stillness

September 2022 (Vol. XXXV, No. 8)

Dear Friends ~ When things fall apart, may we learn to embrace the complexity of our lives, befriending our uncertainty and our own lack of control. This is the unwanted doorway to the birth of new life within us. ~ Bob Sabath

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Proverbs and Tiny Songs

Antonio Machado THE SOUL IS HERE FOR ITS OWN JOY
I love Jesus, who said to us:
heaven and earth will pass away.
When heaven and earth have passed away,
my word will still remain.
What was your word, Jesus?
Love? Forgiveness? Affection?
All your words were
one word: Wakeup.

Open my eyes a little more

Jules Renard The Journal of Jules Renard
If I were to begin life again, I should want it as it was. I would only open my eyes a little more...

Entering the Kingdom

Mary Oliver DEVOTIONS
The dream of my life
Is to lie down by a slow river
And stare at the light in the trees —
To learn something by being nothing
A little while but the rich
Lens of attention.

Conscious love

Maurice Nicoll PSYCHOLOGICAL COMMENTARIES ON THE WORKS OF GURDJIEFF AND OUSPENSKI
I will also tell you a secret. We have to will one another: this is the beginning of conscious love.

The whole world falls in

Mother Teresa Mother Teresa: Quotable Wisdom

May God break my heart so deeply the whole world falls in.

Deep awareness

Thich Nhat Hanh TOUCHING PEACE
When you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything.

You come to see that suffering is required

John G. Bennett TEACHINGS FROM SHERBORNE
You come to see that suffering is required; and you no more want to avoid it than you want to avoid putting your next foot on the ground when you are walking. In the spiritual path, joy and suffering follow one another like the two feet and you come to a point of not minding which 'foot' is on the ground. You realize on the contrary that it is extremely uncomfortable hopping all the time on the joy foot.

Degree of presence

Alan Watts THE WISDOM OF INSECURITY
Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence.

Opening us up

Joanna Macy A WILD LOVE FOR THE WORLD
When we hear the sounds of the Earth crying within us, we're unblocking the channels of felt connectedness that join us to the world. These channels act like a system, opening us up to a source of strength and resilience.

The relation of contemplation to action

Thomas Merton THOMAS MERTON SPIRITUAL MASTER: ESSENTIAL WRITINGS
What is the relation of contemplation to action? Simply this. He who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others.

That is the mystery

Katherine Mansfield THE JOURNAL OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change. So suffering becomes love. That is the mystery.

I sat still for three days

Kabir LOVE POEMS FROM GOD
I felt in need of a great pilgrimage. So I sat still for three days.

The hardest spiritual work

Barbara Brown Taylor An Altar in the World
The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self - to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it.

If the heart wanders or is distracted

St. Francis de Sales INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVOUT LIFE
If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently... And even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.

The feminine side of love

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee LOVE IS A FIRE
Sadly, because our culture has devalued the feminine, we have repressed so much of her nature, so many of her qualities. Instead we live primarily masculine values; we are goal-oriented, competitive, driven. Masculine values even dominate our spiritual quest; we seek to be better, to improve ourselves, to get somewhere. We have forgotten the feminine qualities of waiting, listening, being empty. We have dismissed the deep need of the soul, our longing, the feminine side of love.

Life is a good teacher and a good friend

Pema Chodron WHEN THINGS FALL APART

Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don't get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It's a very tender, non-aggressive, open-ended state of affairs.

To stay with that shakiness — to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness — that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic — this is the spiritual path. Getting the knack of catching ourselves, of gently and compassionately catching ourselves, is the path of the warrior.

Life is a good teacher and a good friend

Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don't get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It's a very tender, non-aggressive, open-ended state of affairs.

To stay with that shakiness — to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness — that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic — this is the spiritual path. Getting the knack of catching ourselves, of gently and compassionately catching ourselves, is the path of the warrior.

Entering the Kingdom

The dream of my life
Is to lie down by a slow river
And stare at the light in the trees —
To learn something by being nothing
A little while but the rich
Lens of attention.

If the heart wanders or is distracted

If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently... And even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.

The relation of contemplation to action

What is the relation of contemplation to action? Simply this. He who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others.

Proverbs and Tiny Songs

I love Jesus, who said to us:
heaven and earth will pass away.
When heaven and earth have passed away,
my word will still remain.
What was your word, Jesus?
Love? Forgiveness? Affection?
All your words were
one word: Wakeup.

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