Aisha Salem - Freedom

While on the Way,
enlightenment is a matter of Life and Death,
a Soul-wrenching defiance of want and will,
scraping its bloody knuckles against the raw and unmoving rock of naked Truth.

No chance to build a bridge or cut a deal,
with the sharp-eyed mistress of Reality,
always and ever demanding you to proceed and complete,
never land, never rest, never sleep,
just further and further until awake, alive and undone.

Worn to the bone and cut by the sword,
burned by the fire and dead to dreams and hopes,
one day nothing more happens and peace occurs,
by the end of the distorting wish for the false to be real.
of seeing the true as true.

No longer buried again and again,
by the fear of dying or the temptation to exist,
by concepts of friends, family, country or society, future, past or even now,
but enthralled in the blessed mist of non-knowing, non-needing, non-existing.

Happiness and its kin unhappiness, replacement by Joy,
Love and its kin hatred, replacement by vast openness,
Good and its buddy bad, buried in the sand-dunes of free Life,
no need for silence and no appreciation of noise.

True self of noself emanating as sweet nothing,
the sky be your hat as the ocean be your gut.
Simplicity no longer contested nor requested,
just naturally the result of peace.

No one knows in advance the resiliance of your stubborness,
or temperature of your passion,
only you can forge the Sword in the fire of Truth.

Enlightenment – after all –
is nothing but a crazy game for crazy people,
and yet, it might be the only game worth playing,
for the warrior foolish, passionate and demanding enough,
to be willing to die for nothing.

https://aishasalem.com/ 

 

Chuck Surface - The kiss of Grace

 I read one day...
That if I did not do thus,
And refrain from doing thus,
There would be no hope for me.

When I asked The Beloved of this,
She bound my hands, and Kissed my Heart.

I saw, the world over...
Brokenhearted souls struggling,
To perfect their imperfections,
Feeling it necessary to win Her Love.

When I asked The Beautiful One of this,
She covered my eyes, and Kissed my Heart.

I heard one day…
That from the multitudes of humanity,
Only a very few begin The Journey,
And that of these very few,
Only the most virtuous come to Her.

When I asked my Love of this,
She covered my ears, and Kissed my Heart.

In time, I fell into confusion and despair,
Having read, heard, and seen,
So many conflicting descriptions of "reality",
So many conflicting assertions of "truth".

When I asked The Bestower of Grace of this,
She stole my mind, and Kissed my Heart.

When I told the orthodox of this Kiss,
They mocked my madness and delusion,
Chided my arrogance and conceit,
And forbade me burial in holy ground.

When I asked The Merciful One of this,
She buried me in Her Heart.

www.GardenOfTheBeloved.com
www.facebook.com/InTheGardenOfTheBeloved

Harrison Rappaport - the Lust of Leaves for Sunlight

​At times,
I am no more.

then,
drunk with presence --

no Path
except right here,
right now.

no Prize
but the gentle unfolding
of this moment.

no Person,
only bright expanse
shimmering,
awake.

the same holy Life
in my eyes,
 in the old oak,

in the creeping philodendrons
emerald, burgeoning --
​
the blissful lust of leaves
for sunlight.

http://www.harrisonrappaport.com/ 

 

Mirabai Starr - Extravagent Stillness

November 27, 2011
Recently, my dear friend Nancy Laupheimer, founder and director of the Taos Chamber Music Group, invited me to write a poem in response to Schubert’s Noturrno to open a concert whose themes centered around this period of darkness and introspection. Here is the piece I wrote and performed last weekend for the program. 

 

Be patient, my heart.
The time of the cave is coming.
The season of quiet.
The deep drink of stillness you have been thirsting for.
Secret, luminous darkness.
Fruitful, radiant night.
Your access has been paid.
All year you have made an offering of your life,
Flung your treasures into the clamoring hands of the world.
You have lost yourself in the lyrics,
Recollected yourself in the silence,
Forgotten again and again where you come from,
Where you are meant to return.
Return.
You have filled your belly with the season’s harvest,
Grown robust on bowls of chile and beans,
Apple muffins spread with honey.
You have split and stacked your kindling, patched your cloak.
There is nothing left undone.
Drop the distractions, now, and head home.
The door is open.
Go in.
Deeper and deeper inward.
Enter the womb of the world and take refuge there.
This is not the season of sorrow, but of gratitude.
The extravagant, fiery beauty of autumn heralds the coming of the holy quiet.
Be still.
Be wildly, voluptuously quiet.
Embrace your solitude like the child you never thought you could birth,
Like the lover you thought had died in the war,
who parts the curtains of your innermost chamber
in the middle of the night and slips into bed beside you.

 http://mirabaistarr.com/

 

Mark Mc Closkey - How to enter the Silence

The wonder of silence, of being, of God, of nothingness, of awareness is that there is nothing you need to do to get anything or any of it. I repeat there is nothing that needs to be done, by you or anyone else. Pure Silence is, now. Our only problem is that we have been taught and conditioned by years and years of belief systems that we are not in touch with that which is infinite, that which is unnamed, unknowable and all mighty. And so we have invented philosophies and religions and techniques and there have been prophets and messiahs and teachers and gurus and a myriad of self-help seminars and books about it all. I say to you now, you need none of it. There is nothing to find out which is not already here right now. There is nothing to understand, nothing to learn ,nothing to experience, no enlightenment, no salvation, no heaven and no hell, no savior and no devil. There is only a subtle awareness you have right now that you are and that this awareness is gentle, silent and loving.

You are the silence. All you need do is realize that by attending to that. Jesus said "the Kingdom of Heaven is within you." Yes, that is where you should look, within your very being, mind, brain, soul, whatever. See what is always there, always stable, always you. Once you see that, once you feel that, once you know that, there is nothing more to learn or know. Then you start to live your human life with it's myriads of problems and situations out of that. And your life is lived out of this silent peace and anything that arises in your life will be met in the Pure Silence and you will know how to respond to whatever comes your way, in truth, in compassion and in total reliance on that which contains you and is you.

 
http://www.puresilence.org/index.htm

 

Seung Sahn - Before-thinking mind

Throw away all opinions, all likes and dislikes,
and only keep the mind that doesn’t know…
Your before-thinking mind, my before-thinking mind,
all people’s before-thinking minds are the same.
This is your substance.
Your substance, my substance,
and the substance of the whole universe become one.
So the tree, the mountain, the cloud, and you become one…
The mind that becomes one with the universe is before thinking.
Before thinking there are no words.
“Same” and “different” are opposites words;
they are from the mind that separates all things.”

 http://www.mmzen.org/seungsahn/