Uradiance

  Earth is the pilgrim, not the sun, whose radiance only seems to come and go. So the mind is turning, not the heart, whose glory is unchangeable. Whirl inward and discover what never takes a journey, the star at the center of breathing where exhalation and inhalation kiss, and the soul surrenders to the Other who is her own astonishing Beauty. Then a hollow seed is planted in the new moon of your blood, containing a blackness more vast than the night which enfolds it. This is the You that needs becoming. The lathe is your backbone, the furnace your chest, emptiness the workshop for hammering gold. These earthly turnings hone your joy and sorrow into one ruthless blade. When all the brilliant silver slivers of perfection get ground away, You can be the shimmering silent flame of darkness. Mandala by Rashani Réa, used for the cover of our new book

I once thought that silence was empty, and stillness was quiet. But by the grace of the Master's breath, I know now that silence is a billowing storm of joy, stillness a bursting flower. The heart that touches the void boldly blossoms in a revolution of gentleness that turns the universe inside out, spreading golden pollen throughout the stars. This happens in the Body, not the mind, For the lethal sweetness of grace annihilates thought. And when there are no concepts, what is the difference between soul and flesh, seer and seen, a moonbeam and a broken heart? This is why, throughout the ages, souls bewildered by love gave up books of philosophy and gained enlightenment by smelling jasmine, touching a silken haired cat, or hearing the frog plop into a pond. Now taste the wine of pure awareness.

Everyone here has an opinion, but who really tastes the green leaves they munch on? Who takes one full dumb empty breath of love?

Savor this breath. Plunge your nose into clover. Honor the silence beyond the spiral song of the Swainson's Thrush. Why not admit it? The end of the world has already come. The dragonfly has left its blade of grass trembling in a sunbeam, a new earth cupped in the rain drop. You could knit some stars into the black veil of a lady bug's wing with the needle of your attention. Little deeds require a vast heart. Do the infinitesimal. Put the sky in your chest. Heal the planet.

Though I am not a Catholic, I love the mysteries of Holy Week, especially the prayerful practice of Holy Hour on Maunday Thursday, the eve of Good Friday. Stripped of decorations and flowers, icons shrouded, the church begins to mourn in a time of loss. We descend through the emptiness that always proceeds the bewildering grace of ananda, the gift of resurrection. Creation, and our re-creation, arise "ex nihilo," out of nothing. This is no less true in the Biblical vision of the "formless void" (Genesis 1:2), than in the Heart Sutra of Buddhism. Yet on Maunday Thursday, in one corner of the hollow church, the Blessed Sacrament remains in a monstrance on an alter, surrounded by Easter lilies and candlelight, to represent the abiding presence of Christ-Consciousness even in the midst of death's ravishing storm. The Seed of the inward Christ remains buried like a star in the heart of loss, at the center of silence, awaiting the touch of the first ful...

If you knew how inconceivably near the morning star is to the pearl of silence between your eyebrows, bound by a finespun dew-thread  of sparkling attention; if you knew how the greenest transformations of your world are woven by anonymous sacraments of careful delight; if you knew how many elixirs of love you imbibed with your last inhalation, how many potions of healing you'll pour through your next astounded sigh of praise - you would awaken before dawn to spend the darkest hour in radiant stillness simply caressing the earth and anointing the moon with your breath. Mt. Rainier: Seattle photographer Bryan Smith

Here is the secret of gardening. Dig holes. Put small plants root down in loose dark loam. Invoke the worm. Make offerings. Water, moonlight, breath. Potato peels, coffee grounds, withered celery, anything that once had life. Bury it, but only when it's good and rotten and smelly. Now pat the earth back down like a moist mare's flank after a gallop. Wait. Sun and rain will do the rest. This is not your work, not this chaos of miracles.

I was feeling so peaceful yet so strangely sad on my walk this morning, as I discovered the apple blossoms in full bloom and took this simple photo of my favorite flower, my favorite tree, only to come home and discover that Notre Dame de Paris was burning down. So I wrote the poem below... In 1972 I followed the pilgrimage routes throughout France, visiting all the great cathedrals and pilgrim churches, meditating deeply in each holy place. These cathedrals were built to honor the Div ine Mother, and constructed according to sacred geometry, interpenetrating spheres of glass and stone all resonant with the Golden Mean, the most universal mathematical formula in creation. If you have ever prayed in Notre Dame, or Chartres, or Mary Magdalene's shrine at Vezelay, or ever heard a Bach cantata or Gregorian chant in that space, you will understand what a loss this is, and how fragile our civilization. Let us remember what Christ said at the Last Supper on Good Fri...

  The broken heart is not "broken." Breaking is its nature. Therefore, nothing needs mending. Just dissolve this thought, "I have a broken heart," in a breath of silence - the healing that has always already happened. Do you call the flower a broken bud? Do you call the gushing spring a gash in the earth? Or the door to the wine cellar, emptiness? The wine is love. Descend. Give your wound a new name.

It's almost noon on Good Friday. Why do they call it Good? Because Jesus is passing through the center of the cross, that infinitesimal bindhu between the opposites. Neutrons of bliss in atoms of pain. Plankton of stars in the ocean of blood feeding the behemoth of the coming night. Trembling drops of stillness pressed from the rose of her cheek upon the white lily of death in his bare foot. This day I give you a new law. Just embrace the dark. Don't wait until morning. Meditate, receive the gift of tears. Because Jesus the dead poet is passing through the ayin soph, transcending every thought of left or right, above or below, and the I is dissolving into Am.

If the fire inside you is nothing but anger, you haven't really begun to burn. Rage is just kindling. Transmute it into something fiercer and more sweet, not by struggle and resistance, nor gathering blood red grief poppies with their motherload of dreams for the dying, but a plunge beyond hope, a Way that bursts open when you water it with loss. Let your fallen body strike a spark against the very darkness. Then you can sing. (Painting: Orpheus and Eurydice by George Frederick Watts)

Breathe through your forehead and smell the stars. See through your chest and listen with the ear in your belly button. That ocean of moonlight, that ululatant emptiness. Cradled in your cortex is a cave where your pituitary dangles, a lit chandelier. Whirl here without falling asleep. Gaze down at the mouth of your reptilian brain. It is a portal, your amygdala, the swinging door, almond-flavored hinge between galaxies. Gently push it open with this spell: 'Ameen, Ameen, and so it is.' Now walk into whatever world you wish.

'Spirit' is unbounded silence. 'Matter' is solidified silence. Mind is an anxious flight back and forth, between Spirit and Matter, desperately attempting to comprehend the paradox, until there is surrender, and then... just silence.

You wear your silence as a black silk gown, woven infinitesimal, every thread a letter of your lover's name. And your stillness is a trembling at the touch of those invisible lips. The motion of that kiss has no first cause, but a stirring in the groin of loss. One must dance naked as a flame without a wick to entice the dawn. It is not enough to be quiet and empty, because there is honey in each cell of darkness and the tomb is full of wine. If your meditation does not consume the moon, the stars, the pit in the swirl of yearning with a tongue of fire that tastes the subtle, ruthless, delicate blade of love between heartbeats, then you are not singing from the center of your desolation. You are just being quiet and empty, which is not enough. You are still waiting for a God to say, "Let there be light." You must burn off all these veils and dance naked in the moment before you were born. Art by Digital Blasphemy

We protect our hearts by transforming fear into an arrow of hate, so that we can project it onto a scapegoat "out there." This vicious art of projection is what has become of our "politics." Two dueling parties mirror each other, reflecting the same toxic energy back and forth. I meet people on "the left" every day who hate and stereotype the other as much as anyone does on "the right." The far right stereotypes Muslims, socialists, and immigrants. The far left stereotypes C hristians, capitalists, and "white" people. What's the difference? Same energy. Our hatred is fear that won't turn around to face its own heart. But when it does, we discover that fear is simply love not daring enough. Daring to embrace the other as one's self. What would happen if we discovered that capitalists and socialists, Christians and Muslims, people of "color" and "white" people, men and women, LGBTQ...

In my love mirror, your heart sees itself. Then thousands of petals fall from your eye. "What fragrance is this?" you ask. You bow to me, I bow to you, yet we bow to the light in our own hearts. There is no other. This is my answer. O friend, O friend, You are the beauty you yearn for.