Ruah Bull - Spiritual Director

 Whatever happens. Whatever WHAT is  is what I want. Only that. But that.

  Walk in the rain, smell flowers, stop along the way, go on a field trip, find out how things work, tell stories, say the magic words, trust the universe.

 The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent  world in itself.

 Sometimes the mountain is hidden from me in veils of cloud, sometimes I am hidden from the mountain in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue, when I forget or refuse to go down to the shore or a few yards up the road, on a clear day, to reconfirm that witnessing presence.

 Life is not hurrying on to a receding future, nor hankering after an imagined past. It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, to a brightness that seemed as transitory as your youth once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

 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 didn't read the news. I raked a rainbow of pungent autumn leaves, played abroad with happy dogs, held my granddaughter in my arms, and sat beneath an amiable maple, attentive to current events.

The opposite of home is not distance- but forgetfulness

  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.

 Listening is a form of worship, but you don't have to kneel on the floor with folded hands or mouth the perfect prayer. Just open the door of yourself to another, become the space they step through to show you who they are. This is holiness: two people seated together on the pew of a park bench, or the altar of a kitchen table. Even if no one says a word for a while, receive the silence until it's like a new language only the two of you can speak.

 This then is life. Here is what has come to the surface after so many throes and convulsions. How Curious! How real! Underfoot the divine soil, overhead the sun.

 The ones who live in the desert if you knew them you would understand everything. They see it all and never judge any just drink the water when they get the chance. If I could grow arms on my scars like them, if I could learn  the patience they know I wouldn't apologize for my thorns either just stand in the desert and witness-

 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.

 Unmoved in midnight water, no waves, no wind, the empty boat is flooded with moonlight.

  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's not magic;it isn't a trick. Every breath is a resurrection. And when we hear the poem  Which is the world, when our eyes Gaze at the beloved's body, We're reborn in all the sacred parts Of our own bodies: The heart Contracts, the brain Releases its shower  Of sparks, And the tear Embarks on its pilgrimage Down the cheek to meet The smiling mouth,

 Silence: the cicada's cry soaks into stone

 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

 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.