The heart is like a mirror. When we dust it off, we are able to see ourselves. The dust is all our stuff - guilt, anger - this stuff is reflected back to us. Practice removes the dust from the mirror of our hearts.
Krishna DasRead
Chanting just hits you and you want to be a part of it. That’s the point of this whole thing. That’s what cuts through all the ‘stuff’. You get lit up. You don’t have to know what it means.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the transformative power of chanting and the emotional connection it fosters, regardless of understanding its meaning.
Krishna Das expresses the essence of chanting as a deeply resonant experience that transcends intellectual understanding. It is about the joy and communal connection that arises from the act itself, illuminating one's spirit and bringing forth a sense of belonging and enlightenment, beyond the complexities of life.
In practice
During a meditation workshop, one might share this quote to highlight the importance of emotional engagement in spiritual practices.
The heart is like a mirror. When we dust it off, we are able to see ourselves. The dust is all our stuff - guilt, anger - this stuff is reflected back to us. Practice removes the dust from the mirror of our hearts.
If we know anything about a path at all, it's only because of the Great ones that have gone before us. Out of their love and kindness, they have left some footprints for us to follow. So, in the same way that they wish for us, we wish that all beings everywhere, including ourselves, be safe, be happy, have good health, and enough to eat. And may we all live at ease of heart with whatever comes to us in life.
Grace surrounds us and holds us like the sky holds everything in it … and as soon as I find a way to let go of my story, I keep seeing over and over again that grace is always here and it includes the forgetting and the remembering. The practice is the opening of the hand to catch the raindrops, which are always falling. If you don't open your hand, you get wet, but you don't get much to drink.
Love is what we are; we don't get it from somebody, we can't give it to anybody, we can't fall in it or fall out of it. Love is our true Being.
Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
The theater has to impose itself on the public, and not the public on the theater... The word "Art" should be written everywhere, in the auditorium and in the dressing rooms, before the word "Business" gets written there.
I think I am the first person of color to direct a major white play on Broadway. In 1993? That's astounding to me. And horrifying to me.
There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.
Type well used is invisible as type, just as the perfect talking voice is the unnoticed vehicle for the transmission of words, ideas.
My first two books are out of print and, okay, they can sleep there comfortably. It's early work, derivative work.
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