Ah, not to be cut off!
not through the slightest partition
shut out from the law of the stars.
The inner -- what is it?
if not the intensified sky,
hurled through with birds and deep
with the winds of homecoming.
--Rainer Maria Rilke
The Oriental Orthodox Order in the West is an order of sages, women and men devoted to the path of wisdom and the spiritual transformation of humanity through the teachings and practice of Yeshua, as Wisdom Master.
--Rainer Maria Rilke
A heart that has been completely emptied of mental images gives birth to divine, mysterious intellections that sport within it like fish and dolphins in a calm sea. The sea is fanned by a soft wind, the heart’s depth by the Holy Spirit (190).
As I enter the solitude of prayer, I put matters before God, for only God knows. That is my prayer-time habit, to turn and talk, and that’s why it is said, “My heart delights in prayer.” Then through such purity a window opens in my soul, and God’s messages come immediately to me. Through that window the Word, the rain, and the Light all pour into my inner room from their gleaming Source. Hell is the room in which there is no window. The goal of all prayer is to open that window (Book 3:2400-4)
Hold the sadness and pain of samsara in your heart and at the same time the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun [Nirvana]. Then the warrior can make a proper cup of tea.Then she herself goes on to say:
I was struck by [this] because when I read it I realized that I myself have some kind of preference for stillness. The notion of holding the sadness and pain of samsara in my heart rang true, but I realized I didn’t do that; at best, I had a definite preference for the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun. My reference point was always to be awake and live fully, to remember the Great Eastern Sun—the quality of being continually awake. But what about holding the sadness and pain of samsara in my heart at the same time? The quotation really made an impression on me. It was completely true: If you can live with the sadness of life (what Rinpoche often called the tender heart or genuine heart of sadness), if you can be willing to feel fully and acknowledge continually your own sadness and the sadness of life, but at the same time not be drowned in it, because you also remember the vision and power of the Great Eastern Sun, you experience balance and the completeness joining heaven and earth, but really they are already joined. There isn’t any separation between samsara and nirvana, between sadness and the pain of samsara and the vision and power of the Great Eastern Sun [the Kingdom of Heaven]. One can hold them both in one’s heart, which is actually the purpose of practice. As a result of that, one can make a proper cup of tea.One can also live properly bearing in this world the “cross-beams” of heaven and earth, which is the burden of the Master of spiritual life in the tradition of Yeshua. This is also the full support of the oneness of All Things, about which he spoke and taught so eloquently—and thus, “Blessed (in fact) are all who mourn.”
Peace of mind does not result from the attempt to control our lives. In fact, it is just the opposite. It comes from the wisdom that is illuminated when we learn how to relax in a way that allows us to "be with what is." In our practice, we learn how to engage in something when it is appropriate and how to disengage as well. Peace of mind comes from recognizing how one fits into the scheme of things, the degree to which all life is interconnected, and the realization that nobody is ever alone (15).