Truth over Comfortable Delusions

      “as a spiritual seeker I (am) interested more in the unsettling nature of the truth than in the safe confines of doctrine.
     What matters is that we take the deadness of the soul seriously; that we pay attention to the contents of the heart; that we ask the hard questions, and fearlessly face the hidden parts of the self. What matters, Jung says, is that we shine the light of consciousness in the dark corners of our life. What is not brought to consciousness, he says, comes to us as fate.”

       Lesser E. “Broken open. How difficult times can help us grow.” Villard, NY, 2005.

mariomirabile   www.dpreview.com

Connections, Interbeing, Oneness, ...

     "Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation. We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone."           Margaret J. Wheatley
 
     “As human beings, we all … search for a sense of connection, pattern, order, and significance … the fitting, truthful relationships among things.”
       Parks SD. “Big questions, worthy dreams. Mentoring young adults in their search for meaning, purpose, and faith.” John Wiley & Sons, 2000.

     “many people are scared to death of their deeper nature. … these people – more than the others … are longing to connect with their warrior’s heart and with the hearts of their fellow humans.”
       Lesser E. “Broken open. How difficult times can help us grow.” Villard, 2005.

Portia and Hildie

All Inclusive Unconditional Love

     “Fyodor Dostoyevsky [1921-1881] lived in a hopeless time and place, a world of pogroms, starvation, filth, and syphilis. His life was plagued by epilepsy, mental problems, and poverty. Yet he left this message: ‘Love all of God’s creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light! Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. And once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it ceaselessly, more and more every day. And you will at last come to love the whole world with an abiding, universal love.”

       Pipher M. “Writing to change the world.” Riverhead Books, NY, 2006.


     "Handle even a single leaf of green in such a way that it manifests the body of the Buddha. This in turn allows the Buddha to manifest through the leaf."          Dogen Zenji (1200 - 1253)
 

     “The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of bigger ideas, never returns to its original size.”          Oliver Wendell Holmes

     More on Love: http://www.johnlovas.com/2012/01/whats-love-got-to-do-with-it.html

Martha expressing the Dharma

Letting Go of Words, Opening the Heart-Mind

     Close the language-door and
     open the love window. The moon
     won’t use the door, only the window.                  Rumi

Portia contemplating Noah; Noah contemplating grass

Dismantling Boundaries & Worldviews through Mysticism vs Mental Illness

     “The mystic, endowed with native talents … and following … the instruction of a master, enters the waters and finds he can swim; whereas the schizophrenic, unprepared, unguided, and ungifted, has fallen or has intentionally plunged and is drowning.”           Joseph Campbell

 

rok urankar   www.dpreview.com

The Serenity Trap

     "Serenity is not the end of the Path. The Buddha saw from his own experience that such peace of mind was not the ultimate. The causes underlying the process of existence had not yet been brought to cessation. The conditions for rebirth still existed. His spiritual work had not yet attained perfection. Why? Because there was still suffering. So based on that serenity of samatha he proceeded to contemplate, investigate, and analyze the conditioned nature of reality until he was free from all attachments, even the attachment to serenity. Serenity is still part of the world of conditioned existence and conventional reality. Clinging to this type of peace is clinging to conventional reality, and as long as we cling, we will be mired in existence and rebirth. Delighting in the peace of samatha still leads to further existence and rebirth.
       Ajahn Chah, Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly, Summer 2013.

Rodrigue Zahr   www.dpreview.com

Trusting Emergence over our Ephemeral Ideas & Worldviews

     "I have experienced doubt ... as a place where things have broken apart. It feels physically, viscerally, like something whole has shattered, like a glass dropped on the ground. Through my practice and through feedback from guides, I have come to realize that this signals a new stage in my practice, a place of crossing a threshold into the unknown. The ability to be with the unknown is such an important part of practice. When we don't know what's going on, it's so important to open up to it and just be with it - be with the mind and heart and body coming together in different ways."
       Kamala Masters, Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly, Summer 2013 - an exceptionally useful issue

     See also: http://www.johnlovas.com/2013/06/doubt-path.html
     and: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/05/self-concept-worldview.html

Elizabeth Jameson   http://www.jamesonfineart.com