How
amazing it is
that all people have this but
cannot polish it into bright clarity.
In darkness unawakened, they
make foolishness cover
their wisdom.
Author Archives → Brian
welcoming flies at the picnic
I don’t call
any song finished if I don’t
think that it somehow is vibrating with
the awareness of how we live in spite of the inevitable.
Which is what all spirituality is, is how do we come into being,
how do we live fully in the constant, conscious knowledge
that we won’t always? How do you invest in the idea
of any real commitment in the face of
everything being finite?
…We’re sort of
seduced into thinking that here’s life,
and there’s these bad things that can happen,
obstacles that just fall into your road, as if the obstacle
is not the road. You know? We want to think that all things
being equal, we should be content all the time, and would
be, except for these pesky flies that want to ruin
every picnic. As if that isn’t what
the picnic is.
❤️
have a listen to
Welcoming Flies at the Picnic,
it will gladden your
💜
beginner’s mind, beginner’s heart
To achieve
what the zen buddhists
call “beginner’s mind,” you dispense
with all preconceptions and enter
each situation as if seeing it
for the first time.
“In the
beginner’s mind there
are many possibilities,” wrote
Shunryu Suzuki in his book Zen Mind,
Beginner’s Mind, “but in the
expert’s there are few.”
As much
as I love beginner’s
mind, though, I advocate an
additional discipline: cultivating a
beginner’s heart. That means approaching
every encounter imbued with a freshly
invoked wave of love that is as pure
as if you’re feeling it for
the first time.
light inside and dark outside
People’s intellect and knowledge are like the light of a lamp. If that light is mistakenly used outside, in a contentious and aggressive manner, aiming for name and gain, scheming and conniving day and night, thinking a thousand thoughts, imagining ten thousand imaginings, chasing artificial objects and losing the original source, light on the outside but dark inside, this will go on until the body is injured and life is lost.
If people give up artificiality and return to the real, dismiss intellectuality and cleverness, consider essential life the one matter of importance, practice inner awareness, refine the self and master the mind, observe all things with detachment so all that exists is empty of absoluteness, are not moved by external things and are not influenced by sensory experiences, being light inside and dark outside, they can thereby aspire to wisdom and become enlightened.
Light that does not dazzle progresses to lofty illumination; therefore a classic says, “The great sage appears ignorant, the great adept seems inept.”
friendship among brothers and sisters
Real friendship among brothers and sisters on the Sufi path includes the following eight responsibilities:
- Material aid. Help your companions with food, or money, or other things they need for their own survival or development.
- Personal support. If they are sick, visit them; if they are busy, help them, if they have forgotten, remind them.
- Respect. Do not complain of their faults to them or to others. Do not give advice when you know it can not be acted upon.
- Praise and attention. Praise the good qualities of your companions, and let them know that you care for them.
- Forgiveness. Forgive your companions for their failings.
- Prayer. Pray for the well-being of your companions with the same fervor you pray for your own well-being.
- Loyalty. Be firm in your friendships so that you can be depended on by those who put their trust in you.
- Relief from discomfort. Do not create awkward or difficult situations that involve your companions. Do not be a burden to others.
stanford encyclopedia of philosophy