Readings at Koloa and Anara and Yoga House  practices 7/22/23/2010

Rabindranath Tagore

The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.

I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my

voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a star and planet.

It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself,

and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.

The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own,

and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said `Here art thou!’

The question and the cry `Oh, where?’ melt into tears of a thousand

streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance `I am’

–Rabindranath Tagore

Free Love

By all means they try to hold me secure who love me in this world,

But it is otherwise with thy love which is greater than theirs,
and thou keepest me free.

Lest I forget them they never venture to leave me alone.
But day passes by after day and thou art not seen.

If I call not thee in my prayers, if I keep not thee in my heart,
thy love for me still waits for my love

–Rabindranath Tagore

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Reading from Koloa Hong Wan JI and  the Yoga House practice 7/19/2010

Water changes shape and even form,
but keeps its essence.
River changes water and even course, but keeps its essence.
Trust the unchanging in changing.
Be like water and river.
Moving and staying,
changing and unchanging
Know and soften

Soften and change
Change and endure
Be like water
Think like river

—The Tao of Relationship

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Reading at Yoga House Kapaa – 7/01/2010

A good traveler has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition
lead him wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts
and keeps his mind open to what is.
Thus the master is available to all people
and doesn’t reject anyone.
He is ready to use all situations
and doesn’t waste anything.
This is called embodying the light.
What is a good man but a bad man’s teacher?
What is a bad man but a good man’s job?
If you don’t understand this, you will get lost,
however intelligent you are.
It is the great secret.

Lao Tzu – Tao Te Ching – Chapter 27. circa 500BC

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Are you looking for me?

I am in the next seat.

My shoulder is against yours.

You will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:

Not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables.

When you really look for me you will see me

Instantly—

You will find me in the tiniest house of time.

Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?

He is the breath inside the breath

— Kabir

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Reading at Anara Spa 7/1/2010

…A friend James Baraz tells of traveling to India to be with the guru H. W. L. Poonja…

Poonja was celebrated for his freedom of spirit, for the energy of awakening he transmitted to his disciples, and for his joyful laughter. James had completed twenty years of meditation practice and become a greatly beloved Buddhist teacher. Still wanting to grow, and yearning to touch more deeply the very heart of spiritual life, he went to India. After some days of dialogue with the master, James explained that his Buddhist training had offered wakefulness, compassion, and wisdom, but that nothing much had been taught about grace. He was perplexed. How could he know whether he was receiving the grace of the guru, how should he look for it, he asked. All the gathered disciples listened closely.

The master peered back at James and laughed, amused by the question. “You teach in a community committed to spiritual life, you have a healthy family in beautiful California, you are in India surrounded by devoted brothers and sisters on the path. Now you are sitting, speaking with the master, and you ask where is the grace?” He laughed again. “You are neck-deep in grace!”

We are all neck-deep in grace. Whoever we are, we are held by the warmth of the sun and the shining embrace of the snow, nourished by the sweet waters of the rain, alive in the great mystery. Whatever our circumstances, we have the perfect capacity to awaken. With an open heart and open mind we discover a great stillness, a loving presence with things as they are. Resting in a simple awareness of the present, the heart becomes trustworthy.  As we accept the stream of life, enlightenment and grace arise naturally, This is not attainment, but living wisdom.

As Suzuki Roshi says, “When we realize the everlasting truth of ‘everything changes,’ and find our composure in it, we find our-selves in Nirvana.” Each moment of this awakening brings a sense of caring and natural responsiveness to tragedy and beauty alike.

When strength is called for, it is there; when flexibility and surrender are called for, they are there as well. We are at ease with this amazing life.

Excerpt from After the Ecstasy the Laundry by Jack Kornfield

Inside the Great Mystery that is,
we don’t really own anything.
What is this competition we feel then,
before we go, one at a time, through the same gate?
—- RUMI (tr. Moyne and Barks)

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This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Rumi
—translated by Coleman Barks

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I had to seek the Physician
because of the pain this world
caused me.

I could not believe what happened when I got there-

I found my
Teacher.

Before I left, he said,
“Up for a little homework, yet?”

“Okay,” I replied.”Well then, try thanking all the people
who have caused
you pain.

They helped you
come to
me.

—Kabir

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Koloa practice reading 05/20/2010

•Everything changes.
• We have just enough problems, not too many or too few.
• Even a mistaken approach is not a waste of time.
•  Formal education is to explain what is and what it means. Actual education is to let it be, whatever it is, without explanation.
•  Wherever you go, you will find your teacher.
• Light one corner of the world.
•  The way that helps will not be the same: it changes according to the situation.
•  The point is where you don’t expect it to be.
•  A teacher will always try to put you in confusion. Back and forth in this way, we will
help each other.
•  If you want to practice , it is necessary to have good friends. Then naturally you
will have good practice
•  Our way is to practice one step at a time, one breath at a time, with no gaining idea.
•  There is a limit to physical pain, but there is no limit to mental pain.”
•  The purpose of studying a practice is not to study the practice but to study ourselves. That is why we have teaching. But the teaching is not ourselves. It is some explanation of ourselves. To study the teaching is to know yourselves. That is why we do not ever attach to the teaching, or to the teacher. The moment you meet a teacher you should leave the teacher, and you should be independent. You want a teacher so that you can be independent. So you study yourselves. You have the teacher for yourselves, not for the teacher.
•  If your practice doesn’t include every one of us, it is not true practice.
•  Everything you do is right, nothing you do is wrong, yet you must still make ceaseless effort.
•  A garden is never finished.

Excerpts paraphrased from
Suzuki & David Chadwick, Excerpts/from Crooked Cucumber, Broadway Books, 1999

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Reading at Koloa practice 5/20/09

—Poonja-ji

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