“He who sees himself only on the outside, not within, becomes small himself and makes others small.”

–Mani (turfan fragment M 801)

…………………………..

“It has been observed for centuries that the Hebrew word for nature, hateva, is numerically equivalent to one of the words for God, Elohim. Depending on your perspective, this may be mere numerological wit or a linguistic insight into the cosmos, but the sensibility is sublime. What would it mean to experience the natural world, the context of the body, as merely a mask of God? What is the significance of the fact that when we simply leave our homes and enter the wilderness, a change takes place within us?….

Our texts tell us that wilderness is the realm of the sacred, and the journey is irreplaceable.

There is no substitute for actually going there yourself. Lech Lecha – go…..

Mindfulness is utterly transparent. On the outside, your embodied spiritual nature practice may look like a simple walk in the woods or a hike in the desert. On the inside, what is happening is that the body is changing, and the soul is shifting – and you are aware of it all. In particular, focusing on a few key elements of your experience in nature can transform a simple day trip into an embodied spiritual practice.”

- Jay Michaelson (God in Your Body: Kabbalah,

Mindfulness and Embodied Spiritual Practice)

………………………….

I was walking out on the exercise yard last week, along the fence, staring up at the beautiful clear sky. It was a gorgeous day. Then something frightening happened: someone got stabbed on the adjacent yard. In the gun men^‘s tower, prison guards were racking rounds into their rifles. They were shooting at two guys scuffling and fighting and trying to kill each other. I knew immediately that someone was going to die. Either the guards or one of these two prisoners would be responsible for taking a human being’s life.

The tower gunmen ordered everyone face down on the ground as they swung their fully loaded rifles around the three adjacent yards. I didn’t know what to think. Since I didn’t hear any gunshots, I figured the two guys must have stopped fighting. At least the gunmen had been saved from taking someone’s life. But what about the prisoner who had been stabbed? Was he dead? What had I been thinking about before all this happened? Why am I lying here like this? Is this all real? Shit! How long can I go on trying to be a Buddhist in this prison culture that has me lying face down? Who am I kidding?

Just as I thought my head would explode from so many flashing thoughts, I locked onto a single idea; how some people in this world have only a tragic five seconds to put their entire lives in order before they die-in a car crash or in some other sudden way. I realized that what really matters isn’t where we are or what’s going on around us, but what’s in our hearts while it’s happening.

I used to feel I could hide inside my practice, that I could simply sit and contemplate the raging anger of a place like this, seeking inner peace through prayers of compassion. But now I believe love and compassion are things to extend to others. It’s a dangerous adventure to share with them in a place like S.Q. yet I see now that we become better people if we can touch a hard­ened soul, bring joy into someone’s life, or just be an example for others, instead of hiding behind our silence.

The key is in using what we know This calls for lots of practice. There is this vast space in life to do just that, both as a practitioner and as someone who walks around the same prison yard as everyone else in this place. I’ve learned how to accept respon­sibility, for the harm I’ve caused others by never letting myself forget the things I did and by using those experiences to help others understand where they lead.

-Jarvis Jay Masters (Written on Death Row)

…………………………….

Hugging meditation is a practice I invented. In 1966, a woman poet took me to the Atlanta Airport and then asked, “Is it all right to hug a Buddhist monk?” In my country we are not used to expressing ourselves that way, but I thought, “I am a Zen teacher. It should be no problem for me to do that.” So I said, “Why not?” and she hugged me. But I was quite stiff. While on a plane, I decided that if I wanted to work with friends in the West, I would have to learn the culture of the West, so I invented hugging meditation.

Hugging meditation is a combination of East and West. According to the practice, you have to really hug the person you are hugging. You have to make him or her very real in your arms, not just for the sake of appearances, patting him on the back to pretend you are there, but breathing consciously and hugging with all your body, spirit and heart. Hugging medita­tion is a practice of mindfulness. “Breathing in, I know my dear one is in my arms, alive. Breathing out, she is so precious to me.” If you breathe deeply like that, holding the person you love, the energy of care, love, and mindfulnesss will penetrate into that person and she will be nourished and bloom like a flower.

At a retreat for psychotherapists in Colorado, we practiced hugging meditation, and one retreatant, when he returned home to Philadelphia, hugged his wife at the airport in a way he had never hugged her before. Because of that, his wife attended our next retreat in Chicago. To be really there, you only need to breathe mindfully, and suddenly both of you become real. It may be one of the best moments in your life.

-Thich Nhat Hanh, from Teachings on Love

…………………………….

“Where love is little, all acts are imperfect.”

–Mani (turfan fragment M 801)

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“Every one of us forms an idea of Christ that is limited and incomplete. It is cut according to our own measure. We tend to make ourselves a Christ in our own image, a projection of our own aspiration and desires and ideals. We find in Him what we want to find. We make Him not only the incarnation of God but also the incarnation of the things we and oursociety and our part of society happen to live for.”

–Thomas Merton(seeds of contemplation)

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The search for the self, in other words, the search for the essence, the inwardness, and the way of the soul, stems from the recognition that one is alone in the world. When man stands suddenly alone in the world, when everything seems to be addressed only to him, then there is no aspect of reality that does not challenge him. He has to relate to this person or that situation, he has to judge and resolve all the problems of the world with himself as its center. It would appear that the real agony begins when one’s horizons in this world expand, as one rises from one level to another, and as one’s intellect and imagination encompass more of the domain of the human. With external reality pressing heavily on man, the physical, the philosophical, the psychological questions only intensify the urgency of the basic question of the self. Man may thus deepen his inner essence in his solitariness, making it something quite separate and special, adding new powers and talents, new ways of seeing things, sometimes also a deepening of thought, and sometimes nobility of spirit. And yet very often it seems that the basic point, the self, is untouched-even though the more a person grows, the more the problem of the self should also grow. So it is that a certain depth is added to the solitary person; he finds a whole world of inner treasures and spiritual powers. These can occupy the mind and give one the feeling of connection with things, even if only for a time. But ultimately the things that such a person attempts to cling to as moorings, as fixed points, are over and over again revealed as delusory. It is not that real points do not exist in the world, but rather that they are not permanent. A man cannot build on them and relate to them as to something fixed and definite, because in the long run all these points, both in external space and in his interior depths, only refer in turn to one focal point, to that very self which has no anchor at all.

The seeker is caught in a paradox. He is dismayed to learn that the resolution of the search for the self is not to be found by going into the self, that the center of the soul is to be found not in the soul but outside of it, that the center of gravity of existence is outside of existence. He may, to be sure, experience a glimmer of hope when he discovers that the focal point of individual existence can be found in existence as a whole. This discovery will bring him to what is stated in Psalm 73:

“My flesh and my hearth faileth: but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

He becomes aware, in other words, that the center of being is in God and not in-man. Only the point to be found at the center of the absolute provides the basis for a meaningful answer to the question that appears at first to be so very simple and so very distant from the search for the absolute.

A person may therefore stray as far as possible, infinitely far, from God, and there he can find the source of his deepest self, the point of the meaning of his soul. He orients himself on the map of his world and is startled and pained to learn that he is not necessarily its center. But recognizing that he is part of a larger existence that does go to the heart of the world, he can begin to take the path to this existence.

–Adin Steinsaltz (The Thirteen Petalled Rose)

………………………………………….

Ineffable: Means, 1. Incapable of being expressed; indescribable or unutterable. See Synonyms; unspeakable. 2. Not to be uttered; taboo: “the ineffable name of God.” (American Heritage Dictionary)….”Moreover it is these who have known him who is, the Father, that is, the Root of the All, the Ineffable One who dwells in the Monad. He dwells alone in silence, and silence is tranquillity
since, after all, he was a Monad and no one was before him.” (”A Valentinian Exposition. ”)

…………………..

As for the Way, the Way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way;

As for names, the name that can be named is not the constant name.

The nameless is the beginning of the ten thousand things;

The named is the mother of the ten thousand things.

Therefore, those constantly without desires, by this means will see only that which they yearn for and seek.

These two together emerge;

They have different names yet they’re called the same;

That which is even more profound than the profound—

The gateway of all subtleties.

–Tao Te Ching (chapter 1)

…………………

Therefore to It Gnosis is no beginning; rather is it [that Gnosis doth afford] to us the first beginning of its being known.

Let us lay hold, therefore, of the beginning. and quickly speed through all [we have to pass].

`Tis very hard, to leave the things we have grown used to, which meet our gaze on every side, and turn ourselves back to the Old Old [Path].

Appearances delight us, whereas things which appear not make their believing hard.

Now evils are the more apparent things, whereas the Good can never show Itself unto the eyes, for It hath neither form nor figure.

Therefore the Good is like Itself alone, and unlike all things else; or `tis impossible that That which hath no body should make Itself apparent to a body.

The “Like’s” superiority to the “Unlike” and the “Unlike’s” inferiority unto the “Like” consists in this:

The Oneness being Source and Root of all, is in all things as Root and Source. Without [this] Source is naught; whereas the Source [Itself] is from naught but itself, since it is Source of all the rest. It is Itself Its Source, since It may have no other Source.

The Oneness then being Source, containeth every number, but is contained by none; engendereth every number, but is engendered by no other one.

Now all that is engendered is imperfect, it is divisible, to increase subject and to decrease; but with the Perfect [One] none of these things doth hold. Now that which is increasable increases from the Oneness, but succumbs through its own feebleness when it no longer can contain the One.

–Corpus Hermeticum

……………………..

My soul is a candle that burned away the veil;
only the glorious duties of light I now have.

The sufferings I knew initiated me into God.

I am a holy confessor for men.

When I see their tears running across their cheeks
and falling into

His hands,

what can I say to their great sorrow
that I too have
known.

The soul is a candle that will burn away the darkness,
only the glorious duties of love we will have.

The sufferings I knew initiated me into God.

Only His glorious cares
I now have.

–John of the cross

…………………….

25. The Monad first existed, and the Paternal Monad still subsists.
26. When the Monad is extended, the Dyad is generated.
27. And beside Him is seated the Dyad which glitters with intellectual sections,
to govern all things and to order everything not ordered.
28. The Mind of the Father said that all things should be cut into Three, whose
Will assented, and immediately all things were so divided.
29. The Mind of the Eternal Father said into Three, governing all things by Mind.
30. The Father mingled every Spirit from this Triad.
31. All things are supplied from the bosom of this Triad.
32. All things are governed and subsist in this Triad
33. For thou must know that all things bow before the Three Supernals.
34. From thence floweth forth the Form of the Triad, being preexistent; not the
first Essence, but that whereby all things are measured.
35. And there appeared in it Virtue and Wisdom, and multiscient Truth.
36. For in each World shineth the Triad, over which the Monad ruleth.”

http://magdelene.wordpress.com/2007/10/06/tao/

…………………

Light and darkness, life and death, and right and left are siblings of one another, and inseparable. For this reason the good are not good, the bad are not bad, life is not life, and death is not death. Each will dissolve into its original nature, but what is superior to the world cannot be dissolved, for it is eternal.

The names of worldly things are utterly deceptive, for they turn the heart from what is real to what is unreal. Whoever hears the word ^“god^“ thinks not of what is real but rather of what is unreal. So also with the words “father,” “son,” “holy spirit,” “life,” “light,” “resurrection,” “church,” and all the rest, people do not think of what is real but of what is unreal, [though] the words refer to what is real. The words [that are] heard belong to this world. [Do not be] deceived. If words belonged to the eternal realm, they would never be pronounced in this world, nor would they designate worldly things. They would refer to what is in the eternal realm.

Only one name is not pronounced in the world, the name the Father gave the Son. It is the name above all-it is the Father’s name. For the Son would not have become Father if he had not put on-the Father’s name. Those who have this name understand it but do not speak it. Those who do not have it cannot even un­derstand it.

Truth brought forth names in the world for us, and no one can refer to truth without names. Truth is one and many, for our sakes, to teach us about the one, in love, through the many.

–Gospel of Philip

……………….

Monad: From the Greek word, meaning “one”, “single” or “unique.” It has ample
descriptions according to different contexts: According to Pythagoras it was the
first thing in existence. ”The Valentinian Exposition” declares Jesus the
‘Monad.’ (See Sethian Monadology.) mo·nad; (mnd) n. 1. Philosophy; An
indivisible, impenetrable unit of substance viewed as the basic constituent
element of physical reality in the metaphysics of Leibnitz. 2. Biology; A
single-celled microorganism, especially a flagellate protozoan of the genus
”Monas.” 3. Chemistry ; An atom or a radical with valence 1. (Online
Webster’s Dic. See also; Wikipedia.) The Monadic sequence to the Triad is
expressed is by the ”Oracles of Zoroaster,” which illuminates the
sequence…..

Come, come, Yeshu d-Hiya!

The Mount of Darkness becometh Light,

it groweth Light, the Mount of Darkness,

and the turbid waters become fresh.

–Qulasta (Canonical prayer book of the Mandaeans)

…………………………..

Once upon a time, there was a blind man who does not know what the Sun is. So he asks other people to explain.

One man said, “The Sun is shaped like a copper plate.” So the blind man banged on a copper plate, and listened to its clanging sound.
Later when he heard the sound of a temple bell, he thought that must be the Sun.

Another man said,”The Sun gives out light just like a candle.” So the blind man hold a candle to feel its shape.
Later when he picked up a flute, he thought that this must be the Sun.

Yet we know that he Sun is vastly different from a bell or a flute; but a blind man does not understand the differences, because he has never seen the Sun and only heard it described.

– Su DongPo (Blind Man and the Fish)

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See how in their veins all becomes spirit:
into each other they mature and grow.
Like axles, their forms tremblingly orbit,
round which it whirls, bewitching and aglow.
Thirsters, and they receive drink,
watchers, and see: they receive sight.
Let them into one another sink
so as to endure each other outright.

– Rainer Maria Rilke (The Lovers)

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(35) Jesus said, “It is not possible for anyone to enter the house of a strong man and take it by force unless he binds his hands; then he will be able to ransack his house.

Isaiah 49:24-25 “Can spoil be snatched from the strong man…? Yes, says the Lord,”

Mark 3:27  “On the other hand, no one can break into a strong man’s house and make off with his goods unless he has first tied up the strong man; then he can ransack the house.”

Matthew 11:12 “Since the time of John the Baptist the kingdom of Heaven has been subjected to violence and violent men are taking it by force.”

Luke 11:21 “When a strong man fully armed is on guard over his palace, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he carries off the arms and armour on which the man had relied and distributes the spoil.”

Thomas (21) … Therefore I say, if the owner of a house knows that the thief is coming, he will begin his vigil before he comes and will not let him dig through into his house of his domain to carry away his goods. You then, be on your guard against the world. Arm yourselves with great strength lest the robbers find a way to come to you,  …”

The phrase “unless he binds his hands” always seemed ambiguous to me. Although I always assumed it meant to bind the hands of the “strong man”, it might also mean,  “bind your own hands”, even though you are

the same one entering the house by force!

   Matthew 11:12 claims violent men are taking the kingdom by force; I believe we are to identify with these violent men. I read (35) as being related to (98), “Slayer of the powerful man”, in that it promotes violence, ransacking and killing when necessary. I also believe the “house” to be ransacked and the “person” to be killed reside within us.

Built from lies and fear,

we fabricate a false illusion of ourselves,

piling them up like a house of cards.

This false self must die

and the house (soul) it resides in must be ransacked in order to free our true Spirit.

Note that Luke has softened this Saying.  We are

not to identify with the attacker, but should be defending ourselves with armor against attack. 

This makes it less violent and brings it in line with Saying (21)’s  “thief” who is trying to rob us. 

Luke’s idea of armor may have been influenced by

Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:8

“but we, who belong to the daylight, must keep sober, armed with the breastplate of faith and love, and the hope of salvation for a helmet.”

Love is real , real is love
Love is feeling , feeling love
Love is wanting to be loved

Love is touch, touch is love
Love is reaching, reaching love
Love is asking to be loved

Love is you
You and me
Love is knowing
we can be

Love is free, free is love
Love is living, living love
Love is needed to be loved

…………………….

A very Merry Xmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear

War is over, if you want it
War is over now

Happy Xmas

……………

John Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon), MBE (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980)

To understand others is to be knowledgeable; To understand yourself is to be wise.

To conquer others is to have strength;

To conquer yourself is to be strong.

To know when you have enough is to be rich. To go forward with strength is to have ambition. To not lose your place is to last long.

To die but not be forgotten-that’s true long life.

–Tao Te Ching (chap 33)

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Great feuds are not the product of mere greed or of sim­ple disputes over acquisitions. They involve, as we have seen, the symbolic plane of envy. Here we see that the enemy or the source of disagreement, exists not in the real world, but in that of interaction. In all hatred, a personal component distorts our perceptions, intensify­ing the weaknesses of the other, even when these are real. Another observer may perceive those very weak­nesses as a cause for admiration, not rejection. A re­pressed person seeking to change himself may admire the sensual behavior of another individual, while this same characteristic brings hatred from a third individual who is at that same moment looking to repress his behavior.

Thus we may deeply hate something in others that we do not like in ourselves, or something in others that reminds us of our frustrations, and so forth. In the im­mediate interests of thinking about quarreling, we want to identify this element residing in those who hate, sig­naling a strong link with the object of that emotion. No one takes his hatred as far as a feud unless he is strongly linked to the person he hates. Understanding this is fundamental to the analysis of a disagreement. The Maggid of Mezeritz said:

Do not be discouraged by strong opposition. Rob­bers attack those who carry jewels, not carts car­rying fertilizer. We must think of ourselves as carriers of jewels, in order to repel robbers.

People whom we hate carry ^“jewels^“ in the sense of something that interests us, something important to us. These jewels can be good or evil, but to the robber they symbolize an object of_. great desire. Both the rob­ber and the victim must be aware of this. The Maggid of Mezeritz even risks the suggestion that, in reacting to violence, the individual under attack should not forget to think of himself as a carrier of jewels. When we are not aware of this, we may erroneously take personally much of what is sent in our direction. We are merely carriers of jewels, in the eyes of the other jewels we may not even perceive.

–The Kabbalah of Envy (Rabbi Nilton Bonder)

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………………

I have lived
dear G-d
in a world gone mad
and I have seen
evil
unleashed beyond reason or
understanding.

I was with them.
We drank from the same
bitter cup.

I hid with them
Feared with them,
Struggled with them
And when the killing was finally done
I had survived
while millions had died.
I do not know why

I have asked many questions
for which there are no answers
And I have even cursed
my life
thinking I could not
endure the pain.

But a flame
inside
refused to die.
I could not throw away
What had been ripped away
from so many.

In the end
I had to choose life.
I had to struggle to cross
the bridge between
the dead and the living.
I had to rebuild
what had been destroyed.
I had to deny death
Another victory.

– A Survivor’s Prayer By: MalkaB

………………

I tell you how I feel, but you dont care.
I say tell me the truth, but you dont dare.
You say love is a hell you cannot bare.
And I say gimme mine back and then go there – for all I care.

I got my feet on the ground and I dont go to sleep to dream.
You got your head in the clouds and youre not at all what you seem.
This mind, this body, and this voice cannot be stifled by your deviant ways.
So dont forget what I told you, dont come around, I got my own hell to raise.

I have never been insulted in all my life.
I could swallow the seas to wash down all this pride.
First you run like a fool just to be at my side.
And now you run like a fool, but you just run to hide, and I cant abide.

I got my feet on the ground and I dont go to sleep to dream.
You got this head in the clouds and youre not at all what you seem.
This mind, this body, and this voice cannot be stifled by your deviant ways.
So dont forget what I told you, dont come around, I got my own hell to raise.

Dont make it a big deal, dont be so sensitive.
Were not playing a game anymore, you dont have to be so defensive.
Dont you plead me your case, dont bother to explain.
Dont even show me your face, cuz its a crying shame.
Just go back to the rock from under which you came.
Take the sorrow you gave and all the stakes you claim -
And dont forget the blame.
I got my feet on the ground and I dont go to sleep to dream.
You got this head in the clouds and youre not at all what you seem.
This mind, this body, and this voice cannot be stifled by your deviant ways.
So dont forget what I told you, dont come around, I got my own hell to raise.

–Sleep to Dream (Fiona Apple)

There was a big pond, and in it three were three fishes. The fist fish was One-Thought, the second fish was Hundred-Thoughts, and the third fish was Thousand-Thoughts. At some time a fisherman came and cast his net. He caught those two fishes of many thoughts; but he did not catch the fish One-Thought.

–Manichaean Parable (Turtan fragment M127)

………………….

Thirty spokes unite in one hub;

It is precisely where there is nothing, that we find the usefulness of the wheel.

We fire clay and make vessels;

It is precisely where there’s no substance, that we find the usefulness of clay pots.

We chisel out doors and windows;

It is precisely in these empty spaces, that we find the usefulness of the room.

Therefore, we regard having something beneficial;

But having nothing as useful.

–The Tao Te Chin (Chap. 11)

For as long as space endures

And for as long as living beings remain,

Until then I may too abide

To dispel the misery of the world.

–The Dalai Lama’s favorite prayer

………………………

There is no deaf man like one who does not hear,

and there is no blind person like one who cannot see.

–Yiddish Proverb

……………………

To do evil to another person is worse than doing evil to the Creator. The person you harmed may have gone someplace unknown to you, and you will then have lost the chance to ask his forgiveness. The Eternal One, however, is everywhere, and you can find Him any time you seek Him.

—The Rabbi of Amshinov

…………………..

Do not underestimate any person and do not be disdainful of anything, for there is no human being who does not have his hour and there is nothing that does not have its place

–Shimon Ben Azai

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,

he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

–Psalm 23

…………………

My parents kept me from children who were rough And who threw words like stones and who wore torn clothes..

Their thighs showed through rags. They ran in the street

And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams.

I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron

And their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms.

I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys

Who copied my lisp behind me on the road.

They were lithe, they sprang out behind hedges

Like dogs to bark at our world. They threw mud

And I looked another way, pretending to smile.

I longed to forgive them, yet they never smiled.

–Stephen Spender (My Parents^‘ Kept me from Children who were Rough)

……………………………

When faced with other people it is often we find people with agendas. We find the ego. It is all too easy to become angry. When faced with people who feel the need to hurt others it is too easy to give in to the ego, the self and become angry. Liars have their own reasons, their own agenda, their need to cast dispersions. We must overcome this; overcome the need to be right; overcome the need to silence those that offend you. Beat your attacker not with a fist, but with love.

Anger leads to anger

Hate leads to hate

Lies lead to lies

But

Love leads to love.

–Br. Benjamin Assisi 12/5/07

………………………….

I now repent whatever were the deeds of my body, speech, and mind; my greedy, indignant, and foolish behavior; and had I encouraged the “robbers ” to poison my heart, or not restrained my roots; or had I doubted the Eternal-Living Three Treasures and the Two Great Lights; or had I injured the body of the Glorious Column, as well as the Five Lights; had I begot a feeling of slight and neglect against the Priestess-teachers, our fathers and mothers, and against the wise intimates, and had I accused and blamed them; or had I imperfectly observed the seven alms-givings, the ten Commandments, and the three Seals, Gates of Law, I now pray my sins may disappear!

Behold, I call to witness the heaven and the water, and the holy spirits, and the angels of prayer, and the oil, and the salt, and the earth. I testify by these seven witnesses that no more shall I sin, nor commit adultery, nor steal, nor be guilty of injustice, nor be covetous, nor be motivated by hatred, nor be scornful, nor shall I take pleasure in any wicked deeds.

Good is the Good to the good, and They set their nature upon those who love their name.

We will seek and find, and will pray and be heard.

We have sought and found, we prayed and were heard in thy presence, my Lord Yeshu and Maryam d-Hiya, Lords of healings.

Amen.

–“The Gnostic Prayer book” ( a mix of Qualasta, the Mandaean prayer book and the Manichaean Hymn Scroll)