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There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.
There's no problem so great it can't be solved. If it can't be solved, it's not a problem, it's reality. Most of the calls we receive and ignore are Our lives are measured out The great breakthroughs in our lives generally happen only as a result of the accumulation of innumerable small steps and minor achievements. We're called to reach out to someone, to pick up an odd book on the library shelf, to sign up for a class even though we're convinced we don't have the time or money, to go to our desks each day, to turn left instead of right.
These are the fire drills for our bigger calls. When I do not know who I am, I serve you. When I know who I am, I am you. Perhaps ultimately, spiritual simply means experiencing wholeness and interconnectedness directly, a seeing that individuality and the totality are interwoven, that nothing is separate or extraneous. If you see in this way, then everything becomes spiritual in its deepest sense. Doing science is spiritual.
So is washing the dishes. Hillel the sage, who was asked to relate the whole of Torah while standing on one foot: All the rest is commentary. The saints are what they are, not because their sanctity makes them admirable to others, but because the gift of sainthood makes it possible for them to admire everybody else. Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, A cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, This is the best season of your life. Today like every other day We wake up empty and scared. Don't open the door of your study And begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do There are hundreds of way to kneel And kiss the earth. Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.
I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither; then I awoke. Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man? But if they ask me, "Why were you not Zusya? It is only with the heart that one can see rightly: When I look inside and see that I am nothing, that's wisdom. When I look outside and see that I am everything, that's love. Between these two my life turns. We are not troubled by things, but by the opinions we have about things.
The trees before you and the bushes beside you are not lost.
Wherever you are is a place called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known. It answers, I have made this place around you, If you leave it you may come back again saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches the same to Wren. If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost. The forest knows Where you are. You must let it find you. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Buckminster Fuller himself was fond of stating that what seems to be happening at the moment is never the full story of what is really going on. He liked to point out that for the honey bee, it is the honey that is important. But the bee is at the same time nature's vehicle for carrying out cross-pollination of the flowers. Interconnectedness is a fundamental principle of nature. Each event connects with others. I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, most of which never happened - anonymous sometimes attributed to Mark Twain -.
We see things not as they are, but as we are. The birds have vanished into the sky, and now the last cloud drains away. We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains. Ram Dass tells of a student who went to a Zen master. Not a dead Zen master.
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. First I was dying to finish high school and start college. And then I was dying to finish college and start working.
And then I was dying to marry and have children. And then I was dying for my children to grow old enough for school so I could return to work. And then I was dying to retire. And now, I am dying And suddenly realize I forgot to live. I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
The saints are what they are, not because their sanctity makes them admirable to others, but because the gift of sainthood makes it possible for them to admire everybody else. There's a distinct 'grasping for a distraction' flavor to all the Italy stories that are cropping up here and in pro-Brexit media outlets, symptomatic perhaps of a growing despondency about the softening of Brexit. This is the closely guarded secret of life: This is all just food-for-thought though, as I've not thought about this very hard. Mar 06,
You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. In my walks, I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods if I am thinking of something out of the woods? Our bodies know they belong, It's our minds that make our lives so homeless. Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others.
Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity. Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person, not know what to say, not make that person wrong or right? Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are? But true communication can happen only in that open space.
Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb. Every part of our personality that we do not love will become hostile to us. If you have embarked on this journey of self-reflection, you may be at a place that everyone, sooner or later, experiences on the spiritual path. You have a choice whether to open or close, whether to hold on or let go, whether to harden or soften, whether to hold your seat or strike out.
That choice is presented to you again and again and again. I sought my soul, But my soul I could not see. I sought my God, But my God eluded me. I sought my brother, And found all three. If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say, it would be something like this: Listen to your life.
See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: Is there anything I can do to make myself Enlightened? As little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning. Then of what use are the spiritual exercises you prescribe? To make sure you are not asleep when the sun begins to rise. There is nothing you can do to improve your soul. There is nothing you can do to stain your soul.
I believe that the only true religion consists of having a good heart. The further I wake into this life, the more I realize that God is everywhere and the extraordinary is waiting quietly beneath the skin of all that is ordinary. Light is in both the broken bottle and the diamond, and music is in both the flowing violin and the water dripping from the drainage pipe.
Yes, God is under the porch as well as on top of the mountain, and joy is in both the front row and the bleachers, if we are willing to be where we are.
We can stop struggling with what occurs and see its true face without calling it the enemy. It helps to remember that our spiritual practice is not about accomplishing anything - not about winning or losing - but about ceasing to struggle and relaxing as it is. That is what we are doing when we sit down to meditate. That attitude spreads into the rest of our lives.
Most of us need to be reminded that we are good, that we are lovable, that we belong. Our relationships have the potential to be a sacred refuge, a place of healing and awakening. With each person we meet, we can learn to look behind the mask and see the one who longs to love and be loved.
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in the eyes of the Divine. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. It is possible to awaken.
Unbounded freedom and joy, oneness with the Divine, awakening into a state of timeless grace - these experiences are more common than you know, and not far away.
I wish someone could invent a time machine or a pill that could give you superpowers to time travel because I want to go back to that time. “Things could change, Gabe," Jonas went on. "Things could be different. I don't know how, but there must be some way for things to be different. There could be.
There is one further truth, however: Our realizations and awakenings show us the reality of the world, and they bring transformation, but they pass. We all know that after the honeymoon comes the marriage. After the election comes the hard task of governance. In spiritual life it is the same: After the ecstasy comes the laundry. When we think that something is going to bring us pleasure, we really don't know what's going to happen. When we think something is going to give us misery, we don't know. Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all.
We try to do what we think is going to help. But we don't know.
We never know if we're going to fall flat or sit up tall. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don't know. Integrated and personal spiritual practice includes our work, our love, our families, and our creativity.
It understands that the personal and the universal are inextricably connected, that the universal truths of spiritual life can come alive only in each particular and personal circumstance. While it is acceptable to disagree and even strongly disagree, users must refrain from personal attacks. It is unacceptable to refer to a group by a derogatory term. Do not categorise all pro-Leave supporters as racists or bigots etc. Do not categorise all pro-Remain supporters as remoaners or snowflakes etc. The way things are going, Italy could be out of the European Union before Britain telegraph.
I could explain further, about the Italian constitution etc etc. But I'm too tired. Italy cannot leave Europe with a popular referendum, and no government will ever agree to such an idiocy. Fortunately we have people who use their heads among all the lunacy. Op-eds are not "fake news", don't water down the term. Fake news is reports purporting things have happened that haven't, not just a columnist writing an opinion you disagree with. The title purports a possibility that does not exist. He could have written, I don't know, "Italians show almost more annoyance with Europe than the UK", say.
That would be an opinion delivering the same message. Or rather, it would take so long that it couldn't possibly compete with the UK's leaving. If rail has to pay its way as so many successive governments seem to think then cars should pay the full cost of the misery, noise and pollution they inflict on others. None of these countries have nuclear weapons. So why not spend the money on our over-stretched conventional forces — which we do use and need — and which are increasingly unfit for purpose. Just legalise them now.
Watch your police forces suddenly go from overstretched to under-stretched. Watch public health improve and addiction rates fall. Well, assuming that the experiences of every single country that has experimented with legalisation are anything to go on. The gambling industry likes to portray itself as James Bond playing blackjack.
The reality is more like an obese person putting their minimum wage into one of these machines. People always joke that gambling is a tax on stupidity and sometimes it is. Back to these machines though: This is a big one and a hard one. But we all know the property owning democracy that Thatcher espoused is turning into an us-and-them nightmare, especially for the young. The biggest single solution is to build more. Stipulate a certain density say that of decent Georgian terraces for all new urban developments and build, build build.
Use the tax system: And free councils to be more creative with their fundraising for building. Many of them used to do it pretty well. Far better than the private sector does. Really, we just need to build. This is a topic for another day, but at the moment buy-to-letters have it both ways. Accessibility links Skip to article Skip to navigation. Saturday 15 September