My Life Is Not Mine

 

 

Spring, and everything outside is growing,
even the tall cypress tree.
We must not leave this place.
Around the lip of the cup we share, these words,

"My Life Is Not Mine."

If someone were to play music, it would have to be very sweet.
We're drinking wine, but not through lips.
We're sleeping it off, but not in bed.
Rub the cup across your forehead.
This day outside is living and dying.

Give up wanting what other people have.
That way you're safe.
"Where, where can I be safe?" you ask.

This is not a day for asking questions,
not a day on any calendar.
This day is conscious of itself.
This day is a lover, bread, and gentleness,
more manifest than saying can say.

Thoughts take form with words,
but this daylight is beyond and before
thinking and imagining. Those two,
they are so thirsty, but this gives smoothness
to water. Their mouths are dry, and they are tired.

The rest of this poem is too blurry
for them to read.

 

 

 

 

~ Rumi

 art by Mawra Tahreem

 

 

 

 

 

 

what's done is finished

 

 

 

 

The monsoon in Thailand is from July to October.

During this period, the monks stop traveling, put aside all work

projects, and devote themselves to study and meditation. The

period is called Vassa, the Rains Retreat. 

 

In the south of Thailand some years ago, a famous abbot was

building a new hall in his forest monastery. When the Rains Retreat

came, he stopped all work and sent the builders home. This was the

time for quiet in his monastery.

 

A few days later a visitor came, saw the half-constructed building

and asked the abbot when his hall would be finished. Without

hesitation, the old monk said, "The hall is finished."

 

"What do you mean, 'The hall is finished'?" the visitor replied,

taken aback. "It hasn't got a roof. There are no doors or windows.

There are pieces of wood and cement bags all over the place. Are

you going to leave it like that? Are you mad? What do you mean,

'The hall is finished'?"

 

The old abbot smiled and gently replied, "What's done is finished,"

and then he went away to meditate.

 

That is the only way to have a retreat or to take a break. 

Otherwise our work is never finished.

 

 

 

 

 ~ Ajahn Brahm

from Who Ordered this Truckload of Dung?

 

 

 

 

winds of change

 

 

 

 

The eight worldly winds are 

Pleasure and Pain, Gain and Loss, Praise and Blame, and Fame and Disrepute.

 Look at your own life — how do you find security in a big storm? 

A large weather system unexpectedly moves in and, as it approaches,

 we may feel unstable, vulnerable. These forces arrive, 

and the best we can do is mentally prepare with the awareness 

that all things change and are impermanent. 

 

We can make a plan, 

but given the magnitude of the event, we are unable to predict the outcome.

 We can maintain our composure by cultivating an attitude 

that arises from practicing meditation, 

calm concentration, acceptance, and equanimity.

Pleasure and Pain, 

two aspects of our moment-by-moment existence, 

wise teachings direct us to enjoy pleasure fully when it is present

 and to be prepared for it changing, with an attitude of letting go. 

It is known that the ability to enjoy life is tied to accepting what is 

without an attachment to having it be a certain way. 

 

 When we meet pain, we might not take it so personally. 

We are not a failure because pain is here.

 I may have an ache but it can change. 

Can we see clearly the comings and goings of life? 

Can we see that these forces exist independent of us? 

Not taking them personally is freedom.

 Can we find happiness independent of life’s unfolding condition?

 Recognizing this inevitability and accepting it is part of the journey.

Gain and Loss 

 is directly related with the ownership of wealth or possessions 

and the removal or disappearance of this. 

It is about the ways economic security can come and go. 

When we recognize our attachments to gain,

 we can see how we may get lost in greed —

 the wanting mind that always needs more. 

In investing, we take a risk and it this has a precarious nature.

 Can we maintain some kind of mental neutrality 

when things get shaken up and we lose? 

Can we appreciate a gain without having to always win —

 enjoy it without attachment?

How do you relate to Praise and Blame?

 Have you noticed how our society and social media thrives on this?

 Each person brought before the public arena is endlessly scrutinized

 in ways that belittle and blame them for anything that goes wrong

 in their political, social, academic, or arts career.

 And we praise them ludicrously 

 when they do something “we” approve of or like.

 This is a very rocky road, and it seems we are obsessed with it.

Fame and Disrepute 

are fluctuations in life that I can relate to personally. 

After writing a book in 2004, I was eager for some recognition and fame.

 I thought the publication would open some doors for me as a well, 

as a “known expert in tea and meditation.” 

When this did not easily occur, it felt as if I was experiencing

 a form of postpartum depression, having birthed this book

 and then been disappointed in the way it was received.

 I had expectations that set me up to stumble. 

Then, after several months, I realized how the center-of-attraction

 and notoriety need was lame compared to the making of the book, 

which was a labor of love. 

The gift came in the process of writing it and, when I realized this,

 I could accept that this was the way it was. I did not really experience disrepute, 

but I could understand how difficult it would be if something related to the book

 made me appear dishonorable or unworthy and the shame that would bring. 

It is similar to being “popular” and then losing that attractive force. 

I can see how others get stuck in this place when trends fade,

 fashions go out of style, scientific theories are replaced, 

and movie stars, pop culture idols, or elite athletes

 lose their fame do to a scandal.

During this time of snarly winds and dust devils, 

allow them to be a reminder of the Whirling Dervishes 

and notice how their spinning starts from their center, and how, 

without losing their balance, they twirl like the still point in the center of a cyclone. 

Getting to that clear center is how we can navigate these eight vicissitudes of life.

Just as one must often become still to see the movements of clouds,

 a still state of equanimity allows us to appreciate the inevitable

interplay of forces as they occur around and within.

 

 

 

 

 ~ Lhasha Tizer

from the Mungalla Sutta

 

 

 

 

a moment of peace

 

 

 

 

 

Grant yourself a moment of peace,

and you will understand

how foolishly you have scurried about

Learn to be silent,

and you will notice that

you have talked too much.

Be kind,

and you will realize that

your judgement of others was too severe.

 

 

 

~ Ancient Chinese Proverb

 photo by Hesham Abdelwahab

 

 

 

 

 

 

seeing and letting go

But there is another kind of seeing that involves a letting go.
When I see this way I sway transfixed and emptied... But I can't
go out and try to see this way. I'll fail, I'll go mad. All I can do
is try to gag the commentator, to hush the noise of useless
interior babble…The effort is really a discipline requiring a
lifetime of dedicated struggle; it marks the literature of saints
and monks of every order East and West…

The world's spiritual geniuses seem to discover universally

 that the mind's muddy river, this ceaseless flow 

of trivia and trash, cannot be dammed, 

and that trying to dam it is a waste of effort 

that might lead to madness. 

Instead you must allow the muddy river to flow unheeded

 in the dim channels of consciousness; you raise your sights;

 you look along it, mildly, acknowledging its presence

 without interest and gazing beyond it into the realm of the real

 where subjects and objects act and rest purely, without utterance.





~ Annie Dillard 

from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
art by Van Gogh

tea

.

You must be completely awake in the present to enjoy the tea.

Only in the awareness of the present, 

can your hands feel the pleasant warmth of the cup.

Only in the present, 

can you savor the aroma, 

taste the sweetness, 

appreciate the delicacy.

If you are ruminating about the past, 

or worrying about the future, 

you will completely miss the experience 

of enjoying the cup of tea.

You will look down at the cup, 

and the tea will be gone.

Life is like that.

If you are not fully present, 

you will look around and it will be gone.

You will have missed the feel, the aroma, 

the delicacy and beauty of life.

It will seem to be speeding past you. 

The past is finished.

Learn from it and let it go.

The future is not even here yet. 

Plan for it, but do not waste your time worrying about it.

Worrying is worthless.

When you stop ruminating about what has already happened, 

when you stop worrying about what might never happen, 

then you will be in the present moment.

Then you will begin to experience joy in life.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

the taste

When young, I did not know the taste of sorrow.

I went up the tower.

 

I went up the tower

to write a poem on pretended sorrow.

By now I’ve completely tasted sorrow, but already

I do not want to speak about it.

 

I do not want to speak about it,

I only say: what a beautiful, cold autumn.

~   Xing Qijia

in silence

Be still.

Listen to the stones of the wall.

be silent, they try

To speak your

 

Name.

Listen

To the living walls.

Who are you?

Who

Are you? Whose

Silence are you?

 

Who (be quiet)

Are you (as these stones

Are quiet). Do not

Think of what you are

Still less of

What you may one day be.

Rather

Be what you are (but who?) be

The unthinkable one

You do not know.

 

O be still, while

You are still alive,

And all things live around you

Speaking (I do not hear)

To your own being,

Speaking by the Unknown

That is in you and in themselves.

 

"I will try, like them

To be my own silence:

And this is difficult.  The whole

World is secretly on fire.  The stones

Burn, even the stones

They burn me.  How can a man be still or

Listen to all things burning?  How can he dare

To sit with them when

All their silence

Is on fire?"

 

 

~ Thomas Merton

from The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton

 

no room

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christ’s place is with those others for whom there is no room.
His place is with those who do not belong,
who are rejected by power, because they are regarded as weak,
those who are discredited,
who are denied the status of persons, tortured, exterminated.
With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world.

He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing

 but the world at its worst…
It is in these that he hides himself, [the people] for whom there is no room.

 

 

 

 

 

 
-- Thomas Merton 

from Raids on the Unspeakable 

 with thanks to louie, louie

 

 

 

another reason why I don't keep a gun in the house

 

 

 

 

 

 

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius. 

 

 

 

 

~ Billy Collins

 

mysteriously

Mysteriously, Wonderfully,

I bid Farewell to what Goes,

I Greet what Comes;

for what comes cannot be denied,

and what goes cannot be detained.

~ Chuang-Tzu

from The Complete Works of Zhuangzi

translated by Burton Watson
photo by ansel adams

already given

 

 

 

 

I was your rebellious son,
do you remember? Sometimes
I wonder if you do remember,
so complete has your forgiveness been.

So complete has your forgiveness been
I wonder sometimes if it did not
precede my wrong, and I erred,
safe found, within your love,

prepared ahead of me, the way home,
or my bed at night, so that almost
I should forgive you, who perhaps
foresaw the worst that I might do,

and forgave before I could act,
causing me to smile now, looking back,
to see how paltry was my worst,
compared to your forgiveness of it

already given. And this, then,
is the vision of that Heaven of which
we have heard, where those who love
each other have forgiven each other,

where, for that, the leaves are green,
the light a music in the air,
and all is unentangled,
and all is undismayed.

 

 

 

 

~ Wendell Berry

 

 

 

if you want

If
you want
the Virgin will come walking down the road
pregnant with the holy
and say,
“I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart,
my time is so close.”

Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime
intimacy, the divine, the Christ
taking birth
forever,
as she grasps your hand for help, for each of us
is the midwife of God, each of us.

Yes there, under the dome of your being does creation
come into existence externally, through your womb, dear pilgrim—
the sacred womb of your soul,
as God grasps our arms for help; for each of us is
His beloved servant
never
far.

If you want, the Virgin will come walking
down the street pregnant
with Light, and
sing . . .



~ St. John of the Cross
Daniel Ladinsky translation
Love Poems from God

life within life

 

 

 

 

You who sleep in my breast are not met with words, 

but in the emergence of life within life 

and of wisdom within wisdom.   

With You there is no longer any dialogue, 

any contest, any opposition.  

You are found in communion! 

Thou in me and I in Thee,  

Thou in them and they in me: 

dispossession within dispossession, 

dispassion within dispassion, 

emptiness within emptiness, 

freedom within freedom. 

 I am alone.  

Thou are alone. 

 The Father and I are One.

 

 

 

~ Thomas Merton

from Dialogues with Silence

sketch by the author

 

 

Your brightness is my darkness.  

I know nothing of You and, by myself, 

I cannot even imagine how to go about knowing You. 

 If I imagine You, I am mistaken.  

If I understand You, I am deluded.  

If I am conscious and certain I know You, I am crazy.

The darkness is enough.

 

 

prayer written by Merton in 1941 

before midnight mass at Christmas 

 

 

 

exteriorly “all right”

 

 

 

 

 

 
The heart of man  can be full of so much pain, 

even when things are exteriorly “all right”.

 

 It becomes all the more difficult because today we are used to thinking

 that there are explanations for everything. But there is no explanation 

of most of what goes on in our own hearts, and we cannot account for it all.

 

 No use resorting to the kind of mental tranquilizers

 that even religious explanations sometimes offer.

 Faith must be deeper than that, rooted in the unknown

 and in the abyss of darkness that is the ground of our being. 

 

No use teasing the darkness to try to make answers grow out of it. 

But if we learn how to have a deep inner patience, 

things solve themselves, or God solves them if you prefer:

 but do not expect to see how. Just learn to wait,

 and do what you can and help other people. 

 

Often it is in helping someone else 

we find the best way to bear our own trouble.

-- Thomas Merton
from his Christmas letter, 1966

art by Picasso