when the shoe fits

Ch'ui the draftsman

Could draw more perfect circles freehand

Than with a compass.

His fingers brought forth

Spontaneous forms from nowhere. His mind

Was meanwhile free and without concern

With what he was doing.

No application was needed

His mind was perfectly simple

And knew no obstacle.

So, when the shoe fits

The foot is forgotten,

When the belt fits

The belly is forgotten,

When the heart is right

"For" and "against" are forgotten.

No drives no compulsions,

No needs, no attractions:

Then your affairs

Are under control.

You are a free man.

Easy is right. Begin right

And you are easy.

Continue easy and you are right.

The right way to go easy

Is to forget the right way

And forget that the going is easy.

~ Chuang Tzu 

(In the Dark Before Dawn)

on summer evenings we sat in the yard

On summer evenings we sat in the yard,

the house dark, the stars bright overhead.

The laps and arms of the old

held the young.  As we talked we knew

by the dark distances of Heaven's lights

our smallness, and the greatness of our love.

~ Wendell Berry

when I fall into the abyss

 

Because I’m a Karamazov. Because when I fall into the abyss, 

I go straight into it, head down and heels up, 

and I’m even pleased that I’m falling in just such a humiliating position, 

and for me I find it beautiful.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky

photo:  Felix Baumgartner breaking the sound barrier

 

 

the inner landscape of beauty

~ John O'Donohue

who?

The Student

Who makes my mind think?

Who fills my body with vitality?

Who causes my tongue to speak? Who is that

Invisible one who sees through my eyes

And hears through my ears?

 The Teacher

The Self is the ear of the ear,

The eye of the eye, the mind of the mind,

The word of words, and the life of life.

Rising above the senses and the mind

And renouncing separate existence,

The wise realize the deathless Self.

Him our eyes cannot see, nor words express;

He cannot be grasped even by the mind.

We do not know, we cannot understand,

Because he is different from the known

And he is different from the unknown.

Thus have we heard from the illumined ones.

That which makes the tongue speak but cannot be 

Spoken by the tongue, know that as the Self.

This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes the mind think but cannot be

Thought by the mind, that is the Self indeed.

This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes the eye see but cannot be

Seen by the eye,that is the Self indeed.

This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes the ear hear but cannot be 

Heard by the ear, that is the Self indeed.

This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes you draw breath but cannot be 

Drawn by your breath. that is the Self indeed.

This Self is not someone other than you.

~ The Kena Upanishad

translation by Eknath Easwaran