Hope is good. For many, it is the only reason to keep on living. The prisoner 
hangs on, thinking of the day when he will be released. The cancer patient looks 
at statistics, and finds solace in a greater than zero odd of remission. The 
spiritual seeker draws much strength from reading accounts of happiness 
awaiting. The participant in MBSR training keeps on coming to the group, 
inspired by tales of others before her who have cut their pain symptoms in half. 
The abused child seeks refuge in fantasies of another life, one day . . . 

Hope is sometimes the only thread left, between life and death.

Hope is also a double-edged sword, and a state of mind that keeps us in the 
future, and seals the deal of our present unhappiness. So many times, I find 
myself not liking the current moment, and hoping for, rehearsing a different 
life. If only . . . When . . . Some day . . . So many variations in the mind, 
around what really amounts to a profound hatred of the present experience, and a 
denial of life itself. 

Hope lures us with its false sweetness. 

Hope is ok, as long as it comes with an acceptance of the now. A tricky balance, 
best maintained by keeping hope contained in the broad field of big intentions, 
and out of moment-to-moment living. It's somewhat akin to steering our boat 
towards a lovely place, and then forgetting about our destination, and making 
room for all the experiences along the way. Not expecting anything else but what 
is offered to us, right now. The storms, the rough waves, the sleepless nights, 
the beautiful sunsets, the stillness, the dolphins . . . Not wasting a single 
minute of the journey.

~ Marguerite Manteau-Rao ~ 

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

by Naomi Shihab Nye from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

"Undisturbed calmness of the mind is attained by cultivating friendliness towards the happy, mercy and compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous and indifference* towards the wicked."

 Patanjali, father of Hindu psychology 

1 Corinthians 13.1-8

The Gift of Love

13If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,^* but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 

"A desire arises in the mind. It is satisfied; immediately another comes.

In the interval which separates two desires a perfect calm reigns in the mind. It is at this moment freed from all thought, love or hate.

Complete peace equally reigns between two mental waves."

~Swami Sivananda

THE SUNRISE RUBY by Rumi (translation by Coleman Barks)

In the early morning hour,

just before dawn, lover and beloved wake

and take a drink of water.

She asks, "Do you love me or yourself more?

Really, tell me the absolute truth."

He says, "There's nothing left of me.

I'm like a ruby held up to the sunrise.

Is it still a stone, or a world

made of redness? It has no resistance

to sunlight."

This is how Hallaj said, I am God,

and told the truth!

The ruby and the sunrise are one.

Be courageous and discipline yourself.

Completely become hearing and ear,

and wear this sun-ruby as an earring.

Work. Keep digging your well.

Don't think about getting off from work.

Water is there somewhere.

Submit to a daily practice.

Your loyalty to that

is a ring on the door.

Keep knocking, and the joy inside

will eventually open a window

and look out to see who's there.

Shams of Tabriz said:  "The past is an interpretation.  The future is an illusion.  The world does not move through time as if it were a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future. Instead time moves through and within us, in endless spirals.
Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness.
If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the present moment."

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

"What always strikes me is how intelligent we are as human beings, and yet how often we miss this very simple truth: we want happiness but the ways we go about trying to get it cause us to suffer. Whenever you ask yourself why you’re having a cigarette or why you’re saying a mean word, the answer is usually that in your guts you feel it will bring some satisfaction. Yet, if you ask yourself if what you are doing has ever given you satisfaction, your honest answer would have to be no. Nevertheless, we keep right on doing it. This kind of stupidity seems to run very deep in human beings. Pema Chodron in "Let’s Be Honest."*

*Interview published in Shambhala Sun, http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2864&Itemid=0

YOU

  "There is vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, the expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is; nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares with others expressions. It is your business to keep it clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate YOU. Keep the channel open . . . no artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at anytime. There is only a quiet, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keep us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille

Desires

 

"All holy desires grow by delay; and if however they lessen by delay, they were never holy desires."
 

St. Gregory (Patrologia Latina 76:1190)

From the PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED by Paulo Freire:

"For the naive thinker, the important thing is accommodation to this normalized "today." For the critic, the important thing is the continuing transformation of reality, in behalf of the continuing humanization of men" (73).

"The goal will no longer be to eliminate the risks of temporality by clutching to guaranteed space, but rather to temporalize space... The universe is revealed to me not as space, imposing a massive presence to which I can but adapt, but as a scope, a domain which takes shape as I act upon it" (22-27).

Pierre Furter, Educação e Vida (Rio, 1966)

First Spring Class + Poem

Greetings Beloved:

Our first practice at YDS this summer was invigorating. We carried a heart felt sequence in bridging all levels yogic experience present in the Chapel into a harmonious communion. The next day some were a bit sore by the awakening of forgotten muscles. May we continue to support each other in the practice, awake all molecules of the physical, mental and spiritual body.

Below is a poem that came to me as I flew over the Pacific on the way to my teacher training in Hawaii. May this be an offering acceptable to your heart.

rippled Apah mat
to infinite curvature
Aditya plucking
white clouds from you

Surya burning within
desiring no desire
Trout
Coconut
Saxophone

May you be happy and at peace and may I be blessed with your presence once again,

Alex

Brhadaranyaka Upanisad III 4:2

'You cannot see the seer of seeing; you cannot hear the hearer of hearing; you cannot think of the thinker of thinking; you cannot know the knower of knowing. This is yourself that is within everything. What is other than this is suffering.' Then Usasta Chakrayana fell silent.

Brhadaranyaka Upanisad II 4:14

'For where there is duality, one smells another, one sees another, one hears another, one speaks to another, one thinks of another, one knows another. But where everything in one has become self,how can one smell-and whom? How can one see-and whom? How can one hear-and whom? How can one speak and to whom? How one think-and of whom? How can one know that by which one knows all this? How can one know the knower?

Brhadaranyaka Upanisad II 4:11

'As the ocean is the one meeting-place of all waters, so the skin is the one meeting-place of all touches, the nostrils are the one meeting-place of all smells, the tongue the meeting-place of all tastes, the eye is the one meeting-place of all shapes, the ear is the one meeting-place of all sounds, the mind the meeting-place of all decisions, the heart is the one meeting-place of all knowledge, the hands are the one meeting-place of all works, the loins are the one meeting-place of all pleasures, the anus is the one meeting-place of all excretions, the feet are the one meetings-place of all roads, and the voice is the one meeting-place of all the Vedas.'

Bhagavad Gita

Chapter 18
51-53 Unerring in his discrimination, sovereign of his senses and passions, free from the clamor of likes and dislikes, he leads a simple, self-reliant life based on meditation, cointrolling his speech, body, and mind. Free from self-will, aggressiveness, arrogance, anger, and the lust to possess people or things, he is at peace with himself and others and enters into the unitive state.

54 United with Brahman, ever joyful, beyond the reach of desire and sorrow, he has equal regard for every living creature and attains supreme devotion to Me.

55 By loving Me he comes to know Me truly; then he knows My glory and enters into My boundless being.

56 All his acts are performed in My service and through My Grace he wins eternal life.

57 Make every act an offering to Me; regard Me as your only protector, relying on interior discipline, meditate on Me always.

58 Remembering Me, you shall overcome all difficulties through My Grace. But if you will not heed Me in your self-will, nothing avail you.

59 If you egotistically say, "I will not fight this battle," your resolve will be useless; your own nature will drive you into it.

60 Your own karma, born of your own nature, will drive you to do even that which you do not wish to do, because of your delusion.

61 The Lord dwells in the hearts of all creatures whirls them around upon the wheel of Maya.

62 Run to Him for refuge with all your strength, and peace profpund will be yours through his Grace.

63 I give you these precious words of wisdom; reflect on them and then do as you choose.

64 These are the last words I shall speak to you, dear one, for your spiritual fulfillment. You are dear to Me.

65 Be aware of me always, adore Me. Make every act an offering to me, and you shall come to me.

66 Abandon all supports and look to me for protection. I shall purify you from the sins of the past, do not grieve.

Sound

As when a drum is beaten
one cannot seize the sounds as something outside it
but by seizing the drum or the drummer
one has seized the sound

Brhadaranyaka Upanisad II 4:7

Thomas Merton

“Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. And there, too, a great deal has to be done though, as gradually you struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. The range tends to narrow down, but it gets much more real.

In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything. The great thing, after all, is to live—not to pour out our life in the service of a myth. If you can get free from the domination of causes and just serve Christ’s truth, you will be less crushed by the inevitable disappointments. Because I see nothing whatever in sight but much disappointment, frustration, and confusion… The real hope, then, is not in something we think we can do, but in God who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see. If we can do God’s will, we will be helping in this process.”

Thomas Merton to Jim Forrest from the Fellowship of Reconciliation