I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand….
I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.
David Whyte, Fire in the Earth
Joy is the happiness
that doesn’t depend on what happens
David Steindl-Rast
Silent illumination is the realization of … wakefulness, stillness and awareness… all of which are different ways to describe mind’s natural state. Experiencing it for the first time is like suddenly dropping a thousand pounds from your shoulders – the heavy burdens of self-attachment, vexations, and habitual tendencies. Self-attachment, vexations, and habitual tendencies run deep. So practitioners must work hard to experience enlightenment again and again until they can simply rest in mind’s natural state. The key is to practice diligently but seek no results.
Guo Gu, You Are Already Enlightened
Some traditions, East and West, hold that everyone, deep down, has an original perfect quality, a clear or luminous, natural, true state and potential. This gets covered over by the constructions and labels which we adopt as we conform to our environment, or as we change ourselves in response to people around us or the circumstances of our lives.
In some Buddhist traditions, we simply should get in touch with our already present, buddha-nature, underneath all our daily agitations.
All beings are full with buddha-nature.
It is only due to their agitations that they do not know or perceive it.
Thus, diligently work with those experiences which lead you to eradicate getting agitated.
Mahaparinirvana Sutra, Mahayana Buddhist sutra, c 2nd Century CE
God ..[is].. more a verb than a noun, more a process than a conclusion, more an experience than a dogma, more a personal relationship than an idea.
There is Someone dancing with you now, and you are not afraid of making mistakes.
Richard Rohr
Darkness may hide the trees and the flowers from the eyes but it cannot hide love from the soul.
Rumi
Mindfulbalance 