Living the Question Blog - Paul Reynolds Kauai » connection

A look at this Body…..

Paul Reynolds — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 19:45:32 +0000

Reading at Anara Spa 10/15/09

Kent Bond 28 by Kent Bond

“My Zen teaching has deepened to encourage people to really plunge into the world, into life. I want them to enter life, to embody their practice, tend it with their hearts. To attend to life, to this body, is to love it and bless it. Particularly we need to find a way to bless our wounds and the darkness we
find ourselves in. It takes patience to bless our wounded-ness,
because we haven’t been taught a respect for it. But if you
do bless your body, you notice that you find what is right for
you. You have the kind of pains that are right for you, as well
as the kind of joys that are yours, the experiences that you
have honestly earned.

When we listen to our bodies, our bodily wisdom grows. We
can feel the body’s urge to move and honor its cycles of rest,
we can meditate and dance, we can respect its need for solitude, we can allow its lively senses, and we can know its pleasures and limitations. Instead of fearing our body, its losses and strange vulnerability, we honor it. When the mandala of awakening includes rather than excludes the body, our gifts can flower and our heart remains free.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav tried to get his disciples to understand that:
“If you never want to see the face of hell, when you come
home from work every night, dance with your kitchen
towel, and if you’re worried about waking up your family,
take off your shoes.”
—-
Hakuin Zenji wrote in his ancient Song of Zazen,
“All beings by nature are Buddha, as ice by nature is water. How sad that
people ignore the near and search for truth afar like someone in
the midst of water crying out for thirst. . . . Truly, is anything miss-
ing now? Nirvana is right here, before our eyes; this very place is
the pure Lotus Land; this very body, the Buddha.”

Excerpts from After the Ecstasy the Laundry by Jack Kornfield

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A Yogi’s Welcome

Paul Reynolds — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 17:31:25 +0000

Reading at Waimea Practice 04/25/2010
Welcome

Welcome

Please allow your stories to be left at the door with your shoes.

You may pick them up if you really want them on your way back out.

They are not required to enter here.

Kiss your ego and allow it to be still.

As you achieve your comfortable seated posture and consciously take in your next breath, also take in this assurance…

There is no need to achieve anything here…

There is no need to defend anything here…

This is a safe place.

All is one, in breath and life. All is here—now.

If there is any request of you it is to allow yourself to remain present and as open as you can … to you!

It may be that you open wide to you today.

It may be that you peek through a crack and find a glimpse of you today.

The door opens, as you are ready. No sooner. No later.

And thus we create the connection – the YOGA – between the anxiousness to see and patience needed to wait for the understanding.

It’s that space between the in-breath and the out-breath.

It may be uncomfortable at times.

Opening to ‘us’ can be so damn uncomfortable. But it is in this space that we remember and receive.

Listen for it with your heart.

Feel it with your body.

Relish it with your spirit.

-Paul Reynolds

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I Want Both of Us

Paul Reynolds — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 01:50:18 +0000

Reading at Koloa practice March 1, 2010

I Want Both of Us

To start talking about this great love

As if you, I and the Sun were all married
And living in a tiny room,
Helping each other to cook,
Do the wash,
Weave and sew
Care for our beautiful
Animals.

We all leave each morning
To labor on the earth’s field.
No one does not lift a great pack.

I want both of us to start singing like two
Traveling minstrels
About this extraordinary existence
We share,

As if
You, I, and God were all married

And living in
A tiny
Room.

— Hafiz

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What If ?

Paul Reynolds — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:34:09 +0000

Reading at Bodhi Tree practice 07/01/09

What if?

What if religion was each other?
If our practice was our life?
If prayer was our words?
What if the Temple was the Earth?
If forests were our church?
If holy water the rivers, lakes and oceans?
What if meditation was our relationships?
If the Teacher was life? If wisdom was self-knowledge?
If Love was the center of our being What if God was oneself, and all?

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The Knowing

Paul Reynolds — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 01:36:08 +0000

Reading at Waimea practice - 08/22/09

The memory lies in us of how it could be in a loving
relationship with one another, how it could be holy, filled with gentleness, kissed by heaven.
And that love could be extended to everyone.

There is somewhere within each of us a place where
we remember and we know. It may have become but a faint
whisper today, but when we are quiet, we hear it still.

Through all the madness that has been perpetrated in
the name of love, through the dysfunctional patterns and tears
and fears, beneath it all lies this ancient knowing. We are not
here to do battle and create a hell out of God’s holy ground;
we are here to love one another, to experience heaven here
together.
—unknown

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Living the Question Blog - Paul Reynolds Kauai » connection

A look at this Body…..

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