Mystic Haïku & Practice Insights

The following Mystic Haïku are …

… written in the traditional Japanese 5-7-5 consonant format. Reading their staccato-like prose with a contemplative inner-intelligence is recommended. They may then be received as they are intended—as an energetic light-transmission for your  nervous system and heart.

We do crazy things
Until our calling finds us
And forgiveness reigns

Speaking with your eyes
I hear your heart most clearly
Holy Connection 

Whispers of Silence
Rock the habit body now. 
Inner foes dissolve

Ravaged by the gap
In the wounded heart’s absence
Unclaimed Treasure here 

Morning tulips fold
Exquisite prayerful gestures
Silent Mysteries

If we become still
Mending disconnected hearts
Is an inside job

What shall I offer?
If not the most sacred flow
Of this grateful heart

“I am here” is here  
Touch her Beauty if you can 
She moves in your heart 

An inner yearning
Divine calling herself home
Heart’s Sanctuary 

Mind your own business
Anything else distracts from
Sacred commitments

What amazes me most
Is our refusal to know.
Love gives us the time we need

Nature teaches us
To relax personal cares 
That entangle Soul

Presence is not thought
It is surrendered exhales
Of just this, and this

Loud inner defence 
Prevents me from feeling you
Absence makes me sad

Flows of Grace come in
When higher frequencies come 
Gentle doors open

Joys of home-coming
New inner dance steps unfold
In this happy heart

The noise of my thoughts
Afflicts my soul’s becoming
I lose my compass

Fight for what is True 
Sustained by the Mystery 
Of Soul’s timeless walk 

Blessed by the moments 
Where we are carried by Grace
Unsurpassed Bounty

Drops of Heaven’s Gold
Align this body in ways
I could not predict

Thanks to true teachers
For forging a path of Truth 
I find refuge in.

Mindful engagement 
Is not from the mind itself
But from your Being.

The world is wounded
Don’t blame yourself or others
Just see and be with

Easily unnerved
We humans by each other
Find your centre first

I am working hard 
To make Beauty logical
All we do is Dance.

“I rely on you”
Mother looked down with a smile 
Heart crushing burden

A plea arises
Finally feeling my need
As heart gasps for air

Can I be in Flow
With others who refuse to?
Surrender is choice

Something moves through me
With syncopated blessing
Grateful for mere scrapes

Like holy stories
Thoughts land like soft morning rain
Everything is Light 

Body-mind is calm
Heart flings open in response
Befriending myself

How to say nicely
That colluding with comfort
Is not my calling

Friendships unravel
In winds of essential change 
But heart-roots deepen

Fixing other’s pain
Has been a life-long career 
Happy to retire

You deserve your space 
Your unearned Right To Be here
Where your Heart can melt

Some days I learn more 
From a tulip than from words
Refreshing heart talk

How good it feels now
To have a heart that’s content 
Home found when heart leads 

Waking is not hard
If clear bearings are guiding 
Goal posts disappear

Something kissed my heart
It was full of glad promise 
I’ll share if you like

Learning heart by braille
Lights the way through all darkness
Life becomes a Friend

At last surrender 
Rubs sleep from stubborn hurt-eyes
Forgiveness wakens

Piercing heart habits
With Beauty is more potent
than it is with Pain

Where there is Life flow
Sangha’s of Goodness appear
No forcing needed

Like you, I am here
To heal the depth of Soul-wound
That hides our True Place 

Most relaxing times:
Watching the world from a heart
Where it all belongs

Home is where Heart lives
A challenge to walk true paths 
But quiet mind knows 

Our stories burden 
Their hidden cost is revealed
With the baggage claim

Freedom is knowing
I count more when I am less 
Mystery holds me here

Life’s gifts are not mine
True Gifts I don’t even earn 
Generosity

When ego shows up
In almost every moment!
I’m grateful I see

My evolution
Is not separate from yours
But paths are unique

Respect comes from this
I see you as you are now
And thresholds ahead

Stillness and Stagnant
One creates one is hiding
Where do you invest?

Wisdom pearls drop in
Fresh water is infusing
Past limitations

Timeless space sits here
Taking up all of the room
I can’t even think

Where do you belong?
It is never where you think
Trying doesn’t work

Words are meaningless
If disconnected from Flow
Let’s stop talking now

Don’t get caught in proof
It’s a separation trap
Of disguised import

Wounded heart is here
Universal Heart is too
Only God holds both

Wretched is seeking
That never ever finds Home 
This makes my heart sad 

I reach out to you 
Many times and many ways
You block every one

Give up the trying 
You are making too much noise
Now sit and listen 

All your ideas
Precious stars they may be but …
Landing brings their Light

Spiritual progress
Naturally lightens burdens 
Happy hearts can sing

A strong inner Light
Manifests new directions
Ground level shifting

Blinders are falling
Revealing Hope’s new story 
Scales off an old fish

Thank-you is given
As we kneel before the Word
Nothing less will do 

Manufactured depth
Is never sustainable
Mind is not enough

Don’t dismiss the small
It forms the weave of the whole 
And gives connection 

No point in knocking
Unless we learn to listen 
Doors disappear here

Whose cup do you drink?
From fresh mountain stream or slough?
Who gave you this cup?

Untangle the knots
Divine Secrets are revealed 
You are Life Itself

Apple of God’s eye
In stillness there are no lies
Joy is beholding

I’d not left home long
When I knew I didn’t leave
The baggage weighed tons 

About this Grace and Joy 
I’ve done nothing to deserve
Yet my body knows

Sitting with this fear
burns the carefully crafted
Flight I had in mind 

Tender heart breaking
As walls of defence tumble
Landing in warm tears

The mystical path
Walks us in different ways
Towards the same Light

Faith is like heart-braille 
You can’t see it but it’s here
Grace landing in life

Inner Worlds Awake
When I am quiet inside 
Sitting forever

In the flow of Truth
Everything flows easier
Melting what was hard

Right here where we are
Where Divine Grace meets human
Sangha meets freedom

Like you I am here
To heal the depth of Soul Wound
That hides our true place

Nothing is too much
For your clean simplicity
Where hearts find their home

I have mistaken 
So many paths for Your Grace 
Nakedly Hiding

Fierce gates guard this Place
Surrendering ideas
makes gates disappear

I can hear the world
when listening through the heart
Stillness evokes love 

Welcome this beauty 
That speaks through stillness and Grace
All you seek is here 

Simplicity reigns 
Where the heart is innocent 
Rejoice a new world 

I learn in snippets
of a world beyond my grasp
Where beauty just is

Beginnings are fresh
They unfold the heart’s promise
And give substance depth 

Who owns the spring bud?
Her silent beauty prevails 
Kissing naked hearts

Silence is movement 
Opening hearts to mystery
Gentle guidance Home.

Entangled in pain
Burdened by all that has been 
Soul depth is born here 

Trying to fit in
To an unhealthy culture
Let new tunes nurture

Trying to control 
The mystery moving in Life
I lose every time

Drops of Light land in
Fields of spacious surrender
We belong right here

Where hearts lift in praise
Burdens are carried by Light
Unstoppable Joy

Love is flowing now
A constant invitation 
For those listening

Surrender offers
New insight into Mystery
Heart’s Hallelujah.

We have forgotten 
Our Wisdom-hats in the dark
Retrieving is Work! 

Beauty teaches me
In the moments I Listen
I melt into Her

Spring’s promises come
Un-beckoned torrents of Joy
Stream through this body 

Beauty’s gifts come in
With maverick ideas 
Disruption abounds

Challenges in life
Are like buds waiting for Spring
Nurtured by heart’s warmth 

It’s a funny thing
How the world calms with still gaze
Still mind = peaceful world

Lens of perception
Opens a fountain of grief
As Heart calls me home

Today I struggled
Until Silence cleansed my heart
Like a Tsunami

Alignment with depth
Is a transfiguration
Of deep surrender

Befriending shadow
Is a humbling coming down
To authentic life

What allows you rest?
So your heart’s flowers can bloom
In eternity

Our wounds define us
Only if we stop them from
Entering our heart

So much abundance
In the space of not knowing
Stunning depths of Grace

Feeling what I feel
Challenges my defences
And makes clear boundaries

Wounding is made whole
In the Silence of the heart
Where shelter abounds

Thinking I know life
Presents my greatest challenge
To knowing life

What is your business?
Is a deep inner question
That can lead you home

The stillness of now
Is a flow that bows my head
To rest in the heart
… where
Love breaks it all down
Into digestible parts
One breath at a time

My belly relates
To your pain in a way that
Liberates us both

The traumatized mind
Cycles patterns of defensive
And blinds us to Soul

Sacred life fractals
Echo the timeless mystery
Of our true nature

Practice Insights arrive …

… in our willingness to “not know.” It is in this state that we become available for the emergence of our innate connection to all of Life. We begin to have direct experiences of a more coherent and integrated order of Intelligence. These one-sentence insights can present as sharp, humorous, or gentle, but they are always pointing “home” to the Mystery of our inter-connectedness.

I recommend reading these as a contemplative–slowly–as this allows the contemplative mind and the body to become aware simultaneously. Mystical insights are an organic attunement to the transpersonal intimacy  of our nervous system. It is why we appreciate scripture and mystical poetry–it belongs to all of us.

Presencing individual and collective pain reveals an organic movement of fragmentation seeking wholeness.

Spaciousness is the art of enabling healing through choice.

Embodied presence radiates deep waves of profound participation. 

I spent the whole day listening to the timeless embrace of the ancestors walking with me. 

Humility is not self-reducing, but knees bending naturally in grateful abundance.

Loving God more than my life-projections is a fiery practice. 

The audacity of thinking that God is on my side is the surest way to turn my back on God. 

The best mornings are the ones where life’s invitation is heard in a bird song and seen clearly in a spider’s web. 

This Truth-Yearning Heart burns the past and transforms it into the most exquisite compost for Presence.

I wept seeing the 200 + year-old cedar come down. For 25 years I had admired her. An instinct drew me to place my hand on her damp stump. I was startled to feel a beautiful energy enter my heart and swim right alongside my grief. It felt as though the tree was saying “we have always been here for you” and there was no hint of anger or ill-will. There was an abundant generosity coming from this fresh stump that words cannot describe, but my heart has never been the same.

Rare is the spiritual teacher who teaches from love. Rarer still is the one who teaches the subtle art of how to love.

A steadfast guideline for a contemplative life is never to be driven by my tyrannical “to do” list. 

A life-altering realization! When loving, thinking ceases. 

Love and Forgiveness are interchangeable forces, and neither can be forced. 

Life blossoms when I finally give myself completely to what I love–without a hint of apology or excuse. Why has it taken me 65 years to wrap my arms around this truth?

This morning I woke up and turned a corner to realize that in Serving the Master, I make a room in my own heart where the Master sits.  

This paper was a beautiful piece of surrender … until I wrote on it. 

You are my teacher she said with transparent simplicity. 
All I know with any clarity, I thought, is when I am facing in a Godly direction and when I am not. Does that qualify me as a teacher? 

There are thoughts that lift me up and thoughts that pull me down. In a wave of quiet solitude I realize that I am neither. 

Holy Silence is the great thief. A millisecond of surrender to her, robs me of my tidy identity. 

I am so busy wrestling with God that sometimes I forget to do the dishes. 

It seems to me that God laughs a lot. But I so often miss the jokes. 

God’s humour invites me into Loving, but I take myself too seriously to engage for long. 

Surrendering carries the sweet scent of profound Gratitude. (At your feet I am nothing, emptied.)

This current path of correction, although part of the whole, is painfully unfolding. 

At this time in human history, it is crucial that our relationship with God/Source is one of embodied Knowledge rather than belief in ideas.

The Awakened Moment is already here. It’s just that we haven’t arrived — quite yet.

When the Stillness of the Heart awakens within this body, life naturally blossoms in meaning, purpose, and connection.

Relating to discomfort ever more slowly and precisely is a path of Healing and Beauty.

An Inner Constellation opens a spacious field where the holy relationship between human and divine is felt and witnessed.

Life is the Perfect Storm for your Soul’s maturation.

A grounded available Heart is where living heaven on earth becomes a possibility.

The challenge of any Crisis is to allow it to penetrate the essential core of our heart – which is nothing less than a deep & timeless connection to Life.

The simple willingness to listen to uncharted dimensions of the heart grounds the nervous system in a timeless belonging.

Discernment cultivates an authentic spiritual practice, eventually becoming the container for boundless depths of compassion.

Crisis is not bad or wrong. It is simply a signpost.

The “me” that forgives is not the same “me that is trying to forgive.”

Engaging with inner-stillness is like a deep-tissue massage of the inner-landscape. It rearranges everything into a more coherent Flow.

When I have Connection I Don’t need Control

There are many reason not to practice stillness, and we are usually better off if we make friends with them.

It is not that inner-stillness offers security, so much as an abundance that infuses fear.

One of our greatest freedoms is experiencing our humanness within the gracious Heart of Inner-stillness and Silence.

A generous beauty flows through this body-mind when my God-conversation is louder than the world’s noise.

The dawn of humility comes with the wild and spacious realization that I don’t have a clue Who I am.

Silence Practice: Engaging the manifest world with increasing commitment and not getting lost there.

Inner-sight is crystalline when marinated in forgiveness.

The Stillness of the Heart awakens spontaneously with the realization that I can Be Present for Everything and control Nothing.

Truth, and the Love it bears, requires a refined and discerning vessel.

There are those who talk about Spirit/God, and those who are animated by It. They are speaking different languages.

Deep Meditation is the experience of dissolving  as Beauty is born.

Within the stillness, I realize that my whole life has been a preparation for this one precious moment.

He turned to thank me after the group was finished, and His Face Shone like the Sun throughout the Ages. His facial features receded in a “golden” glow as my Heart and Body melted into a simple Namaste.

The inherent Beauty of Silence lies within a deep listening that opens the heart to fresh experiences of the same (outer) practice again and again.

When my commitments serve my deepest/highest priority, life becomes essential.

We like to “think we know,” rather than simply “Knowing”: one is ownership, the other deep humility.

Something deep within me smiles when I take the time to write these lines. I think I will continue….

There is a warm glow of fire burning in my chest. I can warm my hands on it. These hand’s habits of manipulation, separation, and division are gradually thawing in the penetrating warmth of this eternal heart-flame. 

Insight comes like a lightening bolt through my habits of consciousness.

Practice groups have an energetic field that ignites personal and collective evolutionary potential. What groups in your life help you come alive?

Returning to Source or God is not what I ever imagined it would be, because the I that imagined disappears the closer I get. It is more relaxing than any massage I have ever received!

When we begin to trust the depth of our own integrity in God, so much confusion recedes. There are Laws we now listen to that are not separate from who we are. Revolutionary. And yet so effortless.

Because I am born of mystery’s Grace, I have an eternal responsibility to serve her.

The heart of Silence and stillness lives within a an electric energy-current emerging from the unseen Depths of our Being.

The old world has built bridges founded upon collective trauma. The new world is birthing bridges founded upon a collaborative future.

The beginning of actually “living” a Sacred Path is the end of any particular one … but like the Fairytale, we seem to have to kiss a lot of frog-paths first.

We return again and again to inner-stillness, to out of obligation, but because of the fullness discovered there.

I learn so much when I just sit still here in the backyard. My mind’s eye sees the masquerading lies of all the different identity- coats I’ve worn. They appear shockingly thin and ghost-like.

When I am willing to really look — to be with what is underneath the busy surface of my habits — Real Life starrs back at me. In that fierce gaze I am always startled by the naked transparency I Am.

Silence practice allows a deep relaxation of the nervous system that nourishes and transforms naturally.

Being our “brother’s keeper,” in any real sense, comes only with the recognition that we are not separate from our brother.

“Make straight the Way of The Lord” is a rigorous practice. It demands that we pay attention to all the sins/defilements/errors that our habits of ignorance have caused.

A student will often go deeper or wider than the teacher, because the teacher is the foundation or soil for the students growth. That is why a teacher must remain humble.

Our life Takes Flight when we relax into the humbling experience of being held in the perennial mystery. 

I don’t think an authentic spiritual practice can be selfish because the “Me” that I am remembering is the same You that you appear to have forgotten. 

I am learning that challenging thought habits directly is rather useless. Their deep trenches require simmering again and again in a higher/deeper/more expansive intelligence. Relief overwhelms me as a more substantial landscape reveals itself. 

The “good news” and the “bad news” is that we learn who we are through looking at our reflection in the eyes of the other.

When I am surrounded by ignorance within and without, the only option is to bow so low that “I” disappear.

From within the full realization of our imperfections & limitations, lie emerging recognitions of God.

When my heart is relaxed and open, I discover a quality of mind that is profoundly curious about Life. For one who tries so hard to know, this is a profound relief!

At best, religious ideologies can provide a benchmark that sanctions the possibility for internal spiritual experience, but ideology will never take the place of direct experience.

There is a sound that lingers within the depths of Silence, the mere whisper of which is profoundly healing for the Soul.

A theistic philosophy, when informed by direct experience, leverages us from habits of self-centredness. We are released into a soundless, timeless, proclamation of cosmic holism.

We must learn to “see” through the heart – eyes of direct  experience. Only then will our habits of estrangement become apparent because we are released from a struggle that was never ours.

When held within the discerning vessel of Still Awareness, Truth and Love are One.

The whole world is praying. I saw it so clearly while doing Yoga this morning while looking at a flower. As the mind expanded, I “saw” the reason for my resistance to Christian prayer. When the whole world is praying, where does the prayer of the separate individual belong? 

Everything I have every wanted for is so freely given when I am still. Tears well up in my eyes. This seems to be a result of my overflowing heart.

From within the full embrace of our imperfections & limitations, lie emerging recognitions of God.

I am sitting here writing AND I am in a deep state of meditation. I find it curious to observe the compulsive thought that I must listen to the daily meditation course I have been doing. It is like trying to interject a form-habit into that which is already formless and free. I quietly note how utterly insane my mind can be.

Within the stillness I realize that my whole life has been a preparation for receiving this one precious moment.

There is a large force that seems to be coming from my “third eye” and the whole forehead. Life is SO direct from this place, so powerful, that I feel I could do damage. I turn my attention to this thought. How can that which is older than time, deeper than wisdom be harmful? Only my fear holds it so. In this moment I realize that I am not afraid. What a rare occurrence.

Our beautiful planet suffers because we have collectively disconnected from ourselves and each other.

What is it that I am trying to prove in my habits of relationship? It is something like: “because only one of us can be the most beautiful/ cleverest/ most wise/strongest/ best athlete, we must use all of our available energy to compete. It seems to be the game we have all agreed to, however unconsciously. Either way, win or lose, this communication habit/style camouflages our individual beauty and robs our lives of meaning. When seen clearly, dropping this competitive life-sucking game as quickly and immediately as awareness allows is the only sane recourse.

When the Eyes of our Heart
are Opened,
We See that everything near and far is
absolutely and irrevocably,
in Our Service…
then,
waves of Love come crashing in,
plundering, splitting and devouring
all that we…
thought we were.

I can always tell
when Truth enters my consciousness…
my eyes water.
It is the beginning stages…
of softening
my hardened heart.
Its brittle battle goes on —
right/wrong, mine/yours,
entrenched in do or die.
Yes, the tears come.
Like soft and steady background music…
my eyes sometimes Hear.

“My Father blesses you,” He said with Raised Hand. The eyes of habit saw a deranged old man, but my heart was pierced forever … with a thousand Arrows of Love. Strictly speaking, God enjoys us Thoroughly. It is a pity we don’t reciprocate.

Culture is confusing because
most of us are sheep,
following and bleating the trends
of our time.
The whirling winds
of unconsciousness,
run rampant on the surface,
until, if we’re lucky … we are tripped …
into the Depth of God’s Blessing.

What a relief
to be off
that ride … the world revolving around me.

Rehashing yesterday’s
reactions…
Is like feeding
on a dumpster diet,
while slowly sinking.

We can’t really fly
(metaphorically speaking!),
until we relax …
in the humbling recognition
that we are held here by mystery alone.