the substance of silence

...there is a greater comfort in the substance of silence
 than in the answer to a question.   

Eternity is in the present.  

Eternity is in the palm of the hand.  

Eternity is a seed of fire whose sudden roots break barriers 

that keep my heart from being an abyss.

~ Thomas Merton

from Dialogues with Silence

the time of business

.

The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, 

and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, 

while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, 

I possess God in as great tranquility 

as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament. 

~  Brother Lawrence

.

the silence

.

One might say

I had decided to marry

the silence of the forest.

The sweet dark warmth of

the whole world

will have to be my wife.

Out of the heart of

that dark warmth

comes the secret that is heard

only in silence,

but is the root of all the secrets

that are whispered

by all the lovers in their beds

all over the world.

So perhaps I have an obligation to

preserve the stillness,

the silence, the poverty,

the original virginal point of

pure nothingness

which is at the center

of all other loves.

~  Thomas Merton

photo by eliot porter

they dropped it

.

A gardener appeared, waving his toothy rake.

Children with yellow bells in their hands

jumped the fence, snagging uniforms.

One boy trailed a purple vine.

They wouldn't be sorry,

pockets reeking jasmine,

mud staining shoes...

Who deserved flowers more?

Rich people who never came outside

or children stuck all day in school?

The sweaty gardener cursed them,

straightening branches.

Someone else lifted one large pink blossom

from the pavement beyond the fence,

found a scrap of tissue to wrap it in,

carried it home across the sea.

The dried petals lay on a table for months

whispering, Where are we?

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

from 19 Varieties of Gazelle

intrepid

.

Not dawdling

not doubting

intrepid all the way

walk toward clarity

with sharp eye

With sharpened sword

clearcut the path

to the lucent surprise

of enlightenment

At every crossroad

be prepared to bump into wonder

~  James Broughton 

(1913-1999)

with thanks to moment by moment and Poetry Chaikhana

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