metaphors and symbols

Someone who found the inner path

who, dedicated to deep meditation,

got a glimpse of this essential truth,

that we choose God and World

only as metaphors and symbols.

 Every thought and action then

becomes an inner conversation,

a meeting between God and World.

~ Hermann Hesse

from The Seasons of the Soul

 

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. 
The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.
 Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected
 even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon
 and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, 
or even in one drop of water. Enlightenment does not divide you,
 just as the moon does not break the water. 

You cannot hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water
 does not hinder the moon in the sky. The depth of the drop 
is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however long
 or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, 
and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky.

~ Dogen Zenji (1200 - 1253)

between heaven and earth

Sacred or secular

manners and conventions

make no difference to him

Completely free

leaving it all to heaven

he seems a simplton

No one catches

a glimpse inside

his mind

this old man

all by himself

between heaven and earth

~ Muso Soseki

translated by W. S. Merwin

congruence with the chosen

The chooser's happiness lies in his congruence with the chosen,
The peace of iron filings, obedient to the forces of the magnetic field.


Calm is the soul that is emptied of all self,
In the eternal moment of co-inherence.
A happiness within you - but not yours.


–Dag Hammarskjöld
from Markings
 liap

foundations

I built on the sand

And it tumbled down,

I built on a rock

And it tumbled down.

Now when I build, I shall begin

With the smoke from the chimney.

~ Leopold Staff

translated by Czeslaw Milosz

You Are Tired (I Think) by e.e.cummings

You are tired,

(I think)

Of the always puzzle of living and doing;

And so am I.

Come with me, then,

And we’ll leave it far and far away—

(Only you and I, understand!)

You have played,

(I think)

And broke the toys you were fondest of,

And are a little tired now;

Tired of things that break, and—

Just tired.

So am I.

But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight,

And I knock with a rose at the hopeless gate of your heart—

Open to me!

For I will show you places Nobody knows,

And, if you like,

The perfect places of Sleep.

Ah, come with me!

I’ll blow you that wonderful bubble, the moon,

That floats forever and a day;

I’ll sing you the hyacinth song

Of the probable stars;

I will attempt the unstartled steppes of dream,

Until I find the Only Flower,

Which shall keep (I think) your little heart

While the moon comes out of the sea.

~ e.e.cummings

the wise silence

We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles.

Meantime within man is the soul of the whole;
the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE.

And this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

from The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson,

The Over-Soul

telling a story to her own ears

Every word of every tongue is

Love telling a story to her own ears.

Every thought in every mind,

She whispers a secret to her own Self.

Every vision in every eye,

She shows her beauty to her own sight.

Every smile on every face,

She reveals her own joy for herself to enjoy.

Love courses through everything,

No, Love is everything.

How can you say, there is no love,

when nothing but Love exists?

All that you see has appeared because of Love.

All shines from Love,

All pulses with Love,

All flows from Love--

No, once again, all IS Love!

~ Fakhruddin Iraqi

when the shoe fits

Ch'ui the draftsman

Could draw more perfect circles freehand

Than with a compass.

His fingers brought forth

Spontaneous forms from nowhere. His mind

Was meanwhile free and without concern

With what he was doing.

No application was needed

His mind was perfectly simple

And knew no obstacle.

So, when the shoe fits

The foot is forgotten,

When the belt fits

The belly is forgotten,

When the heart is right

"For" and "against" are forgotten.

No drives no compulsions,

No needs, no attractions:

Then your affairs

Are under control.

You are a free man.

Easy is right. Begin right

And you are easy.

Continue easy and you are right.

The right way to go easy

Is to forget the right way

And forget that the going is easy.

~ Chuang Tzu 

(In the Dark Before Dawn)

on summer evenings we sat in the yard

On summer evenings we sat in the yard,

the house dark, the stars bright overhead.

The laps and arms of the old

held the young.  As we talked we knew

by the dark distances of Heaven's lights

our smallness, and the greatness of our love.

~ Wendell Berry

when I fall into the abyss

 

Because I’m a Karamazov. Because when I fall into the abyss, 

I go straight into it, head down and heels up, 

and I’m even pleased that I’m falling in just such a humiliating position, 

and for me I find it beautiful.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky

photo:  Felix Baumgartner breaking the sound barrier

 

 

the inner landscape of beauty

~ John O'Donohue

members of each other

The way we are, we are members of each other. 

All of us. Everything. 

The difference ain't in who is a member and who is not, 

but in who knows it and who don’t.

...

It was a community always disappointed in itself, 

disappointing its members, 

always trying to contain its divisions and gentle its meanness, 

always failing and yet always preserving a sort of will toward goodwill…

And yet I saw them all as somehow perfected, 

beyond time, by one another’s love, compassion, and forgiveness, 

as it is said we may be perfected by grace.

And so there we all were on a little wave of time lifting up to eternity, 

and none of us ever in time would know what to make of it. 

How could we? 

It is a mystery, for we are eternal beings living in time.

~ Wendell Berry

excerpts from Jaber Crow

who?

The Student

Who makes my mind think?

Who fills my body with vitality?

Who causes my tongue to speak? Who is that

Invisible one who sees through my eyes

And hears through my ears?

 The Teacher

The Self is the ear of the ear,

The eye of the eye, the mind of the mind,

The word of words, and the life of life.

Rising above the senses and the mind

And renouncing separate existence,

The wise realize the deathless Self.

Him our eyes cannot see, nor words express;

He cannot be grasped even by the mind.

We do not know, we cannot understand,

Because he is different from the known

And he is different from the unknown.

Thus have we heard from the illumined ones.

That which makes the tongue speak but cannot be 

Spoken by the tongue, know that as the Self.

This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes the mind think but cannot be

Thought by the mind, that is the Self indeed.

This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes the eye see but cannot be

Seen by the eye,that is the Self indeed.

This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes the ear hear but cannot be 

Heard by the ear, that is the Self indeed.

This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes you draw breath but cannot be 

Drawn by your breath. that is the Self indeed.

This Self is not someone other than you.

~ The Kena Upanishad

translation by Eknath Easwaran

excerpt from: September 1st, 1939

All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, 

The romantic lie in the brain 

Of the sensual man-in-the-street 

And the lie of Authority 

Whose buildings grope the sky: 

There is no such thing as the State 

And no one exists alone; 

Hunger allows no choice 

To the citizen or the police; 

We must love one another or die.

~ W. H. Auden

 from Another Time
 art by picasso