consider the lilies …
consider any being:
no being need do more
than need be done
to be and let be
no one need do more
than need be done
to live and let live
with love …
love is being delighted
with the present,
just as it is,
flawed as it may seem
love is being delighted
with all things,
not as they are seen,
nor otherwise
love is being delighted
with being as a whole,
as direct experience,
as mystery and wonder
consider being as a whole:
nothing depends on nothing,
and nothing doesn’t change
only in the mind is anyone or anything an entity,
and to imagine otherwise is to be deluded,
is to be where we are today
whatever may be thought,
nothing is, other than the whole,
and imagining otherwise is delusion
nothing is other than the whole
no one is
if all that is thought of as you
cannot exist as it is without
all that is thought of as not you,
how are you not that too?
no one exists apart from
the interdependent web
of all existence
nothing exists apart from
the interdependent web
of all existence
consider any being
consider the lilies …
notes and links
inspiration credit: attending the March 24 service at the Unitarian Church of Vancouver prompted this post
any service description on the UCV website – and the description of the March 24 service is a good candidate – may in due course include links to take you to where you can listen to or download the audio and read or download the prepared text
meanwhile you can read the text printed on the day for distribution after the service – just scroll through this document viewer:
embedded in the bang commands at the start of lines below are links to results for those search terms
!gb "Hidden in this apparently uncomplicated, uncontroversial, innocuous statement is a radical theological position."
!? Engaging Our Theological Diversity site:uua.org
“To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love.”
— Brain Pickings (@brainpickings) February 14, 2019
Pretty much a public service announcement today, this wisdom from the great Zen teacher Thich Hhat Hanh: https://t.co/iTPasszZ7a pic.twitter.com/ALcNMUbik0
Thich Nhat Hanh:
We think we have a self. But there is no such thing as an individual separate self. A flower is made only of non-flower elements, such as chlorophyll, sunlight, and water. If we were to remove all the non-flower elements from the flower, there would be no flower left.
flawed as it may seem
!i there is a crack in everything
not as they are seen,
nor otherwise
!gb things are not as they are seen, nor are they otherwise
as direct experience,
as mystery and wonder
!? direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder
nothing depends on nothing,
and nothing doesn’t change
!? anatta, anicca
only in the mind is anyone or anything an entity,
and to imagine otherwise is to be deluded
!i there is a crack in everything
not as they are seen,
nor otherwise
!gb things are not as they are seen, nor are they otherwise
as direct experience,
as mystery and wonder
!? direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder
nothing depends on nothing,
and nothing doesn’t change
!? anatta, anicca
only in the mind is anyone or anything an entity,
and to imagine otherwise is to be deluded
!? “… striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion.”
images showing the above quote – typed letter, handwritten draft – reproduced on Flickr by @onbeing with the permission of the Albert Einstein Archives, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
is to be where we are today
!gb – as a taker rather than a leaver culture
nothing is, other than the whole,
and imagining otherwise is delusion
and imagining otherwise is delusion
!gb "is delusion" -faith
no one exists apart from
the interdependent web
of all existence
!? the interdependent web of all existence
the interdependent web
of all existence
!? the interdependent web of all existence
consider the lilies …
!? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: