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#3678 -
Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Do not go where the path may lead,
go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
posted to Along The Way
Am I There
Yet?
The path of awakening is extremely well mapped, and it's mapped
in different ways by different traditions. At certain stages maps
can be useful; they point out the way. But at other stages they
can be a big hindrance, because we often get caught up in
interpretation and judgment: “How far along am I?”
“Am I there?” These thoughts simply strengthen the
sense of self, while the whole path is about dissolving it. And
particularly in our Western culture, which is so competitive and
judgmental, instead of adding more fuel to the fire of
self-judgment—”Oh, where am I? I'm not good
enough”—we could see our entire spiritual journey as
this wonderful flowering of understanding. We just keep going; we
just keep watering the Bodhi tree of wisdom.
–Joseph Goldstein, from “How Amazing!” Tricycle,
Summer 1999
Read the complete article on tricycle.com
Seeing
Clearly
What does seeing clearly mean? It doesn't mean that you look at
something and analyze it, noting all its composite parts; no.
When you see clearly, when you look at a flower and really see
it, the flower sees you. It's not that the flower has eyes, of
course. It's that the flower is no longer just a flower, and you
are no longer just you. Flower and you have dissolved into
something way beyond what we can even say, but we can experience
this. This kind of seeing, this kind of understanding is
“as-it-is-ness.” This wonderful intuitive wisdom
infuses everything we do, if we just open ourselves up to it, and
forget about all our selfish, petty concerns, forget about what
we want, what we must get, whether this is doing something for
us. Forget it. We are here for the sake of all sentient beings,
and we are one with all sentient beings when we come to see this
as-it-is-ness.
–Maurine Stuart, from “Our One and Only
Commandment,” Tricycle, Fall 1996
Read the complete article on tricycle.com
"When I got
home, I jumped up on my bed. I was lying on my back, with one
hand on each of my dogs, Josie and Ma-Ling. As I petted the dogs,
a thought arose: "Consciousness just wants to see
itself." The sparks started firing again. I suddenly knew
that I was not petting my dogs. I realized they were not separate
from me.
I stood up, and walked around my apartment, completely stunned by
what I was seeing. I was seeing the nature of reality beyond
thought. I was seeing that there was no me separate from any
"thing" I was looking at. It feels strange now to use
subject/object language to describe the complete absence of
separation. All thought stopped---completely. I saw myself as the
floor, the wall, the desk, the window, the streetlight outside,
and in everything else upon which these eyes fell. I found myself
on the floor, grabbing at the carpet, and laughing my head off. I
laughed, and laughed, and laughed. I kept saying fervently,
"None of this matters, none of this matters." You may
ask, "What didn't matter?" My only answer was that it
was clear that "nothing mattered," at least not in the
way I had always thought. The search, the lack, the
dissatisfaction, the fear, the anger, the resentment did not
matter. It was all seen as a dream of self-centeredness.
I realized i cannot find myself because there is no self. I saw
that I am what I had been seeking. But when I say, "I
am," I mean the One, whatever that means. There is no Scott
experiencing any of this. There is only the experiencing. 'This'
was seeing itself. It was clear that whatever this word God is
pointing to, it is right here, now. It is, and always was, right
under my nose, as my nose, and everything on each side of it,
behind it, inside it, and over it. The notion of seeking God was
seen as pointless. It was realized that there was only 'This' and
that nothing is separate from it.
The only thing that remained as the laughter released the dream
of "Scott" was brilliant, loving space.This space was
alive, fully alive and radiant. The miracle and the mystery of
life was seen for the first time, yet it had always been there,
Scott Kiloby
p.16-17
Prologue
Love's Quiet Revolution
A Word For Joy
I am happy among children's eyes
I am very worried and happy
among the crazy and the hopeless
they recognize me, right away
I'm home
And there is nowhere I would rather be
alive or dead
than in this world
Inside this skull I hold and ponder
unending space expanding if I understand correctly
at an accelerating rate, meanwhile
housing perpetual births and disappearances of its numberless
deafening nuclear furnaces unheard,
I consider the voices, identically soundless, in every
mind, behind each face I pass
and as I've been instructed each morning
on rising I obliterate the print of my body
and am glad (the wind is blowing, it is written, adore
the wind)
and am speechlessly grateful and glad and afraid
I don't mind saying that I am scared
to death of God: I am
afraid and blind and ignorant and naked and
I'll take it!
I have been happy here
among all the suffering eyes: why they were brought here
and exactly what it was they were expected
to take a good close look at,
I can't grasp it, but I am so very glad.
~ Franz Wright ~
(God's Silence)
Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/A_Word_For_Joy.html