It is believed by most

.

.

It is believed by most
that time passes;
in actual fact,
it stays where it is.
This idea of passing may be called time,
but it is an incorrect idea,
for since one sees it only as passing,
one cannot understand that it stays just where it is.

.
~ Dogen Zenji

.

dying each minute, never accumulating

.

To understand the beauty and the extraordinary nature of death, there must be freedom from the known.  In dying to the known is the beginning of the understanding of death, because then the mind is made fresh, new, and there is no fear.  Therefore one can enter into the state called death.  So, from the beginning to the end, life and death are one.  The wise man understands time, thought, and sorrow, and only he can understand death. The mind that is dying each minute, never accumulating, never gathering experience, is innocent, and is therefore in a constant state of love.

.

~ J. Krishnamurti, from a talk on July 28th 1964

.

a natural action

.

"The more you sense the rareness and value of your own life,

the more you realize that how you use it, 

how you manifest it, is all your responsibility. 

We face such a big task so, naturally, 

such a person sits down for a while.

.

It's not an intended action, it's a natural action."

.

~ Kobun Chino

.

To us all towns are one, all men our kin

.

To us all towns are one, all men our kin.

Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill.

Man's pains and pains' relief are from within.

Death’s no new thing, nor do our blossoms thrill

When joyous life seems like a luscious draught.

When grieved, we patient suffer; for, we deem

This much-praised life of ours a fragile raft

Borne down the waters of some mountain stream

That o’er huge boulders roaring seeks the plain

Tho’ storms with lightning’s flash from darkened skies.

Descend, the raft goes on as fates ordain.

Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !

We marvel not at the greatness of the great;

Still less despise we men of low estate.

.

~ Kaniyan Poongundran

(Translated by G.U.Pope)

.

How do I love thee?

.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

.

Untouchable

.

All you want me to bring back is a rock. No gifts,

no fine words - not even these. But you must 

understand I have spent a lifetime making my way 

to the edge of this stream where I sit in the spent

leaves writing what I know cannot be written. As 

twilight thickens over my fingers, I realize these 

words are falling short of the page. At last I see

your stone, luminescent in the gurgling darkness.

Forgive me for returning empty-handed, but if

I touch it now, I may never get home.

.

~ Jim Sagel

.

I am thinking of the space between the stars

Estrella Fugaz

 

I am thinking of the space between the stars when

a tail of fire abruptly blazes in the San Ildefonso sky.

Just so unpredictably did I tumble from orbit, my

identity engulfed in flames.  Yet, my only wish is to

fall out of myself again and again.

 

****

Runoff

 

Braced against the current, I battle the swollen creek

for a foothold on these ricks polished by the water's

desire for the sea, the same insatiable thirst that

surges though my blood.

 

~ Jim Sagel, from 'unexpected turn'

Always in the big woods

Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into. What you are doing is exploring. You are undertaking the first experience, not of the place, but of yourself in that place. It is an experience of essential loneliness, for nobody can discover the world for anyone else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it becomes a common ground and a common bond, and we cease to be alone.

~ Wendell Berry

bamboo

.

What exists wants to persist.

Even the knock of bamboo on bamboo

spilled outward continues.

And you who have lived - restless, ambitious, aggrieved.

A Walter,  a Shirley, a Tim.

A Carlos,  a Teisha,  a Haavo.

Do not think it unchanged, this world you are leaving.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from Come, Thief

Old men sleeping in speeding cars

Old men sleeping

in speeding cars,

a hawk on a boulder

dripping with fog,

ten deer

in an autumn meadow,

yellow

aspen,

bishop pines

by the ocean.

These all speak more

as our stiff-

ness re-

laxes

into new birth.

The worth

of things

cracks open

and shows

the intestines.

Glittering

gold

trembling

on darkness.

~ Michael McClure

Quiet minds

.

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or

frightened but go on in fortune or

misfortune at their own private pace,  like

a clock during a thunderstorm.

.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

.

sometimes

Sometimes I go about pitying myself,
and all the time.
I am being carried on great winds across the sky.




~ Ojibway


.

Know the Self as lord of the chariot

Know the Self as lord of the chariot,

The body as the chariot itself,

The discriminating intellect as

The Charioteer, and the mind as reins.

The senses, say the wise, are the horses;

Selfish desires are the roads they travel.

When the Self is confused with the body,

Mind, and senses, they point out, he seems

To enjoy pleasure and suffer sorrow.

When a person lacks discrimination

And his mind is undisciplined, the senses

Run hither and thither like wild horses.

But they obey the rein like trained horses

When one has discrimination and 

Has made the mind one-pointed...

...

Knowing the senses to be separate

From the Self, and the sense experience

To be fleeting, the wise grieve no more.

Above the senses is the mind, above

The mind is the intellect, above that

Is the ego, and above the ego

Is the unmanifested Cause...

~ Katha Upanishad

.

The unknown evokes wonder

.

.

The unknown evokes wonder. If you lose your sense of wonder, you lose the sacramental majesty of the world. Nature is no longer a presence, it is a thing.  Your life becomes a dead cage of fact.  The sense of the eternal recedes, and time is reduced to routine.  Yet the flow of our lives cannot be stopped.  This is one of the amazing facts about being in the dance of life.  There is no place to step outside.  There is no neutral space in human life.  There is no place to go to get out of it.  There is no little cabin down at the bottom of the garden where the force and familiarity of life stop, and you can sit there in a space outside your life and yourself and look in on both. Once you are in life, it embraces you totally.

.

~ John O'Donohue, from 'Eternal Echoes'

.

out at the edges

I.

Somewhere, out at the edges, the night

Is turning and the waves of darkness

Begin to brighten the shore of dawn.

II.

I arise today

In the name of Silence

Womb of the Word,

In the name of Stillness

Home of Belonging,

In the name of Solitude

of the Soul and the Earth.

I arise today

Blessed by all things,

Wings of breath,

Delight of eyes,

Wonder of whisper,

Intimacy of touch,

Eternity of soul,

Urgency of thought,

Miracle of health,

Embrace of God.

May I live this day

Compassionate of heart,

Gentle in word,

Gracious in awareness,

Courageous in thought,

Generous in love.

~ John O' Donohue

from Eternal Echoes