Ruah Bull - Spiritual Director

  Proper Effort is not the effort to           make something particular happen.           It is the effort to be aware             and awake in each moment. 

 Just as the hare is zipping across the finish line, the tortoise has stopped once again by the roadside, this time to stick out his neck and nibble a bit of sweet grass, unlike the previous time when he was distracted by a bee humming in the heart of a wildflower.

 One summer day I visited, but the master had gone somewhere. Only a lotus blossom arranged in a vase guardian of the hermitage, its fragrance filling the room.

 The temple bell stops but the sound keeps coming out of the flowers

 May anger ground me in the real Real- Earth speaks- I am here May Anger purify my troubled heart- Fire speaks- I wake May Anger clear my confusing mind Air speaks - I perceive May Anger couple with Being Water speaks- I gather May Anger proceed from wisdom Soul speaks- I act May Anger blossom with trust Spirit speaks- I release

 I love the mountain peak but I know also its roiling foothills half-invisible in mist and fog. The Seafarer gets up long before dawn to read. His soul is a whale feeding on the Holy Word. The soul who loves the peak also inhales the deep breath rising from the mountain buried in mist.

 Again I resume the long lesson: how small a thing can be pleasing, how little in this hard world it takes to satisfy the mind and bring it to rest.

Not seeing The room is white Until that red apple.        

 Rumi the poet was a scholar also. But Shams, his friend, was an angel. By which I don't mean anything patient or sweet. When I read how he took Rumi's books and threw them into the duck pond, I shouted for joy. Time to live now, Shams meant. I see him, turning away casually toward the road, Rumi following, the books floating and sinking among the screeching ducks, oh, beautiful book-eating pond!

 You've travelled up ten thousand steps in search of the Dharma. So many long days in the archives, copying, copying, copying. The gravity of the Tang and the profundity of the Sung make heavy baggage. Here! I've picked you a bunch of wildflowers. Their meaning is the same but they're much easier to carry.

 It could happen any time, tornado, earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen. Or sunshine, love, salvation. It could you know. That's why we wake and look out - no guarantees in this life. But some bonuses, like morning, like right now, like noon, like evening.

  Has the moon been up there All these nights And I haven't noticed? A whole week with my nose to the ground, to the grind. And the beloved faithfully Returning each evening As the moon. Where have I been? Who has abandoned whom?

The breezes at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep! You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep! People are moving back and forth across the door sill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep!

"Where is your home?", the interviewer asked him.                 Here. "No,no," the interviewer said, thinking it a problem of translation, "when you are  where you actually live." Now it was his turn to think, perhaps the translation?