"Serve People, and Feed People"

-The Maharaj Ji's answer to the question, "How do I get enlightened?"
I have been trying to figure out what has created the bond in my mind with this video; Ram Das, famous spiritual guru of the 1960's counterculture, the author of "Be Here Now," former Harvard professor, and subject of the bioflick, "Fierce Grace," which details both his growth as a spiritual guide as his trials as a stroke-survivor; a 10 minute clip, describing Ram Das's first meeting with his guru, Maharaj Ji, in the hills if northern India, has stirred by heart, inspired beauty within, as well as renewed vigor towards my own guru, my own practice....

"When Maharaj Ji was near me, I was bathed in love. And because he knew everything about me, it was like I was forgiven. Prior to that I had a lot of things in my past that I didnt want anyone to know; and I always felt that if they knew, they wouldn't love me. He knew, and he loved me. It was so beautiful. It was so beautiful."

"All he wanted was for people to be liberated, to be free."

-Ram Das

"What staggered me is not that he loved everybody; but that when I was standing in front of him, I loved everybody. That was the hardest thing for me to understand. How he could so totally transform the spirit of those who were with him." 

"We tried to give him things; you couldnt give him money, you couldnt do anything for him; there was nothing that he needed."

-Larry Brilliant

Izumi Shikibu

"Although the wind blows fiercely here,
the moonlight also shines
through the roof planks
of this ruined house."

"Watching the moon,
at dawn,
solitary,
midsky,
i knew myself completely,
no part left out."

A Master's Words on the Nature of Mind.

“These trains of thoughts and states of mind are constantly changing, like the shapes of clouds in the wind, but we attach great importance to them. An old man watching children at play knows very well that their games are of little consequence. He feels neither elated nor upset at what happens in their game, while the children take it all very seriously. We are just exactly them.”

“Maintain a state of simplicity. If you encounter happiness, success, prosperity, or other favorable conditions, consider them as dreams or illusions, and do not get attached to them. If you are stricken by illness, calamity, deprivation, or other physical or mental trials, do not let yourself get discouraged, but rekindle your compassion and generate the wish that through your suffering all beings' sufferings may be exhausted. Whatever circumstances arise, do not plunge into either elation or misery, but stay free and comfortable, in unshakable serenity.”

“However deluded your thoughts may be, they are but products of your own intellect.

If you set your thoughts free, where nothing arises, remains, or ends,

they will vanish into emptiness.”

Dilgo Khyentse Rimpoche

basho

Days and months are the travelers of eternity.
So are the years that pass by.
I myself have been tempted for a long time by the cloud moving wind-
filled with a strong desire to wander...I walked through mists and clouds,
breathing the thin air of high altitudes and stepping on slippery ice snow,
till at last through a gateway of clouds,
as it seemed,
to the very paths of the sun and the moon,
I reached the summit, completely out of breath and nearly frozen to death.
Presently the sun went down and the moon rose glistening in the sky.
-Basho, The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Lumbini. Pilgrimage

Walking the dusty paths, the same strides taken by pilgrims from all Buddhist faiths, the countriesas diverse as the skin tones, as scattered as the tongues, as varied as the hues of the clothes that drape; Cambodians and Thais in bright orange temple robes; Sri Lankans and Vietnamese in the deep browns of the monsoon season earth; Tibetans in maroon and crimson.

Millenia ago, on these same dusty paths, the same ancient rice paddies dotting the fading horizon, the same crickets greeting the flaming orange horizon, the same primal screams of roving bands of jackals under the starry sky, walked the Buddha himself, a simple man, a simple message.

The chanting of the Korean monks reverberated off the cavernous confines of the unfinished, concrete gray temple; the sound waves collided with my silent mind and stirred my soul.

I smiled deeply and bowed to the moment. What an astonishing adventure this has been, all these years.

“The Tibetans liken the mind to a great clear sky, a cloudless sky. All the phenomena of the mind and body are happenings in this clear sky. They are not the sky itself. The sky is clear and unaffected by what is happening. The clouds come and go, the winds come and go, the rain and sunlight all come and go, but the sky remains clear. Make the mind like a big clear sky and let everything arise and vanish on its own.”

-Joseph Goldstein