the winged energy of delight

.

 

As once the winged energy of delight

carried you over childhood's dark abysses,

now beyond your own life build the great

arch of unimagined bridges.

 

Wonders happen if we can succeed

in passing through the harshest danger;

but only in a bright and purely granted

achievement can we realize the wonder.

 

To work with Things in the indescribable

relationship is not too hard for us;

the pattern grows more intricate and subtle,

and being swept along is not enough.

 

Take your practiced powers and stretch them out

until they span the chasm between two

contradictions... For the god

wants to know himself in you.

 

 

 

 

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from uncollected poems

each is fulfilled in the other

The universe must be experienced as the Great Self. 

Each is fulfilled in the other:

 the Great Self is fulfilled in the individual self,

 the individual self is fulfilled in the Great Self.

 

 Alienation is overcome as soon as we experience this surge of energy 

from the source that has brought the universe through the centuries.

New fields of energy become available to support the human venture.

 These new energies find expression and support in celebration. 

For in the end the universe can only be explained in terms of celebration.

It is all an exuberant expression of existence itself.

~ Thomas Berry

Dalai Lama - 86th Birthday Message

 

 

 

 

 

 

compassion - radical kinship

 

 

 

 
"It is not enough to believe that compassion is important and to think about how nice it is!"

Self-centeredness inhibits our love for others,

 and we are all afflicted by it to one degree or another.

 

 For true happiness to come about, we need a calm mind,

 and such peace of mind is brought about only by a compassionate attitude. 

How can we develop this attitude? 

 

 We need to make a concerted effort to develop it; 

we must use all the events of our daily life to transform our thoughts and behavior.

Many forms of compassionate feeling are mixed with desire and attachment.

 For instance, the love parents feel for their child is often strongly associated 

with their own emotional needs, so it is not fully compassionate. 

 

Usually when we are concerned about a close friend, we call this compassion, 

but it too is usually attachment. Even in marriage, the love between husband and wife—

particularly at the beginning, when each partner still may not know the other’s 

deeper character very well—depends more on attachment than genuine love.

 

 Marriages that last only a short time do so because they lack compassion; 

they are produced by emotional attachment based on projection and expectation,

 and as soon as the projections change, the attachment disappears. 

 

Our desire can be so strong that the person to whom we are attached appears flawless,

 when in fact he or she has many faults. In addition, attachment makes us exaggerate

 small, positive qualities. When this happens, it indicates that our love is motivated

 more by personal need than by genuine care for another.

Compassion without attachment is possible. 

Therefore, we need to clarify the distinctions between compassion and attachment. 

 

True compassion is not just an emotional response but a firm commitment founded on reason.

 Because of this firm foundation, a truly compassionate attitude toward others

 does not change even if they behave negatively.

 

 Genuine compassion is based not on our own projections and expectations, 

but rather on the needs of the other: irrespective of whether another person 

is a close friend or an enemy.

 

 This is genuine compassion. 

For a practitioner, the goal is to develop this genuine compassion, 

this genuine wish for the well-being of another, 

in fact for every living being throughout the universe. 

 

 

~ Dalai Lama

adapted from The Compassionate Life

 art of Father Gregory Boyle from

Saint Ignatius College Prep Library

 

 

 

life's splendor

Life's splendor forever lies in wait 

about each one of us in all its fullness, 

but veiled from view, deep down,

 invisible, far off. It is there, though, 

not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. 

If you summon it by the right word, 

by its right name, it will come.

 

 

  ~ Franz Kafka

from Diaries, 1910 1923

 

 

 

I was a tiny insect

I was a tiny insect. Now a mountain.
I was left behind. Now honoured at the head.

You healed my wounded hunger and anger,

and made me a poet who sings about joy.

 

 
~ Rumi

master of dance

.

When a kid with Down’s Syndrome lumbers along

in a coat of clumsy, squinting to find

a level parade, treading mostly alone;

what do you make of this jack-of-no-trade?

 

Revulsion, compassion, empathy, fear,

anger or sadness because strangeness is near

- what do you reckon, or, what do you feel?

 

‘owbout respect for a teacher over there,

a mirror of openness, simpleness, now

enjoying a journey with others and me

as a master of dancing, exuberance,

 

and with a strange little question ‘What’s the real deal?’

like, your last day on earth, well, what will you choose

- one million dollars, a hug, celebration,

or smile?

~ John Lavan

more at real poems

.

the tongue says loneliness

The tongue says loneliness, anger, grief,

but does not feel them.

As Monday cannot feel Tuesday,

nor Thursday

reach back to Wednesday

as a mother reaches out for her found child.

As this life is not a gate, but the horse plunging through it.

Not a bell, 

but the sound of the bell in the bell-shape,

lashing full strength with the first blow from inside the iron.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from Come, Thief

a zero between plus and minus

 

 

 

 

 

Discursive knowledge, knowledge by

Indirection passes away

And love, knowledge by direction,

Directly of another, grows

In its place. There exists a point

At which the known passes through

A sort of occulation,

A zero between plus and

Minus in which knower and known

And their knowledge cease to exist. 

Perfect love casts out knowledge.

...

 

"And what is love? said Pilate,

And washed his hands.

 

 

 

 

 

~ Kenneth Rexroth

from The Dragon and the Unicorn

 

 

 

 

vanished

.

The birds have vanished down the sky. 

Now the last cloud drains away. 

We sit together, the mountain and me, 

until only the mountain remains. 

~ Li Po (China, 701-762)

translated by Sam Hamill

from Yellow River: Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese

knocking

 

 

 

 

 

If there are a "chosen few"

then I am not one of them,

if an "elect," well then

I have not been elected.

I am one who is knocking

at the door.  I am one whose foot

is on the bottom rung.

But I know that Heaven's

bottom rung is Heaven

though the ladder is standing

on earth where I work

by day and at night sleep

with my head upon a stone.

 

 

 

 

~ Wendell Berry

from Leavings

 art by Wade M Flickr

 

 

 

just so long

 

 

 

as freedom is a breakfastfood

or truth can live with right and wrong

or molehills are from mountains made

-long enough and just so long

will being pay the rent of seem

and genius please the talentgang

and water most encourage flame

 

as hatracks into peachtrees grow

or hopes dance best on bald men's hair

and every finger is a toe

and any courage is a fear

-long enough and just so long

will the impure think all things pure

and hornets wail by children stung

 

or as the seeing are the blind

and robins never welcome spring

nor flatfolk prove their world is round

nor dingsters die at break of dong

and common's rare and millstones float

-long enough and just so long

tomorrow will not be too late

 

worms are the words but joy's the voice

down shall go which and up come who

breasts will be breasts and thighs will be thighs

deeds cannot dream what dreams can do

-time is a tree (this life one leaf)

but love is the sky and i am for you

just so long and long enough

 

 

 

~ e.e.cummings

.

plung

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.

Jump into experience while you are alive!

Think...and think... while you are alive.

What you call "salvation" belongs to the time

before death.

 

If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,

do you think

ghosts will do it after?

 

The idea that the soul will rejoin with the ecstatic

just because the body is rotten -

that is all fantasy.

If you find nothing now,

you will simply end up with an apartment in the 

City of Death

 

If you make love with the divine now, in the next

life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

 

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,

Believe in the Great Sound!

 

Kabir says this:  When the Guest is being searched for,

it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that

does all the work.

Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

 

 

 

 

Kabir

art by Juna Biagioni

the thought that we are separated

 

 

 

 

 

 

The chief thing that separates us...

 is the thought that we are separated.

 

 If we get rid of that thought, our troubles will be greatly reduced. 

We fail to believe that we are always with God

 and that is part of every reality. 

 

The present moment, every object we see,

 our inmost nature are all rooted in God. 

 

But we hesitate to believe this until our personal experience

 gives us the confidence to believe in it. . . . 

 

God constantly speaks to us through each other as well as from within. 

The interior experience of God’s presence activates our capacity to perceive

 the divine in everything else, in people, events, and in nature. 

 

We may enjoy union with God in any experience

 of the external senses as well as in prayer. 

 

 

 

 

~ Thomas Keating

 

 

 

 

 

for one thing leads to another

 

 

 

 

 

 Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eat
of the sweet grass?
Will the owl bite off its own wings?
Will the lark forget to lift its body in the air or
forget to sing?
Will the rivers run upstream?

Behold, I say - behold
the reliability and the finery and the teachings
of this gritty earth gift.


2.
Eat bread and understand comfort.
Drink water, and understand delight.
Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets
are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds
who are drinking the sweetness, who are
thrillingly gluttonous.

For one thing leads to another.
Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.
Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.

And someone's face, whom you love, will be as a star
both intimate and ultimate,
and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.

And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:
oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two
beautiful bodies of your lungs.


3.
The witchery of living
is my whole conversation
with you, my darlings
All I can tell you is what I know.

Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.

It's more than bones.
It's more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It's more than the beating of the single heart.
It's praising.
It's giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life - just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe
still another.


4.
Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus,
the dancer, the potter,
to make me a begging bowl
which I believe
my soul needs.

And if I come to you,
to the door of your comfortable house
with unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails,
will you put something into it?

I would like to take this chance.
I would like to give you this chance.


5.
We do one thing or another; we stay the same, or we
change.
Congratulations, if
you have changed.


6.
Let me ask you this.
Do you think that beauty exists for some
fabulous reason?

And, if you have not been enchanted by this adventure -
your life -
what would do for you?


7.
What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.
Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
That was many years ago.
Since then I have gone out from my confinements,
though with difficulty.

I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.
I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.
They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment
somehow or another.)

And I have become the child of clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.






Mary Oliver
from Evidence

art by Corinna Button

 with thanks to being silently drawn

 

 

 

skill seems like clumsiness

.

 

 

 

The greatest accomplishments seem imperfect,

yet their usefulness is not diminished.

The greatest fullness seems empty,

yet it will be inexhaustible.

 

The greatest straightness seems crooked.

The most valued skill seems like clumsiness.

The greatest speech seems full of stammers.

 

Movement overcomes the cold,

and stillness overcomes the heat.

That which is pure and still is the universal ideal.

 

 

 

 

 

Lao Tzu

from the Tao Te Ching
translation by j.h.mcdonald

.photo by Rodney Campbell

 

 

 

 

longing for the perfect

After we had loved each other intently, 

we heard notes tumble together, 

in late winter, and we heard ice 

falling from the ends of twigs. 

The notes abandon so much as they move. 

They are the food not eaten, the comfort 

not taken, the lies not spoken. 

The music is my attention to you. 

And when the music came again, 

late in the day, I saw tears in your eyes. 

I saw you turn your face away 

So that others would not see. 

When men and women come together, 

how much they have to abandon. Wrens 

make their nests of fancy threads 

and string ends, animals 

abandon all their money each year. 

What is it that men and women leave? 

Harder than wren's doing, they have 

to abandon their longing for the perfect. 

The inner nest not made by instinct 

will never be quite round, 

and each has to enter the nest 

made by the other imperfect bird.

~ Robert Bly

from Eating the Honey of Words

art by Rassouli

it's embarassing

 

 

 

 

Of course it’s embarrassing to not always be infinitely wise, 

but I feel that what we can offer each other is the truth of our growth process,

 and that means we fall on our face again and again.

Sri Aurobindo says, 

“You get up, you take a step, 

you fall on your face,

 you get up, 

you look sheepishly at God, 

you brush yourself off,

 you take another step, 

you fall on your face, 

you get up, 

you look sheepishly at God,

 you brush yourself off,

 you take another step…” 

 

and that’s the journey of awakening. 

 

 

 

 

~ Ram Dass

 photo by Abdul Gapur Dayak

 

 

 

 

when someone is seeking

.

"When someone is seeking," said Siddhartha,

 "it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking;

 that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything,

 because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking,

 because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal.

...'someday' is illusion; it is only a comparison. ... 

The world, Govinda, is not imperfect 

or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection.  

 

No, it is perfect at every moment; ... 

I just love the stone and the river

 and all these things that we see and from which we can learn. 

 I can love a stone, Govinda, and a tree or a piece of bark. 

 These are things and one can love things.  

 

But one cannot love words. 

Therefore teachings are of no use to me;

 they have no hardness, no softness, 

nor colors, no corners, so smell, no taste - 

they have nothing but words.

  Perhaps that is what prevents you from finding peace, 

perhaps there are too many words, for even salvation and virtue.

 

  Samsara and Nirvana are only words, Govinda. 

 Nirvana is not a thing;

 there is only the word Nirvana."

.

 

~ Hermann Hesse

from Siddhartha

from Mother Teresa

Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, 
for having someone to call their own. 

In this life we cannot do great things. 
We can only do small things with great love. 

Intense love does not measure, it just gives.

Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. 

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do...
 but how much love we put in that action. 

Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - 
the ones at home.

Love is a fruit in season at all times,
 and within reach of every hand. 

Spread love everywhere you go.
 Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier. 

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove
 than the hunger for bread. 

There is more hunger in the world 
for love and appreciation in this world than for bread. 

~ Mother Teresa

the nature of life

 

 

 

 

 

Earth dissolves into water. Water dissolves into fire.
Fire dissolves into air. Air dissolves into space.

Dying [Dissolving], in many cases, does not happen all of
a sudden. It is a gradual process of withdrawing from life
in form.

When I speak of the four elements dissolving, I am not
speaking exactly of physical form. Rather, I am pointing to
the ineffable but observable animating qualities...
The animating qualities also dissolve - apparently missing
when we are left only with the heaviness of the corpse
after death.

There is something beyond the four elements - 

the spirit,soul, or animating presence. 

 The inner dissolution happens simultaneously. 

 Our medical instruments and devices can
certainly measure the physical disintegration, 

but the inner dissolution that happens simultaneously

 is subtle and still...

They are all dissolving - 

the elements and their associated states and as a result,

 the self is dissolving as well. 

 

 This is happening all the time,

 we just see it at the surface at the
time of dying.

Now who are you?

Fragility and impermanence are in the nature of life.

 It's all always coming together and falling apart -

 not just the physical properties of life -

 and not just at the time of death.

Our sense of self is impermanent. 

While illness can contract us into an even smaller sense of self, 

many people who are sick and dying speak of 

no longer being limited by the previous boundaries

 of their old, familiar identities.

We come to embody much wider identities.

 The interior life and the external world permeate each other,
they commingle.

~ Frank Ostaseski
from The Five Invitations

the long black bag

 

 

 

 

 

 

What if [negative emotions] have something essential to communicate to us and each other,

 and the real problem is the misguided attitude that negative feelings make us less evolved

 and need fixing? 

 

In the same way that we hold others at an arm’s length when they are too different from us,

 we avoid the inner encounter with otherness, excluding anything that doesn’t fit

 the image we’ve been building of ourselves.

‘Negative emotions’ don’t cease to exist because we ignore them.

 They just find other ways to express themselves. Sometimes we lash out 

inappropriately, having confusing crying fits, or feel protractedly numb. 

Most commonly, we slip into depression and anxiety. . . .

If not addressed in a person’s life, these issues can harden into ideologies

 which are then passed down through the generations. When you add to this 

equation a loud or charismatic leader, movements like Nazism will be born

 from the corroborative fear of otherness. 

 

We think of Nazis as evil, but the truth is we all have the potential for this kind of evil,

 which is ultimately the act of turning away from the suffering of others and ourselves.

Most of us have been raised to be moral, good, and agreeable, 

putting all of our ‘unacceptable’ qualities in what Robert Bly calls 

“The Long Black Bag” we drag behind us, or what Jung termed the personal

 “Shadow.” The Shadow is the place where everything we have forgotten,

 denied, rejected, or not yet discovered goes to live. 

 

 But when we try to live up to the impossible image of a spiritually enlightened, 

knowledgeable, selfless, patient, forgiving, easy-going, supportive, generous superhuman,

 the dark side of our nature just gains in power. . . .

You always have the choice to turn away or to look for redemption in the shadows. 

Sometimes turning away is exactly what you need in the moment, 

especially if you’re tired from toiling down in there.

 Trust that whatever you decide is the right decision.

 Also know that if the issue being presented has roots,

 it will still be there when you’re ready to look at it. . . .

We cannot simply remove the shadow all at once.

 It takes wisdom, courage, and forbearance for our shadows to reveal themselves

 to us so they can be faced and dealt with gently, compassionately, and firmly.

 

 

 

 

 

~   Toko-pa Turner

from Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home

  Photo by Jozef Klopacka

 

 

 

looking back on grief

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Tis good — the looking back on Grief —
To re-endure a Day —
We thought the Mighty Funeral —
Of All Conceived Joy —

To recollect how Busy Grass
Did meddle — one by one —
Till all the Grief with Summer — waved
And none could see the stone.

And though the Woe you have Today
Be larger — As the Sea
Exceeds its Unremembered Drop —
They’re Water — equally — 

 

 

 

 

~ Emily Dickinson

 from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

with thanks to brainpickings