Living the Question Blog - Paul Reynolds Kauai » opening

Are You looking for me?

Paul Reynolds — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 19:06:27 +0000

Reading at Koloa and Kapaa classes 7/12/2010

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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Neck Deep in Grace

Paul Reynolds — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 21:45:54 +0000

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 Traveling of Which We Speak

Paul Reynolds — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:34:35 +0000

Reading at Waimea practice 4/20/2010
(Thank you to Twi Chi for the finding)

BEFORE

Before…

you cling.

You cling to hopes and fears
and even people
without realizing
what you’re doing.

The Teacher says:

“Pull that straw out of their neck!

And out of yours while you’re at it!
Stop leaking life force.
The Age of Vampires is over!

Forget any notion
of enemies.

Your only jihad,
your only struggle,
is with yourself.

Until you burn the ego
once and for all
everything
will feel
like moving mountains
from one side of the world to the other.”

AFTER

After…
there is no peace like it.
Victorious-Through-Surrender
you see
there never really was a battlefield.
You melt all your swords
and turn your words
into iron.

Then,
yes really does mean yes,
no is just…no,
and no explanation is needed.

BEYOND

Traveling is so simple after that.
You become a child again,
smiling
as you work
as a shoe shiner,
rubbing out
the tears and scuffs
for your fellow travelers.

You become a quiet prospector
mining for diamonds
being shaken loose
in the honey stream
gushing from your chest.

Then, you wear an invisible cloak
and keep a secret name,
and you sit and speak
with every person
as if they were
a king or a queen.

—- Frank Owen

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The Time Will Come…

Paul Reynolds — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:36:10 +0000

Breathe by Linaji

The time will come

When,
With elation,
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door,
in your own mirror,

And each will smile at the other’s welcome,
And say, sit here, Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was yourself.

Give wine, Give bread, Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you
All your life, whom you ignored for another
Who knows you by heart.

Take down the letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit
Feast on your life.

— Derek Walcott

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A Yogi’s Welcome

Paul Reynolds — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:00:58 +0000

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
The 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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Loving Kindness and Compassion

Paul Reynolds — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:05:16 +0000

Loveheart2 by berndt2

Reading at Waimea practice 10/20/09

When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it is bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as so much space. Your world seems less
solid, more roomy and spacious. The burden lightens. In the beginning it feels like sadness or feeling
that is accompanied by a lot of fear, but your willingness to feel the fear, to make fear your companion is growing. You’re willing to get to know yourself at this deep level. After awhile the same feeling begins to turn into a longing to raze all the walls, a longing to be fully human and to live in your world without always having to shut down and close off when certain things come along. It begins to turn into a longing to be there for your friends when they are in trouble, to be of real help to the poor, aching planet.
Curiously enough, along with this longing and this sadness and this tenderness, there’s an immense sense of well-being, unconditional well-being, which doesn’t have anything to do with pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad, hope or fear, disgrace or fame. It’s something that simply comes to you when you feel that you can keep your heart open.
Loving Kindness and Compassion

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What were those readings?

Paul Reynolds — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:48:36 +0000

Readings from Yoga class in Koloa -4/15/09

Bird Wings
Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror
up to where you’ve been bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.
Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as bird wings.

— Rumi

VOID

Thirty spokes will converge
In the HUB of a wheel
But the use of the cart
Will depend on the part
Of the hub that is void

With a wall around
a clay bowl is molded
But the use of the bowl
Will depend on the part
Of the bowl that is void.

Cut out the windows and doors
In the house as you build
But the use of the house will depend on the space
In the walls that is void
So advantage is had from whatever is there
but usefulness arise
From whatever is not

The Tao Te Ching

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Living the Question Blog - Paul Reynolds Kauai » opening

Are You looking for me?

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