LAST CHAPTERS ©Slippery Mind

 SLIPPERY MIND

©Finding Balance, 2008, Laura Lopez

"Forgetting quickly as it turns from one task to another
... it searches for what it had a grasp of only a moment ago.

This slippery mind is a wonder
... so easily distracted
... so easily forgetting... what?

Let it go, I suggest as the fog rolls in ...
now smiling,

I feel newly born
In awe of each moment of this new reality

Hah!

Slippery mind."

~ From: 

©LAST CHAPTERS, 

chats with myself about the reality of MY situation

by, Laura Lopez, July 2015

In every moment we have a chance to begin again.

"PRECIOUS HUMAN BIRTH"

"All of us have this precious human birth. We’re fortunate enough not to be starving; we’re fortunate enough to have food and shelter; we’re fortunate enough to hear the teachings and be given methods to wake up; we’re fortunate enough to have good intelligence and the luxury to explore and question why we and others suffer.We have a tremendous amount going for us, so this is the crucial time to practice." 

~ FROM: Start Where You Are, by Pema Chödrön, 

"We all wish to be free of the inner critic and judge. 

It is never too late to work toward that goal. 

In every moment we have a chance to discover who we really are. Even if you forget why you started the journey of self discovery, you can begin again when you remember your wish to be free inside. With every new breath you have a chance to remember that wish and can begin again. Until your very last breath - and possibly beyond the last breath of the body - we can begin again.The sooner you begin, the sooner you will be free. Begin Now, in this moment. "

~ L.E. Lopez

The Gift of Easter

"By far the strongest poison to the human spirit is the inability to forgive oneself or another person."  - Caroline Myss

~~~

Luke 23:34 KJV:
 "Then said Jesus: Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do ..."

~~*~~

You cannot know what being forgiving is until you are able to do.

For your own well being and that of others, practice forgiving.

To practice forgiving is to practice unconditional love.

To practice unconditional love is to practice Being.

To practice Being is to Work.

Know that to forgive is not to allow those you forgive to continue to abuse you.

Know yourself
Know your boundaries,
Honor value, cherish and respect yourself - not from ego but from Being in an awakened, and conscious state.

To Know yourself is to Be present.

To Be, you must practice the Work every day, in every way.

Nothing is more important. 

Resistance to Waking (Re-post from 2010.6)

I had a conversation with someone very new to the work about resistance to sitting and to doing the tasks. Hopefully the following post from 2010, June will help.


"Question:  http://ajourneymanswayhome.blogspot.com/2010/06/resistence.html"

Comment:
 "So, who (which part or "i") wakes up prior to the part of you that appreciates Qi Gong? "It likes, it doesn't like." as G said, eh? So, which "i" wakes up, unaware that another part of you likes Qi Gong and appreciates how it helps the total Being?"

"I wonder [must see] who [what part of self] is awake first in the  [morning] when I become aware of my own being as I wake from deep sleep and the rest of me begins to catch up. Who is it that resists and does not want to proceed into the next moments? Just then, in those first moments of becoming aware of self awakening, there is a small space in time to watch those first "i's" gather and and to hear their individual songs (stories). I have the opportunity to objectively observe them "waking" up in their sleep, already talking, complaining, etc. ..."

We can apply this question at any moment we begin to awaken a bit from illusion or daydreams, etc. We can be curious about what is really going on in those moments. That kind of curiosity, [that of the 'watcher' or 'observer'] - allows me to silently, without the 'head brain' [picking away at or analyzing or judging what it sees], gather more information about my little devils - those illusive little "i's".



Be Observing
Be Peace
BE

About Truth

"Not knowing how near the Truth is, People seek It far away,
-- what a pity!
They are like one who, in the midst of water,
Cries imploringly for a drink of water,
Or like the son of a rich man Who wanders away among the poor. ...

Those who testify to the truth of the nature of the Self,
Have found it by reflecting within themselves,
And have gone beyond the realm of mere ideas.

For them opens the gate of the oneness of cause and effect;
And straight runs the path of non-duality ...

Abiding with the Undivided amidst the divided,

Whether going or returning, they remain forever unmoved.

Holding fast to, and remembering,

That which is beyond thought,

In their every act, they hear the voice of the Truth.

How limitless the sky of unbounded freedom!
How pure the perfect moonlight of Wisdom!
At that moment, what do they lack?
As the eternally quiescent Truth reveals Itself to them,
This very earth is the lotus-land of Purity,
And this body -is the body of the Buddha."

~Hakuin

Thank You

"In this quiet solitude
I hear my own emptiness.
How precious it is,
this Peace"

~ Laura Lopez

Where am I in relation my work today?

I picked up Life Is Real Only Then, When I AM  (by G.I. Gurdjieff) this morning to look for some help before moving into my day of outer work around the house. As I started to leaf through the pages looking for the table of contents, the page fell open to the prologue which appeared to be speaking directly to the question I have:”Where am I in relation to my inner work today?” I thought I’d share it here. Hopefully it will be useful to you as well.

***

“I am…? But what has become of that full sensing of the whole of myself, formerly always in me in just such cases of self questioning during the process of self remembering…

Is it possible that this inner ability was achieved by me thanks to all kinds of self-denial and frequent self-goading only in order that now, when its influence for my Being is more necessary even than air, it should vanish without a trace?

No! This cannot be! …

Something here is not right!

If this is true, then everything in the sphere of reason is illogical.

But in me is not yet atrophied the possibility of actualizing conscious labor and intentional suffering! …

According to all past events I must still be.

I wish! … and will be!!

Moreover, my Being is necessary not only for my own personal egoism but also for the common welfare of all humanity.

My Being is necessary to all people; even more necessary to them than their own felicity and their happiness of today.

I wish to be … I still am!”

“This fantastic soliloquy proceeded in me on the 6^th of November, 1927 early in the morning of one of the Montmartre night cafés in Paris when, tired to exhaustion from my “black” thoughts, I had decided to go home and there once more to try whether I might perhaps succeed in sleeping at least a little. …”

***

Gurdjieff then goes on to give an account of his state at the time of writing this book and what lead up to it. Perhaps, here, in this prologue left by our dear old rascally teacher, we can find some clues in relation to our own question of “Where am I in relation to my inner work today?” It is certainly worth re-reading.

The Good Householder: External Considering in the Work

 “Right external considering is very important in the work. It often happens that people who understand very well the necessity of external considering in life do not understand the necessity of external considering in the work; they decide that just because they are in the work, they have the right to not consider. Whereas in reality, in the work, that is, for a man’s own successful work, ten times more external considering is necessary than in life, because only external considering on his part shows his valuation of the work; and success in the work is always proportional to the valuation and understanding of the work.
Remember that the work cannot begin on a level lower than an obyvatel, that is, on a level lower than ordinary life. This is a very important principle which, for some reason or other, is very easily forgotten...”
ISOM (In Search of the Miraculous, PD Ouspensky) Page 153-154

In These Moments

I stand in front of you,
You stand in front of me.
If we are both present

In

the Moments we stand thus,
what need is there for words
except,
maybe,
to ask  directions to a friends house,
or to pass the salt,
or how to perform some outer task?

Words are useful in the world.

In Here,
The Light in our eyes
Is all We need to
Know We Are Loved.

~LL
March 2011

Drawing, 2009

Spring Giddiness

"Today, like every other day, we wake up empty

and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

---

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.

---

I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.
Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
What a bargain, let's buy it.

---

Daylight, full of small dancing particles
and the one great turning, our souls
are dancing with you, without feet, they dance.
Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?

---

All day and night, music,
a quiet, bright
reedsong. If it
fades, we fade."

  from The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, 1995

Let The Dream Go

Let Go
21-Mar-10 LL

Let go those old books written by sages,
and new books written by the blind and forgetful. 
Let go your own crippled notions.
There is no room to carry all that on this leg of the journey.
The pablum fed on in your early years has already been digested.
Leave off regurgitation
lest you become more ill still.
You are not a baby any more.
Toss aside that worry crutch.
Burn the fear!
What is true will remain and what is not will fall away.
Fill yourself with resolve to move forward now;
Dine solely on the solid food of real Men.
Eat your own experience for sustenance.
Be brave, would be Warrior;
the time for false starts is over.
The locked doors you have been banging on all these years
will open -
when you do not use brute force on them.
They cannot be opened by your head brain.
Be smart.
BE and they will open.
Just BE.
Empty that huge cranium,
clean it out; scrape and sweep away the crusty clutter.
Make room for your life.
Leave the comforting whirr, whirr, whirring in that cavernous illusory maze
you believe to be the “Be All and End All”.
Live out loud.
Live in the open.
Step into your body complete,
Open to your senses,
Full of so much more interesting adventures
Than those habitual escape routes dreaming can conjure
BE
 ©2011 ~ Laura Lopez

In Cases of Stubborn Attachment

I’m sure you’ve seen movies where someone has to yell at a beloved animal friend to make it leave for its own good. Sometimes it is necessary to do this with other human beings who have become too attached to us and are stuck in imagination about the relationship.  If they are allowed to remain so emotionally attached they will never get unstuck, they will never grow.

So… after many suggestions, conversations and exhortations about the need for them to expand their horizons, if the resistance to doing so is so great that they are unable to move forward, we take a deep breath, make our faces look ugly and do it. We Act.  Hearts breaking, we put on a great show and shout, “shoo!!!” gesticulating wildly at them. We force them out of their self imposed prisons -  we force them to fly. The heart aches, but there it is, the bare naked truth; it is time for change. The love for these dear ones is not gone from the heart, if anything it is greater than ever. “I wish you all the best." you think. and pray for their safety and well being day and night. And you grin and bear what comes, donning your new masks every time you see them again. Some spit on you, some play monstrous head games, some try to kill you, or destroy you however they can. “One day”, you pray, “one day they will understand.” Is that so? I remind myself.

May you hear with ears and heart that can hear and may you BE Blessed and Blessed and Blessed. Amen, Amen and Amen!
L.

You Are A Sleeping Machine

The truth is hard to hear.

The ego is in denial of reality all the time.

The moment it gets a glimpse of itself, it starts the "blame game"; often beginning with whoever or whatever gave it the opportunity to see itself - clearly - in action for a moment or two. It goes into kill mode trying to ensure it won't happen again.

After all, it wants you to stay in your comfort zone - that is it's cozy little home.

I see you staring daggers.
False love turns to false hate in the same breath my friend.

Don't shoot the messenger.
The messenger may be your only true friend.

She appears at the behest of your real wish to BE.

Be Calm in the midst of that ego tantrum.
Watch it wiggle and squirm.
Don't be taken in or frightened by its lies.
Shed that snake's "skin".

Then, you will see who you really are under there.
That's the road to Freedom.
Begin to BE Free for the first time in your life.
This is my Prayer for you.

Peace and Blessings,
Peace and Blessings


Be Peace
Be Love
Be Listening
Be Watching
BE
~ by Laura Lopez, 3 July 2010
` por mi Alma