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#3747 - Wednesday, December
16, 2009 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
"I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
But I awoke, and saw that life was service. I acted, and behold:
service was joy." - R. Tagore Papaji says: Happiness
doesn´t ask anything of you. But to suffer you must make some
effort at relationship. You must refer to some relationship with
a person, thing or idea in order to suffer. Then you get unhappy
because you need something. To be happy is your fundamental
nature. Nothing is needed.
from Michaela Friedrich on
Facebook
Ran across this quote yesterday. It's one of the pleasantly startling realizations of Awakening: "If you don't see God in everyone, you don't see God at all." – Yogi Bhajan
from Jeff Belyea on Facebook
The Wish to Be Happy
If we are practicing metta and we cannot see the goodness in
ourselves or in someone else, then we reflect on the fundamental
wish to be happy that underlies all action. “Just as I want
to be happy, all beings want to be happy.” This reflection
gives rise to openness, awareness, and love. As we commit to
these values, we become embodiments of a lineage that stretches
back through beginningless time. All good people of all time have
wanted to express openness, awareness, and love. With every
phrase of metta we are declaring our alignment with these values.
- Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness
Being, Not Becoming
The Tibetan Buddhist tradition defines renunciation as
accepting what comes into our lives and letting go of what leaves
our lives. To renounce in this sense is to come into a state of
simple being. We have a moment of seeing, a moment of hearing,
tasting, touching, smelling, thinking—just a moment, and
then it is gone. When we look very carefully, we see that our
experience is like a cascade of impressions. If we rely upon any
one of these transiencies for a sense of permanent satisfaction,
we lose the happiness of simply being. Just imagine for a moment
the stillness and peace of not leaning forward even for the next
breath. This is being, rather than becoming, and this is the
power and fullness of metta.
-Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness
Day-to-Day
Perhaps we'd much rather focus on a great transcendent state of
consciousness out there somewhere, waiting for us to achieve it.
But it is in how we live day-to-day that an authentic
spirituality is made manifest.
- Sharon Salzberg, The Force of Kindness
Awareness
“Awareness is complete perceptual
openness in all experience. It is freedom in immediate perception
rather than being focused on stories. The whole field of
perception opens up in timeless awareness to include all
perceptions. We may find ourselves having a lot of thoughts and a
lot of emotions, even very strong emotions that we could have
never tolerated before we began gaining confidence in awareness.
This is the source of compassion : to allow everything about
ourselves to be as it is. “
Great Freedom
http://satsangs.net/key/words.html
The Power of Patience
There is great power in patience because it cuts through
arrogance and ingratitude. It is the path that lets us move from
resistance to acceptance and spontaneous presence. Holding on to
our judgments about others and ourselves is a major cause of
impatience. Repeating softly to ourselves, “May I be happy
just as I am” and “May I be peaceful with whatever is
happening” helps us accept our vulnerabilities,
imperfections, and losses: everything from chronic physical and
emotional pain, to the death of loved ones, the end of a job or
relationship—even nightmare traffic jams.
- Michele McDonald, "Finding Patience,"
Little of Me
Let only that little be left of me
whereby I may name thee my all.
Let only that little be left of my will
whereby I may feel thee on every side,
and come to thee in everything,
and offer to thee my love every moment.
Let only that little be left of me
whereby I may never hide thee.
Let only that little of my fetters be left
whereby I am bound with thy will,
and thy purpose is carried out in my life
and that is the fetter of thy love.
Rabindranath Tagore
photo by Alan Larus