You Are IT

God meant to drop this mirror,
shattering into countless images
his perfect gaze.
This is why we meet in brokenness,
putting ourselves together again
through each other,
until we recognize one face
with eight billion reasons
for astonishment.

~ Fred LaMotte

For a person who cherishes compassion and love, the practice of tolerance is essential, and for that, an enemy is indispensable.

So we should feel grateful to our enemies, for it is they who can best help us develop a tranquil mind!

— His Holiness the Dalai Lama

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.

~ Herman Melville

Through meditation you learn that you don’t have to protect, you don’t have to defend, you don’t have to make your point, you don’t have to win, you don’t have to lose.

You just interact, you communicate with situations as they arise.

~ David Nichtern

There is no such thing as a person.

There are only restrictions and limitations.

The sum total of these defines the person.

The person merely appears to be.

Just like the space within the pot appears to have the shape and volume and smell of the pot.

~ Nisargadatta

I asked the leaf whether it was frightened because it was autumn and the other leaves were falling. The leaf told me, “No. During the whole spring and summer I was completely alive. I worked hard to help nourish the tree, and now much of me is in the tree. I am not limited by this form. I am also the whole tree, and when I go back to the soil, I will continue to nourish the tree. So I don’t worry at all. As I leave this branch and float to the ground, I will wave to the tree and tell her, ‘I will see you again very soon.’”

That day there was a wind blowing and, after a while, I saw the leaf leave the branch and float down to the soil, dancing joyfully, because as it floated it saw itself already there in the tree. It was so happy. I bowed my head, knowing that I have a lot to learn from the leaf.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

The Way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things
and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.
When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity
your very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other
you will never know Oneness….

From the Hsing Hsing Ming (Verses on the Faith Mind by Seng-ts’an, the Third Zen Patriarch (translated by Richard B. Clarke)

Write about things that you’d like to read. Give a talk that you’d like to listen. Do the things that you’d like to see. Be the friend that you’d like to be with. Express your style so it honors your uniqueness. Serve in ways that displays your connectedness. Live a life that matters to you.

~ Nithya Shanti

When information overshadows awareness, it is ignorance – even if the information is correct. When awareness outshines information, it is enlightenment – even if awareness is empty of all knowledge.

We have lived through the Age of Belief, the Age of Reason, and the Age of Information. Now the Information Age is over. The Age of Awareness has begun.

In this age, we are over-loaded by information and it is driving us crazy. Now the essential practice for mental health is not to Know, but to Unknow: to recover the formless from in-formation; to restore the innocent self-luminosity of pure awareness.

~ Fred LaMotte

we sat near the mouth of the pacific
my weakened warrior friend and me
with my vainly muted 900 lb gorilla problem
and his new daily features

the spiritual warrior is dedicated to his evolution
my evolution
yours

impermanence is all that’s permanent
transience is the definition of our short time together
movement
change

these new features of which you speak make me sad
i cry as i walk away because of natural worry for a friend
i smile because you are my friend

“the warrior shows up naked and vulnerable and says the war. stops. now.”
indeed
i move forward from that moment with a new mental space to cultivate
a new method to practice

actually you removed the cloak from the space that’s been there all along
you reminded me of another way to let my light so shine
you reminded me this is the job of the spiritual warrior
to help other sentient beings remember their compassion and share it with every
one

and especially with the one whose gaze resides in the mirror

~ Scott Kinnaird