Lectio Divina - One hundred and Thirty-six

Tao Te Ching, trans. Stephen Mitchell. New York: Harper Perennial, 1982, #36.

If you want to shrink something,

you must first allow it to expand.

If you want to get rid of something,

you must first allow it to flourish.

If you want to take something,

you must first allow it to be given.

This is called the subtle perception

of the way things are.

The soft overcomes the hard.

The slow overcomes the fast.

Let your workings remain a mystery.

Just show people the results.

Lectio Divina - One hundred and Thirty-five

Acts 2:1-13

When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. . . And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? . . . All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."

Lectio Divina - One hundred and Thirty-four

Tao Te Ching, trans. Stephen Mitchell. New York: Harper Perennial, 1982, #20.

Stop thinking, and end your problems.

What difference between yes and no?

Must you value what others value,

avoid what others avoid?

How ridiculous!

Other people are excited,

as though they were at a parade.

I alone don’t care,

I alone am expressionless,

like an infant before it can smile.

Other people have what they need:

I alone possess nothing.

I alone drift about,

like someone without a home.

I am like an idiot, my mind is so empty.

Other people are bright;

I alone am dark.

Other people are sharp;

I alone am dull.

Other people have a purpose;

I alone don’t know.

I drift like a wave on the ocean,

I blow as aimless as the wind.

I am different from ordinary people.

I drink from the Great Mother’s breasts.

Lectio Divina - One hundred and Thirty-three

From a letter from Lou Andreas-Salomé to Rainer Maria Rilke in Rilke and Andreas-Salomé: A Love Story in Letters, New York: Norton, 2006, pp. 58-59.

That one “most real thing” which in your recent letter you said you wished you could cling to when inner fears drive everything away from you and seem to leave you abandoned to an alien world, — you already have it inside you, that one real thing, planted in there like a hidden seed and thus not yet present to you. You possess it now in this sense: you have become like a little plot of earth into which all that falls — and be it even things mangled and broken, things thrown away in disgust — must enter an alchemy and become food to nourish the buried seed. No matter if at first it looks like a pile of sweepings thrown out over the soul: it all turns to loam, becomes you.

Lectio Divina - One hundred and Thirty-two

The Gospel of John 20:11-18

Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, `I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Lectio Divina - One hundred and Thirty-one

Jane Hirshfield, “Each Moment a White Bull Steps Shining into the World” from The Lives of the Heart. New York: HarperPerennial, 1997, p. 71.

If the gods bring to you

a strange and frightening creature,

accept the gift

as if it were one you had chosen.

Say the accustomed prayers,

oil the hooves well,

caress the small ears with praise.

Have the new halter of woven silver

embedded with jewels.

Spare no expense, pay what is asked,

when a gift arrives from the sea.

Treat it as you yourself

would be treated,

brought speechless and naked

into the court of a king.

And when the request finally comes,

do not hesitate even an instant --

Stroke the white throat,

the heavy, trembling dewlaps

you’d come to believe were yours,

and plunge in the knife.

Not once

did you enter the pasture

without pause,

without yourself trembling.

That you came to love it, that was the gift.

Let the envious gods take back what they can.

Lectio Divina - One hundred and Thirty

Ram Dass, “Promises and Pitfalls of the Spiritual Path,” in Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis, ed. Stanislav Grof and Christina Grof, New York: Tarcher, 1989, p. 184.

One of our expectations was that the spiritual path would get us healthy psychologically. I was trained as a psychologist. I was in analysis for many years. I taught Freudian theory. I was a therapist. I took psychedelic drugs for six years intensively. I have a guru. I have meditated since 1970 regularly. I have taught Yoga and studied Sufism, plus many kinds of Buddhism. In all that time I have not gotten rid of one neurosis--not one. The only thing that has changed is that, whereas previously my neuroses were huge monsters, now they are like these little shmoos. “Oh, sexual perversity, I haven’t seen you in days, come and have some tea.” To me the product of the spiritual path is that I now have another contextual framework that makes me much less identified with my known neurosis, and with my own desires. If I do not get what I want, that is as interesting as when I get it. When you begin to recognize that suffering is grace, you cannot believe it. You think you are cheating.