Two realms

There are two realms in spirituality, not one. We long for a vision of our destiny and equally for a way to carry out that vision as a gift to others.

IN YOU IS THE PRESENCE

"Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed and growing sweet-
all this universe, to the furthest stars
and beyond them is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
Your vast shell reaches into endless space,
And there the rich, thinck fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,

A billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead."
-- Rainer Maria Rilke

Chaaracer

"Trust is the crucial test of all creatures. Trustworthiness is the true measure of self-mastery, character."

God becomes the devil

Look for God outside your own mind, and God becomes the devil.
Dogen Zenji

Love Is

Love Is. At the center of Love is the Fire of Life. At the center of the Fire of Life is the Flow of Breath. At the center of the Flow of Breath is Truth. At the center of Truth is Love. Love Is

teaching others

"In seeking knowledge, the first step is silence, the second listening, the third remembering, the forth practicing, and the fifth - teaching others."
-- Ibn Gabirol

longer and quieter

"I discovered the middle path of stillness within speed, calmness within fear and I held it longer and quieter than ever before"
-- Steve McKinney when he broke the world downhill ski record.

This holy life ...

The venerable Ananda said to the Buddha: "Half of the this holy life, Lord, is good and noble friends, companionship with the good, association with the good." The Buddha replied, saying, "Do not say that, Ananda, do not say that. It is the whole of this holy life, this friendship, companionship, and association with the good."
from the Samyutta Nikaya

Bring this life ...

Bring this life into harmony with the Intelligence of Being. Bless us with a mother's purpose in service to the People. May we connect o the Beauty Way and be healed.
Peace Pilgrim.

Like a dewdrop

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.
Dogen

Most important thing

The most important thing is to find out what is the most important thing.
Shunryu Suzuki

Labels

"When you label me you negate me"
Soren Kierkegaard

"I have learned so much from God, that I can no longer call myself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew."
Hafiz

Teachers

We end up teaching what we most need to learn, because the best way to learn something is to teach it.

Omega Point

"We are moving forward toward some new critical point that lies ahead, a harmonized collectivity of consciousness equivalent to a sort of super-consciousness. The idea is that of the Earth not only becoming covered by myriads of grains of thought, but becoming enclosed in a single thinking envelope so as to form, functionally, no more than a single vast grain of thought on the sidereal scale, the plurality of individual reflections grouping themselves together and reinforcing one another in the act of a single unanimous reflections. Beyond all conflict of empire, peace in conquest and work in joy await us in an interior totalization of the world on itself-in the unanimous building up of a
spirit of the Earth."
-- Teilhard de Chardin speaking of his vision of
our movement toward the "Omega Point"

Inside out

"And in all of my experience, I've never seen lasting solutions to problems, lasting happiness and success, that came from the outside in." Stephen Covey

First believed ...

"I first believed without any hesitation in the existence of the soul, and then I wondered about the secret of its nature. I persevered and strove in search of the soul, and found at last that I myself was the cover of my soul. I realized that in me which believed and that in me which wondered, that which persevered in me, and that which found, and that which was found at last, was no other than my soul. Since then I have seen all souls as my soul, and realized my soul as the soul of all; and what bewilderment it was when I realized that I alone was, if there were anyone; that I am whatever and whoever exists; and that I shall be whoever there will be in the future. And there was no end to my happiness and joy."
-Hazrat Inyat Khan (Sufi Teacher)

Uncovered, discovered

"I uncovered my Soul when my Soul discovered itself. My ego 'knows' my Soul in so far my ego is cast by my Soul, in the same way my body casts a shadow. My contemplation of my Soul is a participation of my Soul's contemplation of itself. I became contemplative when I uncovered my Soul. At each moment of 'uncovering.' I pass through the center of my Soul and experience the long enduring mind."
-- Roots and Wings

Closing out the year

"God is at home... It is we who have gone out for a walk."
-- Meister Eckhart

Least of these

"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Truly, I say to you, as you do to even one of the least of my brothers and sisters, you do it to me."
Jesus in Mathew verse 25

Happiness

"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."
--The Buddha

Otherwise

"Things are not as they appear, nor are they otherwise."
Diamond Sutra

I thought it was

"When you eventually see through the veils to how things really are, you will keep saying again and again, 'This is certainly not like I thought it was!'"
Rumi

Each tiime ...

"Each time a man (or a woman) stands up for an ideal, acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he (or she) sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples can create a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
Robert Kennedy

.... yet doesn't hold on

The great Tao flows everywhere. All things are born from it, yet it doesn't create them. It pours itself into its work, yet it makes no claim. It nourishes infinite worlds, yet it doesn't hold on to them. Since it is merged with all things and hidden in their hearts, it can be called humble. Since all things vanish into it and it alone endures, it can be called great. It isn't aware of its greatness; thus it is truly great.

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
- Wendell Berry

The true disease ...

The true disease of our age is the rise of literalism and the corresponding loss of genuine imagination, for literalism reduces the world to fixed ideas and rigid dogmas while isolating people at the extremes of thought and belief.
Michael Mad.

Wisdom Sits in Places

Wisdom can mean many things; however, it is most often applied to social situations and is marked by judgment, reflection, and compassion.
Vivian Clayton

The trick is ...

“The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”
~ Carlos Castaneda

The Answer

"The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the Mystery. If you seek the Mystery instead of the answer,
you'll always be seeking..."
-- Ken Kesey,

Just ain't so.

It’s not what people don’t know that’s the problem, but what they think they know that — —just ain’t so.
Will Rogers

Rapture of Life

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life… I think that what we’re really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive."
Joseph Campbell

But men aren't ...

"If all men were angels we would have no need of laws, much less of government."
James Madison

Broken Places

“The world breaks everyone ... but some people get strong in the broken places.”
-Ernest Hemingway

Itself

Gratitude is Heaven itself.
William Blake

Canvas

The world is but a canvas for the imagination.
Henry David Thoreau

In between ...

"Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And between the two my life flows."
Nisargadatta Maharaj

Awesome journey

"Our evolution has been an awesome journey of fifteen billion years. Every entity that ever moved or swam or crawled or flew, every being that lived to reproduce itself, all the vast numbers of species now extinct and presently living who have invented the amazing capability which we have inherited as our eyes, our ears, our organs, our very atoms, molecules and cells - all of those preceding us are represented in our emergence now. We bow down in awe and gratitude for the past. Without all that came before us, none of us would be awakening now!"
- Barbara Marx Hubbard

Deliberate Positioning

"It is a commonly held view that meditation is a way to shut off the pressures of the world or of your own mind, but this is not an accurate impression. Meditation is neither shutting things out nor off. It is seeing clearly, and deliberately positioning yourself differently in relationship to them."
Jon Kabat-Zinn

Self-preservation

Self-preservation is only the second law of life. The first law is that you and the other are one.
- Joseph Campbell

Good Government

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government. 
- Thomas Jefferson