"Leaving" - Wehrman

Could he, he asked again,
walk out into the desert
of himself, let his self go.
the one built by the labor
of lifetimes - this one -
drop away into the ageless
void; and as he asked, he
knew; this is what it comes
to anyway, tonight as he
slept, or tomorrow, as the
result of old age, a natural
death, that waited closer
each day, a wordless chant,
it will all go, all of it,
castles and skyscrapers of
who you are, who you built
yourself to be; it ends at
the end - that's the idea - you
step from here, your
construction, into there,
the body abandoned - and
you saw it was not a despair,
but a ship to be boarded,
unmoored.....
free.....

Richard Wehrman
From: Being Here

The Secrecy of My Own Being - Thomas Merton

The deep secrecy of my own being is often hidden from me
by my own estimate of what I am.  My idea of what I am is
falsified by my admiration of what I do.  And my illusions
about myself are bred by another's imagined greatness.

If I do not know who I am, it's because I think I am the sort
of person everyone around me wants to be.  Perhaps I have
never asked myself whether I really wanted to become what
everybody else seems to want to become.  Perhaps if I only
realized that I do not admire what everyone seems to admire,
I would really begin to live after all.  I would be liberated from
the painful duty of saying what I really do not think.  [or feel :)]

Thomas Merton

~

Photo - a recent Spring snowfall
1:30am

Limitless Awareness - The Tibetan Book of the Dead

You must be ready to accept the possibility that there is a limitless
range of awareness for which we now have no words; that
awareness can expand beyond range of your ego, your self,
your familiar identity, beyond everything you have learned,
beyond your notions of space and time, beyond the differences
which usually separate people from each other and from the
world around them.

Walter Evans-Wentz
The Tibetan Book of the Dead

~

It's not so much that we don't have a self, rather it's that
the self we do have is not a thing.  It is an impermanent,
fluctuating activity, a process not a particle, a verb not a noun.

Shinzen Young

The Science of Enlightenment:
How Meditation Works


via - Love Is A Place

What Is Left To Say - Lisel Mueller

The self steps out of the circle;
it stops wanting to be
the farmer, the wife, and the child.

It stops trying to please
by learning everyone's dialect;
it finds it can live, after all,
in a world of strangers.

It sends itself fewer flowers;
it stops preserving its tears in amber.

How splendidly arrogant it was
when it believed the gold-filled tomb
of language awaited its raids!

Now it frequents the junkyards
knowing all words are secondhand.

It has not chosen its poverty,
this new frugality.
It did not want to fall out of love
with itself.  Young,
it celebrated itself
and richly sang itself,
seeing only itself
in the mirror of the world.

It cannot return.  It assumes
its place in the universe of stars
that do not see it.  Even the dead
no longer need it to be at peace.
Its function is to applaud.

Lisel Mueller

via Poetry Chaikhana

see Ivan's commentary on
Lisel's poem here

~

Photo - Face Reflections Mandala

2013

Meditation and the self - Shinzen Young

...you can think of enlightenment as a kind of permanent shift
in perspective that comes about through direct realization
that there is no thing called "self" inside you.

Notice that I'm not saying that there is no self, but rather
no thing called a self.

Of course. there is certainly an activity inside you called
personality, and activity of the self.  But that is different
from a thing called the self.

Meditation changes your relationship to sensory experience,
including your thoughts and body sensations.  It allows you
to experience thoughts and body sensations in a clear
and unblocked way.  When the sensory experience of the
mind-body becomes sufficiently clear and uninhibited,
it ceases to be a rigid thing that imprisons your identity.

The sensory self becomes a comfortable home, not a jail cell.
That's why enlightenment is sometimes referred to as liberation.

You realize that the thingness of self is an artifact caused by
habitual nebulosity (cloudiness, haziness) and viscosity (density)
around your mind-body experience...

Shinzen Young
The Science of Enlightenment:
How Meditation Works

via: Markings

~

Photo - Amitabha
Buddha of Infinite Light,.
also called The Eternal Buddha

Collapse the Scaffolding...

Allow everything to collapse…
All the structures that you have erected,
that you cling to;
beliefs, opinions, self-images, self-identities;
self-definitions;
what you *think* you are;
believe you are;
want life to be;
desire to have;
and feel about
your ‘self.’

Collapse everything
that you hold onto
as your ‘self.’

Collapse into the Ineffable Mystery of Being;
with no sense of I am this or that;
no sense of a separate ‘me’;
just pure Life
expressing
the
stream
of
Living
moving
in,
through,
and as
’you.’

Collapse into the Fullness
of
Emptiness,

of
Silence,

of
Stillness…

Experience what’s
beyond the structures
that you’ve tried
to hold in place for so long
with your scaffolding:
your “ego”,
your “personality”…

Feel the Vastness of Being when there’s
nothing to cling to…

No identity
No self-image
No plan
No concept of life
No belief
No opinion
No judgment
No *sense* of 
’self’
to hold
’you’
up.

When the false scaffolding collapses

What is “behind” this “you”
that you *think* you are?

Nothing but the Ineffable Mystery of Life ItSelf…

~ ♥ ~

Mystic Meandering

Meditative Writings

July 2011

Struggle...

Is there a threshold to cross over?

What is the threshold that takes us into
a deeper Reality?

Can we cross it…
or are we forever imprisoned
in the cocoon of time,
when we know there is something more,
because we have seen it, felt it, intuited it;
something timeless beyond human existence
with its pain, sorrow and suffering;
even beyond fleeting happiness;
even beyond what some call
”the awakened life” –
if we are fortunate enough to
experience whatever that is …

How can “i” continue on “here” – “i” wonder daily,
struggling…
immersed in the “i” dramas;
grasping, clinging,

wanting something,
something that would forever awaken this Heart
to the Bliss of Eternal Reality…

The Eternal Vastness beckons…

But “i” continue to struggle;
the body struggles to relax and live,
the mind struggles to be at peace,
the heart struggles to stay open and Love,
the “i” struggles within
to sustain its identity,
still attached to the idea
of itself,
of its importance…

How can it be so…
If all there is, is “God”,
that is – Pure Consciousness, Pure Awareness,
Pure Beingness…
Then why does this “i” struggle
in ignorance,
keeping itself trapped in time,
and in the mind…

Am “i” forever cowled to the Truth,
unable to pierce the veil,
or find the Holy Grail…?

If “i” already have,
”i” keep forgetting,
and struggle to remember…

Maybe it will never happen -
the “awakening.”
And the glimpses i’ve had
will only remain a forgotten memory,
like a dream…

I am so ready to leave the struggles behind
for the privilege of experiencing
the Unknown,
The Mystery that waits
in the Depths of Silence…

Mystic Meandering
April 22, 2015

~~~Post Script~~~

Having said all that, written one morning in a period of struggle,
dealing with intense physical issues,

 and extremely dysfunctional family issues,

I know that the “Threshold” is through the inner

 Sanctuary Door of Silence…

 In the depths of Silence
we become aware of the Intimacy with Infinite Silence -
the Pure Primal Existence,
the Realm of “the Beloved”– if you will –
The Primordial Womb of Stillnes;
not “out there” somewhere, but “in here”

where there is only The Rhythm of Sacred Silence,
as I have so often written about here in this blog…

In the deep fluid flow of Silence
there is no struggle...
because there is no little “i”
with its issues,

only the Ineffable Mystery
that infuses everything,
and lives everything
in Silence…

~~

Photo/Art: Loon Morning
Artist: Rod MacIver
 from: Heron Dance Art Studio

www.herondance.org

The Cosmic Play...

Don’t you just love this face – the curiosity in the eye, the willingness to connect – yet tentatively open and receptive, not knowing whether to trust, whether to stay or run, with just a pane of glass between us…

Much like we humans, only “the glass” is the ego, or the personality, that keeps us tentative and attempts to protect and defend  our vulnerable sense of self; that keeps us from really opening, really meeting each other - Being to Being – Heart to Heart - seeing *through* the glass…

It’s been a challenging week here in the “Cosmic Play of Life” with some new insights and perspectives gained along the way, which I will write about in another post in a few days.  But I thought I’d post these photos of my new friend – “the Cosmic Gymnast” – who offered moments of play and comic relief.  Or is that “cosmic” relief. J   We hung a birdseed bell on this pole several weeks ago, waiting for the birds to show up.  Instead after it had been out there about a week, “the gymnast” showed up one day and entertained us with a variety of antics.  We don’t know *how* he got up there, shimmied the pole I would imagine, although we caught him one time trying to figure out how to jump from the nearest tree branch to the pole, giving up and going back up the tree… 

After our initial meeting – above photo – where he chattered and whipped his tail at me through the window, he then gave me the inquisitive eye – looking at the camera lens.  Undeterred, once he knew he was safe, he then went directly to the business at hand – apparently oblivious to my presence, yet cautiously watching for any sign of movement. I made the mistake of tapping on the window to get his attention, as I wanted more connection, and he clamored down the pole.  I imagine in his animal brain he thought it was an act of aggression, which ended our “connection” – now he won’t even look at me… LOL

Seems that happens with humans as well, don’t you think…   We want to love, to be loved, to connect, to be friends, but we don’t always speak the same language, or play life the same way… J  Instead, we fear each other’s differences, criticizing each other’s words or path, indirectly, because it’s not like ours.  Our hearts close down, or we chatter and whip our tails into a frenzy, puffing ourselves up…  We mis-interpret the “sign language” and get offended, causing all kinds of problems – personally and globally.

But I digress - here’s a little light entertainment from the cosmic gymnast feasting at the Play of Life…

Getting into position

The Hang

The other side of the hang

Preoccupied

Enjoying the Feast

The next time we saw him, he brought a friend – a bigger squirrel - whom we think could not climb the pole, instead sat on the ground waiting to eat the seed droppings.   We had hung a different kind of birdseed bell, which did not hold together as well.  At one point I looked out and it was completely gone, and there was at least half of it left!  I looked out and there was his friend eating what was left of it underneath the tree.

 Sorry the photo isn’t good, the limitations of my camera, but you get the idea.  Even those of us who don’t climb the same pole, or play the game the same way, or even play the same game with different intentions, still ultimately win the cosmic prize in the play of Life, with a little help from our cosmic friends of course. J LOL

May your days be filled with the *awareness* of the Divine Play of the cosmos that is taking place here – The Divine playing in its own game…

“You are here – life exists…
the powerful play of life goes on,
and you may contribute a verse…”

Walt Whitman