the Beloved’s lips will release your heart
be a rose opening to the Sun's kiss
*Brian K. Wilcox, July 30, 2006, "A Rose Opening."
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Twelve centuries [ago] in China, Layman P’ang cried out, "Difficult, difficult, difficult, like trying to scatter ten measures of sesame seed all over a tree!" "Easy, easy, easy," returned Mrs. P’ang, as would any true Zen partner, "just like touching your feet to the ground when you get out of bed." "Neither difficult nor easy," one-upped Ling-chao, their dutiful daughter, going beyond her parents, "on the tips of the hundred grasses, the Ancestors’ meaning."
~Dosho Port. Keep Me in Your Heart a While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri.
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Prayer has become for me mostly a simple rest, pure opening, beyond words or thoughts, while thoughts are born and die without my consent. This is surrender inside the veil. I refer to this as depth, intimacy, or withinness sometimes; this is everywhere, underneath the appearance of everything, making the appearance possible.
Here, in this Silence, is relinquishment of machinations of self-helping, spirituality, and religiousness. The healings and nurturings of Grace are present, through Grace but not any self-generated agenda. Grace awakens me to the immensity of Love, a Love that attended my birth, attends my living moment-to-moment, and will attend my death. If any healings or nurturings, by Love alone occurs.
This being-with-and-in Silence is counter-culture and counter-religion, this rest, even when unrest arises, a trusting, even when struggling to trust, beyond the methods and personalities of religion and spirituality. Here I am nothing, no one; I cannot be judged wrong or esteemed right, religious or nonreligious, spiritual or unspiritual. I am, and I am happening. In this Silence, I sense everything unfolding and moving in the same happening, a single, seamless movement holding within itself all boundaries and changes.
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Why do few go into this place behind the veil? Going behind the veil is a threat to the ego, the I-sense, to the wide array of religions and spiritualities. Here, there remains no one to save, be enlightened, be liberated, be a believer, become holy, become a saint, and that is a major blow to the I trying to become something to prove something. Here, I am no one, so cannot become someone special. Words like surrender and relinquishment do not fit well in the religious and spiritual marketplace in this world I live in. The I will gladly use a god, a goddess, the guru, the church, the sangha, the roshi, the master, the lama, anyone or anything to find relief for the I, enlightenment for the I, salvation for the I, liberation for the I ~ such is not possible, for I is only a sense-of-I.
What is the veil? Historically, the veil is that curtain which separated a sacred space from that outside. Inside the veil, in Silence, I find there is no contrast between holy and unholy, every place is place, empty of any individuality, superiority or inferiority; I find that true of myself, everyone. Ironically, within the veil, I see there is no veil separating anyone or anything. Yet, in writing of this, I find it odd to speak of a veiless veil; possibly, not saying anything would be better.
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And, here, in the Silence, what am I doing? Most truly, I am doing nothing, and being unaware of all the causes and conditions that have gifted me to be here now, and relax here, breathe here, be in Love here.
Freedom arises in this possessing nothing. No claim "this is mine" or "that is mine." If being no one, how could I possess anything? Nothing enters here, all drops into primordial emptiness, which is filled with everyone and everything.
I cannot even have God or my God, here. I am, God is. Prayer happens, God happens, I happen, you happen, everything is happening. Can one find a seam between anywhere, when all is unfolding everywhere?
Now, all I have written above means nothing in itself. The words are to arouse curiosity and encourage inspiration. The words frame contradictions, such cannot be avoided in using words. I welcome you to forget all said, and go from it to wherever Grace is leading you. If the words continue to help, good, if not, good.
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So, what to do, if you choose? Be a rose opening, for the Sun to kiss. See Life dancing on the tips of one hundred grasses.
~Brian K. Wilcox, July 17, 2018, "Here ~ within the veil."
*All material, unless another source is cited, is authored by the presenter of Lotus of Heart, Brian Kenneth Wilcox, Florida USA. Use of the material is permitted; Brian only requests that credit be given and to be notified at 77ahavah77@gmail.com .
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union, is available through major booksellers.
*Move cursor over pictures for photographer and title.
The Sacred in Me bows
to the Sacred in You
