When Death Comes

.

.

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purseto buy me,
and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everythingas a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it's over, I don't want to wonderi
f I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.
.
~ Mary Oliver

.

here and now

.

.

There is no greater mystery than this, 

that we keep seeking reality though in fact we are reality. 

We think that there is something hiding reality 

and that this must be destroyed before reality is gained. 

How ridiculous! 

A day will dawn when you will laugh at all your past efforts. 

That which will be the day you laugh is also here and now.
.
- Ramana Maharshi

.

falling

I often dream about falling. 

Such dreams are commonplace to the ambitious or those who climb mountains. 

Lately I dreamed I was clutching at the face of a rock, but it would not hold. 

Gravel gave way, I grasped for a shrub, but it pulled loose, 

and in cold terror I fell into the abyss. 

Suddenly I realized that my fall was relative; 

there was no bottom and no end. 

A feeling of pleasure overcame me.

 I realized that what I embody, the principle of life, 

cannot be destroyed.

 It is written into the cosmic code,

 the order of the universe. 

As I continued to fall in the dark void, 

embraced by the vault of the heavens, 

I sang to the beauty of the stars and made peace with the darkness.

~  Heinz Pagels

kissed me quite insane

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;

I lift my lids and all is born again.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,

And arbitrary blackness gallops in:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed

And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:

Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,

But I grow old and I forget your name.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;

At least when spring comes they roar back again.

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

~ Sylvia Plath
 from Mad Girl’s Love Song

.

the tired wanderer

.

the tired wanderer
loses the strength to go on
and in surrendering to hopelessness
is surprised
to finally feel at home

the troubled philosopher
finds nothing to believe in
and in unexpected silence
just smiles
at the still unanswered questions

the saddened lover
faces the loss of illusion once again
and in dying to passion
falls in love
with love itself

~ Nirmala
from: 'Gifts with No Giver'

.

burn yourself completely

.

.

In order not to leave any traces, when you do something, 
you should do it with your whole body and mind; 
you should be concentrated on what you do. 
You should do it completely, like a good bonfire. 
You should not be a smoky fire. 
You should burn yourself completely.
 If you do not burn yourself completely, 
a trace of yourself will be left in what you do. 
You will have something remaining which is not completely burned out.


 Zen activity is activity which is completely burned out, 
with nothing remaining but ashes. 
This is the goal of our practice. 
That is what Dogen meant when he said,
 “Ashes do not come back to firewood.”
 Ash is ash. Ash should be completely ash. 
The firewood should be firewood. 
When this kind of activity takes place, 
one activity covers everything.

.

~ Shunryu Suzuki

.

.

.

As regards the quietude of the sage, he is not

quiet because quietness is said to be good.  He

is quiet because the multitude of things cannot

disturb his quietude.  When water is still, one's

beard and eyebrows are reflected in it.  A skilled

carpenter uses it in a level to obtain measurement.

If still water is so clear, how much more are the

mental faculties!  The mind of a sage is the mirror

of heaven and earth in which all things are reflected.

.

~ Chuang-Tzu

.

my own reflection

Mullah Nasrudin, standing on the bank of a river, 

watched as a dog came to drink.

 

The dog saw itself in the water and immediately began to bark. 

 It barked and barked all morning and into the afternoon, 

until it was foaming at the mouth. Finally, dying of thirst,

 the dog fell into the river--whereupon it quenched its thirst, 

climbed out, and happily walked away.

Nasrudin said,

"Thus I realized all my life I had been barking at my own reflection." 

 

 

 

 

. 

There are no ordinary people

It is a serious thing to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

~ C.S. Lewis

The deep parts

.

.

The deep parts of my life pour onward,
as if the river shores were opening out.
It seems that things are more like me now,
that I can see farther into paintings.
I feel closer to what language can't reach.
With my sense, as with birds, I climb
into the windy heaven, out of the oak,
and in the ponds broken off from the sky
my feeling sinks, as if standing on fishes.

.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
.

[translated by Robert Bly]
.

surrender

.

.

 

 

The human mind has grown even since the time of the Buddha, 2,500 years ago.

 The human mind is more noisy and more all-pervasive, and the egos are bigger.

 There's been an ego growth over thousands of years; it's growing to a point of madness,

 with the ultimate madness having been reached in the twentieth century.

 One only needs to read twentieth-century history to see that it has been the climax

 of human madness, if it's measured in terms of human

 violence inflicted on other humans.

So in the present time, 

we can't escape from the world anymore;

 we can't escape from the mind. 

We need to enter surrender while we are in the world. 

That seems to be the path that is effective in the world that we live in now.

.
- Eckhart Tolle

.

a boy playing on the seashore

.

.

I do not know what
I may appear to the world,
but to myself
I seem to have been
only like a boy
playing on the seashore,
and diverting myself
in now and then finding
a smoother pebble
or a prettier shell
than ordinary,
whilst the great
ocean of truth
lay all undiscovered
before me.

.
~ Isaac Newton

.

quiet breathing

.

.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases, it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits.

~ John Keats, from:  'Endymion' 

I knew

 

I knew when I said

I love you
that I was inventing a new alphabet
for a city where no one could read
that I was saying my poems
in an empty theater
and pouring my wine
for those who could not
taste it.

.

 

 

~ Nizar Qabbani

.

.

hiding inside a drop of water

.

.

It is early morning, and death has forgotten us for
a while. Darkness owns the house, but I am alive.
I am ready to praise all the great musicians.
Whatever happens to me will also happen to you.
Surely you must have realized this from hearing
the way the strings cry out no matter who hits them.
From the great oak trees in the yard in October,
leaves fall for hours each day. Every night
a thousand wrinkled faces look up at the stars.
Still we know that at any second the soul can stand
up and start across the desert, as when Rabia ended up
riding on a resurrected donkey toward the Meeting.
It is this reaching toward the Kaaba that keeps us glad.
It is this way of hiding inside a drop of water
that lets the hidden face become visible to everyone.
Gautama said that when the Great Ferris Wheel
stops turning, you will still be way up
there, swinging in your seat and laughing.

.
~ Robert Bly

.
from: 'My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy: Poems'

reblogged from: http://whiskeyriver.blogspot.com/

.