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A story from Zen Buddhism...
A distraught man, who had been under his Teacher's guidance for many years, approached the Teacher. "Please, help! I feel lost, I feel desperate. I don’t know who I am anymore. Please, show me my True Self!” The teacher looked away, as though having not heard him. The man pleaded. Still, the Teacher was silent. Finally, giving up, the man turned to leave. The Teacher called to him by name. "Yes!" said the man, as he spun back around. "There it is!" exclaimed the Teacher.
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And words of Jesus... as to this process, this fulfilling, of ourselves in the journey we take through and in time... from Love to Love...
I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will trust in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, ... The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become wholly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. ... I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love by which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.
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the irony of absolute and relative ~
one is one, each one the other one
if one flees into the absolute
one flees into the relative
if one flees into the relative
one flees into the absolute
how can I know the True Face
if I turn from my face
looking deeply into the face
I see the Face of every face
embracing wholly my name
I know I cannot be named
see no being though named can be named
so... "what?"
no escape
what a relief!
no need or wish to flee
what joy! in graceful embrace ~
the gate of either opens to either
to love by Love
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So, what are we left with? Why embrace both our very-human selves and the more we each are together, in Grace? I have often pointed to this as Love. Right here, going deeply into the humanness you are, including all you feel and see, with no self-criticism, what is the beauty you find? Here, human and more meet, yourself and every being too, in a differentiated and primordial unity. Love is, and Love happens.
How can I love freely, gladly those who struggle with their humanness in this human body and act in compassion to other embodied beings, unless I accept thankfully the form in which I live and breathe with them? I breathe with the trees, the fish, the sky, the hills, the rain, the fowl, ... So, regardless of what more we are, we are creatures with all other creatures, sharing a common space, the same air and ground and sky, together, in mutual reliance on one another.
Continued... |
