One day as I was about to step on a dry leaf, I saw the leaf in the ultimate dimension. I saw that it was not really dead, but that it was merging with the moist soil in order to appear on the tree the following spring in another form. I smiled at the leaf and said, "You are pretending." Everything is pretending to be born and pretending to die, including that leaf. The Buddha said, "When conditions are sufficient, the body reveals itself, and we say the body exists. When conditions are not sufficient, the body cannot be perceived by us, and we say the body does not exist." The day of our "death" is a day of our continuation in many other forms.
~ from LIVING BUDDHA, LIVING CHRIST by Thich Nhat Hanh
Summer Blessings, dear friends! Looking back over past issues of Friends of Silence, Nan Merrill's words on "freedom" from two years ago seem even more appropriate for today, given the current devastation and grief so prevalent in our world:
"Freedom is very much in our hearts and minds these days. But freedom is just a word, a concept; an ideal until we will it in our individual lives. We cannot have outer freedom, however, if inwardly we are imprisoned by our fear and all its negative companions. Yet blessed are we who choose to face our fears, one by one. . ."
May we so choose as we meet together in the silence of our innermost being. May we project strength and love outward to our suffering planet and all its inhabitants. As Nan went on to say, "Silence is the golden key that helps us open our heart-gate wider and deeper toward freedom: thus, we bless the world."
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Everything can be taken from an individual, but one thing: the last of the human
freedoms -- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.
"I" is the first pronoun. The second pronoun is "am." When you realize "I am," you become free. This is called "Being." Not doing this or being that. Just plain Being.
I AM.
Once you start to see through the myth of status, possessions, and unlimited
consumption as a path to happiness, you'll find that you have all kinds of freedom
and time. It's like a deal you can make with the universe: I'll give up greed for
freedom. Then you can start putting your time to good use.
~ from NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR ILLUSIONS by David Edwards
You are free before the sun of the day, and free before the stars of the night: And you are free when there is no sun and no moon and no star. You are ever free when you close your eyes upon all that is.
If you are not only to taste freedom but to be freedom, you have to have an absolute
fidelity to Truth, and you have to be wedded to this fidelity forever. If freedom is
going to be a living and ongoing experience, the human part of you has to keep
fidelity with Truth and be committed to living in that Truth. As soon as you break
your fidelity to Truth, you kick yourself out of the freedom of Truth.
There is no protection against adversity. There are no guarantees. What you have is yourself, made in the image of something very great, the Greatest thing. You have yourself, and the particular circumstances of your life. What you create is your measure of love. What you create is up to you. We choose what we will risk. But only the freedom that drives the risk matters.
This is guilt, if anything is guilt: not to multiply a loved one's freedom by all the freedom we can find in ourselves. We have, in loving, only this one task: to let each other go. For holding on is easy for us, nothing we need learn.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke in DEAR FRIEND by Eric Torgersen
