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

Anouar Brahem

أنــور ابـراهــيــم Anouar Brahem (oud) • Klaus Gesing (bass clarinet) • Björn Meyer (bass) • Khaled Yassine (darbouka, bendir)

with thanks to Chemin faisant