Author: jaysen

the role of suffering in awakening…

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“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
~ Carl Jung

this is the second time i’ve seen this Jung quote recently and its theme feels so present both on the micro level for my own journey and on the macro level in seeing the way the world is facing things regarding economics and the environment….all the while looking for quick ways to end the suffering without facing our own shadow’s relationship to this. i am reminded that “stuff” doesn’t just go away…it may be suppressed for a while, but it must rise and make itself known. when we do finally face it and recognize it and know it, then – then healing and transformation can take their rightful place.

namasté, friends ~ j

Transformational living…

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“Give me everything mangled and bruised, and I will make a light of it to make you weep. And we will have rain & begin again.” ~ Deena Metzger

i simply love the emphasis on transformation within this selected piece of writing by Deena Metzger. the well known Franciscan Richard Rohr often says that what we don’t “transform” we then often “transmit”. there is something so connected and intuitively right on with these messages of tranformation. within such a perspective, everything EVERYTHING is grist for the mill. is this not incarnation? don’t we see that this path, this sacred journey has been tread before? lived out in the life of Jesus, grounded in the sitting of the Buddha? and did not they both invite us to experience this and to live this ourselves?

we have the profound ability to take the ugliest of hurts and make them beautiful, to shine our light – setting aglow all that is sacred here and now. what’s more, is that we have the divine right and even responsibility to do so. the capacity of heart to hold the entire world, knowing it in Love, so that it can be recognized for what it is.

namasté

~ j

Roshi Joan Halifax quote…

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“What does refuge point to? What does it mean to come home, to be free from suffering, to be sheltered by a big and open sky? Thich Nhat Hanh once said that ‘the moment of awakening is marked by an outburst of laughter. But this is not the laughter of someone who suddenly acquires a great fortune. Neither is it the laughter of one who has won a great victory. It is, rather, the laughter of one who after having painfully searched for something a very long time finds it one morning in the pocket of his coat.’ This freedom is here within us at this very moment. Freedom then reveals the love that is also present and possible within our lives and between us.”
~ Roshi Joan Halifax

quote from the Talmud…

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“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
~ Talmud

…what an incredibly present reminder that we are simply instruments. opening our hearts, being present and aware, we simply do our part with ours lives as they are and have been given.

~ j

being the question…

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yes, yes, yes! friends, please read…

“If we attempt to explain the experience of ‘being the question,’ we can only talk around it. Because ‘being’ is an experience, and the moment we try to describe it we shut down around an idea. But perhaps we could attempt to describe it by saying that being the question has something to do with our ability to tolerate or bear witness to the full expressions of experience, rather than closing down around them and then reacting to them through our preferences.”

~ Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyal, “The Power of an Open Question”