Tag: Meditation

Not this nor that

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Vallee de Valserine 2

Some teachers say that God is pure being.  
But he is as high above being as the highest angel is above a gnat.  
I would be speaking as incorrectly in calling God a being as if I called the sun pale or black.

God is neither this or that.

Meister Eckhart, 1260 – 1328, Dominican Theologian and Preacher,

With enlightenment there is no liking and disliking: Such dualities come from ignorant inference. They are like dreams or flowers in the air. Gain and loss, right and wrong: such thoughts must finally be abolished at once. If the mind makes no discriminations, the ten thousand things are as they are, of single essence. To understand the mystery of this One-essence is to be released from everything that holds you back. When all things are seen equally the timeless Self-essence is reached.…To come directly into harmony with this reality,  just simply say when any doubts arise, “There are not two.” In this “not two” nothing is separate, nothing is excluded. No matter when or where, enlightenment means entering this truth.

Seng T’san,  6th Century, Third Chinese Zen patriarch.

Once again, thanks to Ellen van Kalmthout for the beautiful photo

I don’t mind

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peach blossom river
J. Krishnamurti, the great Indian philosopher and spiritual teacher, spoke and travelled almost continually all over the world for more than fifty years attempting to convey through words…that which is beyond words. At one of his talks in the later part of his life, he surprised his audience by asking, “Do you want to know my secret?”

Everyone became very alert. Many people in the audience had been coming to listen to him for twenty or thirty years and still failed to grasp the essence of his teaching. Finally, after all these years, the master would give them the key to understanding.

“This is my secret,” he said.   “I don’t mind what happens.”

Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth – Awakening to your Life’s Purpose’

Listening

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carrying load

My grandmother’s eyes say Allah is everywhere, even in death.  

When she talks of the orchard and the new olive press,  

when she tells the stories of Joha and his foolish wisdoms,  

He is her first thought, what she really thinks of is His name.

“Answer, if you hear the words under the words—

otherwise it is just a world with a lot of rough edges,  

difficult to get through, and our pockets full of stones.“

Naomi Shihab Nye, The Words Under the Words

Using few words

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File:050908 Paris 140l1 ButtesChaumont-arcobaleno.JPG
Nature uses few words:
when the gale blows, it will not last long;
when it rains hard, it lasts but a little while;
What causes these to happen? Heaven and Earth.

Why do we humans go on endlessly about little
when nature does much in a little time?
Lao Tzu, The Tao Te Ching, 23

Letting go of our entanglements

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I came across a baby Jackdaw last evening in the grounds of the monastery at Moone. It was still somewhat unsteady in flight and was taking a rest on the ground, seeming a little bit intimidated by the next step it has to take in life, having to let go and learn to fly.

How surely gravity’s law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing-
each stone, blossom, child –
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.

If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.

So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God’s heart;
they have never left him.

This is what the things teach us: to fall,
patiently trusting our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.

Rainer Maria Rilke

More about non-forcing

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Statue representing the portrait of Buddha in meditation. Copy space.

Another reflection on the value of not forcing (wu-wei)  in our lives, and the benefits that come from trusting and letting go:

The ten directions converging,

Each learning to do nothing

This is where we learn the Buddha’s training;

Mind’s empty, all’s finished.

P’ang Yun, 740 – 808