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9/30/2021 1 Comment

Morgan Farley:

I am clearing a space here, where the trees stand back.
I am making a circle so open the moon will fall in love and stroke these grasses with her silver.
I am setting stones in the four directions, stones that have called my name from mountaintops and riverbeds, canyons and mesas.
Here I will stand with my hands empty, mind gaping under the moon.
I know there is another way to live. When I find it, the angels will cry out in rapture, each cell of my body will be a rose, a star.
If something seized my life tonight, if a sudden wind swept through me, changing everything, I would not resist.
I am ready for whatever comes.
But I think it will be something small, an animal, padding out from the shadows, or a word spoken so softly I hear it inside.
It is dark out here, and cold. The moon is stone.
I am alone with my longing.
Nothing is happening but the next breath, and the next is the new life.

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8/1/2021 1 Comment

Lao Tsu #44 Hua Hu Ching: Foolish

Forty-Four

This is the nature of the unenlightened mind:
The sense organs, which are limited in scope and    ability, randomly gather information.
This partial information is arranged into judgements,
    which are based on previous judgements,
    which are usually based on someone else’s foolish
     ideas.
These false concepts and ideas are then stored in a
   highly selective memory system.

Distortion upon distortion: the mental energy flows
   constantly through contorted and inappropriate
   channels, and the more one uses the mind, the more
   confused one becomes.

To eliminate the vexation of the mind, it doesn’t help
   to do something; this only reinforces the mind’s
   mechanics.
Dissolving the mind is instead a matter of not-doing:
Simply avoid becoming attached to what you see and
   think.
Relinquish the notion that you are separated from the
   all-knowing mind of the universe.
Then you can recover your original pure insight and
   see through all illusions.
Knowing nothing, you will be aware of everything.

Remember: because clarity and enlightenment are
   within your own nature, they are regained without
   moving an inch.

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7/22/2021 0 Comments

Thirty-Eight

Why scurry about looking for the truth?
It vibrates in every thing and every not-thing, right off
   the tip of your nose.
Can you be still and see it in the mountain? the pine
   tree? yourself?

Don’t imagine that you’ll discover it by accumulating
   more knowledge.
Knowledge creates doubt, and doubt makes you
   ravenous for more knowledge.
You can’t get full eating this way.
The wise person dines on something more subtle:
He eats the understanding that the named was born
   from the unnamed, that all being flows from non-
   being, that the describable world emanates from an
   indescribable source.
He finds this subtle truth inside his own self, and
   becomes completely content.

So who can be still and watch the chess game of the
   world?
The foolish are always making impulsive moves, but
   the wise know that victory and defeat are decided by
   something more subtle.
They see that something perfect exists before any move
   is made.

This subtle perfection deteriorates when artificial
   actions are taken, so be content not to disturb the
   peace.
Remain quiet.
Discover the harmony in your own being.
Embrace it.

If you can do this, you will gain everything, and the
   world will become healthy again.
If you can’t, you will be lost in the shadows forever.

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7/21/2021 0 Comments

Licing From a Non-Dual Perspective; Matthew Flickstein

Living from A Non-Dual Perspective
By Matthew Flickstein

Everything that arises, disappears; whatever is born, dies. Nothing escapes the cycle of birth and death. It is important for us to directly and experientially realize that there is never a point in time when something “exists” and is not in the process of becoming something other than it was just a moment before. All suffering comes from attachment – trying to hold on to that which is perpetually changing – and all attachment comes from delusion. We need to learn to live in the clarity and space of non-attachment, neither grasping nor pushing anything away. The key is to just be present with what arises from moment to moment, without holding or resisting. At the same time, it is essential not to fall into the trap of denying the relative existence of our psychophysical organism and the world of experience it presents.

Compassion is the willingness to play in the field of dreams even though you are awake. Approach life with joy, enthusiasm, love, and an open heart. Take delight in the manifestations of life: It is all a play of consciousness, and it is really all play. If something appears serious or burdensome – even death – then we are lost in delusion. The “field of dreams” is this world of the senses with all its myriad forms. Being awake is the direct knowing that there is no one who suffers, no one who is born, and on one who dies. It is the five aggregates that are born and die. Who we are has never been born and never dies.

In actuality, there is no one who is expressing compassion to anyone else. It is all part of the play. The world is our mirror. There is only consciousness rising and falling along with its objects; it is all selfless. Whatever we see as being real is a projection of our own mind. It is where our mind is stuck or identified with the illusion.

Nothing exists – not even nothing. Existence and non-existence are both concepts. Not holding anywhere is freedom beyond measure.

We must die to each moment and allow life to express itself through and as us. Our lives may not turn out the way in which the ego has imagined, but when we surrender to the truth of what is, we will find freedom beyond measure as surely as the river finds its way to the sea. When we move beyond the dualistic world, there is a rebirth into the deathless. We finally come home to a place that we have really never left.

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7/16/2021 0 Comments

The Practice of Recollection :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qkt2n161scbuan8/THE%20PRACTICE%20OF%20RECOLLECTION.pdf?dl=0

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7/16/2021 0 Comments

In This Passing Moment Harada Roshi

In this passing moment karma ripens  and all things come to be.
I vow to choose what is:
If there is cost, I choose to pay.
If there is need, I choose to give.
If there is pain, I choose to feel.
If there is sorrow, I choose to grieve.
When burning -- I choose heat.
When calm -- I choose peace.
When starving -- I choose hunger.
When happy -- I choose joy.
Whom I encounter, I choose to meet.
What I shoulder, I choose to bear.
When it is my death, I choose to die.
Where this takes me, I choose to go.
Being with what is -- I respond to what is.
This life is as real as a dream;
the one who knows it can not be found;
and, truth is not a thing -- Therefore I vow
to choose THIS dharma entrance gate!
May all Buddhas and Wise Ones
help me live this vow.

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6/28/2021 0 Comments