Shine

The night burns with
a fire -
from a billion
distant
stars.

Yet this heat rises
from your merest
touch.

The day is alive with
the suns brilliant
passion.

And yet I am blinded
by your briefest
glance.

There is nothing small from you.

With a blink of your eyes
our worlds collide -
And I am left
unmade.

There is nothing hidden from you.

You find me in the ash -
and wish me as
a diamond.

And I am left
to shine in
your
hand.

 

~

 

It's this love - the undoing of the ego, being left unmade and formless and to only give shape again against a form held in the stillness of a moment - it's this love that gave rise to the earth and stars and distance worlds. It's how we came to be.

 

Peace,

Eric

Lesson From A Rosebud

The rosebud
Longs for a single
Unknown moment -
An instant crushed with
Tenderness.

The rosebud
Knows only of its yearning,
Breathing fully in this tenderness
That threatens to destroy.

And the rosebud
Can only surrender to
This longing -
Can only surrender and die
Within the passing hand
Of love,
Can only surrender...and nothing more.

And this is enough
To become a Rose.

~
There is great courage in surrendering to what each
moment has in hand - a faith blind to all
but greater faith.
All things must surrender to the
death of present
moments.
All things are born and passed and again
reborn in the space of
moments new.

 

 

Peace,

 

Eric

Eating With Spirit

While shopping today I watched an overweight person place item after item of unhealthy food choices on the belt. I thought about how healthy eating begins with healthy shopping - the food we have at home is what we will mainly consume obviously. Yet this is only partially true - lets trace this back just a little bit further: healthy eating begins with healthy thoughts. If we are thinking in terms of feeding our bodies and satisfying surface desires instead of nourishing body and soul - then our shopping, along with our kitchen and body - will reflect that. The Katha Upanishad makes this distinction with the description of two types of action - Preya, or what is pleasant, and Shreya, that which is beneficial. Eating for temporary satisfaction is pleasing for a moment, ultimately leaving us unfulfilled (which is why we continuously eat more) and undernourished. This is Preya from thought to action. Postponing the sense desire for nourishment and the true satisfaction of feeding mind, soul and body is Shreya - and is the ultimate choice for health and well being. The key is to trace our impulse to the source - we ask ourselves the all important "why" of this choice - which desire are we fulfilling. With practice we soon find an honest accounting, a stronger will and a firmer body. It's a spiritual strength that we are employing. Of course this doesn't mean to deny ourselves from all impulses (taste or other wise) but it does give us something much more important that seems to be missing from many of our lives - emotional freedom. We are no longer a slave to our appetite and the choices we make are based on free will and not mindless consumption. That alone is worth the price of practice. So perhaps the next time we shop, or dine out and find ourselves choices- we trace the thought towards it's origin (Preya or Shreya) and choose with spirit.

Peace,
Eric

Seamless - A Goal For Runners And Other Non - Ordinary People

I guess my true goal in life is to become seamless - to extend my inner
world to all aspects of my outer world. I think of this often in regard to my running. A happy, serene runner is a strong, confident runner in all circumstances. In Chapter 6 Verse 7 of the Bhagavad Gita Krishna instructs Arjuna in the ways of the Yogi -
"For one who has conquered the mind, the Supersoul is already reached, for he has attained tranquility. To such a man happiness and distress, heat and cold, honor and dishonor are all the same. "
Krishna is not talking about willpower here. No, he is teaching Arjuna a far greater power - the power of equanimity. Many ultrarunners seem to know this intuitively as the oft repeated mantra -"It almost always, never gets worse" has comforted many on a long trail. Willpower alone will only carry a runner so far - yet a tranquil mind, the mind of a Yogi, will carry a runner forever. And that's the goal of becoming seamless. In most instances when we refer to willpower we are thinking in terms of the individual will - which is indeed quite strong. But with limits. As Victor Frankl discovered in the concentration camps of the Holocaust - it was the person who lived beyond the individual self, who cultivated their spiritual strength and recognized a kinship with even their captors, who not only survived but later flourished once rescued.
As runners we limit ourselves when we rely on individual will and don't tap into the inner world that connects us to the Whole. Conquering the mind does not mean submission but relinquishing the smallness of the ego and entering fully into Spirit - where all things become possible. I think that ultrarunning becomes the grand experiment on this stage as we place ourselves on a direct path of ego crash and willpower collapse. Only to find ourselves rising, and stepping on new grounds of the spirit - seamlessly. That's my wish - for me. And for you.

Peace,
Eric

Metta

Any outside source of agitation is a sure signal that some inner work needs to be done. And the mostly likely cause is an unforgiven issue either surfacing or resurfacing. Forgiveness is a practice and it often takes repeated attempts before resents are truly let go. A wonderful practice is the Buddhist Metta meditation which is a method of releasing resentments and expanding in love at the same time. It is a practice that I will once again begin in the hope of returning to an inner calm that I am very much missing. Metta is a simple meditation that produces immediate results and I urge everyone to give it a try and experience these profound effects.

Peace,
Eric

An Arrow

I have been feeling very much consumed by anger and resentment lately and today during my run it was very much present and very much overwhelming. Fortunately I had 27 miles to burn it off and come to terms with it - and I'm getting there. I may need another few long runs like that to completely get there though. I was reminded that there are no justified resentments - and that's a tough concept to wrap the mind around - because we so want to be justified in our resentment towards others. I know I do and I feel like I have been so wronged, so why aren't my resentments justified? Because they disturb my peace of mind. It's as simple as that. They aren't justified because I always have a choice in how I respond and if my response is anything other than love and forgiveness then I am carrying a poison arrow within - an arrow that is only removed by letting go of the resentment. It's hard. It takes time and it takes practice. Yet it beats the slow poison of the arrow of resentment. There's always a choice.

Peace,
Eric

Setting Brilliant

Almost
Gone –
And still your form lingers
Against the faded day.
Setting brilliant in my mind.

 

~

 

 

 

There are things we see and then things just

beyond our perception.

Yes, nothing last forever but so too is

nothing gone that once was and

again will be.

Beyond the realm of common senses we

exist on other plains.

Close your eyes and reach....trusting in a

truth we cannot see with open eyes and

a heart closed tight.

It's in this field where magic happens.

 

 

Peace,

Eric