Be still, my soul, and steadfast.
Earth and heaven both are still watching
though time is draining from the clock
and your walk, that was confident and quick,
has become slow.
So, be slow if you must, but let
the heart still play its true part.
Love still as once you loved, deeply
and without patience. Let God and the world
know you are grateful.
That the gift has been given.
~Mary Oliver
how will you remember your own divine nature within the other?
inquiry for today~ simply allow all gratitudes to move you outside of your own box- reminding you to forget the bad advice of “not seeing differences” but rather celebrate them…….
We are all interconnected and interrelated just by the fact that we are alive together in this world. We are relating to each other, but also to the larger aspect of life and earth. The teachings on causes and effects, sometimes called interdependent coarising or dependent origination, speak to this innate aspect of how things are intertwined, both on the scale of our everyday human life and also in the grand expansiveness of the Universe.
This is explained in the Samyutta Nikaya as follows-
When there is this, that is.
With the arising of this, that arises.
When this is not, neither is that.
With the cessation of this, that ceases.
The fundamental part of this teaching can feel so true or like a nobrainer that it can seem mundane or feel irrelevant or unimportant. Yet in its succinctness, it invites us to explore how deeply interwoven and interdependent our lives are. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. also captures the spirit of this ancient knowledge-
In a real sense, all life is interrelated. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.
~Larry Yang
