birds of passage

The

Classroom

Surely becomes disarrayed

When the teacher is out of sight

Because of our grand

Volcanic 

Spirits.

The 

Birds of passage

Arrive with a broken 

Wing,

Though

Are then lifted by God

So high and

"Low"

To experience the heart

Of everything.

The mind surely becomes disarrayed

When the Teacher is out

Of sight.

~ Hafiz

from The Gift

translations by Daniel Ladinisky

 

and love says

And love

Says,

"I will, I will take care of you,"

To everything that is

Near.

~ Hafiz

from The Gift

translation by Daniel Ladinsky

chickpea to cook

A chickpea leaps almost over the rim of the pot

where it's being boiled.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

The cook knocks him down with the ladle.

"Don't you try to jump out.

You think I'm torturing you.

I'm giving you flavor,

so you can mix with spices and rice

and be the lovely vitality of a human being.

Remember when you drank rain in the garden.

That was for this."

Grace first. Sexual pleasure,

then a boiling new life begins,

and the Friend has something good to eat.

Eventually the chickpea 

will say to the cook,

 "Boil me some more.

Hit me with the skimming spoon.

I can't do this be myself.

I'm like an elephant that dreams of gardens

back in Hindustan and doesn't pay attention

to his driver.  You're my cook, my driver,

my way into existence. I love cooking."

The cook says, "I was once like you,

fresh from the ground,  Then I boiled in time,

and boiled in the body, two fierce boilings.

My animal soul grew powerful.

I controlled it with practices,

and boiled some more, and boiled once beyond that,

and become your teacher."

~ Rumi

from The essential Rumi

translations by Coleman Barks and John Moyne

Macarius and the pony

.

.

People in a village

At the desert's edge

Had a daughter

Who was changed (they thought)

By magic arts

Into a pony.

At first they berated her

"Why do you have to be a horse?"

She could think of no reply.

So they led her out with a halter 

Into the hot waste land

Where there was a saint

Called Macarius

Living in a cell.

"Father" they said

"This young mare here

Is, or was, our daughter.

Enemies, wicked men,

Magicians, have made her

The animal you see.

Now by your prayers to God

Change her back

Into the girl she used to be."

"My prayers" said Macarius,

"Will change nothing,

For I see no mare.

Why do you call this good child

An animal?"

But he led her into his cell

With her parents:

There he spoke to God 

Anointing the girl with oil;

And when they saw with what love 

He placed his hand upon her head

They realized, at once.

She was no animal.

She had never changed.

She had been a girl from the beginning.

"Your own eyes

(said Macarius)

Are your enemies.

Your own crooked thoughts

(said the anchorite)

Change people around you

Into birds and animals.

Your own ill-will

(said the clear-eyed one)

Peoples the world with specters."

.

~ Thomas Merton

from  The Collected Poems

.

sweater

What is asked of one is not what is asked of another.

A sweater takes on the shape of its wearer,

a coffee cup sits to the left or the right of the workspace,

making its pale Saturn rings of now and before.

Lucky the one who rises to sit at a table,

day after day spilling coffee sweet with sugar, whitened with milk.

Lucky the one who writes in a book of spiral-bound mornings

a future in ink, who writes hand unshaking, warmed by thick wool.

Lucky still, the one who writes later, shaking.  Acrobatic at last, the 

sweater,

elastic as breath that enters what shape it is asked to. 

Patient the table;  unjudging, the ample, refillable cup.

Irrefusable, the shape the sweater is given,

stretched in the shoulders, sleeves lengthened by unmetaphysical

pullings on.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from Come, Thief 

the "I" experience

~ Alan Watts

simple acceptance

The everyday practice is simply to develop 

a complete acceptance and openness to all 

situations and emotions, and to all people,

 experiencing everything totally 

without mental reservations and blockages, 

so that one never withdraws

 or centralizes into oneself.

~ Trungpa Rinpoche

thank you

.

Meditation enables them to go

Deeper and deeper into consciousness,

From the world of words to the world of thoughts,

Then beyond thoughts to wisdom in the Self.

...

Sharp like a razor's edge, the sages say,

Is the path, difficult to traverse.

~ Katha Upanishad

This is the passage from which the title of Somerset Maugham's book The Razor's Edge was taken. His story traces the spiritual journey of an American fighter pilot traumatized by WWI. The book is apparently based on the life of Guy Hague who had spent time with Ramana Maharshi in Tamil Nadu, India, as did Maugham himself.

William Somerset Maugham was born on this day in 1874 in Paris. He was trained as a doctor and work on the front as a Red Cross volunteer during WWI. He became famous with his semi- autobiographical novel Of Human Bondage in 1915. Maugham's novels seem to make apparent the beauty of and intricacy of the fabric of life in-which we are all entwined.

Happy Birthday Mr. Maugham and thank you.

the thing with feathers

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.


~ Emily Dickinson

from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Edited by R. W. Franklin

 with thanks to Love is a Place

the bridge

Between now and now,
between I am and you are,
the word bridge.

Entering it
you enter yourself:
the world connects
and closes like a ring.

From one bank to another,
there is always
a body stretched:
a rainbow.
I’ll sleep beneath its arches.

~ Octavio Paz

from The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz 1957-1987

in the heart of the night

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 Zen poetry of Dogen

 

true person

The true person is

Not anyone in particular,

But, like the deep blue color

Of the limitless sky,

It is everyone, everywhere in the world.

 

 

 

~ Dogen

from Zen poetry of Dogen

 

lessons

~ Elizabeth Lesser

still life

The rose that no longer blooms in the garden,

blooms inside her whole body, among the veins

and organs and the skeleton.

Linda Gregg 

A hidden blossoming.

Petals flaming beneath the skin.

And a softness pressing,

as delicate as the mouth

of a blind lover.

Each movement,

each quiet gesture

awakens

a rosary in the blood.

Was it desire

which brought her to this moment,

this arrival at source,

or was it merely a need 

to be still, to be richly fed

from this fountain

of dark silence?

~ Dorothy Walters

from Marrow of Flame

 

the difficulty of return

When I first got back,

I thought people would

wish to listen,

moved by my unlikely tale.

Soon I saw that to them I was

mere pariah, outcast,

traveler from a far country

no one had ever heard of,

or believed in.

These goods I brought home

were invisible to all

but the most discerning eye.

My recitals, my celebrations

and laments for what had transpired,

a dumb-show

to all but the most

finely tuned ear.

Now I am ringed by a halo of silence,

and move cautiously,

mouth closed

over this stone

I carry on my tongue.

~ Dorothy Walters

from Marrow of Flame