prioritizing well-being

~ Nicola Sturgeon 

Becoming Kuan Yin - The evolution of Compassion

the Chinese character for "Benevolence."  
It is the character that represent "person" along with that of the number "2."  
Recognizing that when 2 are present, benevolence is a natural occurrence.  
Benevolence eases duality. It is one of the Maha Viharas,
 great abodes of the true heart.

To know Kuan Yin we need to let go of all that is unloved, 
judged, forged from old mind clingings. She is the unconditional love 
behind the conditioned mind.
Some ancient force is called forth in surrendering
 hindrance after hindrance of our secret wretchedness 
and obvious suffering, to yield to the light of our Original Heart.



~ Stephen Levine

millennium blessing

There is a grace approaching

that we shun as much as death,

it is the completion of our birth.

It does not come in time,

but in timelessness

when the mind sinks into the heart

and we remember.

It is an insistent grace that draws us

to the edge and beckons us surrender

safe territory and enter our enormity.

We know we must pass

beyond knowing

and fear the shedding.

But we are pulled upward

none-the-less

through forgotten ghosts

and unexpected angels,

luminous.

And there is nothing left to say

but we are That.

And that is what we sing about.

~ Stephen Levine

from Breaking the Drought, Visions of Grace

from so simple a beginning

It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, 

clothed with many plants of many kinds, 

with birds singing on the bushes,

 insects flitting about and worms crawling

 through the damp earth, 

and to reflect that these forms, so different

 yet so dependent on each other in so complex a manner,

 have all been produced by simple laws.There is grandeur in this

 view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed

 by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, 

whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity,

 from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful 

and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.





Charles Darwin

from On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection

 

 

 

in this world of yes

love is a place
through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places


yes is a world
in this world of
yes live
(skillfully curled)
all worlds




e.e.cummings

symbols

Traditionally, the value of the symbol is precisely in its apparent uselessness

 as a means of simple communication.  It is ordered toward communion,

 not to communication. Because it is not an efficient mode of communicating

 information, the symbol can achieve a higher purpose, beyond 

cause and effect. Instead of establishing a new contact by a meeting of minds

 in the sharing of news, the symbol tells nothing new:

 it revives our awareness of what we already know,

 and deepens our awareness. What is "new" in the symbol is the ever new

 discovery of a new depth and a new actuality in what is and always has been.

.The function of the symbol is to manifest a union that already exists

 but is not fully realized.  The symbol awakens awareness or restores it.  

Therefore it does not aim at communication but at communion. 

 Communion is the awareness of participation in an ontological reality: 

in the mystery of being, of human love, of redemptive mystery, 

of contemplative truth,

~ Thomas Merton 

from Merton's Palace of Nowhere 

by James Finley

the conversation

A woman moves close:

there is something she wants to say.

The currents take you one direction, her another.

All night you are aware of her presence,

aware of the conversation that did not happen.

Inside it are mountains, birds, a wide river,

a few sparse-leaved trees.

On the river, a wooden boat putters.

On its deck, a spider washes its face.

Years from now, the boat will reach a port by the sea,

and the generations of spider descendants upon it

will look out, from their nearsighted, eightfold eyes,

at something unanswered.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from Come, Thief

a history

Someone first thought it:

an ox gelded, tamed, harnessed to a plow.

Then someone realized the wooden yoke could hold two.

After that, mere power of multiplication.

Railroads, airplanes, factory ships canning salmon.

~ Jane Hirshfield

wind and water and stone

.

The water hollowed the stone,

the wind dispersed the water,

the stone stopped the wind.

Water and wind and stone.

The wind sculpted the stone,

the stone is a cup of water,

The water runs off and is wind.

Stone and wind and water.

The wind sings in its turnings,

the water murmurs as it goes,

the motionless stone is quiet.

Wind and water and stone.

One is the other and is neither:

among their empty names

they pass and disappear,

water and stone and wind. 

~ Octavio Paz

(Translated by Mark Strand, 

The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, 1957-1987)

wooden

In the presence of supple

goodness, some people

grow less flexible,

experiencing a woodenness

they wouldn't have thought possible.

It is as strange and paradoxical

as the combined suffering

of Pinocchio and Geppetto

if Pinocchio had turned and said,

I can't be human after all.

~ Kay Ryan

from The Best of It

toward emptiness

In the desert,

Turn toward emptiness,

Fleeing the self.

Stand alone

Ask no one's help,

And your being will quiet,

Free from the bondage of things.

Those who cling to the world,

endeavor to free them;

Those who are free, praise.

Care for the sick,

But live alone,

Happy to drink from the waters of sorrow,

To kindle Love's fire

With the twigs of a simple life.

Thus you will live in the desert.

Mechtild of Magdeburg (1207?-1282? or 1297?)

translation by Jane Hirshfield

I come to you without me

I come to you without me, come to me without you.
Self is the thorn in the sole of the soul.
Merge with others,
If you stay in self, you are a grain, you are a drop,
If you merge with others, you are an ocean, you are a mine.

~ Rumi
art by Van Gogh

among the trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple”, they say,
“and you too have come into the world to do this,
to go easy, to be filled with light , and to shine.”





~ Mary Oliver

living it

First and foremost, you must listen to your own rhythm, and

 try to live in accordance with it. Be attentive to what emerges

 from deep down. Often, our actions are only imitations, 

fulfillment of an assumption of duty, or a reflection

 of what we believe a human being “should” be.

 

But the only certainty we may have about our life 

and our deeds can only spring from the very depth of our being.

I know that a new and kinder day will come,

 and I would so much like to live on, 

if only to express all the love I carry within me. 

 

And there is only one way of preparing the new age,

 by living it even now in our hearts.

 

We must be willing to act like a balm for all wounds.

~ Etty Hillesum

 

 

love frees

All day long a little burro labors, sometimes

with heavy loads on her back and sometimes just with worries

about things that bother only

burros.

And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting

than physical labor.

Once in a while a kind monk comes

to her stable and brings

a pear, but more

than that,

he looks into the burros eyes and touches her ears

and for a few seconds the burro is free

and even seems to laugh,

because love does

that.

Love frees.

~ Meister Eckhart

art by: Stephen Filarsky