....THAT WHICH CANNOT CHANGE ERASES ALL... 12/23/16 "... the only item not included on the list...."

ALPHA & OMEGA CONSCIOUSNESS
AS THAT WHICH CANNOT CHANGE
ERASES ALL THAT ATTEMPTS USURPATION
OF TRUTH OF BEING
ew
2:52 AM-12/23/18

Rather than focus on what needs changing
Turn the attention to what cannot change.
Wu Hsin
Solving Yourself
August 19

You have no idea how hard I've looked
for a gift to bring You.
Nothing seemed right.

What's the point of bringing gold
to the gold mine, or water to the ocean.
Everything I came up with was like
taking spices to the Orient.

​It's no good giving my heart and my soul
because you already have these.

So I've brought you a mirror.
Look at yourself and remember me.
–Jalal al-Din Rumi
https://peacefullpresence.blogspot.com/2018/12/for-you.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FmnCFM+%28Love+Is+A+Place%29

The gift, to be true,
must be the flowing of the giver unto me,
correspondant to my flowing unto him.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
https://peacefullpresence.blogspot.com/2018/12/to-be-true.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FmnCFM+%28Love+Is+A+Place%29​
(both bird photos are from above website)

EXPERIENCING A NEW FREEDOM
A DEPTH OF SILENCE TAKING OVER
dmm/ew
post sunrise
7:38 AM-12/23/18

AFTERNOON

Nothing's a gift, it's all on loan.
I'm drowning in debts up to my ears.
I'll have to pay for myself
with my self,
give up my life for my life.

Here's how it's arranged:
The heart can be repossessed,
the liver, too,
and each single finger and toe.

Too late to tear up the terms,
my debts will be repaid,
and I'll be fleeced,
or, more precisely, flayed.

I move about the planet
in a crush of other debtors.
some are saddled with the burden
of paying off their wings.
Others must, willy-nilly,
account for every leaf.

Every tissue in us lies
on the debit side.
Not a tenacle or tendril
is for keeps.

The inventory, infinitely detailed,
implies we'll be left
not just empty-handed
but handless too.

I can't remember
where, when, and why
I let someone open
this account in my name.

We call the protest against this
the soul.
And it's the only item
not included on the list.


–Wislawa Szymborska
https://peacefullpresence.blogspot.com/2018/12/nothings-gift.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FmnCFM+%28Love+Is+A+Place%29

If your inability to cut off ceaseless thought
has ever left you feeling hopeless or inadequate,
you're not alone.
Anyone who has practiced earnestly for any length of time
has likely wrestled with the thinking mind,
motivated by a desire to evolve away from delusion
and toward awakening or enlightenment.

But what if our deluded minds
aren't a barrier to enlightenment at all?

I stumbled upon the term shinzo, or "ever-intimate,"
used by Dogen Zenji.
​
Dogen used the term to address
the intimate and dynamic relationship between enlightenment and delusion:
"The ultimate paradox of Zen liberation
is said to lie in the fact that one attains enlightenment
in and through delusion itself,
never apart from it.
Enlightenment consists not so much in replacing
as in dealing with or negotiating delusion."​

In essence,
Dogen was saying that mind, or body-mind,
as he referred to it,
must be brought into the inherent intimacy between
what is illuminated in our lives and what is darkened,
that we must fully participate in the dance of these two,
continually twirling together and trading places.

The deeper our life is illuminated within delusion,
the more clearly we can see our
own limitations, struggles, and suffering.
This is the true intimacy of Zen practice
and the mystical nature of zazen.
~~Zenju Earthlyn Manuel

when we let this mystery ride into the dark nights of our ancestors,
​we touch on our own delusions in a wise and everlasting understanding....
https://makebelieveboutique.com/2018/12/23/28671/