when the lamp went out

When they plow their fields

and sow seeds in the earth,

when they care for their wives and children, 

young brahmans find riches.

But I've done everything right

and followed the rule of my teacher.

I'm not lazy or proud.

Why haven't I found peace?

Bathing my feet 

I watched the bathwater

spill down the slope.

I concentrated my mind

the way you train a good horse.

The I took the lamp

and went into my cell,

checked the bed,

and sat down on it.

I took a needle

and pushed the wick down.

When the lamp went out

my mind was freed.

~ Patacara, (6th B.C.E.)

from Women in Praise of the Sacred

edited by Jane Hirshfield

.

understanding fails

If one reaches the point where understanding fails, this is not a tragedy: it is simply a reminder to stop thinking and start looking.  Perhaps there is nothing to figure out after all: perhaps we only need to wake up.

A monk said: "I have been with you (Master), for a long time, and yet I am unable to understand your way.  How is this?"

The Master said: "Where you do not understand, there is the point for your understanding."

In the first two chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul distinguishes between two kinds of wisdom: one which consists in the knowledge of words and statements, a rational, dialectical wisdom, and another which is at once a matter of paradox and of experience, and goes beyond the reach of reason.  To attain to this spiritual wisdom, one must first be liberated from servile dependence on the "wisdom, of speech."

St. Paul compares this knowledge of God, in the Spirit, to the subjective knowledge that a man has of himself.  Just as no one can know my inner self except my own "spirit," so no one can know God except God's Spirit; yet this Holy Spirit is given to us, in such a way that God know Himself in us, and this experience is utterly real, though it cannot be communicated in terms understandable to those who do not share it.  Consequently, St. Paul concludes, "we have the mind of Christ."

~ Thomas Merton

excerpts from Zen and the Birds of Appetite

art by Van Gogh

.

an older unity

And the deepest level of communication 

is not communication, 

but communion. It is wordless. 

It is beyond words, 

and it is beyond speech, 

and it is beyond 

concept. 

Not that we discover a new unity. 

We discover an older unity. 

My dear brothers, we are already one. 

But we imagine that we are not. 

And what we have to recover is our original unity. 

What we have to be is what we are.

~ Thomas Merton

from his Asian journal
art by Van Gogh

 

ask the horse

There is a story in Zen circles about a man and a horse. 

The horse is galloping quickly, and it appears that the man on the horse is going somewhere important. Another man, standing alongside the road, shouts, 'Where are you going?" and the first man replies, I don't know! Ask the horse!" This is also our story. We are riding a horse, we don't know where we are going, and we can't stop. The horse is our habit energy pulling us along, and we are powerless. 

We are always running, and it has become a habit. 
We struggle all the time, even during our sleep. 
We are at war within ourselves, and we can easily start a war with others.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

from "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching"

habit

The shoes put on each time

left first, then right.

The morning potion’s teaspoon

of sweetness stirred always

for seven circlings—no fewer, no more—

into the cracked blue cup.

Touching the pocket for wallet,

for keys,

before closing the door.

How did we come

to believe these small rituals’ promise,

that we are today the selves we yesterday knew,

tomorrow will be?

How intimate and unthinking,

the way the toothbrush is shaken dry after use,

the part we wash first in the bath.

Which habits we learned from others

and which are ours alone we may never know.

Unbearable to acknowledge

how much they are themselves our fated life.

Open the traveling suitcase—

There the beloved red sweater,

bright tangle of necklace, earrings of amber.

Each confirming: I chose these, I.

But habit is different: it chooses.

And we, its good horse,

opening our mouths at even the sight of the bit.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from Given Sugar, Given Salt

waiting for you

.

It's very important to experience the complete negation of yourself
which brings you to the other side of nothing.
You go to the other side of nothing
and you are held by the hand of the absolute.
You see yourself as the absolute
so you have no more insistence of self.
You can speak of the self as no self
when you sit in the absolute.

Your sitting still is like a person who just shot an arrow.
A moment later the result is there.
What you know, the only thing you know
is the sense that the arrow is moving all right.
It has left your realm but you sense it is running well.
The stillness in sitting is like that.
You flip to the other side of nothing,
where you discover everyone is waiting for you already




. ~ Kobun Chino

hymn to time

Time says “Let there be”
every moment and instantly
there is space and the radiance
of each bright galaxy.

And eyes beholding radiance.
And the gnats’ flickering dance.
And the seas’ expanse.
And death, and chance.

Time makes room
for going and coming home
and in time’s womb
begins all ending.

Time is being and being
time, it is all one thing,
the shining, the seeing,
the dark abounding.

~   Ursula K. Le Guin

no such thing

contemplation is not trance or ecstasy
not emotional fire and sweetness that come with religious exaltation
not enthusiasm, not the sense of being "seized" by an elemental force
and swept into liberation by mystical frenzy.
contemplation is no pain-killer.

In the end the contemplative suffers the anguish of realizing
that he no longer knows what God is;
this is a great gain,
because "God is not a what,"
not a "thing."

There is "no such thing" as God
because God is neither a "what" or a "thing"
but a pure "Who,"
the "Thou" before whom our inmost "I" springs
into awareness.

~ Thomas Merton
from New Seed of Contemplation

sketch by the author

the lesson of the falling leaves

the leaves believe

such letting go is love

such love is faith

such faith is grace

such grace is god.

i agree with the leaves.

~ Lucille Clifton

outside ourselves

When we live superficially … we are always outside ourselves, never quite ‘with’ ourselves, always divided and pulled in many directions … we find ourselves doing many things that we do not really want to do, saying things we do not really mean, needing things we do not really need, exhausting ourselves for what we secretly realize to be worthless and without meaning in our lives.



~ Thomas Merton
from Love and Living
art by Picasso
with thanks to louie, louie

the heart's value

On God's pathway

there are two Ka'bas.

One is the Ka'ba you can see;

the other, the Ka'ba of the heart.

As much as you can,

make pilgrimage to the heart -

The heart's value

is greater

than a thousands Ka'bas.

~ Awhad al-Din Kirmani

from Love's Alchemy

translations by David and Sabrineh Fideler

Kneeling "Chinese" Man, 13th-14th centuries. 

Terracotta, Brooklyn Museum

it’s the dream

It’s that dream that we carry with us

that something wonderful will happen,

that it has to happen,

that time will open,

that the heart will open,

that doors will open,

that the mountains will open,

that wells will leap up,

that the dream will open,

that one morning we’ll slip in

to a harbor that we've never known.

~ Olav H. Hauge

translated by Robert Bly

art by klimt

the sound of the rain needs no translation

I had a discussion with a great master in Japan, and we were talking about the various people who are working to translate the Zen books into English, and he said, "That's a waste of time. If you really understand Zen, you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because the sound of the rain needs no translation.

~ Alan Watts

meditation on how

there's no 

figuring out how 

to live life 

there is only 

the living of life 

those who 

figure out how 

end up learning 

to forget all hows 

in order to live again

.

~ Benjamin Dean

from Short Zen Poems, Koans

dispair and humility

Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love ... 

It is reached when one deliberately turns his back on all help

 from anyone else in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost. 

In every man there is hidden some root of despair

 because in every man there is pride that vegetates and springs weeds

 and rank flowers of self-pity as soon as our own resources fail us. . . . 

But a man who is truly humble cannot despair, 

because in the humble man there is no longer any such thing

 as self-pity.

Humility, therefore, is absolutely necessary 

if man is to avoid acting like a baby all his life. 

To grow up means, in fact, to become humble,

 to throw away the illusion that I am at the center

 of everything and that other people only exist 

to provide me with comfort and pleasure…





~ Thomas Merton
from Seeds of Contemplation
with thanks to louie, louie
art by van gogh