Here are notes from July 2, last week’s class. The sutra for the evening was:
III, 4Concentration, absorption, and integration regarding a single objectcompose the perfect discipline of consciousness.
Dissolving
1
You are pure.
Nothing touches you.
What is there to renounce?
Let it all go,
The body and the mind.
Let yourself dissolve.
2
Like bubbles in the sea,
All the worlds arise in you.
Know you are the Self.
Know you are one.
Let yourself dissolve.
3
You see the world.
But like the snake in the rope,
It is not really there.
You are pure.
Let yourself dissolve.
4
You are one and the same
In joy and sorrow,
Hope and despair,
Life and death.
You are already fulfilled.
Let yourself dissolve.
And as often happens, I give the final word to Mary Oliver, whose poetry pulsates with the life force of waking up:
The Poet is Told to Fill Up More Pages
Mary OliverBut, where are the words?
Not in my pocket.
Not in the refrigerator.
Not in my savings account.
So I sit, harassed, with my notebook.
It’s a joke, really, and not a good one.
For fun I try a few commands myself.
I say to the rain, stop raining.
I say to the sun, that isn’t anywhere nearby,
Come back, and come fast.Nothing happens.
So this is all I can give you,
not being the maker of what I do,
but only the one that holds the pencil.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Make of it what you will.