between seeing and speaking

Somewhere between seeing and speaking, somewhere

Between our soiled and greasy currency of words

And the first star, the great moths fluttering

About the ghosts of flowers,

Lies the clear place where I, no longer I,

Nevertheless remember

Love’s nightlong wisdom of the other shore…

 I no longer I,

In this clear place between my thought and silence

See all I had and lost, anguish and joys,

Glowing like gentians in the Alpine grass,

Blue, unpossessed and open.

~ Aldous Huxley
from Island

indeterminacy

Indeterminacy means, literally: not fixed, not settled, uncertain, indefinite.

 It means that you don't know where you are. 

How can it be otherwise, say the Buddhist teachings, 

since you have no fixed or inherent identity 

and are ceaselessly in process?

 

Life is filled with uncertainty.  Chance events happen to all of us. 

Each of us must take responsibility and make decisions. 

None of us should be imposing our ego image on others.

There's another way to live.

 Accept indeterminacy as a principle,

 and you see your life in a new light,

 as a series of seemingly unrelated jewel-like stories 

within a dazzling setting of change and transformation.

 

 Recognize that you don't know where you stand,

 and you will begin to watch where you put your feet.

 That's when the path appears.

~ John Cage

from Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, 

Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists

by Kay Larson

***

lightly, lightly

It’s dark because you are trying too hard. 

Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. 

Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. 

Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. 

I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig

. 

Lightly, lightly

 

 – it’s the best advice ever given me. 

 

When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, 

or portentous, or emphatic. 

No rhetoric, no tremolos, 

no self conscious persona 

putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell. 

And of course, no theology, no metaphysics. 

Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light. 

So throw away your baggage and go forward. 

There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, 

trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. 

 

That’s why you must walk so lightly. 

Lightly my darling, 

on tiptoes and no luggage, 

not even a sponge bag, 

completely unencumbered.

~ Aldous Huxley

from Island

amputation

Susila was on the point of turning to catch the

expression of delight on Dugald's upturned face; then, checking herself,

she looked down at the ground. There was no Dugald any more; there was

only this pain, like the pain of the phantom limb that goes on haunting the

imagination, haunting even the perceptions of those who have undergone an

amputation. "Amputation," she whispered to herself, "amputation ..."

 

Feeling her eyes fill with tears, she broke off. Amputation was no excuse

for self-pity and, for all that Dugald was dead, the birds were as beautiful as

ever and her children, all the other children-, had as much need to be loved

and helped and taught. 

 

If his absence was so constantly present, that was

to remind her that henceforward she must love for two, live for two, take

thought for two, must perceive and understand not merely with her own

eyes and mind but with the mind and eyes that had been his and, before

the catastrophe, hers too in a communion of delight and intelligence.

~ aldous huxley

from Island

the shiva dance image

~ Aldous Huxley