two sorts of loneliness

I know of two sorts of loneliness.  One makes me feel dreadfully unhappy, lost and forlorn, the other makes me feel strong and happy.  The first always appears when I feel our of touch with my fellow men, with everything, when I am completely cut off from others and from myself and can see no purpose in life or any connection between things, nor have the slightest idea where I fit in.  

Withe the other kind of loneliness, by contrast, I feel very strong and certain and connected with everyone and everything and with God, and realize that I can manage on my own and that I am not dependent upon others.  Then I know that I am part of a meaningful whole and that I can impart a great deal of strength to others.

~ Etty Hillesum

from Etty Hillesum - Essential Writings 

chivalrous play

It comes, then, to this: that to be "viable", livable, or merely practical,

 life must be lived as a game - 

and the "must" here expresses a condition, not a commandment. 

It must be lived in the spirit of play rather than work, 

and the conflicts which it involves must be carried on in the realization that no species, 

or party to a game, can survive without its natural antagonists, 

its beloved enemies, its indispensable opponents. 

For to "love your enemies" is to love them as enemies; 

it is not necessarily a clever device for winning them over to your side. 

The lion lies down with the lamb in paradise, but not on earth - 

"paradise" being the tacit, off-stage level where, behind the scenes, 

all conflicting parties recognize their interdependence, 

and, through this recognition, are able to keep their conflicts within bounds. 

This recognition is the absolutely essential chivalry 

which must set the limits within all warfare, 

with human and non-human enemies alike, 

for chivalry is the debonair spirit of the knight

 who "plays with his life" 

in the knowledge that even mortal combat is a game.

No one who has been hoaxed into the belief that he is nothing but his ego, 

or nothing but his individual organism, can be chivalrous, 

let alone a civilized, sensitive, and intelligent member of the cosmos.

~ Alan Watts

from The Book on The Taboo 

Against Knowing Who You Are

the runaway

The Place where you are right now

God circled on a map for you.

~ Hafiz

The poet tells you

god has put a circle around you on a map

to locate you in sacred space.

Then why do you keep tunneling

underground,

carving labyrinths for your escape?

~ Dorothy Walters

from Marrow of Flame

art by Picasso

late prayer

Tenderness does not choose its own uses.

It goes out to everything equally,

circling rabbit and hawk.

Look: in the iron bucket,

a single nail, a single ruby -

all the heavens and hells.

They rattle in the heart and make one sound.

~  Jane Hirshfield 

from The Lives of the Heart

the ancient radiance of others

In your clay body, things are coming to expression and to light
 that were never known before, presences that never came to light or shape
 in any other individual.  To paraphrase Heidegger, who said,
 "Man is a shepherd of being,"  we could say,  "Man is a shepherd of clay." 
 You represent an unknown world that begs you to bring it to voice.  

Often the joy you feel does not belong to your individual biography 
but to the clay out of which you are formed.  At other times, 
you will find sorrow moving through you, like a dark mist over a landscape.
  This sorrow is dark enough to paralyze you.  It is a mistake to interfere 
with this movement of feeling.  It is more appropriate to recognize
 that this emotion belongs more to your clay than to your mind.  
It is wise to let this weather of feeling pass;  it is on its way elsewhere.  
We so easily forget that our clay has a memory that preceded our minds, 
a life of its own before it took its present form.   

Regardless of how modern we seem, we still remain ancient, 
sister and brothers of the one clay.  In each of us a different part of the mystery
 becomes luminous.  To truly be and become yourself, 
you need the ancient radiance of others.

~ John O'Donohue

from Anam Cara

the immense expanse beyond

The search for reason ends at the known; on the immense expanse beyond
 it only the sense of the ineffable can glide. It alone knows the route
 to that which is remote from experience and understanding.
 Neither of them is amphibious: reason cannot go beyond the shore, 
and the sense of the ineffable is out of place where we measure, 
where we weigh. We do not leave the shore of the known
 in search of adventure or suspense or because of the failure of reason
 to answer our questions. We sail because our mind is like a fantastic seashell,
 and when applying our ear to its lips we hear a perpetual murmur
 from the waves beyond the shore. Citizens of two realms, 
we all must sustain a dual allegiance: we sense the ineffable in one realm, 
we name and exploit reality in another. Between the two we set up a system
 of references, but we can never fill the gap. They are as far and as close
 to each other as time and calendar, as violin and melody,
 as life and what lies beyond the last breath.

~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

from Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion
photo by Ansel Adams

ventilating the world with tenderness

~ Greg Boyle

hidden

Hidden in the heart of every creature

Exists the Self, subtler than the subtlest,

Greater than the greatest.  They go beyond

All sorrow who extinguish their self-will

And behold the glory of the Self

Through the grace of the Lord of Love.

Though one sits in meditation in a 

Particular place, the Self within

Can exercise his influence far away.

Though still, he moves everything everywhere.

When the wise realize the Self,

Formless in the midst of forms, changeless

In the midst of change, omnipresent

And supreme, they go beyond sorrow.

The Self cannot be known through study

Of the scriptures, nor through the intellect,

Nor through hearing discourses about it.

The Self can be attained only by those

Whom the Self chooses.  Verily unto them

Does the Self reveal himself.

~ The Katha Upanishad

translated by Eknath Easwaran

blessing in the chaos

To all that is chaotic

in you,

let there come silence.

Let there be

a calming

of the clamoring,

a stilling

of the voices that

have laid their claim

on you,

that have made their

home in you,

that go with you

even to the

holy places

but will not

let you rest,

will not let you

hear your life

with wholeness

or feel the grace

that fashioned you.

Let what distracts you

cease.

Let what divides you

cease.

Let there come an end

to what diminishes

and demeans,

and let depart

all that keeps you

in its cage.

Let there be

an opening

into the quiet

that lies beneath

the chaos,

where you find

the peace

you did not think

possible

and see what shimmers

within the storm.

The human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness,
 a place where everything comes together, 
where loss will be made good, where blindness will transform
 into vision, where damage will be made whole, 
where the clenched question will open in the house of surprise,
 where the travails of a life’s journey will enjoy a homecoming. 
To invoke a blessing is to call some of that wholeness upon a person now. 

~ Jan Richardson

art by klimt

be helpless

Be helpless, dumbfounded,

Unable to say yes or no.

Then a stretcher will come from grace

to gather us up.

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.

If we say we can, we're lying.

If we say No, we don't see it,

That No will behead us

And shut tight our window onto spirit.

So let us rather not be sure of anything,

Beside ourselves, and only that, so

Miraculous beings come running to help.

Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,

We shall be saying finally,

With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.

When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,

We shall be a mighty kindness.

~ Rumi

translation by Coleman Barks

haunted

We are looking for your laugh.

Trying to find the path back to it

between drooping trees.

Listening for your rustle

under bamboo,

brush of fig leaves,

feeling your step

on the porch,

natty lantana blossom

poked into your buttonhole.

We see your raised face

at both sides of a day.

How was it, you lived around

the edge of everything we did,

seasons of ailing; growing,

mountains of laundry; mail?

I am looking for you first; last

in the dark places,

when I turn my face away

from headlines at dawn,

dropping the rolled news to the floor.

Your rumble of calm

poured into me.

There was the saving grace

of care, from day one, the watching

and being watched

from every corner of the yard.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

from Transfer

the movement of love

Meditation is the movement of love. It isn't the love of the one

or of the many.  It is like water that anyone can drink out of any jar...

it is inexhaustible. 

The soil in which the meditative mind can begin is the soil of everyday life,

 the strife, the pain, and the fleeting joy. It must begin there, and bring order,

 and from there move endlessly. But if you are concerned only with making order,

 then that very order will bring about its own limitation, 

and the mind will be its prisoner.

 

 In all this movement you must somehow begin from the other end, 

from the other shore, and not always be concerned with this shore

 or how to cross the river. You must take a plunge into the water,

 not knowing how to swim. And the beauty of meditation

 is that you never know where you are, 

where you are going, what the end is.

~  J. Krishnamurti

from The Meditative Mind

with thanks to Love is a Place

 

stories of the Buddha's last days

~ Jack Kornfield

I cobbled their boots

How could I love my fellow men who tortured me?

One night I was dragged into a room 

and beaten near death with

their shoes

striking me hundreds of times

in the face, scarring me 

forever.

I cried out for God to help, until I fainted.

That night in a dream, in a dream more real than this world.

a strap from the Christ's sandal

fell from my bleeding

mouth,

and I looked at Him and He 

was weeping, and

spoke,

"I cobbled their boots;

how sorry 

I am.

What moves all things

is God."

~ St John of the Cross

from Love poems of God,

Twelve sacred voices from the East and West

in my wallet I carry a card

In my wallet I carry a card

which declares I have the power to marry.

In my wallet I carry a card

which declares I may drive.

 
In my wallet I carry a card

that says to a merchant I may be trusted to pay her.

 
In my wallet I carry a card

that states I can borrow a book in the town where I live.

 
In my hand I carry a card

Its lines declare I am cardless, carless,

stateless, and have no money.

It is buoyant and edgeless.

It names me one of the Order of All Who Will Die.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from The Beauty