Click here to go to the next issue

Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day

Nondual Highlights Issue #2524, Wednesday, July 12, 2006 - Editor: Mark Otter

How boundless the cleared sky of Samadhi!
How transparent the perfect moonlight of the Fourfold Wisdom!

At this moment what more need we seek?
As the Truth eternally reveals itself,
This very place is the Lotus Land of Purity,
This very body is the Body of the Buddha.

- Hakuin Ekaku Zenji, posted to DailyDharma

Sitting alone amongst the forest trees,
The sixfold senses always still and quiet.

It seems as if you've lost a precious jewel,
But have no pain of worry or distress.

In all the World your visage has no peer,
And yet you always sit with your eyes closed.

The thoughts of each of us possess a doubt:
What do you seek by dwelling in this place ?

Nagarjuna, Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom,, Dharmamitra Trans. Kalavinka Dharma, posted to Mystic_Spirit

You seem to want instant insight, forgetting
that the instant is always preceded by a long
preparation. The fruit falls suddenly, but the
ripening takes time.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to AlongTheWay

CLIMBING THE CHAGRIN RIVER

We enter
the green river,
heron harbor,
mud-basin lined with snagheaps, where turtles
sun themselves--we push
through the falling
silky weight
striped warm and cold
bounding down
through the black flanks
of wet rocks--we wade
under hemlock
and white pine--climb
stone steps into
the timeless castles
of emerald eddies,
swirls, channels
cold as ice tumbling
out of a white flow -
sheer sheets
flying off rocks,
frivolous and lustrous,
skirting the secret pools -
cradles
full of the yellow hair
of last year’s leaves
where grizzled fish
hang halfway down,
like tarnished swords,
while around them
fingerlings sparkle
and descend,
nails of light
in the loose
racing waters.

- Mary Oliver

Listen, put trust in God, don't let your hands and feet tremble with fear:
your daily bread is more in love with you than you with it.
It is in love with you and holding back
only because it knows of your lack of self-denial.
If you had any self-denial, the daily bread
would throw itself upon you as lovers do.
What is this feverish trembling for fear of hunger?
In possession of trust in God one can live full-fed.

- Rumi, Mathnami. V: 2852-2854, version by Camille and Kabir Helminski, Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance

"Spirit of the Dragon" by Helena Nelson-Reed, by kind permission.

More of Helena's wonderful art can be seen at: http://www.fine-art-studios.com/intro.html