Doubt & the Path

     "'True love and prayer are learned in the moment when prayer has become impossible and the heart has turned to stone.' Thomas Merton

     This is something I experienced myself after about 12 years of practice, when I went through a period of several months where nothing made sense anymore. By just staying with the experience and not buying into the story that everything was wrong - that I was wrong, the practice was wrong, the teacher was wrong - I pulled out of it and entered into practice much more deeply than I ever had before. So I think it's really important for all of us to understand that dry spots are a very natural part of practice and that they don't mean we're a failure on the path."     Ezra Bayda, Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly, Summer 2013

     See also: http://www.johnlovas.com/2013/06/embracing-difficulties.html

Martha on her path

 

Self-concepts, Worldviews, & Concepts Beyond Words

     "When the ego-sense is relaxed, when a sense of the infinite & eternal replaces our usual narrow self-centeredness with all its passing, unsatisfying fantasies, there is no longer a mental basis for fear, hatred, anxiety, anger, attachment, desire. Instead, the perfectly harmonious functioning of the cosmos operates through us – and the cosmos is always in balance, always at peace with itself. 
     The Christian message is essentially a call to be universal – a call to become cosmically conscious. It is a call to place God at the center of ourselves, not through blind faith but through insightful awareness, not through rigid adherence to ritual and dogma but through graceful expression of cosmic principles. It is a call to ‘be as gods.’” John White
       Grof S ed. Human Survival and Consciousness Evolution. State University of New York Press, Albany, 1988.

      "It happens completely on its own when a human being questions, wonders, listens, and looks without getting stuck in fear. When self-concern is quiet, in abeyance, heaven and earth are open." Toni Packer

Bruce Spell   www.dpreview.com

Embracing Difficulties

     "One of the most crucial things for students to learn, not just at the beginning of the practice but at any point along the path, is that obstacles are the path. Whenever an obstacle arises, we need to ask ourselves, Can I see this as my path? Can I see it not as an obstacle on the path, but as the path itself? Can I welcome this as the way to become free? But we have such an instinctual aversion to discomfort that when an obstacle arises, we forget to ask the simple question, Can I see this as my path?"     Ezra Bayda, Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly, Summer 2013

     Toni Packer's wise words: http://www.johnlovas.com/2011/12/undefinable.html

Ryan Creary   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/

Essential Wise Nurturing ... in Teaching, Healing, Marriage, Parenting, Friendship ...

     Wisdom is essential for unconditional love; to allow us to hold ourselves & others in meditative equipoise; to allow ourselves & others simply to be; to allow ourselves & others to make many, inevitable, normal mistakes - not judge, blame & shame - but to seamlessly accept, learn & grow.
     We inevitably mature into wise, nurturing grandparents to ourselves, others, the universe.

      “When preferences for a particular experience fade, the myriad things come forward to play, shimmering with suchness. Obviously, flowers and trees do this, but so do beer cans and microwaves. They’re all waiting for our embrace. It is enormously empowering to inhabit a world so vibrant with singularity.” Darlene Cohen, Buddhadharma: The practioner’s quarterly, Spring 2007

Richard J.   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/

From Shame to Courageous Imperfection, Vulnerability, Authenticity

     “Shame absolutely unravels connection. And shame can be understood as the fear of disconnection. Is there something about me, that if people see it, I won’t be worthy of connection? What underpins this is excruciating vulnerability. In order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen – really seen. … The one thing that keeps us out of connection is our fear that we’re not worthy of connection.
     The original meaning of courage - derived from coeur - was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. To have the courage to be imperfect.”             Brene Brown PhD 

     Within theistic traditions "guilt" can be a dominant factor. I suspect "shame" is more accurate. A sense of worthlessness ("worthless sinner") is profoundly disconnecting (on earth & heaven), and may lead to desperate longing to connect with a religious community that would take them in.

       See also: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/06/attention-educators-threatened-self.html
     and: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/04/self-conscious-shame-guilt-and-basic.html

Liberation from "me, myself and I" - Realizing No Self

     "'In kensho we realize there is no intrinsic, permanent "I." We are completely free.' ... No limited ego that imprisons one in time and place, birth and death, but rather a universal 'I' that is boundlessly liberated, at home everywhere in ... the 'homeland of the heart.'"

       Gregory Shepherd, Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly, Summer 2013

Insidethebeltway   www.dpreview.com

Fear-driven Orthodoxy vs Responsibility for Being a Light Unto Ourselves

     "Every religion, at least sometimes, claims that its forms - its literature, its doctrines, its practices - derive from a source of unimpeachable authority. This includes Buddhism. ... Many times I have heard teachers say that since masters of the past were more accomplished than we are and knew what they were doing, we can't tamper with established forms. That even a nontheist religion like Buddhism tends so often to rely on an inflexible source for its forms indicates how desperately many humans long to deflect responsibility for shaping their religious lives." 

       Rita Gross, Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly, Summer 2013

'no mud, no lotus' necklace from: http://www.buddhagroove.com