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Wisdom Quote
Love is very complicated, and we show our love in ways we don't even realize. ... Subtle and mysterious are the ways of love.
*Lama Surya Das. Awakening to the Sacred.
Wisdom Story
The following story Lama Surya Das shares in Awakening to the Sacred:
Last year my friend Kathy travelled to Indiana in order to attend the memorial service of a woman named Mary Davis. Mrs. Davis, who was eighty-nine when she died, was the much beloved mother of four loving children. At the service, my friend Kathy was sitting in the row behind Mary's daughter, Margi, and one of Mary's grandsons, Jonathan, who was giving a eulogy.
When Jonathan, now a confidant and successful man, stood up to speak, he told the congregants about some of his experiences growing up. He said that as a child he had learning disabilities that made him very discouraged. He said that he remembered days when he felt as though he couldn't get anything right, and he hated school. He said that one of the most inspiring, meaningful, and confidence-building things in his growing up was a family prayer taught by his grandmother, Mary, to his mother, Margi, who in turn taught it to him. Every morning before Jonathan went to school, his mother would take his hands, look him in the eye, and repeat this prayer. This was Mary's legacy to her family. I never knew Mary, but I often think of her and her prayer of love.
MARY'S PRAYER
I am the place that God shines through.
He and I are one not two.
He needs me where and as I am.
I need not doubt, not fear, nor plan.
If I but be relaxed and free,
He'll work his plan of love through me.
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Comments
Buddhist Master, Ajahn Chah (1919-1992), taught the three gates of spiritual transformation: body, mind, and speech. He said: "Don't keep the knowledge in your brain or in your mouth. Make the gates of body, speech, and mind consistent in Dharma [i.e. Teaching, Truth, Reality]" (Being Dharma).
Chah reminds us that our bodies, mouths, and brains ~ indeed, our whole selves ~ are to become consistent with our spiritual teaching. The essence of spiritual teaching has the energy to transmute bodily faculties into the life of Dharma, or Truth, or Sacredness.
And the essence of Sacredness is Love. This Love is not emotional, though emotion of varied nature arises from Love. Rather, Love is connection, availability; Love is openness.
Love is not a static quality. Love is dynamic process, moving energy, cascading power, creative effort. Love is a center of meek force, everywhere and no where. Love seeks to pull all things into its orb, that all things might enjoy meaning in connection with all other things.
Love is subtle and a mystery. We never know the extension of influence from one loving thought or act. We do not need to know, we need to trust and act.
We are beings who find meaning from connection. We must act to manifest connection in the world. Connection is the source of loving action. The connection moves through us, and as we act, in the action of the connection, the Center moves us and we move more fully into the Center. The pulling of Love ~ which is the sacramental act of Christ in creation ~ and our choice to move by action toward the Center, by moving outward and incarnating Love in the world, in and by Love, is one act.
One thing is certain, then, no life is insignificant that offers even one act of Love. And, likewise, no one has failed to offer Christ to the world who has done one act of loving.
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