what matters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ Rick Hanson

 

 

 

 

words

Being tired of people who come with words, but no speech,

I made my way to the snow-covered island.

 

The wild does not have words.

The pages free of handwriting stretched out on all sides!

I came upon the tracks of reindeer in the snow.

Speech but no words.

~ Tomas Transtromer

translation by Robert Bly

from The Half-Finished Heaven

allegro

I play Haydn after a black day

and feel a simple warmth in my hands.

The keys are willing. Soft hammers strike.

The resonance green, lively and calm.

The music says freedom exists

and someone doesn't pay the emperor tax.

I push down my hands in my Haydnpockets

and imitate a person looking on the world calmly.

I hoist the Haydnflag - it signifies:

"We don't give in. But want peace.'

The music is a glass-house on the slope

where the stones fly, the stones roll.

And the stones roll right through

but each pane stays whole.

~ Tomas Transtromer

from New Collected Poems

translated by Robin Fulton

making it right: a prophecy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The duty of a musician is for us to take anything that

happens on stage and make it part of the music.

 

~ Herbie Hancock 

 

 

No wrong notes in jazz, said the musician

and the poet insisted, no wrong words,

No wrong leaf, said the tree,

and field said, no wrong grass.

No wrong time, promised the friend,

and the river said, no wrong rock.

And the heart said, no wrong love,

but the mind said, no, that's wrong.

And the wrong love replanted itself like grass

and grew wild in all the wrong places

like a gorgeous weed, like a tap-rooted song

until the whole field was beautifully wrong, wrong.

 

 

 

~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

from All the Honey

 

 

 

grace

"What is grace?" I asked God.
And He said,

"All that happens."

Then He added, when I looked perplexed,

"Could not lovers
say that every moment in their Beloved's arms
was grace?

Existence is my arms,
though I well understand how one can turn
away from
me,
until the heart has
wisdom."

 

~ Saint John of the Cross

in everything...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I seek to reach the innermost part of myself...

One thing no longer existed for him, the wish to have teachers
and to listen to teachings.

He asked himself - "But what is this, what you have sought to
learn from teachings and from teachers, and what they, who
have taught you much, were still unable to teach you?" And
he found: "It was the self, the purpose and essence of which
I sought to learn. It was the self I wanted to free myself from,
which I sought to overcome. But I was not able to overcome
it, could only deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from
it.

No thing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this
my very own self, this mystery of one being one and being
separated... And there is nothing I know less about... I know
nothing about myself! I searched Atman, I searched Brahman,
I was willing to dissect myself and pull off all of its layers, to
find the core of all peels in its unknown interior, the Atman, life
the divine part, the ultimate part. But I have lost myself in the
process. I do not want to kill and dissect myself any longer, to
find a secret behind the ruins.

I want to get to know myself, the secret of Siddhartha.

[The beauty of this world] was no longer the veil of Maya, was
no longer a pointless coincidental diversity of mere appearance,
despicable to the deeply thinking Brahman, who scorns diversity
who seeks unity, but the beauty was also in Siddhartha, the singular
and the divine lived hidden - the purpose and the essential
properties were not somewhere behind the things, they were in
them, in everything...



~  Hermann Hesse

from: Siddhartha

with thanks to Mystic Meandering

 

 

 

the self you leave behind

 

 

 

 

 

 

The self you leave behind
is only a skin you have outgrown.

 
Don't grieve for it.
Look to the wet, raw, unfinished
self, the one you are becoming.
The world, too, sheds its skin:
politicians, cataclysms, ordinary days.

 
It's easy to lose this tenderly
unfolding moment. Look for it
as if it were the first green blade
after a long winter. Listen for it
as if it were the first clear tone
in a place where dawn is heralded by bells.

And if all that fails,

wash your own dishes.
Rinse them.
Stand in your kitchen at your sink.
Let cold water run between your fingers.
Feel it.

 

 

 

 

 ~  Pat Schneider

 from  Olive Street Transfer

with thanks to Poetry Chaikhana

how healing comes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Healing comes less like a falcon

            with mighty wings,

                        and more like an earthworm

            that slowly, slowly moves

beneath it all, tightening up,

            then stretching out, tightening up

                        and stretching out, a simple

            two-part rhythm. Some days,

that is all the body can do.

            Contract. Expand. Contract. Expand.

                        In the meantime, through this

            artless act, what is dense

becomes porous.

            In the meantime, what is stuck

                        and clotted gets moved around.

            What is dead passes through,

is processes by the grit inside.

            There are tunnels now in the soil of me,

                        thin channels of recovery-

            a blessed loosening,

a gradual renewal, It's unhurried, but

            I feel it, the air, the rain

                        the life coming in.

 

 

 

 

 

~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

    from All the Honey 

 

 

 

 

filling my purse with commas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All afternoon, each time

I think I should hurry,

I pull out a comma,

 

such humble punctuation,

and I invite it into the moment,

and the comma does

 

what it always does, which

is to invite a pause, a small pause,

of course, but a pause long enough

 

to breathe, to notice what else

is happening, a slight

suggestion that right here

 

is a perfect place to rest,

yes, how funny I never noticed

before that the comma itself

 

looks as if it;s bowing, nodding

its small dark head to what is,

encouraging us to find 

 

a brief silence and then,

thus refreshed, go on. 

 

 

 

 

~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

from All the Honey

 art by Mori Yuzan

 

 

  

our relationship with ourself

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How would you describe the current of energy, the life force inside you, 

that is seeking to grow? Our most important relationship is our relationship with ourself,

 with our interior world. What do you do to nurture that relationship?

 How you nurture that relationship will determine the quality of your life.

 

 What we call fate does not come to us from outside;

 it goes forth from within us. 

 

 

 

 

 ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

 

 

 

 

 

I have no parents

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no parents:
I make the heaven and earth my parents.

I have no home:
I make awareness my home.

I have no life and death:
I make the tides of breathing my life and death.

I have no divine powers:
I make honesty my divine power.

I have no means:
I make understanding my means.

I have no secrets:
I make character my secret.

I have no body:
I make endurance my body.

I have no eyes:
I make the flash of lightening my eyes.

I have no ears:
I make sensibility my ears.

I have no limbs:
I make promptness my limbs.

I have no strategy:
I make "unshadowed by thought" my strategy.

I have no design:
I make "seizing opportunity by the forelock" my design.

I have no miracles:
I make right action my miracle.

I have no principles:
I make adaptability to all circumstances my principle.

I have no tactics:
I make emptiness and fullness my tactics.

I have no talent:
I make ready wit my talent.

I have no friends:
I make my mind my friend.

I have no enemy:
I make carelessness my enemy.

I have no armor:
I make benevolence and righteousness my armor.

I have no castle:
I make immovable mind my castle.

I have no sword:
I make absence of self my sword.





 ~ anonymous samurai song 

 14th century

 

 

I have no Parents; I make the Heavens and the Earth my Parents.
We are all from the same origin and we are all learning from the same source of knowledge: the universe.

I have no Home; I make the Tan T’ien my Home.
The Tan T’ien is considered to be the true center of the body regarding strength and balance. Making this my home, I am always at home, no matter where I am physically. It is also a place to be away from distractions, both from the world and from thoughts. It is where feeling and instinct are most powerful.

I have no Divine Power; I make Honesty my Divine Power.
Complete honesty under all circumstances is something only divine creatures are capable of. For me, to strive for honesty is one big step closer to be a better human being. I understand honesty as not to lie to myself or to other people.

I have no Means; I make Docility my Means.
Assets or utilities are not essential for me, I can do without them. I overcome obstacles by having a mind that is willing to learn and willing to be taught.

I have no Magic Power; I make Personality my Magic Power.
My personality is unique. Its magic is sometimes obvious, sometimes surprising, and sometimes hidden to be discovered.

I have neither Life nor Death; I make A Um my Life and Death.
A Um is the eternal soul. To something that is eternal, life and death do not matter, they are mere steps from one state to the other. 

I have no Body; I make Stoicism my Body.
My body is subject to pain and other physical “distractions”. If stoicism is my body, I am indifferent to the shortcomings of my flesh. What really counts is my mental attitude which will eventually overcome my body’s weaknesses.

I have no Eyes; I make The Flash of Lightning my eyes.
I do not trust things just because I can see them, because my visual senses are easily deceived. The flash of lightning is some kind of first impression, a gut-feeling, or my instinct about a certain situation. I try to trust these more than what I can see.

I have no Ears; I make Sensibility my Ears.
This is rather similar to the previous one. Things do not become facts just because I can hear them. It is more important what happens in my mind to the heard: I process what I hear, think about it, and weigh it with experience. Thus, I do have an opinion about it most of the time.

I have no Limbs; I make Promptitude my Limbs.
It is not really my arms and my legs that get me where I want. It is my decision to get there right now, which gets me there. I try to do important things without any delay.

I have no Laws; I make Self-Protection my Laws.
In the end, nearly all comes down to self-protection. This is the universal law that governs everything. While I think this is some kind of fact, I also think that one should try to overcome this basic law. There are people we cannot live without, there’s family and other loved ones. They build up a context where self-protection does not matter any more. Though this is a weakness, it is a necessary one and one I embrace.

I have no Strategy; I make the Right to Kill and the Right to Restore Life my Strategy.
The underlying strategy of my life is that everything counts. God or the Devil is in the details, as many details might have the power to save my life or to destroy it.

I have no Designs; I make Seizing the Opportunity by the Forelock my Designs.
I have no secret plans. I try to make the best out of the opportunities life offers me, as I cannot control life.

I have no Miracles; I make Righteous Laws my Miracle.
I cannot do miracles. But as it is really hard to be a good human being, I consider it my miracle that I stick to traditional virtues such as honor or honesty.

I have no Principles; I make Adaptability to all circumstances my Principle.
I accept and embrace change. Many things in life are unchangeable and therefore it is not wise to try to stick to strict pseudo-universal principles. I am ready to question myself and to adapt to new situations. I am agile. I am change.

I have no Tactics; I make Emptiness and Fullness my Tactics.
This seems to be contradictory. To achieve a goal, I have to empty myself from any prejudices and other external influences. An empty mind is a mind before thinking, before speaking, before words, a mind at home, relying on instinct (see above). This emptiness is necessary to build up a fascination for the new and to have space that can be filled with ideas and knowledge concerning the goal. (This idea is also discussed in Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” and in Buddhism.)

I have no Talent; I make Ready Wit my Talent.
Talents are mostly bound to specific tasks. If I have a ready mind that adapts to new tasks quickly, I am not limited by this constraint.

I have no Friends; I make my Mind my Friend.
The first and foremost person I have to become friends with is myself. I am much more powerful if I am happy with myself, if I can trust myself, and if I really know and understand myself.

I have no Enemy; I make Incautiousness my Enemy.
Not other people are my worst enemies, but myself. If I do things in a sloppy way, hastily, if I am not paying attention to the details, if I am betraying myself, if I do not know what I can do and what not: these things will harm me. Trying to do my best at all times is my protection against this enemy.

I have no Armour; I make Benevolence my Armour.
This can be seen in two ways. First, being benevolent, I probably make more friends than enemies and this saves me a lot of trouble. Second, being benevolent poses no threat to other people and, thus, might make an armor unnecessary.

I have no Castle; I make Immovable Mind my Castle.
A castle is a place to hide, a place to gather strength. As it is a common theme in this creed, this is not a physical place, but a place within me. The “immovable mind” (the translation can also mean the “immovable heart”) is immovable in respect to its focus. This focus should be in my inner, natural self and be free of corrupting influences such as anger, fear, or doubt. Within the self, the focus is flexible and not fixed on one particular attribute of the self. This whole idea is heavily connected to the concept of emptiness and fullness, as outlined above.

I have no Sword; I make No Mind my Sword.
And again, this is also very related to the concept of emptiness and fullness and to rely on instinct. Striving for emptiness, the point where I do not think anymore, where I really am…this state of the mind is considered to be the most powerful one, the state I am capable of the most difficult tasks. (This idea is discussed further in Zen and especially in Miyamoto Musashi’s “A Book of Five Rings”.)

 

 This is merely a brief start to finding a meaning for the creed.

 

 

 

 Comments by André Miede

 

 

 

connected in compassion

 

 

 

 

No one escapes suffering in this life. 

None of us is exempt from loss, pain, illness, and death.

 How is it that we have so little understanding of these essential experiences? 

How is it that we have attempted to keep grief separated from our lives

 and only begrudgingly acknowledge its presence at the most obvious of times,

 such as a funeral?

 

 “If sequestered pain made a sound,” Stephen Levine says,

 “the atmosphere would be humming all the time.”

It is the accumulated losses of a lifetime that slowly weigh us down—

the times of rejection, the moments of isolation when we felt cut off

 from the sustaining touch of comfort and love. It is an ache that resides

 in the heart, the faint echo calling us back to the times of loss. 

We are called back, not so much to make things right, but to acknowledge

 what happened to us. 

 

Grief asks that we honor the loss and, in doing so, deepen our capacity for compassion.

 When grief remains unexpressed, however, it hardens, becomes as solid as a stone.

 We, in turn, become rigid and stop moving in rhythm with the soul. . . . 

When our grief stagnates, we become fixed in place, unable to move and dance

 with the flow of life. Grief is part of the dance.

As we begin to pay attention, we notice that grief is never far from our awareness. 

We become aware of the many ways it arrives in our daily lives. It is the blue mood

 that greets us upon waking. It is the melancholy that shades the day in muted tones.

 It is the recognition of time’s passing, the slow emptying of our days.

 It is the searing pain that erupts when someone close to us dies—

a parent, a partner, a child, a beloved pet. It is the confounding grief 

when our life circumstances are shattered by the unexpected—

the phone rings with news of a biopsy; we find ourselves suddenly without work,

 uncertain as to how we will support our family; our partner decides one day

 that the marriage is over. We tumble and fall as the ground beneath us opens, 

shaken by violent rumblings. Grief enfolds our lives, drops us close to the earth,

 reminding us of our inevitable return to the dark soil. . . .

It is essential for us to welcome our grief, whatever form it takes.

 When we do, we open ourselves to our shared experiences in life.

 Grief is our common bond. Opening to our sorrow connects us with everyone, everywhere.

 There is no gesture of kindness that is wasted, no offering of compassion that is useless.

 We can be generous to every sorrow we see. It is sacred work. 

 

 

 

 

~  Francis Weller

from  The Wild Edge of Sorrow:

 Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief; 

The Threshold Between Loss and Revelation

 with thanks to Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

 

 

watching my friend pretend her heart isn't breaking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Earth, just a teaspoon of neutron star

would weigh six billion tons, Six billion tons

is equivalent to the weight of every animal

on earth, including insects. Times three.

 

Six billion tons sounds impossible

until I consider how it is to swallow grief -

just a teaspoon and one may as well have consumed

a neutron star. How dense it is,

how it carries inside it the memory of collapse.

How difficult it is to move then.

How impossible to believe that anything

could lift that weight.

 

There are many reasons to treat each other

with great tenderness. One is

the sheer miracle that we are here together

on a planet surrounded by dying stars.

One is that we cannot see

what anyone else has swallowed.

 

 

 

 

~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

from Poetry of Presence II -

More Mindfulness poems

photo from NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/CXC/SAO

 

 

 

 

 

  

what we need is here

 

 

 

 

Horseback on Sunday morning,

harvest over, we taste persimmon

and wild grape, sharp sweet

of summer's end. In time's maze

over fall fields, we name names

that went west from here, names

that rest on graves. We open

a persimmon seed to find the tree

that stands in promise,

pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.



~ Wendell Berry


 

how surely gravity's law (II, 16)

How surely gravity's law,

strong as an ocean current,

takes hold of even the strongest thing

and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing -

each stone, blossom, child -

is held in place.

Only we, in our arrogance,

push out beyond what we belong to

for some empty freedom.

If we surrendered

to earth's intelligence

we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves

in knots of our own making

and struggle, lonely and confused.

So, like children, we begin again

to learn from the things,

because they are in God's heart;

they have never left him.

This is what the things can teach us:

to fall,

patiently to trust our heaviness.

Even a bird has to do that

before he can fly.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

.