Luke 17:20-21, John 15:12

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The reference of the metaphor in religious traditions is to something transcendent that is not literally any thing. If you think that the metaphor is itself the reference, it would be like going to a restaurant, asking for the menu, seeing beefsteak written there, and starting to eat the menu. 

For example, Jesus ascended to heaven. The denotation would seem to be that somebody ascended to the sky. That’s literally what is being said. But if that were really the meaning of the message, then we have to throw it away, because there would have been no such place for Jesus literally to go. We know that Jesus could not have ascended to heaven because there is no physical heaven anywhere in the universe. Even ascending at the speed of light, Jesus would still be in the galaxy. Astronomy and physics have simply eliminated that as a literal, physical possibility.

But if you read “Jesus ascended to heaven” in terms of its metaphoric connotation, you see that he has gone inward – not into outer space but into inward space, to the place from which all being comes, into the consciousness that is the source of all things, the kingdom of heaven within. The images are outward, but their reflection is inward. The point is that we should ascend with him by going inward. It is a metaphor of returning to the source, alpha and omega, of leaving the fixation on the body behind and going to the body’s dynamic source.

—Joseph Campbell

Odilon Redon

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bless

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May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young.


—Bob Dylan 

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gray herons in the field above the river

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Now that the nights turn longer than the days
we are standing in the still light after dawn

in the high grass of autumn that is green again
hushed in its own place after the burn of summer

each of us stationed alone without moving
at a perfect distance from all the others

like shadows of ourselves risen out of our shadows
each eye without turning continues to behold

what is moving
each of us is one of seven now

we have come a long way sailing our opened clouds
remembering all night where the world would be

the clear shallow stream the leaves floating along it
the dew in the hushed field the only morning

—W. S. Merwin

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whiskeyriver

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you are that

A large strawberry squid, one of three caught on the last trawl of the Deep-See cruise. 

Photo: NOAA Fisheries

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Your body is made of the same elements that lionesses are built from. Three - quarters of you is the same kind of water that beats rocks to rubble, wears stones away. Your DNA translates into the same twenty amino acids that wolf genes code for. 

When you look in the mirror and feel weak, remember, the air you breathe in fuels forest fires capable of destroying everything they touch. On the days you feel ugly, remember: diamonds are only carbon. You are so much more.


—Curtis Ballard

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wait - what ?

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the law of love

 

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Love is the basis of the spirit
and the law of love is the basis of creation.

—Walter Russell

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The sign of God’s love is to bestow three attributes on His lover: 

A generosity like that of the sea, 

a kindness like that of the sun, and, 

a humility like that of the earth.


—Bayazid

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on the road home

 

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It was when I said,

“There is no such thing as the truth,”

That the grapes seemed fatter.

The fox ran out of his hole.

You….You said,

“There are many truths,

But they are not parts of a truth.” 

Then the tree, at night, began to change,

Smoking through green and smoking blue.

We were two figures in a wood.

We said we stood alone.

It was when I said,

“Words are not forms of a single word.

In the sum of the parts, there are only the parts.

The world must be measured by eye.”

It was when you said,

“The idols have seen lots of poverty,

Snakes and gold and lice,

But not the truth;”

It was at that time, that the silence was largest,

And longest, the night was roundest.

The fragrance of the autumn warmest,

Closest, and strongest.

—Wallace Stevens

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virtue

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largerloves

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before the names

 

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I dream of the silence
the day before Adam came
to name the animals,

The gold skins newly dropped
from God's bright fingers, still
implicit with the light. 

A day like this, perhaps:
a winter whiteness
haunting the creation,

as we are sometimes
haunted by the space
we fill, or by the forms

we might have known
before the names,
beyond the gloss of things.

—John Burnside

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white fox image

 

two tanka

 

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From outside my house,

only the faint distant sound

of gentle breezes

wandering through bamboo leaves

in the long evening silence.

Late evening finally

comes: I unlatch the door

and quietly

await the one

who greets me in my dreams.


–Otomo No Yakamochi

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images - Nordin Seruyan,
central Borneo
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just sit

 

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We just sit.

It is like something happening in the great sky.

Whatever kind of bird flies through it, the sky doesn’t care.

That is the mind transmitted from Buddha to us.


—Shunryu Suzuki

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question

 

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What happens when your soul
begins to awaken
your eyes
and your heart
and the cells of your body
to the great Journey of Love?

First there is wonderful laughter
and probably precious tears

and a hundred sweet promises
and those heroic vows
no one can ever keep.

But still God is delighted and amused
you once tried to be a saint.

What happens when your soul
begins to awake in this world

to our deep need to love

and serve the Friend?

Oh, the Beloved

will send you

one of his wonderful, wild companions –

Like Hafiz.

—Hafiz

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clarity

 

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Love with no object. 
There is a way of loving not attached to what is loved.  

Observe how water is with the ground, always moving toward the ocean, though the ground tries to hold water’s foot and not let it go.

This is how we are with wine and beautiful food, wealth and power, or just a dry piece of bread: we want and we get drunk with wanting, then the headache and bitterness afterward.

Those prove that the attachment took hold and held you back. Now you proudly refuse help. “My love is pure. I have an intuitive union with God. I don’t need anyone to show me how to be free!”

This is not the case. A love with no object is a true love.
All else, shadow without substance.

Have you seen someone fall in love with his own shadow? That’s what we’ve done. Leave partial loves and find one that’s whole.

Where is someone who can do that? They’re so rare, those hearts that carry the blessing and lavish it over everything.

Hold out your beggar’s robe and accept their generosity. Anything not coming from that will damage the cloth, like a sharp stone tearing your sincerity.

Keep that intact, and use clarity; call it reason or discernment, you have within you a deciding force that knows what to receive, what to turn from.

—Rumi 

Mathnawi III: 2248-80

Coleman Barks version

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love is a place

 

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The Sky where we live
Is no place to lose your wings.

So love, love,

Love.


—Hafiz

 

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meta(morph

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See the dream as dream.

There is no need of a way out of the dream!
Can you see that a way out is also a part of the dream?

All you have to do is see the dream as dream.
The very idea of going beyond the dream is illusory.

Why go anywhere? Just realize that you are dreaming a dream you call the world, and stop looking for ways out.

The problem is not the dream.
Your problem is that you like one part of your dream and not another.

Love all, or none of it, without complaint.

When you have seen the dream as a dream,
you have done all that needs be done.


—Nisargadatta Maharaj

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you know ...

 

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What is called the world is only thought.

—Ramana Maharshi

. . .

You are not what you think yourself to be, I assure you. 

The image you have of yourself is made up from memories and is purely accidental.


—Nisargadatta Maharaj

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for nothing is fixed

 

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For nothing is fixed,
 

forever, forever, forever, 


it is not fixed;
 

the earth is always shifting,

the light is always changing,

the sea does not cease to grind down rock.

Generations do not cease to be born,
 

and we are responsible to them
 

because we are the only witnesses they have.
 

The sea rises, the light fails, 


lovers cling to each other, 


and children cling to us.
 

The moment we cease to hold each other, 


the moment we break faith with one another,
 

the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

—James Baldwin

For Nothing Is Fixed

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like this

 

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If anyone asks you

how the perfect satisfaction

of all our longing

will look, lift your face

and say,

Like this.

When someone mentions the gracefulness

of the night sky, climb up on the roof

and dance and say,

Like this?

If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,

or what "God's fragrance" means,

lean your head toward him or her.

Keep your face there close,

Like this.

When someone quotes the old adage

about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,

slowly loosen knot by knot the strings

of your robe,

Like this?

If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,

don't try to explain the miracle.

Kiss me on the lips,

Like this. Like this.

When someone asks what it means

to "die for love," point

here.

If someone asks how tall I am, frown

and measure with your fingers the space

between the creases on your forehead.

This tall.

The soul sometimes leaves the body, then returns.

When someone doesn't believe that,

walk back into my house.

Like this.

I am a sky where spirits live.

Stare into this deepening blue,

While the breeze says a secret.

Like this.

When someone asks what there is to do,

light the candle in his hand.

Like this.

How did Joseph's scent come to Jacob?

Huuuu.

How did Jacob's sight return?

Huuuuu. 

A little wind cleans the eyes.

Like this.

When Shams comes back from Tabriz,

he'll put just his head around the edge

of the door to surprise us.

Like this.


—Rumi
Coleman Barks version

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a triangle has a spiritual value of its own

 

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Many colors have been described as rough or sticky, others as smooth and uniform, so that one feels inclined to stroke them (e.g., dark ultramarine, chromic oxide green, and rose madder). Equally the distinction between warm and cold colors belongs to this connection. Some colors appear soft (rose madder), others hard (cobalt green, blue-green oxide), so that even fresh from the tube they seem to be dry. The expression “scented colors” is frequently met with. And finally the sound of colors is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would try to express bright yellow in the bass notes, or dark lake in the treble… 

Color is a power which directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul. 

This essential connection between color and form brings us to the question of the influences of form on color. Form alone, even though totally abstract and geometrical, has a power of inner suggestion. A triangle (without the accessory consideration of its being acute — or obtuse — angled or equilateral) has a spiritual value of its own. In connection with other forms, this value may be somewhat modified, but remains in quality the same. The case is similar with a circle, a square, or any conceivable geometrical figure [which has] a subjective substance in an objective shell. 

The work of art is born of the artist in a mysterious and secret way. From him it gains life and being. Nor is its existence casual and inconsequent, but it has a definite and purposeful strength, alike in its material and spiritual life. It exists and has power to create spiritual atmosphere; and from this inner standpoint one judges whether it is a good work of art or a bad one. If its “form” is bad it means that the form is too feeble in meaning to call forth corresponding vibrations of the soul… The artist is not only justified in using, but it is his duty to use only those forms which fulfill his own need… Such spiritual freedom is as necessary in art as it is in life.


—Wassily Kandinsky (1866 - 1944)
Concerning the Spiritual in Art

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source and photo

Andy Ilachinski
taoofdigitalphotography
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tru(ly

  

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If you expect any benefits from your search, material, mental or spiritual, you have missed the point. 

Truth gives no advantage. It gives no higher status, no power over others; all you get is truth and freedom from the false.

—Nisargadatta Maharaj

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in the privacy of the home

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You want to get a good look at yourself. You stand before a mirror, you take off your jacket, unbutton your shirt, open your belt, unzip your fly. The outer clothing falls from you. You take off your shoes and socks, baring your feet. You remove your underwear. At a loss, you examine the mirror. There you are. You are not there.


—Mark Strand

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looking for God

 

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I long for You so much

I follow barefoot Your frozen tracks 

That are high in the mountains

That I know are years old.

I long for You so much 
I have even begun to travel
Where I have never been before.

Hafiz, there is no one in this world

Who is not looking for God.

Everyone is trudging along

With as much dignity, courage

And style

As they possibly 

Can.


—Hafiz

Daniel Ladinsky translation

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be calm and full of peace

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Drink water from the spring where horses drink. The horse will never drink bad water. Lay your bed where the cat sleeps. Eat the fruit that has been touched by a worm. Boldly pick the mushroom on which the insects sit. Plant the tree where the mole digs. Dig your fountain where the birds hide from the heat. Go to sleep and wake up at the same time with the birds – you will reap all of the day’s golden grains. 

Eat more green – you will have strong legs and a resistant heart, like the beings of the forest. Swim often and you will feel on earth like the fish in the water. Look at the sky as often as possible and your thoughts will become light and clear. Be quiet a lot, speak little – and silence will come in your heart, and your spirit will be calm and full of peace.

—Saint Seraphim of Sarov

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wait - what ?

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note to self

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I never saw a wild thing

sorry for itself.


A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough

without ever having felt sorry for itself.


—D. H. Lawrence

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Doug Dance/Gray Skies

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bless

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On the journey of the warrior-bodhisattva, the path goes down, not up, as if the mountain pointed toward the earth instead of the sky. Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward turbulence and doubt however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. 

If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of bodhichitta. Bodhichitta is our heart—our wounded, softened heart. 

Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die. This love is bodhichitta. It is gentle and warm; it is clear and sharp; it is open and spacious. The awakened heart of bodhichitta is the basic goodness of all beings.


—Pema Chödrön
Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion

 

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It is our suffering that brings us together. It is not love. 

Love does not obey the mind, and turns to hate when forced.


—Ursula K. Le Guin
The Dispossessed

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