the still point

At the still point of the turning world.
Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards;
At the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement.
And do not call it fixity.
Where past and future are gathered.
Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline.
Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance,
And there is only the dance.




~ T.S. Eliot
from Burnt Norton, #1 of  "Four Quartets"

the mind that frees us or enslaves

It is the mind that frees us or enslaves.

Driven by the senses we become bound;

Master of the senses we become free.

Those who seek freedom must master their senses.

When the mind is detached from the senses

One reaches the summit of consciousness.

Mastery of the mind leads to wisdom.

Practice meditation.  Stop all vain talk.

The highest state is beyond reach of thought,

For it lies beyond all duality.

~ The Amritabindu Upanishad

kind

I hadn't noticed

till a death took me outside

and left me there

that grass lifts so quietly

to catch everything

we drop and we drop 

everything.

~ Leonard Nathan

wild rose

Sometimes hidden from me
in daily custom and in trust,
so that I live by you unaware
as by the beating of my heart,


suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only a shade,


and once more I am blessed, choosing
again what I chose before.




~ Wendell Berry
photo by Bryan Griffith

I am not I

I am not I.

I am this one
Walking beside me whom I do not see,
Whom at times I manage to visit,
And at other times I forget.

The one who remains silent when I talk,
The one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
The one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
The one who will remain standing when I die.






~ Juana Ramon Jimenez
translated by Robert Bly

where?

Where are you searching for me, friend?

Look! Here am I right within you.

Not in temple, nor in mosque,

Not in Kaaba, nor Kailas,

But here right within you am I. 

~ Kabir

a path where they found no path

In the story of Sir Galahad, the knights agree to go on a quest, but thinking it would be a disgrace to go forth in a group, each

"entered into the forest, at one point or another, there where they saw it to be thickest, all in those places where they found no way or path."

Where there is a way or a path, it's someone else's way.  Each knight enters the forest at the most mysterious point and follows his own intuition. What each brings forth is what never before was on land or sea: the fulfillment of his unique potentialities, which are different from anybody else's...when the knight sees the trail of another, thinks he's getting there, and starts to follow the other's track, he goes astray entirely.


~ Joseph Campbell

irreplaceable "thisness"

Franciscan philosopher-theologian John Duns Scotus (1266-1303) taught extensively on the absolute uniqueness of each act of creation.  His doctrine of haecceity is derived from haec, the Latin word for "this." Duns Scotus said the absolute freedom of God allows God to create, or not to create, each creature. Its existence means God has positively chosen to create that creature, precisely as it is.

Each creature is thus not merely one member of a genus and species, but a unique aspect of the infinite Mystery of God.  God is continuously choosing each created thing specifically to exist, moment by moment. This teaching alone made Scotus a favorite of mystics and poets like  Gerard Manley Hopkins and Thomas Merton, who considered themselves "Scotists" - as I do too.

 ~ Richard Rohr

from just this

 

The Inner History of a Day

.

No one knew the name of this day;

Born quietly from deepest night,

It hid its face in light,

Demanded nothing for itself,

Opened out to offer each of us

A field of brightness that traveled ahead,

Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps

And the light of thought to show the way.

The mind of the day draws no attention;

It dwells within the silence with elegance

To create a space for all our words,

Drawing us to listen inward and outward.

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place

Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,

Transforming our broken fragments

Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.

Somewhere in us a dignity presides

That is more gracious than the smallness

That fuels us with fear and force,

A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.

So at the end of this day, we give thanks

For being betrothed to the unknown

And for the secret work

Through which the mind of the day

And wisdom of the soul become one.

~ John O’Donohue,

 from:  To Bless the Space Between Us

.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

~ Janine Jansen
Tchaikovsky's violin concerto

performed and broadcast on April 19th, 2013. 

With Paavo Järvi conducting the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra

 

 

Tchaikovsky (right) with violinist Iosif Kotek

 

 

the inner landscape of beauty

~ John O'Donohue

two drinking songs

.

1.

I built my hut near where people live

and yet I hear no traffic noise or sound of wheels.

Could you tell me what is happening?

An aloneness gathers around the soul that is alone.

I pick chrysanthemums underneath the east hedge,

the mountains to the south are clear.

The mountain air at sunset is so wonderful,

and the birds coming home, one after the other.

In all these details there are secret truths;

but when I try to shift to language, it all slops away.

2.

Such a strong color on the late chrysanthemums!

The stalk sways stoutly, flower wet with dew, open.

Wandering drunk in this beauty, who cares about my sorrows.

I have left excitement behind, and what is not done.

Alone, I take a drink.

The bottle tilts by itself when the cup is empty.

When the sun goes down, all bustle stops,

and the birds on their return call from the leaves.

I walk around my study shouting and proud

because I can take up this life again.

~ Tao Yuan-Ming

.

being lonely

So being lonely, I want to find someone or some idea through which I can be happy.  But loneliness always remains; it is ever there, under cover.  But as it frightens me, and as I do not know what the inward nature of this loneliness is, therefore I want to find something to which to cling.  So I think that through something, through a person, I will be happy.  So our mind is always concerned with finding something.  Through furniture, through a house, through books, through people, through ideas, through rituals, though symbols, we hope to get something, to find happiness.  And so the things, the people, the ideas, become extraordinarily important, because through them we hope we shall find it.  So we begin to be dependent on them.

But with it all there is still this thing not understood, not resolved; the anxiety, the fear, is still there....Is it not very important that I should understand this loneliness, this ache, this pain of extraordinary emptiness?  Because if I understand that, perhaps I shall not use anything to find happiness, I shall not use God as a means to acquire peace, or a ritual in order to have more sensations, exaltations, inspirations. 

If I knew the content of loneliness, then I would not be afraid of it. But because I have an idea of what it might be, I run away from it.  The very running away creates the fear, not the looking at it. To look at it, to be with it, facing it, then I am capable of loving it, of looking into it.  Because all other processes away from that loneliness are deviation, escapes, distractions.  If the mind can live with it, then perhaps through that the mind will find that state which is alone, a mind that is not lonely but completely alone, not dependent, not seeking to find through something.

It is necessary to be alone, to know that aloneness which is not induced by circumstances, that aloneness which is not isolation, that aloneness which is creativeness, when the mind is no longer seeking either happiness, virtue, or creating resistance, It is the mind which is alone that can find - not the mind which has been contaminated, made corrupt, by its own experiences.  So perhaps loneliness, of which we are all aware, if we know how to look at it, may open the door to reality.

~ J. Krishnamurti

from a talk in London, 7 April 1953
art by Picasso

.

the beauty we love

~ Gary Schmidt, Piano

 https://youtu.be/bUhZrg7GQ2Q

the crucible of crisis

As unlikely as it may seem, the contemplative moment can be found at the very center of such ontological crises . . . during the Middle Passage in the holds of slave ships . . . auction blocks . . . and the . . . hush arbors [where slaves worshiped in secret]. Each event is experienced by individuals stunned into multiple realities by shock, journey, and displacement. . . . In the words of Howard Thurman, “when all hope for release in the world seems unrealistic and groundless, the heart turns to a way of escape beyond the present order.”  For captured Africans, there was no safety except in common cause and the development of internal and spiritual fortitude. . . .

The only sound that would carry Africans over the bitter waters was the moan. Moans flowed through each wracked body and drew each soul toward the center of contemplation. . . . One imagines the Spirit moaning as it hovered over the deep during the Genesis account of creation [Genesis 1:2]. Here, the moan stitches horror and survival instincts into a creation narrative. . . . On the slave ships, the moan became the language of stolen strangers, the sound of unspeakable fears, the precursor to joy yet unknown. The moan is the birthing sound, the first movement toward a creative response to oppression, the entry into the heart of contemplation through the crucible of crisis.

~ Barbara A. Holmes 

from Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church