consenting to be deceived

By closing the eyes and slumbering and consenting to be deceived
 by shows, men establish and confirm their daily life of routine 
and habit everywhere, which still is built on purely illusory foundations ...

I have read in a Hindu book, that "there was a king's son,
 who, being expelled in infancy from his native city,
 was brought up by a forester, and, growing to maturity in that state, 
imagined himself to belong to the barbarous race with which he lived. 
 One of his father's ministers having discovered him,
 revealed to him what he was, and the misconception of his character 
was removed, and he knew himself to be a prince.  So soul,
" continues the Hindu philosopher, "from the circumstances in which it is placed,
 mistakes its own character, until the truth is revealed to it
 by some holy teacher, and then it knows itself to be Brahma."

I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live this mean life 
that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface of things.

~ Henry David Thoreau

from Walden, "Where I lived, and what I lived for," 1854

All my body calls

All my body calls

for something in this sleeping

earth

we call the spirit.

But how

from lifted arms

where stars run through fingers

and the night is like sand

do I breathe a fragrance of its wisdom

do I call its name

or listen to the drops

that trickle down to earth

and hear

life being given

not only through the moving hands of the forest

but through the hand that reaches in

the dark unmoving regions of the chest

and uncovers slowly

the enormous

indistinct

shape of the ocean.

~  David Whyte 

a monk sips morning tea

A monk sips morning tea,

it's quiet,

the chrysanthemum's flowering.

~ Matsuo Basho

translated by Robert Hass 

Flowering Vetch

Each of the tragedies can be read

as the tale of a single ripening self,

every character part of one soul.

The comedies can be included in this as well.

Often the flaw is a flaw of self-knowledge;

sometimes greed.  For this reason

the comic glint of a school of herring leads to no plot line,

we cannot imagine a tragedy of donkeys or bees.

Before the ordinary realities, ordinary failures:

hunger, coldness, anger, longing, heat.

Yet one day, a thought as small as a vetch flower opens.

After, no longer minding the minor and almost wordless role,

playing the messenger given the letter

everyone knows will arrive too late or ruined by water.

To have stopped by the fig and eaten was not an error, then,

but the reason for going.

~  Jane Hirshfield

from After

Inter-us

.

You are me and I am you.
Isn't it obvious that we inter-are?
You cultivate the flower in yourself
so that I will be beautiful.
I transform the garbage in myself
so that you do not have to suffer.
I support you you support me.
I am here to bring you peace
you are here to bring me joy

 

 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh