This entry comes from the book, Awake in This Life.
Only a Buddha with a Buddha realizes enlightenment.
Lotus Sutra
All real living is meeting.
Martin Buber
When I see that I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see that I am everything, that is love. And between these two, my life flows.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
When there is a meeting among beings grounded in the commitment not to harm, Spirit enriches everything. This enrichment happens because unattached Knowing supports the dissolution of clinging with its infinite field of helpful compassion. In any place that is consciously free of clinging, there is a chance to meet, as we say in the Zen liturgy, “an unsurpassed, penetrating, perfect Enlightenment.”
This opportunity occurs whenever we consciously and fearlessly show up for all that arises in our circumstance without flinching. Our ability to show up to our lives is automatically enhanced as long as we consistently refrain from certain behaviors: from attaching to our desires; from overindulging; from avoidance; from resistance. Showing up also occurs when we are diligent in our practice, when we pay attention to our lives, and when we communicate with care. As we live like this, everyone, including ourselves, is offered a continuous blessing. When there is neither a push toward nor a pull away from anything and we commit to leaving nothing out of this intimate meeting of exactly the life we are given in this moment, we live as a conscious expression of non-greed and non-aversion. Living like this offers a continually appropriate response for all of us. An appropriate response to this life is nothing other than an engaged and integrated Awakening.