to unite

~ Dalai Lama

find out

When I met my Guru, he told me: 
"You are not what you take yourself to be. Find out what you are. 
Watch the sense 'I am', find your real Self."
 I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me.
 All my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence. 
And what a difference it made, and how soon! 

My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously
 and not to swerve from it even for a moment. 
I did my best to follow his advice and in a comparatively short time 
I realized within myself the truth of his teaching. 
All I did was to remember his teaching, his face, his words constantly.
 This brought an end to the mind; in the stillness of the mind 
I saw myself as I am -- unbound. 

I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind 
on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, 
with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy
 and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state.
 In it all disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived,
 the world around me. Only peace remained 
and unfathomable silence.

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

art by Deloros DiCamillo

talk

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart

 you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.
And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed

 unfold its wings but cannot fly.

There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves 

and they would escape.

And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought

 reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.

When you meet your friend on the roadside

or in the marketplace, let the spirit in

you move your lips and direct your tongue.

Let the voice within your voice speak to the

ear of his ear...

~ Kahlil Gibran

from The Prophet

 

a ramage for a mountain

Silent in the moonlight, no beginning or end.

So the binding things  are lost, then found again,

The tines dug out of the snow, the singing so low

The other cannot hear it.  Some sounds do fit

Thick cords and strong fingers.  Slowly the mountain

Enters the man who walks on its slopes alone.

He walks, he sits down, he finds a stone;

No one has seen it, he sits down and is alone.

~ Robert Bly

from Talking into the Ear of a Donkey

this giving up

Can you find another market like this?

Where, with your one rose

you can buy hundreds of rose gardens?

Where, for one seed you get a whole wilderness?

For one weak breath, the divine wind?

You have been fearful of being absorbed

in the ground, or drawn up by the air.

Now your waterbead lets go

and drops into the ocean, where it came from.

This giving up is not a repenting.

It is a deep honoring of yourself.

When the ocean comes to you as a lover,

marry, at once, quickly for God's sake.

Don't postpone it. Existence has no better gift.

No amount of searching will find this.

A perfect falcon, for no reason,

has landed on your shoulder, and become yours.

~ Rumi

translation by Coleman Barks

giving up all trying

I wearied myself searching for the friend

With efforts beyond my strength

I came to the door

And saw how powerfully the locks were bolted

And the longing in me became that strong

And then I saw that I was gazing from within the presence

Only after that waiting and giving up all trying

Did Lalla flow out from where I knelt

Gently I weep for my mind,

caught in its illusion of ownership.

Mind,  you're not who you think you are.

You're dancing over a pit.

Soon you'll fall through,

And these things,  you've valued

And collected will be left behind.

~ Lalla

watering the horse

How strange to think of giving up all ambition!

Suddenly I see with such clear eyes

The white flake of snow

That has just fallen in the horse's mane!

~ Robert Bly

live at the root

A lover was telling his beloved

how much he loved her, how faithful

he had been, how self-sacrificing, getting up

at dawn every morning, fasting, giving up

wealth and strength and fame,

all for her.

There was a fire in him.

He didn't know where it came from,

but it made him weep and melt like a candle.

"You've done very well", she said, "but listen to me.

All this is the decor of love, the branches

and leaves and  blossoms.  You must live

at the root to be a true lover."

"Where is that! Tell me!"

"You've done the outward acts,

but you haven't died.  You must die."

When he heard that, he lay back on the ground

laughing, and died. He opened like a rose

that drops to the ground and died laughing.

That laughter was his freedom,

and his gift to the eternal.

~ Rumi

what dying teaches

~ Frank Ostaseski

 

under pressure

Powerful engines from the blue sky.

We live on a construction site where everything shivers,

where the ocean depths can suddenly open.

A hum in seashells and telephones.

You can see beauty if you look quickly to the side.

The heavy grainfields run together in one yellow river.

The restless shadows in my head want to go out there.

They want to crawl in the grain and turn into something gold.

Night finally.  At midnight I go to bed.

The dinghy sets out from the ship.

On the water you are alone.

The dark hull of society keeps on going.

~ Tomas Transtromer

from Half Finished Heaven

translated by robert bly

art by van gogh

starting with the fruit

~ Jack Kornfield and Frank Ostaseski

 

shrink us to our proper size

III

Yes, though hope is our duty,

let us live a while without it

to show ourselves we can.

Let us see that, without hope,

we still are well.  Let hopelessness

shrink us to our proper size.

Without it we are half as large

as yesterday, and the world

is twice as large.  My small

place grows immense as I walk

upon it without hope.

Our springtime rue anemones

as I walk among them, hoping 

not even to live, are beautiful

as Eden, and I their kinsman

am immortal in their moment.

~ Wendell Berry

to dance my dance

Waking up is unpleasant, you know. 

You are nice and comfortable in bed. 

It is irritating to be woken up. 

That's the reason the wise guru will not attempt
 to wake people up.

 I hope I'm going to be wise here 

and make no attempt whatsoever
 to wake you up if you are asleep.

 It is really none of my business, 
even though I say to you at times,

 "Wake up!"

 My business is to do my thing, 

to dance my dance. 

As the Arabs say,

 "The nature of rain is the same,

 but it makes thorns grow in the marshes
 and flowers in the gardens."

~ Anthony de Mello

.

do you have time

Oh do you have time

to linger

for just a little while

out of your busy

and very important day

for the goldfinches

that have gathered

in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,

to see who can sing

the highest note,

or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,

or the most tender?

Their strong, blunt beaks

drink the air

as they strive

melodiously

not for your sake

and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning

but for sheer delight and gratitude—

believe us, they say,

it is a serious thing

just to be alive

on this fresh morning

in the broken world.

I beg of you,

do not walk by

without pausing

to attend to this

rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.

It could mean everything.

It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:

'You must change your life.'

~ Mary Oliver

the need to win

When the archer is shooting for nothing

He has all his skill.

If he shoots for a brass buckle

He is already nervous.

If he shoots for a prize of gold

He goes blind

Or see two targets -

He is out of his mind!

His skill has not changed.  But the prize

Divides him.  He cares.

He thinks more of winning

Than of shooting -

And the need to win 

Drains him of power.

~ Chuang Tzu

translation by Thomas Merton

sculpture by Antoine Bourdelle