The Tree of Life

As you begin to think more and more about the tree, you will discover that everything in the universe helps to make the tree what it is; that it cannot at any moment be isolated from anything else; and that at every moment its nature is subtly changing. This is what we mean when we say things are empty, that they have no independent nature.

Excerpted from:

Glimpse After Glimpse,

Sogyal Rinpoche

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I believe mindfulness, arising out of a personal crisis and deflation of ego, was necessary for me to recapture the intuitive and instinctive relationship with the world around me. The first relationship restored from the experience was that with my innermost self when I was forced by this crisis to admit my powerlessness and to accept it; that it was a dead end in the truest sense of the word. Total surrender to a Power, still mysterious, opened up when I began to trust that I wasn’t alone in the universe; that it wasn’t a cold, chaotic and dangerous place. This sense was at first intuitive but it developed into a thorough awareness of power as I opened my heart to the Heart of Compassion. This wasn’t a churchy submission to a belief; a preacher; a sponsor; a group; or any earthly power. It was in this place… the humility to surrender… that I got the first glimpse of a connectedness to us all. Everything in the universe is a vital dynamic in this realization… you… me… the tree… and this rock I sit on… all are one in the holy place of compassion. We are the Tree of Life…

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