🌀

today is the Feast Day of St. John of the Cross. one of my favorite Christian Catholic mystics, he is patron saint to contemplatives & mystics. a poet & deep seeker/surrenderer to union with Divine Love. out of much suffering was born an open heart of love and service.

two quotes i’d like to share:

“Tenderly, I now touch all things,

knowing one day we will part.”

what wisdom! to see the impermanence of things and love’s place in holding it all.

“They can be like a sun, words.

They can do for the heart what light can for a field.”

what wisdom! to see the power of life, giving words. a condemnation on the use of words by the most powerful in this time to deceive, & propagate, cruelty, harm, & destruction.

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

🌀

Awake in the world

What is this meditation?

Dirt beneath these nails.

~j

love is not an escape path, a way to transcend, to bypass, to be apart or above. love calls us into the very depths of meeting suffering where it is at with our open, tender hearts. love invites us into a wider, a larger view, a Mahayana view that includes the wellbeing of ALL. how else can we be of benefit or instruments of healing and peace in this world? how can it be love, if it is otherwise?

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#love #OpenHeart #haiku #JinpaLhaga #JMWart

🌀

if not us, who?

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#care #empathy #OpenHeart #JinpaLhaga #JMWart

🌀

It is this tender heart 

that has the power 

to transform the world.

~ 

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

⭕️♥️🙏🏼 

#ChogyamTrungpa #OpenHeart #tenderness #JinpaLhaga #JMWart

🌀

when facing cruelty, harm, & destruction as we are, the only sane response is love. but that love will take different forms, meeting needs & people where they are. sometimes it will look like tender consolation, sometimes it will look like grace & generosity, sometimes it will look like fierce compassion pushing back against misaligned, unbalanced power & force. in all cases, it is based in empathy & a recognition of our interdependence & our role in being embodiments of love, healing, transformation, & true peace for a world in need. it’s our sacred duty, responsibility, & privilege if we are aware.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#love #OpenHeart #SacredDuty #practice #path #JinpaLhaga #JMWart 

with the passing of Tom Stoppard recently, i recalled that i have been in a Stoppard play! my first paid acting job no less! 1996 at North Coast Repertory Theatre, nearly 30 years ago. one of his lighter, less philosophical shows, yet still filled with Stoppard word play. good memory. here are some pics from the production, featuring me with youth and hair! 😂

🌀

“War and peace start in the human heart. Whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications (and) as long as we justify our own hard-heartedness and our own self-righteousness, joy and peace will always elude us.”  

~ Pema Chödrön

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#war #peace #OpenHeart #PemaChodron #JinpaLhaga #JMWart

🌀

i wrote this as part of my morning meditation & prayer practice. a practice to bless the moment, the beginning of the day. thought i would share in case others may find some benefit from it.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#practice #ritual #bless #OpenHeart #JinpaLhaga #JMWart

🌀

this moment is asking each of us, who we are in this moment, & deeper than that, who we are beyond this moment & in all moments. where do we find our center? what kind of understanding has all of this life up until this moment led us to? from there we find our words & actions will follow. may they be from a space of awareness, wisdom, & love.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#wayfarer #journey #life #love #JinpaLhaga #JMWart

🌀

a grateful heart is an open heart.

gratitude is a practice.

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#gratitude #practice #OpenHeart #JinpaLhaga #JMWart