Thursday, March 19, 1998

Silence is the language of God;

It is also the language of the heart.

~ Dag Hammerskjold

 Monday, March 23, 1998

Brother Steindhl-Rast reminds us that the Chinese word for "busy" is composed of two characters: "heart" and "killing." When we make ourselves so busy that we are always rushing around trying to get this or that "done" or "over with," we kill something vital in ourselves, and we smother the quiet wisdom in our heart. When we invest our work with judgment and impatience, always striving for speed and efficiency, we lose the capacity to appreciate the six million quiet moments that may bring us peace, beauty, or joy. As we seek salvation through our frantic productivity and accomplishments, we squander the teachings that may be present in this very moment, in the richness of this particular breath.

In the Book of Ecclesiastes, there is a proverb: "Better one hand full of quiet than two hands striving after wind." Unpracticed in the art of quiet, we hope to find our safety, our belonging, and our healing by increasing levels of accomplishment. But our frantic busyness actual makes us deaf to what is healing and sacred, both in ourselves and one another.

 ~ Wayne Muller

Legacy of the Heart

 The value of a personal relationship to things is that it creates intimacy

 and intimacy creates understanding

 and understanding creates love.

 ~ Anais Nin

Ask all from yourself.

 ~ Rumi

Announce it, pronounce it,

produce it and give birth to it.

~ Meister Eckhart

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant,

gorgeous, talented, and fabulous.

Actually who are you not to be.

You are a child of God.

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth,

where moth and rust consume and

where thieves break in and steal,

but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven,

where neither moth nor rust consumes and

where thieves do not break I and steal.

For where your treasure is,

there will be your heart also.

The eye is the lamp of the body.

So, if your eye is sound,

your whole body will be full of light;

But if your eye is not sound,

your whole body will be full of darkness.

If then the light in you is darkness,

No one can serve two masters;

for either he will hate the one and love the other,

or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and mammon.*

Therefore I tell you,

do not be anxious about your life,

what you shall eat or what you shall drink,

nor about your body,

what you shall put on.

Is not life more than food,

and the body more than clothing?

Look at the birds of the air:

They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,

And yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not of more value than they?

And which of you can by being anxious add one cubit to his span of life?

And why are you anxious about clothing?

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;

they neither toil nor spin.

Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory

was not arrayed like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass of the field.

which is today alive and tomorrow thrown into the oven,

will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith.

For the Gentiles seek all these things;

and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness,

and all these things shall be yours as well.

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow,

For tomorrow will be anxious for itself.

Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.

~ Jesus

Friday, March 27, 1998

I, the sage, am the holy one among men.

I am Milarepa.

I am he who goes his own way;

I am he who has counsel for every circumstance;

I am the sage who has no fixed abode.

I am he who is unaffected whatever befall;

I am the alms-seeker who has no food;

I am the naked man who has no clothes;

I am the beggar who has no possessions.

I am he who takes no thought for the morrow;

I am he who has no house here nor dwelling there;

I am the victor who has known consummation.

I am the madman who counts death happiness;

I am he who has naught and needs naught.

~ Milarepa  (1040-1123)

The Message of Milarepa

The Three Treasures

The Body is the temple of life.

Energy is the force of life.

Spirit is the governor of life.

If one of them goes off balance,

All three are damaged.

When the spirit takes command,

The body naturally follows it,

And this arrangement benefits all Three Treasures.

When the body leads the way,

The spirit goes along,

And this harms all Three Treasures.

Tuesday, March 31, 1998

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.

But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream,

assigned to you when that dream was born,

And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,

And to love life through labor is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.

                                    *          *          *

You have been told that life is darkness,

And in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.

And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,

And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,

And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,

And all work is empty save when there is love;

And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself,

and to one another, and to God.

~ Kahlil Gibran