A day comes

.

A day comes
when the mouth grows tired
of saying, "I."
Yet it is occupied
still by a self which must speak.
Which still desires,
is curious.
Which believes it has also a right.
What to do?
The tongue consults with the teeth
it knows will survive
both mouth and self,
which grin - it is their natural pose-
and say nothing.

~  Jane Hirshfield

when we say goodbye

.

.

Why, when we say goodbye
at the end of an evening, do we deny
we are saying it at all, as in We'll
be seeing you, or I'll call, or Stop in,
somebody's always at home? Meanwhile, our friends,
telling us the same things, go on disappearing
beyond the porch light into the space
which except for a moment here or there
is always between us, no matter what we do.
Waving goodbye, of course, is what happens
when the space gets too large
for words – a gesture so innocent
and lonely, it could make a person weep
for days. Think of the hundreds of unknown
voyagers in the old, fluttering newsreel
patting and stroking the growing distance
between their nameless ship and the port
they are leaving, as if to promise I'll always
remember, and just as urgently, Always
remember me. It is loneliness, too,
that makes the neighbor down the road lift
two fingers up from his steering wheel as he passes
day after day on his way to work in the hello
that turns into goodbye? What can our own raised
fingers to for him, locked in his masculine
purposes and speeding away inside the glass?
How can our waving wipe away the reflex
so deep in the woman next door to smile
and wave on her way into her house with the mail,
we'll never know if she is happy
or sad or lost? It can't. Yet in that moment
before she and all the others and we ourselves
turn back to our disparate lives, how
extraordinary it is that we make this small flag
with our hands to show the closeness we wish for
in spite of what pulls us apart again
and again: the porch light snapping off,
the car picking its way down the road through the dark.
.
~ Wesley McNair
.

Large Red Man Reading

.

.

There were ghosts that returned to earth to hear his phrases,

As he sat there reading, aloud, the great blue tabulae.

They were those from the wilderness of stars that had expected more.

.

There were those that returned to hear him read from the poem of life,

Of the pans above the stove, the pots on the table, the tulips among them.

They were those that would have wept to step barefoot into reality,

.

That would have wept and been happy, have shivered in the frost

And cried out to feel it again, have run fingers over leaves

And against the most coiled thorn, have seized on what was ugly

.

And laughed, as he sat there reading, from out of the purple tabulae,

The outlines of being and its expressings, the syllables of its law:

Poesis, poesis, the literal characters, the vatic lines,

.

Which in those ears and in those thin, those spended hearts,

Took on color, took on shape and the size of things as they are

And spoke the feeling for them, which was what they had lacked.

.

~  Wallace Stevens

.

The Stolen Child

.

.

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we’ve hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he’s going,
The solemn-eyed:
He’ll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than he can understand.

.

~ William Butler Yeats

.

Listen to your life

.

.

Listen to your life. 

See it for the fathomless mystery that it is.

 In the boredom and the pain of it 

no less than the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, 

smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it

 because in the last analysis all moments are key moments,

 and life itself is grace.

.
~  Frederick Buechner

.

A ruin is never simply empty

A ruin is never simply empty.  It remains a vivid temple of absence.  All other inhabited dwellings hold their memory and their presence is continually added to and deepened by succeeding generations.  It is, consequently, quite poignant that a long since vacated ruin still retain echoes of the presence of the vanished ones.  The German poet Friedrich Holderlin captures this unstated yet perennial presence of the echo of touch in abandoned places:

When night is like day

And over slow footpaths,

 Dense with golden dreams,

 Lulling breezes drift.

The abandoned place is dense with the presence of the absent ones who have walked there.

~ John O'Donohue, from: 'Eternal Echoes'

do by not doing

.

.

Act by not acting;
do by not doing.
Enjoy the plain and simple.
Find that greatness in the small.
Take care of difficult problems
while they are still easy;
Do easy things before they become too hard.
.

~  Tao Teh Ching

.

look without imagination

.

.

Learn to look without imagination, 

to listen without distortion:

 that is all.

 Stop attributing names and shapes to the essentially nameless and formless,

 realize that every mode of perception is subjective,

 that what is seen or heard,

 touched or smelled, 

felt or thought, 

expected or imagined,

 is in the mind and not in reality,

 and you will experience peace and freedom from fear.

.

~  Nisargadatta Maharaj

.

This moment

.

.

This
moment
as smooth
as a board,
and fresh,
this hour,
this day
as clean
as an untouched glass
--not a single
spiderweb
from the past:
we touch the moment
with our fingers,
we cut it
to size,
we direct
its blooming.
.It's living,
it's alive:
it brings nothing from yesterday that can't be redeemed,
nothing from the lost past.
.
~  Pablo Neruda

.

O, how incomprehensible

.

.

O, how incomprehensible everything was, 

and actually sad, 

although it was also beautiful. 

One knew nothing. 

And sometimes it seemed that something never seen yet long desired was about to happen, 

that a veil would drop from it all; 

but then it passed,

 nothing happened,

 the riddle remained unsolved, 

the secret spell unbroken,

 and in the end one grew old and looked cunning . . . or wise

 . . . And still one knew nothing, perhaps, was still waiting and listening.

.
~  Hermann Hesse

.
from: Narcissus and Goldmund

where nothing is worth anything

Here, where nothing is worth anything,
I've set up a grass-thatched hut.
After eating,
I just stretch out for a nap.

As soon as it was built,
weeds were already growing back.
Now I've been here awhile
its covered in vines.

So the one in this hut just lives on,
unstuck,
not inside, out, in between.

The places where usual folk live,
I don't.
What they want,
I don't.

This tiny hut holds the total world,
an old man and
the radiance of forms and their nature,
all in ten feet square.

Bodhisattvas of the Vast Path
know about this but
the mediocre and marginal wonder,
"Isn't such a place too fragile to live in?"

Fragile or not,
the true master dwells here
where there is no
south or north, east or west.

Just sitting here,
it can't be surpassed:
below the green pines
a lit window.

Palaces and towers
of jade and vermilion
can't compare.

Just sitting,
my head covered,
all things rest.

So this mountain monk
has no understanding at all,
just lives on
without struggling to get loose.

Not going to
set out seats
and wait for guests.

Turning the light
to shine within,
turn it around again.

Vast,
unthinkable,
you can't face it
or turn away from it.

The root of it.

Meet the Awakened Ancestors,
become intimate with the teachings,
lash grass into thatch for a hut
and don't tire so easily.

Let it go,
release,
and your life of a hundred years
vanishes.

Open your hands.

Walk around.

Innocence.

The swarm of words,
and little stories
are just to loosen you
from where you are stuck.

If you want to know
the one in the hermitage
who never dies,
you can't avoid this skin-bag
right here.

~  Shitou Xiqian

.

As long as you do not see

.

.

As long as you do not see that it is mere habit,

 built on memory,

 prompted by desire,

 you will think yourself to be a person -

 living, feeling, thinking, active, passive, pleased or pained. 

Question yourself, ask yourself.

 'Is it so?'

 'Who am I'?

 'What is behind and beyond all things?'

 And soon you will see your mistake.

 And it is in the very nature of a mistake to cease to be, when seen.

.

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

.

In the secret cave of the heart

.

In the secret cave of the heart, two are

seated by life's fountain.  The separate ego

drinks of the sweet and bitter stuff,

liking the sweet, disliking the bitter,

while the supreme Self drinks sweet and bitter

neither liking this nor disliking that.

The ego gropes in darkness, while the Self 

lives in light...

~ the Katha Upanishad

.

I can give you my loneliness

.

.

I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the
hunger of my heart; I am trying to bribe you
with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat. 

.

~ Jorge Luis Borges

.

all objects in existence are wildly in love

 

 

 

 

They are always kissing, they can't

control themselves.

 

It is not possible

that any creature can have greater instincts

and perceptions than the 

mature human

mind.

 

God

ripened me.

So I see it is true;

all objects in existence are

 wildly in

love.

 

 

 

 

~ Meister Eckhart

 

 

 

 

all states of mind

.

All states of mind, 

all names and forms of existence are rooted in non-enquiry, 

non-investigation, in imagination and credulity. 

It is right to say "I am," 

but to say "I am this," "I am that" is a sign of not enquiring, 

not examining, 

of mental weakness or lethargy.

.

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

.

.

.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
.
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
.
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

.

~ William Wordsworth

.

we change

.

.

We change. 

This is a truism so blatant we could laugh at it,

 if we really believed it. 

We know things change,

 both things as circumstances and things as objects. 

The meadow across from the house where I grew up,

 which seemed like it had been there forever,

 has been filled with houses for forty years. 

To the people living in those homes the meadow, 

the games and egg hunts were never there. 

Only their own memories are there.

 In our heart of hearts,

 however, most of us harbor a deep belief, 

so deep we accept it without thinking,

 that some part of us,

 an essential us, 

remains the same, 

regardless of events or even memories. 

.

It's an illusory belief.

 Is there nothing that holds?

 No. Nothing. 

Nobody. Nada. Nadie.

 Even if we hold what seem to be the same

 feelings and thoughts years later?

 Isn't there something essential in them that holds?

 No.

.

~  Terrance Keenan

 from St Nadie In Winter

artwork by the author

.

Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence.

.

.

The unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, 

because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself and 

start paying attention to the universe. 

Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence.

 When you're unhappy, 

you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. 

You get to take yourself oh so very seriously.

.

~ Tom Robbins

.

There are times when we stop

.

.

We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of horizontal thinking. 
We move along the surface of things going from one quick base to another, 
often with a frenzy that wears us out.

We collect data, things, people, ideas, 'profound experiences',
 never penetrating any of them... 
.

But there are other times. 
There are times when we stop. We sit still. 
We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or its memory. 
We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper. 

.

~  James Carroll

.

a bubble in a stream

A star at dawn,
a bubble in a stream,
a flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
a flickering lamp,
a phantom and a dream,
so is the fleeting world.





~ Diamond Sutra


.

May the Angel of Awakening stir your heart

May the Angel of Awakening stir your heart
to come alive to the eternal within you,
to all the invitations that quietly surround you.
May the Angel of Healing turn your wounds
into sources of refreshment.
May the Angel of Imagination enable you
to stand on the true thresholds,
at ease with your ambivalence
and drawn in new directions
through the glow of your contradictions.
May the Angel of Compassion open your eyes
to the unseen suffering around you.
May the Angel of Wildness disturb the places
where your life is domesticated and safe,
take you to the territories of true otherness
where all that is awkward in you
can fall into its own rhythm.
May the Angel of Eros introduce you
to the beauty of your senses
to celebrate your inheritance
as a temple of the holy spirit.
May the Angel of Justice disturb you
to take the side of the poor and the wronged.
May the Angel of Encouragement confirm you
in worth and self-respect,
that you may live with the dignity
that presides in your soul.
May the Angel of Death arrive only
when your life is complete
and you have brought every given gift
to the threshold where its infinity can shine.
May all the Angels be your sheltering
and joyful guardians.

~  John O'Donohue

Good fortune and misfortune cause apprehension

.

.

Selflessness

Good fortune and misfortune cause apprehension.

Regard great trouble as you regard your self.

.

What is meant by

“Good fortune and misfortune cause apprehension?”

Those with good fortune are apprehensive of their gain.

Those with misfortune are apprehensive of their loss.

.

What is meant by

“Regard great trouble as you regard your self?”

Great trouble comes from being selfish.

Being selfless, what trouble is there?

.

Therefore those who value the world as themselves

may be entrusted to govern the world.

Those who love the world as themselves

may be entrusted to care for the world.

.

~ Tao Te Ching

.

only someone who is ready

.

But only someone who is ready for everything, 

who doesn't exclude any experience, 

even the most incomprehensible, 

will live the relationship with another person 

as something alive 

and will himself sound the depths of his own being.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke