Tuesday, May 17, 2011

listen





.
Siddhartha listened.  He was now listening intently, completely absorbed,
 quite empty, taking in everything. He felt that he had now completely
 learned the art of listening.  He had often heard all this before,
 all these numerous voices in the river, but today they  sounded different.

  He could no longer distinguish the different voices - the merry voice
 from the weeping voice, the childish voice from the manly voice.  
They all belonged to each other: the lament of those who yearn, the laughter
 of the wise, the cry of indignation and the groan of the dying. 

 They were all interwoven and interlocked, entwined in a thousand ways.  
And all the voices, all the goals, all the yearning, all the sorrows all the pleasures,
all the good and evil, all of them together was the world.  All of them together
 was the stream of events, the music of life.  When Siddhartha listened attentively
 to this river, to this song of a thousand voices; when he did not listen 
to the sorrow or laughter, when he did not bind his soul to any one
 particular voice and absorb it in his Self, but heard them all, the whole,
 the unity; then the great song of a thousand voices consisted 
of one word: Om - perfection.

"Do you hear?" asked Vasudeva's glance once again.
 Vasudeva's smile was radiant; it hovered brightly in all the wrinkles
 of his old face, as the Om hovered over all the voices of the river. 
 His smile was radiant as he looked at his friend, and now the same smile 
appeared on Siddhartha's face.  His wound was healing, his pain was dispersing; 
his Self had merged into unity.

From that hour Siddhartha ceased to fight against his destiny. 
There shone in his face the serenity of knowledge, of one who is no longer
 confronted with conflict of desires, who has found salvation, 
who is in harmony with the stream of events, with the stream of life,
 full of sympathy and compassion, surrendering himself to the stream,
 belonging to the unity of all things.



.
~ Hermann Hesse
from Siddhartha
translated by Hilda Rosner





the substance of silence






...there is a greater comfort in the substance of silence
 than in the answer to a question.   
Eternity is in the present.  
Eternity is in the palm of the hand.  
Eternity is a seed of fire whose sudden roots break barriers 
that keep my heart from being an abyss.



~ Thomas Merton
from Dialogues with Silence





the time of business






.


The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, 
and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, 
while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, 
I possess God in as great tranquility 
as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament. 






~  Brother Lawrence






.

Monday, May 16, 2011

the silence





.


One might say
I had decided to marry
the silence of the forest.
The sweet dark warmth of
the whole world
will have to be my wife.
Out of the heart of
that dark warmth
comes the secret that is heard
only in silence,
but is the root of all the secrets
that are whispered
by all the lovers in their beds
all over the world.
So perhaps I have an obligation to
preserve the stillness,
the silence, the poverty,
the original virginal point of
pure nothingness
which is at the center
of all other loves.



~  Thomas Merton
photo by eliot porter





they dropped it




.
A gardener appeared, waving his toothy rake.
Children with yellow bells in their hands
jumped the fence, snagging uniforms.
One boy trailed a purple vine.

They wouldn't be sorry,
pockets reeking jasmine,
mud staining shoes...
Who deserved flowers more?
Rich people who never came outside
or children stuck all day in school?

The sweaty gardener cursed them,
straightening branches.

Someone else lifted one large pink blossom
from the pavement beyond the fence,
found a scrap of tissue to wrap it in,
carried it home across the sea.

The dried petals lay on a table for months
whispering, Where are we?




~ Naomi Shihab Nye
from 19 Varieties of Gazelle



intrepid






.

Not dawdling
not doubting
intrepid all the way
walk toward clarity
with sharp eye

With sharpened sword
clearcut the path
to the lucent surprise
of enlightenment

At every crossroad
be prepared to bump into wonder




~  James Broughton 
(1913-1999)



Sunday, May 15, 2011

an apple





.
An apple on the table
hides its seeds
so neatly
under seamless skin.

But we talk and talk and talk
to let somebody
in.



~ Naomi Shihab Nye
from 19 Varieties of Gazelle


Friday, May 13, 2011

alone







.

O my Lord, 
the stars glitter 
and the eyes of men are closed. 
Kings have locked their doors 
and each lover is alone with his love. 

Here, I am alone with you.


.
~  Rabi’a 
(Basra, 717-801) 
translated by Jane Hirshfield
from Women in Praise of the Sacred



Wednesday, May 11, 2011

a subtle magnetism





.
I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, 
which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.
  It is not indifferent to us and which way we walk.  
 
There is a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness 
and stupidity to take the wrong one.  We would fain take that walk,
 never yet taken by us through this actual world, which is perfectly
 symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the interior
 and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it difficult 
to choose our direction, because it does not yet
 exist distinctly in our ideas.


.
~ Henry David Thoreau
from Walking, 1863


printing of the diamond sutra





.



.

"Hidden for centuries in a sealed-up cave in north-west China, this copy of the 'Diamond Sutra' is the world's earliest complete survival of a dated printed book. It was made in AD 868. Seven strips of yellow-stained paper were printed from carved wooden blocks and pasted together to form a scroll over 5m long. Though written in Chinese, the text is one of the most important sacred works of the Buddhist faith, which was founded in India. Although not the earliest example of a printed book, it is the oldest we have bearing a date. By the time it was made, block-printing had been practiced in the Far East for more than a century. The quality of the illustration at the opening of this 'Diamond Sutra' shows the carver of the printing blocks to have been a man of considerable experience and skill.

This scroll was found in 1907 by the archaeologist Sir Marc Aurel Stein in a walled-up cave at the 'Caves of the Thousand Buddhas', near Dunhuang, in North-West China. It was one of a small number of printed items among many thousands of manuscripts, comprising a library which must have been sealed up in about AD 1000. Although not the earliest example of block printing, it is the earliest which bears an actual date.

The colophon, at the inner end, reads: 'Reverently [caused to be] made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 13th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong [i.e. 11th May, AD 868]'. "

According to National Library of Peking in 1961, the Diamond Sutra is described as: "The Diamond Sutra, printed in the year 868....is the world's earliest printed book, made of seven strips of paper joined together with an illustration on the first sheet which is cut with great skill." The writer adds: "This famous scroll was stolen over fifty years ago by the Englishman Ssu-t'an-yin [Stein] which causes people to gnash their teeth in bitter hatred." It is currently on display in the British Museum. The scroll, some sixteen feet long, 17 an half feet long and 10 and half inches wide, bears the following inscription: " reverently made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his parents on the fifteenth of the fourth moon of the ninth year of Xian Long (May 11, 868)"


you can find the text here:

thanks to diamond sutra


Tuesday, May 10, 2011

back from that unseenness





.
The sap is mounting back from that unseenness
darkly renewing in the common deep,
back to the light, and feeding the pure greenness
hiding in rinds round which the winds still weep.

I inner side of Nature is reviving .
another sursum corda will resound;
invisibly, a whole year's youth is striving
to climb those trees that look so iron-bound.

Preserving still that grey and cool expression,
the ancient walnut
s filling with event;
while the young brush-wood trembles with repression
under the perching bird's presentiment.


.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
from Possibility of Being




Monday, May 9, 2011

the world is real






The world is real for the ignorant
as well as for the wise;
for the ignorant the real
is measured by the world,
for one who knows
the real has no limits and
is the foundation of the world.

Both say ‘I’ referring to themselves,
the ignorant and the one who knows.

For the ignorant the self is defined by the body,
the wise knows that within the body the
unlimited Self shines with its own splendour.



~ Ramana Maharshi
(1879 – 1950)




cooperation in violence








.


The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, 
perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. 
To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, 
to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, 
to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. 

More than that, it is cooperation in violence. 
The frenzy of the activist...destroys his own inner capacity for peace.
It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work,
 because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.


.
~ Thomas Merton




Sunday, May 8, 2011

talking into the ear of a donkey











I have been talking into the ear of a donkey.
I have so much to say! And the donkey can't wait
To feel my breath stirring the immense oats
Of his ears. "What has happened to the spring,"
I cry, "and our legs that were so joyful
In the bobblings of April?" "Oh never mind
About all that," the donkey
Says. "Just take hold of my mane, so you
Can lift your lips closer to my hair ears." 






~ Robert Bly





the seed of undoing




.



.
All of our actions have in their doing the seed of their undoing. 
That in her creation of her children there should be the unspeakable promise of their death, 
for by their birth she had created mortal beings.



.
~ Louise Erdrich
thanks to whiskey river