may my heart always be open

may my heart always be open to little

birds who are the secrets of living

whatever they sing is better than to know

and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry

and fearless and thirsty and supple

and even if it's sunday may i be wrong

for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully

and love yourself so more than truly

there's never been quite such a fool who could fail

pulling all the sky over him with one smile

e.e.cummings

.

you know yourself only through the senses and the mind

 

 You know yourself only through the senses and the mind. 

You take yourself to be what they suggest;

 having no direct knowledge of yourself,

 you have mere ideas; all mediocre, 

second-hand, by hearsay.

Whatever you think you are you take it to be true; 

the habit of imagining yourself perceivable and

describable is very strong with you.

I see as you see, hear as you hear, taste as you taste,

 eat as you eat. 

I also feel thirst and hunger.

 When starved or sick,

 my body and mind go weak.

 All this I perceive quite clearly, but somehow I am not in it, 

I feel myself as if floating over it, aloof and detached.

 Even not aloof and detached. 

There is aloofness and detachment as there is thirst and

hunger; there is also the awareness of it all 

and a sense of Immense distance, 

as if the body and the mind and all that happens to them

 were somewhere far out on the horizon. 

I am like a cinema screen -- clear and empty -- 

the pictures pass over it and disappear, 

leaving it as clear and empty as before. 

In no way is the screen affected by the pictures, 

nor are the pictures affected by the screen. 

The screen intercepts and reflects the pictures,

 it does not shape them.

 It has nothing to do with the rolls of films.

 These are as they are, lumps of destiny (prarabdha),

 but not my destiny; the destinies of the people on the screen.

~ from I AM THAT

Dialogues of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

happiness is the very nature of the Self

 

Happiness is the very nature of the Self:

happiness and the Self are not different.

There is no happiness in any object of the world.

We imagine through our ignorance that we

derive happiness from objects. 

When the mind goes out seeking,

it expereinces misery.

In truth, when its desires are fulfilled,

it returns to its own place and enjoys

the happiness that is the Self.

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

aboriginal art

surrendering, lose myself in your loosened hair

 

 

Someday, emerging at last from the violent insight,

let me sing out jubilation and praise to assenting angels.

Let not even one of the clearly-struck hammers of my heart

fail to sound because of a slack, a doubtful,

or a broken string. 

 Let my joyfully streaming face

make me more radiant; let my hidden weeping arise

and blossom.  

How dear you will be to me then, you nights 

of anguish. 

 Why didn't I kneel more deeply to accept you,

inconsolable sisters, and, surrendering, lose myself

in your loosened hair. 

 How we squander our hours of pain.

How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration

to see if they have an end.

  Though they are really

our winter-enduring foliage,

 our dark evergreen,

one season in our inner year -,

 not only a season

in time -,

 but are place and settlement, 

foundation and soil and home.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from Duino Elegies, The Tenth Elegy

translation by stephen mitchell

art by van gogh

in the heart of every creature

.

.

.

Hidden in the heart of every creature

Exists the Self, subtler that the subtlest,

Greater than the greatest…

.

The Self cannot be known through study,

…nor through the intellect,

nor through discourses about it.

.

~  Katha Upanishad

.

the lost trapper

 

Each time the soprano and the tenor

Kneel and sing to each other,

Somewhere else on stage the baritone

Is about to die.

The Alaskan trapper finds

Blood on his arm, his radio

Dead, and new snow

Falling on the branches.

I don't know why the grasshopper

Doesn't try to wiggle

Out from the bird's claw,

But he doesn't move.

Just forget the idea that

Someone will come and save

You whenever cedars begin

Making that low sound.

~ Robert Bly 

from Talking into the Ear of a Donkey

there is a brokenness

There is a brokenness out of which comes the unbroken, 

a shatteredness out of which blooms the unshatterable. 

There is a sorrow beyond grief which leads to joy 

and a fragility out of whose depths emerges strength. 

There is a hollow space too vast for words 

through which we pass with each loss, 

out of whose darkness we are sanctioned into being.

 

There is a cry deeper than all sound 

whose serrated edges cut the heart as we break open 

to the place inside which is unbreakable and whole, 

while learning to sing. 

~ Rashani

beyond myself

When my heart came to rule

in the world of love,

it was freed

from both belief

and from disbelief.

On this journey,

I found the problem

to be myself.

When I went beyond myself,

the pathway finally opened.

~ Mahsati Ganjavi

translation by David and Sabrineh Fideler

Mahsati Ganjavi lived during the 12th century, born in Ganje, Azerbaijan.

 Her poetry was a strong voice against prejudice and hypocrisy and patriarchy, 

while upholding love -- both human and divine.

She was celebrated at the court of Sultan Sanjar for her rubaiyat (quatrains), 

but later persecuted for her courageous stand against

 overly dogmatic religion and arbitrary male dominance.

gratitude

Learn by little the desire for all things
which perhaps is not desire at all
but undying love which perhaps
is not love at all but gratitude
for the being of all things which
perhaps is not gratitude at all
but the maker's joy in what is made,
the joy in which we come to rest.

 

~ Wendell Berry

from Leavings

belonging to each other

 

~ Father Greg Boyle

bright but hidden, before and behind, to the right and to the left, above and below

Bright but hidden, 

the Self dwells in the heart.

Everything that moves,

breathes, opens, and closes

Lives in the Self. 

 He is the source of love

And may be known through love

 but not through thought.

He is the goal of life. 

...

In his robe are woven heaven and earth,

Mind and body.  Realize him as the One

Behind the many and stop all vain talk.

He is the bridge from death to deathless life.

Where all the nerves meet like spokes in a wheel,

There he dwells, the One behind the many.

Meditate upon him in the mantram.

May he guide us from death to deathless life!

...

The Lord of Love is before and behind.

He extends to the right and to the left.

He extends above; he extends below.

There is no one here but the Lord of Love.

He alone is; in truth, he alone is.

~ excerpt from The Mundaka Upanishad

translated by Eknath Easwaran

art by Jeff Metal

I shall walk quietly the beautiful trail

 

Now Talking God

With your feet I walk.

I walk with your limbs

I carry forth your body

For me your mind thinks

Your voice speaks for me

Beauty is before me

And beauty is behind me

Above and below me hovers the beautiful

I am surrounded by it

I am immersed in it

In my youth I am aware of it

And in old age I shall walk quietly

The beautiful trail.

The mountains,

I become part of it . . .

The herbs, the fir tree,

I become part of it.

The morning mists, the clouds,

the gathering waters,

I become part of it.

The wilderness, the dew drops, the pollen . . .

I become part of it.

May it be delightful my house;

From my head may it be delightful;

To my feet may it be delightful;

Where I lie may it be delightful;

All above me may it be delightful;

All around me may it be delightful.

'Sa'ah naaghéi, Bik'eh hózhó

excerpts from the

Navaho Night Chant

art by Ted DeGrazia

The nine-night ceremony known as the Night Chant

 or Nightway is believed to date from around 1000 B. C. E.,

 when it was first performed by those who lived in Canyon de Chelly.

  It is considered to be the most sacred of all Navajo ceremonies

 and one of the most difficult and demanding to learn, 

involving the memorization of hundreds of songs,

 dozens of prayers, and several very complicated sand paintings.

At its core, the Night Chant is a healing ritual, 

aimed at curing the sick

 and restoring balance

 and harmony within the universe.

a common bond

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Always in big woods 

when you leave familiar ground

 and step off
alone into a new place there will be,
along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement,

 a little nagging of dread.

It is the ancient fear of the unknown,

 and it is your first bond
with the wilderness you are going into.

You are undertaking the first experience, 

not of the place,
but of yourself in that place. 

It is an experience of our essential loneliness,
nobody can discover the world for anybody else.

It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves
that it becomes a common ground

 and a common bond,
and we cease to be alone.

And the world cannot be discovered

 by a journey of miles,
no matter how long, 

but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch,

 very arduous

 and humbling

 and joyful,
by which we arrive

 at the ground at our feet,
and learn to be at home.





~ Wendell Berry

from The Unforeseen Wilderness: 

Kentucky’s Red River Gorge

 

no form - not a thing

 

True intelligence operates silently.

Stillness is where creativity and

solutions to problems

are found.

Wisdom comes with the ability to be still.

Just look and just listen.

No more is needed.

Being still, looking, and listening

activates the non-conceptual

intelligence within you.

Let stillness direct your

words and actions.

When you look and listen in this way,

you may become aware of a subtle and at

first perhaps hardly noticeable sense of calm.

Some people feel it as a

stillness in the background.

Others call it peace.

When consciousness is no longer

totally absorbed by thinking,

some of it remains in its formless,

unconditioned, original state.

This is inner space.

Stillness is the only thing in

this world that has no form.

But then, it is not really a thing,

and it is not of this world.

Become at ease with the

state of 'not knowing.

~ Eckhart Tolle 

from A New Earth

art by Odilon Redon

with thanks to Tao of Photography

like the small hole by the path-side something lives in

Like the small hole by the path-side something lives in,

in me lives I do not know the names of,

nor the fates of,

nor the hungers of or what they eat.

They eat of me.

Of small and blemished apples in low fields of me

whose rocky streams and droughts I do not drink.

And in my streets - the narrow ones,

unlabeled on the self-map -

they follow stairs down music ears can't follow,

and in my tongue borrowed by darkness,

in hours uncounted by the self-clock,

they speak in restless syllables of other losses, other loves.

There too have been the hard extinctions,

missing birds once feasted on and feasting.

There too must be machines

like loud ideas with tungsten bits that grind the day,

A few escape, A mercy,

They leave behind

small holes that something unweighed by the self-scale lives in.

~ Jane Hirshfield 

from The Beauty

Fremont rock painting from San Raphael Swell

2000-1000 BC Caves Painting