only by love

For silence is not God, nor speaking;
fasting is not God, nor eating;
solitude is not God, nor company;
nor any other pair of opposites.

He is hidden between them,
and cannot be found by anything your soul does,
but only by the love of your heart.

He cannot be known by reason,
he cannot be thought, caught,
or sought by understanding.

But he can be loved and
chosen by the true, loving will of your heart.

 

 ...

To put it more simply, let that mysterious grace move in your spirit as it will and follow wherever it leads you. Let it be the active doer and you the passive receiver. Do not meddle with it, but let it be... Your part is to be as wood to a carpenter or a home to a dweller. Remain blind during this time cutting away all desire to know, for knowledge is a hindrance here. Be content to feel this mysterious grace sweetly awaken in the depths of your spirit. Forget everything...




~ The Cloud of Unknowing

reaching with the grasping mind

The monkey is reaching
For the moon in the water.
Until death overtakes him
He'll never give up.
If he'd let go the branch and
Disappear in the deep pool,
The whole world would shine
With dazzling pureness.

 

 

 

 

 

 ~ Hakuin

 from The Essential Teachings of Hakuin

by Norman Waddell

with thanks to Poetry Chaihana

 

 

An extremely well known and popular Zen master during his later life, Hakuin was a firm believer in bringing the wisdom of Zen to all people. Thanks to his upbringing as a commoner and his many travels around the country, he was able to relate to the rural population, and served as a sort of spiritual father to the people in the areas surrounding Shoin-ji. In fact, he turned down offers to serve in the great monasteries in Kyoto, preferring to stay at Shoin-ji. Most of his instruction to the common people focused on living a morally virtuous life. Showing a surprising broad-mindedness, his ethical teachings drew on elements from Confucianism, ancient Japanese traditions, and traditional Buddhist teachings.

 

from Wikipedia

 

 

no one

No one home.

fallen pine needles

scattered at the door.

~ Zen Master Ryokan

from Sky Above, Great Wind 
The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan

by Kazuaki Tanahashi

written in my hut on a snowy evening

Reflecting over seventy years,

I am tired of judging right from wrong.

Faint traces of a path trodden in deep night snow.

A stick of incense under the rickety window.

~ Ryokan 

from Sky Above, Great Wind

discontinuous fragments

We are a thoroughly shell-shocked species.

 Though we have not all suffered abuse as children, 

we have all endured experiences that we perceived as terrifying, 

and that utterly exhausted our tender attempts to comprehend and cope

....as a result of our histories, and of our inborn disposition to become dissociative

 when our minds need protection, moderately dissociative awareness

 is the normal mental status of all adult human beings. 

 What we conceive of as an unbroken thread of consciousness is,

 instead, quite often a train of discontinuous fragments. 

Our awareness is divided.

 And much more commonly than we know, 

even our personalities are fragmented-disorganized

 team efforts trying to cope with past-rather than the sane,

 unified wholes we anticipate in ourselves and in other people.

~ Martha Stout

from The Myth of Sanity

art by picasso

a basis of peace

~ Rupert Spira

 

a living flame

Love's valley is the next, and here desire

Will plunge the pilgrim into seas of fire,

Until his very being is en-flamed

And those whom fire rejects turn back ashamed.

The lover is a man who flares and burns,

Whose face is fevered, who in frenzy yearns,

Who knows no prudence, who will gladly send

A hundred worlds toward their blazing end,

Who knows of neither faith nor blasphemy,

Who has no time for doubt or certainty,

To whom both good and evil are the same,

And who is neither, but a living flame.

But you! Lukewarm in all you say or do,

Backsliding, weak - oh no, this is not you!

True lovers give up everything they own

To steal one moment with the Friend alone -

They make no vague, procrastinating vow,

But risk their livelihood and risk it now.

Until their hearts are burned, how can they flee

From their desire's incessant misery?

They are the falcon when it flies distressed

In circles, searching for its absent nest -

They are the fish cast up upon the land

That seeks the sea and shudders on the sand.

Love here is fire; its thick smoke clouds the head -

When love has come the intellect has fled;

It cannot tutor love, and all its care

Supplies no remedy for love's despair.

If you could seek the unseen you would find

Love's home, which is not reason or the mind,

And love's intoxication tumbles down

The world's designs for glory and renown -

If you could penetrate their passing show

And see the world's wild atoms, you would know

That reason's eyes will never glimpse one spark

Of shining love to mitigate the dark.

Love leads whoever starts along our Way;

The noblest bow to love and must obey -

But you, unwilling both to love and tread

The pilgrim's path, you might as well be dead!

The lover chafes, impatient to depart,

And longs to sacrifice his life and heart.

~ Farid Attar

translated by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis

from The Conference of Birds