“In the union of form and emptiness, our bodies and minds and the whole phenomenal world are not rejected but rather are found to be direct expressions of the sacred.”
let us honor Life, by loving each other, showing kindness & compassion toward one another, standing up in solidarity with one another.
let us keep this thought close in the coming days, weeks, months, years. may it inform how we speak & act, how we engage our world, in support of liberty, equality, & democracy.
“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”
~ Meister Eckhart
in the light of awareness we can see that from cradle to grave, everything in this life – including this life itself – is something given. even in our accomplishments, hidden within, is the gift of opportunity, & privilege of place & time.
it will sound silly to some, but when i go for walks, i thank each tree i pass for Being. without that tree, i wouldn’t be able to breathe. silly or not, it is a hard truth that i owe my oxygen breathing form of life to that tree & all others that provide for my breathing on this planet.
can we take some time today, to look at each area of our life, each relationship, & notice how we are impacted? can we take it a step further, & look at the hard stuff, the challenging stuff in our lives, & see what it can teach us? that too, can be a gift.
gratitude is a spiritual practice, an exercise in awareness & opening of heart, for all that is given & for the interdependent nature of life itself.
“The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.
~Yasutani Roshi
our suffering can be traced back to the misunderstanding that we are separate from other life, rather than intricately & interdependently connected. this misunderstanding leads to an underlying unease that brings about a grasping of things we think will make us feel safe & whole, & an aggression – pushing things away – of anything or anyone that appears to threaten this sense of separate self we think we have. anything uncomfortable is pushed away. so we end up ping-ponging back & forth between these two in how we relate to each other & our world. it leads to a kind of neurosis, a paranoia & desperation. but it doesn’t have to be this way. we can become aware once again of our intrinsic nature which is one of union & wholeness, of open-heartedness & ease. then we can live from such spaciousness, reminding the world of its beauty, its true nature & origin in love.
can we include everything in our practice of love? even the imperfections – the parts that have fallen away from love & out of harmony? can we open our heart to our own supposed brokenness & that of others? are we able to have the capacity of heart to include the things that may stretch our willingness to love & are just outside of our understanding?
can we see that all of this is sacred grist for the mill?
we are called to be alchemists in a way, to love our neighbor no matter. it is only with an open heart of love that we begin to see that everyone & everything is our neighbor.
& perhaps it is only in such love – a love that doesn’t condone harm & falsity, yet remains open & free from constriction – that those who may be lost in anger & hate, find transformation, healing, & home.
may we be instruments of such love in our time, speaking the truth of love & protecting the vulnerable.
“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”
~ Pablo Neruda
have hope friends, in the turning of seasons & the turning of hearts. life itself is potential & opportunity manifest. all of life comes together to support the return of balance & forward movement. flowing, flowing.