A beating heart, light breathing, oxygen, carbon, the earth, a puff of wind, the hum of life, gravity, quantum waves, dark matter: that which inconspicuously allows existence to exist.
The crackling fire inside you is your passport.
Many paths, many truths, One Source
Gulf disaster: When we wreak havoc on the earth, she vomits back.
Maintain stability in the face of volatility.
Learning another language is an acting exercise. You practice feeling yourself in another’s skin and move to a new beat.
Languages echo the pulsating rhythms of life. To speak or read another language is to feel another rhythm.
Life pulses to a medley of rhythms.
Dreams flow from the warm currents of an unseen ocean.
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2010/05/20/4315193-dalai-lama-21st-century-will-be-much-happier
Sometimes I wander in a desert looking for an oasis. Other times, I have too much water to drink. Now I see: Staggering in the dry sand, I give the desert time to prepare my refreshment.
When I feel my breath, I feel the presence of the Source. Awake and asleep, I inhale and exhale divine scents.
Flexibility–Perseverance: two sides of the same coin
Sometimes the door is open. Sometimes the door is closed. Sometimes you have to knock. Sometimes you have to open the door yourself. Sometimes you have to force the door open. Sometimes you have to find another door.
Even in the darkest places, there are little slivers of light. Seek them out and begin to heal the world.
Integration and wisdom usually come from the experience of fragmentation, making “mistakes,” and feeling disappointment and pain. I don’t know of many integrated and wise persons who have not gone through a lot in life. So, in that sense, fragmentation is a gift that allows us to experience, or re-experience (if we are speaking from a karmic perspective), the learning of integration and wisdom.
”Aleph” is a soundless Hebrew consonant. Perhaps it preceded Genesis 1:1, which is when the Kabbalists believed creation actually began–in silence before the light was scattered. The Bible actually begins with a “bet,” which is our “b” sound–the pressing and parting of lips.
Twisting subterranean hallways where symbols merge with life as we know it. A dream showing us the way.
Oh to be a mountain calm in the midst of every storm!
Longing, yearning, desiring for no longing, no yearning, no desiring. Just being.
“I could revive the dead, but I have more difficulty reviving the living” (Rabbi Simcha Bunim and Menahem Mendl of Kotzk).
We crave the illusion of certainty, but in reality even the smallest acts are a roll of the dice. Life itself is a calculated gamble. No outcome is guaranteed. Risk is an integral part of creation. Order and disorder coexist, as Torah describes right from the beginning of Genesis.
Meditation is awareness. That’s all there is to it.
What if we built our neighborhoods around curves rather than straight lines?
Sacrifice at the Temple no longer happens. Rather it takes place inside us when we redirect our destructive urges toward healing and hope.
You and I: Where does one end and the other begin?
Words are kindling for the fire that melts meaning into our being.
Below is an interesting piece by Stephen Prothero. I agree with a lot of what Prothero says. The goals of different religions are not the same. Eliding the differences inevitably leads to misunderstanding others. For example, talking about who will be saved is a Christian question, which most in the world do not even share, because they are not interested in salvation at all. Christians are focused on the person of Jesus Christ, while Jews and Muslims are focused on texts and words. Talking about God makes no sense to many Buddhists. Many influenced by New Age approaches desire reincarnation, but Hindus want to liberate themselves from it, and Buddhists view it as ultimately an illusion. Confucians uphold political and social order, while Daoists are political and social minimalists. Plus the goal of sameness is not a goal that all share. Jews view themselves as different, and Christians and Muslims want others to be like them.
Where I disagree with Prothero is his idea that “God” or “wisdom” is not one. The fact that there are different goals and multiple truths does not negate the oneness in which we dwell. Oneness does not mean that we don’t share fundamental values (e.g. the Golden Rule) and share important spiritual outlooks. Further, the fact that we have different goals and purposes does not negate oneness. It just means that our definition of “oneness” and “unity” is too limited and narrow, since it does not make room for multiple truths, paradox, and contradiction. There are not two choices–difference or sameness. That’s a false dichotomy.
Idolatry is making an object, a person, or an idea into a fetish. That is what both sides of this debate do. The “lumpers” privilege commonality and sameness, while the “splitters” privilege separation and difference. In so doing, they end up defining “God” or a “higher power” or the ultimate energy or “nirvana” or “heaven” or “nature” or “wisdom” in simplistic and objectifying language. They cannot envision unity as complex, multivalent, or chaotic. But perhaps that is what the oneness of “God”–or whomever or whatever you prefer call it–is.
There is not one path or one truth, but many paths and many truths held together in a paradoxical unity.
In this regard, mystical approaches offer a lot, because, with the loss of the ego/self, paradox is not a problem to be solved, but a dynamic energy in which to live.
©Laurence H. Kant
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/04/25/separate_truths/?page=full
Rivalry misdirected leads to chaos. Rivalry channeled leads to civilization. Rivalry transformed leads to a new dawn.
We are here to learn.
Why did it take Abraham so long to see the ram (Gen 22:13)? If he had looked up before he tried to slaughter Isaac, he would have seen the ram. Intent on his task, he was unconscious. If we stay awake, we will always see the ram.
Shabbat: Letting go of time.
Grasp with your feet. Walk with your hands. See with your ears. Hear with your eyes. Think with your heart. Feel with your mind.
Embracing life means embracing the hard stuff too.
Gratitude: breathing, eating, shelter, consciousness.
Taking time to meditate and pray is one thing. Living in meditation and prayer is quite another.
“Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘The Source is present in this place, but I did not know it'” (Gen 28:16). Mindfulness is knowing it. Wake up.
I breathe. The earth breathes. The universe breathes.
I am a walking tree. I am ancient. I hear the voices of millennia.
Our bodies are mobile trees, our legs the roots, our torsos the trunks, our outstretched arms the branches, our necks and heads the tree tops. We are rooted in the earth reaching out to the stars.
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