cello

 

 

 

 

 

It rests inside its close-fitting red-velvet-lined case

the way medieval monks slept inside their coffins.

But it doesn't  meditate on death; it has already died,

and barely remembers sunlight, water, the wind among the branches.

It lies there in the dark, feeling all through its graceful curves

the memory of a hundred years of music,

and sometimes dreaming of heaven: the Bach suites.

 

Taken out to be played, it knows that by itself it is nothing,

that it would be incapable of producing a single note

even if it were a Stradivarius.

So it gladly assents to having its strings tightened,

painful though this is; it wants to be perfectly in tune,

stretched to its utmost but not straining.

When it feels ready, it leans back and waits

for the bow to be drawn across,

for the resonance to fill it completely.

 

 

 

 

 

 ~ Stephen Mitchell

from Parables and Portraits

 

 

 

 

from the depths of your heart

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art by Odilon Redon, from the British Museum

Psalm 121 

 

I look deep into my heart,

to the core where wisdom arises.

 

Wisdom comes from the Unnamable

...and unifies heaven and earth.

 

The Unnamable is always with you,

shining from the depths of your heart. 

~ A Book of Psalms

 translated and adapted by Stephen Mitchell

the parable of the sower

 

 

 

 

 

A sower went forth to sow.

Some of his seeds fell upon stony places.

Centuries passed; millennia.

And the seeds remained.

And the stones crumbled and became good soil,

and the seeds brought forth fruit.

 

"Wait a minute," said one listener.

"You can't play fast and loose that way with the natural facts.

The seeds would die long before the soil could receive them."

 

"Why would they die?"

 

"Because they can't hold out in stony places,

for thousands of years."

 

"But, my dear, what kind of seeds do you think we're 

talking about?"

 

 

 

 

 

Stephen Mitchell

from Parables and Portraits

 

 

 

  

the struggle

 

 

 

 

 

We tend to think of Sisyphus as a tragic hero, 

condemned by the gods to shoulder his rock 

sweatily up the mountain, and again up the mountain, forever. 

 

The truth is that Sisyphus is in love with the rock. 

He cherishes every roughness and every ounce of it.

 He talks to it, sings to it. It has become the Mysterious Other. 

He evens dreams of it as he sleepwalks upward. 

 

Life is unimaginable without it, looming always above him

 like a huge gray moon. He doesn’t realize that at any moment 

he is permitted to step aside, let the rock hurtle to the bottom, 

and go home. 

 

Tragedy is the inertial force of the mind.




~  Stephen Mitchell

art by Van Gogh

before sorrow

 

 

Before sorrow, anger,

longing, or fear have arisen,

you are in the center.

 

When these emotions appear

and you know how to see through them,

you are in harmony.

 

That center is the root of the universe;

that harmony is the Tao,

which reaches out to all things.

 

 

 

 

~ Stephen Mitchell

 from The Second Book of the Tao

 

 

 

at the center

The Master is not trapped in opposites. His this is also a that. 

He sees that life becomes death and death becomes life,

 that right has a kernel of wrong within it and wrong a kernel of right,

 that the true turns into the false and the false into the true. 

He understands that nothing is absolute,

 that since every point of view depends on the viewer, 

affirmation and denial are equally beside the point. 

The place where the this and the that are not opposed to each other

 is called "the pivot of the Tao." When we find this pivot, we find ourselves

 at the center of the circle, and here we sit, serene, 

while Yes and No keep chasing each other

 around the circumference, endlessly. 

Mind can only create the qualities of good and bad by comparing. 

Remove the comparison, and there go the qualities. 

What remains is the pure unknown: ungraspable object,

 ungraspable subject, and the clear light of awareness 

streaming through. The pivot of the Tao

 is the mind free of its thoughts.

 It doesn't believe that this is a this

 or that that is a that. 

Let Yes and No sprint around the circumference

 toward a finish line that doesn't exist. How can they stop trying

 to win the argument of life until you stop? When you do, 

you realize that you were the only one running.

 Yes was you,

 No was you, 

the whole circumference, with its colored banners,

 its pom-pom girls and frenzied crowds - that was you as well.

 At the center, the eyes open and again

 it's the sweet morning of the world. There's nothing here

 to limit you, no one here to draw a circumference.

 In fact, there's no one here - 

not even you.

~ Stephen Mitchell
from The Second Book of the Tao

art by Master Shen-Long
with thanks to Love is a Place

all their actions have vanished

.

.

In an age when the Tao is followed,

no one rewards the talented

or pays special attention

to the lovely, the virtuous, or the wise.

Those who govern

are simply the highest branches

on the tree, and the people wander

in freedom, like deer in the woods.

They are honest but think nothing of it,

they naturally do what is right,

they are kind without any conception

of kindness, and are trustworthy

though they wouldn't know what that means.

They keep no records of their good deeds,

because good deeds are so common.

That is why all their actions

have vanished, without a trace.

.

~ Stephen Mitchell

from The Second Book of the Tao

photo by  Kathleen Connally

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