This silence, this moment, every moment, if it’s genuinely inside you, brings what you need. There’s nothing to believe. Only when I stopped believing in myself did I come into this beauty. Sit quietly, and listen for a voice that will say, ‘Be more silent.’ Die and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign that you’ve died. Your old life was a frantic running from silence. Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence.
Our society provides no curriculum or schooling on how to notice love or to recognize the many people who have transmitted its life-giving power. Most of us haven’t been taught that to receive love deeply and transmit it wholeheartedly is a real human possibility, that it can be learned, and that to do so is the key to our deepest well-being, our spiritual life, and our capacity to bring more goodness into this world.
Our society provides no curriculum or schooling on how to notice love or to recognize the many people who have transmitted its life-giving power. Most of us haven’t been taught that to receive love deeply and transmit it wholeheartedly is a real human possibility, that it can be learned, and that to do so is the key to our deepest well-being, our spiritual life, and our capacity to bring more goodness into this world.
“That first night during the orientation talk in the Ocean of Peace Meditation Hall, I don’t remember exactly what Thay said, but I remember how my body felt. I heard him talking about how to hold our suffering. Perhaps it was the gentle tone in his voice, or the compassion from his heart, but my body melted and I started to sob. My suffering had finally surfaced and flowed out of my body in the first place I had felt safe and held. That night, I knew I had found my teacher and my path, and I have stayed with the sangha over the past 18 years.
“Thay became the gentle, unconditionally loving father figure I had always wanted. I learned that I needed to heal the suffering in my heart before I could heal others. And I could not heal without the energy of support of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. “Thay had brought my father back to me. Now that Thay had passed, my father was there to help hold me for the first time. I had witnessed the miracle of the practice. I know Thay is breathing and walking with me. I will take Thay with me when we see the desert cacti bloom this spring, as all of nature sings and stretches in gratitude.”
“Together we are all on a journey called life. We are a little broken and a little shattered inside. Each one of us is aspiring to make it to the end. None is deprived of pain here and we have all suffered in our own ways.
I think our journey is all about healing ourselves and healing each other in our own special ways. Let’s just help each other put all those pieces back together and make it to the end more beautifully. Let us help each other survive.”
May I be a guard for all those who are protectorless, a guide for those who journey on the road, for those who wish to go across water, may I be a boat, a raft, a bridge.
When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.
