an apple

.

An apple on the table

hides its seeds

so neatly

under seamless skin.

But we talk and talk and talk

to let somebody

in.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

from 19 Varieties of Gazelle

photo by kathleen connally

alone

.

O my Lord, 

the stars glitter 

and the eyes of men are closed. 

Kings have locked their doors 

and each lover is alone with his love. 

Here, I am alone with you.

.

~  Rabi’a 

(Basra, 717-801) 

translated by Jane Hirshfield

from Women in Praise of the Sacred

a subtle magnetism

.

I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, 

which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.

  It is not indifferent to us and which way we walk.  

 

There is a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness 

and stupidity to take the wrong one.  We would fain take that walk,

 never yet taken by us through this actual world, which is perfectly

 symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the interior

 and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it difficult 

to choose our direction, because it does not yet

 exist distinctly in our ideas.

.

~ Henry David Thoreau

from Walking, 1863

printing of the diamond sutra

.

.

"Hidden for centuries in a sealed-up cave in north-west China, this copy of the 'Diamond Sutra' is the world's earliest complete survival of a dated printed book. It was made in AD 868. Seven strips of yellow-stained paper were printed from carved wooden blocks and pasted together to form a scroll over 5m long. Though written in Chinese, the text is one of the most important sacred works of the Buddhist faith, which was founded in India. Although not the earliest example of a printed book, it is the oldest we have bearing a date. By the time it was made, block-printing had been practiced in the Far East for more than a century. The quality of the illustration at the opening of this 'Diamond Sutra' shows the carver of the printing blocks to have been a man of considerable experience and skill.

This scroll was found in 1907 by the archaeologist Sir Marc Aurel Stein in a walled-up cave at the 'Caves of the Thousand Buddhas', near Dunhuang, in North-West China. It was one of a small number of printed items among many thousands of manuscripts, comprising a library which must have been sealed up in about AD 1000. Although not the earliest example of block printing, it is the earliest which bears an actual date.

The colophon, at the inner end, reads: 'Reverently [caused to be] made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 13th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong [i.e. 11th May, AD 868]'. "

According to National Library of Peking in 1961, the Diamond Sutra is described as: "The Diamond Sutra, printed in the year 868....is the world's earliest printed book, made of seven strips of paper joined together with an illustration on the first sheet which is cut with great skill." The writer adds: "This famous scroll was stolen over fifty years ago by the Englishman Ssu-t'an-yin [Stein] which causes people to gnash their teeth in bitter hatred." It is currently on display in the British Museum. The scroll, some sixteen feet long, 17 an half feet long and 10 and half inches wide, bears the following inscription: " reverently made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his parents on the fifteenth of the fourth moon of the ninth year of Xian Long (May 11, 868)"

you can find the text here:

http://www.diamond-sutra.com/diamond_sutra_translation.html

thanks to diamond sutra

back from that unseenness

.

The sap is mounting back from that unseenness

darkly renewing in the common deep,

back to the light, and feeding the pure greenness

hiding in rinds round which the winds still weep.

I inner side of Nature is reviving .

another sursum corda will resound;

invisibly, a whole year's youth is striving

to climb those trees that look so iron-bound.

Preserving still that grey and cool expression,

the ancient walnut

s filling with event;

while the young brush-wood trembles with repression

under the perching bird's presentiment.

.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from Possibility of Being

the world is real

The world is real for the ignorant

as well as for the wise;

for the ignorant the real

is measured by the world,

for one who knows

the real has no limits and

is the foundation of the world.

Both say ‘I’ referring to themselves,

the ignorant and the one who knows.

For the ignorant the self is defined by the body,

the wise knows that within the body the

unlimited Self shines with its own splendour.

~ Ramana Maharshi

(1879 – 1950)

cooperation in violence

.

The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, 

perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. 

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, 

to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, 

to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. 

More than that, it is cooperation in violence. 

The frenzy of the activist...destroys his own inner capacity for peace.

It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work,

 because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.

.

~ Thomas Merton

talking into the ear of a donkey

I have been talking into the ear of a donkey.

I have so much to say! And the donkey can't wait

To feel my breath stirring the immense oats

Of his ears. "What has happened to the spring,"

I cry, "and our legs that were so joyful

In the bobblings of April?" "Oh never mind

About all that," the donkey

Says. "Just take hold of my mane, so you

Can lift your lips closer to my hair ears." 

~ Robert Bly

the seed of undoing

.

.

All of our actions have in their doing the seed of their undoing. 

That in her creation of her children there should be the unspeakable promise of their death, 

for by their birth she had created mortal beings.

.

~ Louise Erdrich

thanks to whiskey river

gethsemane

.

The grass never sleeps.

Or the roses.

Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.

Jesus said, wait with me.  But the disciples slept.

The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet.

and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,

and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.

Jesus said, wait with me.  And maybe the stars did, maybe 

the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn't move,

maybe

the lake far away, where once he walked as on a 

blue pavement,

lay still and waited, wild awake.

Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not

keep that vigil, how they must have wept,

so utterly human, knowing this too

must be a part of the story.

.

~ Mary Oliver

from Thirst

art by Kristine Wyler

the gods are not large

But perhaps

the heart

does not want

to be understood.

Your shadow

falls on its pond

and the small fish

hurry away.

They have

their own lives

which they love.

And if to you

it is anger,

bewilderment,

grief,

to then

it is simply life:

their mouths

open and close,

their gills,

they are fed,

they breathe.

The gods

are not large

outside us.

They are the fish

going on

with their own

concerns.

~ Jane Hirshfield

in the museum of your last day

.

there is a coat on a coat hook in a hall. Work-gloves

in the pockets, pliers and bent nails.

There is a case of Quaker State for the Ford.

Two cans of spray paint in a crisp brown bag.

A mug on a book by the hi-fi.

A disk that starts on its own: Boccherini.

There is a dent in the soap the shape of your thumb.

A swirl in the glass when it fogs.

And a gray hair that twines

through the tines of a little black comb.

There is a watch laid smooth on a wallet.

And pairs of your shoes everywhere.

A phone no one answers. A note that says Friday.

Your voice on the tape talking softly.

.

~ Patrick Phillips

thanks to writers almanac

the weather-cock

.

.

Said the weather-cock to the wind, "How tedious and monotonous you are!

Can you not blow any other way but in my face?

You disturb my God-given stability."

And the wind did not answer.  

It only laughed in space.

.

~ Kahlil Gibran

from Poems, Parables and Drawings

art by Barry Squire

unknown age

.

For all the features it hoards and displays

age seems to be without substance at any time

whether morning or evening it is a moment of air

held between the hands like a stunned bird

while I stand remembering light in the trees

of another century on a continent long submerged

with no way of telling whether the leaves at that time

felt memory as they were touching the day

and no knowledge of what happened to the reflections

on the pond's surface that never were seen again

the bird lies still while the light goes on flying

.

~ W.S. Merwin

from The Shadow of Sirius

the secret signature

.

There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else. You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words: but most of your friends do not see it at all, and often wonder why, liking this, you should also like that. Again, you have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you've been looking for all your life; and then turned to the friend at your side who appears to be seeing what you saw - but at the first words a gulf yawns between you, and you realize that this landscape means something totally different to him, that he is pursuing an alien vision and cares nothing for the ineffable suggestion by which you were transported. Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of - something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it - tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest - if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself - you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.' We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.

~  C. S. Lewis

excerpt from The Problem of Pain