Inspiration from Lao Tzu

Always we hope
Someone else has the answer.
Some other place will be better,
Some other time it will all turn out.

This is it.

No one else has the answer
No other place will be better,
and it has already turned out.

At the center of your being
you have the answer;
you know who you are
and you you know what you want.

There is no need
to run outside
for better seeing,
nor to peer from a window.

Rather abide at the center of your being;
for the more you leave it, the less you learn.

Search your heart
and see
The way to do
is to be.


I LOVED THIS PIECE!  It points to carrying the wisdom within without really knowing we are doing it, with being right here, right now.  "This is it."  The going outside ourselves to find the knowledge and understanding is very like moving forward in time to "get" something we believe we need (OR looking back and believing that at some other time you had the understanding ....).

Have been moving pretty mindfully through these last days, taking in sound (and there is a great deal of it here in the city), and sights, tastes, and smells, and passing phenomena in my mind and body.  Things taste more vivid to me now, and sounds feel very bright and distinctive...  I closed my eyes at a Bach concert Sunday night, and I could follow each instrument of the group playing its part, as well as the exquisite harmonies occurring as the violins, violas, cellos, and so on, met up with one another.  This is a beautiful way to listen to music.  Just be in the music - no other sensations - or have the music be in you...  Having good conversations with each of the people I meet, even the man at the service center where I took my car!  And there is, I think, a small smile on my face much of the time.

"The mind creates the abyss
The heart crosses it."
-- Nisargardatta

AND SO, HOW WAS YOUR RETREAT?

We have all we need for enlightenment inside ourselves, our bodies, hearts, and minds ....
We possess the teacher's wisdom though we too rarely see this ...
Keep going inside, inside deep, and you will find what is real...
Just keep breathing, in and out and in and out, and keeping your awareness bright and curious ...
Inhabit that awareness ....
Be that awareness ...
Listen to the heart which does not lie ... it points the way to the path of wisdom ...
Remember to love yourself just as you are ... and hold that "self" in compassion, and you wish to hold all others ...
Our lives ARE like rivers where we must take the leap of faith, and let go into the stream ... stop trying to hold on to what we think is solid :  the logs of identity, the rocks of opinions, the shore of our feelings...
And these rivers rarely move in linear form ... they twist and turn and what we see and meet is always changing ...
Ever changing ... the path we're on, our bodies, our perceptions and feelings ... keep watching this until you know that solidity is an illusion ...


The above some fragments of insight I now see with some clarity and conviction after sitting on my zafu at Spirit Rock for four weeks,  and for each of these fragments I could journey forth with more to reflect on, more to share.  There is both a lightness in me and a solidity and rootedness coming from my heart for which I am deeply grateful.  How long will I be stepping on the earth this gently and assuredly?

No need to worry about this, because just being with WHAT IS NOW is enough, is ALL there is ...

What is NOW ?  A golden sunny late afternoon in my bedroom, my cat Jackson stretched out on a warm hardwood floor looking ever so happy with his life, an anonymous grey pigeon perched on my roof waiting to steal some bird seed from the feeder,  and sounds of Bach's Goldberg Variation #2 that I just played still echoing in my mind.... each thing I perceive is IN me, as is the music -- a fact I discovered on retreat when in the midst of deep silence a refrain from my beloved Bach's composition threaded its way into my field of awareness as my fingers started to do the playing of it, ever so gently in my lap.  It was an extraordinary moment among so many others in that long silence!

I feel great peace.