SERWORDS

       Know all things to be like this:
            A mirage, a cloud castle,
            A dream, an apparition,
            Without essence, but with qualities that can be seen.

            Know all things to be like this:
            As the moon in a bright sky
            In some clear lake reflected,
            Though to that lake the moon has never moved.

            Know all things to be like this:
            As an echo that derives
            From music, sounds, and weeping,
            Yet in that echo is no melody.

            Know all things to be like this:
            As a magician makes illusions
            Of horses, oxen, carts and other things,
            Nothing is as it appears.

BUDDHA

Buddha sat in serene & humble dignity on the ground, with the sky above him & around him, as if to show us that in meditation you sit with open, sky-like attitude of mind, yet remain present, earthed, & grounded. The sky is our absolute nature, which has no barriers & is boundless, & the ground is our reality, our relative, ordinary condition.
The posture we take when we meditate signifies that we are linking absolute & relative, sky & ground, heaven & earth, like two wings of a bird, integrating the skylike deathless nature of mind & the ground of our transient, mortal nature.

Anyone looking honestly at life will see that we live in a constant state of suspense & ambiguity. Our minds are perpetually shifting in & out of confusion & clarity. If we could be confused all the time, that would at least make for some kind of clarity. What is really baffling about life is that sometimes, despite all our confusion, we can also be really wise!
This constant uncertainty may make everything seem bleak & almost hopeless; but if you look more deeply at it, you will see that its very nature creates "gaps," spaces in which profound chances & opportunities for transformation are continuously flowering - if, that is, they can be seen & seized.

The practice of mindfulness reveals your essential Good Heart, because it dissolves & removes the unkindness or the harm in you. Only when you have removed the harm in yourself do you become truly useful to others. Through the practice, by slowly removing the unkindness & harm fro yourself, you allow your true Good Heart, the fundamental goodness & kindness that are your real nature, to shine out & become the warm climate in which your true being flowers.

That is why meditation should be called the true practice of peace, the true practice of nonaggression & nonviolence, & the real & greatest disarmament.

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