april and silence

Spring lies abandoned.

A ditch the color of dark violet

moves alongside me

giving no images back.

The only thing that shines

are some yellow flowers.

I am carried inside

my own shadow like a violin

in its black case.

The only thing I want to say

hovers just out of reach

like the family silver

at the pawnbroker's.

~ Tomas Transtromer

translation by Robert Bly

from The Half Finished Heaven

photo by David Gray, Reuters

being human: a reflection

~ Jane Hirshfield

a river tugs

A river tugs at whatever is within reach, trying to set it afloat and carry it downstream.  Living trees are undermined and washed away.  No piece of driftwood is safe, though stranded high up the bank; the river will rise to it, and away it will go.

The river extends this power of drawing all things with it even to the imagination of those who live on its banks.  Who can long watch the ceaseless lapsing of a river's current without conceiving a desire to set himself adrift, and, like the driftwood which glides past, float with the stream clear to the final ocean?

~ Harlan Hubbard

from Shantyboat - A River Way of Life

the one close to me now

The one close to me now,

even my own body -

these too

will soon become clouds,

floating in different directions.

~ Izumi Shikibu

from The Ink Dark Moon

translation by Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani

Onono Komachi and Izumi Shikibu were both Japanese poets of the Heian Period. 

 The arts of the Heian Period are marked with a definite feminine sensibility. 

Because the Chinese characters (which were used in writing Japanese) 

were seen as inappropriate to women, 

they developed a simplified and elegant style of writing/calligraphy 

that became known as Hiragana or "onna de"... "feminine hand". 

~ comments from the literature network

corruption of wholeness

Can this be taught to the students: 

to remain with the fact, the actual happening now, whether psychologically or externally?

 Knowledge is not the fact; it is about the fact and that has its proper place, 

but knowledge prevents perception of what actually is; 

then corruption takes place.

This is really very important to understand. Ideals are considered noble, exalted, of great purposeful significance, and what is actually happening is considered merely sensory, worldly and of lesser value. Schools the world over have some exalted purpose, ideal; so they are educating the students in corruption.

What corrupts the mind? We are using the word mind to imply the senses, the capacity to think, and the brain that stores all memories and experiences as knowledge. This total movement is the mind. The conscious as well as the unconscious, the so-called super-consciousness - the whole of this is the mind. We are asking what are the factors, the seeds of corruption in all this? We said ideals corrupt. Knowledge also corrupts the mind. Knowledge, particular or extensive, is the movement of the past, and when the past overshadows the actual, corruption takes place. Knowledge, projected into the future and directing what is happening now, is corruption. We are using the word corruption to mean that which is being broken up, that which is not taken as a whole. The fact can never be broken up; the fact can never be limited by knowledge. The completeness of the fact opens the door to infinity. Completeness cannot be divided; it is not self-contradictory; it cannot divide itself. Completeness, wholeness, is infinite movement.

Imitation, conformity, is one of the great factors of corruption of the mind; the example, the hero, the savior, the guru, is the most destructive factor of corruption. To follow, to obey, to conform, deny freedom. Freedom is from the beginning, not at the end. It is not to conform, to imitate, accept first and eventually find freedom. That is the spirit of totalitarianism, whether of the guru or the priest. This is the cruelty, the ruthlessness, of the dictator, of the authority, of the guru or of the high priest.

So authority is corruption. Authority is the breaking up of integrity, the whole, the complete - the authority of a teacher in a school, the authority of a purpose, of an ideal, of the one who says I know, the authority of an institution. The pressure of authority in any form is the distorting factor of corruption. Authority basically denies freedom. It is the function of a true teacher to instruct, point out, inform, without the corrupting influence of authority. The authority of comparison destroys. When one student is compared to another, both are being hurt. To live without comparison is to have integrity.

~ J. Krishnamurti

from Letters to Schools Volume One 1st September, 1978

wholeness

"How does the true man of Tao

Walk through walls without obstruction,

Stand in fire without being burnt?"

Not because of cunning

Or daring;

Not because he has learned,

But because he has unlearned.

All that is limited by form, semblance, sound, color,

Is called object.

Among them all, man alone

Is more than an object.

Though, like objects, he has form and semblance,

He is not limited to form.  He is more.

He can attain to formlessness.

When he is beyond form and semblance,

Beyond "this" and "that,"

Where is the comparison

With another object?

Where is the conflict?

What can stand in his way?

He will rest in his eternal place

Which is no-place.

He will be hidden

In his own unfathomable secret.

His nature sinks to its root

In the One.

His vitality, his power

Hide in secret Tao.

When he is all one,

There is no flaw in him

By which a wedge can enter.

So a drunken man, falling

Out of a wagon,

Is bruised but not destroyed.

His bones are like the bones of other men,

But his fall is different.

His spirit is entire.  He is not aware

Of getting into a wagon

Or falling out of one.

Life and death are nothing to him.

He knows no alarm, he meets obstacles

Without thought, without care,

Takes them without knowing they are there.

If there is such security in wine,

How much more in Tao.

The wise man is hidden in Tao.

Nothing can touch him.

~ Chuang Tzu

translation by Thomas Merton

what can I do

~ Rumi

performed by Salim Ghouse

to slaughter memory

VII

The Verdict

The word landed with a stony thud 

Onto my still-beating breast. 

Nevermind, I was prepared, 

I will manage with the rest.

I have a lot of work to do today; 

I need to slaughter memory, 

Turn my living soul to stone 

Then teach myself to live again…

But how. The hot summer rustles 

Like a carnival outside my window; 

I have long had this premonition 

Of a bright day and a deserted house.

~ Anna Akhmatova

excerpt from Requiem, 

taken from The Complete Poems

with thanks to journal of a nobody

 

living with meaning, purpose and wisdom in the digital age

~ Eckhart Tolle with Bradley Horowitz

someday

Even the oldest of trees continues its wonderful labor.

Hummingbird lives in one of them.

He's there for the white blossoms, and the secrecy.

The blossoms could be snow, with a dash of pink.

At first the fruit is small and green and hard.

Everything has dreams, hope, ambition.

If I could I would always live in such shining obedience

where nothing but the wind trims the boughs.

I am sorry for every mistake I have made in my life.

I'm sorry I wasn't wiser sooner.

I'm sorry I ever spoke of myself as lonely.

Oh, love, lay your hands upon me again.

Some of the fruit ripens and is picked and is delicious.

Some of it falls and the ants are delighted.

Some of it hides under the snow and the famished deer are saved.

~ Mary Oliver

with thanks to rebel girl at the mark on the wall

photo by kathleen connally

coleman barks - one through love

~ Rumi

with Coleman Barks

another spring

The seasons revolve and the years change

With no assistance or supervision.

The moon, without taking thought,

Moves in its cycle, full, crescent, and full.

The white moon enters the heart of the river;

The air is drugged with azalea blossoms;

Deep in the night a pine cone falls;

Our campfire dies out in the empty mountains.

The sharp stars flicker in the tremulous branches;

The lake is black, bottomless in the crystalline night;

High in the sky the Northern Crown

Is cut in half by the dim summit of a snow peak.

O heart, heart, so singularly

Intransigent and corruptible,

Here we lie entranced by the starlit water,

And moments that should each last forever

Slide unconsciously by us like water.

~ Kenneth Rexroth

from Selected Poems

the still point of the turning world

~ Thomas Merton

beginning

The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.

The dark wheat listens.

Be still.

Now.

There they are, the moon’s young, trying

Their wings.

Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow

Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone

Wholly, into the air.

I stand alone by the elder tree, I do not dare breathe

Or move.

I listen.

The wheat leans back toward is own darkness,

And I lean toward mine.

~ James Wright

 from Collected Poems

photo by Gerhard Richter

must you fear what others fear?

Renounce knowledge and your problems will end.

What is the difference between yes and no?

What is the difference between good and evil?

Must you fear what others fear?

Nonsense, look how far you have missed the mark!

Other people are joyous,

as though they were at a spring festival.

I alone am unconcerned and expressionless,

like an infant before it has learned to smile.

Other people have more than they need;

I alone seem to possess nothing.

I am lost and drift about with no place to go.

I am like a fool, my mind is in chaos.

Ordinary people are bright;

I alone am dark.

Ordinary people are clever;

I alone am dull.

Ordinary people seem discriminating;

I alone am muddled and confused.

I drift on the waves on the ocean,

blown at the mercy of the wind.

Other people have their goals,

I alone am dull and uncouth.

I am different from ordinary people.

I nurse from the Great Mother's breasts.

~ Lao Tzu

from the Tao Te Ching

photo: Harlan and Anna Hubbard

there is

There is a beginning. 

There is no beginning of that beginning. 

There is no beginning of that no beginning of beginning. 

There is something. 

There is nothing. 

There is something before the beginning of something and nothing, 

and something before that. 

Suddenly there is something and nothing. 

But between something and nothing, 

I still don't really know which is something and which is nothing. 

Now, I've just said something, 

but I don't really know whether I've said anything or not.

~ Chuang Tzu

with thanks to whiskey river

arabic coffee

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

after drinking all night with a friend

~ Robert Bly

garden song

~ David Mallett

performed by Pete Seeger

the walls of Layla

I pass by these walls, the walls of Layla

And I kiss this wall and that wall

It’s not Love of the houses that has taken my heart

But of the One who dwells in those houses

~ Nizami Ganjavi

from The Legend of

Layli and Madjnun

sculpture by Michael Alfano

leaders?

The best leaders are those the people hardly know exist.

The next best is a leader who is loved and praised.

Next comes the one who is feared.

The worst one is the leader that is despised.

If you don't trust the people,

they will become untrustworthy.

The best leaders value their words, and use them sparingly.

When she has accomplished her task,

the people say, "Amazing:

we did it, all by ourselves!"

~ Lao Tzu

from the Tao Te Ching

translation by j.h.mcdonald

runner

It is hard to unlatch a day

from noun and story.

Breath pours

like water

out of a small bowl into a large.

One says,

Quicker.

Another says,

Listen, runner—

underwater things are fragrant to fish.

~ Jane Hirshfield

with thanks to harvard divinity bulletin

in the heart

In the heart of the night, 

The moonlight framing

A small boat drifting,

Tossed not by the waves

Nor swayed by the breeze.

~ Dogen

from The Zen Poetry of Dogen

moonlight sonata

Wilhelm Kempff plays Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata mvt. 1

published on this date in 1802

within this tree

Within this tree
another tree
inhabits the same body;
within this stone
another stone rests,
its many shades of grey
the same,
its identical
surface and weight.
And within my body,
another body,
whose history, waiting,
sings: there is no other body,
it sings,
there is no other world.










~ Jane Hirshfield
from The October Palace
art by tara turner

death could come!

The musician's finger do not hurry at all as they climb up the Jacob's Ladder of her bass.   They are not accomplishing tasks laid down by others, but have agreed to luminous labors suggested - by whom?  The fingers go higher. The Cantata says: "Death is not far off... Death could come!"  Men's and women's voices all around cry out:  "It is the ancient law!"

Now we sense the odor of roots, of partridge berries, masses of leaves that give up their lives without complaining.

The musician's fingers appear from the house of the hand-back, as if the hand were a being in itself, with its own slow joys, and its own cottage where it lives, sleeping long on winter nights.

Now the beings run up the mountain path; they are goats that do a firm dance, one foot down, then the other, many fields and mountain paths with goats on them leaping...And we who listen, are crossing a mountain at dusk. We walk a long time through the moor in the dark, at last we see a hut with one lamp lit...

~ Robert Bly

from Reaching Out to the World

(For Susan Mathews Allard and Her Double Bass)

art by picasso

complete unknowing

Happy Birthday, Jane

Awareness and self-consciousness are delicate matters. Trying to examine more deeply what poems are and how they work has informed my life and brought me great joy. I don't think that attentiveness ever diminishes experience. There are times, however, when you don't want to be self-conscious. One is while writing the first draft of a new poem. At that stage too much consciousness is limiting and therefore damaging. It can wall off the permeable, the mysterious, everything you don't already know. When I write, I don't know what is going to emerge. I begin in a condition of complete unknowing, an utter nakedness of concept or goal. A word appears, another word appears, an image. It is a moving into mystery. Everything I am and know and have lived goes into a poem. I hope I'll never be governed by theoretical knowledge when I set out to write. Poems are born in part from the history and culture of other poems, but in writing I hope to learn a new thing, something fresh about what's going on in that moment, in my own life and in the world. Craft consciousness is essential to the finished poem, but comes later.

~ Jane Hirshfield

 from a 1997 Atlantic Monthly interview

straw dogs

Heaven and Earth are impartial;

they treat all of creation as straw dogs.

The Master doesn't take sides;

she treats everyone like a straw dog.

The space between Heaven and Earth is like a bellows;

it is empty, yet has not lost its power.

The more it is used, the more it produces;

the more you talk of it, the less you comprehend.

It is better not to speak of things you do not understand.

~ Lao Tzu

from the Tao Te Ching

translation by j.h.mcdonald

art by van gogh

words do not come

words do not come

there is no need for profound utterances or

deep truths

here is an ordinary evening

why spoil it with dramatic overstatement

the silence amidst the noise

the gem at the core 

of every experience

is polished by simple attention

into shining magnificence

~ Nirmala

from Gifts with no Giver: A Love affair with Truth

the tower of spirit

The spirit has an impregnable tower

Which no danger can disturb

As long as the tower is guarded

By the invisible Protector

Who acts unconsciously, and whose actions

Go astray when they become deliberate,

Reflexive, and intentional.

The unconsciousness

And entire sincerity of Tao

Are disturbed by any effort

At self-conscious demonstration.

All such demonstrations

Are lies.

When one displays himself

In this ambiguous way

The world outside storms in 

And imprisons him.

He is no longer protected 

By the sincerity of Tao.

Each now act

Is a new failure.

If his acts are done in public, 

In broad daylight,

He will be punished by men.

If they are done in private

And in secret,

They will be punished

By spirits.

Let each one understand 

The meaning of sincerity

And guard against display!

He will be at peace

With men and spirits

And will act rightly, unseen,

In his own solitude,

In the tower of his spirit.

~ Chuang Tzu

translation by Thomas Merton

sketch by Thomas Merton

the frontiers of language

Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? 

He is the one I would like to talk to. 

~ Chuang Tzu

But before we come to that which is unspeakable and unthinkable, 

the spirit hovers on the frontiers of language, 

wondering whether or not to stay on its own side of the border, 

in order to have something to bring back to other men. 

This is the test of those who wish to cross the frontier. 

If they are not ready to leave their own ideas and their own words behind them, 

they cannot travel further. 

~ Thomas Merton

from No Man is an Island

The unconsciousness

And entire sincerity of Tao

Are disturbed by any effort

At self-conscious demonstration. 

~ Chuang Tzu

In The Way of Chuang Tzu, Merton is communicating his own joy from his spirit’s tower. He has found a new friend who has taught him the irony of words as well as the value of irony. Like the best of Merton’s words, The Way of Chuang Tzu points to an experience of contemplation, while it reverently and wisely backs away from providing or insisting upon such an experience. Just as Merton kicks away Chuang Tzu like a ladder after experiencing the unknowing Chuang Tzu describes, Merton invites us to climb his own words and to forget them as well. 

~ commentary from slow reads

gods

Gods are everywhere:

war between Koshi and Izumo

tribes still rages.

The all of All, the One

ends distinctions.

The three thousand worlds

are in that plum blossom.

The smell is God.

~ Shinkichi Takahashi

translation by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto

from  Zen Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter
art by Zheng Faxiang

destruction

The universe is forever falling apart --

No need to push the button,

It collapses at a finger's touch:

Why, it barely hangs on the tail of a sparrow's eye.

The universe is so much eye secretion,

Hordes leap from the tips

Of your nostril hairs. Lift your right hand:

It's in your palm. There's room enough

On the sparrow's eyelash for the whole.

A paltry thing, the universe:

Here is all the strength, here the greatest strength.

You and the sparrow are one

And, should he wish, he can crush you.

The universe trembles before him.

~ Shinkichi Takahashi

translation by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto

with thanks to poetry chaikhana