Shabbat

In the words of the Mahayana Uttaratantra Shasta: "I bow down to the Buddha who is un-created, spontaneously present, and not to be realized through any external cause."

In other words, I honor the Buddha who is my own pure awareness, prior to thinking a single idea, even the thought of "I."

This is not an "Eastern" way to bow down. It is very much the Biblical way of worship, the meaning of the Sabbath.

In Hebrew, "Shabbat" literally means, "Stop!" Stop the mind's incessant doing and thinking for one hour. This is bowing down. This is worship.

Too grueling? Then stop for one minute, or even for the duration of one breath. This is certainly enough to accomplish the whole creation.

Then you will see the earth as a dancing sunbeam in the mist. Why grope for what you already are? Why get rid of what you never carried?

Such effort is better spent gazing at clouds that carry their weightless cargo of mountains.

Nothing to attain, nothing to renounce. This is what you learn from dripping cedars in white emptiness.

I took this picture from my little town one year ago today: the Olympic Mountains seen over Puget Sound.