Tag Archives: rest and relax

I never knew

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Take off the backpack
Lie down in the long grass.
Pull up the blue sky-blanket.
Rest.

So many years of Dharma practice,
Straight-spine diligence, straining toward
enlightenment.
Today.
This hillside.
Just this.

Lie down in the long grass.
Let the earth take you.
Deer tracks and horse dung
and the eye within the eye,
revolving and luminous.

I never knew this.
Did no one ever tell me?

I remember my Zen master in the interview room,
‘Trust yourself,’ he said. ‘Just be yourself.’

I think his meaning was this:

Take off the backpack,
Lie down in the long grass.
Let the sky take you.
Rest.
Breathe space
into space
into space.

I never knew there was this much light!

~ Helen Dhara Gatling-Austin
October 31, 1998

You may already be familiar with this beautiful poem by Helen Dhara Gatling-Austin. I know it has been posted on many a blog and group over the last couple of decades, but to my mind, it’s one of those classics that never age or fail to inspire. It deserves frequent airings! For this post I sourced it from the Nonduality Highlights archive.

memo to exhausted spiritual practitioners

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This Unlit Light - Letting go, resting in Presence

 

Here’s a little heresy for the Sabbath:  Nothing you can ever do, even if you do it a hundred thousand times in the most sacred spot on Earth, can bring you closer to the brilliant Light of Being that you are.

That you are!  Already.

Practice.  Path.  Method.  Journey.  Quest.  (Usually preceded by ‘my’ and ‘spiritual’.)  All are equally guaranteed to propel you away from what you seek.

Krishnamurti used to say, “Truth is a pathless land.”  We loved his “pathless path” the way Zenners love their “gateless gate”.  But both these cultified terms still leave one with the notion of a ‘way’ and a destination, even though they strive for the very opposite.

Nowadays we hear a great deal about the “direct path” to awakening or enlightenment, but I reject this term too, on the same grounds.  Truth is indeed a pathless land – but for some reason we find it impossible to accept that this land cannot be reached by paths or practices.  We are time and motion junkies.  Until exhaustion sets in.

So here’s my memo:

Please just rest.

Rest with this, right here, now.

Relax and enjoy the View

for the View is you,

naked and sacred.