To see myself and my life

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To see myself and my life as they truly are is joy. 

After all the struggle and avoiding and denying and going the other way,

 it is deeply satisfying for a second to be there with life as it is. 

The satisfaction is the very core of ourselves.

 Who we are is beyond words -

 just that open power of life, 

manifesting constantly in all sorts of interesting things,

 even in our own misery and struggles. 

The hassle is both horrendous and wholesome.

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~ Charlotte Joko Beck

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reblogged from: http://whiskeyriver.blogspot.com/

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restlessness

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If you could only keep quiet,

 clear of memories and expectations, 

you would be able to discern the beautiful pattern of events. 

Its your restlessness that causes chaos.

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~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

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I love the dark hours of my being

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I love the dark hours of my being.

My mind deepens into them.

There I can find, as in old letters,

the days of my life, already lived,

and held like a legend, and understood

Then the knowing comes: I can open

to another life that’s wide and timeless.

So I am sometimes like a tree

rustling over a graveside

and making real the dream

of the one its living roots

     embrace:

a dream once lost

among sorrows and songs.

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~ Rainer Maria Rilke

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reblogged from: http://kissing.wordpress.com/

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The 10 Bulls

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The 10 Bulls

By Kakuan

Illustrated by Tomikichiro Tokuriki

Transcribed by Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps

 

 

The bull is the eternal principle of life, truth in action.

The ten bulls represent sequent steps in the realization of one’s true nature.

 

The 10 Bulls is more than poetry, more than pictures.  It is a revelation of spiritual unfoldment paralleled in every bible of human experience.

 

In the twelfth century the Chinese master Kakuan drew the pictures of the ten bulls,

 basing them on earlier Taoist bulls, and wrote the comments in prose and verse translated here. 

 

 His version was pure Zen, going deeper than earlier versions, 

which had ended with the nothingness of the eighth picture.

 

 

I. The Search for the Bull

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I.                    The Search for the Bull

In the pastures of this world, I endlessly push aside the tall grasses in search of the bull.

Following unnamed rivers, lost upon the interpenetrating paths of distant mountains,

My strength failing and my vitality exhausted, I cannot find the bull.

I only hear the locusts chirring through the forest at night.

 

 

 

 

Comment: 

 

 The bull never has been lost.  What need is there to search?  

Only because of separation from my true nature, I fail to find him. 

 In the confusion of the senses I lose even his tracks. 

 Far from home, I see many crossroads,

 but which way is the right one I know not. 

 Greed and fear, good and bad, entangle me.

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 ~ Kakuan

from 10 BULLS

Transcribed by. Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps 

 Illustrated by Tomikichiro Tokuriki

 

II. Discovering the Footprints

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II.                    Discovering the Footprints

Along the riverbank under the trees, I discover footprints!

Even under the fragrant grass I see his prints.

Deep in remote mountains they are found.

These traces no more can be hidden that one’s nose, looking heavenward.

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Comment:  Understanding the teaching, I see the footprints of the bull.  Then I learn that, just as many utensils are made from one metal, so too are myriad entities made of the fabric of self.  Unless I discriminate, how will I perceive the true from the untrue?  Not yet having entered the gate, nevertheless I have discerned the path.

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III. Perceiving the Bull

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III.                    Perceiving the Bull

I hear the song of the nightingale.

The sun is warm, the wind is mild, willows are green along the shore,

Here no bull can hide!

What artist can draw that massive head, those majestic horns?

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Comment:  When one hears the voice, one can sense its source.  As soon as the six senses merge, the gate is entered.  Wherever one enters one sees the head of the bull!  This unity is like salt in water, like color in dyestuff.  The slightest thing is not apart from self.

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IV. Catching the Bull

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IV.                    Catching the Bull

I seize him with a terrific struggle.

His great will and power are inexhaustible.

He charges to the high plateau far above the cloud-mists,

Or in an impenetrable ravine he stands.

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Comment:  He dwelt in the forest a long time, but I caught him today!  Infatuation for scenery interferes with his direction.  Longing for sweeter grass, he wanders away.  His mind still is stubborn and unbridled.  If I wish him to submit, I must raise my whip.

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V. Taming the Bull

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V.                    Taming the Bull

The whip and rope are necessary,

Else he might stray off down some dusty road.

Being well trained, he becomes naturally gentle.

Then, unfettered, he obeys his master.

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Comment:  When one thought arises, another thought follows.  When the first thought springs from enlightenment, all subsequent thoughts are true.  Through delusion, one makes everything untrue.  Delusion is not caused by objectivity;  it is the result of subjectivity.  Hold the nose-ring tight and do not allow even a doubt.

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VII. The Bull Transcended

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VII.                    The Bull Transcended

Astride the bull, I reach home.

I am serene.  The bull too can rest.

The dawn has come.  In blissful repose,

Within my thatched dwelling I have abandoned the whip and rope.

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Comment:   All is one law, not two.  We only make the bull a temporary subject.  It is as the relation of the rabbit and trap, of fish and net.  It is as gold and dross, or the moon emerging from a cloud.  One path of clear light travels on throughout endless time.

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VIII. Both Bull & Self Transcended

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VIII.                    Both Bull & Self Transcended

Whip, rope, person, and bull – all merge in NO-THING.

This heaven is so vast no message can stain it.

How may a snowflake exist in a raging fire?

Here are the footprints of the patriarchs.

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Comment:  Mediocrity is gone.  Mind is clear of limitation.  I seek no state of enlightenment.  Neither do I remain where no enlightenment exists.  Since I linger in neither condition, eyes cannot see me.  If hundreds of birds strew my path with flowers, such praise would be meaningless.

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IX. Reaching the Source

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IX.                    Reaching the Source

Too many steps have been taken returning to the root and the source.

Better to have been blind and deaf from the beginning!

Dwelling in one’s true abode, unconcerned with that without –

The river flows tranquilly on and the flowers are red.

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Comment:  From the beginning, truth is clear.  Poised in silence, I observe the forms of integration and disintegration.  One who is not attached to “form” need not be “reformed.”  The water is emerald, the mountain is indigo, and I see that which is creating and that which is destroying.

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X. In the World

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X.                    In the World

Barefooted and naked of breast, I mingle with the people of the world.

My clothes are ragged and dust-laden, and I am ever blissful.

I use no magic to extend my life;

Now, before me, the dead trees become alive.

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Comment:  Inside my gate, a thousand sages do not know me.  The beauty of my garden is invisible.  Why should one search for the footprints of the patriarchs?  I go to the market place with my wine bottle and return home with my staff.  I visit the wineshop and the market, and everyone I look upon becomes enlightened.

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If It Be Your Will

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If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will
If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

If it be your will. 

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~ Leonard Cohen

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPqAcV_aJvg&feature=related
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the creations of sound

If the poetry of X was music,

So that it came to him of its own,

Without understanding, out of the wall

Or in the ceiling, in sounds not chosen,

Or chosen quickly, in a freedom

That was their element, we should not know

That X is an obstruction, a man

Too exactly himself, and that there are words

Better without an author, without a poet,

Or having a separate author, a different poet,

An accretion from ourselves, intelligent

Beyond intelligence, an artificial man

At a distance, a secondary expositor,

A being of sound, whom one does not approach

Through any exaggeration.  From him, we collect.

Tell X that speech is not dirty silence

Clarified.  It is silence made still dirtier.

It is more than an imitation for the ear.

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He lacks this venerable complication.

His poems are not of the second part of life.

They do not make the visible a little hard

To see nor, reverberating, eked out the mind

On peculiar horns, themselves eked out

By the spontaneous particulars of sound.

We do not say ourselves like that in poems.

We say ourselves in syllables that rise

From the floor, rising in speech we do not speak.

~ Wallace Stevens

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