Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Have you


.

.
Have you ever sat, not day-dreaming, but very
quietly, completely aware? 


In that awareness there is no
verbalization, no choice, no restraint or direction. 


When the body is completely relaxed, 
have you noticed the silence that comes into being? 

That requires a great deal of investigation, because our
minds are never still but endlessly chattering and therefore divided.
We divide living into fragments.

Can all this fragmentation come to an end? 


Knowing that thought is responsible for this fragmentation, we ask:
 `Can thought be completely silent yet respond when it is necessary, 
without violence, objectively, sanely, rationally -
 still let this silence pervade?' 


That is the only way: 
to find for oneself this quality of the mind that has no fragments, 
that is not broken up as the `you' and the `me'.
.

~ J. Krishnamurti
from a public talk in Saanen on July 28th 1970
.


why






.

Why does the soul not fly
when it hears the call?
.
Why does the fish, gasping on land,
but near the water,
not move back into the sea?
.
What keeps us from joining the dance
the dust particles do?
.
Look at their subtle motions
in sunlight.
.
We are out of our cages
with our wings spread,
yet we do not lift off.
We keep collecting rocks and broken bits
of pottery like children
pretending they are merchants.
.
We should split the sack
Of this culture
And stick our heads out.
.
Look around.
Leave your childhood.
.
Reach your right hand up
and take this book from the air.
You do know right from left, don’t you?
.
A voice speaks to your clarity.
Move into the moment of your death.
Consider what you truly want.
.
Now call out commands yourself.
You are the king. Phrase your question,
and expect the grace of an answer.
.

~ Rumi
from Rumi: Bridge to the Soul
translated by Coleman Barks
photo by albert koetsier
.



Sunday, January 9, 2011

a man walks through his life





A man walks through his life
as he did when he was a boy,
taking a pear here, an apple there,
three peaches.

It is easy.  They are there, by the roadside.

I want to say to him, stop.
I want to say to him, where is the plum tree you planted?

But how can I say this?
I suck on the pit of my question,
I who also eat daily the labor of others.


~ Jane Hirshfield
from After



Friday, January 7, 2011

Elegy on Toy Piano





.


You don't need a pony 
to connect you to the unseeable 
or an airplane to connect you to the sky. 

Necessary it is to love to live 
and there are many manuals 
but in all important ways 
one is on one's own. 

You need not cut off your hand. 
No need to eat a bouquet. 
Your head becomes a peach pit. 
Your tongue a honeycomb. 

Necessary it is to live to love, 
to charge into the burning tower 
then charge back out 
and necessary it is to die. 
Even for the trees, even for the pony 
connecting you to what can't be grasped. 

The injured gazelle falls behind the 
herd. One last wild enjambment. 

Because of the sores in his mouth, 
the great poet struggles with a dumpling. 
His work has enlarged the world 
but the world is about to stop including him. 
He is the tower the world runs out of. 

When something becomes ash, 
there's nothing you can do to turn it back. 
About this, even diamonds do not lie.





~ Dean Young



Thursday, January 6, 2011

of beauty











And a poet said, Speak to us of Beauty.
And he answered:

Where shall you seek beauty, and how 
shall you find her unless she herself be your
way and your guide?

And how shall you speak of her except 
she be the weaver of your speech?

The aggrieved and injured say, 
"Beauty is kind and gentle."

The tired and weary say,
"Beauty is of soft whisperings
She speaks in our spirit."

In winter say the snow-bound,
"She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills."

All these things have you said of beauty,
Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied,
And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.
It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth,
But rather a heart inflamed and a soul enchanted.

It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,
But rather an image you see though you
close your eyes and a song you hear though
you shut your ears.

People of Orphalese, 
beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.







~ Kahlil Gibran
from The Prophet


Wednesday, January 5, 2011

eternity is not infinity







Eternity is not infinity.
It is not a long time.
It does not begin at the end of time.
It does not run parallel to time.
In its entirety it always was.
In its entirety it will always be.
It is entirely present always.




~ Wendell Berry




delight in the way things are




.
Blessed are the man and the woman
who have grown beyond their greed
and have put an end to their hatred
and no longer nourish illusions.
But they delight in the way things are
and keep their hearts open, day and night
They are like trees planted near flowing rivers,
which bear fruit when they are ready.
Their leaves will not fall or wither
everything they do will succeed.
.
Psalm 1
from The Book of Psalms

.

The Journey


.
.

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
.

~ Mary Oliver
.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

all several souls contain





 
 
 
 
If any, so by love refined, 
That he soul's language understood, 
And by good love were grown all mind, 
Within convenient distance stood, 
 
He—though he knew not which soul spake, 
Because both meant, both spake the same— 
Might thence a new concoction take, 
And part far purer than he came. 
 
This ecstasy doth unperplex 
(We said) and tell us what we love ; 
We see by this, it was not sex ; 
We see, we saw not, what did move : 
 
But as all several souls contain 
Mixture of things they know not what, 
Love these mix'd souls doth mix again, 
And makes both one, each this, and that. 
 
 
 
~ John Donne (1572-1631)
from The Ecstasy
art by Georgia O'Keefe
 
 
 

love song



.


.
How shall I hold my soul, that it may not 
be touching yours? How shall I lift it then
above you to where other things are waiting?
Ah, gladly would I lodge it, all-forgot,
with some lost thing the dark is isolating
on some remote and silent spot that, when 
your depths vibrate, is not itself vibrating.
You and me - all that lights upon us, though,
brings us together like a fiddle -bow
drawing one voice from two strings it glides along.
Across what instrument have we been spanned?
And what violinist holds us in his hand?
O sweetest song.
.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke 
March 1907, Capri 
translated by J. B. Leishman
art by klimt
.


sight






.
Once
a single cell
found that it was full of light
and for the first time there was seeing
.
when
I was a bird
I could see where the stars had turned
and I set out on my journey
.
high
in the head of a mountain goat
I could see across a valley
under the shining trees something moving
.
deep
in the green sea
I saw the two sides of the water
and swam between them
.
I
look at you
in the first light of the morning
for as long as I can
.
~ W. S. Merwin
.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

my companion




.

.
You went away but remained in me
And thus became my peace and happiness.
.
In separation, separation left me
And I witnessed the Unknown.
.
You were the hidden secret of my longing,
Hidden deep within my conscience deeper than a dream.
.
You were my true friend in the day
And in darkness my companion
.
~ Mansur al- Hallaj
.

why bodhidharma went to motel 6






"Where is your home?” the interviewer asked him.

“Here.”

“No, no,” the interviewer said, thinking it a problem of translation,
“when you are where you actually live?”

Now it was his turn to think, Perhaps the translation?





~ Jane Hirshfield


no path





.
.



Now, if you go into it very clearly and thoroughly, with intelligence, you see that to truth there can be no path; there is no path, as yours and mine: the path of service, the path of knowledge, the path of devotion, and the other innumerable paths that philosophers have invented, depending on their particular idiosyncrasies and neurological responses. Now, if one can think clearly about this matter, without prejudice - I mean by prejudice, being committed to a particular action of thought or belief, and being utterly unaware that one particular form of thinking, one particular approach, must inevitably limit, whether it is the path of knowledge, the path of devotion, or the path of action - , one will see that any particular path must invariably limit, and therefore cannot lead to reality. Because, a path of action, or a path of knowledge, or a path of devotion, in itself, is not sufficient, surely. A man of learning, however erudite, however encyclopedic his knowledge may be, if he has no love, surely his knowledge is worthless; it is merely book learning. A man of belief, as we discussed, must inevitably shape his life according to the dogma, the tenet, that he holds, and therefore his experience must be limited; because, one experiences according to one’s beliefs, and such experience can never be liberating. On the contrary, it is binding. And, as we said, only in freedom can we discover anything new, anything fundamental.
.
~ J. Krishnamurti 
from The Collected Works Volume V

.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

a blessing of solitude





.
.
May you recognize in your life the presence, 
power, and light of your soul.
.
May you realize that you are never alone, 
that your soul in its brightness and belonging connects
you intimately with the rhythm of the universe.
.
May you have respect for your own individuality and difference.
.
May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique, 
that you have a special destiny here, 
that behind the facade of your life there is something beautiful, 
good, and eternal happening.
.
May you learn to see yourself with the same delight, 
pride, and expectation with which God sees you in every moment.
.

~ John O’Donohue
from To Bless the Space Between Us
.