the silent self

There is a silent self within us whose presence is disturbing

 precisely because it is so silent: it can't be spoken.

 It has to remain silent. To articulate it, to verbalize it,

 is to tamper with it, and in some way to destroy it. 

Now let us frankly face the fact that our culture is one 

which is geared in many ways to help us evade any need to face this inner, silent self.

 We live in a state of constant semi attention to the sound of voices, music, traffic,

 or the generalized noise of what goes on around us all the time. 

This keeps us immersed in a flood of racket and words,

 a diffuse medium in which our consciousness is half diluted:

 we are not quite "thinking", not entirely responding, 

but we are more or less there. 

 

We are not fully present and not entirely absent, 

not fully withdrawn, yet not completely available. 

 

It cannot be said that we are really participating in anything

 and we may in fact, be half conscious of our alienation and resentment. 

Yet we derive a certain comfort from the vague sense that we are

 "part of something" -- 

although we are not quite able to define what that something is -- 

and probably wouldn't want to define it even if we could. 

 

We just float along in the general noise. 

Resigned and indifferent,

 we share semi-consciously in the mindless mind of Muzak 

and radio commercials which pass for "reality".

 

 

 

 

- Thomas Merton

from  Love & Living

art by Andy Mercer

 

 

 

the unwinding

So we sit down, we’re quiet for a while.
And gradually the unwinding happens –
of the mind, and the body, and the heart.
And then maybe we get a glimpse, or a taste, of freedom;
and if we do, then we give our attention to that.
We surrender to that presence.
Dropping out of our heads and surrendering to stillness,
one-pointed presence, effortless vastness.
We let it take us, completely.
That’s what surrender is.



~ Jon Bernie

from  Ordinary Freedom

 

 

 

with mindfulness' rope

 

 

 

 

 

Those who wish to keep the trainings

Must with perfect self-possession guard their minds.

Without this guard upon the mind,

The trainings cannot be preserved.

 

Wandering where it will, the elephant of mind,

Will bring us down to torment in the hell of Unrelenting Pain. 

No worldly beast, however wild and crazed, 

Could bring upon us such calamities.

 

If, with mindfulness' rope,

The elephant of mind is tethered all around,

Our fears will come to nothing,

Every virtue drop into our hands. 

 

 

 

 

~ Shantideva

from The Way of the Bodhisattva

 

 

 

 

equanimity

 

 

 

 

 

 

The things of the world cannot affect the soul;

 they lie inert outside it, and only internal beliefs disturb it.

Nothing happens that isn’t in accord with universal nature, 

and before long you won’t exist at all, just like [your heroes]…

 

 fix your gaze on the matter at hand and see it for what it is,

 and then, keeping in your mind 

your obligation to be a good person 

and the demands of your humanity, 

go right ahead and do it, in the way that seems to you

 to be most just. 

 

But do it with kindness and modesty

describe to yourself every impression that occurs to your mind, 

so that you can clearly see what the thing is like in its entirety, 

stripped to its essence, and tell yourself its proper name 

and the names of the elements of which it consists 

and into which it will be resolved.

 

 Nothing is more conducive to objectivity than the ability 

methodically and honestly to test everything that you come across in life, 

and always to look at things in such a way that you consider

 what kind of part each of them plays in what kind of universe,

 and what value it has for the universe as a whole.

If you carry out every present task by following right reason assiduously, 

resolutely, and with kindness; if rather than getting distracted by irrelevancies, 

you keep your guardian spirit unspoiled and steady, 

as though you had to surrender it at any moment; 

if you engage with the task not with expectations or evasions,

but satisfied if your current performance is in accord 

with nature and if what you say and express is spoken with true  honesty, 

you’ll be living the good life. And there’s no one who can stop you doing so!

 

 

 

 

~ Marcus Aurelius

excerpts from Meditations: The Annotated Edition by Robin Waterfield

art - Light distribution on soap bubble from Le monde physique

with thanks to brainpickings

 

 

 

song of the barren orange tree

Woodcutter.

Cut my shadow from me.

Free me from the torment

of seeing myself without fruit.

Why was I born among mirrors?

The day walks in circles around me,

and the night copies me

in all its stars.

I want to live without seeing myself.

And I will dream that ants

and thistleburrs are my 

leaves and my birds.

Woodcutter.

Cut my shadow from me.

Free me from the torment

of seeing myself without fruit.

~ Federico Garcia Lorca

translation by W.S. Merwin

Lorca and his family at their house in Granada.

the man who lost his key

A Sufi heard a cry: "I've lost my key;

If it's been found, please give it back to me -

My door's locked fast; I wish to God I knew

How I could get back in.  What can I do?"

The Sufi said: "And why should you complain?

You know where this door is; if you remain

Outside it - even if it is shut fast -

Someone no doubt will open it at last.

You make this fuss for nothing; how much more

Should I complain, who've lost both key and door!"

But if this Sufi presses on, he'll find

The closed or open door which haunts his mind.

Men cannot understand the sufis' state,

That deep Bewilderment which is their fate.

To those who ask: "What can I do?" reply:

"Bid all that you have done till now goodbye!"

Once in the Valley of Bewilderment

The pilgrim suffers endless discontent,

Crying: "How long must I endure delay,

Uncertainty? When shall I see the Way?

When shall I know? Oh, when?"  But knowledge here

Is turned again to indecisive fear;

Complaints become an grateful eulogy

And blasphemy is faith, faith blasphemy.

~Farid Attar

from The Conference of Birds

translation by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis

dreams

.

~  Emil Nolde

born: 7 August 1867 Hans Emil Hansen Nolde at Burkal, North Schleswig

died: 13th  April 1956 Seebüll, North Friesland

one of the leading painters of expressionism

one of the great water-color artists in the 20th Century

Nolde is known for his expressive choice of colors

with thanks to Semsakrebsler

search for?

Don’t you see that it is your very search for happiness

 that makes you feel miserable? 

 

Try the other way: indifferent to pain and pleasure, 

neither seeking, nor refusing, 

give all your attention to the level on which

 ‘I am’ is timelessly present. 

Soon you will realize that peace and happiness are in your very nature 

and it is only seeking them through some particular channels that disturbs. 

Avoid the disturbance, that is all. 

 

To seek there is no need;

 you would not seek what you already have. 

You yourself are God, the Supreme Reality. 

To begin with, trust me, trust the teacher. 

It enables you to make the first step - 

and then your trust is justified by your own experience.

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

happiness

As long as you chase happiness,

you are not ready to be happy, 

even if you owned everything.

As long as you lament a loss,

run after prizes in restless races,

you have not yet known peace.

But when you have moved beyond desire,

become a stranger to your goals and longings

and call no longer on happiness by name,

then you heart rises calmly

above the ebb and flow of action

and peace has reached your soul.

~ Hermann Hesse

translation by Ludwig Max Fischer 

 

so much

.

 

 

 

 

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.

With sadness there is something to rub against,

A wound to tend with lotion and cloth.

When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,

Something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.

 

But happiness floats.

It doesn’t need you to hold it down.

It doesn’t need anything.

Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,

And disappears when it wants to.

You are happy either way.

Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house

And now live over a quarry of noise and dust

Cannot make you unhappy.

Everything has a life of its own,

It too could wake up filled with possibilities

Of coffee cake and ripe peaches,

And love even the floor which needs to be swept,

The soiled linens and scratched records….

 

Since there is no place large enough 

To contain so much happiness,

You shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you

Into everything you touch. You are not responsible.

You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit

For the moon, but continues to hold it, and to share it,

And in that way, be known.






.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

.

a life

That the stars are adamant

everyone understands—

but I won’t give up seeking joy on each blue wave

or peace below every gray stone.

If happiness never comes, what is a life?

A lily withers in the sand

and if its nature has failed? The tide

washes the beach at night.

What is the fly looking for on the spider’s web?

What does a dayfly make of its hours?

(Two wings creased over a hollow body.)

Black will never turn to white—

yet the perfume of our struggle lingers

as each morning fresh flowers

spring up from hell.

The day will come

when the earth is emptied, the skies collapse

and all goes still—

when nothing remains but the dayfly

folded in a leaf.

But no one knows it.

~  Edith Sodergran

translation by Averill Curdy

bluebird

 

 

 

 

 

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you? 

 

 

 

~ Charles Bukowski

from The Last Night of the Earth Poems

 art by Ayat Fawzy

 

 

 

 

a gardner digs in another time

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The gardener digs in another time, without past or future, beginning or end.

 A time that does not cleave the day with rush hours, lunch breaks, the last bus home.

 As you walk in the garden you pass into this time —

 the moment of entering can never be remembered.

 Around you the landscape lies transfigured.

 Here is the Amen beyond the prayer.

I have re-discovered my boredom here… 

where I can fight “what next” with nothing.

My garden is a memorial, each circular bed a dial and a true lover’s knot 

— planted with lavender, helichryssum and santolina.

to whom it may concern
in the dead stones of a planet
no longer remembered as earth
may he decipher this opaque hieroglyph
perform an archeology of soul
on these precious fragments
all that remains of our vanished days
here — at the sea’s edge
I have planted a stony garden
dragon tooth dolmen spring up
to defend the porch
steadfast warriors

 

 

 

 

~ Derek Jarman

from Modern Nature

with thanks to brianpickings

art by Emily Hughes

 

 

something unimportant

Happy as something unimportant

and free as a thing unimportant.

As something no one prizes

and which does not prize itself.

As something mocked by all

and which mocks at their mockery.

As laughter without serious reason. 

As a yell able to outyell itself.

Happy as no matter what,

as any no matter what.

Happy

as a dog's tail.

~ Anna Swir

from Talking to my body

translated by Czeslaw Milosz

without why

The Rose is without why

She blooms because she blooms

She does not care for herself

Asks not if she is seen.

***


The rose which here on earth is now perceived by me,
Has blossomed thus in God from all eternity.

~ Angelus Silesius

photo by albert koetsier