noninterference and surrender

On a farm you learn to respect nature, 

particularly for the wisdom of its dark underworld.  

When you sow things in the spring, 

you commit them to the darkness of the soil.  

The soil does its own work.  

It is destructive to interfere with the rhythm and wisdom of its darkness.  

You sow drills of potatoes on Tuesday and you are delighted with them.  

You meet someone on a Wednesday who says 

that you spread the potatoes too thickly, you will have no crop.  

You dig up the potatoes again and spread them more thinly.  

On the following Monday, you meet an agricultural advisor who says 

this particular variety of seed potatoes needs to be spread close together.

  

You dig them up again and set them closer to each other.  

If you keep scraping at the garden, you will never allow anything to grow.  

People in our hungry modern world are always scraping at the clay of their hearts.  

They have a new thought, a new plan, a new syndrome, that now explains why 

they are the way they are.  They have found an old memory that opens a new wound.  

They keep on relentlessly, again and again, scraping the clay away from their own hearts.  

In nature we do not see the trees, for instance, getting seriously involved in therapeutic analysis 

of their root systems or the whole stony world that they had to avoid on their way to the light.  

Each tree grows in two directions at once, into the darkness and out to the light 

with as many branches and roots as it needs to embody its wild desires...

It is wise to allow the soul to carry on its secret work in the night side of your life.  

You might not see anything stirring for a long time.  

You might have only the slightest intimations 

of the secret growth that is happening within you, 

but these intimations are sufficient.

~ John O'Donohue

from Anam Cara

when you want to bow to the past

Today, in conversation,
the past
cropped up,
my past.
Sleazy
incidents
indulged,
vacuous
episodes,
spoiled flour,
dust.
You crouch down,
gently
sink
into yourself,
you smile,
congratulate yourself,
but
when it's a matter
of someone else, some friend,
some enemy,
then
you are merciless,
you frown:
What a terrible life he had!
That woman, what a life
she led!
You hold
your nose,
visibly
you disapprove of pasts
other than your own.
Looking back, we view
our worst days
with nostalgia,
cautiously
we open the coffer
and run up the ensign
of our feats
to be admired.
Let's forget the rest.
Just a bad memory.
Listen and learn.
Time
is divided into two rivers:
one
flows backward, devouring
life already lived;
the other
moves forward with you
exposing
your life.
For a single second
they may be joined.
Now.
This is that moment,
the drop of an instant
that washes away the past.
It is the present.
It is in your hands.
Racing, slipping,
tumbling like a waterfall.
But it is yours.
Help it grow
with love, with firmness,
with stone and flight,
with resounding
rectitude,
with purest grains,
the most brilliant metal
from your heart,
walking
in the full light of day
without fear
of truth, goodness, justice,
companions of song,
time that flows
will have the shape
and sound
of a guitar,
and when you want
to bow to the past,
the singing spring of
transparent time
will reveal your wholeness.
Time is joy.

 

~ Pablo Neruda

 from Selected Odes of Pablo Neruda

 photo Judy Garland by Richard Avedon

woven of peace

 

I thought of happiness, how it is woven

Out of the silence in the empty house each day

And how it is not sudden and it is not given

But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.

No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark

Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.

No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,

But the tree is lifted by this inward work

And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.

So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours

And strikes its roots deep in the house alone:

The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,

White curtains softly and continually blown

As the free air moves quietly about the room;

A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall—

These are the dear familiar gods of home,

And here the work of faith can best be done,

The growing tree is green and musical.

For what is happiness but growth in peace,

The timeless sense of time when furniture

Has stood a life's span in a single place,

And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir

The shining leaves of present happiness?

No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,

But where people have lived in inwardness

The air is charged with blessing and does bless;

Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.

~ May Sarton

The Work of Happiness from Collected Poems

trace the stream back

 

Trace the stream back to its source.

Trace consciousness to the root 

where there is no inside or outside,

 Consciousness is,

 I am over here as the subject, 

you are all out there as objects, 

and I roll along with my life.

 But if I trace my mind back further,

 to a place closer and nearer, 

where I am no longer separating myself from objects,

 the mind turns around. 

With the backward step,

 you see the unity

 and the emptiness of separation.

Walking forward does not cease; 

walking backward does not cease.

 Walking forward does not obstruct walking backward. 

Walking backward does not obstruct walking forward. 

This is called the mountain flow and the flowing mountain.

~ Dogen

excerpts from the Mountain and Waters Sutra

the work of happiness

I thought of happiness, how it is woven
Out of the silence in the empty house each day
And how it is not sudden and it is not given
But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.
No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark
Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.
No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,
But the tree is lifted by this inward work
And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.

So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours
And strikes its roots deep in the house alone:
The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,
White curtains softly and continually blown
As the free air moves quietly about the room;
A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall --
These are the dear familiar gods of home,
And here the work of faith can best be done,
The growing tree is green and musical.

For what is happiness but growth in peace,
The timeless sense of time when furniture
Has stood a life's span in a single place,
And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir
The shining leaves of present happiness?
No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,
But where people have lived in inwardness
The air is charged with blessing and does bless;
Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.

 

 

 

 

~  May Sarton
from May Sarton, Collected Poems, 1930-1993

 

 

out of my deeper heart

Out of my deeper heart a bird rose and flew skyward.

Higher and higher did it rise, yet larger and larger did it grow.

At first it was but like a swallow, then a lark, then an eagle,
 then as vast as a spring cloud, and then it filled the starry heavens.

Out of my heart a bird flew skyward. 
And it waxed larger as it flew. 
 Yet it left not my heart.

~ Kahlil Gibran

from The Forerunner, His Parables and Poems

art by  Shel Waldman

our daily abiding awareness

 

~ James Finley 

turn your attention

 

God dwells in you, as you, 

and you don't have to 'do' anything

 to be God-realized or Self-realized,

 it is already your true and natural state.

Just drop all seeking, 

turn your attention inward, 

and sacrifice your mind to

 the One Self radiating in the Heart

 of your very being. 

For this to be your own presently lived experience, 

Self-Inquiry is the one direct and immediate way.

~ Sri Ramana

photo by Ansel Adams

with thanks to love is a place

we

 

Two beggars

sharing a meal of the food they've been given

The new moon shines intensely

~ Ko Un

with thanks to Poetry Chaikhana

love is

 

~ Rupert Spira

thirsty I remain

 

I need a lover and a friend

All friendships you transcend

And impotent I remain

You are Noah and the Ark

You are the light and the dark

Behind the veil I remain

You are passion and are rage

You are the bird and the cage

Lost in flight I remain

You are the wine and the cup

You are the ocean and the drop

While afloat I remain

I said, "O Soul of the world

My desperation has taken hold!"

"I am thy essence," without scold,

"Value me much more than gold."

You are the bait and the trap

You are the path and the map

While in search I remain

You are poison and the sweet

You are defeated and defeat

Sword in hand I remain

You are the wood and the saw

You are cooked, and are raw

While in a pot I remain

You are sunshine and the fog

You are water and the jug

While thirsty I remain

Sweet fragrance of Shams is

The joy and pride of Tabriz

Perfume trader I remain.

~ Rumi

with thanks to No Mind's Land

Buddhist emptiness

 

silence and contemplation

 

~ Thomas Merton

.

people are hurt, and nature can heal

 

A documentry of Lhakpa Sherpa, a fearless example

 of strength and perserverance.

 

“Look at me, I’m not educated,”

 she says of her achievements. 

“[If] I can do it, anybody can do whatever they want. 

People are hurt, and nature can heal people and change them.”

~ Lhakpa Sherpa

film by Lucy Walker

be still and know

Imagine you are walking alone at night on a country road.  

No people or cars or houses around, just enough starlight to see your way, 

the only sound the sound of your shoes on the road and the swish

 of your clothes as you walk.  You feel the stillness inside of things come close. 

You stop. Now there are no sounds, except the almost-never-heard hush of things being.

You sense the stillness on all sides and an identical stillness within you.

 It makes you uneasy, as if you are about to be extinguished. 

 You try to think, to establish yourself against the stillness,

 but the voice of your thoughts sounds thin, metallic.  

You feel an irrepressible need to be distracted, to change the stillness

 and its overwhelming of you. 

You walk home thinking about plans for tomorrow.

But in the quiet of your room you realize what happened: you got scared. 

 You got scared of opening into the stillness, of allowing it to be.

  It was a close call.  You see how throughout your life you have invited 

one distraction after another to prevent just this from happening.  

Now you feel disappointed in yourself. So instead of turning on your computer

 or reading a book or getting something to eat, 

you sit down and invite the stillness back.

A phrase you once heard comes to you, 

from Psalm 46: "Be still, and know." Be still. Be still.

You arrange your body as you have learned to do.  You sit in a comfortable, 

alert position, with your back vertical so you don't slump or drift off. 

 You let your body be motionless, quiet.  The motionlessness of your body

 is a helpful friend; you know it is temporary, and in fact it is

 not really motionless - little shifts and sensations keep happening - 

but the relative stillness of your body reduces your identification with it,

 with the sense you are your body's ambitions and memories and likes and dislikes.

Learning to sit still, to settle like this, is called by Tibetan lamas "the first motionlessness."

 A quiet body at ease relaxes the persistence of thoughts.  Once the first motionlessness

 has been learned, they say, then it doesn't matter if the body is motionless or moving,

 for the the ground of stillness is always available.  But for now you need this helpful friend, 

and you sit still.

Now you invite what the lamas call "the second motionlessness."

 This is the still, empty openness "behind" each of your senses, 

the openness in which your senses arise.  You relax into that openness.

 To say it is not moving points to its nature, but that's not entirely accurate. 

 It is not the opposite of motion, or of the visible, or of sound. 

 This motionlessness is not definable - it is not a sensation.

 Nevertheless it has an almost kinesthetic effect on you, 

as if it is vanishing you, as if the existing one you thought you were, 

the receiver, the photographic plate that records your experience, this"one,"

 becomes transparent. You begin to feel the same threat of vanishing 

you felt on the road, but now you relax and let it be.

  "The third motionlessness" comes now, unbidden. 

 It is the stillness of presence itself - the stillness of a clearness that is always here,

 behind and within everything. It is what allows everything to show up.

  It is empty too not made out of anything, yet it is awesome and radiant in its presence.

  It is without being an it.

You remember now how the phrase from Psalm 46 continues:

 "Be still, and know I am God."

"God"  - this old, strange word that sounds like a judge and yet still resonates beyond that -

 could it mean - could it have first meant - this empty Presence without form,

 appearing as all form?  You realize you are trying to figure it out and you stop.

 Be still, and know I am God.  The knowing is not thinking.

 It is presence being present to presence.

You find yourself wavering here - one moment at ease in the clarity, 

and in the next thinking about it.  You hear the words again:

 Be still. Do nothing. Let be. Don't fill anything in. 

 No need to figure anything out. Relax.

A sense of peacefulness opens in you, vast and without dimension.  

This what Sufis call sakina - vast, peaceful tranquility without dimension -

 and suddenly you are smiling, your eyes are filling with tears - a joy -

 could it be called that? - a joyousness like praise and thankfulness together,

 love pouring forth from nowhere, the whole show showing up - 

mountain, sky, stars, bodies - from nothing, from stillness.

In remembering the Real, all hearts find joyous peace.

- Qur'an 13:28

~ Pir Elias Amidon

from Free Medicine

 photo by Kathy Chow