Nasrudin was standing on the bank of a river, and watched as a dog came to drink. The dog saw its reflection in the water and immediately began barking at it. It barked until it was foaming at the mouth, and exhausted, fell into the river – whereupon it quenched its thirst, climbed out, and happily walked away.
Nasrudin said, “Seeing this, I realized I have been barking at my own reflection all my life“.
Sufi teaching story
A Full moon this evening.
A single moon
Bright and clear in an unclouded sky:
Yet still we stumble
In the world’s darkness.
Have a good look:
stop the breath, peel off the skin,
and everybody ends up looking the same.
No matter how long you live,
the result is not altered.
Who will not end up as a skeleton?
Cast off the notion that “I
exist.” …. Entrust yourself to the windblown
clouds, and do not wish to live forever
Ikkyū, 1394 – 1481, Japanese Zen Buddhist monk and poet, in John Stevens, Wild Ways: Zen Poems of Ikkyu
May you take time to celebrate
the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
May you experience each day
as a sacred gift
woven around the heart of wonder.
John O’Donohue, Benedictus
Its important for me to meditate…to let go of my thoughts breath by breath and instead slowly lean back into that which was inside me before I was born, and which will endure when the rest of me dies. For me its like something I’ve longed for all my life, without knowing what it was. As though someone, for as long as I can remember, has been sitting on my shoulder whispering “Come home”
So how does one find the way back home? The best answer to that question I’ve come across so far comes from Meister Eckhart, a German priest in the early fourteenth century who was supposedly enlightened. After a Sunday sermon, an elderly member of his congregation came up to him and said “Meister Eckhart, you have clearly met God. Please help me to get to know God like you do. But your advice must be very simple as my memory is failing me”
“It’s very simple” Meister Eckhart replied. “All you need to do to meet God the way I have, is to fully understand who is looking out through your eyes”
Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, I May be Wrong, and other wisdoms from life as a Forest Monk.
It is not a matter of looking for happiness
or trying to avoid suffering
but of going to the place beyond happiness or suffering
Ajahn Chah
Do not be afraid;
our path
Cannot be taken from us;
it is a gift.
Non temer; che ‘l nostro passo non ci puo torre alcun…
Dante, Inferno, Canto VIII
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