Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day
#2720 - Sunday, February 4, 2007 - Editor: Gloria Lee Nondual Highlights
As salt dissolves in the
ocean,
I was swallowed up in You
Beyond doubt or being sure
Suddenly, here in my chest
A star
Comes out so clear
It draws all stars to it.
- Rumi
The Buddha compares
his teaching to the rainfall that descends
without discrimination on the earth. That this rain causes some
seeds
to grow into flowers and some into great trees implies no
differentiation in the rain but rather is due to the capacities
of the
seeds that it nurtures. Thus, the teaching of the Buddha is of a
single
flavor but benefits beings in a variety of ways according to
their
capacity.
-Donald S. Lopez, Jr., Buddhism in Practice
"There is no
spot, O king, where Nirvāna is situate, and yet Nirvāna is,
and he who orders his life right will, by careful attention,
realize
Nirvāna. Just as fire exists, and yet there is no place where
fire (by
itself) is stored up. But if a man rubs two sticks together the
fire
comes; just so, O king, Nirvāna exists, though there is no spot
where
it is stored up. And he who orders his life aright will, by
careful
attention, realize Nirvāna."
-Milindapanha From
"365 Buddha: Daily Meditations," edited by Jeff Schmidt
"This world that you live in is not
governed by human beings at all.
This globe is not run by human personalities, it is not run by
events
at all. Already this may be something of a surprise to you
because our
minds are slanted so much toward believing that people, men,
women,
great men, ungreat men, that they control the events of the
world.
Nothing could be more distant from the truth. This world that you
live
in, that you existed in today is controlled by attitudes. It is
run by
unconscious attitudes."
- Vernon Howard The New World Above Your Mind DVD # 23, Talk 1
At the
Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border
This is the field where the battle did not happen,
where the unknown soldier did not die.
This is the field where grass joined hands,
where no monument stands,
and the only heroic thing is the sky.
Birds fly here without any sound,
unfolding their wings across the open.
No people killed-or were killed-on this ground
hallowed by neglect and an air so tame
that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.
-William Stafford, from The
Way It Is: New and Selected Poems
Alan Larus photo http://www.ferryfee.com/bluesky/Monday_4.htm
Reclaim your allegiance to the earth.
The air you breathe, the
water you drink, the food you eat, were not
created by your governments. They were not created by your
religions. They were not created by your ideologies, your
sciences,
your industries, your technologies, your banks, your economic
systems, your laws, or your beliefs.
What are these but alien thoughts in the presence of the wilderness?
Do you fear being mere
animals without them, do you believe these
concepts and achievements define your humanity?
No longer comply with the
fearful creations of the human psyche,
which have taken the forms of authority, power, privilege and
abuse in
the world and rule over you, but abide by the laws of the
natural,
original creation. Stand not under a flag but under real stars,
be
moved by the colors of an actual sunset, not of your nations. Ask
permission to do, to take, to the earth, not your masters. Be
grateful
not to those who founded your societies, but to the soil, to the
air, to
the water, to all of nature, and to the divine presence that
sustains
all life, and be lead only by them.
And understand that this
life is under attack from the power that you
worship, from all that defines the arrogance of civilization,
because
you have forgotten to love the earth.
From the upcoming book "Remember who you are" -Raphael Montoliu