Friday, December 22, 2017


Jan Frazier - Life After Thought



"The past is a sheer cliff just back of your heels. It’s all down there, so far below that when you look over your shoulder and down, you can barely make out details of any of the rubble. The moment before this one is down there, tumbled in with the wreckage of yesterday, last week, last year, and the first day of high school. It’s all the exact same amount of past. You are standing in a place that is just the size of your shoes. You will never move. You only seem to move. Your feet cannot be anywhere but this now. The mind is able to move. The feet are here while the mind is twenty years ago, or next week, or maybe-someday, or an hour ago. The feet and heart are here. The past has all dropped behind you, gone as gone can be, but the mind can’t quite believe the utter goneness. It cannot see the utter impossibility of reconsidering, of remaking what has happened. The uselessness of trying to make it okay that it happened the way it did. Consolation is as useless as regret. The thing about the past is that it is gone. And that it is a fact. These are the only useful things to see about the past.

The future doesn’t exist. Only one thing is real: now. Only when the past is allowed to be a mere fact, only when the future isn’t counted upon, does it become possible to take a deep breath and actually occupy the present. This is why the mind is so significant. Why seeing that the mind isn’t you, isn’t life, is key to being here now. Whatever the mind creates for content is at a remove from immediate life. Suffering is created in the mind. You can’t stop the mind. But you can step outside and watch it create content. The reason you can do this is that there is more to you than your mind. When you step outside and see what it’s doing, you are in reality. You are here, now. You are experiencing the moreness of yourself, the hereness of yourself. You are able to see, from here, that the mind cannot do you harm so long as you don’t live inside it, believing its rendering of reality. What people tend to do, when they want to end the mind’s torment, is to try to use the mind’s own arguments to vanquish itself, to reason with itself. This will never work.

Just let the mind go on muttering to itself. Walk outside the room where it’s going on. It’s peaceful out there. After a while of doing this, when you get to where you can readily step outside, you’ll find that the mental content fades from color to black-and-white. After a while, when you stop living within it, you’ll feel your feet where they are. You’ll feel your heart. You’ll smell the air. You’ll face the present reality, whatever it is, with all your resources (including, by the way, your useful mental resources). Your attention will be on what you’re doing. You’ll forget there is even a past back there, that there’s a pile of rubble far below, just back of your heels. It’s all just what happened, exactly how it happened. Nothing more. You’ll find acceptance easy, natural. You won’t be afraid of the future, or try to make it a certain way. You’ll forget it’s even coming, because all of your attention will be right here."



 

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Chuck Surface - After...



 After The Beloved Filled my Heart...

I read that tears would never again fall,
But they did, for the suffering of this world,
And still... She remained, Compassionate, Merciful.

I read that frustration would never come,
But it did, in ways both petty and great,
And still... She remained, Serene, Unmoved.

I read that the movement of desire would subside,
But it arose, even in the midst of Fullness,
And still... She remained, Ecstatic, Rapturous.

I read that thinking would cease at last,
But it did not, only the "thinker" vanished,
And still... She remained, Silent, Still.

I read that fear would never again well up,
But it did, the "weather" of emotion continuing,
And still... She remained, Untouched, Unmoved.

All that I had taken myself to be, remained,
After The Divine Thief stole my self,
And still... I remained, no longer me.

So many things written in scripture,
Proved so terribly misconstrued,
After The Beloved Filled my Heart.

For all that had been before,
Though forever changed by Her Presence,
Remained thereafter...

Except for me.


 





Mystic Meandering - Guru Cat



 Peering over the computer screen,
with piercing eyes,
Guru Cat said to me:

Today
start to de-clutter your life
of that which does not serve the Heart,
or nourish the soul;
whether people, or
situations, or
beliefs, or
your immediate environment
would be good...
Look at this mess!

Create space for
LIFE
to enter, to flow
through you.

Yes, Guru Cat - I said.
I cannot contort myself to
the forms that others have created
any longer...

Guru Cat said:

Today
start to pick up the lost pieces
of your tattered psyche,
let go of the frayed and loose ends
in the fabric of your current reality,
and open to
"The Mystery" of being.

Be at peace with life;
not afraid of what life will bring.

Yes, Guru Cat - I said.


Guru Cat said:

So - Today,
reclaim your Self,
the Eternal Being
that inhabits your form,
that allows you to move on,
past the scatteredness, through
the overwhelm, and the inertia,
moving into pure Aliveness...

Let go... Relax...
Play more!

Do you see what I'm saying...

Yes, Guru Cat - I said.
Got it...

Today
I will start
writing a new life;
as soon as my computer comes back on line...

Seeing life in a new way...
Opening to curiosity...
Accepting the uncertainty of living...
Exploring my inner Resource...
Embracing change...
Experiencing life as it is...
Content to just be...

_/\_
purrrrrrr
Mystic Meandering
Dec. 17, 2017




Sunday, December 17, 2017

Shebi-Arus: Rumi’s Wedding Night



December 17th is Shebi-Arus, the celebrated “wedding night” of the adored 13th century mystic poet and teacher, Jalal-a-din Rumi. This was the night of his passing and his reunion with the Beloved. On that day, there was much lament for the loss of a man and yet there was rejoicing in the elevation of his soul. 



Khamush (Silence)
(Jelal-a-din Rumi)

“There’s a moon inside every human being.
 Learn to be companions with it.
Give more of your life to this listening.
As brightness is to time, so you are to
the one who talks to the deep ear in
your chest. I should sell my tongue
and buy a thousand ears when that
one steps near and begins to speak.”
 

“Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance”
Camille and Kabir Helminski, 1996




 “Carry your baggage toward silence:
when you seek the signs of the Way,
don’t make yourself the focus of attention.
The Prophet said, “Know that amid the sea of cares
my Companions are like guiding stars.”
Fix your eye on the stars and seek the Way;
speech confuses the sight: be silent.”