You Are IT

To understand how prayer works, consider the sun, which shines everywhere without hesitation or hindrance. Like God or Buddha, it continuously radiates all its power, warmth, and light without differentiation. When the earth turns, it appears to us that the sun no longer shines. But that has nothing to do with the sun; it’s due to our own position on the shadow side of the earth. If we inhabit a deep, dark mine shaft, it’s not the sun’s fault that we feel cold. Or if we live on the earth’s surface but keep our eyes closed, it’s not the sun’s fault that we don’t see light. The sun’s blessings are all-pervasive, whether we are open to them or not. Through prayer, we come out of the mine shaft, open our eyes, become receptive to enlightened presence, the omnipotent love and compassion that exist for all beings.

– Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche

The belief that we are all separate is as outdated and superstitious as the belief that the earth is flat. Everything is fashioned out of one consciousness. Throughly interconnected. Throughly interdependent. Basically one.

Though the word “one” doesn’t mean there is no diversity within it. Water is the same, yet it creates countless different water crystals. Consciousness is one, yet forms are myriad. What we focus on expands. When we focus on who is focusing, the entire illusion disbands. May you wake up to this very soon.

~ Nithya Shanti

Spirituality is not about a particular group’s teachings and doctrines. It is about the values, ethics, and the deepest experience of the individual, not the theological dogma of the clump.

~ Neale Donald Walsch

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide.

The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water.

Enlightenment does not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water. You cannot hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon in the sky. The depth of the drop is the height of the moon.

Each reflection, however long or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky.

~ Dogen Zenji (1200 – 1253)

Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it in ourselves. It is a daily practice. No one can prevent you from being aware of each step you take or each breath in and breath out.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

If you awaken from this illusion, and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death — or shall I say, death implies life — you can conceive yourself. Not conceive, but feel yourself, not as a stranger in the world, not as someone here on sufferance, on probation, not as something that has arrived here by fluke, but you can begin to feel your own existence as absolutely fundamental.

What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself. So, say in Hindu mythology, they say that the world is the drama of God. God is not something in Hindu mythology with a white beard that sits on a throne, that has royal prerogatives. God in Indian mythology is the self, Satcitananda. Which means sat, that which is, chit, that which is consciousness; that which is ananda is bliss. In other words, what exists, reality itself is gorgeous, it is the fullness of total joy.

~ Alan Watts

There was a time when faith, hope, and love meant for me – invincible security, getting what I wished for, and possessing my heart’s desire.

Now they mean: showing up vulnerable, readiness to share what I have without expectation of return, being fully present.

For a long time, compassion meant lowering myself to be tolerant of others who were not as fortunate as me. Now it means vowing that my actions may be helpful and harmless, fully experiencing my experience, taking nothing personally … so that I might embody my vow to be helpful and harmless, etc.

As a buddhan type person, I vow regularly to save all beings, end all delusions, enter all dharma gates, attain unsurpassable perfect wisdom.

Once, such vows were perfect rationalizations for grandiosity, entitlement, and arrogance. Now, I realize that “all beings” means attending to the one who is in front of me at this moment, and most especially, myself since I am always in front of me.

If I am overlooking myself as one of the all, I am breaking my vow. If I am ignoring my own limitations and constraints, I am breaking my vow. If I am installing doors and security locks on the gateless gates, I am breaking my vow. If I am resisting progress by staking a claim to this or that way, I am breaking my vow.

Here’s my suggestion: To the limits of your awareness at any moment: just be vulnerable; keep open your mind, your heart, and your hand; be helpful and harmless; be fully yourself as you experience yourself in the way that you experience; take nothing personal.

Consider this: Right is not the opposite of wrong so much as the restoration of balance and stability howsoever far from equilibrium that may seem to be from one moment to the next.

Make good use of your pantry and all of your tools. Above all, don’t waste time.

~ Gianni Grassi, Notes from the Sesshin Cook

It is the end of all hopes. It is the extinction of all desires, included the desire for desires to end. It is the end of preferences for any kind of states. It is the end of all seeking, included the seeking for seeking to end.

~ Benjamin Smythe

At present, the outer universe—earth, stones, mountains, rocks, and cliffs—seems to the perception of our senses to be permanent and stable, like the house built of reinforced concrete that we think will last for generations. In fact, there is nothing solid to it at all; it is nothing but a city of dreams.

–Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

One day Mara, the Evil One, was travelling through the villages of India with his attendants. He saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up in wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him.

Mara’s attendant asked what that was and Mara replied, “A piece of truth.”

“Doesn’t this bother you when someone finds a piece of truth, O Evil One?” his attendant asked.

“No,” Mara replied. “Right after this, they usually make a belief out of it.”

~ Benny Liow