What is wrong with us human beings, and has been wrong since time immemorial, is that without ever stating it in so many words, we believe that we have entered the realm of immortality. We behave as if we are never going to die – an infantile arrogance.
But even more injurious than this sense of immortality is what comes with it : the sense that we can engulf this inconceivable universe with our minds.
Carlos Castaneda, The Active Side of Infinity
The Festival of Samhain, marking the end of the year and the beginning of the new one in the Celtic calendar. Traditionally, bonfires were lit to remind us that the encroaching darkness will not prevail
Thinking gives off smoke to prove the existence of fire
There are wonderful shapes in rising smoke that imagination loves to watch
But it’s a mistake to leave the fire for that filmy sight
Stay here at the flame’s core
Rumi
The key lesson every meditator should take away … is that when the mind is calm, use that calm to investigate the body as impermanent, suffering, and not-self. This is because the roots of all difficulties are attached to this body.
Ajahn Sona
Sooner or later, if we are on any classic “spiritual schedule,” some event, person, death, idea, or relationship will enter our lives that we simply cannot deal with using our present skill set, our acquired knowledge, or our strong willpower.
Spiritually speaking, we will be led to the edge of our own private resources. At that point we will stumble over a necessary stumbling stone…We will and must “lose” at something. This is the only way that Life–Fate–God–Grace–Mystery can get us to change, let go of our egocentric preoccupations, and go on the further and larger journey.
There is no practical or compelling reason to leave one’s present comfort zone in life. If it’s working for us, why would we? Nor can we force ourselves into the second stage of disorder….We must actually be out of the driver’s seat for a while, or we will never learn how to give up control to the Real Guide.
Richard Rohr, Stumble and Fall
This holy life is lived for the abandonment of becoming.
The Buddha, Loka Sutta
The abandonment of becoming is often called “the lion’s roar,” the expression of utter freedom and utter majesty. It is so, as mystic poet David Whyte observes that “inside everyone is a great shout of joy waiting to be born.”
May we recognize the condition of becoming every time it arises – noticing its need to be “the one who,” its need for the nametag, recognizing it as merely egoic hope for future contentment. Having seen where the nametag leads us – to a new “self,” a new birth, new suffering- surrender becomes a joy.
Simply being – with no need for becoming – becomes an ease and a refuge.
Kathleen Dowling Singh, Unbinding: The Grace beyond Self
I don’t tell the murky world
to turn pure.
I purify myself
and check my reflection
in the water of the valley brook.
Ryoken, 1758–1831, Zen monk and poet
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