allspirit : Message: Bodhisattvas
Thich Nhat Hanh, in “The Heart of the Buddha’s
Teaching,” says:

“When the six senses and their objects make
contact, this contact gives rise to a pleasant,
unpleasant, or neutral feeling. When a bodhisattva
sees a child suffering, she knows how it feels to
suffer, and she also has an unpleasant feeling. But
because of that suffering, concern and compassion
arise within her and she is determined to act.
Bodhisattvas suffer like the rest of us, but in a
bodhisattva, feelings do not give rise to craving or
aversion. They give rise to concern, the desire and
willingness to stay in the midst of suffering and
confusion, and act. “When a bodhisattva sees a beautiful
flower, she recognizes that the flower is beautiful.
But she also sees the nature of impermanence in the
flower. That is why there is no attachment. She has a
pleasant feeling, but it does not create an internal
formation. Emancipation does not mean that she suppresses
all feelings. When she comes into contact with hot
water, she knows it is hot. Feelings are normal. In fact,
these feelings help her dwell in happiness, not the kind
of happiness that is subject to sorrow and anxiety, but
the kind of happiness that nourishes.”

—
Gill
http://www.allspirit.co.uk/

allspirit : Message: Patience & Insight
“Patience has a quality of insight. One realizes
that plans can be made but that anything can
interfere with them. Sometimes this may even
be a good or kammic result. One is willing to
accept setbacks. If we can’t accept what happens
in our own life, we have double suffering. When
we push against something hard enough, our hand
starts to hurt. If we put our hand gently on a
door or wall there is no pain. Resisting or
wanting, that’s where all our suffering comes
from.”

~ Ayya Khema
From the book, “Being Nobody Going Nowhere”

—
Gill
http://www.allspirit.co.uk/

allspirit : Message: The Force of Friendship / Rumi
A sea-cow, a dugong, finds a special pearl
and brings it up on land at night. By the light it gives off
the dugong can graze on hyacinths and lilies.

The excrement of the dugong is precious ambergris
because it eats such beauty. Anyone who feeds on Majesty
becomes eloquent. The bee, from mystic inspiration,
fills its rooms with honey.

So the dugong grazes at night in the pearl-glow.
Presently, a merchant comes and drops black loam
over the pearl, then hides behind a tree to watch.

The dugong surges about the meadow like a blind bull.
Twenty times it rushes at nothing, passing the mound
where the pearl is.

So Satan couldn’t see
the spirit-center inside Adam.

God says, *Descend*,
and a huge pearl from Aden gets buried under dirt.
The merchant knows,
but the dugong doesn’t.

Every clay-pile with a pearl inside
loves to be near any other clay-pile with a pearl,
but those without pearls cannot stand to be near
the hidden companionship.

Remember the mouse on the riverbank?
There’s a love-string stretching into the water
hoping for the frog.

Suddenly a raven grips the mouse
and flies off. The frog too, from the riverbottom,
with one foot entangled in the invisible string,
follows, suspended in the air.
Amazed faces ask,
“*When did a raven ever go underwater
and catch a frog?*”
The frog answers,
“This is the force of Friendship.”
What draws friends together
does not conform to Laws of Nature.
Form doesn’t know about spiritual closeness.
If a grain of barley approaches a grain of wheat,
an ant must be carrying it. A black ant on black felt.
You can’t see it, but if grains go toward each other,
it’s there.

A hand shifts our birdcages around.
Some are brought closer. Some move apart.
Do not try to reason it out. Be conscious
of who draws you and who not.

Gabriel was always there with Jesus, lifting him
above the dark-blue vault, the night-fortress world,
just as the raven of longing carries the flying frog.

~Rumi Mathnawi, VI, 2922-2973
‘This Longing’ by Coleman Barks and John Moyne

—
gill
http://www.allspirit.co.uk

allspirit : Message: The Lover and the Beloved / Rumi
Indeed, no lover seeks union without his beloved seeking him.

But the love of lovers makes their bodies into bowstrings,
while the love of beloveds makes them happy and plump.

When the lightning of love for the loved one flashes in *this* heart,
know that there is also love in *that* heart.

When love for God has doubled in your heart,
without doubt God has love for you.

You have never heard one hand clapping without the other.

The thirsty man laments, “Oh sweet water!”
The water also laments, “Where is the drinker!”

This thirst in our souls is the attraction of the Water -
we belong to It and It belongs to us.

Jalaluddin Rumi’s Mathnawi, book 3, vv. 4393-4399,
from “The Sufi Path of Love,” translated by W. C. Chittick, p.209.

—
gill
http://www.allspirit.co.uk

allspirit : Message: Isaiah, Chapter 55 KJV
Chapter 55

1 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the
waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy,
and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without
money and without price.

2 Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not
bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth
not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that
which is good, and let your soul delight itself in
fatness.

3 Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your
soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting
covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

4 Behold, I have given him for a witness to the
people, a leader and commander to the people.

5 Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest
not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto
thee because of the LORD thy God, and for the Holy
One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee.

6 Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye
upon him while he is near:

7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous
man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD,
and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for
he will abundantly pardon.

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are
your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are
my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than
your thoughts.

10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from
heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the
earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may
give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my
mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it
shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

12 For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth
with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break
forth before you into singing, and all the trees of
the field shall clap their hands.

13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree,
and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle
tree: and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

allspiritinspiration : Message: Someone Untied Your Camel / Hafiz
I cannot sit still with my countrymen in chains.
I cannot act mute
Hearing the world’s loneliness
Crying near the Beloved’s heart.

My love for God is such
That I could dance with him tonight without you.
But I would rather have you there.

Is your caravan lost?

It is,
If you no longer weep from gratitude or happiness,
Or weep
From being cut deep with the awareness
Of the extraordinary beauty
That emanates from the most simple act
And common object.

My dear, is your caravan lost?

It is if you can no longer be kind to yourself
And loving to those who must live
With the sometimes difficult task of loving you.

At least come to know
That someone untied your camel last night
For I hear its gentle voice
Calling for God in the desert.

At least come to know
That Hafiz will always hold a lantern

With galaxies blooming inside
And that

I will always guide your soul to
The divine warmth and exhilaration
Of our Beloved’s
Tent.

‘The Gift’ - Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master’
Versions by Daniel Ladinsky

—
Gill
http://www.allspirit.co.uk/

allspiritinspiration : Message: Concept of God
I think our concept of God is a product of
our own dualistic thinking, which is that
things are either transcendent or immanent.
And I do not believe that anymore.

Spirit and matter are not split in the manner
we have stereo-typically thought of it. My
experience of God is of being transcendent and
immanent all at once…

I no longer belive that God is up there, and I
do not believe that God is only within me, and
I do not believe that God is merely out there in
history. I think we are actually in God at all
times.

~Sister Madonna Kolbenschlag

—
Gill
http://www.allspirit.co.uk/

allspirit : Message: Fw: Dharma Quote from Snow Lion Publications
Who is the supreme friend
always helpful in times of need?
Mindfulness of the spiritual instructions
learned through study and contemplation.
–The Seventh Dalai Lama

Ordinary friends desert us when we fall on hard
times or become an inconvenience in their lives. Others
simply disappear into their own destinies. Even our
spiritual teachers eventually die and leave us behind.

Our practice of the Dharma, however,
that has been cultivated by means of study, contemplation
and meditation, is the one sure anchor that keeps our ship
stable when the seas become choppy. In fact, the more
difficult the situation we encounter, the more helpful it
is to us.

When the Buddha had become very old and
was preparing to pass away, several of his disciples were
overcome with grief. They asked him, “What will we do after
you are gone?” He replied, “Whenever you rely upon my
teachings, at that time I am there with you.”

The Second Dalai Lama wrote, “When we
know how to rely on the Dharma, we are able to be happy in
every situation. Where could one find a more trustworthy and
reliable friend?”

–from Gems of Wisdom from the Seventh Dalai Lama
by Glenn H. Mullin, published by Snow Lion Publications

www.snowlionpub.com

—
gill
www.allspirit.co.uk

allspiritinspiration : Message: Every Grain of Sand
The Realization of the Nondual traditions is
uncompromising: There is only Spirit, there
is only God, there is only Emptiness in all
its radiant wonder. All the good and all the
evil, the very best and the very worst, the
upright and the degenerate — each and all
are radically perfect manifestations of Spirit
precisely as they are. There is nothing but
God, nothing but the Goddess, nothing but
Spirit in all directions, and not a grain of
sand, not a speck of dust, is more or less
Spirit than any other.

~Ken Wilber

Every Grain of Sand
Bob Dylan

In the time of my confession,
in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet
flood every newborn seed
There’s a dyin’ voice within me
reaching out somewhere,
Toiling in the danger and in
the morals of despair.

Don’t have the inclination to
look back on any mistake,
Like Cain,
I now behold this chain of events
that I must break.
In the fury of the moment
I can see the Master’s hand
In every leaf that trembles,
in every grain of sand.

Oh, the flowers of indulgence
and the weeds of yesteryear,
Like criminals,
they have choked the breath
of conscience and good cheer.
The sun beat down upon the steps
of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness
and the memory of decay.

I gaze into the doorway of
temptation’s angry flame
And every time I pass that way
I always hear my name.
Then onward in my journey
I come to understand
That every hair is numbered
like every grain of sand.

I have gone from rags to riches
in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer’s dream,
in the chill of a wintry light,
In the bitter dance of loneliness
fading into space,
In the broken mirror of innocence
on each forgotten face.

I hear the ancient footsteps like
the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there,
other times it’s only me.
I am hanging in the balance
of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling,
like every grain of sand.

—
Gill
http://www.allspirit.co.uk/

allspiritinspiration : Message: waves

“If you wish to calm waves, when you try to make
this happen, they arise all the more. Likewise,
even if you apply antidotes to ideation, the waves
of thoughts will flow out again.

When you just leave them alone, after awhile the
waves of water will subside. Likewise, if you know
how to practice at ease, without exertion, the waves
of ideation will naturally be calmed.”
~ Rendawa Zhonnu Lodro

from the book, “Naked Awareness, Practical Instructions
on the Union of Mahamudra and Dzognchen,” published by
Snow Lion

—
gill
Allspirit Website:
http://www.allspirit.co.uk