Wednesday, May 18, 2011

the dove in the belly - stop and listen



.


.

The whole of appearance is a toy. For this,
The dove in the belly builds his nest and coos,

Selah, tempestuous bird. How is it that
The rivers shine and hold their mirrors up,

Like excellence collecting excellence?
How is it that the wooden trees stand up

And live and heap their panniers of green
And hold them round the sultry day? Why should

These mountains being high be, also, bright,
Fetched up with snow that never falls to earth?

And this great esplanade of corn, miles wide,
Is something wished for made effectual

And something more. And the people in costumes,
Though poor, though raggeder than ruin, have that

Within them right for terraces—oh, brave salut!
Deep dove, placate you in your hiddenness.



~ Wallace Stevens
art by matisse, 1949







day and night





The sun rises and sets,
 it is day and night,
 it will go on thus for a long time.  

You get to think you are part of it and 
your circumstances are related to the cosmos, 
but one day your little system will break down 
and the day and night will rotate indifferently.  
Can this be?  

It seems more like the sunrise and sunset, 
the moon and stars, 
this new season, 
they are part of me. 

 I am sure they will never be the same without me,
for no one could see them just as I do.


.
~ Harlan Hubbard
journal entry March 9, 1963
woodcut by the author


your beautiful parched, holy mouth






A poet is someone
Who can pour Light into a spoon,
Then raise it
To nourish
Your beautiful parched, holy mouth.



~ Hafiz
from I Heard God Laughing, Renderings of Hafiz
translation by Daniel Ladinsky



I knew we would be Friends






.
As soon as you opened your mouth
And I heard your soft
Sounds,

I knew we would be 
Friends.

The first time, dear pilgrim, I heard 
You laugh,

I knew it would not take me long
To turn you back into 
God.


.
~ Hafiz
from The Subject Tonight is Love
translation by Daniel Ladinsky



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