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@rookie54

How did he know that to be true?
One was raised from the dead.
He's an authority on death and its finality or not.

Jesus

"I am the resurrection and the life."

The whole universe,
The whole world, is you;
Do you think
There is any other?
This is why the ancients say,
“People lose themselves,
Pursuing things;
If they could turn things around,
They would be the same as Buddha.”
- Hsueh-feng (822-908)

Attain the center of emptiness,
Preserve the utmost quiet;
As myriad things act in concert,
I thereby observe the return.
Things flourish,
Then each returns to its root.
Returning to the root
Is called stillness:
Stillness is called return to Life,
Return to Life is called the constant;
Knowing the constant is called enlightenment.
- Tao-te Ching

What sages learn
Is to return their nature
To the beginning
And let their minds
Travel freely in
Openness.
What developed people
Learn is to link their nature
To vast emptiness and
Become aware of the
Silent infinite.
- Huai-nan-tzu

@rookie54

Thank you.

My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. . . . “Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?” That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last. It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning.
— ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 12

Sages send their spirit
To the storehouse of awareness
And return to the beginning
Of myriad things.
They look at the formless,
Listen to the soundless.
In the midst of profound
Darkness,
They alone see light;
In the midst of silent vastness,
They alone have
Illumination.
- Huai-nan-tzu

@rookie54

Ravish me, oh Light
With your fierce beauty;
Explode the cracks of my fearful resistance
Until all
Is
Light

DK

Outwardly go along
With the flow,
While inwardly keeping
Your true nature.
Then your eyes and ears
Will not be dazzled,
Your thoughts will not
Be confused,
While the spirit within you
Will expand greatly to roam
In the realm of absolute purity.
- Huai-nan-tzu

Sages lean on a pillar
That is never shaken,
Travel a road that is
Never blocked, are
Endowed from a
Resource that is never
Exhausted, and learn
From a teacher that
Never dies.
They are successful
In whatever they undertake,
And arrive wherever they go.
Whatever they do, they
Embrace destiny and go along
Without confusion.
- Wen-tzu

Comprehending the fundamental,
Embracing the spirit,
Roam the root of heaven and earth,
Wander beyond the dust and dirt,
Travel to work at noninvolvement.
Take care not to let mechanical
Intelligence burden your mind;
Watch what is not temporal
And remain unmoved by things.

- Lao tzu

All along the trail of moss,
I followed your wooden shoeprints.
White clouds hung around
Your little island where spring
Grass hid your unlocked door.
I enjoyed the colors of pines after rain
And reached the river’s source
Along the mountain trail.
Facing the stream and the flowers
I came inside a sense of Zen,
Yet cannot find the words.
- Liu Chang Ching (709-780)

Don't stir my calm water
There is an active volcano
Ready to erupt
Inside of me.

Keep your hands
To yourself
If you strike me
A serpent is ready
To inject its venom into you.

Keep your harsh words
In your mind
Tame your mouth
Otherwise the hornets
Will hush you forever.

I tell you
Don't stir my calm water
You will be sorry
If you do.


Rose Marie Juan Austin

I took a walk.
Suddenly I stood still, filled
with the realization
that I had no body or mind.
All I could see was one great illuminating Whole,
omnipresent,
perfect,
lucid,
and serene.
It was like an all-embracing mirror
from which the mountains and rivers of the earth were projected…
I felt clear and transparent.

~Han-Shan - 16th-century Zen master

The myriad differences
Resolved by sitting,
All doors opened.
In this still place
I follow my nature,
Be what it may.
From the one hundred
Flowers I wander freely,
The soaring cliff,
A hall of meditation.
- Reizan (~1411)