Uradiance

I plunge into the dark ocean of midnight knowing I will emerge in the blood of another universe much like this one but wet and sparkling with birth. Photo: dolphin in the womb from Nature Heaven

Every night, Jesus prays to you. 'Let the pain of Mary's womb be kneaded into the taste of this bread, freshly baked in the oven of your body.' The Shaman bows at your feet murmuring, 'You are the best medicine.' And what does Buddha confess? 'My past lives are as fallen leaves swept away by your gentle exhalation.' Counting beads of memory will only sabotage the sacrament of Presence, defiling your sacred relationship with the ordinary. Why feast on your wound when your nature is healing? Why worship dreams in the ancient temple of trauma? Love's story happens now. Beauty requires only one silent breath of attention. In your Wintry heart what cannot die or be born has tenderly swollen, purple as the nipple on a naked twig, the coming plum.

Hello, Ram Dass. Welcome home. Thank you for all those times we sat in sat-sang all afternoon and all evening. I was in college and you always stopped there on your way back from India. You were the first one who taught us to chant, and to honor pure Presence. You told stories about your infinite Friend wrapped in his blanket. You opened the fountain in our chests. Then we were silent for long golden rivers of now. You made it so safe and eloquent to laugh at ourselves, at the whole wondrous joke of seeking what we already have. I hope you've met Willy there, which is here, in the rays of the Heart. I love you.

Jesus said, "The Eye is the light of the body. If your Eye is one, your whole body will be filled with light (Mat 6:22)." He did not take human birth to reveal a path out of the flesh, but to glorify God in the flesh. What are we made of? Subtler than a photon, finer than the fleetest quark, each particle of our blessed matter is a wave of unbounded Christ Consciousness.

The nectar of contentment flows up your stem, opening golden petals here, in your chest. Don't you know that the seeds of the world come from the jewel of silence? They are scattered dancing reflections of your face when you choose beauty, when you breathe the wondrous un-created energy you Are. Now let your fragrance fill the space between the stars.

Be more and more like the Moon. Though her reflection is sometimes whole and sometimes broken by these trembling waters She is always still and radiant in the sky of true emptiness. She doesn't keep repeating, "I am not the pond, I am not the pond." She just gazes.

Dear friend, my christmas tree does not depress you. Your own mind depresses you. My happiness does not make you anxious. Your own mind makes you anxious. It is not my duty to tiptoe over the earth trying not to trigger you. You can avoid much suffering if you refrain from ascribing intent. Please discriminate between the intentions of others and your own reactions. This is true forgiveness. Discriminate between the actual world and the feelings that arise in you about it. This is true Vairagya, non-attachment. Only then can you sink deeper and discover that your nature is peace, your breath is love.

Slow down, walk softly, go nowhere. When you spend a little while just walking in the silence of Winter, with no other purpose but caressing the ground, each footfall, like snow, makes the earth more sacred. You step into a new dimension, the dimension of the Ordinary, leaving a trail of miracles. Painting by Andrew Wyeth, who said, "I prefer Winter and Fall, because then you can feel the bone structure of the landscape."

"Which of you, by worrying, can add one inch to your stature?" ~Jesus, Mat 6:27 The power to Be without the compulsion to Do, to Be in the world without anxiously trying to fix or manipulate it, is itself a transforming earth-healing act. Far from passivity, the act of Being is the stillness that spins galaxies, creating stars. In the past, only a few yogis, hermit monks, and crazy zen masters knew this secret. Now the secret is open, and many are realizing themselves as the Witness. Much of the present world turmoil is the phase transition that o ccurs as energy settles into a new quantum state. The karma of chaos has been loosed and won't be 'fixed.' One can either increase the chaos through worrying about it, participating in it, and trying to clear the muddy water by stirring it up, or one can witness the chaos from the innermost core of Being. We must understand once and for all that the Witness is not the thinking mind, but the unbounded Silen...

If I praise one petal of a pascal flower, bow to a ball of goat's fur tangled in alpine aster, or beg the intercession of a moth disguised as blue lupine, I am worshiping the Creator of All. The complete Word of God speaks through a blossom of columbine, and the passion of Christ is the ripening of a huckleberry. If I cannot grasp the Revelation of a bumble bee on a flower of Indian Paintbrush, what use are books of scripture? Photo: Our beloved Mount Tahoma (Rainier)

Kiss your demons and they will turn into dark angels. Drive your dark angels away and they will return as demons. Lust is not a demon but a dark angel filled with un-created star nectar. Anger is not a demon but a dark angel filled with healing fire. Grief is not a demon but a dark angel who carries an ocean of love in her jar. Depression is not a demon but a dark angel whose river of wisdom runs deep under the earth. Addiction? No, not a demon but a dark angel bearing gifts of empathy and compassion on her broken wings. If you do not bow to your dark angels they possess you, and you must act them out. But if you bow to them they breathe through the numb places in your estranged body. Then your cells and atoms start singing, and your dark angels dissolve into the energy of awakening. You possess Them. A true teacher will not divorce you from your dark angels. A true teacher will inspire you to bow down to them, and taste the wine of night. Become the dark. That is s...

Be a pilgrim, but be a pathless pilgrim. Every real pilgrimage is a journey to the same place, the place where I Am. Whether I make the haj to the Kaaba stone, or a journey to Jerusalem, Benares, Arunachala or Machu Picchu, whatever holy mountain, sacred river or saint's shrine I choose for my destination, it is always the journey of a single breath, from my lips to my heart. The same is true of our journey to the goal of "enlightenment." Yet being pathless does not mean abandoning our sadhana, our daily spiritual practice. It means that there is no "ahead" or "behind." Measuring "progress" in relation to some future destination has no spiritual meaning. Everything happens now. On the basis of human appearance, no one can determine whether this person is "more advanced" than that person - which is why Jesus said, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." God sees something totally different on the inside of us th...

Meditation is not thinking. Meditation is awakening the boundless space that contains thinking. In the silence of no-clinging and no-resistance, thoughts arise and dissolve like clouds in the blue sky. And the more you become this clear blue-sky of awareness, the more spaciousness you enfold in every neuron, ever cell of your body. Your silence imbibes the luminous Shakti of darkness, whose energy created the cosmos in her womb. Whatever may be your outward task, this is your inward duty: give birth to the Light.

Rumi said, there is some kiss we all want, the kiss of spirit on flesh. I say, there is some garden where your breath meets the Lover. I can't lead you to this green place because you are already there. But I can tell you that if you are awake all seven poppies burst open at once, each a sunrise in your body.

Thoughts are brilliant zeros whirling after a 1. Meditation is the hollow in all of them. Whatever spins, spins in you. Don’t be this restless intellect. Be the space through which it wanders. Be the green journey of a spiraling seed into the death of its flower. Past and future are only  the shimmer of now. The glittering chaos of memory and desire are as changing clouds in a distant sunset. Watch them in silence. There is great beauty in beholding the turmoil of your mind. Keep re-emerging as the blue sky. This is the color of wonder.

There are no advanced practitioners of the present moment. We're all beginners now. Sumi-e by Mariusz Szmerdt

The practice of Winter requires no effort. Simply do not fear the hollow place. Be thankful for what's left in the gourd, for the gift of withering, your open palm, your persimmon cheeks. Find another word for "emptiness." Look for husks, pods, bright crinkled faces in the Void. Those who visit this world report that it is a planet of chaff, rind, stretch marks, scar tissue. Everyone here must break open, wear a gash on the belly, reveal the bewildering sweetness of their fruit. And where does this nectar seep? Into the soul. And where is the soul? In thirst. If you can't find passion in the land of disappointment, be ardent about this breath. Fall in love with your next inhalation as with the first gasp of a newborn foal. Softly attend your sigh as if it were your mother's, and her last. Whatever is delicious, whatever is astonishing, whatever brings piquant and savory tears, ripens and dies now.

Anger is an energy that attracts more anger. Intelligence is inversely proportional to crowd size. A single animal behaves more humanely than a multitude of men. Therefor hold space for the Alone, curled up in the woods around your own wound, keeping your breast warm to share your perfect milk with one stranger at a time.

The rock star guru seated on a golden throne sells glittering tricks to stop your yuppie mind. The yogi says, repeat this mantra 12,000 times a day til monkey mind is docile as a lamb. The roshi shouts, kill it! Concentrate so hard you burn a black hole between your eyebrows! But what does Fred say? Oh dear one, what does Fred say? Be a lover. Let your mind run wild and free, kissing every sweet spot in the universe. Just don't chase after it.

  Renoir's 'Woman with Black Hair,' which I recently photographed at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Maybe my favorite Renoir. She is re-creating the world through the serene and positive energy of her gaze... Plant seeds of beauty through your lips and eyes. Name every creature with your love. See the world you want to realize lit from your face, not from above. Now better dance than hesitate. God waits to watch the wonders you create.

I give thanks for my daughter Liz, and for my beautiful wife Anna, for Abby and Willy and Finn, and all my relations. Ho! I give thanks for Philadelphia and Seattle and the vast rolling chaos of love between them. I give thanks for food. I eat whatever my host gives me, knowing that it is blessed by the grace of hospitality. I say, 'Yes please, I'll have seconds!' I hug my bad habits too, because the space of my hug is wider than the habit. I hug all ragged fractal untied threads of lack, all jagged angry edges of wanting. And when I hug them, I am free. Because the space of the hug is always wider, and I am the space of the hug. Photo: My daughter and I after running up the steps to the Philadelphia Art Museum, like Rocky. 11/25/19

I used to believe in Nothingness. Sometimes I spelled it 'no-thingness' to be more metaphysical, or I Buddhacized it into 'emptiness,' which sounds kooler. But now I truly un-know that there is no such thing as nothing. What appears as nothing, or vast emptiness, in deep meditation, is only the space around the jewel. My senses are too dull to perceive anything but this auricular shadow for awhile. But finally, after my perception has been refined in the fires of even deeper grace, I discover that this "nothing" is a cornucopia, the fruit of the seed of the fruit of the seed, divine causation spiraling ever inward toward a luminous and adamantine source, who is the very Eye that seems to be perceiving it. This endlessly spilling source never empties but grows more full, more solid. The deeper I dive, the more Christalized the ocean of the un-created. The great seers were all gemologists: for Jesus the transcendent was not the heavenly sky...

 At this time in our culture, loss and uncertainty are arousing many old stories in re-action. Old stories of blame, betrayal, martyrdom, apocalyptic fear. Old tribal stories too: man vs. woman, race vs. race. These stories feel like they are happening now, but they are in the past, tending to tell themselves, taking on a life of their own. In my opinion, these stories are not who we really are. I don't want my message to get in the way of people's suffering, if that is what they need to do for awhile. Who am I to tell people anything they don't like to hear? It will only make them angrier and more reactive. Because I choose not to be a part of these stories. I only have one simple message to tell. It is beautiful but it hurts. You are not the old story. You are Love's radiant clarity now. You are Love's emptiness. And Love needs no story. This very moment you can be happy. No story of victimhood, no way of the cross, no path of penance you mus...

No one is to blame. To realize this is freedom. I blame others to absolve myself from the sins of the world, yet I as much as anyone am responsible for the appearance of creation in the shimmering bliss of pure consciousness. Now let me unbuckle the breast-plate of anger, lower the shield of political judgment, and drop the sword of blame. For blame is just the way I deflect the pain of my anger and fear. But when I release judgment, I have no choice but to inhale the terror of the earth. Yet only then may I widen my embrace to feel her Beauty. The Sorrow is profound, but the Beauty is breath-taking. The Sorrow I breathe in, the Beauty I breathe out. What I draw into my heart is cleansed and transmuted into a sapphire sky, emitting rays of gold. Self-luminous compassion is mine to release. Now let me breathe the dawn across the sea... Yes, let it be repeated: the un-created arising of the whirled is only a mirage in blue stillness. Amidst this hurricane of sorrows...

Today I honor the Warrior who wields the sword of his own breath to sever the illusory knot that binds every effect to its cause, once and for all liberating the earth from any creator, liberating the body from any soul, the dance from the dancer, the song from the troubadour, and the full moon's beauty from the sun. I honor that mighty one who achieves victory without war, empowering the world to dance in the void without creation or first cause. Again and again I bow down to that Warrior, offering priceless golden petals from the seedless rose that was never planted in any ground, yet springs from my loins and blossoms through my crown for no other reason but the frolic of stillness.

Madness has taken its toll. Where once there were opinions, now there is laughter. Where once there were rare gemstones Now there are waves of sparkling uncertainty. The earth tilts toward the womb. The sun cries, thirsting for black milk. Silence cannot contain its own emptiness and fills our bones with dust. We must listen to the gong of the raven that unties the vagus nerve from it root in the anus and it’s needle eye in the forehead. Lost in the desert between those firmly nippled opposites we may still find some chalice buried in the pulverized cathedrals of hope. First offer a drink of sand to the ancestor who betrayed you. Then taste the magnificent ashes of your own fire. I do not know what these words mean, but I know they will carry me like raptor wings into the tropical depression of your breast, which is just another caesura in the rhythmic echo of a world without voices. Now let us open eight billion mouths to the diamond cave of zero . Pa...

"She raised her eyes to the bright stars, looking down so mildly from the wide worlds of air, and, gazing on them, found new stars burst upon her view, and more beyond, and more beyond again, until the whole great expanse sparkled with shining spheres, rising higher and higher in immeasurable space, eternal in their numbers as in their changeless and incorruptible existence. "She bent over the calm river, and saw them shining in the same majestic order as when the dove behel d them gleaming through the swollen waters, upon the mountain tops down far below, and dead mankind, a million fathoms deep. "The child sat silently beneath a tree, hushed in her very breath by the stillness of the night, and all its attendant wonders. The time and place awoke reflection, and she thought with a quiet hope-- less hope, perhaps, than resignation--on the past, and present, and what was yet before her." ~Charles Dickens, 'Old Curiosity Shop,' 42 Big...

We are not here to carry the pain, the grief, the blood-guilt of our ancestors. We are here to free them. Our life is not an act of penance, but an act of bold forgiveness. At the root of our literature and our politics is the Oresteia trilogy of Aeschylus. The Furies drive Orestes mad with their infernal history of unreleased trauma, through the relentless cycle of retaliation. But the new Goddess of civilization, Athena, descends to cast the deciding vote in the Assembly of Athens, the original rite of democracy. Our freedom is a choice, and it frees others as well as ourselves. Orestes awakens from the dark stupor of the past. I am Orestes. I am the punishing Furies. I am Athena. I descend into the Assembly of my own heart, where all are gathered. I cast my vote for absolution, and pure joy.

The fool never gets tired of three things: drinking strong wine from his own heart, reaching the goal on the first step of an infinite journey, and running his fingers through the wise fur of a brown four-legged earthling. Now get good and lost until you find yourself beating at the door of this fool’s hut. Knock and he'll cry, 'Who's there?' 'It's me!' you'll reply. And he'll answer, 'There's no room in here for me!' So you'll spend a thousand more lifetimes praying, fasting, giving alms until one day, weary of all your goodness, you'll wander to that hut and knock again. 'Who's there?' he'll cry. 'Nobody,' you'll answer. Then he'll open the door and hug you with fierce joy, uncorking your heart so that you too can taste the dark vintage of wisdom that's been aging in your chest since the day before there was light.

Things that make me sad. I cannot stop sipping whisky. I pour it down the sink. Then I buy more. Even though I got a new dog I miss my old one. This makes me cry sometimes. When my wife is away I wish she could be here. I dream of her. But when she’s here we argue. In the store I can’t find things they sold when I was growing up. The junket pudding, the ginger snaps, the little mary janes. The world is a wound that will not heal. Now here's a list of things that make me happy. This breath. This breath too. Stars in the dark. Sunrise. A robin in November. Thank you thank you thank you.

The void is not even void. It gushes like a wound in your food. Your grandmother knew, nestling your brown voice in her quilt of bones. Now pay attention to what pays attention. Secrets will reveal themselves, atoms of pain instantly swollen into galaxies the size of tears. Your gaze circling the earth like a shapeless moon. The eye of space itself awakening. And your own breath will heal you.

Is there a black hole at the center of the galaxy? Who knows? The dark energy of un-knowing is part of the hole. Creativity arises from this wound at the core, maelstrom of inward collapse, self-annihilation in unfathomable vulnerability. It is precisely here where the light comes from, but we don't even know where "here" is, because it is center-less. The Bible speaks of the mystery as "kinosis," self-emptying. Buddhism calls it "anatta," no self. Most people want to take refuge FROM this black hole. The mystic takes refuge IN it. Of course, as soon as one says, "I" am a mystic, "I" am an artist, this "I" becomes a wall, a glittering mirror, that cuts off all access to creation's source. ~ Photo by NASA, Andromeda galaxy floating in the blue light of pure consciousness.

  Only humans argue with what Is. Where is the argument between wind and thistle, wave and stone, the tooth of the lion and the throat of the crippled gazelle? This indisputable world flows seamlessly on, through an eternal continuum of Presence. Our marvelous bodies respond in the moment, with just slightly more neurological complexity than sea urchins. This instantaneous organic physiological response is our entire destiny.  Creation happens without a future, beyond dispute. Our thoughts and labels for the circumstance are irrelevant. Our gift is not to think, not to argue, surely not to worry out a solution, but to be Awake. Nakedly aware in the vast terrifying beauty of the Happening, just as it arises and dissolves. A fearless spiritual warrior leaps into the Transcendental Mandala of the Supremely Ordinary Empty Now, which is the face of God. As the Bible tells us, no one who looks into this face can survive (Exodus 33:20). Which means, annihilat...

"I sleep, but my heart wakes." ~Song of Solomon 5:21 The boundless eternal blue sky of the Witness reposes in the core of your heart, ever awake as radiance and peace, even while the body sleeps, and dreams, awakens, and dreams again. Rest as the Witness. Sleep well.

White privilege, brown privilege. The privilege of a human birth. The privilege of seeing, tasting the rainbow. The privilege of having an earthly body. The privilege to breathe in. The privelege to breathe out. The privilege of dissolving into the formless infinite heart of emptiness. The privilege of taking form, in order to dance. All sentient creatures, blessed with privilege because they are merely alive. The privilege of a caterpillar whirling all Winter in the chrysalis. The privilege of an eagle soaring over mountains. The privilege of a worm in the apple core. The privilege of the last rose, frost scented. The privilege of a maggot devouring death. The privilege of pausing to hold up your grandmother's cup in a sparkle of soapsuds. The privilege of clinging to your grandfather's hoe each Spring. The privilege to be a creator with wet clay-covered hands. The privilege to shape your story. The privilege to remember and the privilege...

The Green is always local. It is never in general. Never in the State, the system, the all-regulating bureaucracy. Every true action is small, and it is here, right Here, a barefoot step on dewy grass. To be awake is to carry a little lamp in the night forest, illuminating no more than the next footfall. There is no destination. There is no solution. There are only steps. Solvator ambulando: 'It is solved by walking.' Not marching - walking. I don't protest what is, any more than I resist this breath. I protest the concept, the generalization, the program your mind imposes on me. I celebrate the incomprehensible dance of our molecules when we gaze into each other without ideas. Now let us take a walk, plant a tree.

If you want to save the environment, stop emitting hot air. Plant a tree instead, the heirloom ever green you are. Water an acorn in your amygdala, sprouting your heart, spreading your brain as a mighty oak. Compost your words into a fertile whisper. Be a stem for breathing. Now root your spine in the loam of silence. Pour yourself into the furrow.

"Glorify God in your Body." ~1 Corinthians 6:20 When you get to heaven, you will meet many sweet souls and see fine scintillating celestial forms. But you will not find the light of God. Then you will ask, "Where is the light of God?" And the angel of the judgment will tell you, "Remember when you were on earth, and had a body? Every particle of that body was made of the light of God." And you will marvel and ask, "What shall I do?" And the angel will reply, "If you want to find the light of God, go back, receive a body, meditate on the glory of your flesh. Then you will taste the light you are." Friend, we are not here in exile. We are here because this is the only place to embody and express the divine radiance completely, from breath to bone. We are not here as a punishment. We chose this realm of chaos, this conflict of opposites, so that we could embrace the all, All, ALL. Meditation is not an out-of-body experience. It...

From 'How To Be A Poet' by Wendell Berry... 'Breathe with unconditional breath the unconditioned air... Accept what comes from silence. Make the best you can of it. Of the little words that come out of the silence, like prayers prayed back to the one who prays, make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came.'

Knowing our past lifetimes is of negligible value. What is of real value is knowing the eternal space between them, which is the space between breaths, the space between this moment and the next. This space is the scintillating ocean of consciousness itself. Past lives are bubbles. You are the water. Quantum science tells us that the particle is just an instantaneous wave of the omnipresent unmanifest field. The vacuum fluctuates into this finite particle, yet the field remains boundless and silent. So, in the field of eternal awareness, let there be this momentary particle, "me." Whether we define it as a now, a breath, or a lifetime, does duration have any meaning compared to the Ever we are? "For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by" (Psalm 90). "Man is like a breath, his days like a fleeting shadow" (Psalm 144). Why cling to a lifetime, any more than we cling to a breath? Past and future lives are whisper...

'In meditation, silence is Mother.' ~Amma Karunamayi 'Silence is supreme administrative power.' ~Maharishi 'I love your silences. They are like mine.' ~Anais Ninn Let us speak of true silence. No, it is not a negation. Not the silence of suppressed speech, which is no silence at all. Suppressed speech, or repressed thought, is a scream. And the more we repress, the louder our voiceless keening. Let us tell of the inmost silence, omnipresent, effective, whether we speak or not. Silence infusing the best words with their Truth. Silence in a real mantra, guiding the mind to the hollow in the seed, through Winter root, Spring flower, or Autumn leaf. 'Mantra' means, in its Sanskrit origins: 'manna' meaning 'mind'; 'tra' meaning 'vehicle,' whence our suffix 'tron,' as in 'electron.' As the electron is a vehicle that carries electricity, so the mantra is a vehicle that carries the mind inward, to sile...

One tear of compassion contains all the fire of your outrage. It is very important to find this tear, and weep. The silence between your thoughts is pure intelligence. But as soon as this space awakens, you imagine distances where 'here' longs for 'there.' Let these distances collapse into a brilliant bindhu, the ayin soph of wonder. If I dream otherness, I feel alone. But neither otherness nor aloneness exist in the seamless golden nectar of Am. When confused, repose in the unbounded hollow around your confusion. You know that this hollow is here, deeper inside than your mind, because only through its clarity can you see that "I am confused." Rest emptily, as the witness of your turmoil, without any attempt to untangle the knot. Become the immediate fruit of stillness without a seed. Seeker, meditate on your body. One atom encircles the entire sky. The Goddess Creator dwells in you as this breath. Why does the vast wear the veil of t...