The unknown evokes wonder

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The unknown evokes wonder. If you lose your sense of wonder, you lose the sacramental majesty of the world. Nature is no longer a presence, it is a thing.  Your life becomes a dead cage of fact.  The sense of the eternal recedes, and time is reduced to routine.  Yet the flow of our lives cannot be stopped.  This is one of the amazing facts about being in the dance of life.  There is no place to step outside.  There is no neutral space in human life.  There is no place to go to get out of it.  There is no little cabin down at the bottom of the garden where the force and familiarity of life stop, and you can sit there in a space outside your life and yourself and look in on both. Once you are in life, it embraces you totally.

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~ John O'Donohue, from 'Eternal Echoes'

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out at the edges

I.

Somewhere, out at the edges, the night

Is turning and the waves of darkness

Begin to brighten the shore of dawn.

II.

I arise today

In the name of Silence

Womb of the Word,

In the name of Stillness

Home of Belonging,

In the name of Solitude

of the Soul and the Earth.

I arise today

Blessed by all things,

Wings of breath,

Delight of eyes,

Wonder of whisper,

Intimacy of touch,

Eternity of soul,

Urgency of thought,

Miracle of health,

Embrace of God.

May I live this day

Compassionate of heart,

Gentle in word,

Gracious in awareness,

Courageous in thought,

Generous in love.

~ John O' Donohue

from Eternal Echoes

 

 

 

it needs forever

Anna: There you are, Harlan.  I've called and called.  What are you doing?

Harlan: Looking.

Anna: At what?

Harlan: The river.

Anna: You've never seen enough, have you,  of that river you looked at all your life?

Harlan: It never does anything twice.   It needs forever to be in all its times and aspects and acts.  To know it in time is only to begin to know it.  To paint it, you must show it as less than it is.  That is why as a painter I never was at rest.  Now I look and do not paint.  This is the heaven of a painter - only to look, to see without limit.  It's as if a poet finally were free to say only the simplest things.
For a moment they are still again, both continuing to look, in  opposite directions, at the river.

Anna: That is our music, Harlan.  Do you hear it?

Harlan: Yes, I hear.

Anna: I think it will always be here.  It draws us back out of eternity as once it drew us together in time.  Do you remember, Harlan, how we played?  And how, in playing, we no longer needed to say what we needed to say?

Harlan: I'm listening. But I heard here too, remember, another music, farther off, more solitary,  closer -

Anna: To what, Harlan?

Harlan: I'm not so sure I ever know.  Closer to the edge of modern life,  I suppose - to where the life of living things actually is lived;  closer to the beauty that saves and consoles this earth.  I wanted to spend whole days watching the little fish that flicker along the shore.

Anna: Yes.  I know you did.

Harlan: I wanted
to watch, every morning forever,the world shape itself again out of the drifting fog.

Anna: Your music,  then,   was it in those things?

Harlan: It was in them and beyond them,  always almost out of hearing.

Anna: Because of it you made the beautiful things you made,  for yourself alone, and yet, I think, for us both.  You made them for us both,  as for yourself,  for what we were together required those things of you alone.

Harlan: To hear that music,  I needed to be alone and free.

Anna: Free, Harlan?

Harlan: I longed for the perfection of the single one.  When the river rose and the current fled by,  I longed to cast myself adrift,  to take that long,  free downward-flowing as my own.  I know the longing of an old rooted tree to lean down upon the water.

Anna: I know that.  I knew that all along.  And then was when I loved you most.  What brought me to you was knowing the long, solitary journey that was you,  yourself - the thought of you in a little boat, adrift and free.  But, Harlan, why did you never go?  Why did you not just drift away, solitary and free,  living on the free charity of the seasons, wintering in caves as sometimes you said you'd like to do?

Harlan: Oh,  Anna, because I was lonely!  The perfection of the single one is not perfection, for it is lonely.

Anna: From longing  for the perfection of the single one,  I called you into longing for the perfection of the union of two,

Harlan: which also was imperfect, for we were not always at one, and I never ceased, quite, to long for solitude.

Anna: And yet, of the two imperfections, the imperfection of the union of two is by far the greater and finer - as we understood.

Harlan: Yes, my dear,  Anna,  that I too understood.  It is better, granting imperfection in both ways, to be imperfect and together than to be imperfect and alone.

Anna: And so this is the heaven of lovers that we have come to - to live again in our separateness, so that we may live again together, my Harlan.




~ Wendell Berry
from  Sonata at Payne Hollow



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the direct path for all

Find out who is subject to free will or predestination and abide in that state.  

Then both are transcended.  That is the only purpose in discussing these questions. 

 To whom do such questions present themselves?  

 Discover that and be at peace.

Your true nature is that of infinite spirit. 

 The feeling of limitation is the work of the mind. 

 When the mind unceasingly investigates its own nature,  

it transpires that there is no such thing as mind.  

This is the direct path for all.

Your speak as if you are here, 

 and the Self is somewhere else and you had to go and reach it ... 

 But in fact the Self is here and now,  

and you are always It.

The realized person weeps with the weeping, laughs with the laughing,

 plays with the playful, sings with those who sing, keeping time to the song.  

 His presence is like a pure,  transparent mirror. 

 It reflects our image exactly as we are. 

 It is we who play the several parts in life and reap the fruits of our actions. 

 How is the mirror or the stand on which it is mounted affected? 

 Nothing affects them,  as they are mere supports.

 

 

~ Ramana Maharshi

This Phenomenal Absence

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NOWHERE, WHERE I am an object, am I; 
nor where any part of  "me" is an object is it part of me or is mine.
  Only here where I can see nothing (but the objective universe) am I
 - and I am only an absence objectively.

When I realize that, I cease also to be an individual "I"
 for anything individual is thereby an object.

My only existence is non objective,  as non - objectivity itself.

I cannot be portrayed in any way, drawn, photographed or described. 
 That which impersonally I am has no qualities or resemblance
 to an individual subject - object, which is purely conceptual.

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Note:  A "self", an "ego", any kind of separated personality or being, is an object.  
That is why nothing of the kind is - as the Diamond Sutra so repeatedly insists.

My objective self only has a conceptual existence.

Non - objectively I am the apparent universe.

Identifying myself with my conceptual object is what constitutes bondage.
  Realizing that my conceptual object only exists in so far as it
 and its subject are THIS phenomenal absence and now - constitutes liberation.

I am my phenomenal absence.

~ Wei Wu Wei
 from  All else is Bondage

surpression of thinking

The Masters' exhortations to abjure  "thinking" 
 do not imply the suppression of thought 
but the reorientation, by articulation,
 of the impetus that results in dualistic
 thought into its im-mediate experience.

Suppressed thought is the negative aspect of the dualism 
 "thought - no - thought,"  another mode of thought itself
 and "one half of a pair,"  whereas what the Masters mean
 is wu nien, which is the absence of both counterparts,
 thought and no - thought,  which is the presence of the suchness
 of thought, and that is expressed in spontaneous Action 
 ( pure action arising from Non - action: Wu wei).

Wu Nien is the presence of the absence of no - thought.

~ Wei Wu Wei
 from  All else is Bondage

The true path

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Just before Ninakawa passed away the Zen master Ikkyu visited him.  "Shall I lead you on?"  Ikkyu asked.

Ninakawa replied:  "I came here alone and I go alone.  What help could you be to me?"

Ikkyu answered:  "If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion.

Let me show you the path on which there is no coming and no going."

With his words, Ikkyu had revealed the path so clearly that Ninakawa smiled and passed away.

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~ from Zen Flesh Zen Bones compiled by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki

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Loneliness is like sitting in an empty room

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Loneliness is like sitting in an empty room and being aware of the space around you. It is a condition of separateness. Solitude is becoming one with the space around you. It is a condition of union. Loneliness is small, solitude is large. Loneliness closes in around you; solitude expands toward the infinite. Loneliness has its roots in words, in an internal conversation that nobody answers; solitude has its roots in the great silence of eternity. 
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~ Kent Nerburn

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what is sorrow for?

What is sorrow for? It is a storehouse
Where we store wheat, barley, corn and tears.
We step to the door on a round stone,
And the storehouse feeds all the birds of sorrow.
And I say to myself: Will you have
Sorrow at last? Go on, be cheerful in autumn,
Be stoic, yes, be tranquil, calm;
Or in the valley of sorrows spread your wings.

~Robert Bly

what time is it?

what time is it?it is by every star

a different time,and each most falsely true;

or so subhuman superminds declare

- nor all their times encompass me and you:

when are we never,but forever now

(hosts of eternity;not guests of seem)

believe me,dear,clocks have enough to do

without confusing timelessness and time.

Time cannot children,poets,lovers tell -

measure imagine,mystery,a kiss

- not through mankind would rather know than feel;

mistrusting utterly that timelessness

whose absence would make you whole life and my

(and infinite our)merely to undie

~e.e.  cummings

silently if

silently if,out of not knowable

night's utmost nothing,wanders a little guess

(only which is this world)more my life does

not leap than with the mystery your smile

sings or if(spiralling as luminous

they climb oblivion)voices who are dreams,

less into heaven certainly earth swims

than each my deeper death becomes your kiss

losing through you what seemed myself,i find

selves unimaginably mine;beyond

sorrow's own joys and hoping's very fears

yours is the light by which my spirit's born:

yours is the darkness of my soul's return

- you are my sun,my moon,and all my stars

~ e.e. cummings

Loneliness

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Her son had recently died, and she said she did not know what to do now.  She had so much time on her hands, she was so bored and weary and sorrowful, that she was ready to die.  She had brought him up with loving care and intelligence, and he had gone to one of the best schools and to colleges.  She had not spoiled him, though he had had everything that was necessary.  She had put her faith and hope in him, and had given him all her love; for there was no one else to share it with, she and her husband having separated long ago.  Her son had died through some wrong diagnosis and operation - though, she added smilingly, the doctors said that the operation was 'successful'.  Now, she was left alone, and life seemed so vain and pointless.  She had wept when he died, until there were no more tears, but only a dull and weary emptiness.  She had had such plans for both of them, but now, she was utterly lost.
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The breeze was blowing from the sea, cool and fresh, and under the tree it was quiet.  The colours on the mountains were vivid, and the blue jays were very talkative.  A cow wandered by, followed by her calf, and a squirrel dashed up a tree, wildly chattering.  It sat on a branch and began to scold, and the scolding went on for a long time, its tail bobbing up and down.  It had such sparkling bright eyes and sharp claws.  A lizard came out to warm itself, and caught a fly.  The tree tops were gently swaying, and a dead tree against the sky was straight and splendid.  It was being bleached by the sun.  There was another dead tree beside it, dark and curving, more recent in its decay.  A few clouds rested on the distant mountains.
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What a strange thing is loneliness, and how frightening it is!  We never allow ourselves to get too close to it; and if by chance we do, we quickly run away from it.  We will do anything to escape from loneliness, to cover it up.  Our conscious and unconscious preoccupation seems to be to avoid it or to overcome it.  Avoiding and overcoming loneliness are equally futile; though suppressed or neglected, the pain, the problem, is still there.  You may lose yourself in a crowd, and yet be utterly lonely; you may be intensely active, but loneliness silently creeps upon you; put the book down, and it is there.  Amusements and drinks cannot drown loneliness; you may temporarily evade it, but when the laughter and the effects of alcohol are over, the fear of loneliness returns.  You  may be ambitious and successful, you may have vast power over others, you may be rich in knowledge, you may worship and forget yourself in the rigmarole of rituals; but do what you will, the ache of loneliness continues.  You may exist only for your son, for the Master, for the expression of your talent; but like the darkness, loneliness covers you.  You may love or hate, escape from it according to your temperament and psychological demands; but loneliness is there, waiting and watching, withdrawing only to approach again.
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Loneliness is the awareness of complete isolation; and are not our activities self-enclosing?  Though our thoughts and emotions are expansive, are they not exclusive and dividing?  Are we not seeking dominance in our relationships, in our rights and possessions, thereby creating resistance?  Do we not regard work as 'yours' and 'mine'?  Are we not identified with the collective, with the country, or with the few?  Is not our whole tendency to isolate ourselves, to divide and separate?  The very activity of the self, at whatever level, is the way of isolation; and loneliness is the consciousness of the self without activity.  Activity, whether physical or psychological, becomes a means of self-expansion; and when there is no activity of any kind, there is an awareness of the emptiness of the self.  It is this emptiness that we seek to fill, and in filling it we spend our life, whether at a noble or ignoble level.  There may seem to be no sociological harm in filling this emptiness at a noble level; but illusion breeds untold misery and destruction, which may not be immediate.  The craving to fill this emptiness - to run away from it, which is the same thing - cannot be sublimated or suppressed; for who is the entity that is to suppress or sublimate?  Is not that very entity another form of craving?  The objects of craving may vary, but is not all craving similar?  You may change the object of your craving from drink to ideation; but without understanding the process of craving, illusion is inevitable.
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There is no entity separate from craving; there is only craving, there is no one who craves.  Craving takes on different masks at different times, depending on its interests.  The memory of these varying interests meets the new, which brings about conflict, and so the chooser is born, establishing himself as an entity separate and distinct from craving.  But the entity is not different from its qualities.  The entity who tries to fill or run away from emptiness, incompleteness, loneliness, is not different from that which he is avoiding; he is it.  He cannot run away from himself; all that he can do is to understand himself.  He is his loneliness, his emptiness; and as long as he regards it as something separate from himself, he will be in illusion and endless conflict.  When he directly experiences that he is his own loneliness, then only can there be freedom from fear.  Fear exists only in relationship to an idea, and idea is the response of memory as thought.  Thought is the result of experience; and though it can ponder over emptiness, have sensations with regard to it, it cannot know emptiness directly.  The word loneliness, with its memories of pain and fear, prevents the experiencing of it afresh.  The word is memory, and when the word is no longer significant, then the relationship between the experiencer and the experienced is wholly different; then that relationship is direct and not through a word, through memory; then the experiencer is the experience, which alone brings freedom from fear.
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Love and emptiness cannot abide together; when there is the feeling of loneliness, love is not.  You may hide emptiness under the word love, but when the object of your love is no longer there or does not respond, then you are aware of emptiness, you are frustrated.  We use the word love as a means of escaping from ourselves, from our own insufficiency.  We cling to the one we love, we are jealous, we miss him when he is not there and are utterly lost when he dies;  and then we seek comfort in some other form, in some belief, in some substitute.  Is all this love?  Love is not an idea, the result of association; love is not something to be used as an escape from our own wretchedness,  and when we do so use it, we make problems which have no solutions.  Love is not an abstraction, but it's reality can be experienced only when idea, mind is no longer the supreme factor.
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~ J. Krishnamurti - from 'Commentaries on Living First Series'

When the ocean finally comes to you

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When the ocean finally comes to you as a lover,
Marry, at once, quickly,
For God's sake!
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Don't postpone it!
Existence has no better gift.
No amount of searching
Will find this.
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A perfect falcon, for no reason,
has landed on your shoulder,
And become yours.
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~ Rumi
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You stay home too

I will wait here in the fields

to see how well the rain

brings on the grass.

In the labor of the fields

longer than a man's life

I am at home. Don't come with me.

You stay home too.

I will be standing in the woods

where the old trees

move only with the wind

and then with gravity.

In the stillness of the trees

I am at home. Don't come with me.

You stay home too.

~ Wendell Berry

to go in the dark

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark.  Go without sight,

and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

~ Wendell Berry