beneath persona

The person, from the Latin persona, was originally the megaphone-mouthed mask used by actors in the open-air theaters of ancient Greece and Rome, the mask through (per) which the sound (sonus) came.

~ Alan Watts

Walt Whitman - 1854

There is, in sanest hours, a consciousness, a thought that rises,

 independent, lifted out from all else, calm, like the stars, shining eternal. 

This is the thought of identity — yours for you, 

whoever you are, as mine for me. 

Miracle of miracles, beyond statement, 

most spiritual and vaguest of earth’s dreams, 

yet hardest basic fact, and only entrance to all facts.

 In such devout hours, in the midst of the significant wonders of heaven and earth,

 (significant only because of the Me in the centre,) creeds, conventions, 

fall away and become of no account before this simple idea.

 Under the luminousness of real vision, it alone takes possession, 

takes value. Like the shadowy dwarf in the fable, once liberated and look’d upon, 

it expands over the whole earth, and spreads to the roof of heaven.

~ Walt Whitman

 from Walt Whitman: Poetry and Prose

 with thanks

identity and safety

You ask me how I became a madman.  It happened thus:  One day, long before many gods were born,  I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen, - the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives, - I ran mask-less through the crowded streets shouting, "Thieves, thieves, and cursed thieves."

Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.

And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, "He is a madman."  I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time.  For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more.  And as if in a trance I cried, "Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks."

Thus I became a madman.

And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness;  the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.

But let me not be too proud of my safety.  Even a Thief in jail is safe from another thief.

~ Kahlil Gibran

from The Madman his Parables and Poems
art by Leonardo da Vinci

my friend

My friend, I am not what I seem. 

Seeming is but a garment I wear - 

a care-worn garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence.

The "I" in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, 

and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable.

When thou sayest, "The wind bloweth eastward,"  

I say, "Aye it doth blow eastward";  

for I would not have thee know that my mind doth not dwell upon the wind but upon the sea.

Thou canst not understand my seafaring thoughts, 

nor would I have thee understand.  

I would be at sea alone.

When it is day with thee, my friend, it is night with me; 

yet even then I speak of the noontide that dances upon the hills 

and of the purple shadow that steals its way across the valley;

 for thou canst not hear the songs of my darkness nor see my wings beating against the stars - 

and I fain would not have thee hear or see.  

I would be with night alone.

When thou ascendest to thy Heaven I descend to my Hell 

- even then thou callest to me across the unbridgeable gulf, " My companion, my comrade," 

- for I would not have thee see my Hell.  

The flame would burn thy eyesight and the smoke would crowd thy nostrils.  

And I love my Hell too well to have thee visit it.  

I would be in Hell alone.

Thou lovest Truth and Beauty and Righteousness; 

and I for thy sake say it is well and seemly to love these things.  

But in my heart I laugh at thy love.  

Yet I would not have thee see my laughter.  

I would laugh alone.

My friend, thou art good and cautious and wise; nay, thou art perfect 

- and I, too, speak with thee wisely and cautiously.  

And yet I am mad.  But I mask my madness. 

I would be mad alone.

My friend, thou art not my friend, 

but how shall I make thee understand?  

My path is not thy path, 

yet together we walk, hand in hand.

~  Kahlil Gibran

from Poems Parables and Drawings

.

singing image of fire

A hand moves, and the fire's whirling takes different shapes:

All things change when we do.

The first word, "Ah," blossoms into all others.

Each of them true.

~ Kukai (774-835)

translation by Jane Hirshfield

to be gentle

It is Spring in the mountains.

I come alone seeking you.

The sound of chopping wood echoes

Between the silent peaks.

The streams are still icy.

There is snow on the trail.

At sunset I reach your grove

In the stony mountain pass.

You want nothing, although at night

You can see the aura of gold

And silver ore all around you.

You have learned to be gentle

As the mountain deer you have tamed.

The way back forgotten, hidden

Away, I become like you,

An empty boat, floating, adrift.

~  Tu Fu (712-770)

translation by Kenneth Rexroth

allowing heartbreak allows healing

There come a point where it is more important to just let our heart break

 and get on with it than to keep trying to figure out why 

we are so often in pain or who's at fault and what sort of punishment they deserve.  

It takes a lot of work to get healed, to merge the heart and the disheartened.  

But even in the least observation, it becomes clear that no one needs any excuse

 for being in so much pain.  Wherever there is expectation or broken hope,

 disappointment or loss, there is the stuff of Shakespearean malady.

Healing is entering, with mercy and awareness, 

into those areas of ourselves we have withdrawn from with fear

 and a sense of helplessness. Healing is reoccupying those parts of ourselves

 that we abandoned because of mental or physical pain.

 Healing is replacing our merciless reactions with a merciful response.

Without mercy, we don't have a chance.  

And that chance is the breadth of heart that is our birthright.

~ Stephen Levine

from Untended Sorrow

art by Van Gogh

 

a room

.

A room does not turn its back on grief.

Anger does not excite it.

Before desire, it neither responds

nor draws back in fear.

Without changing expression,

it takes

and gives back;

not a tuft in the mattress alters.

Windowsills evenly welcome

both heat and cold.

Radiators speak or fall silent as they must.

Doors are not equivocal,

floorboards do not hesitate or startle.

Impatience does not stir the curtains,

a bed is neither irritable nor rapacious.

Whatever disquiet we sense in a room

we have brought there.

And so I instruct my ribs each morning,

pointing to hinge and plaster and wood -

You are matter, as they are.

See how perfectly it can be done.

Hold, one day more, what is asked.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from The Lives of the Heart
art by Pierre Bonnard

The gate of heaven is everywhere.

~ Thomas Merton

I worried

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers 

flow in the right direction, will the earth turn 

as it was taught, and if not how shall 

I correct it? 

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, 

can I do better? 

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows 

can do it and I am, well, 

hopeless. 

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, 

am I going to get rheumatism, 

lockjaw, dementia? 

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing. 

And gave it up. And took my old body 

and went out into the morning, 

and sang.

~ Mary Oliver

from Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

among trees

.

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.





~ Wendell Berry

 photo by Kathleen Connally

 

 

 

.

Tolstoy on kindness

The kinder and the more thoughtful a person is, 

the more kindness he can find in other people.

Kindness enriches our life; with kindness mysterious things

 become clear, difficult things become easy, 

and dull things become cheerful.

You should respond with kindness toward evil done to you, 

and you will destroy in an evil person that pleasure which he derives from evil.

Kindness is for your soul as health

 is for your body: you do not notice it when you have it.

Love is real only when a person can sacrifice himself 

for another person. Only when a person forgets himself for the sake of another,

 and lives for another creature, only this kind of love can be called true love,

 and only in this love do we see the blessing and reward of life. 

This is the foundation of the world.

Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, 

more beautiful than perpetual kindness.

 ~ Leo Tolstoy

from A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish 

the Soul, Written and Selected from the World's Sacred Texts

 

canned goods

~ Greg Brown

floating on an idea of me

fall into the breath,

stilled mind sank into

a bright bubble, sinking

down through the sea,

through ocean bottom,

through the minds floor.

no control

nothing here of my own

floating on the idea of me

just awareness observing

thoughts, ideas, perceptions

appearing and disappearing

on the surface of

an imagined thinker

free from entanglement

watching the habitual trinkets

the call and response of senses

immersed within absolute stillness

beyond name and form

a Pure Land

 of our inherent nature

 

 ~ adapted form Becoming Kuan Yin

by Stephen Levine

 

prioritizing well-being

~ Nicola Sturgeon 

Becoming Kuan Yin - The evolution of Compassion

the Chinese character for "Benevolence."  
It is the character that represent "person" along with that of the number "2."  
Recognizing that when 2 are present, benevolence is a natural occurrence.  
Benevolence eases duality. It is one of the Maha Viharas,
 great abodes of the true heart.

To know Kuan Yin we need to let go of all that is unloved, 
judged, forged from old mind clingings. She is the unconditional love 
behind the conditioned mind.
Some ancient force is called forth in surrendering
 hindrance after hindrance of our secret wretchedness 
and obvious suffering, to yield to the light of our Original Heart.



~ Stephen Levine

millennium blessing

There is a grace approaching

that we shun as much as death,

it is the completion of our birth.

It does not come in time,

but in timelessness

when the mind sinks into the heart

and we remember.

It is an insistent grace that draws us

to the edge and beckons us surrender

safe territory and enter our enormity.

We know we must pass

beyond knowing

and fear the shedding.

But we are pulled upward

none-the-less

through forgotten ghosts

and unexpected angels,

luminous.

And there is nothing left to say

but we are That.

And that is what we sing about.

~ Stephen Levine

from Breaking the Drought, Visions of Grace