More to life than what we can see

The human person is a threshold where many infinities meet. There is the infinity of space that reaches out into the depths of the cosmos; the infinity of time reaching back over billions of years. …. A world lies hidden behind each human face. In some faces the vulnerability of inner exposure to these depths becomes visible. When you look at some faces, you can see the turbulence of the infinite beginning to gather to the surface. this moment can open in a gaze from a stranger, or in a conversation with someone you know well. Suddenly, without their intending it or being conscious of it, their gaze becomes the vehicle of some primal inner presence. This gaze lasts for only a second. In that slightest interim something more than the person looks out. Another infinity as yet unborn, is dimly present. you feel that you are being looked at from the strangeness of the eternal. The infinity gazing out at you is from an ancient time. We cannot seal off the eternal. Unexpectedly and disturbingly, it gazes in at us through the sudden apertures in our patterned lives. A friend, who loves lace, often says that it is the holes in lace that render it beautiful. Our experience has this lace structure…..

John O’Donohue, Anam Chara

Basic wealth

We already have everything we need.  All these trips that we lay on ourselves–the heavy-duty fearing that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, – never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are.

Pema Chodron

…is direct knowing

The years to come — this is a promise — will grant you ample time

to try the difficult steps in the empire of thought where you seek for the shining proofs you think you must have.

But nothing you ever understand will be sweeter, or more binding,
than this deep affinity between your eyes and the world.

Mary Oliver,  Terns

Sunday Quote: Everything is in the present

 

The past is a memory of a former Now;

the future is a mental projection of an expected Now.

Eckhard Tolle

This day will not come again

A lord asked Takuan, a Zen Teacher, to suggest how he might pass the time. He felt his days very long attending his office and sitting stiffly to receive the homage of others. Takuan wrote eight Chinese characters and gave them to the man:

Not twice this day

Inch time foot gem.

This day will not come again.

Each minute is worth a priceless gem.

Takuan Soho, Zen Teacher, 1573 – 1645.

Giving up some positions

We tend to personalize everything. Why everything gets at us and makes us so angry is because of something our mind is doing – but to acknowledge that entails giving up some position of “me” and “my emotions” that are right and justified. Now, I’m not saying that abandonment means not feeling anything – that attitude really drives people into dangerously repressed places. The way is about seeing how things get under our skin ad chafe our heart. It’s about abandoning the action of taking in dukkha. We widen our perspective into being aware of how we are feeling and with that clear and steady awareness, we can watch the mental process very carefully.

Ajahn Sucitto, Turning the Wheel of Truth