Monday, April 6, 2020

Over The Past Few Years...




Over the past few years in the school, 
I have appreciated the growth 
of moving away from the concept of having a well oiled machine 
or being “good” or trying to be "perfect". 
Instead have moved into a newer world of trusting my whole being, 
the good, the bad, the inspirational, the cranky. 
It is not without the constant help of higher energies 
that I move forward in my growth in the school, 
as well as the constant love and reminders from my fellow students. 
I could not grow without you. 
We are all such clear mirrors for each other 
on this beautiful and magical path. 
How grateful I am for this unusual and often difficult process.
~P


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Friday, April 3, 2020

There Has Been This Recurrence ...



Stuart Davis

There has been this recurrence 
that has been going on 
within my own work. 
My machine wanting to fix my machine. 
A real struggle, hard work! 
As the layers of this onion slowly start to peel, 
I see how many, 
many moments it comes again 
that I must in a way bare my mechanics 
and my little crosses if you may. 
Be with it as much as I can bear. 
Such an ease arises then. 
Not as much hard work. 
The lion and lamb laying down together.
~S


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Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Prayer Is An Act ...


Edward Burne-Jones


Prayer is an act of love; 
words are not needed. 
Even if sickness distracts from thoughts, 
all that is needed is the will to love.
~Saint Teresa of Avila

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Monday, March 30, 2020

Part Of Our Work...



Part of our work is to balance the mechanical centers 
and consciously work 
from the appropriate one 
in presence according to circumstances. 
Often the resistance can come in 
because we are working from the wrong center. 
If we consciously stop and ask ourselves 
what center is the machine operating from 
and is it the best for the moment in hand, 
we can learn much 
and lose a lot less of the energy that we need to stay present. 
~M


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Friday, March 27, 2020

THE FOUNTAIN OF ATTENTION





THE FOUNTAIN OF ATTENTION
Self-remembering is the beginning and end of all religion,
the goal of all philosophy, the cure of all psychology,
the universal equalizer of theories of everything,
the origin of joy and immortality,
the source of all true art, poetry, music and paradox,
the only spiritual act in the universe.

It is what monks practice as devotion,
what ascetics practice as sacrifice, yogis as concentration,
Sufis and saints as internal prayer,
what artists sense when they transcend their technique and create.

It is the philosophers' stone, the Holy Grail,
the Golden Fleece, Aladdin's lamp,
the fountain of youth, the pearl of great price,
the buried treasure of all myth and fable, the Golden Mean.

Self-remembering is the deliverance promised in every religion -
Moksha, Nirvana, the Kingdom of Heaven, Dadirri -
the sound of deep calling to deep.

It is religion purged of sentiment,
philosophy purged of language,
Being simplified,
Simplicity charged with meaning.

It is the same spiritual act everywhere,
the liberation of attention into the living moment.
It is renunciation, surrender, the breaking of the spell,
the erasure of vital boundaries, over and over, forever.

It is the sword that cuts the Gordian Knot,
the knife that cuts through everything to the meaning of existence.
It is the noble simplicity and calm grandeur of the great art of the ages.

It is a cure for gravity, a pure listening,
the perpetual motion of silence, the mystery of Self, -
a spinning paradox like a binary star, present at the speed of light -
the one true north, always everywhere, the realm of the finally real.

It is the only quest in the universe - To Be or not to Be.

Self-remembering is the unqualified relationship to just this,
just now, one long poem of resence, the pure art of perfect attention.

It is a radical disentanglement, a bloodless coup of Being,
the discipline of freedom, the freedom of discipline.

It is the separation of the real and the false,
the lifting of self out of the current of dreams, 
being free to see.
It is a looking and listening of serene urgency,
the attempt to penetrate the present,
absorb its contents, 
and wait with trust for it to reveal the final mystery
It is consciousness loving you into existence.
~Mervyn 


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