gaps

The gaps are the thing. 

The gaps are the spirit's one home,

 the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that 

the spirit can discover itself like a once-blind man unbound. 

The gaps are the clefts in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God; 

they are the fissures between mountains and cells the wind lances through,

 the icy narrowing fords splitting the cliffs of mystery. 

Go up into the gaps.

 If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. 

Stalk the gaps. 

Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock -

 more than a maple - a universe.

~ Annie Dillard

Early in the morning

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Early in the morning, walking

in a garden in Vancouver

three thousand miles from your grave,

the sky dripping, song

sparrows singing in the borders,

I come suddenly upon 

a Japanese dogwood, a tree

you loved, bowed down with bloom.

By what blessedness do I weep?

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~ Wendell Berry

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Honey

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Luxury itself, thick as a Persian carpet,

honey fills the jar

with the concentrated sweetness

of countless thefts,

the blossoms bereft, the hive destitute.

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Though my debts are heavy

honey would pay them all.

Honey heals, honey mends.

A spoon takes more than it can hold

without reproach. A knife plunges deep,

but does no injury.

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Honey moves with intense deliberation.

Between one drop and the next

forty lean years pass in a distant desert.

What one generation labored for

another receives,

and yet another gives thanks.

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~ Connie Wanek, from 'On Speaking Terms'

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reblogged from: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org

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Beautiful face

Beautiful face
That like a daisy opens its petals to the sun
So do you
Open your face to me as I turn the page.

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Enchanting smile
Any man would be under your spell,
Oh, beauty of a magazine.

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How many poems have been written to you?
How many Dantes have written to you, Beatrice?
To your obsessive illusion
To your manufactured fantasy.

 .

But today I won't make one more Cliché
And write this poem to you.
No, no more clichés.

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This poem is dedicated to those women
Whose beauty is in their charm,
In their intelligence,
In their character,
Not on their fabricated looks.

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This poem is to you women,
That like a Shahrazade wake up
Everyday with a new story to tell,
A story that sings for change
That hopes for battles:
Battles for the love of the united flesh
Battles for passions aroused by a new day
Battles for the neglected rights
Or just battles to survive one more night.

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Yes, to you women in a world of pain
To you, bright star in this ever-spending universe
To you, fighter of a thousand-and-one fights
To you, friend of my heart.

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From now on, my head won't look down to a magazine
Rather, it will contemplate the night
And its bright stars,
And so, no more clichés. 

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~ Octavio Paz 

Man is a machine

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Man is a machine which reacts blindly to external forces and, this being so, he has no will, and very little control of himself, if any at all. What we have to study, therefore, is not psychology - for that applies only to a developed man - but mechanics. Man is not only a machine but a machine which works very much below the standard it would be capable of maintaining if it were working properly.

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Man is a machine, but a very peculiar machine. He is a machine which, in right circumstances, and with right treatment, can know that he is a machine, and having fully realized this, he may find the ways to cease to be a machine.

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First of all, what man must know is that he is not one; he is many. He has not one permanent and unchangeable "I" or Ego. He is always different. One moment he is one, another moment he is another, the third moment he is a third, and so on, almost without end.

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~ P.D. Ouspensky

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reblogged from: http://whiskeyriver.blogspot.com/

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To see myself and my life

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To see myself and my life as they truly are is joy. 

After all the struggle and avoiding and denying and going the other way,

 it is deeply satisfying for a second to be there with life as it is. 

The satisfaction is the very core of ourselves.

 Who we are is beyond words -

 just that open power of life, 

manifesting constantly in all sorts of interesting things,

 even in our own misery and struggles. 

The hassle is both horrendous and wholesome.

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~ Charlotte Joko Beck

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reblogged from: http://whiskeyriver.blogspot.com/

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restlessness

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If you could only keep quiet,

 clear of memories and expectations, 

you would be able to discern the beautiful pattern of events. 

Its your restlessness that causes chaos.

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~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

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I love the dark hours of my being

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I love the dark hours of my being.

My mind deepens into them.

There I can find, as in old letters,

the days of my life, already lived,

and held like a legend, and understood

Then the knowing comes: I can open

to another life that’s wide and timeless.

So I am sometimes like a tree

rustling over a graveside

and making real the dream

of the one its living roots

     embrace:

a dream once lost

among sorrows and songs.

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~ Rainer Maria Rilke

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reblogged from: http://kissing.wordpress.com/

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The 10 Bulls

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The 10 Bulls

By Kakuan

Illustrated by Tomikichiro Tokuriki

Transcribed by Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps

 

 

The bull is the eternal principle of life, truth in action.

The ten bulls represent sequent steps in the realization of one’s true nature.

 

The 10 Bulls is more than poetry, more than pictures.  It is a revelation of spiritual unfoldment paralleled in every bible of human experience.

 

In the twelfth century the Chinese master Kakuan drew the pictures of the ten bulls,

 basing them on earlier Taoist bulls, and wrote the comments in prose and verse translated here. 

 

 His version was pure Zen, going deeper than earlier versions, 

which had ended with the nothingness of the eighth picture.

 

 

I. The Search for the Bull

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I.                    The Search for the Bull

In the pastures of this world, I endlessly push aside the tall grasses in search of the bull.

Following unnamed rivers, lost upon the interpenetrating paths of distant mountains,

My strength failing and my vitality exhausted, I cannot find the bull.

I only hear the locusts chirring through the forest at night.

 

 

 

 

Comment: 

 

 The bull never has been lost.  What need is there to search?  

Only because of separation from my true nature, I fail to find him. 

 In the confusion of the senses I lose even his tracks. 

 Far from home, I see many crossroads,

 but which way is the right one I know not. 

 Greed and fear, good and bad, entangle me.

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 ~ Kakuan

from 10 BULLS

Transcribed by. Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps 

 Illustrated by Tomikichiro Tokuriki

 

II. Discovering the Footprints

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II.                    Discovering the Footprints

Along the riverbank under the trees, I discover footprints!

Even under the fragrant grass I see his prints.

Deep in remote mountains they are found.

These traces no more can be hidden that one’s nose, looking heavenward.

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Comment:  Understanding the teaching, I see the footprints of the bull.  Then I learn that, just as many utensils are made from one metal, so too are myriad entities made of the fabric of self.  Unless I discriminate, how will I perceive the true from the untrue?  Not yet having entered the gate, nevertheless I have discerned the path.

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III. Perceiving the Bull

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III.                    Perceiving the Bull

I hear the song of the nightingale.

The sun is warm, the wind is mild, willows are green along the shore,

Here no bull can hide!

What artist can draw that massive head, those majestic horns?

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Comment:  When one hears the voice, one can sense its source.  As soon as the six senses merge, the gate is entered.  Wherever one enters one sees the head of the bull!  This unity is like salt in water, like color in dyestuff.  The slightest thing is not apart from self.

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IV. Catching the Bull

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IV.                    Catching the Bull

I seize him with a terrific struggle.

His great will and power are inexhaustible.

He charges to the high plateau far above the cloud-mists,

Or in an impenetrable ravine he stands.

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Comment:  He dwelt in the forest a long time, but I caught him today!  Infatuation for scenery interferes with his direction.  Longing for sweeter grass, he wanders away.  His mind still is stubborn and unbridled.  If I wish him to submit, I must raise my whip.

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V. Taming the Bull

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V.                    Taming the Bull

The whip and rope are necessary,

Else he might stray off down some dusty road.

Being well trained, he becomes naturally gentle.

Then, unfettered, he obeys his master.

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Comment:  When one thought arises, another thought follows.  When the first thought springs from enlightenment, all subsequent thoughts are true.  Through delusion, one makes everything untrue.  Delusion is not caused by objectivity;  it is the result of subjectivity.  Hold the nose-ring tight and do not allow even a doubt.

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VII. The Bull Transcended

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VII.                    The Bull Transcended

Astride the bull, I reach home.

I am serene.  The bull too can rest.

The dawn has come.  In blissful repose,

Within my thatched dwelling I have abandoned the whip and rope.

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Comment:   All is one law, not two.  We only make the bull a temporary subject.  It is as the relation of the rabbit and trap, of fish and net.  It is as gold and dross, or the moon emerging from a cloud.  One path of clear light travels on throughout endless time.

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