the hardest work

.

Letting go of our suffering is the hardest work we will ever do.
It is also the most fruitful. 

To heal means to meet ourselves in a new way – in the newness of each moment where all is possible and nothing is limited to the old. 


—Stephen Levine

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born passing

.

This is the realm of the passing away. 
All that exists does not for long.
Whatever comes into this world never stops sliding
toward the edge of eternity.

Form arises from formlessness and passes back,
arising and dissolving in a few dance steps between
creation and destruction.
We are born passing away.

Seedlings and deadfall all face forward.
Earthworms eat what remains.
We sing not for that which dies but for that which 
never does.


—Stephen Levine
Breaking the Drought: Visions of Grace

. . .

When thoughts arise, then do all things arise.

When thoughts vanish, then do all things vanish.


—Huang Po

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we are That

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There is a grace approaching
that we shun as much as death,
it is the completion of our birth.

It does not come in time,
but in timelessness
when the mind sinks into the heart
and we remember.

It is an insistent grace that draws us
to the edge and beckons us surrender
safe territory and enter our enormity.

We know we must pass
beyond knowing
and fear the shedding.

But we are pulled upward
none-the-less
through forgotten ghosts
and unexpected angels,
luminous.

And here is nothing left to say
but we are That.

And that is what we sing about.


—Stephen Levine
Breaking the Drought, Visions of Grace

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enter with mercy

.

If there is a single definition of healing it is to enter with mercy an awareness of those pains, mental and physical, from which we have withdrawn in judgment and dismay.  

—Stephen Levine

.

we are born passing away

.

This is the realm of the passing away.
All that exists does not for long.
Whatever comes into this world never stops sliding
toward the edge of eternity.

Form arises from formlessness and passes back,
arising and dissolving in a few dance steps between
creation and destruction.
We are born passing away.

Seedlings and deadfall all face forward.
Earthworms eat what remains.
We sing not for that which dies but for that which
never does.


–Stephen Levine
Breaking the Drought: Visions of Grace

.