Ruah Bull - Spiritual Director

 Acquire the Spirit of Peace and  a thousand around you are saved.

 the spirit, the truth of silent prayer - just the moon on the road

 Faith is the firm foundation of my house, Diligence forms the high walls, Meditation makes the huge bricks, And Wisdom is the great corner-stone, With these four things I build my castle, And it will last as long as truth eternal!

A quiet night behind my grass hut. Alone, I play a stringless lute. Its melody drifts to the wind-blown clouds and fades. Its sound deepens with the running stream, expanding till it fills a deep ravine, and echoes through the vast woods. Who, other than a deaf person, can hear this faint song?  

 We are stars wrapped in skin. The light you are seeking has always been within.

  Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat. My shoulder is against yours. You will not find me in stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals: not in masses, not in kirtans, not in legs winding around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables. When you really look for me you will see me instantly- you will find me in the tiniest house of time. Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God? He is the breath inside the breath.

It can take time and practice to know the  heart of a thing- A sometimes difficult and always simple presence. Then  -if you are lucky - or blessed - the deep down in drops its veil  shyly or with a shout. You are changed forever  

 Silence: the cicada's cry soaks into stone

 I felt in need of a great pilgrimage so I sat still for three days

 I know this happiness is provisional: the looming presences- great suffering great fear- withdraw only into peripheral vision: but ineluctable this shimmering of wind in the blue leaves: this flood of stillness widening the lake of sky: this need to dance, this need to kneel: this mystery.

 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.

 No, no time for this the outside clamours to be heard, the books, you see, the books. In here it's dark, the sun has slid away. There are necessities. The cars are travelling at speed, with me, fast; the days, my days, must be pinned down,  accounted for and coloured in. I need to go, I need to go my way. to which my soul said Stay.

 Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important calls for my attention---the drugstore, beauty products, the luggage I need to buy for the trip. Even now I can hardly sit here among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage trucks outside already screeching and banging. The mystics say you are as close as my own breath. Why do I flee from you? Help me. Even as I write these words I am planning to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.

If you want, the Virgin will come walking down the road pregnant with the holy, and say, "I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart, my time is so close." Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime intimacy, the divine, the Christ taking birth forever, as she grasps your hand for help, for each of us is the midwife of God, each of us. Yes there, under the dome of your being does Creation come into existence eternally, through your womb dear pilgrim- the sacred womb in your soul, as God grasps our arm for help; for each of us is His beloved servant never far. If you want, the Virgin will come walking down the street pregnant with Light and singing.

I felt in need of a great pilgrimage so I sat still for three days.

To attend like this small dog at the gopher hole- Wait!- what arises?

Little snail, slowly, slowly, climbs Mount Fuji.

When the inner and outer are wedded, revelation occurs.

It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

The spirit, the truth of silent prayer- just the moon on the road