there was a time

.

...There was a time when I thought sweeter than the quiet converse of monks, 
the cooing of the ring dove flitting about the pool.

There was a time when I thought sweeter than the sound of a little bell beside me,
 the warbling of the blackbird from the gable and the belling of the stag in the storm.

There was a time when I thought sweeter than the voice of a lovely woman beside me,
 to hear at matins the cry of the heathhen of the moor.

There was a time when I thought sweeter the howling of wolves,
 than the voice of a priest indoors, baa-ing and bleating.

Though you like your ale with ceremony in the drinking-halls, 
I like better to snatch a drink of water in my palm from a spring.

Though you think sweet, yonder in your church, the gentle talk of your students, 
sweeter I think the splendid talking the wolves make in Glenn mBolcain.

Though you like the fat and meat which are eaten in the drinking-halls, 
I like better to eat a head of clean water-cress in a place without sorrow...

~ Irish; author unknown;
 twelfth century

the rock of I and complete immersion

A Master once described the journey to enlightenment
 as ‘like filling a sieve with water’. When a woman questioned
 this Master on his meaning, he gave her a sieve and a cup,
 and they went to the sea, where he asked her to fill the sieve with water.
 She poured a cupful of water into the sieve . It was instantly gone . 
‘Spiritual practice is the same,’ the Master explained,
 ‘if we stand on the rock of I, and try to ladle the divine realization in. 
That’s not the way to fill the sieve with water, nor the self with divine life.’ 
He took the sieve and threw it into the sea, where it sank.
 ‘Now it’s full of water, and will remain so. That’s spiritual practice.
 It is not ladling cupfuls into the individuality, but becoming totally immersed
 in the sea of divine life.

~ author unknown

from 1001 Pearls of Buddhist Wisdom

art by Asokan Nanniyode