Category: Spiritualibus

Retreat and renew
Re-enter into life
And every day
Each moment
Here and now
The rivers flow
As wind and rain
Brooks to oceans
Sun sets and rises
Again next morning
After shooting stars
And rainbow colors
The sky full of lights
So crisp and so clear
Aquarius with Cetus
Wish all may be well
And happy at heart
Refuge is the divine
The harmony of life
In loving company
Peaceful silence
So many friends
And bumblebees
With little wings
And room for all
To come and go
Hello good bye!

“Beatenberg Buddha bounce” — returning to & from silence

“These are not my words” by Rachel Holstead

These are not my words,
any more than that is my sunlight
or this is my air.
But that is you
really breathing there,
deep rasping breaths,
as if you are reaching to
the bottom of your lungs
and clearing them out.

And that is your body
speaking itself,
unlike yesterday
when, light in dreams,
you danced and smiled,
your mind spinning
and turning in sleep.

And when the thought
‘you are not yourself’
comes into my mind,
I take a pen
and draw the lines of your face
just as they are
and draw them again
when you move
and again a moment later.

And somehow,
this anchors both of us
in the moments as they pass.
And thoughts of ‘you’ and ‘me’
are no longer important.
There is just the moment
and how it is.

Renew and retreat — a trio of humpbacks

Humanity overall here now
Struggles to find its balance
From emotional attachments
To detaching in responsibility
And realize cause and effect
A big step in consciousness
Understanding thus grows
Identity and power let go
Personalities of all sorts
Duality of one or another
Followers need their leaders
Students have many teachers
Slaves end up with masters
Thus the pendulum swings
With words and images
Our unfoldment as soul
Learning responsibility
We start as individual
That is as human being
Within humanity here now
Not enough but something
In the given limited window
To keep our relative comfort
Because nature always prevails
The question remains most simple
Will it be with or without humanity
And everything that goes with it
Leading to the ultimate wish
May all be well and happy!

“From red line to white plane” — a serene transition

Humanity overall expedient or definite

Instead of looking at the moon,
fools stare at its reflection in the water;
not finding the true sage,
fools follow the ignorant.

Rather than following the teacher,
follow the teachings.
Do not rely on the letter of the law,
but on its meaning.
Do not rely on the expedient meaning,
but the definite meaning.

— by Smriti Jnana, tenth-century Indian teacher and translator — The snow lion’s turquoise mane, Surya Das, pp. 59-60

Humanity’s race for expediency is stalling

Tukdam ཐུགས་དམ
Present still
And gone
For good
Transition
Carries on
Consciously
Beyond body
And the mind
So deep within
Let go without
All that was still
Sitting in silence
No more breath
Almost empty
Soul hovers
In due time
Moving on
Graciously
From one
To another
State to be
Here now
Incarnate
As we are
Detached
We see
The love
Life flows.

Tukdam ཐུགས་དམ refers to a post-mortem meditative state observed in advanced Tibetan Buddhist practitioners.

“Breath of life chant” — whistle breath plain

Dharmākaya ཆོས་སྐུ་

Dharmakāya refers to the formless body of the Buddha, to ultimate truth itself, reality, or the innate nature of all things.

Patrul said, “Don’t worry. There is actually nothing you cannot know! Don’t think about it.”
…
“Now we’ll unravel everything,” he promised. “Stay awake!”
Together they gazed up into the vast, empty firmament. In the distance they heard the barking of dogs…
“Dear friend, do you hear the dogs barking?”
“Yes,” Lungtok answered.
“That’s it!” … “Do you see the stars in the sky?”
Lungtok again answered affirmatively.
Patrul exclaimed, “That’s exactly it! It’s all intrinsic enlightened awareness… Don’t look elsewhere!”
Just then, in the gloaming, Lungtok’s non-dual wisdom eye opened. At that very moment his own mind and the Dharmākaya were absolutely inseparable; there was nothing to know or attain that had not been present all along. Then he wept for joy.

— The snow lion’s turquoise mane, Surya Das, pp. 49-50

Tukdam ཐུགས་དམ and dharmākaya ཆོས་སྐུ་ rememberance

Nothing to say
Now at long last
Silence at heart
Peace and free

Venturing out
Into community
Never ever alone
Inner and outer

Life and love
Light and sound
Spirit, the divine
And God indeed

All that is real
Nothing is not
Imagined maybe
All here and now

Embrace gently
Present moment
And be embraced
In sacred harmony

Nothing to say
Now at long last
Silence at heart
Peace and free

“Vanishing appearance” — frettless floating kiln

Nothing to say but most beautiful silence

“Initially, in our enthusiasm for our practice, we tend to take everything we hear or read as the gospel truth. This attitude often becomes even stronger when we join a community, follow a teacher, undertake a discipline. Yet all of the teachings of books, maps, and beliefs have little to do with wisdom or compassion. At best they are a signpost, a finger pointing at the moon, or the leftover dialogue from a time when someone received some true spiritual nourishment. To make spiritual practice come alive, we must discover within ourselves our own way to become conscious, to live a life of the spirit.”

“We can feel the mystery of being born into this body, of being here for the colors and sounds of this dance. In this simplicity something renews itself, something completes itself that is really already complete. What is beautiful can show itself in its silence.”

— A Path with Heart, Jack Kornfield, p. 158 and 159

Nothing more to say at all

Radical letting go of letting go
The overwhelming realizations
Of one’s own human limitations
Require letting go of all identity
Built again over entire lifetimes
Go up in fire’s flames at long last
Purging dual judgements of self
Making room for the unity of all
The one and only present moment
Where capitalized musts evaporate
Illusion and appearances of insight
Reality greater than we can know
Detached allow all currents flow
In and out freely through all of it
No more holding back as possible
So tremendously much to clean up
That accumulated over these times
With given beliefs and convictions
End up as complacency and hubris
Corruptions of insight and pseudo
Directed at all others but oneself
When actually looking into a mirror
Exclusively see just what one wants
Preferably glory plus shortcomings
Eventually balance out in between
With life and love, the joy of heart
Where all comes and goes freely
In and out heaven’s door here now
Wishing us all abundant equanimity

“Between light and sound” — Hungarian Gypsy equanimity

A path with heart requiring radical letting go

“Corruptions of insight refers to our attachment to and misuse of the genuinely positive phenomena that arise in practice… In pseudo-nirvana, students become stuck in positive states, trying to maintain them, grasping the clarity, power, or peace, using them to reinforce their subtle sense of being one who is awake, accomplished, free… Release from this level of attachment is a radical letting go… No matter what remarkable state arises, we must learn to allow it to come and go freely… [including] states of joy, equanimity, and clarity… noticing how they too arise and pass… Let go of everything, even the states and fruits of practice themselves, and … open to that which is beyond all identity.”

“Achaan Chah taught: If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have even more peace. So wherever you are attached, let go of that and come back to the center. Learn to see all movement of life with balance and openness.”

“Finally there is nothing to do but to let go… All that you take yourself to be — your separate body, mind, and individuality — can unravel before you until you discover that your limited identity is not your true nature… No matter where or how far you wander, the light is only a split second, a half breath away.”

— A Path with Heart, Jack Kornfield, pp. 147 and 153-156

Alpine salamander on a path with heart