Topic: Prayer

[Nichi]

What I want to talk about is (a) special quality of my people.

I believe it is the most important.
It is our most unique gift. It is perhaps the greatest gift we can give.
In our language this quality is called dadirri.

It is inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness ...

When I experience dadirri,
I am made whole again.
I can sit on the river bank or walk through the trees;
even if someone close to me has passed away,
I can find my peace in this silent awareness.
There is no need of words ...

It is just being aware ...

Our Aboriginal culture has taught us to be still and to wait.
We do not try to hurry things up.
We let them follow their natural course—like the seasons.
We watch the moon in each of its phases.
We wait for the rain to fill our rivers and water the thirsty earth ...

We wait on God, too.
His time is the right time.
We wait for him to make his Word clear to us.
We don't worry.
We know that in time and in the spirit of dadirri
(that deep listening and quiet stillness)
his way will be clear.

 
reflections on dadirri - miriam rose ungunmerr-baumann - aboriginal artist & teacher
   
 
Excerpts from presentation to the 2009 Parliament of the World's Religions, Melbourne, AU
Also published in Compass: Spring 2003, Vol 37 No 3. Australian Province of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart
http://www.worldprayers.org/

[Nichi]

The sun shines down,
and its image reflects a thousand
different pots filled with water.

The reflections are many,
but they are each reflecting the same sun.

Similarly, when we come to know who we truly are,
we will see ourselves in all people.

 
amma

[Nichi]

Do everything with a mind that lets go.
Do not expect any praise or reward.
If you let go a little, you will have a little peace.
If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.
If you let go completely, you will know complete peace and freedom.
Your struggles with the world
will have come to an end.
 
insight meditation - achaan chah

[Nichi]

If you hear the dogs,
keep on going.

If you hear gunfire,
keep on going.

If you hear shouts and footsteps,
keep on going.

 
harriet tubman - c. 1820-1913

[Firestarter]

I really like this one. I like him too

Promise me,
promise me this day,
promise me now,
while the sun is overhead
exactly at the zenith,
promise me:

Even as they
strike you down
with a mountain of hatred and violence;
even as they step on you and crush you
like a worm,
even as they dismember and disembowel you,
remember, brother,
remember:
man is not our enemy.

The only thing worthy of you is compassion –
invincible, limitless, unconditional.
Hatred will never let you face
the beast in man.

One day, when you face this beast alone,
with your courage intact, your eyes kind,
untroubled
(even as no one sees them),
out of your smile
will bloom a flower.
And those who love you
will behold you
across ten thousand worlds of birth and dying.

Alone again,
I will go on with bent head,
knowing that love has become eternal.
On the long, rough road,
the sun and the moon
will continue to shine.

 
recommendation - thich nhat hanh - 1965

[Jahn]

The reflections are many,
but they are each reflecting the same sun.

Similarly, when we come to know who we truly are,
we will see ourselves in all people.

That is the same message as from "Smokey Mirror"  Tezcatlipoca.

[Nichi]

When a person responds to the joys and sorrows of others
as if they were his own,
he has attained the highest state of spiritual union.
 
the bhagavad gita 6:32 - sri krishna

[Nichi]

Fearlessness is better than a faint-heart
for any man who puts his nose out of doors.

The length of my life and the day of my death were fated long ago.
 
for scirnis - norse mythology

[Nichi]

Naughty or good, I am Thy child.
 
paramahansa yogananda

[Nichi]

Children, everybody, here's what to do during war:

In a time of destruction, create something.
A poem.
A parade.
A community.
A school.
A vow.
A moral principle.
One peaceful moment.

 
the fifth book of peace - maxine hong kingston - 2003

[Nichi]

I give thanks for arriving
Safely in a new dawn,
For the gift of eyes
To see the world,
The gift of mind
To feel at home
In my life,
The waves of possibility
Breaking on the shore of dawn,
The harvest of the past
That awaits my hunger,
And all the furtherings
This new day will bring.

John O'Donohue

[Nichi]

Living beings are without number;
I vow to row them to the other shore.

Defilements are without number;
I vow to remove them from myself.

The teachings are immeasurable;
I vow to study and practice them.

The way is very long;
I vow to arrive at the end.

 
four vows of the bodhisattva

[Nichi]

You may drive out nature with a pitchfork,
Yet she will ever hurry back
over your foolish contempt.

 
epistles, 1:10:24 - horace - 65-8 b.c.e.

[Michael]

I can't recall why I know about Maxine Hong Kingston, but her name is very familiar for some reason.

[Nichi]

I can't recall why I know about Maxine Hong Kingston, but her name is very familiar for some reason.

She's written several books, but this one was her breakout book:

Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girllhood Among Ghosts