond light and darkness.
The Self is pure bliss.
Therefore repose
in the infinitesimal bindhu
at the core of your heart
between the out-breath and in-breath.
There you will enter the dwelling
of the eternal Self
who outshines the universe.
In that space you have no enemy, no fear, no blame,
neither past nor future,
for in that space the earth is created afresh with each inhalation.
Whether you name the Self
Bodhichitta, Christ Consciousness, Shiva, or Guru
makes no difference at all.
What matters is just resting here
as you gaze into the eyes of The Beloved,
even when The Beloved takes the form of a stranger
or an enemy.

This gaze is the victory.
This gaze is the healing.
This gaze is peace.
And to see through the eyes of the heart
is to see your Self in every Thou.
Now, friend, it is time
to stop looking for that place
and start looking from that place.
Truly, the Self is pure bliss.

Fred LaMotte

Utter Stillness...

Utter Stillness,
within and without,
comforts, nurtures,
claims me...

Sweet repose in this Stillness...
beyond noise,
beyond feeling,
beyond thought,
beyond story.

Utter Stillness does not anticipate,
does not seek.
It just IS...
awareing,
seeing,
knowing.

To *reside* in Utter Stillness
is pure Being,
pure Awareness,
pure Life...

From the Spaciousness of Utter Stillness
life is just experienced...

no conclusions,
no interpretations,
no judgments,
no reactions,
no labels...

Just Life being lived...

Utter Stillness...

Sweet Refuge...

Mystic Meandering
2010

Rest Your Heart In Love - Fred LaMotte

The purest meditation is just to rest in Love...

Our love is often toward what we know to be God.
The "toward" of love is like an in-coming or out-going breath.
Its flow may proceed from my heart toward the Divine,
or from the Divine toward my heart,
until the two tides equalize in one serenity;
the silence between breaths... inhalation kisses exhalation.

Words cease.
  Prayer becomes deep meditation,
 and there is no more "toward"...
It is effortless repose through love, as love...
Just be with the formless feeling.
The little thread of formless love expands to fill the cosmos,
because it has no boundary, no image.
In a moment, you have captured the ocean of love
in the cup of your heart.

The tiniest thread, the faintest impulse of love,
is a breath of the Cosmic Mother,
felt as a sense of the heart.
Surrender to that subtle intuitive sensation,
without attaching any picture or face.
This ripple of affection will lead you to the sea.
Depth calleth unto depth.
In the formless abyss of love, one depth touches another.
The depth of God merges with the depth of You.

If images of an Avatar or a Master appear, let them.
They are delightful bubbles playing on the surface of
love's formless ocean.
They are all facets of one diamond,
 the brilliance of your divine heart.
Your heart is a little hologram that contains the cosmos,
the forms of every Avatar, every God or Goddess.

Whatever sadhana we practice, just rest in the heart,
filling the empty silence where thought used to be.
This silent glory [of Love] is the substance of creation itself,
suffusing every cell of the body.
Then it pours out through our eyes, our words, and our hands
in blessing...


Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

Excerpts from a blog post.
Fred's words, my format.

Hermitage of Silence...

As I sit...meditating...breathing...
I feel the familiar subtle pull inward,
carrying me
to the deep Silence within;
the Inner Hermitage...

I recognize the spacious Emptiness
of Pure Beingness -
Pure Awareness.
I hear the silent call
of an inaudible Voice.
and feel Its magnetic pull,
drawing me
ever more deeply
in
~
~

~

a death spiral
that leads to birth

There is no choice but to succumb. . .

Dying into the Inner Reality. . . 

Dissolving the perception of self. . .

In this space of quintessential Quiet
all mental agitation,
all emotional reactiveness,
all verbalization of thought
...cease

There is only the deepening
space of Silence;
a Holy enclave of Silent repose
prior to expression,
with no need for the habituated outward
movement of the mind.
Only listening...
to the inherent Silence of
an ineffable language... known intimately
to those who hear...

In this all-pervasive Stillness,
"I" am absorbed... by
the Primordial Womb
into the Vastness
of
Silence...

my Hermitage...

Mystic Meandering
May 1, 2016


Photo: snow against window
taken from the inside
leaving this womb-like affect

~*~

"...we die to the person we think we are.
Again and again we die to our limited sense of self
in order to step into the vaster dimension of our being.....
[We] are driven to venture into the depths."

Hafiz

The Womb of Infinity...

Love’s longing brings me to the door
of the Divine
where there is only
the Infinity of Existence,
the Spaciousness
of
LIFE
ItSelf

awake
and
alive

I am called into that “Cosmic Womb”
again, and again...
the womb
of
Infinity

An invitation to enter
the

Q
u
i
e
t

Surrendering

I
enter
the Silence

just
listening

becoming aware
of
Divine Presence

awakening
to
Infinite
Consciousness

recognizing
the
Primal Unity
that is
Here

finding repose

~

Mystic Meandering

March 4, 2014

~

Photo: Rainbow Light
Reflected on Wall
Radially Blurred

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…

Just Stop

Yesterday I kept hearing this little phrase in my head: Just Stop. I have heard this many times in the past. I know when I hear this it is wise to follow, so I don’t end up in the middle of an intersection broad-sided by an event. But, as usual, the day was filled with “doing,” so the little voice was a faint echo in the back of my head. I was busy catching up on things, as life has been hectic here lately, intensely working over the last several weeks to get the Serenity website up and published. I have been letting other things slide – including meditation time. (But at last the website has arrived for all the world to see… Drum roll please… Just kidding.)

Yesterday I kept thinking, well if I can just catch up on all this other “stuff” now, then I can designate tomorrow as my “stopping” day. I would be able to have leisurely time in stillness, meditating, journaling, possibly time outside laying in the hammock, and just BE-ing - in whatever form that took… Heh, heh, heh… Instead I once again managed to fill the space of today with “doing.” I was irritated with myself that I hadn’t allowed myself this “stopping” time – this time to reconnect with inner Stillness, with a sense of just BEing, with just resting in Awareness – a kind of inner retreat from the momentum of doing. Then after a late lunch I just conked out on the couch from exhaustion – finally giving in to the call to stop… But not consciously. It was a stop or else kind of thing…

Interestingly this morning I received a forwarded mailing from one of many “spiritual” web sites that I get… And the phrase that caught my eye was: “We need to just stop…” Gee, imagine that. Something was once again trying to get through to me… But I wasn’t paying attention – enough - wasn’t listening deeply enough to this inner knowing. Instead I was allowing the mind to drive – that pesky, impulsive teenager. And it seemed my mind was on some kind of excursion, looking for something else to wrap itself around – no not a tree - another doing, another thought, idea, feeling – grasping after more excitement. The mind didn’t want to settle. It likes busyness – to keep the engine revving. It likes to go from one project to the next, unconsciously – without awareness.

Was this busyness just another form of avoiding for some reason, resisting the very thing I wanted most – time for some inner Quiet…? Who knows. Consciously stopping finally occurred this evening, when the day energy quietly settled and I was able to temporarily park the mind-car in the garage. The stopping allowed me to reconnect with inner Awareness, to repose in inner Stillness and gain perspective. Now, we’ll see if the mind-car returns to the souped up hot rod version in the morning, or if it has transformed into a more reliable sedan model, as tomorrow I spend the day with my mother and I need a more reliable vehicle with which to maneuver the curves. Wish me luck!

Honk, Honk…

Heart Smiles – MeANderi
http://www.aserenitysanctuary.com/