Tuesday, January 31, 2012

paying attention to the melody





All right.  I know that each of us will die alone.
It doesn't matter how loud or soft the sitar plays.
Sooner or later the melody will say it all.

The prologue is so long!  At last the theme comes.
It says the soul will rise above all these notes.
It says the dust will be swept up from the floor.

It doesn't matter if we say our prayers or not.
We know the canoe is heading straight for the falls,
And no one will pick us up from the water this time.

One day the mice will carry our ragged impulses
All the way to Egypt, and at home the cows
Will graze on a thousand acres of thought.

Everyone goes on hoping for a good death.
The old rope hangs down from the hangman's nail.
The forty-nine robbers are climbing into their boots.

Robert, don't expect too much.  You've put yourself
Ahead of others for years, a hundred years.
It will take a long time for you to hear the melody.





~ Robert Bly
from Talking into the Ear of a Donkey




Sunday, January 29, 2012

creator, preserver, and destroyer




statue from Tamil Nadu, Chola Dynasty, India


As a symbol, Shiva Nataraja is a brilliant invention. 
It combines in a single image Shiva's roles as creator, preserver, and destroyer 
of the universe and conveys the Indian conception of the never-ending cycle of time. 

Although it appeared in sculpture as early as the fifth century, its present, 
world-famous form evolved under the rule of the Cholas. 
Shiva's dance is set within a flaming halo. 
The god holds in his upper right hand the damaru (hand drum that made the first sounds of creation). 
His upper left hand holds agni (the fire that will destroy the universe). 
With his lower right hand, he makes abhayamudra (the gesture that allays fear). 
The dwarflike figure being trampled by his right foot represents 
apasmara purusha (illusion, which leads mankind astray). 
Shiva's front left hand, pointing to his raised left foot, 
signifies refuge for the troubled soul. 
The energy of his dance makes his hair fly to the sides.



~ description by the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Beneath its diversity and complexity, the underlying unity of Hinduism has correspondences with the inward dimension of the Christian faith.

~ Ursula King





Friday, January 27, 2012

only breath










~ Rumi
with Coleman Barks

after long busyness







I start out for a walk at last after weeks at the desk.
Moon gone, plowing underfoot, no stars, not a trace of light!
Suppose a horse were galloping toward me in this open field?
Every day I did not spend in solitude was wasted.




~ Robert Bly
photo by michael totten


Thursday, January 26, 2012

creativity - authority - self-knowledge




There is no method for self-knowledge. 

Seeking a method invariably implies the desire to attain some result and that is what we all want. We follow authority - if not that of a person, then of a system, of an ideology - because we want a result that will be satisfactory, which will give us security. We really do not want to understand ourselves, our impulses and reactions, the whole process of our thinking, the conscious as well as the unconscious; we would rather pursue a system that assures us of a result. But the pursuit of a system is invariably the outcome of our desire for security, for certainty, and the result is obviously not the understanding of oneself. When we follow a method, we must have authorities - the teacher, the guru, the savior, the Master - who will guarantee us what we desire; and surely that is not the way to self-knowledge.

Authority prevents the understanding of oneself, does it not? Under the shelter of an authority, a guide, you may have temporarily a sense of security, a sense of well-being, but that is not the understanding of the total process of oneself. Authority in its very nature prevents the full awareness of oneself and therefore ultimately destroys freedom; in freedom alone can there be creativeness. 

There can be creativeness only through self-knowledge.






~ J. Krishnamurti
from The Book of Life
with thanks to j krishnamurti online






Tuesday, January 24, 2012

you can barely distinguish me






I have hymns you haven't heard.

There is an upward soaring
in which I bend close.
You can barely distinguish me
from the things that kneel before me.

They are like sheep, they are grazing.
I am the shepherd on the brow of the hill.
When evening draws them home
I follow after, the dark bridge thudding,

and the vapor rising from their backs
hides my own homecoming.






~ Rainer Maria Rilke
from The Book of Monastic Life
translation by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
art from the cave of chauvet-pont-d'arc



Monday, January 23, 2012

flight






The modern pagan, the child of technology or the “mass man,” does not even enjoy the anguish of dualism or the comfort of myth. His anxieties are no longer born of eternal aspiration, though they are certainly rooted in a consciousness of death. “Mass man” is something more than fallen. He lives not only below the level of grace, but below the level of nature—below his own humanity. No longer in contact with the created world or with himself, out of touch with the reality of nature, he lives in the world of collective obsessions, the world of systems and fictions with which modern man has surrounded himself. In such a world, man’s life is no longer even a seasonal cycle. It’s a linear flight into nothingness, a flight from reality and from God, without purpose and without objective, except to keep moving, to keep from having to face reality….





~ Thomas Merton
from Seasons of Celebration
art by picasso


the beauty









~ John O'Donohue


as we climb higher







As we climb higher, we say this.
It is not soul or mind, nor does it possess
imagination, conviction, speech or understanding.

It does not live nor is it life.  It is not a 
substance, nor is it eternity or time.

It is not wisdom.
It is neither one nor oneness, divinity nor goodness.

It falls neither within the predicate of nonbeing nor being.

It is beyond assertion and denial.  We make assertions and
denials of what is next to it, but never of it, for it is both beyond
every assertion, being the perfect and unique cause of all things,
and by virtue of its pre-eminently simple and absolute nature,
free of every limitation,
beyond every limitation;
it is also beyond every denial.





~ Pseudo-Dionysius
art from Sistine Chapel images



unsophisticated teachers say






Unsophisticated teachers say that God is pure
being.  He is as high above being as the highest
angel is above a gnat.  I would be speaking as incorrectly
in calling God a being as if I called the sun pale or black.

God is neither this or that.




~ Meister Eckhart




Sunday, January 22, 2012

the parents poem








It’s a good idea to figure what to do with parents.
One man I knew, after caring for them for years,
Led them across a busy street—two lines of traffic.
He started a lost colony for his parents.

He bought them big boots and pith helmets.
He sent his parents into battle. He dressed
Them in Austrian uniforms and gave them
Maps of Russia. No one ever saw them again.

Another man built a furnace and put his parents
Into it. He got some tincture, and tried to tran-
Substantiate his parents. It took a long time
And used a lot of heat, but there wasn't much change.

A neighbor stored them in an empty cistern—the ladder
Is still sticking out. He took them to Kenya
And got his parents to take a walk with the elephants.
And they died all right . . . But by the end,

They knew for sure that they’d had children.





~ Robert Bly
art by gene kloss



chinese foot chart





Every part of us
alerts another part.
Press a spot in 
the tender arch and 
feel the scalp
twitch.  We are no
match for ourselves
but our own release.
Each touch
uncatches some 
remote lock.  Look,
boats of mercy
embark from
our heart at the 
oddest knock.




~ Kay Ryan
from The Best of It




awareness






Awareness is primordial; it is the original state, beginningless, endless, uncaused, unsupported, without parts, without change. 

Consciousness is on contact, a reflection against a surface, a state of duality. 

There can be no consciousness without awareness, but there can be awareness without consciousness, as in deep sleep. Awareness is absolute, consciousness is relative to its content; consciousness is always of something.

 Consciousness is partial and changeful, 
awareness is total, changeless, calm and silent. 
And it is the common matrix of every experience.





Nisargadatta Maharaj
from I AM THAT




nowness







The essence of realization is nowness, 
Occurring all at once, with nothing to add or subtract. 
Self-liberation, innate great bliss, 
Free from hope or fear is the fruition.





~ Marpa
 from his song of realization and experience
with thanks to life love yoga




Saturday, January 21, 2012

sense of presence







This sense of presence, 
it is not the sense that I am present, you are present, or any individual is present. 
The sense of presence is the sense of presence, as such. 
Because one identifies oneself with his body, 
he thinks he is born and is going to die. 
What is born is the general sense of presence, as such. 
The sense of presence which has come spontaneously will leave spontaneously.




~ Nisargadatta Maharaj