some backward perspective

 

Billy looked at the clock on the gas stove. 

He had an hour to kill before the saucer came. 

He went into the living room, swinging the bottle like a dinner bell, 

turned on the television. He came slightly unstuck in time, 

saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again. 

It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War

 and the gallant men who flew them. 

Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this:

American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses, 

took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, 

a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, 

sucked bullets and shell fragments 

from some of the planes and crewmen.

The bombers opened their bomb-bay doors, 

exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, 

gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, 

and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes.

The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own,

 which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck

 more fragments from the crewmen and planes.

When the bombers got back to their base,

 the steel cylinders were taken from the racks

 and shipped back to the United States of America, 

where factories were operating night and day, 

dismantling the cylinders, 

separating the dangerous contents into minerals.

Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work.

The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas.

 It was their business to put them into the ground, 

to hide them cleverly,

 so they would never hurt anybody ever again.

The American fliers turned in their uniforms, 

became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, 

Billy Pilgrim supposed. 

That wasn't in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. 

Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, 

without exception, conspired biologically 

to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve,

 he supposed.

~ Kurt Vonnegut

from Slaughterhouse Five

photo: Dresden after WWII bombing

with thanks to love is a place

poem of one world

 

This morning

the beautiful white heron

was floating along above the water

and then into the sky of this

the one world

we all belong to

where everything

sooner or later

is part of everything else

which thought made me feel

for a little while

quite beautiful myself.

~ Mary Oliver

from A Thousand Mornings: Poems

photo by  Ilan Horn

with thanks to Intrinsic Heart

at the core of delusion

  

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

~ Kurt Vonnegut 

from Mother Night

 

still I wonder: isn’t there a rock-solid unchanging

 “me” 

hidden somewhere underneath it all?

This unexamined self feels like an isolated, self-sufficient, permanent individual, 

essentially separate from others and all that surrounds it. Yet even a few moments

 of self-reflection suggests otherwise. My body is not the same as when I was eight

 or eighteen years old. If all humans are mortal, then my life will also end,

 exact time of departure unknown. Similarly, all my feelings of happiness and sadness

 come and go, arise and cease, changing gradually or suddenly,

 but always, inevitably, changing.

Looking closely, I also see that I’m not a self-contained, entirely independent individual.

 I need food, water, and air to survive. I speak and write a language generously passed on to me 

by others from long ago. I engage in everyday activities that were all part of my cultural training

 from childhood onward: brushing my teeth, exchanging greetings of “good morning”

 and saying “good night,” attending ceremonies, weddings, funerals.

Even at the most basic level of existence, I did not arise as a spontaneous,

 self-created human being. I was born and nurtured through the union and love 

of my parents, and they are also descendants of many ancestors before them.

 We are all “dependently related” beings, developing and aging in rapidly changing societies.

When we conduct our lives as though, all evidence to the contrary, we are separate,

 permanent, unitary selves, we find ourselves constantly living in fear of the large,

 looming shadow of change. Actions based on a mistaken sense of self, or “ego,”

 as an unchanging, isolated essence are filled with anxious struggle.

 We fight many futile battles against the way things actually are. How are they really?

 They are changing, connected, fluid. It’s as though we are standing waist-deep

 in the middle of a rushing river, our arms outstretched wide,

 straining to stop the flow.

This mistaken sense of self arises as a solidified set of beliefs about who we are

 and how the world is. When we proceed on that basis, all our life experiences are filtered

 through a rigorous, simplistic, for-and-against screening process:

 “Will this person or event enhance my permanent sense of self? 

Will this encounter threaten the ideas I’ve already accumulated?”

 

 Believing the inner voice of deception, we grasp and defend and ignore in service to an illusion,

 causing suffering for ourselves and others.

Letting go of the false sense of self feels liberating, like being released from a claustrophobic prison

 of mistaken view. What a relief to discover that we don’t have to pretend to be something 

we’re not! The initially surprising and challenging news of “no solid self” 

turns out to be a gentle invitation into a more spacious approach to living

 and being with others. Releasing fixation on permanence goes hand in hand

 with taking brave steps toward more communication and harmony in our lives,

 our actions, our relationships, and our work.

We might call this fluid inter-being an “open self,” one that is more sensitive

 to other living beings and nature. This open sense of self allows us to proceed from empathy

 and compassion for ourselves and for those suffering around us and elsewhere.

 With the dissolving of the seemingly solid walls of ego’s fragile tower, our experience is porous

 and permeable, less cut off and isolated. As we gradually release the old commitment

 to conquering the unconquerable, to denying the undeniable, we explore the many genuine

 and fresh possibilities in our ever-changing situation.

 

 

 

 

 

~  Gaylon Ferguson

with thanks to Lion's Roar

 

 

what makes them beautiful

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Look at the animals roaming the forest: God’s spirit dwells within them.

 Look at the birds flying across the sky: God’s spirit dwells within them.

 Look at the tiny insects crawling in the grass: God’s spirit dwells within them. . . .

 

 Look too at the great trees of the forest; look at the wild flowers and the grass in the fields;

 look even at your crops. God’s spirit is present within all plants as well.

 The presence of God’s spirit in all living things is what makes them beautiful; 

and if we look with God’s eyes, nothing on the earth is ugly. 

 

 

 

from The Letters of Pelagius: 

Celtic Soul Friend,

 edited by Robert Van de Weyer

 with thanks to Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations

 photo: Beluga Whales

 

 

nameless

 

In Love there are no days or nights,

For lovers it is all the same.

The musicians have gone, yet the Sufis listen;

In Love there is a beginning but no end.

Each has a name for his Beloved,

But for me my Beloved is nameless.

Sa’di, if you destroy an idol,

Then destroy the idol of the self.

~ Sa’di

from Islamic Mystical Poetry:

 Sufi Verse from the Early Mystics to Rumi

English version by Mahmood Jamal

with thanks to Poetry Chaikhana

all things arise, abide, and fall away

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes the quiet of Hakujuan, which was one of its only virtues, 

was broken by the noise of guests, often they were give to complaint -

whining about conditions, gossiping about the temples and their struggles,

being angry in a world designed to cure anger.

 

She would listen, but as the years passed she found herself 

strangely dreaming sometimes.

 

The waves of feeling would roll past, and she could feel

life rising and falling like the deck of a ship - as though

her own body were rolling through the waves of time.

 

Arising, abiding, and falling away -

this is all the Blessed One taught.

This is all it is, she thought, this is it.

 

All things arise, abide, and fall away, and we suffer only because we 

hold on to what we are bound to lose,  Pain is a given, but suffering -

that we make.

 

This is all he taught, she reminded herself,

walking through the rooms of the nunnery as though

rowing a raft through the tide -

up, down, up again. 

 

...

And then she saw that arising arose, abided, and fell away -

and that abiding arose, abided, and fell away - 

and that falling away arose, abided, and fell away.

She saw that knowing this arose, abided, and fell away.

 

Then she knew there was nothing more than this, 

no ground, nothing to lean on stronger than the cane she held,

nothing to lean upon at all, and no one leaning, 

and she opened the clenched fist in her mind and let go

and fell into the midst of everything. 

 

 

 

~ Teijitsu

from the lonely one, found in

Women of the Way by Sallie Tisdale

 

 

 

 

you who want knowledge

 

You who want

knowledge,

seek the Oneness

within

There you

will find

the clear mirror

already waiting

~ Hadewijch

English version by Jane Hirshfield

with thanks to Poetry Chaikhana

no past or future

 

Have you not noticed

that love is silence?

It may be while holding the hand of another

or looking lovingly at a child,

or taking in the beauty of an evening.

Love has no past or future, and so it is

with this extraordinary state of silence.

~ J. Krishnamurti

rest in inaction

 

You have only to rest in inaction 

and things will transform themselves. 

Smash your form and body,

 spit out hearing and eyesight, 

forget you are a thing among other things, 

and you may join in great unity 

with the deep and boundless.

~ Chuang Tzu

with thanks to love is a place

photo: sleeping sperm whales

the illusion of self as a unity

 

Even the most spiritual and highly cultivated of men habitually

 sees the world and himself through the lenses of delusive formulas

 and artless simplifications — and most of all himself. 

For it appears to be an inborn and imperative need of all men

 to regard the self as a unit. However often and however grievously

 this illusion is shattered, it always mends again… 

And if ever the suspicion of their manifold being dawns upon men

 of unusual powers and of unusually delicate perceptions, 

so that, as all genius must, they break through the illusion 

of the unity of the personality and perceive that the self is made up

 of a bundle of selves, they have only to say so and at once

 the majority puts them under lock and key.

Every ego, so far from being a unity is in the highest degree

 a manifold world, a constellated heaven, a chaos of forms, 

of states and stages, of inheritances and potentialities.

 It appears to be a necessity as imperative as eating and breathing

 for everyone to be forced to regard this chaos as a unity 

and to speak of his ego as though it were a one-fold

 and clearly detached and fixed phenomenon.

 Even the best of us shares the delusion.

[These selves] form a unity and a supreme individuality; 

and it is in this higher unity alone, not in the several characters, 

that something of the true nature of the soul is revealed.

Love of one’s neighbor is not possible without love of oneself… 

Self-hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism, 

and in the long run breeds the same cruel isolation and despair.

~ Hermann Hesse

from Steppenwolf

with thanks to The Marginalian by Maria Popova

your own true nature, it is home

 

Remember the clear light, the pure clear white light from which everything

 in the universe comes, to which everything in the universe returns; 

the original nature of your own mind. 

The natural state of the universe unmanifest.

Let go into the clear light, 

trust it, merge with it.

 It is your own true nature, 

it is home.

The visions you experience exist within your consciousness; 

the forms they take are determined by your past attachments,

 your past desires, your past fears, your past karma.

These visions have no reality outside your consciousness.

No matter how frightening some of them may seem they cannot hurt you. 

Just let them pass through your consciousness. They will all pass in time. 

No need to become involved with them; no need to become attracted

 to the beautiful visions; no need to be repulsed by the frightening ones. 

No need to be seduced or excited by the sexual ones.

No need to be attached to them at all.

Just let them pass. If you become involved with these visions,

 you may wander for a long time confused. Just let them pass through

 your consciousness like clouds passing through an empty sky.

Fundamentally they have no more reality than this.

Remember these teachings, remember the clear light, 

the pure bright shining white light of your own nature, 

it is deathless.

If you can look into the visions you can experience and recognize

 that they are composed of the same pure clear white light 

as everything else in the universe.

No matter where or how far you wander, the light is only a split second,

 a half-breath away. 

It is never too late to recognize the clear light.

~ From the Tibetan Book of the Dead

Adapted from the translation by W. Y. Evans-Wentz,

 edited by Jack Kornfield

with thanks to love is a place

being silent

 

As my prayer became more attentive and inward

I had less and less to say.

I finally became completely silent.

I started to listen

– which is even further removed from speaking.

I first thought that praying entailed speaking.

I then learnt that praying is hearing,

not merely being silent.

This is how it is.

To pray does not mean to listen to oneself speaking,

Prayer involves becoming silent,

And being silent,

And waiting until God is heard.

~ Søren Kierkegaard

the making of sand

 

Empty pages

Flap in the wind

In the sovereign silence

There is no history

There is only the cracking

And polishing of stones

by the sun

You see the making of sand

Is a long business

Shaped and re shaped

By surrender

 ~ Ayaz Angus Landman

from The Holy Algorithm

with thanks to Poetry Chaikhana Blog

Photo by Eliot Porter

a train of discontinuous fragments

 

"But I don’t want to go among mad people," 

Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: 

"we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."

"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said the Cat, 

"or you wouldn’t have come here.”

~ Lewis Carrol

from Alice in Wonderland

In listening to my patients tell me thousands of stories, 

as they try to find some peace in the present, 

I have learned this beyond the shadow of a doubt. 

 Rather than behaving sanely, rather than being in touch with our present realities, 

we human beings - all of us, myself included - 

are too often simply run by losses and hardships long gone by,

 and by our stockpiled fears.  

 

Our collective history, our individual lives, our very minds, 

bear unmistakable testimony.

Instead of receding harmlessly into the past, the darkest,

 most frightening events from our childhood and adolescence gain power 

and authority as we grow older.  The memory of such events 

causes us to depart from ourselves, psychologically speaking,

 or to separate one part of our awareness from the others.  

 

What we conceive of as an unbroken thread of consciousness is, 

instead, quite often a train of discontinuous fragments.  

Our awareness is divided.  

And much more commonly that we know, 

even our personalities are fragmented - 

disorganized team efforts trying to cope with the past -

 rather than the sane, unified wholes 

we anticipate in ourselves and in other people...



~ Martha Stout
from The Myth of Sanity, 

Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness

seeing through the "I" concept

 

After a summer storm, the sunlight comes out and we see a rainbow in the sky.
And generally, we feel happy at seeing a rainbow. It's a beautiful object of sight.
But the question is, is there a thing in itself which is the rainbow?
When we look more carefully, we see that what we're calling a rainbow
is the coming together of certain conditions of light and moisture and air.
And when these conditions come together in a certain way,
there's an appearance of a rainbow, but there's no thing in itself
which is the rainbow other than the appearance
arising out of these conditions.

Self is like a rainbow. There is an appearance of Bob, of Joseph,
of each one of us. There's an appearance which comes together,
which appears because of the conditions of all our mental, physical phenomena
coming together in a certain pattern. And we recognize the pattern.
We call it Bob, Joseph, rainbow. And on a relative level, we are experiencing it.
When we see a rainbow, we are responding to something.
On a relative level, we can say rainbow exists, but on a more ultimate level,
we see that there's no essential substratum which is rainbow.

There's no essence.

One Vipassana teacher really expressed this beautifully. Somebody asked him,
"Is the self real?" And he said, "Yes, the self is real. But not really real."
That captures these two levels. It is real on the relative level,
and we interact on this level, it's the level of our conventional reality.
We're not dismissing that. But we just see that on a deeper level,
there's another whole way of perceiving things.

Let me give you one more example.

You go out at night and, if it's a clear night and the stars are out,
most people can recognize the constellation of the Big Dipper.
The question then is, is there really a Big Dipper up there? …


Big Dipper is a concept which we're overlaying on a certain pattern of stars,
but there's no Big Dipper.

So, self is like Big Dipper. The notion of self is a concept,
just like Big Dipper is a concept, and we're overlaying that concept of self
onto this pattern of mental, physical, emotional content.
We're putting a name, we're giving a designation
of Joseph, Bob, Big Dipper.

But what's interesting is that, even though we know Big Dipper is a concept
and there's no Big Dipper in the sky, to go out at night, look up at the sky
and see if it's possible not to see the Big Dipper—
it’s very difficult, because we've been so conditioned to see
in a certain way.

It's helpful to realize that the concept of Big Dipper can be useful,
just like the concept of self can be useful. One of the stars of Big Dipper
actually points to the North star. If you're out in the middle of the ocean
and you want to navigate, you need to find the north,
the concept can be helpful.

We're not suggesting—either with Big Dipper or self—to get rid of the concept,
but to understand that that's what it is. ...

When we see that Big Dipper is a concept, even though we use it,
what happens is when we look up at the sky, we see the sky undivided.
It's possible to see all the stars as part of a unity.
Imagine what it would be like if we could experience the whole world
not bound or limited by the concept of the self.
We need to use it to operate on the relative level,
but if we have a deeper wisdom that it is just a concept,
then so many aspects of our separateness falls away.



~ Joseph Goldstein
from Mindfulness Interviews
by Robert Wright