Tuesday, September 19, 2017

when the shoe fits






Ch'ui the draftsman
Could draw more perfect circles freehand
Than with a compass.

His fingers brought forth
Spontaneous forms from nowhere. His mind
Was meanwhile free and without concern
With what he was doing.

No application was needed
His mind was perfectly simple
And knew no obstacle.

So, when the shoe fits
The foot is forgotten,
When the belt fits
The belly is forgotten,
When the heart is right
"For" and "against" are forgotten.

No drives no compulsions,
No needs, no attractions:
Then your affairs
Are under control.
You are a free man.

Easy is right. Begin right
And you are easy.
Continue easy and you are right.
The right way to go easy
Is to forget the right way
And forget that the going is easy.




~ Chuang Tzu 
(In the Dark Before Dawn)

on summer evenings we sat in the yard




On summer evenings we sat in the yard,
the house dark, the stars bright overhead.
The laps and arms of the old
held the young.  As we talked we knew
by the dark distances of Heaven's lights
our smallness, and the greatness of our love.



~ Wendell Berry


Friday, September 15, 2017

when I fall into the abyss




 

Because I’m a Karamazov. Because when I fall into the abyss, 
I go straight into it, head down and heels up, 
and I’m even pleased that I’m falling in just such a humiliating position, 
and for me I find it beautiful.



Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky
photo:  Felix Baumgartner breaking the sound barrier
 
 

Sunday, September 3, 2017

the inner landscape of beauty





~ John O'Donohue

Friday, August 25, 2017

members of each other










The way we are, we are members of each other. 
All of us. Everything. 
The difference ain't in who is a member and who is not, 
but in who knows it and who don’t.

...

It was a community always disappointed in itself, 
disappointing its members, 
always trying to contain its divisions and gentle its meanness, 
always failing and yet always preserving a sort of will toward goodwill…
And yet I saw them all as somehow perfected, 
beyond time, by one another’s love, compassion, and forgiveness, 
as it is said we may be perfected by grace.

And so there we all were on a little wave of time lifting up to eternity, 
and none of us ever in time would know what to make of it. 
How could we? 
It is a mystery, for we are eternal beings living in time.




~ Wendell Berry
excerpts from Jaber Crow



Sunday, August 6, 2017

who?









The Student

Who makes my mind think?
Who fills my body with vitality?
Who causes my tongue to speak? Who is that
Invisible one who sees through my eyes
And hears through my ears?

 The Teacher

The Self is the ear of the ear,
The eye of the eye, the mind of the mind,
The word of words, and the life of life.
Rising above the senses and the mind
And renouncing separate existence,
The wise realize the deathless Self.

Him our eyes cannot see, nor words express;
He cannot be grasped even by the mind.
We do not know, we cannot understand,
Because he is different from the known
And he is different from the unknown.
Thus have we heard from the illumined ones.

That which makes the tongue speak but cannot be 
Spoken by the tongue, know that as the Self.
This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes the mind think but cannot be
Thought by the mind, that is the Self indeed.
This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes the eye see but cannot be
Seen by the eye,that is the Self indeed.
This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes the ear hear but cannot be 
Heard by the ear, that is the Self indeed.
This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes you draw breath but cannot be 
Drawn by your breath. that is the Self indeed.
This Self is not someone other than you.



~ The Kena Upanishad
translation by Eknath Easwaran

Sunday, July 30, 2017

excerpt from: September 1st, 1939









All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, 
The romantic lie in the brain 
Of the sensual man-in-the-street 
And the lie of Authority 
Whose buildings grope the sky: 
There is no such thing as the State 
And no one exists alone; 
Hunger allows no choice 
To the citizen or the police; 
We must love one another or die.


~ W. H. Auden
 from Another Time
 art by picasso

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

the unknown flute









I know the sound of the ecstatic flute,
but I don't know whose flute it is.

A lamp burns and has neither wick nor oil.

A lily pad blossoms and is not attached to the bottom! 

When one flower opens, ordinarily dozens open.

The moon bird's head is filled with nothing but thoughts of the moon,
and when the next rain will come is all that the rain bird thinks of.

How is it we spend our entire life loving? 



~ Kabir 

Sssh






Sssh the sea says
Sssh the small waves at the shore say, sssh
Not so violent, not
So haughty, not
So remarkable
Sssh
Say the tips of the waves
Crowding around the headland's
Surf. Sssh
They say to people
This is our earth,
Our eternity.



~ Rolf Jacobsen
from The Soul is here for its own Joy
edited by Robert Bly 
photo by Eliot Porter 

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

I have received and am still receiving



  illustration by Vladimir Radunsky
 for On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein by Jennifer Berne




How strange is the lot of us mortals!
 Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, 
though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection
 one knows from daily life that one exists for other people — 
first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being
 our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, 
unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. 
 
A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life
 are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, 
and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure
 as I have received and am still receiving.
 
 I am strongly drawn to a frugal life and am often oppressively aware
 that I am engrossing an undue amount of the labor of my fellow-men.
 I regard class distinctions as unjustified and, in the last resort,
 based on force. I also believe that a simple and unassuming life
 is good for everybody, physically and mentally.



 ~ Albert Einstein




Tuesday, June 20, 2017

our rebelliousness







Those who are indignant at and rebel against
the things that befall them are blind with self-love.
I speak to you now in general and in particular, and
I say that they take for evil and regard as misfortunes, ruin,
evidence of hate towards themselves, the things that I
do out of love and for their good, that they may be
saved from eternal loss and receive the life that shall not
pass away. Why then do they murmur against Me? Because
They have put their trust in themselves, and so all becomes
dark for them and they do not know things as they are.




~ Saint Catherine of Siena

Friday, June 2, 2017

a process of intellection





We name, we give a term to our various feelings, don't we?
 In saying, 'I am angry', we have given a term, a name,
 a label to a particular feeling. Now, please watch your own minds
 very clearly. When you have a feeling, you name that feeling;
 you call it anger, lust, love, pleasure, don't you? And this naming 
of the feeling is a process of intellection which prevents you from looking
 at the fact, that is, at the feeling.

You know, when you see a bird and say to yourself that it is a parrot
 or a pigeon or a crow, you are not looking at the bird. You have already
 ceased to look at the fact because the word parrot or pigeon or crow
 has come between you and the fact.

This is not some difficult intellectual feat but a process of the mind
 that must be understood. If you would go into the problem of fear 
or the problem of authority or the problem of pleasure or the problem of love, 
you must see that naming, giving a label, prevents you from looking at the fact.






~ J. Krishnamurti
from The Collected Works
Vol. XI, 350,Choiceless Awareness
art by Edvard Munch


Thursday, June 1, 2017

glorious









~ MaMuse

Monday, May 29, 2017

as the rain





As the rain on the mountain peak runs off
The slopes on all sides, so those who see
Only the seeming multiplicity in life
Run after things on every side.

As pure water poured into pure water
Becomes the very same, so does the Self
Of the illumined man or woman, Nachiketa,
Verily become one with the Godhead.

...
The adorable one who is seated
In the heart rules the breath of life.
Unto him all the senses pay their homage.
When the dweller in the body breaks out
In freedom from the bonds of flesh,
What remains?  For this Self is supreme!

We live not by the breath that flows in
And flows out, but by him who causes the breath
To flow in and flow out.




~ The Katha Upanishad
(Death as Teacher)
translated by Eknath Easwaran




Sunday, May 28, 2017

looking into a face








Conversation brings us so close! Opening
The surfs of the body,
Bringing fish up near the sun,
And stiffening the backbones of the sea!

I have wandered in a face, for hours,
Passing through dark fires.
I have risen to a body
Not yet born,
Existing like a light around the body,
Through which the body moves like a sliding moon.





~ Robert Bly
from The Light Around the Body