Author: suzingreen

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May 24, 2010

This week’s  reading from the Tao Te Ching strikes me as a kind of zen riddle  in the way it shakes up notions we tend to associate with “positive” ways of being.  See what it does to your mind:
18.
When the great Tao is forgotten,
goodness and piety appear.
When the body’s intelligence declines,
cleverness and knowledge step forth.
When there is no peace in the family,
filial piety begins.
When the country falls into chaos,
patriotism is born.
This reading inspired a conversation/contemplation about what happens when we lose touch with the pure ground of Self, and in that process get caught in the up/down, in/out, good/bad, right/wrong dance of dualistic thinking. This story, paraphrased from Baba Muktananda’s Where Are You Going? offers a lovely teaching on this theme:

In the state of Rajastan, in ancient India, lived a cobbler named Ravidas. Many people used to go to him and in his company, experienced great peace. One day the prime minister went, and returning to the palace, told the king, “There is a great saint living in the city. He will be able to give you some peace.”

The king was very unhappy. He had a great deal of wealth, power, and all the other things that make a person agitated. He had nothing that gave him peace. But when the prime minister suggested he go to Ravidas, he said, “He is a cobbler. How can a king ask for instructions from a cobbler?” But the prime minister persisted and the king finally agreed to go. Disguising himself he walked into Ravidas’s shop and said, “I am very unhappy and I lack peace. Please give me something that will bring peace to my heart.”

Ravidas  kept a stone pot full of water into which he dipped pieces of leather before he worked on them. He poured some of this water into a glass  and gave it to the king, saying,. “Drink this.”

The king was revolted by this water  which was dark red and smelled like leather. Pretending to drink, he poured it down his shirt, bowed to the saint, and left. Returning to the palace, he saw his shirt was badly stained so called the royal washerman to clean it. Surprised to see the royal shirt in such condition, the washerman made some inquiries and learned what had happened. Giving the shirt to his daughter, he explained what the king had done, and told her to wash it very well. The daughter, who  was very intelligent and  pure, knew Ravidas’s power. So she took the shirt and sucked out all the stains. Then she washed it and gave it back to her father to return to the king.

From that day on, the girl had very deep meditations. After a few years, she had attained such a state that people began to feel the same joy in her presence they felt in the company of Ravidas. Many went to receive her blessings, among the,  the prime minister. After he had seen her, he went to the king and said, “O Your Majesty, you are still so unhappy and agitated. Why don’t you go to that ecstatic girl and see if she can give you some peace?” The king was reluctant – after all, she was the daughter of a washerman – but in desperation, went to her room. Standing before her he said, “I am very unhappy. Please give me your blessing so that I can attain peace.”

The girl looked at him with great wonderment. “O Your Majesty,” she said. “Everything I have, I received from what you threw away. Everything I have, I obtained by sucking Ravidas’s water out of the shirt you gave my father to wash!”

Contemplating duality, I was moved to give Mary Oliver the final word.  I took a book of her poems down from the shelf and let it open randomly.  Having been out in the garden that morning cutting vase-fulls of peonies, that this was the poem that came… it was one of those perfect wonder moments. A lovely  reminder of the oneness beneath duality, always there, holding us in its luminous, if not always visible, embrace…

Peonies
-Mary Oliver

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,

as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers
and they open –
pools of lace,
white and pink—
and all day the black ants climb over them.

boring their deep and mysterious holes
into curls,
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away

to their dark, underground cities—
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise, their stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again –
beauty the brave, the exemplary.

blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?

by

May 17, 2010

17.
When the Master governs, the people
are hardly aware that he exists.
Next best is the leader who is loved.
Next, one who is feared.
The worst is one who is despised.
If you don’t trust the people,
you make them untrustworthy.
The Master doesn’t talk, he acts.
When his work is done,
the people say, “Amazing:
we did it, all by ourselves!”
by

May 10, 2010

16.
Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings
but contemplate their return.
Each separate being in the universe
returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.
If you don’t realize the source,
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
you can deal with whatever life brings you,
and when death comes, you are ready.
by

May 3, 2010

15.
The ancient Masters were profound and subtle.
Their wisdom was unfathomable.
There is no way to describe it;
all we can describe is their appearance.
They were careful
as someone crossing an iced-over stream.
Alert as a warrior in enemy territory.
Courteous as a guest.
Fluid as melting ice.
Shapable as a block of wood.
Receptive as a valley.
Clear as a glass of water.
Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?
The Master doesn’t seek fulfillment.
Not seeking, not expecting,
she is present, and can welcome all things.
by

April 26, 2010

This week’s reading inspired me to look into other traditions for teachings on the same theme. So, along with Taoism’s Tao Te Ching, we have a quote from Lex Hixon’s commentary on the Buddhist Prajnaparamita Sutra, a song from the Hindu tantrika Ramprasad, and to bring it into the present moment, a poem from Mary Oliver. Enjoy the feast!
14.
Look and it can’t be seen.
Listen, and it can’t be heard.
Reach, and it can’t be grasped.
Above, it isn’t bright.
Below, it isn’t dark.
Seamless, unnamable,
it returns to the realm of nothing.
Form that includes all forms,
image without an image,
subtle, beyond all conception.
Approach it and there is no beginning;
follow it and there is no end.
You can’t know it, but you can be it,
at ease in your own life.
Just realize where you come from:
this is the essence of wisdom.
Lex Hixon on Prajnaparamita Sutra
The Nature of What Is
The pervasive theme … of Prajnaparamita is signaled by the phrase: the depth of unthinkability. The nature of What Is … can never be described, thought about or indicated in any way.
The following terms are, therefore, used … to refer to the Perfection of Wisdom, Mother Prajnaparamita herself: unfindable, unthinkable, indescribable, indecipherable,  indefinable, ungraspable, unformulatable, inconceivable, incomparable, unlocatable, unisolatable, unapproachable, unchangeable, unreachable, uncalibratable, unframable, uncorrelatable, uncharacterizable, insubstantial, nonperspectival, non self-existing, foundationless, baseless, traceless, nameless, pathless, goalless, abodeless, stainless, measureless, connectionless, relationless.
And here is Ramprasad’s experience of this so-called essence of wisdom —
Mother dwells at the center of my being,
forever delightfully at play.
Whatever conditions of consciousness may arise,
I hear through them the music of her life-giving names,
Om Tara, Om Kali.

Closing my eyes, I perceive the radiant Black Mother
as indivisible, naked awareness,
dancing fiercely or gently on my heart lotus.
She wears a garland of snow-white skulls,
bright emblem of freedom from birth and death.
Gazing upon her resplendent nakedness,
all concepts and conventions vanish.

Those who judge by mundane standards call me mad.
Timid and limited persons can think what they wish.
My only longing is to express
the total madness of her love.

This poet child of the Wisdom Goddess
cries out with abandon:
“The Queen of the Universe
resides within the flower of my secret heart.
Mother! Mother! Mother!
I seek refuge at your beautiful feet,
and delicate and fragrant as the dark blue lotus.
As my body dissolves into earth
and my mind into space,
may I dissolve into you.”
Finally, to weave it all together, Mary Oliver:

Where Does the Temple Begin,
 Where Does it End?

There are things you can’t reach. But
 you can reach out to them, and all day long.

The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God.

And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.

The snake slides away; the fish jumps, like a little lily,
 out of the water and back in; the goldfinches sing
 from the unreachable top of the tree.

I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.

Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around
 as though with your arms open.

And thinking: maybe something will come, some
 shining coil of wind,
 or a few leaves from any old tree –
 they are all in this too.

And now I will tell you the truth.
 Everything in the world
 comes.

At least, closer.

And cordially,

Like the nibbling, tinsel-eyed fish; the unlooping snake.
 Like goldfinches, little dolls of gold
 fluttering around the corner of the sky

of God, the blue air.

by

April 12, 2010

12.
Colors blind the eye.
Sounds deafen the ear.
Flavors numb the taste.
Thoughts weaken the mind.
Desires wither the heart.
The Master observes the world
but trusts his inner vision.
he allows things to come and go.
His heart is open as the sky.
For those who’ve been studying yogic philosophy with
me over the years, you’ll note how closely this Taoist
thinking merges with Patanjali Yoga-Sutra —
and the closing line has a tantric feel —
“heart open as the sky” is so similar to the aspect of
Shiva that is “spacious as the sky…”