You Are IT

I do not have a teaching,
I have a practice.
I do not have a belief,
I have a practice.
I do not have a message or story to tell,
I have a practice.
I do not have a god,
I have a practice.
The word dissolves into silence.
The silence dissolves into action.
The action dissolves into wonder.
At dawn, be the mist in a sunbeam.
At evening, be the mountain on a cloud.

~ Fred LaMotte

As I stare at the bottles of red wine we purchased almost a year ago, I‘m reminded of the day we spent in Sonoma Valley with our grown children acquiring those bottles.

At first I thought, how odd we would spend that sort of money on things we’ll likely give to others as gifts or won’t use for a very long time.

Then I realized, when you experience such a wonderful day — a day beyond imagining — a day likened to when you were a four-year-old being thrown up in the air by a loving parent or on a playground swing, experiencing the apogee and for the briefest moment being released from the surly bonds of Earth, well…you want a day like that day to last forever.

That’s when I realized the icons of those memories matter. Photos or paintings or statues or figurines or yet to be emptied bottles of wine. They all matter.

Icons matter because they remind us of what liberation feels like.

~ Scott Kinnaird

People have trouble being quiet for even five minutes.

When people sit in their first mindfulness session and experience structured silence for the first time, the intensity of their monkey-mind (ego) railing against even the *prospect* of being ignored, usually overwhelms any insight which might have been cultivated by that first practice.

But…a glimpse…a curiosity…a mental question…a wondering…experienced that first time, can push a curious seeker to the next ‘sesshin‘.

And, with practice, that five minutes can eventually expand and the silence can expand with it.

The chattering can subside and the meditator can realize they’re “watching” the chattering monkey-mind. ”They” are not the monkey.

They’re just watching it.

This is the first glimpse of Liberation. This is when we realize what’s possible.

This is when we can stop identifying with the noise in our head and identify with who we really are — an individuation of the Divine.

~ Scott Kinnaird

Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.

~ Mary Oliver

As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth . . . the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and the wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.

~ Gary Snyder

I view this world as it is,
Beauty and horrors in equal measure.
But, as of late I give the horrors no response
And the beauty makes me weep.

~ Scott Kinnaird

You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.

~ Eckhart Tolle

Jesus made it so clear that
he did not want to “save” us;
he wanted us to become
what he is.

Crucify the concepts
that cling to the cross
of duality –

past and future,
heaven and hell,
matter and spirit,
ignorance and enlightenment.

Your resurrection is the pollen
at the heart of the rose.
Your emptiness glows
with compassion.
Dissolve in the womb
of this sparkling moment:

it is the Kingdom.

If you think that the Kingdom
is anywhere else,
you have already fallen
into exile.

Here is the Gospel, the Good News:
you are what you have been seeking.

~ Fred LaMotte

Until you are free of the drug of self-identification, all your religions and sciences, prayers and yogas are of no use to you, for, based on a mistake, they strengthen it.

– Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Most of our energy goes into upholding our importance.

If we were capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary things would happen to us.

One, we would free our energy from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur.

And two, we would provide ourselves with enough energy to catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the Universe.

~ Carlos Castaneda