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What we call doubt is often simply dullness of mind and spirit, not the absence of faith at all, but faith latent with the lives we are not quite living, God dormant in the world to which we are not quite giving our best selves.
*Christian Wyman. My Bright Abyss.
If you study and learn as a person, you can only function as a person~maybe as a good person, a skilled person~but when you awaken to the Truth, you start moving as a whole environment.
Mooji. Vaster Than Sky.
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The giving of myself is the plunge into Life, not the fantasy of a life I do not have and cannot have. Of this I was reminded several years ago, when in preparation to relocate to begin a new job. The sense arose: "See Life happen around you." I did not ask then, but now I do, "Who is seeing?" And, "What is this Life?" And, "Around whom?" Some answers you can only live into, and that takes time. Some answers you see long before you know you see. Somehow, I was summoned by Life to plunge into Life and, at the same time, see Life happening all around. Only in reconciliation to Life, meaning in Life, can I see Life. I cannot see Life as an outsider to Life. Life calls for total commitment, complete self-giving, a giving only possible through Grace.
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Wherever I show up sets a whole new context for Life to happen anew, to do something fresh, novel. Yet, even the showing up is the creative act of Life. In the showing up is trusting, for Life happening is happening, not something I make happen. Simply being present is creative, yet there appears no self making anything happen, at least not a self apart from the happening, apart from Life. This implodes the image of ourselves as small, largely helpless, finite beings being in control, my being in control. That can be positively, wisely humbling.
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So, the plunge into Life is not merely engagement with the details of life, as in my life, though that occurs in Life. Indeed, all happening in Life is consecrated by Life.
This offering myself to Life, to see Life everywhere, is a response to Life already-offering Itself to me. The response is one with the offer. All real living is response. Seeing is wedded with trust that Something unseen is happening all around and I am part of that Something happening~we all are. And, that seeing Life arising is, likewise, us together, no longer as simply a self among selves. Life is undivided, each appearing part a mirror of Wholeness: so we. In seeing now, I see all Life. Life is completely here. So, seeing is seeing Totality, like a panoramic outlook. I am Life happening looking at Life happening.
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Plunging into Life, I, therefore, plunge into myself, into the whole happening-context. Dainin Katagiri refers to this in Each Moment is the Universe. In Japanese kiya refers to "arising" or "arising only."
Buddhism doesn’t see the self that way, because when I am present in the domain of impermanence, I can’t say who I am. I realize from the bottom of my mind that I exist, but I can’t say anything at all about myself because there is no concept there. At that time I am just arising. Before my mind starts to analyze who I am, a being arises, something named Katagiri appears, and I am here. I exist! So if you want to make a vivid statement about yourself, say you are kiya~arising only!
So, Life appears as happening. Life appears as Brian. Brian is happening. Brian observing Life happening is happening. Life is Brian observing whatever is happening around Brian. Simple? Yes. No problem, yet complex to the mind that sees life as a thing we are experiencing, rather than our being something arising from Life as the experience of Life.
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The following morning in Silence, after the arising of "See Life happen around you," thought began spinning a fantasy. Fantasy meaning simply a story being spun out and out and out. Regardless of the allure of the story, I did not want to be in the story. Suddenly, I was out of the story, it had unwoven immediately. Then, there was the sense of my two bare feet on the floor, a holy, here-and-now grounding new and fresh, and real - even, alive. Yet, story began to arise inside this Hereness, this Nowness, this Aliveness, for that is the nature of mind. Storying is what the mind does, we cannot escape that. Yet, the story was not taking me into a fantasy. I saw the story, as though from outside looking in. A wonderful story now. A story about the wonder and beauty of being alive and feeling Life, just like these two bare feet resting on a floor.
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We can allow our doubt and faith, indeed all within us, to be reconciled to Life. Only Life reconciles us to Life. The nature of Life is harmony, so Life seeks union. We do not need to be saved from Life, but saved into Life.
In this reunion is a befriending, a trust in and love for who we are and who we are becoming. Appreciation arises for the glory of the selves moving all around us, for in being reconciled to Life, we are reconciled to self, and being reconciled to self, to all selves.
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Then, to plunge into Life, I plunge beyond faith or doubt and into faith and doubt only arising. The plunge beyond is, at the same time, a plunge into, but not into something fixed, rather something flowing, living, being. So, in the plunge into is a reconciliation of opposites. This is harmony, this is with Life. With Life, I can truly be with you. We become together.
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I see I am a moving mystery, changing moment to moment. That is my best self, my only self. In my being self, Life appears.
In this faithful plunge into Life, so natural, how can I speak comfortably of Life being religious or spiritual, or anything? At some point, I can only be quiet, respectful, glad not to need to know what can be known only when the seeing arises.
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for the Grace, yes, the Grace
to live
awake and awash
in Mystery and in Praise
Life living Itself
in the beauty of being
I am always just here
*The vision statement for Lotus of the Heart is Living in Love beyond Beliefs.
*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
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