Uradiance

Scholars say, "context is everything!" But what if the context is eternity? What if the context is boundlessness? What if the context is spacious compassion, where all points of view are equally insignificant? Doesn't everything then become lighter than air, all boundaries as webs of dew? And these golden beams, rising neither in East nor West, nor falling from above: do they not emanate from your own heart?

There is a space within space where darkness hides its wealth of brilliant light. That is where the world comes from, and many other things too beautiful for the world until we imagine them in ourselves. I know there is only One, but God loves mirrors. What is within the within mirrors itself through countless faces, all singing the name of a hidden splendor. That is where you and I met before we were born, and Christ was in Mary like an eternal seed.

When I no longer need to be right and no longer need to be sure, no longer need to perfect myself and no longer need to be pure, no longer need to be smarter than fools for knowing is not to be wise, when I no longer need to ascend for to fall is as good as to rise, when I no longer need to seek heaven or search for a place beyond earth, or tighten my belly, or armor my heart or wash off this afterbirth, then I need to do nothing more but one and only one thing: to open my heart to your radiant Grace, and laugh, and cry, and sing.

Sing in uncertainty. Smile in the dark. Some think this smile is artificial. But really, it is profound. When we smile, thousands of neuro-muscular signals move from our face into our body, into the body of the universe. When a teacher like Nhat Hanh or Sri Sri Ravi Shankar tells us to smile as a meditation practice, they honor the grace of nature' body above the pride of the intellect. We don't need a reason to smile. We don't need to explain why. If we do, we are lost. When you are in darkness, what is artificial is pretending that it is light. But to embrace uncertainty, to relax into the night, to fill the void with your smile from one corner of the universe to another, transforms everything from the deep source where Being begins. That is the teaching of his Holiness, Nhat King Cole.

Peace between Israel and Palestine will not come through negotiation: that is just a ruse of perpetual postponement. Peace will not come through protest or resistance: that is just more angry polarization. When enough people are really ready, peace will come so simply, so clearly, through a mere shift of awareness: from old stories in the mind, to a radiant Presence in the heart.

Most Americans deal with war simply by ignoring our troops. Lamenting the price of groceries, we forget the pain of military families. We were the first American generation to send soldiers into battle without paying a war tax. Our troops bear more than the physical trauma for us: they bear the moral weight of war. With no luxury for easy judgments, like the Left’s “Peace now!” or the Right’s “America right or wrong,” they shoulder burdens of decision-making and psychic ambiguity unknown to civilians: burdens that wound the soul. When is war justified? Am I defending the innocent or taking revenge? Who am I fighting for: the civilian who forgot me? The politicians whom everyone disdains? My commanding officer? My buddy beside me? Is this war really about freedom and democracy? Is anything worth killing for? In a college distance learning program, I teach soldiers deployed to combat zones. They are as morally thoughtful as any students I’ve ever known. One wrote: ...

God is the only person I ever met who has no opinion about anything. I asked God how she gets away with it. She shrugged and said, "I just love. Whatever you've got to do, go ahead, I love you anyway. But if you treat somebody bad and shit happens, don't blame me."

Big oil, big government, big guns, big shots, big deal. What's so great about Big? What's wrong with small? Big things are made out of infinitesimally small particles. Big achievements consist of ten thousand momentary tasks. Big discoveries happen, not because discoverers think big, but because they pay careful attention to little details. Carl Sagan once said that Einstein made monumental breakthroughs in physics because he asked very very simple questions. The world can't afford Big any more. When we all do our small chosen tasks with devotion, greatness will happen by itself.

The empiricist's work is to see the object clearly. The meditator's work is to see the seer. Both practice a science, and science is incomplete without both.

Give up the politics of anger, the politics of polarization. Give up left and right. Form a circle. Stop shouting. Start listening. Listen first to your own body. Then you can listen to others. Own your anger. Your anger doesn't belong to "them," it belongs to you. Instead of projecting anger onto the "enemy," feel anger as a nameless sensation in the gut, brain, boiling blood and bone marrow, pure blue flame, sacred and guiltless as any other energy. Let anger burn itself away to silence. This is the inner work. Now the circle is truly gathered. Centered presence, listening silence. Not closed silence, but open silence. Not the silence of suppression, but the silence of pure possibility. Only in the silence of possibility can the heart speak. The voice of the heart is not your old voice. It is utterly new. Without shouting, without defensiveness, without taking "a stand," the voice of the heart speaks healing and vision. ...

I confess, I am of two minds on almost every issue. As soon as I pronounce a judgment, a voice in my conscience says, "Of course, the opposite may be equally true." I consider this a blessing. It cures me from the pathology of always being right.

"Do not let the mind cast its shadow over the moon of your heart: let go of thinking." ~Rumi All the transformational teachings of our time may be summarized in one principle: I am not my thoughts. Whatever may be the content of this mind, it is not who I am. From the trauma or the nightmare, from the memory or the old story, from the craving or the passion I carry within me, I am instantly free , simply by virtue of observing that the one who watches this mental content cannot possibly be this mental content. The I who perceives an object is self-liberated in the very act of perceiving. Any object or thought, however insignificant, can be our liberator, by drawing us into a perception that awakens the one who perceives. This is so obvious that we constantly overlook the opportunity for enlightenment, an opportunity inherent in each waking moment when the subject perceives an object. Just as one who says, "this is my body," must be other than the body,...