Patient

The monk who bakes bread

no longer believes in the measure-for-measure God of the recipe books,

has little faith, if any, in the predestined endings set forth by timers,

the finely sifted claims to inerrancy held by cups and spoons.

Blended to life, call his a leavened devotion to resurrection

appearing from within each cracked tomb of grain,

the hunger that presses his hands dawn after dawn,

deep into the just-risen flesh.

Cowl white as the flour he scoops, mixes,

forms pat pat into loaves shaped like naves,

it is his chest, filled with the invisible yeast of breath,

that knows by heart the patient kneading together of days,

how long love takes to rise.

Daniel Skach-Mills, American poet.

This is where I stand

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

Remember

Joy is the happiness

that doesn’t depend on what happens

David Steindl-Rast

The mind’s natural state

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

Deep down, already there

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

The mind’s potential

There are many wrong tracks in society, but they are all basically the same: They all take us outside of ourselves to satisfy our inner needs.
Whether they take us toward material goods or towards social relationships and emotional co-dependence, they all ignore the mind’s own potential to provide us with happiness and peace

Dzigar Kongtrul, It’s Up to You