#664 Awareness & Love

     "How few understand what love really is, and how it arises in the human heart. It is so frequently equated with good feelings toward others, with benevolence or nonviolence or service. But these things in themselves are not love.
     Love springs from awareness. It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she really is here and now, and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection, that you can truly love them, otherwise it is not the person that you love but the idea that you have formed of this person, or this person as the object of your desire not as he or she is in themselves.
    The first act of love is to see this person or this object, this reality as it truly is. And this involves the enormous discipline of dropping your desires, your prejudices, your memories, your projections, your selective way of looking ...a discipline so great that most people would rather plunge headlong into good actions and service than submit to the burning fire of this asceticism.
     When you set out to serve someone whom you have not taken the trouble to see, are you meeting that person's need or your own?"                                                          Father Anthony de Mello

#477 Freedom from Slavery

     "12 Years A Slave" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2024544/  is a powerful movie - a must see. The soul-crushing power of hatred & fear is masterfully illustrated.

     It's very useful to deeply reflect on how each one of us might be involved in very similar power dynamics. Are we slaves to our past history - personal, racial, religious? If so, we could be equally enslaved as oppressors or oppressed. The bullied and those who do the bullying, as the film suggested, are equally imprisoned by this toxic mindset.

     It takes some time in sitting meditation before we realize how much of our time & energy is spent running - from or after. It matters not what, the issue is that we're compulsively running and we do so out of fear. And most of us avoid going deep enough to investigate, and face directly what we're afraid of. Yet it's only by looking at our fear face-to-face, accepting it, & embracing it, that it is tamed, and we are able to stand up straight as noble adult human beings and be able to see things clearly, rather than as obstacles, threats or must-haves.

Flower Clouds by Odilon Redon

#458 Nothing is Hidden

     "The ninth century Zen master Siubi was asked: 'What is the secret of Zen?' 'Come back when there is nobody around and I shall tell you.' The inquirer returned. Siubi took him to a bamboo grove, pointed at the bamboos and said: 'See how long these are. See how short these are!'
     Suddenly the questioner saw, 'had a flash of awakening.' What did he see? He had a revelation of sheer existence. Where there is revelation, explanation becomes superfluous. Curiosity is dissolved in wonder."

       Welwood J. ed. “Ordinary magic. Everyday life as spiritual path.” Shambhala, Boston, 1992.

     How does the story above strike you? With patient, persistent practice, our ability to see things clearly - as they are - gradually (at times suddenly) improves.

Steve McCurry   http://stevemccurry.com/